Chapter 1

Almost silently, the big double ended boat crept through the fog, its old steam engine wheezing with a soft and steady chufa - chufa - chufa sound as it ticked over lazily at low throttle. Karl sighed softly. He knew where he was. At least he knew where his new GPS said he was, but even though he could read the screen in front of him, he didn’t believe it. In fact he would have gladly traded a bottle of top quality, single malt scotch for a clear view of the shore line. The new GPS put his position almost in the middle of the bay, but the radar showed a low jumbled shoreline only a few yards away. He knew that GPS stood for Global Positioning System and that its accuracy was supposed to be phenomenal. However, since it was so new to him, he wasn’t sure how it worked, and at the moment, he wasn’t positive that this recently added technological wonder was functioning properly.

Judging from the brightness above him, the sun was shining, but the fog bank was thick – thick enough that he could scarcely see fifty feet in front of the boat. That fact left him as uneasy as a cat trying to sneak past a junkyard dog and into new territory. Karl’s problem was that he wasn’t sneaking anywhere and he wasn’t in new territory; he should be feeling completely safe. He’d steamed through this bay countless times and thought he knew it like the back of his hand, but everything seemed different from what he could remember.

The radio was no help. Although it didn’t seem to be on the fritz, he hadn’t even been able to use it to call for reassurance. He had tried again and again to get a clear signal, but all he could hear was a jumbled hash of interference, as if hundreds of people were talking at once. He had listened in several times, changing channels to try to find a clear signal, then finally he’d turned the radio off in frustration. He hadn’t even been able to receive the weather station’s signals. That channel had appeared to be totally dead with no signal at all.

He wished he had a breeze, just a tiny bit of wind, enough to break up the fog, but not enough to make the water rough. He stared ahead, wasn’t the fog thinning, wasn’t the light getting steadily brighter? Maybe he’d be lucky; maybe the fog would thin and eventually break up.

Then suddenly the boat passed through the fog bank’s edge. Suddenly he was in bright sunlight and he knew that this was one of those rare instances when the fog bank had a sharp edge and he’d just gone past it. His eyes watered and he cursed softly, squinting and blinking rapidly, trying to accustom himself to the sudden change in light levels. He managed to reassure himself that there was nothing large looming directly in front of him, then he closed his eyes tightly, trying to force them to readjust quickly. He wished he had his sunglasses, but knew he’d forgotten them. They were sitting on a table, just inside the door of his cabin - miles away and totally useless to him at the moment.

After a few seconds the bright pink of the light against his eyelids faded and he opened his eyes to stare forward, his hands convulsively gripping the spoked wheel tightly. He squinted against the light of the bright morning sun, his face twisted into a critical frown. Almost in reflex his deeply weathered right hand dropped to the throttle handle, slipping it back to full stop. The boat coasted forward slowly as he stared glumly at the silent scene before him.

“What the hell?” he muttered softly to himself.

The bright May sunshine lit the shoreline in front of him, but instead of the small community that should have been there, rock and rubble covered the ground and even that appeared strewn with rubbish. On top of that, between him and the shoreline were acres of flotsam. Bits and pieces of trees, branches, plants, part of a bright-green-shingled roof, a dirty-white plastic lawn chair, bottles, cans, as well as thousands of other unidentifiable objects floated in the water. All that rubbish bumped and ground atop the gentle waves of a returning tide, desecrating the small bay that he had been counting on as a refuge.

He snapped the engine control into full reverse, slipped the throttle down to the middle of its travel and with the ease of long practice brought the boat to a halt in its slow drift toward the floating mess that lay ahead. His ears heard the churn of water beneath the boat and he felt the soft shudder through his feet as the steam engine spun the propeller in its fight to stop his forward momentum. He paused, waiting until he felt the boat hesitate, then just when it was on the verge of moving backward, he eased the throttle back to full stop and slipped the engine control to neutral. Almost automatically he shut down the boiler, killing the main burner and leaving only the pilot flame alight.

