Ship Breaker (Ship Breaker #1)(15)

Nailer pulled a dirty sheet over himself. From the far side of the room, his old man muttered, “You did good.”

Nailer felt a flush of relief at the compliment. It carried with it the whiff of a father that he remembered from before, when he was small and his mother was still alive. A different time, a different father. In the dim light, Richard Lopez could almost be the man who had helped Nailer carve the Rust Saint’s image into the wall above his mother’s sickbed. But that had been a long time ago.

Nailer curled in on himself, glad to feel safe for the night. Tomorrow might be different, but this day had ended well. Tomorrow would handle itself.

6

The storm rolled onto the coast with all the implacable power of an old-world tank. Towering cloud banks built on the horizon and then swept inward, bearing steady rain. Thunder grumbled over the ocean and lightning lit the underbellies of the clouds, flashing from sea to sky and back again.

The deluge opened.

Nailer woke to the roar of storm on bamboo walls. Wind and water poured in through the open door, lit by explosions of electricity. His father was just a shadow slumped beside him, mouth open, snoring. Wind whirled through the house, scraping Nailer’s face with cold fingers, then leaping to the wall and tearing away Nailer’s picture of the clipper ship. The paper swirled madly for a moment before being sucked out the window into darkness, disappearing before Nailer could even try to grab it. Rain spattered his skin, coming in cold where palm thatching was already tearing away under the increasing battery of the winds.

Nailer crawled over his father and stumbled to the door. Outside, the beach swarmed with activity, people moving skiffs deeper into the trees, chasing after livestock. The storm looked worse than just a blow, maybe a city killer even, the way the clouds swirled and scattered lightning across the wrecks offshore. Even though the tide should have been out, the waves and breakers were big all across the beach, the storm surge pressing inland.

His father claimed that the storms were worse every year, but Nailer had never seen anything like the monster bearing down on them. He turned back into the shack.

“Dad!” he shouted. “Everyone’s moving higher! We need to get out of the surge!”

His father didn’t respond. The night crews were pouring off the wrecks. Men and women scrambling down hemp ladders, dangling and dropping like fleas jumping from a dog, plummeting into the increasing surf. Electricity outlined the black hulks against day-bright sky; then everything disappeared into blackness. Rain slashed the beach.

Nailer scrambled around the shack, looking for possessions to salvage. He tugged on his last set of clothes, grabbed the phosphor grease, found the silver earring and the luck bag of rice that he’d been given. The house creaked and heeled as wind gusted. The tin and bamboo wouldn’t last long.

The storm was a city killer for sure, what some people called a party wrecker or an Orleans Surge. When Nailer peered back out into the storm’s rage, he could see now that everyone was fleeing for heavy shelter. Shadow people clawing out of the darkness, hunched against curtains of wind and water as they dashed for safety. Running for things like the salvage train, with its iron freight cars that might not fly away.

Nailer dragged all their possessions over to his father’s inert form. He pulled the sheet off the bed and fumbled one-handed with their belongings. His wounded shoulder burned with pain at the frantic effort. He shoved everything into the sheet and tied it in a bundle. More rain poured through the disintegrating thatch. His father’s pale skin gleamed with rain water and yet still he didn’t move.

Nailer grabbed a tattooed arm. “Dad!”

No response.

“Dad!” Nailer shook him again. Tried to drive his nails into the man’s dragon-decorated flesh. “Wake up!”

The man barely stirred, sunk so deep in amphetamine blowout that nothing affected him.

Nailer rocked back on his heels, suddenly thoughtful.

If they took the full brunt of the city killer, there wouldn’t be anything left here. He’d heard that sometimes a surge could move the coastline inland as much as a mile, turning beaches and trees into a murky swamp sea, the new ragged tide line of rising sea levels. A big blow could easily move the hulks of the ships as well. Might shove them right over the house, even if it didn’t blow away.

Nailer straightened. He hefted the sheet, groaning at the cumbersome load. When he reached the doorway, the wind blasted him, lashing his face with rain and sand and leaves. More lightning slashed the beach. In the flickering light, a chicken coop tumbled past, all the birds already gone, every one of them lost to the gray roar. Nailer looked back at his father, conflicted emotions warring within him.

The man wasn’t moving. The chemicals in his brain were so depleted he wasn’t going to come awake even for the storm. Sometimes when the crash was bad, his father could sleep for two days. Nailer normally blessed the peace his father’s drug crashes brought. It would be so much simpler…

Nailer set down the sack of possessions. Cursing himself for his own stupidity, he plunged into the storm. The man was a drunk and a bastard, but still, they were blood. They shared the same eyes, the same memories of his mother, the same food, the same liquor… Family, as much as he had.

A maelstrom of sand and copper screws and plastic shards swirled around him, the debris of the ship-breaking business ripping at his skin as he ran barefoot down the beach to Pima’s shack. Rust flakes, bits of insulation, a roll of wire. Trash strippings flying like knives.