Chapter 27
ACTION
Skylar and the kids walked up two flights of stairs behind the rest of the visitors, all of them moving much too slowly. Moving at the pace of little kids and old people.
It feels too slow, but it’s what’s happening, and there’s no speeding it up. Accept it.
Nobody pushing and nobody shouting, at least. Just people climbing too many stairs, kids excited and chattering, parents shocked and quiet, except some of the tourists who seemed as excited as the kids. As if this were entertainment.
But then, they probably didn’t know much about earthquakes. Or tsunamis.
On the fifth floor, finally, because that was safest. Not as many people here; most seemed to have stopped at Four.
The milling crowd staying near the stairwells at first, and then, as more people arrived, retreating into the main exhibit area.
Feeling safer up here, probably, because they were closer to the windows now.
She was still trying to keep all the kids close to her, to make sure nobody strayed.
Forrest was still holding Scarlett’s hand, and nobody was calling for him. Was anybody even looking for him?
What did that mean, if it were true? Nothing good.
“Mum,” Finlay said. “Mum.”
She looked at him. It seemed to take an age to turn her head.
“The water’s going out,” he said. “Isn’t it?”
Don’t go to the windows, she thought, and then, But I have to. I have to know. Edging closer, looking back to make sure the rest of the kids were still with her. Wanting to tuck all seven of them in close.
The last remains of twilight out there, and she struggled to see.
A big boat was the closest thing, some kind of work vessel.
It had been floating just below the level of the boardwalk, hadn’t it?
She closed her eyes and visualized it. Yes, that was where it had been, because they’d looked at it, speculated about what its job was and whether it was still doing it.
Now, it was … lower than that. Two meters? More?
The fear gripped her, and she had to force herself to breathe.
Force herself to think. The boat isn’t in the mud, so the water isn’t all the way out yet.
And if the quake was this strong here, it was probably on the Wellington Fault, or possibly the Alpine Fault.
Close to us, and in shallow water. Tsunamis can’t build up as much height and strength in shallow water, and without traveling over the seas.
We’ll be all right up here. We’ll be safe.
Right along the shoreline, though? Right where Zane would be. Were they in the stadium already? That was on the waterfront.
He could climb, though. All those levels. All those steps. He—the team—could get high. They could escape it. That stadium had to have been built to survive this. In Wellington? It had to have been.
It was too early for the stadium, though, wasn’t it? He’d still be on the bus, wouldn’t he? On the coast road?
You can’t do anything about that.
Wait. There were people down there. People on the concrete in front of the museum. The cracked concrete, heaved in places. People on the walkway along the water. Just standing there, staring around them.
Somebody will tell them, she thought. Somebody will gather them and bring them up.
The kids were talking, but she couldn’t focus. She was staring at the people milling about like ants, gesturing, unsure what to do, where to go. People with bum bags, with backpacks, with hats. Tourists.
Tourists who didn’t know.
One minute. Two.
She didn’t make a decision. She just did it. “Scarlett,” she said, talking fast, “you’re in charge. Keep them together. And here.” She pulled her phone out of her purse and handed it to the girl. “I’ll be back in five minutes. Ten at the most.”
“Where are you going?” Scarlett asked. “What are you—”
“Ten minutes.” And Skylar was gone.
They tried to stop her on the staircase.
On the fifth level, the fourth. She didn’t bother explaining or arguing.
She just pushed past them and ran. Staircase after staircase, holding the banister, her feet flying.
The floors below Four deserted, not even staff here now. Because the danger was too great.
Faster. Move. Every few steps took a second. Too many seconds wasted. Too slow.
At the bottom of the stairs at last, and sprinting for the main doors. Outside, then, waving her arms and shouting.
“Tsunami! Tsunami! Get in the building and up the stairs! Go! Go! Tsunami!” She shouted like she was on the playground and a fight had broken out. She herded them like a sheepdog. Waving her arms, shouting, running.
