Dusty pulled to a stop two blocks shy of 83rd. The water swirling around his tires was already more than a foot deep. Thom’s truck would handle far more than that, of course, but Dusty could already see how much deeper and swifter things got just up ahead. Why risk swamping Thom’s truck without even knowing where along the avenue Colleen actually was? He’d tried calling her again—several times—but it kept going straight to voicemail.

He gazed around the flooded intersection in dismay, unable to imagine how Colleen’s little car had ever even gotten close enough to 83rd to end up… Unless she’d already been there when the water caught up with her. He closed his eyes against the vision, which helped not at all.

On the pile of Colleen’s things beside him, Dusty’s phone began to ring. He looked at the dash display, expecting to see Thom’s name there, and a whole new kind of dread ran through him at the sight of Shelly’s instead. Why on earth would she be calling him now? Did she already know somehow? Had Colleen phoned her? Since she’d talked to him perhaps? Or was her mom just checking in again, alarmed by more stuff on the news? What on earth could he say to her? Dusty just stared, immobilized, until the phone stopped ringing. But when a voicemail message arrived a minute later, he rushed to open it.

“Why aren’t you guys answering your phones?”

So, she didn’t know. Well…he’d call her back when Colleen was safe. Right now, he needed to get a clear look at 83rd Avenue—somehow.

He backed the truck uphill and turned west on 80th, toward Chapman, hoping to find some higher, steeper cross street that could take him further in before meeting so much water. As he drove between darkened buildings, stopping at each intersection to peer toward the flooded avenues, Dusty grew increasingly aware of how completely deserted it all was. If they had managed somehow to evacuate the Saddle before this came through, he and Colleen must have been driving around inside the perimeter when it happened.

He shook his head at all the things they’d gotten wrong, starting with not checking any news. Yes, the power had been out at her apartment, and they’d been so damn busy there, looking for that letter, and packing up her fish… He glanced back through the cab’s rear window at the hump of blankets wrapping her aquarium. If either of them had just thought to turn on a car radio…but no. So focused on what they were doing—so sure the flooding wouldn’t start before some official ‘deadline.’ Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Two blocks east of Chapman, his gamble was rewarded. An elevated expressway veered off to pass above the entire mess. From up there, he’d get a long view of 83rd in both directions. Dusty took the onramp to find not a single car up there either, and nodded to himself. They’d cordoned all this off, all right—with him and Collie still inside—which meant there would be no one else around to help him now except for Thom—if even he still managed to get through.

One problem at a time.

Mid-span, Dusty simply parked the truck and got out to gaze down over the rail, but between the power outage and the rain, he could hear the roar of 83rd far better than he could see it. Stray flashes of lightning gave him glimpses of chaos, none of them helpful. He got back into the truck, turned it crosswise to the bridge, and pointed his low beams out over the view. No one would be coming along anymore tonight to run into him here. He got out, went around to open the other door and shoved all the crap on his passenger seat around until he could move the seatback forward far enough to rummage behind it for some better flashlight. Sure enough, he found a battery-powered spotlight. Good old ‘boy scout’ Thom; always prepared. Trotting back to the rail, he pointed the oversized light down at the roaring avenue and swept the beam around, able to see a bit more now—all of it horrifying—but no sign of Colleen’s car. He didn’t think she could be any further west…

That’s when he recalled the last thing she’d said before hanging up, and slapped his forehead. “Dusty, you dumb ass!” He ran back to the truck and grabbed his phone.

He’d had no idea what ‘Uni’ meant when she’d said it. He’d hardly even noticed, focused entirely on her sudden goodbye, but… He opened the browser and searched, ‘Uni - near me.’

“Yes!” he shouted as his maps app opened, showing him a Uni-mart on 83rd, just five blocks east of where he was. He’d likely been within a block of her when he’d left Montrene to come here! She’d been swept a good ways farther than she thought, but he had her now. After another look at the screen, he called Thom.

