Arkadium Rising by Glen Krisch Read Free Book Online Page A

had disappeared.
    Damn it!
    He wished the boy the best and ran back to his car. By the time he reached his Accord, water had already flooded the passenger compartment and killed the engine. He tried to start it again, but it was no good. His one means of escape was gone.
    He estimated the distance to the hills. At least half a mile. When he was in his best running shape in high school, he would've been able to cover that half mile in under two minutes. But the rising water was knee high, and he wasn't in the shape he had been ten years ago.
    A tremendous splash forced his attention back to the dam. Most of the dam had come crashing down like an enormous felled tree, making his plight infinitely more complicated. The splash sent a ten-foot wave down Main Street Concord, directly at Jason.
    Not in any position to be choosey, he ran for the nearest house. He tried the front door, found it luckily unlocked. Water immediately flowed into the house, an uninvited guest bent on destruction.
    "Jason!" someone shouted over the chaotic rush of water.
    Jason was shocked to see Marcus leaning from the window of a jacked-up Chevy truck with monster wheels. It was the kind of truck that came with a hunting dog on the passenger seat and a gun rack over the rear window. The water hadn't yet touched its belly. He was urgently waving him over.
    "It's not too late! Come with me and I'll save you!"
    "Go to hell, Marcus. You'll be happy there."
    Jason didn't know how high the water would get, but he left Marcus waiting in the street. He wasn't about to put his fate in his brother's hands.
    The giant wave crashed into his back, throwing him farther inside. The wave diminished as it reached out to touch every floor surface of the house. Jason regained his feet and immediately saw the people who lived there. A married couple and a teenaged girl. Face down. Hogtied with rope and gagged with duct tape, their pleading eyes their only means to ask for help as they struggled against the onslaught of water. The water washed over them, lapping over their faces, covering them. Burying them.
    Jason ran over and lifted the woman's face above the water. When he freed her mouth of tape, she choked out a mouthful of water, then screamed, "My daughter, Gabby! Where's Gabby? Gabby!"
    He looked around the living room, the quickly rising water moving from his mid-thigh to his waist. Even with adrenaline pulsing through his system, the cool spring water was quickly sapping his energy. He saw a family portrait on the wall next to the T.V., the little girl's blue eyes, the mother's smiling face, the husband's eyebrows perked up, on the verge of laughter. Nothing more. Nothing living. The woman slipped from Jason's grasp as another huge wave pushed into the house. The husband was no longer visible. The girl's white shirt bobbed near the surface of the dirty waves, for only a moment, then was gone.
    Jason felt a tug on his shoulder as the water reached his armpits. He turned, seeing Marcus's frantic face. "Come on! Get moving!" His younger brother manhandled him to the stairs. "Look what you've done. You're going to ruin everything!"
    Marcus shoved Jason higher until they reached the upper landing. They entered a bedroom. Flowery pink wallpaper... stuffed animals... water spilling across the carpet as it breached the second floor...
    "Let's go, over there, out the window."
    Jason noted Marcus's still-confident smile as he forced the window screen and climbed out to the overhanging roof just outside. Jason was starting to shiver and his thoughts were jumbled. The grit of the roof shingles scraped his palms as he followed Marcus out the window. Marcus grabbed him under the arm and forced him to the roof's peak.
    Jason sat for a long time, fully expecting the water to reach the roofline and higher still, until it swept them away. But the water leveled off at some point, and the sun warmed his clothes and unclouded his brain.
    "You... you destroyed the town. Everything's