When I got to the end of the bridge, I was pretty sure that prayers weren’t going to do Christ any good. No one could have made it in or out of the undersides without a scuba tank. If he was still down there, there was nothing anyone could do for him.
The water had eaten the riverfront boardwalk and absolutely filled the little amphitheater beneath my feet. Crowding on the south side—the downtown side—of the river wasn’t as bad as the north side—which was mostly residential—had been. People inside the city had other places to go—they had farther to retreat, and so they spread out farther than the folks who were backed up to the mountains. But it was still bad. Cops and other officials in yellow-lettered blue jackets made valiant efforts to direct traffic and people, but nothing much was changing. Just getting off the bridge was an adventure in its own right; the police wanted me to stay where I was, but I had no intention of listening.
It eventually registered that these crowds were also drier, not waterlogged like the people on the other end of the bridges. Like me.
There were also more sirens there downtown; more ambulances and fire trucks and police, too. I heard a helicopter overhead and looked up to see it swoop past me, towards the hospital. That meant that the hospital wasn’t perfectly cut off, which was something, at least.
On this side of the river, too, there were the news vans. There are always the news vans, aren’t there? I wondered how they’d gotten there; I knew Channel 3 had its headquarters on the north side, but maybe they had roving reporters.
I was seized with a sudden urge to find Nick, but there were too many other urges pulling me in too many other directions. Harry and Malachi were out there somewhere, and Jamie, though I knew he must’ve written me off by then.
So where should I go first? I had to find some shelter, even if it was temporary. I needed to dig out my phone and see if I could reach anyone, now that I’d more or less arrived at the place where I’d meant to go. My best prospect seemed to be Greyfriar’s, my standby coffeehouse and the meeting place of everyone in my approximate age and social group. If not there, where? And it was only a couple of blocks away, all of that downhill.
Downhill. The thought worried me. I could recover from the disappointment of the sinking of the North Shore Apartments—I wanted to live there, but they weren’t mine yet. And although I enjoyed shopping on Frasier, I never rode the carousel and I wouldn’t miss the park.
But what if Greyfriar’s went under?
I backtracked, because I had to, going out of my way to avoid the worst thronging and the tightest knots of people. Only a couple of blocks. I could do that in a mad dash.
I did, though I was panting and on the verge of tears by the time I reached Broad Street. I was also wading again. The water was sloshing up high over my boot laces, but I hardly felt it. The rest of me was soaked to the bone already. I only noted the added damp because of the sound of my feet slapping and snagging in the muck.
When I reached the intersection at Fourth Street, I saw the horses. They were being led up out of their stables from the place where they usually waited to draw tourist buggies. They stamped and snorted in the water while one of the bigger Clydesdales held steady and still, letting himself be hitched up to the rigging.
I wondered for a moment why they were binding the horse into his harness and cranking up the buggy’s roof. Then I saw the ambulance mired in the road, one wheel dropped into an open manhole that was gushing brown froth. There was a patient in the back of the ambulance, a paramedic covering him with a tarp so they could move him.
Any port in a storm. The water was knee-high in some spots, and if it kept on rising like this, a horse and a sturdy wagon would get farther than a low-built van, emergency lights or no.
I went to the right, squeezing between the tight bumpers of cars that were either abandoned or on the verge of being abandoned. I kept on going, because if I didn’t get to Greyfriar’s, I didn’t know where else I’d go.
When I got there, people were working to sandbag the doors, just like some of the other shops on the street. That end of Broad, the one that runs up against the aquarium at the water’s edge, is up on an embankment that helps protect it a little, but not much. The sandbags weren’t going to do any good and I think everyone knew it. But if you didn’t fill the bags and push them into place, what else could you do?
There isn’t any overhanging shade at the coffee shop, so when I beat my hands against the glass I was standing outside being rained on, as if I even felt it anymore.
Inside there was a crowd. I saw a few people I knew, and a lot of people I didn’t.
I saw Jamie’s girlfriend Becca, with sticky wet strands of dark blond hair plastered down over her shoulders. She saw me too, and waved. She gestured, and when she reached back through the crowd, her arm pulled Jamie forward.
“Let me in!” I demanded.
