The Surge Read online

  Storm Runners

  The Surge

  Roland Smith

  FOR CHAD MYERS,

  THE GUY I TUNE IN TO DURING

  WEATHER DISASTERS

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  12 HOURS

  03:51 AM

  04:12 AM

  04:19 AM

  04:25 AM

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  Preview

  Read the Explosive Conclusion

  About the Author

  Also by Roland Smith

  Copyright

  12 HOURS

  Chase Masters looked at his watch. It was hard to believe it had only been twelve hours since he, Nicole, and Rashawn had gotten on the ill-fated school bus at Palm Breeze Middle School.

  During those terrible hours, the bus had sunk, its driver had died, and they had nearly drowned. Chase had broken a front tooth, his shoulder had been smashed by a falling chunk of asphalt road, and a thirteen-foot alligator had attacked him.

  But we’re alive, he thought. Hurricane Emily didn’t get us …

  The wind slammed into the side of the metal barn where they had taken shelter.

  … yet.

  Rashawn and Nicole jumped.

  “What time is it?” Nicole asked with a nervous laugh.

  Chase told herd….

  03:51 AM

  “Sounds like we’re trapped in a steel barrel and someone’s poundin’ on the side with a sledgehammer,” Rashawn said, covering her ears.

  That’s exactly what it sounds like, Chase thought, tempted to find a steel barrel, curl up inside, and stay there until Hurricane Emily blew herself out. He ran his tongue along the jagged edge of his front tooth and stretched his shoulder — both still ached. He’d hoped that when they finally reached the farm the nightmare would be over, but it wasn’t. A leopard named Hector was running around the property with Nicole’s grandmother’s pet monkey, Poco, dangling from his mouth, and her family’s house looked like it had been crushed with a wrecking ball. At first they’d thought that Nicole’s grandmother, Momma Rossi, had been trapped under the rubble, but she had taken refuge down the hill in the barn just before the house collapsed.

  Momma Rossi was a little person, like Nicole’s father, Marco. The dwarfism gene had bypassed Nicole, so she was regular height. Chase glanced at Rashawn, who was alternating her gaze between Momma Rossi and the very large elephant chained in the middle of a sawdust-covered circus ring. It was hard to say which sight confused Rashawn more.

  Momma Rossi fixed her brown eyes on Chase. “How are my treasures?”

  “Uh … I don’t know. I didn’t get a chance to check,” he replied. Momma Rossi had predicted that the house would go down in the storm. A day earlier, she’d asked Chase to transfer dozens of boxes of memorabilia to a storage container near the swimming pool in back of the house. He’d caulked the container and wrapped it in tarps, but he doubted it had held up to Hurricane Emily’s fury.

  “What’s important is that you’re all okay,” Momma Rossi said.

  “What is this place?” Rashawn asked.

  “Our farm is winter quarters for the Rossi Brothers’ Circus,” Momma Rossi explained. “Normally this time of year the farm would be filled with show animals and performers, but they managed to book some additional dates in Mexico, prolonging the season. Nicole’s mother runs the show and her father — my son — Marco runs the farm.”

  “Why’d this elephant stay behind?”

  “Pet? She’s pregnant with her first calf,” Momma Rossi said.

  “Why’s she chained up?”

  “So she doesn’t float to the ceiling,” Nicole and Chase said in unison and laughed.

  “You guys are hilarious,” Rashawn said, rolling her eyes. “I bet she’s chained so she doesn’t tear this building down.”

  “You’re right,” Nicole said. “We don’t have an elephant-proof building. The show elephants spend their winters in Texas with our trainer. Pet would be there now, but we didn’t want to move her this close to having her calf.”

  “I hope the building is hurricane-proof,” Rashawn said.

  Chase had never been in a hurricane, but he’d seen plenty of dangerous weather. Following his father from disaster to disaster the past two years had shown him that no building was stormproof.

  At that moment something heavy slammed into the side of the metal circus barn. They all jumped.

  “What was that?” Rashawn shouted.

  “I don’t know,” Nicole said. “But it sounded like it was shot out of a cannon at point-blank range.”

  “Storm debris,” Chase said. “Probably from the house. It’s upwind.” By the loudness and density of the hit, he thought it might be one of the house’s toilets. His father was always giving him articles about people getting killed by unusual WPPs, wind-propelled projectiles. “I think we’ll be —”

  The first thud was followed by a salvo of WPPs. Everyone covered their ears and backed away from the wall. Nicole huddled closer to her grandmother, and Rashawn was shaking. Chase stood frozen in place. The barrage went on for several minutes, then suddenly stopped.

  They all stared at the wall. No one spoke. The wind still rattled the metal building, but the sound was nothing compared to the strikes they’d just heard.

  Nicole broke the silence. “That was insane!”

  “I thought the wall was going to fall down right on top of us,” Rashawn said.

  “So did I,” Chase admitted. He walked up to the wall and checked for damage. There were a lot of dents, but nothing seemed to have pierced the metal. “Heavy-gauge steel,” he said, not mentioning that if one of the panels had come loose, it would have peeled off the building like the skin from a rotten banana, with the other panels close behind. “We’re safe in here,” he added with more confidence than he felt.

