5 Days to Landfall Read online

  As quickly as it came the vacuum let up and she relaxed and looked behind her to see Jack and Leaderman fall to the floor.

  “Fuck,” she heard Jack say faintly, though she assumed it was a yell. Jack was OK.

  She thought again of Rico. She ran into the open living room and was nearly swept off her feet by the weaker but still dangerous vacuum created by the hurricane’s winds as they raked over the open house. Down the short hallway on the other side, a portion of the roof remained. Near-constant lightning lit the night like a disco strobe. She looked for Rico. Couldn’t see him. She dropped to the floor and crawled to the counter. The Nikon was gone. She glanced around. No sign of the dog. She pulled her body down flat against the floor, rolled onto her back and, covering her face, peeked up between fingers at where the roof used to be. The sky was an open faucet, the wind visible for all the small debris, shreds of seaweed and small fish it carried through the sky. Large raindrops pelted her bare hands and face like rocks, so she rolled back over and crawled again.

  Amanda made her way back to the bathroom. Jack was huddled in the far corner next to the toilet, his arms clutching his knees to his chest, rocking back and forth and saying “fuck fuck fuck” nonstop. Leaderman lay unconscious on the tile.

  Amanda couldn’t know the track of the storm now. It might have veered one way or another, in which case they may have just seen the worst of it. Or the eyewall might still be bearing down on them. Amanda didn’t want any more surprises, decided to assume the worst was yet to come. She tried to check Leaderman’s neck for a pulse, but could not feel such a delicate motion amidst the ambient vibrations and thuds and gusts, so she put her hand on the man’s chest. It rose and fell.

  “Hang on,” Amanda shouted to the unconscious man. “Just hang on! There’s not a thing I can do for you. Don’t freaking die, OK?”

  She crawled over and leaned into Jack and held him.

  “…fuck fuck fuck.”

  “She doesn’t want the island tonight, Jack. Not tonight.” They rocked back and forth together. “C’mon, you’ve got a story to write.”

  “…fuck fuck fuck.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Near the Canal Street Subway Station,

  Manhattan

  10:55 p.m.

  Sweat poured from the large man’s forehead as he made his way along the abandoned tunnel, his six-year-old son in tow. His left eye twitched, reminding him of the scar that ran from the corner of his eye, across his cheek. A reminder of the night he killed the intruder. The injury made his left eye droop as if it were not quite awake. The underground population—the mole people as they were known—had come to call the large man Sleepy, a name he didn’t mind. He had never been proud of his given name anyway.

  Sleepy and his son walked along the abandoned tunnel and crawled into the main, active tunnel through the small hole. A vague shadow crossed his path; he shuffled his foot and sent the cockroach scurrying into the darkness.

  Sleepy’s stomach grumbled. They were off in search of food. He looked down at his son with a mixture of pride and sadness. Jonathan had his mother’s brown hair, short and erratic. He was stringy and agile, curious and polite.

  Sleepy wanted to give his boy a better life, but to do that he needed to live above ground. He dreamed of finding a way out, of going to college, becoming a social worker, and returning to help other people underground.

  A loud scream echoed through the tunnel. Among the untold hundreds who lived underground, there was plenty of crime and trouble. This close to the place they called home it might be someone he knew. A train would be coming from the south soon. He hesitated, then grabbed Jonathan’s hand and turned to investigate.

  The tunnel was dimly lit by evenly spaced bare white bulbs, the light absorbed into dull, dirty walls and glinting sharply off the polished tops of the rails. The tunnel was squat and dreary, dripping water from the ceiling.

  Shouts echoed from around a bend. Sleepy crouched and moved against the wall, pulled Jonathan into the shadow behind him. His left eye began to twitch.

  The tunnel straightened out. Two men faced one another twenty yards away.

  Sleepy backed into the shadows. He motioned to Jonathan to stay quiet.