The people stacking sandbags yelled something back, but we were all yelling and no one was understanding much. I think they were saying something about trying not to open and close the door. Whatever it was, I disregarded them and pushed my shoulder against the entrance.
The door shoved two or three people back and there were complaints all around, but people eventually made room and I came in.
It was miserably hot in there, and crowded like I couldn’t believe. Back down by the roasting room I heard the manager trying to make himself heard, but it wasn’t working for him. He was saying something about wanting to clear out the store and lock it up, which meant he didn’t have a very good idea of what was going on outside.
He wasn’t going to get these people out, not without a shotgun—and maybe not then.
Jamie took one of my hands and dragged me towards him, around a pair of quivering college girls. “Hey, glad you could make it.”
“I always do, don’t I?”
“Just a little late.”
“I ran into some difficulties.” I nodded at Becca, who nodded back. Together we crowded into a front corner beside a fake plant and watched the madness around us.
“Say, you haven’t seen—” I started to ask about Harry and Malachi, but it wasn’t a good idea and they wouldn’t have known who I meant, anyway.
“Who?”
“Never mind.” I unzipped my bag with a series of faltering jerks. The zipper was clogged with grass and mud, and the bag was dripping a nasty-looking puddle there where I stood. But inside the zippered compartment, wrapped in the discarded chip bag, my cell phone was dry enough to dial.
I flipped it open and started hitting buttons.
Harry’s number came up and I pressed Send. When the call connected, the signal was bad and I was surrounded on all sides by people shouting into cell phones.
“Where are you?” he answered without a friendly preamble. He was shouting too.
“Greyfriar’s—downtown. Where are you?”
“With your brother, at a Waffle House on the south side of town. What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know,” I said, but I offered him what I could. “Something about a dam, or some locks. Something’s gone wrong and bad. They’ve shut down the bridges over the river. And I’ve got to tell you, it can only get worse.”
“No kidding,” he agreed. “But you made it downtown? How? What did you do?”
“Long story. Not important. You two are going to have to get out of here—I think that’s the main thing. Get out. Go back to where you came from and we’ll reschedule this little date with no hard feelings.”
Malachi whined something in the background, but I didn’t catch it. “Easier said than done, sweetheart. Traffic is blocked in both directions, from the ridges to the 24/59 split. There’s no way out, north or south. We’re stuck here, and I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with Mal. The police are everywhere.”
“But they’ve got other things to think about right now. I wouldn’t worry about that. I guess you should just . . . hole up someplace safe. And we’ll have to wait this out.” At least they were all right. That’s what I kept telling myself; at least they were all right. “Listen, I’m going to go. Lu and Dave have called . . .” I checked the display, “eight times in the last hour. They’re going to kill me if I don’t get back to them ASAP. Just stay where you are, or find a safer spot if you need to.”
“Thanks,” he said, but I think I heard a pretty distinct eyeball rolling. “I’ll do my best to follow that advice. Do you have any recommendations? We can’t hang out here forever.”
“Recommendations?” I thought about it, but didn’t know what to suggest. I had a good idea of which Waffle House he meant, but I didn’t know the area well. “Maybe back across the interstate and up. You’re there by East Ridge, aren’t you? Near the interstate?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s low country there, you know. If you find yourself ass-deep in alligators and you need to move, the ridge is right behind you and there are lots of roads to take you up.”
“That’s . . . almost completely unhelpful, given the situation. But I’ll take it under consideration.”
“I’m only trying to help,” I said.
“I know. I know, and I’m sorry. But I’m only trying to keep myself and your brother from drowning—and do keep in mind, there’s a lot of other trouble he’s capable of getting into.”
“Okay, well, good luck. Look, I’ve got to call Lu and Dave. Keep me posted, would you?”
“I’ll try.”
We hung up, and I was looking to dial Lu back when a policeman pushed his way inside and hollered for everyone’s attention. He then began to give evacuation orders, and people started arguing with him before he got the first sentence all the way out of his mouth. The chaos grew so dense I almost dropped the phone. I only held on to it by virtue of a death grip and total stubbornness.
“We can’t stay here,” Becca condensed and repeated the cop’s message. “They’re going to make us leave.”
