Lotus Blood

Lotus Blood Part 6

Chapter Four

Water swirled around our ankles as we paddled barefoot over the road and back into the hotel. The lawn was a muddy mass of stinking water and small black shapes. Dead rats. Ploy took my hand and held it tight.

"Dad! Junior!" I shouted.

At least Mum's okay, away at the builders merchants.

More screaming and shouting came from up the beach, a lot more.

"Hello?" I called.

Reception's raffia roof had disappeared, along with the check-in desk. The bungalows were empty and bare, their windows blasted out, even some of the doors. The swimming pool lay in the middle of it all, a shapeless swamp of blue-black froth. Above it, the squid boat and plastic slide were locked together in a tangle of plastic and smashed wood.

"Hello?" I called again.

Ploy stood still and silent next to me, holding onto my hand very tight.

Mum's piano was gone. One of the thick legs was stuck in a mound of mud, but the huge shiny black grand, which had taken eight sweating men to move, was nowhere to be seen.

"Mum's gonna have a fit when she gets back," my voice came out barely a whisper.

We squelched our way towards Junior who'd jumped down out of the Bodhi tree, that was now a mass of mud, all the ribbons gone, but it still towered over us.

"Nam, Ploy!" Lek hung over a balcony in the Ugly Block, shouting in Thai.

Ploy screamed.

"What Ploy? What!"

"It's coming again. Again!"

She sprinted away, her long legs flying.

No, please no!

"Sis!" Junior grabbed my arm and pulled me forward, falling and sliding across the muddy lawn.

The Ugly Block was too far; no way we'd make it.

"The tree!" Junior shouted over the roar from the beach. Dad was up on the Ugly Block, waving frantically.

"Run, sis!"

"I'm trying!"

Junior reached the tree first. I tripped over a root and crashed into him.

"Come on, jump!" Junior threw himself straight up, caught a branch, held on and hauled himself upwards. I took a step back, ran at the gnarled wood, threw myself at it and dropped flat on my back in the mud. Junior was half way up, one arm wrapped round a thick branch.

"Sis!" He held out his hand. "Come on, you stupid cow!"

I rolled over and gathered myself for one more go at the tree.

"Give me your hand, now!" Junior shouted at me.

A flash of dirty orange lumbered across the car park and wheezed to a halt.

Mum, no, go away!

"Jump, Nam!"

"But Mum!"

"Now!"

I ran forward and threw myself up. Junior's huge fingers closed around my upper arm, slipped then held on at the elbow. I got one arm over a branch and held on.

I was half turned towards the beach. A high roar split the air and everything went white. The sea reared straight up into a solid wall, higher, much higher this time. It hit the wrecked squid boat and it exploded apart.