“I’m ten minutes away,” Thom answered. “What’s up?”

“I think she’s near 83rd and Baker,” Dusty said.

“You know this how?”

When he’d reminded Thom of search engines, Dusty asked, “Where are you?”

“Coming down backstreets through Gerald Park to avoid the roadblocks. So far I’m getting away with it.”

“Good luck with that,” said Dusty, “but this flood’s at least five blocks wide. You won’t get within sight of 83rd from that side. There’s an elevated expressway two blocks east of Chapman that’ll bring you across it all. I’m gonna head to Baker now, and try getting close enough to see if I can spot her somewhere. Can you meet me there?”

“Okay, but don’t do anything until I arrive.”

“What?”

“Listen to me, Dusty. I don’t know what we’ll find, or what we’ll be able to do about it, but our chances of everybody living through this—including her—are better if we do it together, right? I’m sure I can help, Dusty—but not if you’re already drowning when I get there.”

“I get that,” Dusty said. “But knowing where she was twenty minutes ago doesn’t tell me shit about how she is now, and I’m not just gonna sit here on my hands while time ticks by. It’s fucking uglier than you can imagine down here.”

“Which is exactly why none of us can afford to have you screw this up worse by going off half cocked. An extra ten minutes won’t cost anyone half as much time as a second emergency will. Right?”

“Fine, you’ve got an extra ten minutes,” Dusty said, trying and failing to sound ‘light.’ “Shall we hang up and drive?” This time, he ended the call.

That had been rude. He knew it. Thom was out here putting himself at risk to help them both. But what if Colleen drowned while Dusty waited? Would Thom have waited around for Dusty to show up if it were Anna down there? Dusty didn’t think so, and Thom should have known better than to ask it of him. …Dusty felt the heat in him begin to fade—a little. Yes. Thom often did know better. He’d always seemed to, at least. And Dusty would apologize—at the first opportunity—and Thom would understand, and, god, Dusty just wanted this over and Colleen safe again.

He put the truck in gear, turned around, and left the overpass. At 80th, he turned east and gunned it all the way to Baker. There was clearly no one to collide with down here tonight, and sure as hell no one to write him a speeding ticket. After turning onto Baker, he stopped at 81st again, though they were never going to find Colleen, much less help her any without getting a whole lot closer.

He looked down at the water around him, then around the intersection, estimating depth. Enough to look impressive, and moving at a real clip, but still well below his running boards. Thom’s tires were pretty massive. How far before it got much deeper, he wondered. This truck was more than hefty enough to handle at least another foot, maybe more. Didn’t they always show it splashing through riverbeds on those commercials? …Not that Dusty put much faith in commercials. Still…

He looked up at his rearview mirror. No headlights yet. He glanced at his watch. Almost ten minutes since he’d hung up on Thom. Back streets… What if Thom was trying to talk his way past some roadblock right now? How long might that take before Thom gave up and called Dusty to admit he couldn’t get here after all? How long was Dusty really supposed to sit here hoping Colleen’s grip was holding, her car was staying put? He peered around the flooded intersection again. Eighteen inches max, and not all that turbulent. Not here, at least.

“Slow and careful as a turtle, Thom,” he murmured, putting the truck back in gear and letting it creep forward. Just a couple inches. Then a couple more. As he reached the intersection’s far side, still moving at a snail’s pace, the water remained below his running boards, except where current piled up against the tires. But a five-ton four-by-four didn’t care about that.

Inch by inch, he crept forward, looking at the rearview mirror from time to time. Still no headlights. He was nearly to 82nd before water started lapping at the running boards—still well below the doors, though. The truck rode stable as boulder. If he could just get close enough to see where Colleen was…make sure she was still there at all…he could call Thom back and fill him in—speed them right into the ‘make-a-plan’ phase without more wasted time.

