Bridgers 3_The Voice of Reason Read online

  Seconds later they were over the water. And then they were halfway across the river.

  “Oh no,” Lenny said. “I think we’re screwed.” He was looking in his side mirror.

  Infinity turned around to look. “Go! Go faster!”

  The green steel trusses behind them were buckling as the center of the bridge collapsed.

  3

  Water

  September 1 - 1:57 PM

  Desmond twisted in his seat to watch out the Jeep’s rear window. The bridge’s trusses, thirty feet high and reinforced with cross bracing, were folding inward as a large section of the road collapsed into the river. And since the trusses were all connected, the collapse was expanding at a frightening rate. Several of the fleeing cars dropped out of sight toward the river.

  “Faster, Lenny!” Desmond cried. “We’re not going to make it!”

  Behind the Jeep was the Humvee, followed by the three remaining civilian vehicles. The most distant of those three vehicles dropped from view. The driver in the next car up panicked, and the car swerved to the side and bounced off the guardrail before being swallowed by the widening collapse.

  “Come on, Gideon,” Infinity muttered to the guardsman driving the Humvee. “Move it!”

  The Humvee was only twenty yards behind them, but the collapsing road was catching up. The last vehicle behind the Humvee, a red pickup truck, plunged to the river with a large chunk of the road.

  “Get out of the way!” Lenny shouted as he overtook the SUV in front of the Jeep and rammed its bumper, throwing Desmond and Infinity against the two seat backs.

  Desmond floundered and then looked out the back window again. But now the Humvee was gone. The road was collapsing in chunks only twenty yards back. And then ten.

  “God almighty,” Xavier said, looking back. “We’re going down.”

  The Cherokee cleared the portion of the bridge supported by steel trusses just as the remaining steel collapsed, taking the section of road it had been supporting with it. But then it all stopped. The bridge beyond the trusses remained standing.

  Desmond realized they were over land now, still on the bridge but far past the river’s edge. “Joaquim and Gideon may have gone down on solid ground, not into the river,” he said. “They may be okay.”

  “Lenny,” Infinity said, “pull over up there at the end of the bridge.”

  Seconds later Lenny stopped where the guardrails gave way to a grassy shoulder. Infinity threw open her door and took off down the embankment. Desmond got out and followed, trying to keep up. He glanced back and saw that Lenny and Xavier were limping along behind.

  Most of the area on either side of the bridge was a flat, muddy crop field, but the concrete bridge supports were embedded in a grassy ridge firm enough to run on.

  The outer edge of the collapsed portion of the bridge was at least a quarter mile from the Jeep, and Desmond was panting by the time he caught up with Infinity at the Humvee. The vehicle was on its side amongst twisted steel trusses and broken pieces of concrete. Miraculously, the extra gas canisters in the back of the Humvee seemed to be intact.

  One of the guardsmen was on the ground next to the vehicle, pulling the other’s arms, trying to extract him from the wreckage through the shattered windshield. “Help me pull him out!” It was Gideon speaking, but Desmond barely recognized his blood-covered face.

  “We’ll check on the other drivers,” Xavier said as he and Lenny caught up. The two of them then continued on past the Humvee.

  Desmond and Infinity joined Gideon, and together they pulled Joaquim through the windshield and dragged him to the grass beside the rubble. Gideon rolled the guardsman over and pressed his fingers to the man’s throat. Waiting silently, Desmond stared. Joaquim’s face was riddled with shotgun pellet holes, and both his eyes had been hit. His eyeballs hung loosely in their sockets, two wrinkled, empty sacks.

  “Is he alive?” Infinity asked, but her even tone indicated she already suspected the worst.

  Gideon swore softly and shook his head.

  Xavier and Lenny approached, returning more quickly than Desmond had expected. “Only one other car didn’t fall into the river,” Lenny said. “Both passengers are seriously dead. Probably because they didn’t have a Humvee around them to protect—” He stopped talking when he saw everyone staring at Joaquim’s body.

  “And the river’s rising,” Xavier said, obviously trying not to look at Joaquim. “Like, really fast. We need to get back up to the Jeep.”

