Читать книгу A Man Like Him - Rachel Brimble - Страница 12

CHAPTER TWO

THE FORCE OF the pounding on the trailer door jolted Chris from sleep. He sat bolt upright, his heart racing as he looked left and right around the small unfamiliar bedroom. What the hell was that?

“Evacuation! Evacuation! Grab what you can and hurry to the camp clubhouse. Hello? Anyone there? The park is flooding. You need to leave. Now.”

The screaming outside the door was manic, frenzied. Flooding? Adrenaline shot through Chris as he fumbled from the mess of sheets wrapped around his arms and legs. He must’ve misheard. Leaping from the bed, he cursed as his toe hit its wooden frame. He felt along the walls in the semidarkness and stumbled into the kitchen. Flicking on the overhead light, he squinted against the brightness. The neon clock on the stove showed just after two.

He unlocked the door and his breath caught as he gripped the door frame. “Jesus.”

The rain came down in sheets. A moving gray mass against a pitch-black sky. The continuous blare of the park’s emergency siren and people’s screams filled the air, sending his pulse into overdrive. Chris stared in disbelief, his body immobile. Families with young children, of no more than seven or eight, waded through water that reached the adults’ knees. Toddlers cried on their father’s shoulders. Dogs lay silent in their owner’s arms, ears flat.

Chris looked toward his feet. Illuminated by the light spilling from the kitchen, the water had already reached the steps below the door, swirling fast and unwelcome in a red-brown torrent. His lifetime love of water diminished. This wasn’t a swimming pool but most likely the result of the river adjacent to the park breaking its banks. The park was situated at the very bottom of the surrounding hills. They were trapped in a damn sinkhole, miles from the beach and with nowhere for the water to escape.

Chris slammed the door and squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to focus. The rain thrashed down in all its cold and heavy destruction. It would rise quickly and dangerously contained within a five-or six-mile circumference. There were houses, shops, parks...a school. He needed to do something, anything, to help. He was a strong swimmer, an instructor, a trained lifeguard.

He snapped his eyes open and tried to shove away the heavy sense of foreboding stealing through him. Water was unpredictable. It gathered strength and power quickly, making it one of nature’s most dangerous destructors. People were going to die. Mothers, children...

Tightening his jaw, Chris sprinted into the bedroom. Fully awake and alert, he pulled on shorts, sneakers and a T-shirt. His mind whirled and his pulse thumped an erratic beat at his temple. The telltale warning of an impending disaster swam icy-cold in his blood as the rush of the water and the screams of people outside echoed inside his head.

He hurried into the kitchen and grabbed his backpack from a storage cupboard. He filled it with water and fruit, scissors, tape and a basic first aid kit from a shelf above. Tossing the strap over his shoulder, Chris took a deep breath and reopened the door. The steps had vanished.

* * *

ANGELA STARED AT the chaos around her. Within forty-five minutes, the entire world had gone insane. The water curled around the hundreds of screaming and shouting people struggling to escape in their panic. Danger whispered at their backs, the noise like the roar of a giant as it chased them. The swish of tires and the blaring of car horns pierced the air, sending the holidaymakers into a state of near hysteria.

The frantic screeching of a woman ahead of her kick-started Angela’s stunned body into action. The holiday park was her life. Her refuge. She’d save it and these hundreds of people encased in a sealed bubble of terror. It would be all right. The rain would stop.

People yelled the water was coming down harder and faster and Angela’s rising panic hitched up a notch. Her niggling fear that the day’s rain was shrouded in threat had become a reality. She faced her assembled staff, the panic in their eyes clear as a mirror into their hearts. She took a deep breath and threw open her arms.

“Everyone, listen to me. We must remain calm. I want as many people as possible directed into the open-air dining area. The water will not rise above that level. It can’t possibly. It’s well over four feet from where the water is now.” She kept her shoulders straight, battling her fear into submission. “We must remain calm. We’re here to help the guests in every way we can. Please, do not endanger yourselves. Be careful. I want to see every one of you back here when this is over. Do you hear me?”

She met their eyes in turn. They nodded. It would be okay. She would make sure they made it home safely to their families. She had to. She gave a curt nod.

“Now go. I’ll see you back here soon.”

