Tom stayed where he was, listening to the river, as Shen walked over to the fire and said, “Everyone, we need to move off the beach.” It was met with grumbles and moans, but also with a few people moving and asking what was going on. “It’s not raining here, but it’s raining in the hills, and unless I’m mistaken, this beach is about to flood.”

That got everyone’s attention and a dozen flashlight beams started crisscrossing and dancing around the camp, people moving, the dog looping happily around them. The dog quickly found his way to Tom, who scratched the top of his head, but he still listened intently, unable to shake his uneasiness.

He heard Joel saying, “Shen, bro, are you sure about this?”

The night lit up, illuminating the beach, and revealed several tiny streams of water working their way from the edge. Tom looked across at the camp, caught like a tableau in that moment of light, a confusion of bodies and backpacks and clumsy movements.

And then beyond their chatter, beyond the rippling water beside him, beyond the jungle itself, he heard a noise, almost like a distant plane, and he wondered for a fraction of a second if their stricken plane had sounded like that as it made its final descent into the jungle. But this was not a plane, and it was coming toward him and in one terrifying moment he understood immediately what it was.

“Everyone! Move! Now!”

The dog barked and Tom ran himself, scooping up the backpack and machete with one hand, grabbing the handle of one of the boat cases with the other and dragging it across the rocky shore. The noise was deafening now, in his own ears at least. It was raining in the hills and a wall of water was barreling toward them.

His urgency spread like a contagion and there was a lot more concentrated activity going on around him, the flashlights all pointing in the same direction as they climbed up onto the higher ground above the beach.

Tom heard the fire hiss as he climbed the bank. He turned to see the flames being extinguished as the first water lapped over the fire in the darkness.

Then he heard one of the girls shout, “Barney, no!”

Barney called back from somewhere below, “I’m okay!”

The night lit up again and Tom saw Barney on the beach, dashing away from them, the water already halfway to his knees. But in that splintered second of light, Tom saw what Barney was heading for, the other boat case, and he knew he was right—they needed both boats.

Tom threw his backpack and machete down and jumped into the shallow water. The lights were trained on the beach now, and Tom could see that George had also gone back and all three boys reached the boat case at once and started to haul it toward the higher ground.