  Desmond looked toward the river. It was definitely higher than it had been, and Xavier was right—it was rising up through the trees lining the riverbank at an alarming rate. He was about to turn toward the Jeep when he noticed something else, a large log bumping its way through the standing trees, carried by the current. But it was moving from left to right. Desmond checked the sun—yes, they were standing on the east side of the river. He said, “Um, you guys. Why is the Mississippi River flowing north?”

  They all turned and looked.

  “That can’t be good,” Xavier said. “We need to go.”

  Gideon grabbed Joaquim’s head and lifted the dead guardsman into a sitting position. “Hold him up,” he said to Infinity.

  Desmond helped Infinity hoist Joaquim up until Gideon could lift the body onto one shoulder. “Let’s go,” Gideon grunted as he started walking.

  They all headed for the Jeep. By the time they were halfway to the beginning of the bridge, Desmond realized the rising river was catching up to them. “Can you go any faster?” he asked Gideon.

  Without answering, the guardsman broke into a run, grunting with every stride under the weight of Joaquim’s body.

  When they finally reached the embankment, they were already sloshing through half a foot of water. Desmond ran a few yards up the slope and turned around. Gideon was thirty yards behind, heaving audibly with every sloshing step. He tripped abruptly, falling face first into the water with Joaquim’s body.

  “Get up there and start the Jeep,” Desmond said to the others.

  “You got it, Des,” Lenny said. He and Xavier continued up the slope.

  Infinity was in the lead, but she turned around to help Desmond. “Come on,” she said. Desmond followed her down the slope, and they waded into the rising water.

  As they approached, Gideon snarled, “I’m not leaving him here!”

  “We’re not asking you to,” Infinity replied. “Lift him up and get him over my shoulder.”

  “I can carry him,” Gideon said.

  “You’re too fatigued!” she cried. “I’ll need the two of you to support him from the sides, but get him onto my shoulder now!”

  The water was now a foot deep.

  Sloshing in the mud and trying to keep a grip on the 200-pound body, they carried Joaquim together to the embankment and up to the Jeep. Desmond opened the back hatch, and they hoisted the body into the cargo space. Gideon pushed the dead guardsman’s legs into a fetal position and slammed the hatch shut.

  Desmond glanced down the embankment in time to see a massive log floating by where they had just carried Joaquim’s body.

  Lenny revved the engine, encouraging them to hurry up and get in. Desmond, Infinity, and Gideon crammed into the back seat, and before the doors had even slammed shut, Lenny threw the car into gear and punched the accelerator.

  Lenny drove north on the narrow peninsula between the two rivers. They passed by the road to the Ohio River bridge, which they had crossed less than an hour earlier. Desmond could see that this bridge had also collapsed, and several massive barges were jammed up against the south side of the wreckage. Like the Mississippi, the Ohio River was now flowing north. Away from the Gulf of Mexico.

  If the bridges to the north were damaged as well, Desmond’s group wouldn’t be able to cross the Mississippi to get back to SafeTrek.

  They passed a sign on the side of the road that said, Welcome to Cairo.

  They entered the small town, which appeared to have been evacuated al
ready, probably in response to previous flooding. Several inches of mud and debris covered the road. “Good God!” Lenny muttered as he drove around the end of a river barge that had become jammed between a house and an old stone church. The only signs of recent activity were a few sets of tire tracks in the mud, which Desmond assumed were from the few other vehicles that had barely escaped the bridge as it had collapsed into the Mississippi.

  A few minutes after leaving Cairo, they came to an interstate highway. “I don’t have much of a signal, but I’m pretty sure this road leads to another bridge over the Mississippi into Missouri,” Xavier said, looking at the GPS app on his phone.

  Lenny turned onto the highway, and soon they were approaching the bridge. Desmond’s heart sank as he realized this bridge had also been destroyed. And beyond the levee, the highway leading to the bridge was under water. As Lenny turned the Jeep around, Desmond watched the still-rising water pushing barges, rail freight containers, and what looked like several mobile homes northward.