The minimal staff she had at three in the morning scattered left and right into the burgeoning crowds. People came toward the clubhouse like a million drowned rats. She’d been the first person Yvonne roused from bed. That was two hours ago. Angela had immediately left her house and sped back to the park. Its location was advertised as “quaint,” “secluded,” “quintessentially English”—now it offered zero escape.

Anger mixed with frustration had coursed through Angela’s veins when she’d leaped from her car and rushed to the office. The water had barely reached her ankles and the concerns about the boating lake had been just that...a concern. Now, this life-threatening situation loomed in front of her like an adversity on an impossible battlefield.

Inhaling a deep breath, she shook off her fears and hurried forward to help an elderly lady who’d slipped in the deluge of bodies rushing to get past her.

“It’s okay, madam. Everything will be all right. Here, take my arm.”

The woman shook so badly Angela brought her other arm around her waist and practically carried her to a free seat. The chatter of people sitting at the tables was relatively calm compared to the chaos a few feet below. People would be safe here.

She caught the eye of a mother cradling her two crying children on her lap on the other side of the table. “Could you keep this lady company for me? There’s so many—”

The woman’s smile wobbled. “Of course. You go.”

Nodding her thanks, Angela ran out of the dining area and down the steps toward the yellow brick road that snaked throughout the park from the reception to every single one of the six hundred trailers.

She waded into the water. It reached just above her knees. Cold, relentless and completely unforgiving. Cars that had been heading out of the park moments before now lay abandoned and gridlocked like wrecks piled up in a junkyard. She frantically looked around, not knowing which way to turn. The crying and screaming of a young girl of six or seven broke through her manic thoughts.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

“It’s all right. It’s all right.” Angela lifted the girl into her arms and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Everything will be all right.”

She turned and headed back up the stairs. People called out to their loved ones left and right. Children were hauled onto their parents’ backs and shoulders. The whole world looked soaked to the skin in despair. Angela’s leg muscles screamed in protest as she fought her way up the stairs and back into the dining area.

“Oh, thank God.” A woman rushed forward, her face etched in agony. “Melissa? Melissa, it’s Mummy.”

The little girl in Angela’s arms turned and her tiny body shook with relief as she held out her arms to her mother.

Angela’s heart swelled with gratitude as she passed her over. “She was calling for her father, but I don’t know...”

The woman shook her head, the silver tracks of her tears shining in the overhead lights. “He said he was going for help. I haven’t seen him since.” Her voice cracked.

Angela squeezed her hand. “He’ll be back.”

The woman nodded, but the anguish in her eyes was so deep, Angela closed hers against it. What right did she have to promise these people anything? Didn’t she know how your entire life could change beyond recognition in a single twenty-four hours? Robert’s face loomed in her mind. After everything she’d done to survive, there was no way in hell this flood would take her life. Nor would it take anyone else’s. People were stronger than they thought.

She smoothed her hand over the girl’s head as she dropped her cheek into the crook of her mother’s neck. They turned and walked away. Angela drew in a shaky breath and headed back to the steps. Barely a minute had passed and now the water burst over the top step and worse, over the swimming pools to the side of the dining area.

“My God.” The words whispered like a plea from between Angela’s freezing lips.

The power of the water, the noise of it, was deafening. It mixed with people’s terrified screams, their pleas to God and their shouts for missing family and friends. Angela brought her hands to her head in an effort to concentrate, to think of the next thing to do. She turned around three hundred and sixty degrees.

There was no way out. Nowhere else to go than up.

The water rushed like a gathering tsunami, splitting around her and running at such a speed, filthy gray froth crested its waves. She needed to move people onto the clubhouse roof. There was no other option.

With her heart pounding and her ears ringing, she looked to the car roofs, barely visible below, when minutes before people had been sitting inside hoping for escape. Horror ripped through her body at the sight of people swimming toward her, their eyes wide with fear. Furniture, suitcases, clothes and debris passed in an undulating torrent. How many? How many would survive? How much weight could the roof withstand?

Making a snap decision, she cupped her hands around her mouth. “Everybody. On the roof. Get your families on the clubhouse roof. Now!”

Sending up a silent prayer, she took a deep breath and dived back into the water. With a strength borne from adrenaline and her fight for survival, she cut through the water and grasped flaying hands. One after another, she brought people to the edge of what she hoped would be safety. Her shins smacked against the stone steps time and again before she turned and swam back out into the murky water.