As he started crossing 82nd, though, the road grew suddenly rough beneath his tires, and the water visibly more turbulent and laden with debris. It had crept up to the truck’s doorsills now as well. He slowed further. Either rubble of some kind was gathering on the bottom here, or… He glanced around again at the choppy, foaming current sweeping past him. There’d been a lot of griping in the papers that fall about cheap-ass paving, and potholes proliferating all around the city—how much municipal agencies weren’t doing to fix the problem. If the road itself was going out beneath him here, it was time to stop. “Safety first, Thom,” he muttered, angling toward the curb where he pulled up and stopped. “See? Not such a reckless idiot.”

Five minutes later, however, there was still no sign of Thom as Dusty sat there, less than half a block from 83rd. Not one hundred feet ahead, he’d be able to see for himself whether she was here somewhere or not. Ten extra minutes. That’s what they’d said, and it had been near twice that now.

83rd itself was a rampage. Dusty knew better than to risk taking the truck any closer yet. Not before he was sure he’d found the right place and Thom was here to help him get her out somehow. But that didn’t mean there was no way to go see whether she was even there. Craning his neck for a better look around, it seemed clear that up against the building fronts the water ran far more slowly. And there were lots of things to hold on to—doorframes, awning supports, bike racks, light poles, mailboxes, downspouts, external plumbing and conduit… If he just hugged the street sides, and moved cautiously, wading to the corner to look around for Colleen should be plenty doable. One way or another, he’d be getting wet here—any minute now. Why put it off?

He’d seen a Ziploc bag of Colleen’s toiletries in the pile beside him, which he found and emptied into a small box of her school books. Then he sealed his phone into the emptied Ziploc, and folded it into an interior breast pocket of his raincoat, zipping that shut as well. He removed the keys from the ignition, making sure to leave the truck’s lights on so Thom would see it if he arrived before Dusty got back from the corner. He’d need a good, long coil of rope from behind the seat as well, to tether himself to the truck in case he lost his footing somewhere. Safety first, right, Thom? But to get behind the seat, he’d have to leave the truck. Time to take the plunge.

After placing the spotlight on the center divider where it would be easily reached from outside, he shoved the cab door open, and cussed under his breath as several inches of water rushed in to drown the floor well. Fuck it. This was a truck, not a limo. It would dry out again.

Gripping the door with one hand and the sill with his other, Dusty lowered himself carefully into the thigh-deep water, gasping through his teeth as it flooded his layers of clothing, mountain-stream-cold, and moving faster and more forcefully than he’d expected. He leaned into the current, still gripping the truck, and took a moment to adjust his footing and catch his breath. Then he reached up and pulled the seatback forward to get at a coil of heavy nylon rope, which he shoved up over one arm onto his shoulder before reaching back in to grab the battery spot. Thus equipped, he shoved the cab door closed, leaned even further into the current, hugging the truck side, and began moving back along the bed toward the tailgate. It was a longer route to the curbside, but if he fell, there’d be more truck to grab onto before he was swept past it.

By the time he reached the curb, Dusty was getting the hang of pushing his legs through the current and finding footing on the unseen bottom. He set his spotlight on the truck bed wall, and tied one end of his rope securely to a cleat near the tailgate. He wrapped the trailing rope once around his waist, and placed the remaining coil in his left hand, along with his retrieved spotlight, to play out as he moved down the street. That done, Dusty turned carefully and let go of the truck to stagger toward the front of a dry cleaning shop. Nothing dry getting cleaned in here tonight, he thought, reaching out with his right hand to grab hold of a partially submerged security grate pulled across its entrance.

As he’d expected, water up against the building flowed far less swiftly as it swirled and boiled past every obstacle and protruding surface. Wading became easier than it had been out in the open street. Still, he kept his free hand clamped to any available anchor as he started down Baker toward 83rd.

