3

The sky was clouding up already behind the never ending sea of pump-jacks. See ya later sun. Late April had that effect on the sky, torrential rains could cause havoc with their flash floods. So far, things looked good – just clouds. We pulled up to one of the shrimp pools and got out. Jorge’ and his son, Manuel, were there to greet us. They told the Sheriff where they had found two other “woman” and then they hopped on their little ATV to take us there. Following that thing for what seemed like hours, we came on a pretty large gully that lead down into some caves. Right then, we felt the first drops of rain.

“Lord Almighty. We’re gonna get wet,” Jordan said. No one else said anything.

We followed Manuel down into the ravine. Jorge’ stayed up with the ATV. The click-clack of his Mossberg 30 aught 6 echoed like a corpse knocking on the inside of his coffin. It was slick going, as the rain was merely bouncing off the dust. We scrambled down, gear on our backs and made it to the bottom. Little streams had already begun to form as we reached the mouth of the cave. There were suitcases strewn about and random articles of clothing here and there, and it stank like hell.

“What in tarnation?” the Sheriff said, and made a show of waving the stench away.

“It’s coming from the cave,” Drake said, echoing all of our thoughts.

“Course it is dummy,” Jordan elbowed him in the side, “what else could it be?”

The wind and the rain were picking up but it wasn’t stopping the smell. Manuel shouted something to the Ranger who nodded and Manuel started back up the slope.

“He had to go back to his dad!” The Ranger yelled to us. “Something about making sure the shrimp are alright in the rain.”

I laughed. That seemed like it would maybe never be a problem, but then I stopped when I realized that they were supposed to be in saltwater, not rainwater.

“Oh.” I said. Jordan laughed at me. I don’t think anyone else got the logic. She was quick… or I was just slow.

The rain was really coming down and the Ranger put his hand on his holster.

“Well? Are we doing this thing or not? We ain’t got much time!” he almost shouted.

“I think we need to come back after the rain!” I said. “It might get too bad to go in!”

The Sheriff chewed the inside of his lip, thinking things over. He spoke as he turned to us.

“Yeah I reckon we ought to come back after… “ But he didn’t finish his sentence, he was looking behind us.

“Git… Outta… Here!” he said, but it was too late. From over the top of the lip, Jorge’ had gone insane. He was racing his ATV down in on us, Manuel holding on for dear life.

“Inudar! Inudar! Está viniendo!” he screamed to us in Spanish. Flash flood, and it’s coming this way.

We scrambled towards the side of the cave. No one was suicidal enough to go in, it would be a death trap, but we all knew we could out-run it if we got higher than it wanted to go. See, the trick is to find the break in the water. If you’re lucky enough to see it before it hits you, you can get away from it and get on a high spot just out of its reach. You couldn’t get around it, you couldn’t go through it, you couldn’t race it, but you could out-think it. The only goal was: “up.”

Which is why Jorge’ was driving down the canyon instead of the other direction. He had been fortunate enough to see it before it took him out. The only option left to him was to go downhill and then up the next hill, away and out of reach. All this went through my head in maybe one or two seconds as I was scrambling up the side of the hill behind the cave.

I’ve read enough books to know that they say: “It all happened in slow motion.” Well that’s complete bullcrap. It all happened fast and hard. The water didn’t come down the sides of the canyon as much as jump off like some sort of insane stampede. It was probably going eighty miles an hour and flew at us like God had opened the floodgates over Noah.

The Sheriff, The Ranger, Jordan, and Drake were all ahead of me. Drake and Jordan on the right and the law on the left. Jorge’ and his son were rocketing up the far right side on the ATV and I was stuck behind the Sheriff. Seriously, I couldn’t have picked a worse person to follow. He was slow for a big fella and took up a lot of room. The water hit my leg and snapped me up like a croc taking down a poodle. I went down.

I don’t know how long I held my breath, but it was knocked out of me before I knew enough to appreciate my Navy drowning training. I bumped, hit my knee and I think I cracked a rib before I came on something hard that wouldn’t move. It was a hammer on my back. The strength drained out of me. Nothing I did would let me get away and the small amount of air I had was burning in my lungs. I was going to die.