  “Are you sure?” Nicole asked.

  Her long black hair was wet and tangled with twigs and dirt. Her usually bright brown eyes were dull with fatigue. Chase wasn’t surprised, after the terrifying journey they’d endured to get to the farm. “Maybe you should sit down,” he said.

  “He’s right,” Momma Rossi said. “You look dead on your feet.”

  Nicole nodded and collapsed on the curb of the circus ring. “I am. That last swim took a lot out of me.” She looked up at Chase. “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “I don’t know if we’re safe or not,” Chase admitted. “There’s water coming in around the door, which isn’t surprising with this wind and rain. I guess I’d better check out the rest of the building, but to do that I’ll need more light.”

  “Our generator can only power one of these rings at a time,” Nicole said. “I don’t know how to switch it to the other rings.” She looked at her grandmother.

  “I don’t know either,” Momma Rossi said. “The lights were on over Pet’s ring when I got into here.”

  “
I’ll check it out,” Chase said. “Where’s the generator?”

  “In the workshop — connected to the bunkhouse,” Momma Rossi said.

  Chase clicked on his headlamp and shined the beam along the wall. “Battery’s just about gone.” He checked the second headlamp. Its beam was worse.

  Momma Rossi took a flashlight out of her coat pocket. “Plenty of life left in this one. You should find batteries in the bunkhouse. I’m not sure where they keep them. If you don’t find them in the kitchen, check in the workshop. Marco’s been camping out in the bunkhouse for the last week to stay close to Pet. There should be plenty of food in the kitchen if any of you are hungry.”

  “We haven’t eaten for hours,” Chase said. “I’ll see what I can find.”

  “Do you think your dad can find my dad?” Nicole asked.

  “If I can get ahold of him.” Chase pulled a plastic bag from his cargo pocket. Inside was a satellite phone just like the one his father and his father’s partner, Tomás, carried. Chase’s phone had died after the school bus sank, but it had come back to life just before they reached the farm. He’d been able to talk to his father long enough to find out that he and Tomás were stranded on the other side of the lake and were looking for a way around to reach the farm. Chase did not expect to see them anytime soon. He pushed the on button. Nothing happened.

  “Still dead,” Chase said.

  Momma Rossi had set up a small electric heater next to the ring. Chase removed the phone battery, wiped it and the phone off as best as he could, then set both of them near the heater.

  Tears formed in Nicole’s eyes. “I hope Dad’s not hurt.”

  “Marco is fine,” Momma Rossi said, putting her arms around her granddaughter.

  “Are you just saying that to make me feel better?” Nicole asked. “Or do you know?”

  “I know,” Momma Rossi said. “Just like I knew you and Chase and Rashawn were in danger.”

  Just like she knew the farmhouse was going to blow over and nobody believed her, Chase thought. Just like she knew that Mom and Monica had died in a car crash on a mountain.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” Rashawn said.

  “Please call me Momma Rossi.”

  “Okay, Momma Rossi. No disrespect, but I just met you a few minutes ago when we stepped into this barn. How could you know about me before then?”

  Momma Rossi smiled, but didn’t answer her.

  Chase looked at Rashawn. “She just knows things. Do you want to help me check out the rest of this barn?”

  “Sure,” Rashawn said. “But first I want to know if Momma Rossi has a bag of rice in that kitchen of hers.”

  “I’m sure there is, dear,” Momma Rossi said. “But we don’t have any way to cook it with the power out.”

  “I don’t want to eat it,” Rashawn said. “I want to use it on Chase’s sat phone. My daddy is always dunkin’ his cell phone in the water — he manages a wildlife refuge, so he’s outside all day. He just puts it in a bag of uncooked rice and the grains suck the moisture right out of it. Couple hours, the phone’s good as new.”

  “You’re kidding,” Chase said.

  “No joke,” Rashawn said. “And when you get that phone fired up, you also need to ask your daddy about my daddy. I’m sure he’s out looking for me too.”

  “I will,” Chase promised.

  04:12 AM

  Chase led Rashawn into the dark shadows of the circus barn. He didn’t really need her help, but he wanted to give Nicole and Momma Rossi some time to themselves. Also, Rashawn knew things he didn’t. She might see things he didn’t as he checked the barn for hurricane damage. He’d only met Rashawn a few hours ago, but she had proven herself over and over again, just as Nicole had.

  There were three brightly colored, curbed circus rings running down the middle of the barn. Each ring was at least three hundred feet across. Pet was chained in the center of the first ring, and stretched across the second, several feet off the ground, was a gigantic net. Thirty feet above the net, a tightrope connected two platforms. Next to the tightrope was an array of trapeze equipment.

  Chase shined his light up at the ceiling. A series of catwalks crisscrossed the rafters above the equipment.

  “What are those for?” Rashawn asked.

  “They must use them to adjust the rigging and the lights,” Chase said.