Another life. Another human being. She brought more and more people to the clubhouse before heading back out again. Her arms were little more than lengths of rubber. Her lungs screamed for mercy. A sob escaped her and as Angela gasped for air, the water rose and took her under.

* * *

THE PARK MANAGER disappeared beneath the water and Chris’s gut leaped into his throat. One minute she was there. The next gone. The attraction—the protectiveness—he had when he first saw her wrenched through his chest. He had to get to her. A woman like her couldn’t die like this. The haunted look in her eyes lingered in his memory.

He felt the connection between them—an affinity, and he’d be damned if he wouldn’t find out why. He darted his gaze left and right. Chaos reigned supreme. He ran his hand over the little girl’s forearm nestled beneath his chin in an attempt to comfort her as his mind whirled with what to do next. He’d pulled her from the water but had no idea who she belonged to.

“Everything’s going to be all right, sweetheart.”

With her parents nowhere in sight, Chris’s words dissolved into the panicked air. He should get her to safety, but his gaze drew back to where the manager had vanished once again. She’d resurfaced and was now desperately reaching out to passing pieces of furniture and other debris to use as an anchor.

He drew in a deep breath. “Hey! Over here. I’m coming. Hold on.”

Her arms continued to flail, her mouth set in grim determination. There was no way she could hear him. The need to save her roared through his blood once more. He’d seen her drag one person after another to safety without regard for her own life.

He’d liked she was oblivious to him watching her. Now he wanted to see her look straight at him. Fear for her beat hard in his chest. Her strength was phenomenal, but the strongest woman on earth would lose the fight against a current building with this much ferocity.

He gritted his teeth and reached out, gripping a man’s wrist as he came out of the water on a forward stroke. The man’s eyes were frenzied and he looked past Chris toward the mirage of the disappearing clubhouse.

“Get off me.” The man tried to yank his wrist away. “What the hell are you doing?”

Chris tightened his grip and reached for the girl on his back. “Take her. Take her with you.”

The man looked to the girl and shook his head. He made to swim away but Chris held fast. “Take her or so help me God, I’ll drown you myself. Right here. Right now.”

The man cursed before grabbing the girl beneath the arms. He tossed her onto his back. She remained eerily quiet as her gaze locked on Chris. Clearly she knew she had no choice but to be passed from one strange man to another.

He forced a smile and winked. “I’ll see you on the roof, okay?”

She nodded, her bottom lip trembling. The man swam forward and in seconds they were spots in the distance. Chris focused his mind on the woman he needed to save. He couldn’t think about the girl, the man or anyone else for the time being.

He plunged forward. The manager was nowhere to be seen. He circled around. His muscles screamed with fatigue. His heart thundered in his ears. Where the hell was she? He inhaled a deep breath and sank into the dark, cold depths. Nothing but black space loomed in front of his open eyes. He reached blindly forward.

His fingers bumped hard surfaces of God only knew what but nothing human, nothing female. He searched for another few seconds before forcing himself upward for more air. As he broke the surface, he saw her.

Barely more than a few feet away, she fought against the rage of the swirling river water. She was static. Neither going backward nor forward. He cut one arm into the water and then the other. Each stroke brought him painstakingly closer to her. He moved his head from side to side and pictured the clear blue of a swimming pool.

The image loosened the tension in his arms and made his strokes longer and more confident. His hands splayed her waist and, in one fluid motion, he lifted her onto his back.

“Hold on,” he yelled. “Hold on.”

Her arms came around his neck and locked beneath his chin. “There are so many people. We have to help them.”

He ignored her words lest they creep inside his mind and unleash the panic and helplessness bubbling at the surface of his resolve. Inhaling another breath, Chris battled toward their last chance of anyone finding them alive. It seemed to take forever to reach the solid concrete upper floor of the clubhouse. The only building now visible from their vantage point.

He swam forward until his feet touched the steps leading to the roof where people rushed up the disappearing staircase. She slipped from his back and stared down at him.

“You’ll be all right now.” His words came out in short, sharp breaths. God, she was beautiful.

Swallowing hard, he turned and moved to dive back into the water.

“Wait!” Her yell stopped him short.

Their gazes locked. They stood paralyzed for a long moment.

“Be careful.”

Chris nodded and dived back into the water. He had to save more. He was a strong swimmer. He’d make it back. He had to.