The Tsunami Countdown by Boyd Morrison Read Free Book Online

else.”
    Harold put his hand on her shoulder and stood up, looking back toward Christmas Island.
    “What’s the matter?” Gina said.
    “I don’t know. Something’s going on with the birds.”
    The island was small and sparsely populated, its 3,200 residents surviving primarily as subsistence farmers and on whatever
     tourist dollars they could bring in. But it was so expensive and inconvenient that few tourists—mostly Americans like Harold
     and Gina—vacationed there. The island, an expanse of crushed coral sand only twelve feet above sea level at its highest point,
     provided a home for hundreds of bird species and colorful underwater life.
    Because Harold was an avid hunter as well as a fisherman, the birds had caught his attention. It seemed like every bird on
     the island, thousands of them, had suddenly taken flight.
    “What do you make of that?” Harold said to no one in particular.
    By this time everyone on board was looking at the island, including the dive master and captain. Both of them were Americans
     who had moved to Christmas Island to start their small dive business. Captain Pete and Dive Master Dave, they called themselves,
     which Harold had thought a bit corny. Pete cut the motor to a crawl.
    “Hey, Pete,” Dave said, “you see any smoke?”
    “Nope,” Pete said. “Looks like they got spooked by something, though.”
    “What about an earthquake?” Harold said. He knew from his lifetime in California that dogs and other animals could detect
     natural disasters before people could.
    “Nope,” Pete said again. “This isn’t an earthquake zone. No volcanoes, either.”
    Harold pulled out the binoculars he kept in his bag.
    “We better radio in and see what’s going on,” Dave said.
    As Pete called in to the shop, Harold got a closer look at the island. From this distance, even with the binoculars, the birds
     looked like a swarm of bees circling the island. But something else grabbed his attention.
    “That’s weird,” he said.
    “What?” said Gina.
    “The beach is getting bigger.”
    “What do you mean the beach is getting bigger?” Gina said, her voice rising in volume. Dave must have heard her.
    “What about the beach?” Dave said to Harold.
    Harold described what he could see. The beach, which had extended about a hundred yards from the ocean to the trees only a
     minute before, was growing by what seemed like the same amount every few seconds. After another moment he could see exposed
     reef around the entire island. Several beachgoers ran down to the newly uncovered sand, while others simply stood and watched.
    “Oh, no!” said Dave. He ran over to Pete, who had just reached the dive base on the radio and asked what was happening there.
     Before they could reply, Dave yanked the transmitter out of Pete’s hand.
    “Get the boat as far away from the island as fast as you can! Right now!” he yelled at Pete. Confused and not used to taking
     orders on his own boat, Pete nevertheless saw the alarm in Dave’s eyes and told everyone to hang on. He gunned the engine
     until they were doing twenty knots.
    Dave clicked on the transmitter. “Base, this is
Seabiscuit
, do you read?”
    A woman on the other end answered. Harold remembered her as Tasha, the girl who had checked them in for the dive. Before they’d
     left on the trip, Dave and Tasha’s canoodling in the shop had been practically pornographic.
    “I read you,
Seabiscuit
,” she said. “I just looked out the window. The tide is going way out.”
    “Tasha, that’s not the tide! A tsunami is coming! Get out of there!”
    “Oh my God! What should I do?”
    “Get to the highest point you can.”
    “What about you?”
    “We’re okay. We’re in deep water. Tsunamis only get big in shallow water.”
    Tasha’s panicked voice came back. “But there’s nowhere to go!”
    Harold knew she was right. Not only was the highest point on the island only twelve feet above sea level, there was only a
     smattering of