  The smaller person, a hunched-over old man Sleepy recognized as a local loner and occasional drug dealer, had his back against the wall. The taller one had the nervous stance of a cat out of doors. The taller man shifted his weight, looked around at intervals and kept pointing his finger into the small man’s chest. From his belt hung a large framing hammer.

  Though Sleepy had never seen the tall one, he was certain he was Hammer, the only man Sleepy both hated and feared. He hated Hammer because he was a drug dealer who’d ruined the lives of hundreds of people, probably including Jonathan’s mother. He feared Hammer because the man was ruthless and power hungry, a dangerous combination in a lawless world. Hammer controlled a large group of men who pushed drugs for him. Word was out that Hammer was expanding his territory, looking for new underground outposts and enlisting anyone he could find to deal for him. This was the closest Hammer had ever been to Sleepy’s own underground home.

  Hammer’s shoulder-length hair was erratic and dirty. He had broad shoulders but did not look particularly strong. Behind him stood two ragged men.

  “…cut your goddamn foot off if you don’t tell me where the fuck it is!”

  “I told you,” the small old man pleaded, shrinking against the wall, “they took it.”

  “Who the fuck took it?” Hammer boomed in a nasal voice. “Who?”

  “I didn’t know them. They jumped me and they took it. There were three kids.”

  Hammer closed in. “You had a grand of heroin, old man. It was mine. It’s gone, and I want the money.”

  “But they took it,” the man whimpered.

  Hammer backed up, raised an arm and snapped his fingers. Sleepy stared in horror as one of the other men moved forward and hefted an ax into the air. The old man groaned pitifully.

  “It’ll be only your foot, old man, if you cooperate. Squirm and you might lose your leg.”

  “No!” cried the old man.

  Sleepy got a view of Hammer. His eyes locked on the grotesque face, deeply pitted with acne scars and set in a permanent scowl. His eyes were too close together. His fat nose had been broken and squashed against his face like a mushroom, making his eyes appear more crowded. Thin lips accentuated the fat nose.

  The man with the ax moved forward. The other one wrestled the old man to the ground. Sleepy heard the rush of wind and the rumble and screech of steel on steel as a train pulled into the station behind them.

  “Put your foot on the track,” Hammer ordered.

  The man continued to resist, but he was losing strength. He coughed, then began to cry, a pitiful wail that echoed in the stillness before the train started again. He kicked his legs as the man with the ax moved into position, straddling the track.

  Sometimes it was too much for Sleepy to believe the things that went on down here. The outside world had no idea. The police worked hard to deny the extent of the problem. Social workers refused to enter the dark world. But here it was, life at its worst, right in front of him. The doors of the subway cars closed.

  “It will be your whole leg, maybe both of them,” Hammer said calmly, “if you don’t put your foot on the rail.”

  The man resisted.

  “Now!” Hammer’s towering voice echoed through the tunnel.

  Sleepy could see the man deflate, his energy depleted. The crying turned to a whimper. Slowly the old man pushed his left leg out and rested his foot on the rail, pulled his head into his shoulders, stuffed his fists into his eyes.

  Sleepy wanted to plug his own ears, but he still held his hands over Jonathan’s.

  His mind flicked to the violence of his own childhood.

  ***

  Sleepy might have endured the occasional beatings from his father, but the fact that his older brother joined in made a difficult
childhood unbearable. His brother was heavier and got laughed at in school. He took his resentment out on Sleepy. Once he broke Sleepy’s arm. Several times he bloodied his nose. Sleepy’s hate for his brother grew until he was sixteen, when he became taller and more muscular. He never hit back, but the beatings stopped. Sleepy left the house for good and hit the streets. Before he left, he cornered his brother, pinned him against a wall and held a forearm to his throat. Sleepy swore that one day he would find him and ruin him. He waited until he was certain he saw cold fear in his brother’s eyes, then he released his hold and walked out the door.