His eyes had never shifted from the view of the destruction in front of him. Everything he had done had been done automatically because his mind was stunned by what he saw. He twisted his head slowly to one side, then back to the other. The land contours were right, he knew where he was now, but he wasn’t looking at a view he had ever seen before. Ahead of him, where there had been a small, well-kept town only a month or so before, now there was only waste and rubble. There were no docks, no boats, no stores, no houses, no people, no gardens, and few standing trees, nothing, but raw mud, bare rock and masses of piled rubble.

The few trees that were left all leaned away from the water at strange angles, as if they had been crushed by a giant hand. Everything looked as if it had been smashed flat, stirred vigorously, then thrown down haphazardly. The boats, the docks, and the marinas were gone. Nothing marked where they had been except for a few pilings and some concrete footings. The whole waterfront was barren and ruined. There was nothing left unchanged.

But, not only the waterfront was destroyed, so was the town which had covered the slopes leading away from the waters of the bay. There were no houses, no stores, no businesses, nothing but rubble and ruin as far as he could see. That town had been home to hundreds, no - thousands of people, but now it simply wasn’t there. The whole town had been wiped from the face of the earth, destroyed, obliterated and smashed into wreckage. He’d had friends and acquaintances living in that town. Where were they, had any of them lived, or were their bodies smashed and strewn amidst those piles of wreckage and rubbish.

His eyes picked out strange details and odd shapes; bits and pieces of lumber, chunks of walls, battered cars, the prow of a boat. All those things and more were smashed, bent, twisted, broken, crumpled, and piled haphazardly amongst the few remaining trees. Parts of buildings leaned crazily against crushed cars. A concrete stairway ended brokenly in midair. Pipes stretched haphazardly skyward while wires twisted madly between massed piles of debris. Here and there a wall leaned precariously, pockmarked with bare openings, openings that had once been windows and doors. Now those same openings seemed to stare accusingly at him.

His mind raced in frantic circles as he stared about him, a heavy frown further creasing his wrinkled brow. His heart beat frantically. He felt weak and knew he needed to sit down. He twisted to look behind him. The fog bank was slowly drifting away, moving back across the bay. He consciously eased himself to a position where he could rest, letting his racing heart slowly calm. Although he sat still, his mind was reeling in disbelief, hunting frantically for an explanation.

It had to have been a tidal wave, a tsunami. There must have been a major earthquake somewhere in the locality, but he hadn’t felt one or even the results of one. Of course he’d been out on the water, but he was sure he would have seen or felt something this momentous. He simply couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that he hadn’t been aware that such a tragedy had occurred.

Breathing deeply, he sought to relax and it seemed to work. After a few moments he realized that he was going to have to accept the tragedy that surrounded him and he sighed heavily. Then something bumped softly against the bow of his boat, instantly snagging his attention. He certainly didn’t want his boat damaged. He lifted his eyes and stood slowly, moving out of the boat’s cabin, then forward, to look over the side.

A sodden blue-grey couch drifted a foot or two away from his boat’s bow. Making the couch look even more bizarre, an ugly, grey striped cushion lay draped across the high arch of the back rest. He automatically reached for a boat hook to push the couch away and was reaching it out toward the couch when the ‘cushion’ developed eyes that stared at him. A pitiful meow came so softly, so faintly, he almost missed the weak plaint.

He stared in surprise, his reflexive motion of pushing away the annoying piece of flotsam forgotten. He dropped to his knees, then reached to hook the arm of the sodden couch, pulling it closer until it was within reach. Setting down the boat hook, he stretched out and grasped the cat by the scruff of his neck, hoisting it, then lowering it gently onto the deck near him. Strangely, the cat never fought, never struggled, never even made a sound. It was still alive, still breathing, but it didn’t seem to have enough energy to struggle. After giving the soggy feline a brief inspection for obvious wounds, but noticing none, Karl slowly rose to his feet.

