Gateways. Part 52

"Right," Jack said. "This is all they left of Anya, and then they hung it up to cure. Now tell me how much you want to risk to help one of those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

Tom felt a rising fury. Anya...what they'd done to Anya...a part of him wanted to paddle out there and finish off any survivors. But he couldn't allow himself to step over that line.

He shook his head. "Nothing. They're on they're own."

"d.a.m.n right."

Jack stared at the grisly remnant in his hands, then looked around. He didn't seem to know what to do with it. He appeared to come to a decision as he rolled up the skin and tucked it inside his shirt.

"What are you going to do with that?"

"It's all that's left of her. I think she deserves some sort of burial ceremony, don't you?"

Here was still another side of Jack. Tom sensed it could be a living nightmare to be his son's enemy, but a very good thing to be his friend.

He nodded. "Most definitely. Now that the storm's over, we'll take her home and find a place to lay her to rest."

Jack looked up at the sky. "Good thing it ended when it did. I thought we were in for a much longer blow."

"So did I."

Then an awful thought struck him. He turned and started pushing through the ferns and brush.

"Where are you going?" Jack called from behind him.

"To high ground. I want the highest point on this hummock."

It wasn't far-these islands in the saw gra.s.s sea weren't all that large. Just a few minutes walk and he was standing atop the crest of the hummock.

But he still didn't have the view he needed. He hurried to a nearby live oak that somehow had weathered the storm intact. He stretched for the lowest branch but couldn't reach it.

"Give me a boost," he said to Jack, who had followed him.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Just help me up, d.a.m.n it. I need to see."

He was sorry for the sharp tone, but he was worried. He crawled onto the limb, then, hanging on to a nearby branch, straightened until he was standing. When he saw the wall of cloud and rain less than a mile away to the west, his fears were confirmed.

"Jack, the hurricane isn't over. We're in its eye. It's going to hit us again. Maybe even worse than what we've been through. We've got to-oh, h.e.l.l!"

"What?" Jack said from below.

Tom watched a pale funnel cloud skating back and forth inside the edge of the onrushing eye wall. Another snaked down a short way north of the first.

"Tornadoes!" He turned and slid down the trunk. "We have to get off this hummock!"

"Tornadoes?" As soon as Tom landed on the ground, Jack started climbing. "I've always wanted to see a tornado." He reached the limb and peered west. "I'll be d.a.m.ned. Three of them."

"Three? There were only two before! Get down from there and get moving!"

Jack stared a few heartbeats longer, then joined Tom on the ground.

Jack led the way back to the lagoon on a run. As they pa.s.sed the sinkhole, Tom slowed and peered into the depths. The lights had faded to a dim glow and the lagoon had risen to the level where water was beginning to trickle over the edge.

"This thing should be sealed up," he said. "Maybe after all this is over we should come back and-"

Jack spoke over his shoulder. "Don't worry about it. It's closing itself down until the spring. Keep moving."

Closing itself down...how could he know that?

Tom was winded, with a dull ache squeezing his chest by the time they reached the bank. He hunched over, hands on knees, panting while Jack inspected the clan's boats. He pointed to a water-filled flat-bottom dinghy at the edge of the lagoon with Chicken-ship Chicken-ship across its stern. across its stern.

"This one's got a bigger motor than the canoe. We'll make better time. Help me tip it up to get rid of this water." He stared at him. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Tom said. "Just not conditioned for this."

Tipping a boat was the last thing Tom felt like doing right now, but he didn't think Jack could handle it alone. Jack pulled off his poncho and positioned himself at the aft end of the starboard side. As Tom moved to join him, something splashed near Jack's foot. Tom saw him jump and scramble away from the water.

Tom too backed away when he saw what was crawling up the bank. He'd heard mention of a two-headed snapping turtle, and hadn't quite believed it, but here it was-and much larger than he would have imagined. The sh.e.l.l had to be at least four feet long. It's gaping hooked jaws closed with loud clacks and they snapped at Jack.

Jack yanked a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, and popped the clip.

"This is for Carl," he said, and lobbed it toward the creature.

Tom stood paralyzed for a moment. Carl...dear G.o.d, he'd all but forgotten about poor Carl...

He saw the right head s.n.a.t.c.h the grenade on the fly and swallow it, then Jack was rushing him, pushing him to the ground.

"Down!"

Tom hit the mud and covered his head with his hands. The explosion was m.u.f.fled but he could still feel the impact through the ground. And then b.l.o.o.d.y turtle meat and bits of sh.e.l.l began to rain around them.

When it stopped, Jack helped him to his feet, then stepped back to the boat. The remains of the snapper were sinking into the water, trailing a red cloud. Jack froze, then hurried to the stern.

"Christ! Can't we get a break here?"

"What's wrong?"

"The explosion sheared off the propeller!" He kicked the side of the boat. "d.a.m.n! Okay. Looks like it's the canoe."