More people farther ahead, standing on the walkway, still looking out to sea. She couldn’t stop for them. She couldn’t get to them, because there was no time. She was running for the doors again, shouting to the stragglers. “Run! Run!”
An old couple, the woman with a cane, moving much too slowly. She grabbed the biggest man around and said, “Carry her!”
“What?” He was older than she’d thought, probably forty-five, and staring at her like she was insane.
“Carry her!” she demanded. “We have to get up the stairs. You have to carry her!”
“I’ve got her,” another man said. He picked the woman up bodily, then said, “Putting you over my shoulder.” He did it, and Skylar saw the woman’s face, mouth open, eyes wide, upended below her helmet of curling silver hair. She was still holding the cane.
Skylar took the husband’s arm, gasped, “We’ve got to hurry,” and they were inside the glass doors at last. The man slowed, and Skylar said, “Up the stairs. Up. We have to get up.”
“Bad heart,” he said. “I need the elevator.”
“You’re going to have to climb anyway,” she told him. “No choice.”
How long had it been since the quake? Ten minutes?
Fifteen? Twenty? She didn’t know, and they weren’t even on Level 2 yet.
The ceilings here soared so high, and there must be thirty steps just for this.
The old man was faltering, they were falling behind, and Skylar grabbed his elbow more tightly and said, “I can’t carry you. This is for your life. Hurry.”
It happened just after they passed the landing and turned. One minute, the old man was gasping, wheezing. The next, there was a roar like nothing she’d ever heard, and something slammed hard into the building. The sound of glass breaking, and the smell.
Salt air. Mud. The faint scent of rot.
Screams from above, and the little group hurrying faster, Skylar and the old man trailing behind. A surge of people on the stairs above them. The ones who’d been on Four, now climbing higher.
No water reaching up here. We’re above it. We’ve made it.
Tsunamis come in waves.
She didn’t tell the old man to keep going. She had no breath left for that, and no thoughts left, either. She just climbed.
The roar of the tsunami was like nothing Zane had ever heard. A sickening sound. A terrifying sound. For long seconds, he thought it would reach them, that it would pluck them straight off the ground and out to sea.
They were still in the trees, but there was a break up ahead, wasn’t there?
It was hard to tell, because it was almost full dark now.
He was carrying the man from the car by this point, had him slung over his shoulder like a sack of coal.
Around him, other players were doing the same.
Kids carried in arms, a heavily pregnant women between two men who’d made a seat for her with their hands.
All of them breathing hard, pure anaerobic effort now, their toes digging into the steep bank to let them put one foot in front of the other, pushing up the slope and through the trees.
They came out into the open at last to find a white fence with two rails, bordering a curving road. He set the old man on the other side of it, then climbed over himself, put his hands on his knees, bent from the waist, and breathed.
He had the fitness for this. It wasn’t that. It was the fear.
“Holy Christ.” That was Marko beside him, looking seaward, his eyes wide.
There was another wave out there. A wall of water, and the roaring was back.
“Up here!” somebody shouted. Eddie, being the coach, his arm going like a windmill. “Let’s go! Up here!”
A steep driveway, with a white house at the top. Zane was going to pick up the man again, but he was turning, shouting, “Maribel! Where’s Maribel? My wife!”
Zane shouted, “Somebody else has her. I’m picking you up,” and did it.
He ran up that drive with the old man on his back and that roaring in his ears. He heard the sound lessening, knew the wave was receding, that they were well above it, and still he ran, the hair standing up at the back of his neck, the fear freezing his blood.
Tsunamis come in waves.
At the top of the drive now, and the house was right there. Wood and glass, enormous, lit from within. Eddie went to the door and rang the bell, and it was so incongruously normal, Zane nearly laughed. A woman at the door, then a man behind her. Kids. Eddie explaining, the door opening.
Twenty-five meters up here at least. Twenty-five meters in shallow water, which meant they should be safe. And just as he’d thought it, there was the other thought again, crowding out everything else in his mind.
My kids. Where are my kids?