Glancing about and realizing that he had drifted into the edge of the flotsam that covered most of the water of the bay, he decided that he needed to anchor. While at anchor, he would be in less danger of having his prop fouled by the drifting garbage. He bent to release the anchor winch, letting the weight of the anchor and its fifty feet of anchor-head chain pay out slowly so he wouldn’t do any damage to the hull. After that he let the anchor line slip out freely until he could see it slow as the anchor reached the bottom, then eyed it as perhaps another fifty feet or so of line slipped from the winch.

He stopped the winch, and tied off the anchor lead, then finally turned and lifted the cat into his arms. The cat felt thin and very, very light, especially considering the fact that it looked quite large. It didn’t struggle as he reexamined it more closely for wounds.

“Now you’re a real mystery,” he whispered softly. “Why the hell didn’t you just swim ashore?”

The cat opened one eye slowly to stare at him balefully for a few seconds before seeming to decide that nothing was worth the trouble or the energy of keeping that eye open. Its fur was matted and salt crusted, one leg showed signs of a small wound and its eye lids were crusted with a white deposit. Except for those problems and the fact that it seemed extremely worn and weary, the big grey cat appeared okay.

“Well, I haven’t got any cat food, but I guess a tin of salmon would do,” Karl sighed softly, slowly making his way back to the cabin of the boat, then below deck to the galley. “I think we’ll just wash that crap out of your eyes first, then maybe get you a drink of fresh water.”

Holding the cat in the crook of one arm, he stared around the galley looking for something that would do for a cat bed. Then he one handedly dumped the contents of a small drawer into a bucket and set the drawer on the edge of the galley sink. He pulled an old towel from the laundry bag and dropped it in the bottom of the drawer, spreading it as well as he could while still holding the cat with one arm.

“That’ll have to do,” he spoke softly as he lay the cat gently in place.

He tore a small strip of cloth from a clean rag and wet it under the pump as he filled a saucer with water. He set the saucer carefully in front of the cat’s face and then gently wet those crusted eyes, moving surprisingly gently for his size. The cat struggled weakly, not at all enthusiastic about his kind attentions. The big man lifted the rag slowly, not knowing what to do. The cat seemed to droop as if his struggle not to have his face wiped had been his last act.

Karl sighed heavily. He reached down slowly and wiped at a crust of something on the edge of the cat’s mouth. To Karl’s surprise, the cat’s mouth slowly opened.

“Hell, you’re dying of thirst, aren’t you?” he grunted. “I suppose even a cat can’t drink salt water.”

The cat lay there, hardly breathing now, its mouth open piteously and its eyes now staring at him. Wetting the rag until it was dripping and holding the cat’s head so he could aim the droplets, he moistened the cat’s mouth with a few drops of water.

“Not too much now,” the big man sighed softly. “I wouldn’t want to drown you.”

He paused and watched as the cat closed its mouth and seemed to relax in his hand. He wasn’t sure if it swallowed or not, but after a long moment the cat’s mouth slowly fell open again. He administered another few drops of water onto the rough tongue. The cat’s mouth again closed slowly.

A few minutes more and the cat’s mouth fell open again. He repeated his actions several times, each time dribbling a few droplets of water onto that rough tongue. Finally, the cat snapped its mouth closed and struggled to free itself from his hold.

“Okay, old timer,” he chuckled releasing his hold. “I’m not about to fight with you.”

The cat dropped back on its side, now seeming to be breathing slightly deeper than it had before.

“Well, old son, I can’t waste much more time on you,” he sighed, pushing back from the counter. “There just might be people somewhere up in that mess who need my help more than you do and I think I’d better go look around.”

The cat lay calmly as he lifted the old drawer slowly and then carefully set it on the floor in the space under the galley table.

“Not bad for an old man with arthritis,” he chuckled softly to himself. “I didn’t ruffle your fur or even spill a drop of water from the saucer.”

He closed the door to the boat’s companionway at the forward end of the galley.

“That’s just in case I’m gone for a while and you start looking for a cat box, I can clean up the deck, but my bunk wouldn’t be as easy. I’ll leave you a bowl of water on the floor too, just in case you do wake up and drink everything in that saucer, but you’re going to have to wait for some food. I think dehydration is your major problem, not starvation,” he spoke softly.

