The power company needed the dam. At least that was what the newspapers had reported. The town was soon abandoned, cemeteries relocated, schools and churches gutted, stores emptied. 

It would take almost three weeks to fully submerge.

She woke slowly. Her head was pounding and cloudy. She fought through the haze to connect one thought with another. None of them added up to make sense of why she was there. 

As she forced achy muscles to move her body, handcuffs rattled where they secured her ankle to the basement floor. A blood-crusted hacksaw lay next to the eye-bolt buried in the cement; the blood was not hers. Yet.

Pop and crackle of static drew her attention off to the left. She heard his voice come over the Shetfield Gas and Electric walkie-talkie that sat staring at her, tauntingly out of reach.

“Hurry now. Water’s rising.”