The Time Bubble Box Set 2, стр. 293
When I said I was in front of the café, I should have said Iwas in front of where the café used to be. It simply wasn’t there anymore. Theouter shell of the building that had housed it was still there, but anythingthat wasn’t bolted down had been swept away by the giant waves that had crashedin that day, sucking everything back down to the beach with them as theyretreated.
The umbrellas, tables, chairs and various other bits ofdebris from that café were now scattered all around me, along with numerousother items from the buildings and streets, even whole cars and trucks. Nothingthat had been in the firing line of one of nature’s most devastating forces wassafe. The beach and everything for some considerable distance inland nowresembled an overflowing landfill site.
The clean-up operation had barely begun yet. The disasterhad only happened five days ago and the search was still continuing forsurvivors. That was exactly why I was still here. Most of the Brits that hadbeen here had been evacuated but I had refused to leave, desperate to findRachel.
By this stage I had known that there was probably littlehope. Very few survivors had been found after the first twenty-four hours, soarriving here again on New Year’s Eve was of little use to me now. If only Ihad some element of control over my time travel. If I could have timed my arrivalhere a week earlier I could have saved her.
What could I have done differently? I thought back over theevents of that morning. There were plenty of things I could have done. Thetsunami had not come in until late morning. I could have found her and got herto higher ground. I could also have saved more than just her – hundreds, if notthousands, of people. That’s assuming I could convince people to heed mywarnings.
How was it that I had survived and Rachel hadn’t? It waslargely down to my excessive drinking whilst celebrating Christmas the previousevening.
Both of us had been at a party on the beach with many othersthat had gone on very late, but Rachel had gone to bed considerably earlierthan me. Had I not stayed out, I would very likely have been on the beach atthe time the tsunami struck leading to me joining Rachel in her watery grave.
She had left much earlier than me, having met a charmingFrenchman and accepting his invite to go back to his hotel with him. My sisterwas only three years older than me, but that made a huge difference at thattime when it came to our sex lives. At twenty-one, with three years atuniversity behind her, she was confident sexually. In contrast, I was stillfinding my feet, having had just one boyfriend.
She winked at me as she left that night, handing me her roomkey and telling me not to wait up. It was the last time I ever saw her.
The following morning, I had come down late. Not only was Isexually inexperienced at eighteen, I was also still finding my way withalcohol. I hadn’t yet learnt when to stop and had stayed out far later than Ishould have.
I had eventually gone back to the hotel so much the worsefor wear with drink that I was unable to surface until late morning. When Idid, I had just about managed to make my way down to the café and order somebreakfast, hiding behind dark glasses, when I became aware that somethingwasn’t right.
The veranda of the café overlooked the already busy beach.It made for a pretty scene, fringed with palm trees beyond which were scatteredrocks on the white sands. But this morning there was something different aboutthe view.
I couldn’t see the shoreline, the water having retreated farfurther than I had ever seen it. What I could see were people on the beachwandering far out onto the exposed seabed, presumably curious as to the causeof this strange phenomenon. They didn’t seem to have any inkling that theremight be any danger, but I felt a sudden premonition about what was about tohappen.
A memory stirred in me about a children’s book I had readmany years earlier about a young woman trapped on a desert island. In thestory, I remember something similar occurring, and what followed it wassomething terrifying. It was something that I had heard referred to wrongly inthe past as a tidal wave, but I knew it by the correct name – a tsunami.
Instinctively, I knew these foolhardy people wandering farout onto a seabed that had never been exposed before. My first thought had beento jump up and shout a warning, but they were a good half a mile away, some ofthem. Besides, looking further out to the horizon, I quickly realised I was toolate.
Some of the people furthest out had turned back and wererunning back up the beach but they were already doomed. There was no way they wouldbe able to outrun the huge surge of water racing up behind them and I watchedhorrified as it began to swallow them up.
It wasn’t a huge, towering wave as I had seen tsunamisportrayed in Hollywood movies. It was more a huge surge of water, relentlesslysweeping all before it in its path and it was coming towards me fast.
I couldn’t save the people on the beach but I jumped up andyelled at everyone in the café, all of whom still seemed oblivious to what wasgoing on.
“Tsunami! Run for your lives!”
I was expecting everyone to start screaming, but theydidn’t, just looking at me as if I was crazy. I wasn’t waiting around to tryand convince them, I needed to follow my own advice. Sidestepping the waiter,who unbelievably tried to block my way, thinking I was trying to get out ofpaying the bill, I ran out of the café and as fast as I could up the streetaway from the beach.
Even with the head start I had on all the other people whowere only now starting to twig what was