Chapter Three

“Dam broken. Flood coming. Tell—”

~Telegraph sent to Pittsburgh at 3:10 by Mrs. H.M. Ogle, Signal Service representative and Western Union manager in Johnstown, moments before the flood washed the telegraph office away

Monty’s front door exploded off its hinges, splintering the thick slab and sending shards across the room. Water poured through the opening, and his house shook from the force. His mind refused to accept the horror playing before his eyes. Legs pumping of their own volition, he vaulted up the stairs as dark, foamy water swallowed the parlor floor. Like the worst kind of beast, it groaned and expanded, filling the room and swiping at his feet on the steps.

High ground.

Fast.

When he reached the top step, the house shifted. Furniture tumbled, and the sound of breaking glass filled the air. He pitched into the wall. Pain radiated through his head and shoulder, but he couldn’t stop now. The water was rising.

Listing to the side, he leaped over a small table that had fallen from the bedroom into the hallway. Daguerreotypes of his parents and siblings hung crooked on their nails. He struggled to reach the door leading to the attic. The roar of water deafened his ears. His heart slammed against his chest. He twisted the knob, but the door held fast. Oh, God, I can’t perish like this. Not like this.

Water breached the stairs and rushed into the rooms on his right. He yanked again. The tilting house had pinched the frame against the door. Even if he had to scratch a hole with his fingernails, he was getting to that attic.

The house shook again. He braced himself, palms flat against the wall. Something had crashed against the structure. He could sense it. He was fortunate it still stood on the foundation at all. With the roar of a mighty warrior, Monty kicked the attic door several times. Each blow weakened the wood until it finally split. Pain pulsed up his leg, but the water pooling around his boots gave him a supernatural determination. One last kick, and the center of the door split apart.

Monty punched a hole large enough to slip his body through. Water swirled around his ankles. Fists bleeding, he lifted a wet foot and shoved it through the opening. Wood clawed his back as he squeezed through the narrow opening and freed his other leg.

The dim light of the attic made it hard to navigate. He felt for the stairs using his hands and crawled as fast as he could. A loud crack shocked his eardrums. The room shifted. His house was floating. He groped for the stair railing. He had to keep moving. For an instant, he felt like a bobber in a pond, and then the house smashed into something, sending him tumbling into a stack of old trunks.

Agony ripped through his head. His body ached. Tears pushed into his eyes. He shut them tight, if only to block out the reality of this nightmare. He had to get as high as he could. The water was coming for him. Yes, heaven awaited, but Monty wasn’t ready to inhabit it today.

A shaft of pale light above caught his attention, and he glanced at the rafters. Rain fell from a hole in the roof.

Air.

That meant the giant wall of water hadn’t swallowed his entire house yet. If he could climb the joists and reach the hole, he could try to make it large enough to fit through. If the water continued to rise in the attic, he would have air.

He jumped and attempted to grip a beam, but his fingertips, slick with blood, only skimmed the wood. He wiped his fingers on his pant leg and tried again. Though he made progress, it wasn’t enough. Water began seeping over the top step of the attic. He grasped the handle of a trunk and dragged it beneath the joist as best as he could on the slanting floor. Oh, why had he insisted on bringing his book collection from home? The hefty weight could be the deciding factor between life and death.

Getting as close as he could, he hopped onto the trunk and lunged for the joist. A solid grip. The trunk slid from under his feet and crashed against the wall. This was his last chance. He swung his legs to gain momentum and then kicked high enough to lock his ankles around the beam. Chest heaving, sweat dripped from his temples. Or was it blood?

Lord, give me strength.

He worked his burning muscles until he sat upright on the beam. The wood’s angles bit into his thighs. He bowed his head and prayed. Splashing drowned his thoughts. Water bubbled over the attic stairs.

God, don’t let me drown. Please.

He scooted along the joist until he reached the hole.

A thud sounded above him. Footsteps?

Cries for help blended with the roar of water, rending his heart. Was this how Noah felt after God sealed the ark and the waters came—helpless, tortured, frail? Monty could no more help them than he could help himself. Bile rose in his throat. Pushing past the fear threatening to hold him stationary, he braced between the joist and the rafter on shaky legs and began punching the roof shingles around the hole with his fist.

Blood poured down his arm as more skin scraped and peeled from his knuckles. A face appeared on the other side of the opening, startling Monty so fiercely he almost lost his grip. “There’s someone in here,” the man yelled.

