Infinite(92)

There it was.

I was back where I started.

Among the cornfields and trees, the flood monster loomed ahead of me, rolling, tumbling, like a dragon unleashed. I stopped in the middle of the road and got out into the teeth of the storm. The pavement ended just ahead of me, and the wild river began where the bridge should have been. The mud and water had become a kind of lava, whipping debris from the fields and roads in its teeth. I saw a highway sign making cartwheels like a circular saw. An electrical pole, dangling wires. Then an entire tree, its branches grasping for the surface like the crooked fingers of a skeleton.

I ran to the fringe of the water and followed it off the road into sodden fields. I kicked off my shoes, took off my belt and my shirt, anything that would slow me down. The wind gusted with a roar, nearly pushing me over. Rain stung my eyes, and another huge branch of lightning turned night to day. Barely a second passed before thunder exploded like a bomb. The storm was right on top of me now, not moving, firing all its weapons at me. I wiped my face and tried to see where I needed to go.

Where was the car?

Where was Karly?

I couldn’t be far, but the river covered everything under a blanket of deep, frenzied rapids that wound over the land in both directions. Debris rolled past me, floating up and down on the waves, as if all the animals on the merry-go-round had been set free. I looked for some clue, something, anything breaching the surface to let me find her. A tire. A fender. The car was near me, trapped under the water along with my wife, but there was nothing to tell me where she was.

I stood there, needing help. Please!

That was when the Many Worlds sent me . . . myself.

Dylan Moran burst from the river right in front of me. We weren’t even ten feet apart. He rose up like a sea creature, covered in mud and slime, spitting out water and gasping for breath. It was déjà vu in reverse. I was him. He was me. This was the moment when it had all started, but now we’d changed places.

He was in the water, and I was the man on the riverbank.

When the lightning flashed again, Dylan spotted me across the surging flood. It took a moment for him to register what he was seeing. I knew the feeling, because I’d already been through it. His face twisted with confusion, just the way mine had, because the man on the riverbank couldn’t be real. But I was.

“Help me!” he shouted. My words.

The lightning faded to darkness, and he called out again: “My wife is drowning! Help me find her!”

Then he was gone, diving down into the water. With a kick of his feet, Dylan disappeared, but I knew he wouldn’t find Karly. I’d been where he was, and I’d failed. He would search and search and come up empty. He would swim into nothingness. He would swim into other worlds.

Saving her was up to me now.

I waded into the water, where the wild current knocked me sideways. My feet spilled out on the slippery ground beneath me. I landed hard on my back, and the river sucked me into a whirlpool before I even took a breath. In an instant, the rapids spun me downstream in crazy circles. I choked, rising and falling, and finally, I fought back to the surface, where I gagged out water and desperately inhaled. The river swept against me like a speeding truck, but I kicked furiously with my hands and feet to fight the flow and stay where I was.

The car had to be submerged close by, but I couldn’t see it. Once I was down below, I would be swimming blind. I was running out of time. I only had one last chance.

I swelled my lungs with a series of deeper breaths. In. Out. In. Out. I forced myself to go slowly, taking in more air each time as I got ready to dive. On the last one, I held my breath with my chest full. For a split second, I bobbed on the surface in the tumult of the storm, and then I shot deep down below the water and was immersed in blackness and silence.

The river was my enemy. Invisible debris swept from miles of fields shot through the narrows and assaulted me. Tree limbs punched my stomach, trying to drive the pent-up air from my lungs. Sharp objects flayed my skin. My eyes were wide open, but I saw nothing. I cast my arms as wide as a skydiver and felt a strange, slick sensation of speed as the current whipped me along. I didn’t fight it. Wherever the flood had carried the car, I wanted it to carry me, too. Any second, we would collide in the channel, this huge obstacle in my path, like running full speed into a brick wall.

It happened so fast that I almost sailed right by it.

I felt myself bumping against the mud and jagged tree roots of the riverbank. One second, there was nothing, and an instant later, cool, slippery metal glided under my fingers. The car was right there, stuck in place against the bank, but I felt the river stripping me away from it. I grasped for any kind of handhold to keep me where I was, scratching at steel and glass, digging into the dirt of the riverbank with my nails.

Then something banged into my palm. By instinct, I snapped two fingers around it and held on. The river began to carry me away, but my body jerked to a stop. I struggled with my knuckles bent back and the water prying away my fingers. I thrust out my other hand and grabbed whatever had rescued me. With a solid hold, I felt the metal under my hand and recognized what it was. A side-view mirror.

I was there. I was at the car. The current dragged me sideways like a flag in a strong wind, but I clung to the mirror and used my free hand to thump on the windshield of the car. To alert her. To give her hope. To tell her that I was here. Through the black, dense water, I heard something that made my heart soar.