The Vines by Shelley Nolden (ebook and pdf reader .TXT) 📕

forced herself to start swimming. All around her, legs kicked to be free of their Sunday best and hands clawed at other frantic parishioners to use their body parts like rungs on a ladder to reach the surface.

Twenty-Five Minutes Later

he thick, strong arm of what had to be a large man wrapped around Cora’s waist, and she writhed to free herself from his deadly grip. If she failed, he would drag her to the bottom with him. Already desperate for more air, the surface at least three feet above her, she kicked backward with all her might. Her heel met soft flesh, and the man released his hold. Her lungs seemingly ready to explode, Cora swam to the surface and gulped in the smoky, acrid air. Ignoring the burning in her muscles—already she’d saved ten children, she scanned the chaos for another to pull to shore.

A body plunged into the river inches from Cora, sending a silty wave into Cora’s mouth. The woman bobbed to the surface, and a small boy in her grasp spewed water.

Determined to save them both, Cora hugged the mother’s waist with one arm and began swimming with the other.

The woman couldn’t keep her son’s head above water.

Again, and again, they stopped to give the child a chance to clear his lungs and breathe.

The pair seemed to be getting heavier and the shore didn’t seem to be getting closer. None of the boats in the rescue effort was coming to their aid.

Saltwater filled Cora’s mouth. She coughed it out, but it flowed right back in. Refusing to loosen her grip on the mom, Cora dog-paddled with one arm.

“Wir sind zu schwer!” (We are too heavy!) the woman shouted.

She kissed her son, tore herself free, and thrust the boy at Cora, who bobbed upward from the sudden reduction in her load.

Before Cora had finished righting the child, his mother had sunk into the murk.

Cora, terrified that the same would happen to herself and the boy, began to swim toward shore, paddling with one arm while clutching her precious cargo in the other.

Just as her muscles began to seize up, her toes grazed the sandy bottom. Weighed down by the now unconscious child, she kicked hard three more times and allowed her feet to sink into the muck. Holding his head above the hot water, she called for one of the nurses to take him. Although she was too numb to feel it, Cora sensed that her body had reached its limits. But she wouldn’t stop. Not with so many on the verge of death.

Nurse Brighton eased the boy, the skin of one shoulder badly blistered, from Cora’s grip. With his fate now beyond her control, Cora turned toward the deeper water to locate another survivor to drag ashore.

The surface had calmed.

They’d run out of time. Unable to hold it any longer, she released a single, strangled sob.

In the shallows floated charred debris and bodies, so many of them, sliding toward her with the tide and then receding.

Several members of the staff were standing stock still, shin-deep in the water. At first Cora assumed that they were simply exhausted. Then, when she noticed they were staring at the blazing steamship, she followed their gaze. A little boy was scaling one of the ship’s flagpoles to escape the ravenous death sentence beneath him. As he climbed higher, so did the flames.

The flagpole bent beneath the child’s weight. And snapped, plummeting the boy into the inferno.

Cora opened her mouth to scream in fury and frustration, but not even a whisper emerged. The smoke-laced air rushed across her open lips and melded with the taste of salt in her mouth.

She staggered backward and dropped to the ground. Waves, thick with wreckage, washed over her cramped thighs. If she tried to stand back up, to find her cloak, her legs would refuse. With her remaining strength, she pivoted her body to take in the carnage strung out along the shore.

The beach was littered with people, some wailing, most silent. Racing to resuscitate at least a few more, pairs of hospital workers moved among the victims. It had to have been at least fifteen minutes since the last person had jumped from the blazing Slocum. Dazed survivors, seemingly unaware of their own burns, broken bones, and lacerations, stumbled around as they screamed out in search of their families.

Now aiding the staff were city officials and volunteers, who’d arrived in boats ranging from ferries to fishing trawlers—all large enough to manage the fierce currents that bounded North Brother Island.

With such an influx of outsiders, none of the staff would question the presence of an unfamiliar young woman. Certainly, they wouldn’t recognize her as a typhus patient who’d supposedly died more than two years ago.

But she still needed the cloak to contain her pests.

A bedraggled, soaked woman, wearing only a bodice and knickers, stumbled past, within three feet of Cora, reminding Cora that without her symbolic shroud, others wouldn’t know to keep their distance. She rolled to one side until both knees met the coarse sand, but she didn’t rise. Her legs still felt as heavy as anchors.

“Ingrid!” a hoarse, familiar voice yelled, louder than all the others.

Cora twisted her neck to locate the doctor.

Scanning the rescue workers huddled over limp bodies, her heart plunged into the saltwater within her stomach. There had to be dozens—hundreds—of bodies. And most didn’t appear to be moving. Praying she would find the doctor embracing his daughter, she continued her search.

And saw the head nurse, Kate White, seated on the sand with a girl hanging over her knees like a wet blanket. Crouched beside them: Dr. Gettler.

“No!” Cora screamed, and this time the sound penetrated the ashy air.

She scrambled to her feet and began running toward them. Remembering her cloak, she veered away, dodging staff, anguished survivors, and lifeless lumps now baking in the sun. Near the seawall, she found her boots, gloves, and pile of fabric, trampled.

A knot formed in her throat, already swollen from