The going was anything but fast. Though less swift here, the water still tried constantly to lift or shove his legs around, and it was unnerving to have no idea what his feet would find until they found it. He turned his spotlight on and pointed it down into the muddy water, but its bright beam just vanished inches into the chocolate-colored flow. Periodically, invisible objects brushed or bumped past him beneath the surface on their way to the greater maelstrom. All the spotlight really did was cast blinding reflections off the water to further degrade his vision, so he turned it off again to save battery. Playing out the coil of rope wound around his waist while keeping hold of his spotlight with the same hand was an awkward juggling act as well, but he needed his right hand to anchor and balance himself as he staggered and lunged drunkenly from bike rack to mailbox to doorjamb to signpost.

By the time Dusty reached the corner, the water was crotch-deep—even higher where the current climbed his body on the upstream side. His legs were half-numb with cold by now, and the shoving match being played with them had grown a lot more forceful. Water seemed to flow here both toward and away from the mother-flow on 83rd. The roar of its passage out there was unbelievable. And Dusty’s hundred-plus feet of tether to the truck was proving a double-edged precaution, at best. It had become nearly impossible to keep the line taut enough to prevent it from dipping into the water behind him, where it was tugged upon by current, and snagged on things very unhelpfully.

There were only six or seven feet left between the signpost Dusty’s right arm was now wrapped around and a coxcombing light pole at the corner from which he would finally have an unobstructed view of 83rd Avenue. There seemed just enough rope left on his depleted coil to make it there—assuming he could keep his footing across the surging gap. As he readied himself for the attempt, several wooden crates of who knew what raced through the intersection in front of him—alarming evidence of just how fast the current was moving out there. This was no joke.

He twisted around to look back up Baker, hoping he might finally spot Thom’s headlights, but there was still only darkness behind the lights of his own truck. Dusty was half glad he hadn’t waited any longer to come looking for Colleen, and half afraid that something had gone wrong and Thom might never make it here to help him deal with whatever he discovered around this corner.

Just to the pole, he thought. See what he could see, then return to the truck and call Thom with whatever he had learned, find out where he was, and start working on a plan.

He took a moment to tie the remaining rope off at his waist. Then, with his right hand clamped once again around the signpost, Dusty leaned out toward the corner, moving his left foot as far as he could into the current. When it felt firmly planted, he dragged his right foot out to join it, then shifted his weight aggressively upstream, and released the signpost. For a moment, he just stood, leaning even further into the flow, and solidifying his balance as rushing water fanned up his side. Then he took a single crab-walked step toward the light pole—his right arm thrust out for balance, his left hand crushing the handle of his spotlight, the slackened rope behind him bouncing and yanking at his waist. One small side-step at a time, he continued toward the pole, grateful each time his feet found level pavement and good traction. Three feet from the pole, he simply lunged across the remaining space and threw both arms around it as his chest made contact. After finding his feet again, he put his back directly to the current, keeping his chest to the pole, and let the flood itself hold him to his anchor. Only then did he raise his head and start scanning the wide, dimly lit rampage for some sign of Colleen.

He found nothing at first but muddy, roaring water, fluming up against architectural pillars and doorjambs, sign and light poles like the one he clung to—along both the avenue’s curbs and its center, and countless other obstacles heavy or securely attached enough not to have washed away. What light bounced off the clouds above him or scattered from his headlights back on Baker just reduced the scene to near-abstracts of pale foam and grayscale shadow until he raised his battery spot and switched it on again. Mud and foam washing past darkened shop fronts were all thrown into ghostly relief as his beam swept past them. But he found no sign of Colleen’s car.

Had all this been for nothing?

A sudden burst of intermittent vibration against his chest told Dusty that his phone was ringing, though the ringtone itself was lost in flood roar. Thom, most likely. Dusty glanced hopefully up Baker, but still found no second set of headlights. He ached to know what Thom was calling for, but wasn’t about to risk digging his phone out here. Whatever the message was, it would have to wait a few more minutes.