  ***

  The ax crashed down with a crunch and a clink. The sound made Sleepy’s ears ring. The man screeched with pain, and he heard that too. He hummed to himself to try and drown out the man’s screams and to calm his nerves. But he could not tear his eyes from the four men. Blood spurted from the leg, severed at the ankle. The foot, wearing a dirty, frazzled sneaker, lay between the tracks. Sleepy’s knees were rubbery and his mouth dry. He still held Jonathan’s ears.

  One of the men picked up the victim by the armpits and laid him across the tracks.

  Hammer and the others laughed, then disappeared into an adjoining tunnel.

  Sleepy couldn’t help him. The train was too close and would kill them both. He wished he had not witnessed the nightmare at all. But it would have happened whether he was here or not, he realized, and a new feeling came over him: This new view of his enemy would fuel his actions if push came to shove. He had witnessed evil. He could not understand it, but he could fight it. One thing he’d learned underground: You couldn’t run. There was another Hammer around every turn. The only thing to do was fight. Another thing he understood was that he was outnumbered, living with just Jonathan and one other friend. He would need a plan, soon.

  The train was nearly upon them. Sleepy turned quietly and pulled Jonathan into a small recess in the wall, knowing he would do anything to protect his son.

  CHAPTER 7

  Topsail Island

  11:50 p.m.

  Time was no longer relevant. Forecasts meant nothing. The National Hurricane Center had missed this one. Even the LORAX hadn’t called the last-minute strengthening. Living was all Amanda Cole could focus on. She, Jack Corbin and Bill Leaderman had spent what seemed an eternity in the bathroom of a nearly destroyed house that was now sitting in the Atlantic Ocean while things had gotten worse. She didn’t know where Juan Rico was. The lightning had stopped for now, but the wind was stronger and the sea would be rising. Rain ignored the small portion of roof over the bathroom, slanted in through the doorway. The walls around them were groaning as each wave hit the pilings. They were soaked, cold and shivering.

  It felt good to hold Jack. At first she did it for his comfort. As he calmed down, Amanda removed her arm from around Jack’s shoulder, but now Jack had his arm around her. He was the first man to hold her in what seemed like ages. They leaned against the wall between the toilet and sink, the unconscious Bill Leaderman between their feet and the tub. She could barely make him out in the darkness.

  But the more she did nothing the more Amanda became terrified of the storm, felt desperation setting in. She clutched Jack’s waist.

  The roar made talking almost impossible, but Amanda felt she was holding the last person she might ever hold, and a question had been in the back of her mind all day that she suddenly wanted an answer to.

  She shouted in his ear: “You have anybody?”

  Jack frowned, puzzled. Then understood. Shook his head no. “You?”

  “Sarah, my daughter. With her father right now.”

  “Your husband?”

  “Ex. Joe Springer.”

  Jack nodded: “Springer. Cole.”

  “Never changed it.”

  “Good for you,” he said. His hand squeezed her shoulder.

  Amanda held tighter. She wanted Jack Corbin to meet Sarah. But she couldn’t arrange that right now, and she needed to do something, chase the fear instead of letting it chase her. “Take a look around?”

  Jack nodded yes.

  “Wait here.”

  Jack ignored her and followed as she crawled into the hall and opened the closet, found a coil of rope and the large, folding hunting knife. They crawled back to the bathroom. She cut one short length and tied it to the plumbing under the sink, then gave the other end to Jack.

  “Around Leaderman’s waist,” Amanda shouted. “I don’t want him going anywhere.” She tied the longer piece to the plumbing, dropped the coil at her feet and tied the other end around her own waist, leaving about eight feet. That she gave to Jack, who wrapped it around himself and tied it off. Amanda put the knife in the pocket of her shorts.

  Bound together, they crawled onto the soaked carpet, through the living room.

  She wanted to check the bedroom down the other hall, across the living room, where a portion of roof remained, but the rope wasn’t long enough. They crawled to the kitchen. The sliding door was jammed. It had rainwater on both sides, and Amanda couldn’t see through it in the pitch-black night.