Hands gripped the edges of the hole and began ripping wood and shingles.

“You got any rope in that attic?” A man with a nasty gash on his forehead shoved his face inside. “People are rushing past in the water. We need to save as many as we can.”

Rope. Did he have rope? No.

Looking below at the attic’s contents not devoured by water, he spied an old bed sheet covering a floor-to-ceiling mirror the previous owners had left behind. Half of it was underwater. “Will a sheet do?”

“Anything is worth a try,” the man replied. “Can you reach it?”

Monty was losing steam as fast as the water was rising. “I think so.”

Stepping from joist to joist, he traveled at a downward slope. His brain screamed at him to retreat to the hole and save himself, but the Lord had called him to help save others’ lives. He needed to at least try.

On the last joist, he bent and reached for the sheet. The fabric was weighty and half soaked through, making it harder to carry. He worked his way back to the roof hole and shoved the bedsheet through. The drenched part of the sheet rubbed against him as hands tugged it through. Now he was bloody and wet.

Two arms reached down for him. While he’d retrieved the sheet, the men had worked on making the hole large enough for him to squeeze through.

He reached up and clutched their wrists. They hoisted him through the hole, and a roofing nail ripped his thigh, but at least he had air. He collapsed onto the roof, hands and gashed leg throbbing, and let the cold rain pelt his body. His limbs shook from exertion. Nausea rising, he rolled onto his side and pushed himself to sitting.

Monty wasn’t prepared for what he saw. Water surrounded every rooftop as far as he could see, but many buildings had washed away completely. His house no longer stood on its foundation and was now wedged against the side of the church. The two structures held fast to each other, the old structure bracing the newer one.

A stream of human bodies swept through what was once Locust Street. Some attempted to grab anything they could find, while others let the current sweep them away. For the ones floating face down, it was too late.

Possessions of every kind littered the dark water—teacups, dishes, furniture, a dollhouse, animal carcasses, farming tools, books, rolls of barbed wire, machinery, wagons. A boxcar moved in the distance. Mr. Graves’s new draft horse, Lancelot, bellowed as it passed, bobbing in the waves like a rocking horse.

“There!” one man on Monty’s roof shouted. A fellow balanced on top of the boxcar, riding the wave as if it were a boat. If the car turned sideways and smacked into Monty’s house, they’d all go for a swim.

The man with the gash on his forehead shouted toward the boxcar. “Grab this!”

Monty saw that one of them had tied a knot in the sheet. With precise movements, the man tossed the sheet at the boxcar while the other man braced for the weight. The man from the boxcar caught it, but it slipped through his fingertips, and he continued down the river.

For what felt like hours, though was likely only minutes, Monty and the two men attempted to save all they could. But their efforts were to no avail. When the sky grew even darker with the oncoming night and the rush of bodies headed downstream appeared to have already gone to Jesus, they huddled together and watched the water rise higher.

“Look there.” One of the men pointed up ahead. He crawled to the edge of the roof, squinting. “It’s Max McCachren. He has a little girl.”

Sure enough, the large man came at them, floating on a mattress with a small child clinging to his neck. Seeing them, Max kicked, attempting to move the raft closer to the house. He wasn’t gaining ground. He was still a good fifteen feet away, and if Monty didn’t do something soon, Max and the little girl would be gone to them forever.

“Throw the baby!” Monty yelled.

“Do you think you can catch her?” Max called back.

“We can try.” Monty stretched out his arms. The water had risen to just three feet below his roofline, but the church held his house firmly.

Max extricated the girl’s arms from around his neck. She screamed in protest and fought against him. With a battle-like cry, Max pitched the child through the air. Catching her by one arm and the fabric of her clothes, Monty hoisted her securely onto the roof.

Max floated past. His smile of triumph was quickly dashed by the fate that surely awaited him.

The girl, much older than he’d guessed, gripped Monty’s neck tightly enough he feared she’d strangle him. Closer to the age of six, the poor thing wore nothing but her underclothes. One man unknotted the sheet, and they cocooned her inside it. It was wet and cold, but if they took turns holding her, maybe their body heat would keep her from freezing to death.

She snuggled against Monty’s chest, burrowing in the sheet so it covered her head. The rain eased, but it was little comfort at this point. After a while, the rush of water slowed its pace around them, and the guttural cries of survivors sounded over the gush of water. Monty rested his cheek against the top of the girl’s head and wept.