The cat didn’t bat an eye, but its breathing was definitely easier now.

Karl went back up on deck and paused in the wheelhouse for a moment. The boat had swung with the tide and now rode stern first to the shore and bow into the oncoming flotsam, which meant his anchor appeared to be holding. He decided he needed to set a stern anchor just in case and looked up at the steam gauge, checking that he had enough pressure to do the job.

“No problem,” he grunted to himself.

Starting the engine again, he gently ran the boat back against the forward anchor, checking that it held, then dropped a stern anchor and ran the boat forward slightly to set it as well. All the time he had the propeller turning, he was anxiously watching to be sure that it didn’t become fouled by the floating debris. Breathing a sigh of relief, he shut the engine down, then went forward to check his main anchor line. He adjusted its length and tied it off to a fore cleat, then checked the wrap on the stern line’s cleat as well.

By the time he was finished anchoring, the boat was surrounded by flotsam. He had to push rubbish away from the stern just to clear room for the dinghy to drop from its davits into the water. His mind was awhirl with what he should do, but his hands worked automatically as he tied the dinghy to the stern cleats. As desolate and difficult as the whole shoreline was, he realized that he had to be ready for almost any eventuality. His immediate appraisal was that no one could have survived in that chaos, but he had to check. After all, he had previously had friends and acquaintances who had lived in the houses on that devastated shoreline. For a brief instant the bitter feeling of loss washed over him, but he forced it aside. He couldn’t afford to let his mind be clouded by remorse, not when he had no certainty of actual facts.

Drawing a deep breath, he steeled himself for the task ahead. He had to investigate. He had to know for himself what was left onshore. He realized that if no one had survived, he was totally dependent on his own resources and he resolved that he’d have to be extremely careful. A minor fall or injury that would normally be no problem would loom as a catastrophe now. At the moment he was totally alone and a mistake could be disastrous.

He went back below, finding a small pack that he’d often used to haul a few supplies when he was ashore, especially if he was in a port where he had to walk any distance to buy his groceries. He dug out his old hatchet, slipping it into a holster and hitching it on his belt, adding a sheathed hunting knife beside it, grabbed his binoculars and hung them around his neck. Then filling a plastic bottle with water, he put it in his pack along with an old blanket and a small first aid kit. He looked thoughtfully at the small emergency kit that he’d made up years before, then crammed it into the pack as well. He had everything from freeze-dried rations and energy bars to fish hooks and matches in the emergency kit. There was enough food in it to keep him alive for a few days if he got into trouble. He’d never needed it before, but he might need it now.

One more quick glance at the sleeping cat under the seat and he went up the steps into the bright sunlight that illuminated the wheelhouse, his pack in hand. He glanced at his boiler gauges, checking that the fire was out and that the tiny pilot burner was working. Realising that he still had some steam pressure left, he belatedly thought of his steam whistle.

Staring at the shore line, he reached up and pulled the whistle lanyard. Three long hearty blasts, then he waited and listened. A cacophony of gulls screamed in surprise, then echoes of his whistle were all that he heard. He waited for a moment or two, then tried once more. Three more long toots of the whistle, the last whistle falling to a wheeze as the dredges of steam pressure in his boiler drained away. The echoes of the whistle and raucous cries of the gulls mocked him. He waited a few minutes, staring at the desolation on the shore and hoping to see some motion other than birds. He’d never seen so many gulls. They were wheeling in the sky, paddling on the water, perching on the debris, or busily squabbling amongst themselves. They were everywhere, in astonishing numbers.

Finally despairing of any response, he slipped over the side and into the dinghy, carrying his pack, a coil of small rope, a short walking stick, and a couple of life jackets. Once everything was safely stowed in the dingy, he untied and pushed off into the sea of rubbish that had fully surrounded his boat by then. He paddled slowly, threading his way through and around the larger objects which floated in the water. There was no way that he could miss everything. For every large piece of litter that blocked his way, there seemed to be a hundred small pieces and a million tiny ones. There was so much debris that the water hardly showed through it. Every stroke of his oar seemed to be through a mush of floating trash several inches deep. On top of that, every larger piece of rubbish seemed to be the perch for a gull that screamed at him as he passed. Garbage and gulls, he thought, the water of the bay was filled with both.