  They continued driving north. Thirty minutes later they came to yet another bridge. This one was intact, possibly because it was a suspension bridge, held high above the river by steel cables connected to massive concrete stanchions.

  They began crossing the bridge toward the riverside town of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. But another roadblock was set up at the west end of the bridge. Three pickup trucks were arranged across the west-bound lanes, and four men waved them to a stop. Unlike the last roadblock, there were no other vehicles waiting to pass. Perhaps the men, who were armed with what looked like deer rifles, had been letting cars through.

  Lenny stopped the Jeep ten yards from the trucks, and one of the men began walking forward. Gideon opened his door, got out, and pointed his sidearm at the approaching man. He growled, “I don’t care what you have to say or why you’re in our way. I just want to know who’s the leader so I can shoot him first.”

  The approaching man paused and frowned, “We don’t want violence. We’re just here because we don’t want any more people—”

  Gideon shot the man. The guy screamed and fell to the road, clutching his thigh. Gideon pointed his pistol at the others. “Who do I need to shoot next?”

  “Jesus, man, he was trying to tell you we don’t want violence!” one of the other men shouted. The guy’s eyes were wide, but he and the other two kept their rifles pointed at the ground.

  Gideon walked over to the fallen man, picked up the dropped rifle, and heaved it over the guardrail. The trucks were positioned hundreds of yards from the river’s edge, so the rifle clattered onto the rocky embankment. “Move your goddamn trucks. Now!”

  Without saying a word, two of the men got in their pickups and began moving them. The third man held his hands up, hoisting his rifle into the air to show that he wasn’t a threat. He nodded at the man Gideon had shot. “Rick’s got the keys to his truck. I’m going to help him, okay?”

  “Throw your rifle off the bridge,” Gideon said.

  The guy hesitated. “Come on, man, this thing cost me twelve-hundred bucks.”

  Gideon leveled his gun at him. “You have three seconds.”

  The man sighed and tossed his rifle over the side.

  Gideon backed toward the Jeep and nodded toward Rick. “Get him off the road or we’ll run him over.” Gideon got in the backseat. His face was still covered with dried blood, and he was scowling like a madman. “Drive,” he said to Lenny.

  After staring at Gideon in the rearview mirror for a moment, Lenny pulled the Jeep to the right and drove around Rick and the guy who was dragging him out of the way.

  “Nice job,” Infinity muttered to Gideon.

  “Wasn’t in the mood for more bullshit,” the guardsman replied.

  Desmond swiveled around to look back at the men. A movement to the south caught his eye. For several seconds he stared, unable to believe what he was seeing. In the distance, the river was rising. He could actually see the water swelling, even though it was over a mile away. And the massive surge was moving north, directly toward them. Just as he was about to say something, the Jeep entered a cluster of trees surrounding the road, and he lost sight of the river.

  “Lenny, listen carefully,” Desmond said. “I don’t care how fast you have to drive—get us to those hills on the west side of town. This place is going to be under water in about two minutes.”

  They exited the cluster of trees, and the river to the south came into view again.

  “Oh, crap,” Xavier said. “He’s not kidding, Lenny. Move it!”

  Lenny punched the accelerator. Fortunately, Cape Girardeau was mostly abandoned, allowing them to fly through the town at eighty miles per hour.

  Desmond couldn’t pry his eyes from the scene behind them. The water was surging through the streets, carrying vehicles, sheds, and smaller debris with it. The Jeep was now at least a mile past the bridge, but Desmond saw the enormous stanchions and suspension cables begin to snap and collapse from the water’s force. And the river was expanding, widening its destructive swath westward.

  “Get this damn thing moving!” Infinity cried.

  Lenny growled in frustration. “I’ll kill us if I go any faster.” He swerved to the right to dodge a car that was making a U-turn to flee the oncoming deluge.

  The water was rising at an astonishing rate, tumbling over itself in gushing torrents, sweeping up anything not fastened down.

  “The road arches over an interstate up ahead,” Lenny said. “You think it’s high enough?”

