Serpent's Kiss

At first Annja had hoped that the cliff might be above the crest line of the tsunami. The wave that had struck the coastline in 2004 was reportedly 108 feet high. Annja couldn’t tell how high the water was, but she could see it was higher than the cliff.

The site crew stared at the approaching wave in open-mouthed horror. Then the screaming started.

“Get into the trees!” Annja yelled. “Climb the trees!”

She didn’t know if that would work, but there was no way they were going to outrun the wave. Climbing was the only option.

“The trees!” Annja yelled again.

Lochata gave more orders in her native tongue.

The dig crew started climbing trees as another tremor shook the ground. Annja had a quick image of the cliff shearing off and plunging into the sea with them on it. It was a terrifying thought.

She ducked into the small tent she’d been issued, grabbed her backpack and slid it over one shoulder. On her way to the nearest tree, she took a coil of rope with a grappling hook from the back of one of the four-wheel-drive vehicles they had to help with transportation.

Rope was always important on a dig, and she knew it would come in handy while they were in the trees. If nothing else, they could use it to lash their supplies together or as a safety line until the floodwaters subsided.

The ground rumbled again. The approaching wave drowned out all other sounds.

Nearby, one of the young men opened the door to one of the SUVs and tried to clamber inside. Annja grabbed the young man’s shoulder. She pulled him out onto the muddy ground harder than she’d intended. He hit the ground and rolled, but fear gave him springs and he bounced up at once.

“What are you doing?” the young man demanded. His name was Nigel. He was one of the Brits on the team. He’d been something of a troublemaker who didn’t always pull his full shift and couldn’t be counted on to be thorough. Many of the team had started resenting him.

“If you climb in that vehicle you’re going to drown,” Annja shouted over the growing roar.

“We can’t stay here, you bloody cow!” Nigel started for the SUV again.

Annja moved into his path.

Nigel threw a vicious punch at Annja’s head.

Annja shifted, dropped her hips to lower her center of gravity, blocked his punch with the back of her left wrist and turned it outside, away from her head. She responded with a jab and almost caught him full in the face with it before she opened her hand to slap him.

The young man went down again. This time he remained on his hands and knees for a moment while his senses whirled. He spit curses.

Ignoring the venom in his tone, Annja grabbed him by the shoulder and hustled him to the nearest tree large enough to support their weight. Four other site workers had already taken refuge among the thick branches.

“Higher!” Annja shouted.

The others clambered higher.

“Get up the tree, Nigel.” Annja pressed him against the rough bark of the teak tree.

Teak grew freely in southern India, especially in the Tamil Nadu district. The trees towered over a hundred feet and provided plenty of branches for the climbers to use to haul themselves up.

Growling curses, Nigel climbed the tree. Annja followed just as the wave smashed into the cliff face hard enough to make the ground shiver. In the next instant, the wave rolled into Annja like a battering ram and knocked her into the tree trunk with enough force to stun her.

The rough bark smashed into the side of her face, and burning pain followed. She hung on to the tree out of desperation, but as she realized her grip would hold, the wave rolled over her. In the next second she was underwater and drowning.

3

Annja clung to the bark and hoped it didn’t give way beneath her fingers. All she saw was swirling water. The floodwaters muted her hearing, but she heard her heart beating frantically. Stay calm, she told herself. You’re going to be all right.

She knew from experience that she was prone to tell herself that lie every time things turned out badly.

She tilted her head back and looked up the tree. She couldn’t tell how high the water went. She felt the tree quiver under the onslaught of the flood.

Staying underwater wasn’t an option. Grimly, Annja slid her arms and legs up the trunk and felt the bark bite deeply into her bare flesh. She crept up slowly, only inches at a time.

Just as her lungs felt near to burst, her head broke the surface. She managed a quick breath and turned seaward. Another wave slapped her in the face and almost knocked her from her precarious hold. She caught a branch above her head and hauled herself out of the water.

Almost full dark had rolled in with the tsunami. Annja surveyed the trees for the survivors. The roar of the water made conversation almost impossible. But she heard her name.

“Annja!” A flashlight beam lanced through the darkness.

“Here!” Annja shouted.

The bright beam stung her eyes. She turned her head away. She sat on a branch eight feet above the water. The level didn’t appear to be rising.

“They said you were underwater,” Lochata shouted from the nearby tree.

“Not anymore.” Judging herself to be at a safe height, Annja shrugged out of her backpack and checked it. It was constructed so the main cargo area, where she carried her notebook computer, her camera and her other electronic equipment, was waterproof. She’d carefully packed it when the storm approached. The only worry was that debris might have smashed it.

Everything felt all right. She didn’t want to open the backpack in the rain to find out. After selecting a sturdy branch above her, she used the straps to secure the backpack. She took a flashlight from one of the outside pockets.

For the moment, no sign remained of the cliff as the water continued to surge through the jungle and inland.

That’s got to be at least fifteen feet deep, Annja thought. She tried to remember how high the lowest tree branches had been from the ground. Then she realized she didn’t know where the lowest branches were anymore.

“How long is this going to last?” someone above her asked.

Annja looked and saw Jason Kim sitting a few branches up. He clung to the tree bole. A young German woman had her arms wrapped around his waist. Both of them looked terrified.

“I don’t know,” Annja said. “Could be only a few minutes. Might possibly be hours.”

“Is it over?” the young woman asked.

Annja was hesitant to answer. “I think so.” Given the amount of water that had flooded the land, she knew that whatever had happened at sea to cause it had to have been powerful.

The massive tree swayed under the constant bombardment of the waves. They were lessening, but still dangerous.

Lightning burned through the night and revealed the dark clouds swirling and twisting overhead. The harsh peal of thunder came immediately.

Another crack, this one different from the thunder, issued from the left. A chorus of yells and cries for help followed.

Turning in the direction of the voices, Annja spotted a teak tree as it fell into the water. Three dig members clung to the branches as it went down. Annja guessed that the tree had been poorly rooted or had rotted and weakened. Either way, the surging sea started to carry the tree away.

“They’re going to get killed,” Jason Kim said.