After a few moments, he paused to make up his mind just where he was going to try to land. The shoreline was awash in flotsam and even getting close to shore would be a problem. A long jutting tongue of rock seemed relatively free of debris and luckily there appeared to be a relatively clear channel of water leading toward it. Now, if he could only find a route to get around what appeared to be part of a house that floated in his way without getting fouled in submerged extensions of the ruined building. A portion of one wall faced him and he could see through a window. Surprisingly the window appeared unbroken although the building was ruined; even the roof of the house was gone. Bright sunlight shone down on an old easy chair and an inverted table as they floated soggily inside the surrounding walls amid a welter of other debris. Luckily it took only two or three gentle strokes of his oars before he was clear of the ruined house, then it took only a few minutes work for him to reach the tongue of rock.

A natural channel in the rock made it easier for him to get ashore, but made it more difficult to pull the dinghy clear of the incoming tide. The rock was clearly marked by a deep deposit of fine debris at the tide line and he heaved the dinghy well above that mark. He paused for a moment to get his breath back, grumbling to himself that he was in damn poor shape if only a little exertion like that could tire him so easily. Leaning against his dingy to rest, he surveyed the near shoreline and the rubbish built up at the tide line. Surprisingly he saw another dingy was trapped nearby in one such pile of flotsam, but he doubted that dingy would ever float again. It had been skewered right at the waterline by a chunk of shattered timber and looked almost as if it had been harpooned.

After a short time, he straightened and stared about him at the desolation. He was standing on freshly scoured rock, swept clean by water and who knew what else. Above him and to one side, a broken concrete foundation that surely must have held up a house, now jutted jaggedly outward from a slab of rock and hung over softly washing waves. What soil had been in the former front yard was gone, but then, so was the house that had stood here. There was a rank smell of death and decay in the air. Gulls wheeled and squabbled around him and somewhere in the distance he heard a crow. Then, from even further away he heard the screech of a bald eagle. Carrion birds, that was it. They were all drawn to dead bodies and edible garbage. He shuddered at the passing thought of the probable source of the feast of carrion that drew them to the area.

His eyes swept in a semi circle, then he stared back the way he had come, past the boat and across the bay. The fog bank had lifted and he could see the opposite shoreline where a steep bank fell to the water. When he had been here a few months ago, that bank had been heavily timbered, from water’s edge to the skyline. Now the hillside was bare for at least two hundred feet or more above the water. Not one tree stood on the lower part of the bank. While this side of the bay was a ruin, the opposite shoreline was stripped bare. Once more, he felt weak kneed and sank slowly to sit on the prow of his dinghy. The area had definitely been hit by a tsunami, there was no doubt in his mind.

Almost reluctantly, he lifted his binoculars to his eyes and focussed on the far hillside. He sighed. There was nothing there, but rock, no trees, no bushes, nothing alive. There were a few stumps that seemed anchored in the rock itself and an occasional bare log that looked as if it had been peeled, then wedged into a crevice or crack in the rock, but there was little else on the slope. A few gullies crammed with rubbish and a fresh scar from a recent landslide marked the only areas that didn’t appear washed, then scoured clean by water carrying an abrasive load. In some places the rock appeared polished, as if a giant hand had scoured it clean with grit and sand.

He swung slowly, following the line of destruction along the shoreline and down the bay, realizing that the destruction seemed to climb higher as the bay narrowed. Then he stared in wonder at the massive mound of debris that appeared to have choked off the small river that had poured into the far end of the bay. He could see no sign of flowing water and wondered if all that debris was forming a dam, or if the river had been diverted somewhere further upstream.

Slowly he dropped the glasses and turned to look at the mess above him. He stared at the destruction momentarily, thinking to lift his glasses and study the desolation, but decided if he were higher up the slope his view would be increased, if not improved.