  Rashawn jumped up and brushed the bottom of the net with her hand. “Guess this is in case someone does a header from that wire or a swing. When we get to the bunkhouse, I’m going to find me a blanket, climb up on this net, and sleep for a week. It’s like a big ol’ hammock.”

  Chase smiled. Another thing he liked about Rashawn was her ability to joke when there was nothing to joke about. He cut across the ring to the north wall of the building and put his hands on the metal sheeting. It was vibrating in the wind, but there was no evidence of water getting in. The wind was blowing from the west, where they had entered the building, which accounted for the water pooling inside the door near the elephant ring. The fact that there was no water along this wall gave him hope that the building might hold up to Hurricane Emily. He crossed to the opposite wall, but it was blocked off by a stack of hay bales that reached almost to the rafters.

  Chase and Rashawn walked down to the third ring, which held a circular cage. “I think they use this one to train the big cats,” Chase said.

  “How many cats do they have?” Rashawn asked.

  “I’m not exactly sure,” Chase said. “When I got here, Nicole showed me five lions and a leopard.”

  “The one named Hector?” Rashawn asked.

  “Yeah. He was confiscated from a drug dealer and he’s very aggressive.”

  “Don’t you think all leopards are aggressive?”

  “Good point,” Chase said.

  “You think the lions were born free like Hector?”

  “I hope not.” Chase neglected to tell her that the biggest lion, Simba, had been retired from the show the previous year after mauling his trainer.

  “How come you didn’t tell Momma Rossi about the dead monkey Hector was trotting around with in his mouth? Poco, right?”

  “Right,” Chase answered. “It’s not my place to tell her. The last time I saw Poco, he was in Momma Rossi’s kitchen wearing tiny diapers and eating sweet potato peels — he’s her pet. I’m sure Nicole will tell her when the time is right.”

  “They make monkey diapers?”

  “I’m guessing that Momma Rossi makes monkey diapers.”

  “Never heard of such a thing.” Rashawn glanced back at the lighted end of the long barn. “Is Momma Rossi psychic or something?”

  “I guess we’ll find out,” Chase said.

  04:19 AM

  “We can’t stay here,” Chase’s father, John Masters, announced. He was looking at the display of his handheld GPS. “The question is, where do we go and how do we get there from here?”

  Here was a two-lane country road about three miles from the same lake Chase’s school bus had sunk into several hours earlier.

  Chase and his friends are lucky to have survived, John thought. If they made it to the Rossis’ farm. If they’re still alive.

  John Masters had tried to call Chase a half a dozen times since their garbled sat phone conversation more than an hour ago. There had been no answer. The eye of the storm had passed over, and by the look of things inside the 4×4 truck he was sitting in, the back end of Hurricane Emily was going to be just as bad as — if not worse than — the front.

  Something large, heavy, and black bounced off the hood of the truck.

  Maybe a lot worse, John thought.

  “What was that?” Mark shouted from the crew cab behind John.

  “Tree stump,” John said. “I think.”

  “It felt like a meteorite!” Mark was a cameraman from a local TV station in Saint Petersburg, Florida.

  Sitting between John and his partner, Tomás, on the front seat was Cindy Stewart, a TV reporter who worked with Mark. John
still wasn’t sure why he had invited Cindy and Mark to drive along with him and Tomás into the center of the worst hurricane in U.S. history. They had already crashed and totaled one truck, and if they didn’t get moving, the second truck was going to be history as well, along with its four occupants.

  Cindy looked at the photographs stuck to Tomás’s dashboard. “Are these your children, Tomás?”

  “Sí.” Tomás smiled and listed their names as he pointed at each photo. “And my wife, Guadalupe.”

  “Are they here in the States?”

  Tomás shook his gray head. “Mexico. I see them one time every year.”

  “You must miss them.”

  “Sí. Of course.”

  “Why don’t you bring them up here?”

  “Guadalupe, she loves our village in the mountains. Too expensive here with so many children.”

  Tomás had been working for John Masters for more than twenty years. When John sold his part of the family construction business to his brother-in-law and hit the road to chase storms, there was no question about Tomás going with him. They were closer than brothers.

  John stared straight ahead through the windshield. The path before them looked more like a stream than a road, and it was strewn with downed trees as far as he could see. With the gale-force winds pushing the water, it was impossible to tell which way it was flowing, but one thing was clear: The water was rising. They had to get to high ground. Soon.

  “The surge,” John said.

  “What?” Mark shouted above the roaring wind.

  “Storm surge,” John clarified. “Flooding. It could cause more damage than the wind.”

  “After what we’ve already been through, I’d prefer not to drown if it’s okay with you,” Mark called from his spot in the back.

  “I’ll see what I can do.” John leaned over Cindy and showed the GPS to Tomás.

  “We can try,” Tomás said, after studying the map.

  “Try what?” Cindy asked.

  “A detour.” John leaned back into his seat and put his seat belt on. The 4×4 rocked as Tomás pulled it off the road and headed into the woods.

  “What’s he doing?” Mark shouted, struggling to get his seat belt on as he bounced in the jump seat like a tennis ball.