They hurried along the bank to where they'd left it. Jack slipped into the rear and started yanking on the little motor's pull cord. After a couple of dozen quick pulls, he spewed a string of curses and gave up. The motor hadn't even coughed.

"Won't start. Who knows what was blown or washed into it during the storm. We'll have to power it ourselves."

"Jack..." Tom hated to admit it, but he was all in. "I don't know if I can."

Jack stared at him a moment, then said, "It's okay, Dad. I'll handle it. You take the rear, maybe use the outboard as a rudder while I paddle us out of here."

Feeling unsteady, Tom stepped into the canoe and dropped into the rear seat. His chest felt funny, as if his heart was flailing wildly against his sternum. The chaotic rhythm left him drained. But not too drained to grab the tiller of the motor as Jack began paddling.

The canoe nosed out of the lagoon and soon they were gliding along the swollen channel. They hadn't gone too far before the light began to die as the clouds closed in again. Then the wind and rain returned with a vengeance.

Tom still wore his poncho but Jack had shed his a while back. His T-shirt was plastered to his skin and Tom watched the play of muscles across his son's back as he worked the paddle. Not bulky steroidal clumps, but sleek efficient bands, close to the skin. He hadn't noticed Jack's muscles till now. Where had they come from? He'd been such a skinny kid, even in college. Now...well, he reminded Tom of a few guys he'd known in the service, lean, quiet types who didn't look like much until someone tried to push them around. He'd seen a guy built like Jack take down someone twice his size.

He'd been angry with Jack all these years for disappearing, and never more angry than when he didn't show up for Kate's funeral. But all that seemed ancient history now. Despite Jack's secretiveness, his reclusiveness, his quirky behavior, Tom realized he loved, even admired the strange, enigmatic man his son had grown into. He sensed a strength, a resolve, a simple decency about him. He'd worried for so long that he must have made terrible mistakes raising Jack-why else would he turn his back on his family the way he had?-but now he sensed that maybe he'd done all right. Not that anyone should take full credit or full blame for how another person turns out; everyone makes their own choices. But as a parent he had to think he'd had some some input. input.

More than anything he wanted Jack to survive this storm. He didn't care about himself so much, though of course he wasn't looking to die, but he sensed somehow that it was important for Jack to live-not simply important to his father, but for other, larger reasons. He couldn't pinpoint what those were; they hovered just out of reach, but they were there. Somewhere along the way, Jack was going to matter matter.

Tom's heart had resumed a more sedate rhythm but it jumped again as a lightning bolt speared the saw gra.s.s ahead of them. He looked around in the near-night darkness. They were out in the open, begging to be struck by lightning; but staying among the trees of the hummock, especially with this wind and tornadoes, seemed even riskier.

They rounded a bend in the channel and the canoe kicked ahead as the wind roared from behind. Tom spread his flapping poncho to give the wind something more to blow against. It worked. The canoe picked up speed.

He was feeling pretty proud of himself until another bolt of lightning lit up a funnel cloud reaching for the ground a few hundred yards to his left. It hadn't touched down, which meant it wasn't- Another flash showed it on the ground, kicking up mud and gra.s.s and water. It was now officially a tornado.

He leaned forward and tapped Jack on the shoulder. "Look left!"

Jack did so, and of course the lightning chose just that moment to hold off; but then a double flash lit up the funnel, whiter than before, and closer. It was coming this way.

"f.u.c.k!" Jack shouted and started paddling even harder.

f.u.c.k...Tom had rarely if ever used the word since leaving the Marines. He didn't believe it belonged within the walls of a family home, and certainly not in mixed company. But looking at that swirling, swaying ma.s.s of wind and debris heading their way...f.u.c.k.

Yes, f.u.c.k indeed.

During storms on trips to the Keys, he'd witness an occasional waterspout-long, pale, wispy, short-lived things more beautiful than threatening. Even though there was plenty of water about, this thing to the left wasn't a waterspout, nor was it one of those quarter-mile-wide monsters the Weather Channel liked to show. Its base seemed to be only fifty feet or so across- Only?Tom thought. What am I thinking? That thing is plenty big enough to kill us both.

He tried to gauge its intensity. He knew about the Fujita scale-he'd learned a few things during all those hours in front of the Weather Channel-and hoped this one didn't clock in at more than an F2. They wouldn't survive a direct hit by an F2, but they might handle a close encounter. If they wound up near anything higher up the scale, that would be it.

No matter what its scale, Tom prayed it would head in the other direction.

He pulled a paddle from the sloshing bottom of the canoe and did what he could to speed the boat along. He kept glancing to his left. He could hear a growing roar-that was the d.a.m.n tornado getting closer, running on an erratic diagonal that was sure to intersect their course. At least that was how it looked. The way it was weaving back and forth made avoidance a c.r.a.p shoot.

The big question: Stay in the boat or get out? In the boat seemed worse than being in a trailer. They were too exposed; if that funnel came even close, flying debris could cut them to shreds. But to get out...

