The Wild Beneath

Prologue

She begins with a lullaby that sends coyotes fleeing up mountains. Honeybees abandon their hives to the shrill calls of songbirds

and barking dogs. Beneath the seafloor, the tectonic plates loosen and rearrange.

is not a drill.

A liquid mountain rises in the Pacific Northwest.

When the wave makes landfall, it slices through houses. Lights fall out of their ceiling tiles while furniture shunts across

living rooms. Fridges disgorge their contents into surging black whirlpools. Mailboxes, front doors, and slabs of driveway

asphalt sail away in the foamy whitewash.

Things from her belly that do not belong are hurled back ashore: tangles of Christmas lights, milk jugs, broken microwaves.

The innards of sunken container ships. Lawn chairs and pastel-coloured birthday candles, uninstalled car radios and alarm

clocks with twist-tied cords.

Her haunting chorus crescendos. Overturned office buildings disintegrate into rushing river water. Glass shatters. Traffic

lights creak and buckle inside tentacles of ocean. Sucking mud overtakes the ground floors of hospitals.

Floating bodies. Human beings with broken bones, eyes stinging from salt, inhaling seawater into their lungs while trapped underwater, beneath overturned cars and downed tree branches. People on their hands and knees.

The nationwide news will report: A catastrophic earthquake struck the Cascadia Subduction Zone at 10:50 a.m. today, triggering tsunami waves along the outer

coast. This is the big one we’ve long feared.

The ocean will call it a song.

Hours pass before she drains away, taking what she wants, leaving behind her low tide.

Coastal towns go silent. Gaping shells of buildings remain, puddles of water on their roofs. A shoreline scattered with dead

jellyfish, plastic piping. Bird feathers and the bones of whales.