He raised his spotlight for one last sweep before giving up, pointing it farther down the avenue this time, and squinting toward the farthest margins of its light for anything he might have missed before. Back and forth across the roiling water, then halting at an oddly vertical movement almost a block further down the torrent. At first, he saw only one more hump of surging water piled against a center median light pole. But then he saw it again: a thin, pale stick of some kind, thrust straight up from the flume to sway back and forth. Or—not just a flume of water after all—a pale car roof—tilted slightly toward him, wedged against the light pole in a fan of spray. On top of it, a pile of rags from which thrust up, not a stick—an arm—waving at his beam.

“Oh god,” Dusty breathed, the words driven from his lungs as if by a punch to the chest.

Hugging the light pole with one arm, he waved the spotlight frantically and screamed her name, though he knew she’d never hear him. She must have seen him waving, though, for she abruptly stretched higher and waved again, more vigorously, then slammed her arm down to grab her roof as the car skewed several degrees beneath her, imbalanced, perhaps, by the very movement Dusty’s own waving had inspired.

At that moment, everything inside of Dusty spasmed in a single, rigid plea against the certain knowledge that, if Colleen died here, the whole rest of his life would just spiral endlessly inward toward her absence. There would be no one, nothing, ever, to replace her.

His phone began to ring again. He turned to peer up Baker and saw a second pair of headlights in the street behind his truck at last! He yanked the zipper on his jacket down a couple inches, shoved the spotlight inside it, wedged against his chest, grappled the phone from its bag in his breast pocket, and brought it to his ear. “Thom! She’s here! I can see her, but—”

“What the hell are you doing?” Thom cut him off. “I said do nothing ’til—”

“She’s not good,” Dusty pled. “I saw the car move. She could—”

“Stay where you are,” Thom growled. “I’m following your rope down. Don’t move until I get there. For any reason. Are you listening this time?”

“I got nothing if she dies,” said Dusty, his lungs wrapped in tightening leather bands, his swollen eyes blurred with tears.

“What’s she got if you die?” Thom asked unsympathetically. “She’s hung on this long, she’ll probably last another minute. But if you move a goddamn muscle before I get down there, I swear I’ll just drown you myself and get it over with—for all of us. Get me now?”

“Hurry,” Dusty begged, gazing back into the darkness separating him from Colleen. He pushed the phone back into his breast pocket, then pulled out the spot, turned it on, raised it in Colleen’s direction with his finger on the switch, and flashed it off and on a couple times, hoping she would understand he’d seen her. After that, he turned it off and waited in the dark, against the pole. He could see Thom coming now, hugging the walls along Baker, just as Dusty had, with a flashlight of his own. Dusty had no idea how they were going to reach her, so far down there, across all this water. He hoped Thom would know. Thom thought on his feet better than anyone Dusty had ever met—like some kind of mental ninja sometimes. They had Thom’s winch, and a lot of sturdy wired rope. Surely, Thom would know what to do with it. Because Dusty was completely out of ideas. He’d come roaring down here with a giant wad of attitude, and no plan at all. Might as well own it. All their lives were in Thom’s hands now. Please, Thom, have a plan.

“Dusty!” Thom called across the flood roar, perhaps ten feet from the corner now. “I’ll take in the rope while you get off that pole! We need to talk about how to do this!”

He nodded and turned, adjusting his footing to start the crabwalk back. But a loud, hollow thump and a metallic bang issued from the shadows of a covered promenade just upstream on Dusty’s side of the avenue, causing both Thom and him to turn. On its heels came another crash and the sound of breaking glass. A lot of it—display windows maybe? Suddenly, the water rushing toward Dusty was strewn with dark lumps of—something.

Thom shouted as Dusty lurched back and hugged the light pole, raising the spotlight, and thumbing it on to reveal what looked like filing cabinets tumbling through the foaming rush around him. He swung around to put the pole between them and himself, only then spotting what looked like an overturned panel truck against the building front not far up-current, spilling its contents into the surge.

