Boyd Morrison - The Tsunami Countdown

Frustrated in their search, Kai and the others emerged into the hall for another try.

“Any luck?” Teresa said.

“Dude’s apartment,” Brad said.

“The water’s down to the sixth floor now!” Jake yelled from the stairwell. He and Tom followed the water farther down.

“This is taking too long,” Kai said. “We need to be ready to run once the water reaches the bottom. Let’s try two apartments at a time.”

Brad nodded, and this time they both kicked open the door of condo 1002, directly opposite 1001. It opened right away. Brad proceeded to the next condo with Mia while Lani followed Kai into 1002, the expression on her face betraying her tension.

“Remember,” Kai said, trying to lighten the mood, “we’re not looking for cute strappy heels. Just sneakers.”

She gave him a look that said his attempt at humor was not well received.

The patio door to the balcony was wide open, as was the custom in Hawaii, to let the breeze ventilate the condo. Kai heard Brad yell from the adjoining condo’s patio door.

“Looks like a family lives here! We might get lucky.”

“Mine too!” Kai yelled back.

Lani had already made her way into the bedroom and was rooting through the closet.

“Find anything?” Kai asked from the doorway.

She held up a pair of white sneakers. The rest of the shoes were either high heels or sandals.

“Are they your size?”

“Close enough,” she said.

“Okay, put them on.”

Kai went back to the living room to let Brad know they’d found some. When he got there, he heard a strange hissing sound coming from the direction of the balcony. The high-pitched whine of escaping gas was unmistakable, and was soon supplemented by the roar of fire. Kai dashed out onto the balcony to find out where it was coming from. He skidded to a halt at the railing when he saw what was causing the noise.

Directly in front of him, the twenty-story high-rise to the north obstructed The Seaside’s view of the mountains. On the ninth floor of the structure, a giant propane tank jutted out of a window. The tank had apparently plunged through one side of the glass building and then got stuck in the side closest to The Seaside. A jet of gas six inches across shot out of a hole at one end, where it instantly transformed into a blazing torch.

“Brad, get out of there!” Kai yelled.

“What happened?” Brad said, racing out to the balcony to see what he was talking about. “Oh my God!”

The propane tank had probably been ripped from its spot at a gas station and pierced the high-rise while being swept along by the water. Then any spark could have set it off. The receding water had left it hanging high and dry in a corner of the window, with no chance that it would be doused before the next wave came in. It could blow up any second.

“It’s going to explode!” Kai shouted out the door of the apartment. “Run!”

“Mia!” Teresa said from the stairwell.

Without answering, Kai ran back to the bedroom and grabbed Lani’s hand, yanking her to her feet without letting her finish tying the other shoe.

As they ran out, Teresa flashed past the front door of the condo, headed for Brad and Mia.

“Teresa! Come back!”

She ignored Kai and flew through the door of the next condo down to find Mia. Lani and Kai ran across the hall to condo 1001, and Kai slammed the door behind them. He pushed Lani over the couch and dove after her. As they hit the floor with a thud, the tank blew up.

Despite the several walls separating them from the tank, the noise from the blast assaulted Kai’s ears. The building shook from the impact. The door to the condo was ripped from its hinges, flying over them and out the window. Kai instinctively covered Lani with his body. Pieces of debris and shrapnel from the tank peppered the wall. A tremendous heat wave singed the hairs on Kai’s arms. He felt a sizzling burn crease his thigh, and he screamed in pain. A chunk of white-hot metal ricocheted off the wall.

“Are you okay?” he said to Lani as the noise subsided.

“Oh my God, Daddy!” Lani said, pointing at his leg. “You’re bleeding.”

Kai looked at his pants. A five-inch gash ran laterally across his thigh. Blood dripped from the wound, but it wasn’t deep. The shrapnel had just grazed the skin. A few inches to the left, and it would have gone right through his leg, tearing through the femoral artery.

“I’m fine. It’s nothing to worry about.” Once the adrenaline was gone, Kai knew the pain would come, but it didn’t look like he’d bleed to death, so he ignored it. “Are you okay?” he repeated.

“Yes,” Lani said. “But where are the others?”

“I think they were in the other apartment.”

They ran back into the hall, and the sight that greeted them was appalling. Part of the hallway wall on the north side had disintegrated, spilling bits of plaster and drywall all over the floor. Through the doorway of the facing condo, they could see that the entire northern exterior wall had been shattered. Visible out of that gaping hole, the remains of the high-rise burned, covered with what was left of the liquefied propane. One half of the high-rise simply wasn’t there anymore. A jagged wound was carved out of the other half, but it wouldn’t last long. As Lani and Kai watched, the remaining steel and concrete buckled in what seemed like slow motion, and in a hail of dust and a low rumble, the building collapsed into the water below.

It was like seeing their fate played out in front of them. The building they were standing in was stronger than the one that had collapsed, but Kai was worried now that it also had sustained significant structural damage.

He and Lani began yelling for the others.

“Brad! Teresa! Mia! Jake! Tom!”

Kai heard coughing from the stairwell and ran over to it. The fire door was off its hinges, but the building had shielded the main stairwell from significant damage. The stairs to the roof were a mangled mess of twisted railings and pulverized concrete.

He looked down to see Tom peering from the doorway on the eighth floor. Tom’s face was contorted in a rictus of confusion and agony. With his right hand he held his left arm, which hung at a grotesque angle at his side. His complexion was ashen.

“Tom!” Kai said. “Where’s Jake?”

Tom nodded toward the hallway. “In there. I think he’s dead!”

Kai wanted to comfort him, but they didn’t have time. There were only fifteen minutes left before the next tsunami.

“Are you sure?” Kai said.

Tom shook his head. “No, but he’s not moving.”

A yell came from the other end of the hallway.

“Kai! Help!”

It was Teresa.

“Teresa! We’re out here.”

Teresa poked her head out of the condo Brad had been in. The look of alarm on her face was enough to tell Kai something terrible had happened.

“Are you okay?” he said.

“It’s Brad and Mia. The wall fell down. They’re trapped.”

11:34 a.m.

13 Minutes to Second Wave

The stairs leading to the roof of the flat-topped Moana tower in the Grand Hawaiian were steep but wide. Normally, the access was strictly limited to hotel employees who needed to maintain the rooftop air-conditioning units, but Max was forced to herd the guests up the steps. The only good news was that they had just one floor to climb. Max conferred with Bob Lateen before deciding that, one at a time, Max and Adrian would carry each of the eight disabled veterans remaining in the restaurant. Some of the wives—none of them under seventy—volunteered to help, but Max was afraid one of them would fall, and he didn’t need any more problems than he had already.