Gretchen muscled up beside Josie and pointed to their right. “There,” she shouted.
The flood had overtaken the front yards and porches of the houses. The last house was a two-story prefab with tan siding, its porch roof held up by thin, square white pillars made of PVC. Several mayoral candidate signs had become stuck on one of the pillars. Evelyn Bassett’s scrawny arms were wrapped tightly around another one of them. Her thin face was gray, her white hair pasted to her skull. The water rushed past her, already up to her armpits. Brownlow maneuvered the boat as close to her as he dared, but her arms were already slipping.
“She ain’t gonna be able to hold on much longer,” he hollered to Josie. “Get the throw bag!”
Josie’s hands scrambled to find the heavy red bag on the metal floor of the boat. It was filled with fifty feet of bright yellow floating rescue rope. Quickly, Josie uncinched the bag and pulled out several feet of rope, coiling it in her non-throwing hand. As she worked, Brownlow steered the boat downstream and away from Mrs. Bassett, anticipating that she’d be swept downstream soon. Brownlow was right. Mrs. Bassett’s arms tore away from the pillar, and the current rocketed her away. Josie stood, spreading her feet apart for balance, throw bag in her right hand.
“Remember,” Brownlow shouted. “To and through. Don’t miss.”
“To and through,” she mumbled to herself. Her heart thundered in her chest as she watched the water practically consume the elderly woman. With an underhanded throw, she tossed the bag toward Mrs. Bassett, aiming past—or through—her but also directly into her path so she could grab the line as soon as it reached her. The bag landed perfectly, a few feet above her head, the bright yellow line falling across her shoulder. As the current carried her past the boat, one of her hands reached up and grabbed onto the rope. Quickly, Josie wrapped her end of the rope behind her waist.
Brownlow yelled, “Give the end to Palmer! She’ll be the anchor.”
Handing the end of the line to Gretchen, Josie got on her knees and leaned over the edge of the boat for stability, working to pull Mrs. Bassett toward them.
The woman’s head bobbed up and then down, under the water. Gretchen hollered, “She’s not going to be able to hold on.”
Josie looked at Brownlow and in an instant saw that he agreed with her—the current was going too fast, and Mrs. Bassett was too weak to hold on to the line long enough for them to pull her into the boat. “Get in there, Quinn!” he told her.
Josie checked the line that tethered her to the boat via her life vest and stood, wobbling as the boat rocked beneath her. She dove into the water, paddling after Mrs. Bassett. The woman’s arms flailed, the rope gone. Her head tipped back, mouth open, sucking in air.
“He—help me,” Mrs. Bassett choked as Josie got within a few feet of her.
Josie swam as fast as she could, grateful to be moving downstream because she didn’t have to fight the current. She extended her hand as she got closer. Mrs. Bassett reached for it, fingers closing around Josie’s wrist just as a large tree branch shot past them. It knocked into Josie’s shoulder and ricocheted off Mrs. Bassett’s head. She slipped under the water. Josie lunged forward, fingers searching for anything she could grab onto. This woman was not going to die right in front of her. Something hard and bony brushed against Josie’s fingers and she seized it. It was a shoulder, Josie realized, as her own body was slammed against Mrs. Bassett’s by the current propelling them both downstream. Working by feel, Josie slipped her arms under Mrs. Bassett’s armpits and leaned back, pulling her out of the water. Mrs. Bassett’s back rested against Josie’s chest, Josie’s life jacket keeping them both afloat. She held as tightly to the woman as she could. Relief flooded through Josie when she heard her cough.
“Just relax,” Josie told her. “I’ve got you.”
Turning her head, she saw Gretchen pulling her tether back toward the boat. The news helicopter had lowered again, a man hanging out the side in a harness, his camera pointed in their direction. The air was punishing, beating down on them. Josie was vaguely aware of a new sound, a noisier boat motor coming from the opposite direction to where Brownlow had brought them in from—traveling upstream toward them. This boat was metal and much larger than Brownlow’s inflatable rescue vessel. It was blue instead of the bright red rescue boats the city of Denton owned, which meant it was owned by one of the surrounding towns in the county. It fought the current, dodging the treetops as it approached. It had to be Boat 292. As it neared, drawing parallel with Brownlow’s boat but closer to Josie, a life preserver on a line flew overboard, landing inches from Josie and Mrs. Bassett. Holding Mrs. Bassett with one arm, Josie used the other to hook through the center of the life preserver. A man leaned over the side of the boat and roped them in, hand over hand. Josie didn’t recognize him, but he wore a Dalrymple Township Emergency Services uniform with the name ‘Hayes’ affixed to his left breast.
“Glad to see you,” Josie told him as he took hold of Mrs. Bassett’s shoulders. He pulled her upper body as Josie pushed her lower body up until she was safely in the boat. Immediately, Hayes turned away from Josie and fitted a life jacket onto Mrs. Bassett while the other man in the boat manned the motor. It squealed as it fought the current to stay in place. Once Mrs. Bassett was secure, the motor revved and the boat took off upstream, back toward the houses. Gretchen pulled Josie’s tether until she was close enough to climb back inside the boat. Brownlow made another hard turn and steered his boat back upstream, drawing closer to Hayes’s boat until they were side by side. Mrs. Bassett’s house came back into view, then those on the rest of the street.
“Nice save,” Brownlow yelled to Josie.
She was about to answer when a series of cracks shattered the air. All their heads turned, searching for the source of the sound.
“Was that thunder?” Gretchen asked.
“Don’t think so,” Brownlow answered.
The sound came again as a new surge of water roared toward them. With a sickening sense of dread, Josie realized the sound was caused by one of the nearby houses shifting and breaking away from its foundation.
“It’s one of the houses!” she shouted.
They all watched the row of houses on Hempstead, the porches now fully submerged. More cracks and pops sounded, then Mrs. Bassett’s house started to slide, listing toward the left in slow motion. One side of the house slumped. The porch roof splintered.
“It’s going,” Hayes yelled. He made a circular motion in the air with one of his hands, and both boats began to move away from the house as it slid completely off its foundation. Sagging, it tumbled face down into the water and floated away. It moved strangely slowly, given the force of the current. Hayes looked down at Mrs. Bassett, who was drawn in on herself, arms wrapped around her knees. Josie thought she heard him say, “Sorry about your house, ma’am.”
A hysterical laugh bubbled from Mrs. Bassett’s diaphragm. Josie couldn’t hear it over all the noise around them, but she could tell by the woman’s face and the way her shoulders shook, dwarfed by the life vest. They all stared at her, but her laughter continued unabated. Josie recognized it as the kind of strange and inappropriate laughter that erupted occasionally after someone experienced a trauma. Josie had dealt with countless victims of traumatic events. In rare instances, people got so overwhelmed, they laughed instead of breaking down in tears. Finally, Mrs. Bassett stopped. It was difficult to tell if she was crying with the rain pouring from the sky, but she wiped at her eyes. Josie couldn’t hear what she said to Hayes.