Two of the metal cabinets swept by to Dusty’s right just as a third one hit the far side of his light pole with a clang, bouncing off into the current on his left, and accelerating through the narrow gap between him and the corner. Thom yanked Dusty’s tether higher, but not fast enough, as another cabinet swept up to collide with the first from behind, causing both objects to rise against each other and snag Dusty’s rope as they surged past and back out toward the open current.

The rope sprang taut before Dusty understood what had just happened. He had only time to turn, wide-eyed, toward Thom before being yanked backward off the pole and pulled under by the line around his waist. He could see nothing in the rushing dark, had no clear idea which way was even up as he banged across the submerged pavement, struggling to untie the knot at his waist. He began to choke just as his face broke the surface again, and, to his relief, the rope went suddenly slack—having slipped its loosened knot, perhaps, or just been snapped off by the cabinets. Flailing and sputtering, barely able to breathe against the cold, he struggled to find purchase with his feet, but the street seemed to have vanished beneath him. He was, somehow, in the middle of the avenue already, moving with impossible speed on a current suddenly full of debris tumbling around and against him as it passed.

For a time, he struggled just to keep his face above the surface. Then, mere yards ahead, and coming fast, he saw Colleen, her eyes wide and frightened. She stretched her arms out, as if hoping to grapple him from the flood.

There was no way she could succeed, and somewhere in the chaos of his thoughts, Dusty understood that if she didn’t stop trying, she’d likely be dragged in too. He shook his head at her, and let himself submerge, pushing against nothing but water and moving debris to get as far out of her path as possible, praying she would just stay put as he went by. Oh, Collie, he thought, growing numb and dazed with fright and cold. I’m sorry.

He made another massive effort to right himself and regain control, determined not to do to her what he had been unable to bear imagining done to him, but the muddy water was as black as outer space, and just kept turning him whichever way it wished. He was growing too weak to flail anymore.

            A raft of heavy branches raked Dusty’s side as it washed by. Grabbing desperately for any kind of anchor, he caught hold of it, gaining just enough leverage to lift his head above the water and gasp for precious air. For a moment, he stared upstream, stretched out and shaken by the passing flood like a windsock in a watery gale. He could no longer see Colleen, or anything he recognized. And then the tangle he was holding began to roll, snagging his coat and dragging him under again. His back and shoulders slammed hard into something rigid and unyielding. The street, he realized! He was being dragged along the bottom by an uprooted tree from which he could find no way to disentangle himself. Another bounce, a grinding skid, and the bottom fell away. But seconds later he was shoved against the street again.

The need to breathe became more fierce, the panic to reach air. He clawed blindly at the branches, trying to climb ‘up’ only to find himself crushed against the street again. Find the surface! Breathe! Breathe or…

Tumbling, beaten and entangled, Dusty’s body seemed to fall away. His mind grew still. So this is how I end, he thought—fear and sadness suddenly just ghosts around the edges of his being. Only shame remained. I’m so sorry, Collie. I’m so sorry.

And then, the darkness softened strangely as a pair of arms slid around him from behind. Dusty twisted feebly, trying to pierce the suddenly illuminated murk to see whose arms they were, fearful that Colleen had tried to save him after all. That she would drown here too now.

But there beside him, Dusty found the strangest person he had ever seen—a woman, naked, sparkling weirdly, and beautiful despite her night-black eyes as big as soup spoons, and her hair like purple ribbons of kelp. He saw her by a light that came from deep inside herself, turning the obsidian darkness around them to umber and green as she turned his face to hers and kissed him hard upon the lips. Her kiss was full of air, but Dusty was already too far gone to stay, and knew she was the last thing he would ever see.

He had heard that people saw things when they died. …

Are you an angel? he wondered, half expecting her to hear the thought and answer. She seemed to shift before his eyes—the way intense heat sometimes makes things shimmer—now a woman, now a fish, now a woman-fish, fish-woman… Not what I’d expected, he thought without emotion as the darkness took him.