Jack was looking around too.

"Let's dump the boat!" he shouted over the growing roar.

"And go where?"

He pointed to the right. "I saw something over there."

Tom squinted through the rain and darkness. A flash revealed the dark splotch of a willow thicket sitting like an island in the saw gra.s.s sea. The willows tended to be small in these thickets, little more than a dozen feet tall. They'd provide some shelter, something to hold on to without worrying it would crush them if it toppled over.

A glance in the opposite direction showed the tornado even closer.

"Let's do it!" Tom shouted.

"What about gators?"

"If they're smart they're on the bottom of the deepest channel they can find."

He didn't mention snakes. He had no idea what snakes did in weather like this. He hoped they didn't head for higher ground...like hummocks and thickets...

Jack jumped out of the canoe, Tom followed. The water was thigh high in the channel. Tom slipped only once climbing the slope to the saw gra.s.s where the water was only ankle deep. Jack pulled the canoe up behind him and left it on its side in the gra.s.s.

Lightning lit their way as they sloshed toward the thicket, Jack in the lead, while the roar of the twister grew behind them...no, not behind them...to the left...

A flash revealed the swaying, writhing funnel less than a hundred yards away, flanking them. Tom gasped for breath as his heart writhed like the twister. How had it caught up so fast? Another flash showed it veering this way. Almost seemed as if it was chasing them, homing in on them. But that was ridiculous.

Then again, after all he'd seen today...

"Crawl in here!" Jack shouted as they reached the thicket. His voice was barely audible over the roar of the onrushing funnel. Tom saw that he was holding aside a patch of underbrush. "Find a trunk and hang on!"

Tom dropped to his hands and knees as he ducked into the leafy mesh, feeling ahead of him in the dark until he found a st.u.r.dy-feeling trunk maybe six inches across.

"You take this one!" he shouted to Jack who was close behind. "I'll take the next."

He heard a garbled protest from Jack but kept moving. Half a dozen feet farther on he found another, more slender trunk, maybe half the size of the first. He dropped p.r.o.ne and wrapped his arms around it. His lungs struggled for air. G.o.d, it was good to lie still. He felt his heart ramming at his chest wall as he lay in the mud.

"You okay, Jack?" he shouted. He could barely hear himself above the tornado's roar. "Jack?"

That roar...it had to be at least an F2...any higher, they were goners.

Frantic, he looked around for Jack and saw nothing but darkness. And then the tree began to shake and the ground to tremble; he ducked his head against the wind and the saw gra.s.s blades whistling through the underbrush like knives.

Thank G.o.d they weren't trying to weather this back at the lagoon. The flying debris from the boats and the huts would be lethal. Here it was only gra.s.s and mud and water. Not that any of that would matter if the funnel pa.s.sed directly over them.

The wind scythed at him from all angles as he clung to the trunk. He could hear the twister grinding through the saw gra.s.s on the far edge of the thicket, roaring like a freight train-he'd always heard tornado survivors describe the sound that way, and now he knew it was true...like a train...in a tunnel...

Tom felt the underbrush around him being twisted and yanked from the mud. And then his tree started to tilt, first to the left, then the right, then- Dear G.o.d, it was coming out of the ground, ripping free of the mud, rising into the air!

Tom had to let go or rise with it. As he released his grip the willow ripped free with an agonized crunch crunch and sailed off. He tried to cling to the rootlets left in the hole but the deluge of water made them slick and they slipped through his fingers. Then he felt his legs lift as he was pulled backward. He clutched for gra.s.s or weeds or ferns-anything!-but they came free in his grasp. His body angled off the ground and he clawed at mud that had no more consistency than beef stew. He was losing his last contact with the ground when he felt a hand grab his right ankle and yank him down. and sailed off. He tried to cling to the rootlets left in the hole but the deluge of water made them slick and they slipped through his fingers. Then he felt his legs lift as he was pulled backward. He clutched for gra.s.s or weeds or ferns-anything!-but they came free in his grasp. His body angled off the ground and he clawed at mud that had no more consistency than beef stew. He was losing his last contact with the ground when he felt a hand grab his right ankle and yank him down.

Jack!

Another set of fingers wound around his left ankle and started hauling him backward. He heard Jack's enraged voice shouting above the storm.

"You got away with this once, but not again. No f.u.c.king way!"

Who was he talking to? The twister? But he'd said "again." Tom doubted Jack had ever even seen a twister, let alone dealt with one. Who, then?

He'd worry about that later. Right now he wanted to know how Jack was hanging on. If both hands were holding Tom, who was holding Jack?

He felt one of Jack's hands grab his belt and haul him farther back. Tom craned his neck to look over his shoulder and saw that Jack had locked his legs around a willow trunk. He kept dragging Tom back until he could wrap his arms around the larger tree.

And with that...the roaring began to fade. After brushing the thicket, the twister was moving on, probably carving a new channel through the saw gra.s.s as it traveled.