Wave (35 page)

Karen ran outside, hoping and yet not hoping that she’d find them all out there, maybe working in the garden. She wanted to see her boys again—more than anything in the world—but to see them now would also mean their fate was sealed. There was simply no time left.

She called their names several times, but got no answer. She had regained some of her focus, and an equal amount of grief had returned to the shadows. But it remained close by, waiting.

She stopped, allowed herself a moment to think. The car was still here; she’d spotted it on the way in. So if they weren’t here, how did they leave? Someone else? One of the helicopters? Or did they take a—

Boat. Bud’s boat.

She ran down the hill toward the slip, thinking about how Bud loved his boat, how he kept it in perfect working order. How he washed it, waxed it, lubricated it. It was probably in better condition now than the day it rolled off the assembly line.

She pulled the gate back and found the empty slip.

Gone.

But had they reached a point of safety? She wanted to see them, wanted to know they were safe. That was impossible at the moment. She had to take it on faith.

Now, what about saving yourself?

It was the first time since she’d heard about the tsunami that this crossed her mind. She checked her watch, saw that there were less than fifteen minutes left, if the reports on the radio were accurate, and realized with a sickening feeling that there was no way she could drive back to the bridge in time. At best she’d make it to the end of the traffic line. That wouldn’t be good enough.

Oh God, please help me. Please give me the answer. What do I do? Is this how it ends for me? Didn’t
all those years of going to church and saying my
prayers at night mean anything? Haven’t I always been a good person? Haven’t I at least always tried? Doesn’t that count for something? What about my children?

The grief came forward again. She battled to keep it back, but it was a struggle. She stood on the edge of the property, the bay water lapping at her feet, and scanned the horizon. There wasn’t a boat in sight, not even a dot speeding toward the mainland.

Where the answer came from, she did not know. At that moment she attributed it to a kind and merciful God, because she was sure it hadn’t come from inside her—

The Ericksons’ neighbor has a boat, too.

She went through the yard, out the other gate, and across the front lawn. The temptation to check her watch again itched like a rash, but she fought it. What was the difference? The M.O. here was “move as quickly as you can, period.” The hour of day was irrelevant.

The neighbor’s house was built from the same plan as the Ericksons’. Karen had met him once, last summer. His name was Ralph Bokowitz, a retired dentist from Passaic, widower, and father of two. Nice enough guy, the Ericksons had said, but not terribly social. Karen reached the garage door and tried to pull it up. It didn’t budge, so she cursed at it.

Then she realized the handle simply needed to be turned. When she did this, she heard the rods slide back neatly. The door, on well-oiled runners, slid up without further effort.

And there it was.

Bokowitz’s little aluminum boat was, like everything else in his garage, in immaculate condition. It sat on a shiny new trailer, ready for action. The engine in the back had been pulled up and was tilted forward.

Now for the hard part.

The trailer was kept upright by a single cinder block, which had been positioned vertically under the hitch. With a mighty effort, Karen lifted the hitch and nudged the block away with her foot. Then she set the nose of the trailer down and moved the block aside to clear the path. These few simple actions left her winded.

Mustering all the strength she had, she lifted the hitch again and started pulling. It was a struggle just to gain the first few inches until momentum kicked in. Halfway down the driveway she drew the trailer to the left, dragging the reluctant rubber tires across a lawn that would be submerged very shortly. Her arms burned with pain, turning first to wood and then to stone. Each time she felt like she couldn’t go any further she thought about her family. She knew dropping the trailer here would be the fatal, final error. There was no way she had the strength to get it up to speed again; not on the soft grass. It was already moving and she had to keep it moving.

She glanced briefly up the street, half-expecting to see huge gushes of water crashing around the barrier of houses on Long Beach Boulevard. If that happened, she decided then and there, she’d drop the trailer and run for it. She had to pull left again to get the trailer through the front gate. In a moment of pure good fortune, it fit through the opening with maybe an inch to spare on either side.

The pain in her arms had reached such a point that she could barely feel them anymore; they were so numb it was as if they weren’t even there. She propped the trailer’s forward beam over her shoulder and turned, pulling it Viking-style so her legs would bear the brunt of the load for awhile. Once she hit the downhill part of the yard her problem was to keep from being run over by the trailer. As she slowly inched it down the steep slope, she was becoming exhausted.

By the time she passed through the gate and reached the shoreline, the weight of the boat and trailer had become too much for her. Every muscle had frozen as if she’d been hit with a stun gun. She didn’t even have the strength to lower the trailer’s nose onto the ground. Instead, she simply stepped to one side and let it fall from her shoulder.

Unfortunately, the rest of her body did not move as swiftly as it needed to and the galvanized steel tubing landed on her right foot like a sledgehammer.

The scream that emanated from Karen’s slender body echoed first through Little Egg Harbor Bay, then around the rest of the country, then the planet, and finally throughout the deepest reaches of outer space. In her shock she tried to yank the foot free, which only served to tear the gash even further. She dropped to the ground, squeezing her ankle in an attempt to dampen the zillion-watt bolts of agony that were shooting into her brain.

