Black Tide Read Online Free Page B

into the sound by movement of water through the new pass, it became concentrated …
    I didn’t want to believe it. It didn’t make sense.
    But the wall was bearing down on us, rising into the lemony afternoon sky like an approaching storm, and people were screaming, and dying. As I watched, the cloud overtook a dock lined with kids, fishing poles lodged between their pale legs. Suddenly they jumped up and ran, swatting at themselves as if swarms of hornets had descended and were attacking in a frenzy of stinging. One boy fell and rolled clumsily off the dock and into the water with a murky splash. I didn’t see him come up.
    â€˜Fred?’ I turned this time. Heather was watching the mist roll toward us, her eyes nearly squeezed shut, her cheeks slick with tears. She had her mouth covered with her right hand, as if by physical force she were holding back the hysteria that had jittered into her voice. She could barely coax out the words. ‘What is it? What in God’s name is it?’
    I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. Some kind of cloud …’
    â€˜We can see that!’ Scotty blurted. ‘What kind of fucking cloud?’
    â€˜I’m not sure. It seems to be rising from the water. Based on the reactions of those boys on the dock, I’d say it contains some kind of irritant, maybe a lethal …’
    â€˜What do we DO?’ Scotty demanded. He too sounded on the verge of panic, though in him the terror came through as a bullish, indifferent rage. ‘You’re the brains here, Professor. Tell us what to do!’
    I started to snap back at him that this wasn’t Star Trek , that I couldn’t just cobble together a solution by making a few adjustments on a gadget, but then I glanced at the cloud and saw that it was higher and darker, and the sounds of approaching catastrophe from the mainland were swelling and, I might as well say it, becoming more terrifying. I began to feel my thoughts swinging from rational, scientific curiosity to simple animal fear. A pit was forming in my gut, the nausea swirling round and round until I thought I’d have to vomit. The sudden, sharp cries, the explosions of glass breaking and metal being crushed, all of it induced a kind mind-numbing dread that sent long, cold fingers tickling the back of my neck and down my spine until at one point, I wanted to run. The mist was bad; I knew that. The mist was, dare I say it, evil . But running was out of the question, so I breathed deeply, shook my head, and tried to order my thoughts.
    Think , I told myself. Think. Quickly.
    From the looks of it, the mist carried a toxin of some kind. Most toxins enter the body through respiration, injection or contact. How to address that?
    We had the masks, yes, but if the mist were a contact toxin then exposed flesh would leave us vulnerable. I wondered if we could wrap ourselves in the tents – no, dammit, I could see the tent fronts were nothing more than mesh screens to keep out mosquitoes. Submerging our bodies in the water would do no good either if whatever produced the mist was already in the water.
    And that’s when I remembered Scotty’s toy.
    I began wading to shore. ‘Where’s that damn Frisbee?’ I shouted, not thinking at all about how Scotty would react to my tone. He grabbed up the plastic disc and held it out to me. ‘No! Start digging!’ I ordered. ‘A shallow hole, wide enough for you and Heather.’ It seemed only fair, since they’d planned to share a tent, that if this idea didn’t pan out they’d share a grave. I tromped ashore like Douglas MacArthur and made my way to the dry bags of gear. I began undoing fasteners and dumping stuff onto the beach. ‘Where’re the damn masks?’ I shouted. Heather scrambled over and hefted one of the bags and popped it open. She fished the masks out and held them up.
    They were new from the shelves at the Army/Navy Surplus Store