The Eighth Continent by Rhett C Bruno EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
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- Author:Rhett C Bruno
- Language: English
- Genre: Space Exploration Science Fiction
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- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
The boat scraped over a submerged car’s roof, and Nick Morrison pushed
off with the Halligan bar before the outboard could foul. Brown water
slopped over the gunnel rail.
Ryder Stillman crouched in the prow, peering through the rain with
hungry eyes. “Man, look at these houses.”
“Why do people still live here?” Nick said. “Why don’t they just pack
up and leave?”
“’Cause they’re rich. Throw enough money at it, fixes everything,”
Ryder said.
The colonnades and verandahs of palatial homes seemed to float above
flooded lawns. Merritt Island was one of the most exclusive neighborhoods
in Florida. Of course, that didn’t protect it from the weather. Four category
3s in five years, and now Tropical Storm Molly had dumped enough water
into Banana River to submerge the whole isthmus.
Nick glanced at the phone strapped to his wrist, checking the app that
connected rescuers to people trapped by the floods. “It’s this one.”
He guided the boat toward a three-story colonial, its hipped roof
missing a lot of tiles. Like most houses in the area, it was raised off the
ground on stilts with a garage underneath. All the same, water lapped at the
downstairs windows and wet curtains flapped around broken glass.
“What a waste. When I strike it rich, I sure ain’t gonna live in Hurricane
Alley,” Ryder said.
“You’d blow it all on something pointless. When I’m rich—”
Ryder laughed. “You’re never gonna be rich. You don’t have what it
takes.”
Nick compressed his answer into a soundless exhalation. He
maneuvered the boat across the submerged front yard, around a fallen palm
tree with a child’s bicycle caught in its branches. The arched front door
stood open, so they wouldn’t need the Halligan bar to break it down.
“Harriet Fitzgerald,” he read off the app. “Seventy-eight.”
He cut the outboard. The current carried the boat into the porch, and
they moored it to a column.
The boat belonged to Ryder. He used it for fishing and duck-hunting,
when they weren’t convoying up and down the East Coast, responding to
volunteer calls. Of course, Ryder’s motives were far from selfless. Before
disembarking, he opened a gun box fastened to the inside of the hull. Nick
caught the glint of precious metals from watches and jewelry stirring
around as Ryder fished his SIG Sauer P238 out. Ryder locked the gun box
and stuck the pistol into his thigh pocket.
It was a sensible precaution. They had surprised looters more than once
in storm-flooded neighborhoods. Nick took his dive knife.
They splashed into the house through thigh-deep water, lugging the
folding stretcher and first-aid kit, shouting, “Ms. Fitzgerald! Ma’am!
Excuse me!”
Their southern politeness never failed. Ryder was a Charleston native.
Nick had been born in South Africa, but he’d grown up in North Carolina.
“Ma’am, you there?”
“In here,” a weak voice called from the back of the house.
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