The Killing Sea Read Online Free

feet hurt, so he stopped at the house for a pair of sandals and snatched a yellow shirt from the front table as well.
    He almost overlooked the letter on the table that he had already missed seeing once that morning. It was addressed to him in his father’s handwriting. He stuffed the envelope into the shirt pocket.
    And in the distance, along the seafront of Ujung Karang, screams rose from a hundred, a thousand, mouths.

Chapter 4
    The water around the trapped Dreamcatcher continued to drain. Sarah’s father grabbed the binoculars from the cockpit and aimed them out to sea. He was still focusing the knob when the Dreamcatcher ’s keel touched bottom. The sailboat tilted, throwing him off balance and knocking him against the railing. The binoculars flew out of his hand and over the side.
    â€œWe’d better get off the boat. Everybody, pack a bottle of water. And put on your shoes.” He said this as casually as if suggesting a picnic, but his hands were bunched into fists.
    Sarah snatched her sandals from the cockpit box and crammed them on. Her father slipped intohis loafers. Sarah’s mother was below in the slanted galley, getting out the bottled water from the storage bin.
    Peter, already wearing his sneakers, pointed seaward. “Look!”
    At the mouth of the bay a wave was rolling in, no bigger than a normal beach wave. But beyond it the horizon was no longer flat and level against the sky. The ocean had risen into a wobbling cliff of water, sunlight glinting off the towering face.
    â€œBetty!” Sarah’s father roared. “Forget the bottles! Get the hell out! Everybody, off, off! Run for the hill!”
    Sarah’s mother raced up the companionway and took in the nightmare scene on the horizon with one quick look. She grabbed Peter by the arms and swung him off the stern of the boat, where the water had already dried out to damp sand.
    â€œSurf Cat!” Peter cried. “Let me get Surf Cat!”
    The cat hurtled past Peter and streaked across the dried reef toward the jungle.
    Sarah and her parents jumped off the boat. The four of them sprinted toward the nearest spit of beach. Sarah came to an angled slope of coral that should have been underwater. The coral crunched under her sandals, slowing her down. Her father’s hand pushed her. “Faster!”
    Behind her she could hear a hiss of water rushing into the bay. From the exposed reef rose the familiar salty scent of low-tide wading pools, now mixed with a stink that smelled like sulfur. Several yards in front of her, the reef cracked open between two staghorn corals, and steaming green water erupted in a head-high geyser. She yelped and veered, which turned her at an angle so that she saw what happened next. The reef in front of her father split open and his leading leg plunged into the crack. The bone broke with an audible snap as he fell forward, his hand accidentally catching Peter on the ankles. Peter went tumbling as well.
    The water from the first wave growled and gurgled onto the outer coral beds.
    As Peter got to his feet, Sarah helped her mother pull her father out of the hole. His leg bent at a horrible angle midway between his knee and ankle.
    The onrushing water swirled around the sailboat, spilling over its lower side. Sarah had no name for what was just outside the bay—it wasn’t really a wave, but an uplifted chunk of dark water bigger than a city block. It loomed higher and higher over the mouth of the bay, tall enough to block out the morning sun and cast a shadow that raced over the shoreline.
    â€œIt’s no good,” Sarah’s father said. “You guys get going.”
    Sarah’s mother put an arm under his. Sarah did the same on his other side, but her mother pushed her arm away and said, “Take Peter. Run!”
    â€œThe highest ground,” her father said, grunting between clenched teeth. His tanned face had gone sallow.
    â€œNo,” Sarah said. She was