  Still looking back, Desmond said, “Better than nothing. Go!” He took a quick glance at the overpass ahead. It seemed too far away for them to make it in time. He turned back to stare at the expanding river. The gushing water seemed unreal, like a scene from a disaster movie. It was relentless, swelling toward the Jeep with unnatural speed.

  And then the water overtook them. Perhaps two feet deep, it surged around the speeding Jeep like a boiling tsunami. The vehicle skidded to the side and almost rolled, forcing Lenny to slam on the brakes. This stopped the Jeep’s forward momentum, but the water’s movement continued dragging the vehicle sideways to the north.

  “If it takes us into the ditch, we’ll never get back on the road,” Xavier said, gripping the safety handle with both hands and staring out at the gushing water.

  Lenny gunned the Jeep and turned it toward the overpass. By angling southward, he was able to overcome the current and move west at the same time. The only way Desmond knew they were still on the road was by watching the signs and vertical marker posts.

  Water began pooling on the floorboards, and Desmond silently willed the engine to keep running. Foot by foot, the Jeep moved toward the bridge. Finally, with the engine beginning to sputter, Lenny drove up the slope onto dry pavement. He stopped at the highest point on the overpass. Everyone got out and stood in the middle of the road, staring at the sea of flood water around them.

  4:19 PM

  “It’s flowing south again,” Xavier said. “And I think it’s getting shallower.” He was standing at the guardrail. Everyone else was sitting on the road in the shade of the Jeep, where they’d been for the last half an hour.

  “The gas tank’s a tad under half full,” Lenny said. “And it looks like we’re about 120 miles from SafeTrek.” He was looking at the screen of his smartphone. He shook his head. “Why in the name of Frodo does everything have to be down to the freaking wire?”

  Their supply of extra gas had been in the Humvee, which was now at the bottom of the river somewhere. It was possible they’d find an open gas station before running dry, but it was more likely that they wouldn’t. Of course, they wouldn’t be going anywhere if the flood didn’t recede. Fortunately, Xavier was right—the water was lower now than it had been a few minutes ago.

  Desmond noticed that Gideon was staring into the distance. “Gideon, I’m sorry about Joaquim. Have you known him long?”

  The guardsman snapped out of his trance. He shook his head. “Met him a few days ag
o. Organization of labor back at SafeTrek is screwed up. They shuffle us around constantly. Joaquim was a good guy. Had a wife and little girl.” Gideon shook his head. “Most guys I know who have family have already bugged out. But not Joaquim.” He shook his head again.

  Xavier approached and sat in the shade of the Jeep beside Lenny. He looked at Gideon and said, “You mind if I ask you something? Did they promise you a spot in one of the colonies?”

  Gideon frowned. “No promises were made, but I know some of the guys are counting on that. As for me, sure, I’d jump at the chance for a spot. But either way, I wanna do something that might make a difference.”

  “So you think this whole effort to save a few thousand people is worthwhile?”

  Gideon looked toward the flooded town of Cape Girardeau for a moment. “Is it true that everyone left behind is going to die?”

  “That’s seems to be the consensus,” Xavier replied.

  “Then it’s probably worthwhile. Now, it’s my turn to ask you a question. You’re all bridgers, right?”

  Desmond spoke up. “Infinity’s the real bridger. I’ve been on two excursions. Lenny and Xavier, only one.”

  Gideon shrugged. “That’s more than most people. So how do you feel about this whole effort? Is what you’re doing really okay? I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to save as many people as we can—survival is in our nature. But is this the right way?”

  “How do you mean?” Xavier asked.

  “I know what he’s getting at,” Infinity said. “He’s asking if it’s ethical to bridge humans to other worlds—to colonize them.”

  “Yeah,” Gideon said. “That’s it. You bridgers are sending colonies of humans to places without humans. And to places where humans have turned out to be different from all of us. Isn’t that kind of like… contaminating all these other worlds with a species that has a piss-poor record of doing things right? We wipe out ecosystems and wildlife. We fight with each other. Hell, we even fill the air waves with crap like reality TV.”