Recommended by Kirkus Reviews

"Sachs keeps the story moving full-steam-ahead, balancing his fleshed-out portraits of memorable characters with visceral action scenes... ...An engaging and ultimately devastating disaster novel."

-Kirkus Reviews

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“The Flood is an epic thriller and a remarkable work of art — you’ll read it fast, but think (and dream) about it for a long time.”

-Matthew Mather, bestselling author of CyberStorm

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More Early Praise for The Flood

“I feel honored to have been a beta-reader. The Flood was unlike anything I’ve ever read before.”

-Victoria L.

*

“Intriguing thrill-ride that never stops until the last page”

-Tia S.

*

“Master storyteller”

“You wind up changing who you're rooting for.... You see yourself in these characters. It's an action book and a psychological thriller at the same time, written with intelligence and courage."

-Joe M.

*****

Table of Contents

Early Reader Praise ----- 1 ----- 2 ----- 3 ----- 4 ----- 5 ----- 6 ----- 7 ----- 8 ----- 9 ----- 10 ----- 11 ----- 12 ----- 13 ----- 14 -----15 ----- 16 ----- 17 ----- 18 ----- 19 ----- 20 ----- 21 ----- 22 ----- 23 ----- 24 ----- 25 ----- 26 ----- 27 ----- 28 ----- 29 ----- 30 ----- 31 ----- 32 ----- 33 ----- 34 ----- 35 ----- 36 ----- 37 ----- 38 ----- 39 ----- 40 ----- 41 ----- 42 ----- 43 ----- 44 ----- 45 ----- 46 ----- 47 ----- 48 ----- 49 ----- 50 ----- 51 ----- 52 ----- 53 ----- 54 ----- 55 ----- 56 ----- 57 ----- 58 ----- 59 ----- 60 ----- 61 ----- 62 ----- 63 ----- 64 ----- 65 ----- 66 ----- 67 ----- Give Feedback and Keep in Touch ----- About the Author ----- How This Story Came to Be ----- Thanks ----- Book Description ----- Copyright Information ----- E-BOOK EXTRA SHORT STORY: Locked in the Trunk of a Car

The end of the world came

And we no longer asked, who to die by fire and who by sword

We all died by water.

-Gerry Adamson

1

A man leaned over a power auger, listening to the motor echo over the snow. Behind him, a fragile tent stood out on the wide white landscape. Inside the shelter, the two scientists examined ice samples. They searched for clues in a 65-million-year-old puzzle, the great die-off of dinosaurs and half the species on earth.

One day, the ground shook.

The table in the scientists’ shelter vibrated and slid towards the wall. The lamps swung from the roof. There was a booming noise from outside.

The world began to lean, until the table danced across to the opposite wall. Then the world flipped, the lights went out, and the sound of tearing filled the tumbling shelter.

They were the first to die.

2

It was a different world to wake to.

Travis Cooke was a paramedic and when he slept, coming off a long night shift, he still heard the ambulance siren in dreams. It confused him to be awakened by the noise. Sirens of all types, coming from all sides. His blurry eyes set on the bottle of sleeping pills and found their focus.

The clock on the nightstand said 7:15 a.m. He looked out the window and thought of zero hour. The streets of Brooklyn were filled with men, women and children running and cars almost at a standstill, horns honking in desperation. The end of the world. Terror. Terrorists, he thought.

Stressful and high-intensity events were his work. The reaction from his body should have been immediate. Instead, he was sluggish from the pills, uncoordinated. He fell from the bed. He thought of his son and ex-wife as he came to his feet. He turned on the TV as he began to dress. Before he could change the channel to the news station, he heard the president’s voice.

“…urge you to move inland…”

The picture came a moment after the sound. President Crawford was in an unfamiliar room. His seal was on the floor, and a flag stood next to the desk, but it was not the Oval Office.

“…as far as possible. This is a national emergency, an international emergency. The tsunami will be reaching Florida in under four hours, and will reach New York City by late this afternoon, before five o’clock, according to the best estimates we have right now. This will not be a survivable event. The National Guard will be directing transport airships to major hospitals. We ask all of those with cars to leave the coast immediately. We have asked that all transit companies, buses, trains, and airlines cancel all scheduled routes to assist in the evacuation process. We face a dark period in the next twenty-four hours.”

The pause seemed to last for hours. The president was saying something he knew would cause panic, possibly worldwide. That was the first thought that came to Travis.

“In other countries, tens of thousands may already have been killed. Only by acting quickly can we avoid losing hundreds of thousands.”

Travis tried phoning his ex-wife.

“The network is busy right now, please try again later.”

He grabbed his jacket.

Travis Cooke ran out of his apartment wondering if it would be the last time he’d see it.

3

Some felt safest in cars, others were headed for New Jersey by foot. The stampedes into each subway station that morning crushed dozens of the first New Yorkers to die.

Travis Cooke ran down broad Flatbush, the solid lanes of cars bounded by humans moving much more quickly on the sidewalks. He found himself funneled through the streets, all the current now flowing to the Manhattan Bridge. The strangers looked at each other as they ran, confirming that this was really happening.

From Brooklyn to Manhattan and from there to New Jersey, a solid sweep of cars and bodies. The strange hush of the movement punctuated by honking horns, kids crying, and random shouts. It was a nightmare marathon, all jarring for position. Travis saw individuals and small groups huddled in the crowd’s eddy spaces, sobbing, giving up already or simply unable to act.

There was a teenage girl he saw sitting on a bench, as if she were waiting for a bus. She stared at the rush of people. He thought about stopping.

At the Manhattan Bridge, the bottleneck of escapees impeded his progress. Bodies pressed into Travis’s, a hundred voices grunting, crying, shouting in his ears. His world shrunk to those bodies immediately around him. The drugs in his body still made him dizzy, but running straight was easy and his body was waking up quickly from the emotional and physical stress.

Crossing the river took close to ten minutes, then they poured out into the streets of Manhattan, across Chinatown, where buses filled up and forced their exit through crowds, horns honking. He ran up Chrystie to 2nd Ave, his feet heavy, sweat pouring from his temples. Everyone was running now in their own direction, to tunnels, bridges, trains, buses.

He ran uptown for twenty minutes, the tempo of his footfalls searing themselves into his mind, blocking out any thoughts of the equally frantic humans he passed by.

“Travis!” he heard, and he stopped to look around.

His eyes couldn’t focus on the shape approaching him. He tried to squint, but the sweat dripped and burned, making him shut his eyes. He felt his knees trembling with weakness and he leaned over, hyperventilating.