Resolutely, he reached down into the dinghy and lifted his pack, strapping it on, then slowly he made his way up the bank and into the debris field above him. He took his time, reminding himself that he suffered from breathing problems, a bad back and arthritis - and he was alone, if he was badly injured there would be no one to come to his rescue.

The first thousand or so feet inland from the shoreline was relatively easy to cross. There wasn’t all that much in the way of debris and what there was had been well flattened into the sludge and slime. Every surface appeared to have been covered with a coating of mud and filth, some of which had been partially washed away by rain. Now part of that muck and mire lay trapped in puddles in the dips and hollows of the ruined landscape, thinly disguised by floating rubbish. The only truly solid footing seemed to be where streets had formerly been. Unfortunately for him, his chosen direction seemed to be almost at ninety degrees to the direction that most of the local streets had run. He was unable to find a cross street and unwilling to detour in a possibly futile hunt for one. Although he had to be careful to avoid the gaping, trash filled holes of former basements and the extremely soft ground in the areas that had once been vegetable gardens or flower beds, he slowly made progress. He was able to move forward relatively easily by keeping to the relatively firm areas that had been lawns and patios, or streets and driveways.

Hardly anything had remained standing, but the ground was littered with broken glass, metal pipes, shattered wood, and hundreds of wires that snaked between strange anchor points. In numerous places trapped rubbish had formed impenetrable barriers. Usually those piles and mounds were centered round solid objects like concrete walls or immovable rocks. By sidetracking a few feet he was able to move relatively easily past most of the barriers, but on occasion he had to make a larger detour. He kept telling himself that time wasn’t really important. Yet, he resented the slowness of his progress and the further uphill he climbed, the harder it became to move forward. Every advancing step took him deeper into the debris field; which meant there were more and tougher barriers to circumvent.

His passage had been steadily and steeply upward. His breathing was heavy, but not strained and he refused to stop, then suddenly he realized he was at the crest of the hill. His hand reached out and rested on a short pillar of some sort, someone’s gate post, he supposed. His legs grew weak as he stared in disbelief at the jumbled ruin before him.

There was no way that he was going to try to cross that muddle. He shook his head slowly, glancing quickly from side to side. Rubble from houses was held up by broken tree trunks or smashed cars. A small upturned sailboat rested half buried under a section of stucco wall, its bowsprit poking through a gaping door of another section of wall. Something that looked like the smashed remains of a large truck, or perhaps a bus, leaned precariously against a tree. There was neither rhyme nor reason to the view in front of him. The giant wave of water had smashed everything in its path and carried it up, over this crest, then discarded its burden in the massive jumble pile of debris he now viewed.

Suddenly he realized what had alerted him to the fact that he had finally surmounted the grade. It was sound. The relative quiet of the day was now filled with the squawks of gulls and crows, even the raucous cry of eagles. Gulls and crows hopped and perched in clusters and bunches as if guarding areas of rich pickings. Others flew lazily from place to place, perhaps searching for more carrion. Thankfully he realized that the slight breeze he felt on his back was blowing the odour that must have attracted the scavengers away from his present position. He shuddered, again, realizing that perhaps part of what they were feeding on could be the bodies of the residents of the town. He could smell the sickly odour of death and decay, but it wasn’t that strong, at least not where he stood.

He glanced at his watch then in disbelief he stared back the way he had come. He had taken over an hour just to cross the half mile or so that he had travelled. He turned back to the barrier of massed rubble. That was insurmountable, at least for him. If he’d been ten or twenty years younger and much more nimble he might have been able to cross it, but not at his age, nor in his present condition.

He sighed deeply. Even at forty-two, a man who had arthritis and a bad back had to realize his limitations. He’d crossed the easiest part of the slope below him and he was already tired. There was no sense in getting out into the middle of that mess and collapsing in exhaustion. That would only give the gulls more to feed on.

He slipped the pack slowly from his back and sat back on a stump to reason out his next step. Opening the pack, he took out the water bottle and had a sip, carefully resealing it and putting it back in place in the pack. This was not the time to get careless in any way. He might need that water later. Another deep sigh and he wiped his forehead under the beating sun.