  “Bust it out?” Jack said.

  Amanda wanted to break something. She wanted to throw things at the storm, fight back, bust the window and throw pieces of glass at Gert and tell her that she hated her. “Not broken yet,” she said. “We’re not going to be able to break it. Hold onto me.”

  She stood up carefully in the driving wind. Jack stayed on his knees and put his arms around Amanda’s waist. On the third try she forced the door open wide enough to slide through. Jack pulled to keep her from flying through the door. Amanda lowered herself and crawled through. Jack followed.

  Out on the deck there was just enough light to see a few feet. Amanda looked down the remaining stairs that led not into the front drive but into the ocean. There were three stairs, then six, then nine, then three. The dune was an island one second, an underwater berm the next as waves topped it with rapid succession.

  They were surrounded by water.

  The wind had worked itself into a fever pitch. Shrimp and seaweed rained down on them. Amanda pointed back to the house, and they slipped through the door. The rain was the same on the inside. A dead bird slapped against Amanda’s forehead. They crawled into the living room. A flash of lightning lit the sky and Amanda saw the wall of water through the living room window. Without thinking, she grabbed Jack and pulled him into the bathroom just as the wave thudded into the side of the house.

  There was that cacophonous mix of thundering water and splintering wood, that instantaneous moment when Amanda’s mind recognized what was happening, and then all went dark as the wave pounded through Bill Leaderman’s house, knocked the front wall down, lifted the floor from the foundation and shoved it toward the street.

  When Amanda finally floated to the surface she gasped for breath, then was sucked immediately downward, banged every which way by walls and pieces of lumber. The sea was ice cold. She felt the rope wrapped around her leg, grabbed it and pulled. She bumped into a body, assumed it was Jack. She was running out of air, trying to think. The rope tugged against her, then it went slack and unwrapped itself from around her leg. Something solid and heavy slammed into her cheek.

  Amanda felt the rope go tight around her waist, pulling her down. She fished into her pocket and found the knife. With her left hand she found both sections of the rope. One was taut, which would pull her downward to her death, the other end loose. She did not know which piece led to Jack. Instinct told her to slice the taut rope. It took two passes, and the rope was cut. So was her leg, she thought, though it was hard to tell in the cold and she did not care anyway. She floated up. Then the other rope went tight. She was out of oxygen. “Hate you,” she said underwater as another vital bubble of air left her lungs and slipped out of her mouth.

  Nothing flashed before Amanda’s eyes, open eyes that felt the burning seawater in the darkness. A flash of lightning illuminated the world above and through the agitated froth she saw a dark, geometric
shadow. Her hand broke the surface, grabbed the object. She pulled on it and her head rose into the rain next to a floating, tattered section of wall. She took two deep breaths and pulled on the rope that was still trying to drag her down. A second later Jack appeared and breathed desperately. A wave overwashed them both and Amanda gripped the wall with one hand, Jack with the other and they struggled to breathe again.

  Amanda climbed onto the section of wall, which pitched in the waves, and she tried to pull Jack up. The wind knocked her over, would have blown her off if she weren’t anchored to Jack, partially submerged. She braced her feet and pulled until Jack was out of the water. They were still moving, surfing in a darkness that would not allow them to see the edges of the slab. They lay spread eagle, the wind whipping their backs, showering them with debris, driving splinters of wood into their sides and threatening to cast them into the sea again.

  The rain came in a vast curtain that splashed off the wall and made breathing difficult. What might have been a chair crashed down next to Amanda, then splashed into the darkness. A fish slapped alongside her head and was gone. Her hands were bloodied, her cheek throbbed, and she hadn’t even looked at her leg yet.

  “You OK?” Amanda shouted. Jack nodded once, weakly.

  The wall stopped suddenly and threw them into the water. She clung to the edge. Her legs dangled into the water. She felt Jack’s arms around her neck. The chilly sea seeped into her bones. She knew she could not hold on for long.