When she finally mustered the courage to look squarely at the wound, she saw more blood than she’d ever seen in her life—and that included the birth of her two boys. The moment became surreal, dreamlike; she felt detached from it. She was looking at someone else’s foot, not hers. She was aware of the pain, but it was somehow muted and distant.

Then she tried to wiggle her toes, just to make sure the foot wasn’t broken. Although she felt like she was wiggling them, they barely moved. Something else did, however—something bloody and shiny. It was visible through the opening in her shoe. She wasn’t a medical expert, but she was pretty certain it was either a ligament or a tendon.

And it was moving.

She vomited so fast and so hard that her throat seemed to catch fire. She turned her head just far enough to puke on the ground and not her foot.

Then the adrenaline hit her. Suddenly, alongside terror and extreme anxiety came wild rage unlike anything she’d ever experienced. She’d lost her cool a few times in the past—felt the sting of anger and the rumble of hatred—but those instances were always understandable: the shooting death of a close friend, a news story about a child being raped and murdered, the 9/11 attacks. But now, for the first time in her life, she felt like there was some unseen force working against her, some being other than God—perhaps Satan himself—trying to throw up barrier after barrier in order to seal her fate. To make sure she perished on this island with the other unlucky ones.

To keep her from her children, and they from her.

This was at the core, the very heart of her fury. Something was out there trying to keep her from her kids. Some Thing wanted them to be motherless, wanted them to suffer the anguish of losing a parent, bear the scars of that loss for the rest of their lives.

She had no intention of letting that happen.

She wiped her chin with her sleeve and got back up. The pain in her foot was intense, but she ignored it. She lifted the nose of the trailer again and dragged it to the water’s edge. She detached the boat and went around to the back. Pushing it off, she figured, would require another herculean effort, but the little craft rattled along the tiny black wheels almost on its own, sliding quietly into the bay.

As she stepped into the salty water pain shot through her foot again. She dropped to her knees, grabbing the side of the boat as dizziness threatened to deliver the knockout punch.

“No,” she said, out of breath and staring at her reflection on the rippling surface. “This isn’t where it ends for me. Not a chance.”

She hauled herself into the boat, landing on her back and remaining motionless for a long moment. She was so weary now that she felt thoroughly drunk. Everything was moving, swirling. Somehow she remembered that the engine needed to be lowered in. She got to her knees and crawled aft. She could feel her hands moving over the intimidating solidness of the machine, heard it splash when the prop hit the water. But she was barely aware that she was doing all this. She set her head onto the top of it; actually her head put itself on top of it. All she wanted was to sleep.

She had to get the engine going.

Her fingers felt around for the starter. First one side, then the other. Where was it?

And what was that noise in the distance?

It was coming from the direction of the beach. Louder than anything she’d ever heard before.

Hope became sorrow.

Day became night.

Darkness closed in.

Mark heard the helicopter in the distance, had a feeling it might be for him. By the time he actually saw it, it was heading the other way. It grew smaller and smaller, and with it went his last hope of survival. He watched it numbly, thinking about what his life might have been. About his life with Jen.

This is how it was meant to be
, a voice told him. It wasn’t his normal mind-voice, but just as clear.
People like you never really get to be with people like her. It’s not in the cards.

He ran—not just in the direction of the chopper, but away from that voice. He waved his hands and screamed. He deduced that the aircraft was heading off the island and toward a safe area, which meant it was traveling northwest. If he headed in that general direction he should run into the parking lot.

Then what? Get in the car, head for the bridge, and get off the island—all in the next five minutes?

He checked his watch. Not even five. Less than that. Maybe two. Maybe none. Even if the wave-strike estimates weren’t dead-on accurate, how much time could there be? Ten minutes? Fifteen at the most? It still wasn’t enough. Not even close.

Time has run out for you, Mark White
, the voice observed.
Life never really worked for you in the first place. Maybe this is for the best.

“Fuck you,” he said, still running.

He and Donald Harper never came within hearing distance of each other, but Mark did find the parking lot. He managed to get his car keys out of his pocket just before he heard something. A loud roar, coming from the east.

He turned to see what it was.

The voice said,
Are you really that surprised?

The
beaches of LBI were deserted—no sunbathers, no swimmers, no surfers; not even a lone ship drifting drowsily along the horizon. Lifeguard stands lay on their backs, exposed to the brilliant morning sun, and plastic garbage bags billowed up over the rims of rusted steel trashcans. Sandpipers scurried along the edge of the surf in search of food, squawking angrily at one other.

At precisely 11:33, the tide began falling. A normal tide cycle takes roughly six hours, but this one was complete in less than eight minutes. The sea withdrew as if someone had yanked out its rubber plug, then began to reverse course, swelling violently as it sucked the remaining water from the surf to empower itself. Crabs that had been comfortably concealed only seconds before now found themselves scurrying for cover. Millions of tiny stones and shell fragments rolled downward in a tinkling, rattling cacophony.