Chapter 1

A sudden gust of wind blew and Ben Henare tightened the guide rope, pulling the sail inwards to catch the draught. The Moth-class dinghy lifted up onto its foils, hydroplaning across the top of the waves. Ben laughed aloud at the sensation of flying, and leaned back to catch even more wind. This was where he felt most alive, out here on the ocean with the sun sparkling on the water. There were moments when he could even forget what lay back on the shore. Out here, nothing mattered except these moments of bliss.

The gust shifted and the Moth dropped back into the water. His speed dropped off and Ben scanned the ocean for the next patch of wind, his eyes alert for the particular ruffle of waves that indicated the breeze to come.

A whoop of joy came from behind him. Ben turned his head to see Lucy planing across the turquoise ocean, flying above the waves. Her freckled face beamed with sheer delight.

"Quit sitting around, Henare!" she shouted as she zoomed past. Her bright blue eyes reflected the water and the sky above. Her thick plait of blonde hair trailed over her shoulder, soaked by the sea spray.

Ben grinned and pulled his sail in again, picking up speed as he followed, but he couldn't catch her this time. She whipped around, tacking hard and headed back towards him.

He raced to meet her, a direct course that must surely end in their collision.

But at the last minute, they both pulled away slightly, neither giving ground. They laughed, both still loving the game they had played since childhood.

The ocean had always been their playground, ever since they had met at the Pegasus Bay Sailing Club at nine years old. Ben's father, Ropata, worked maintenance at the boatyard, his weathered hands rough from sandpaper and stained with varnish. Lucy's father owned the place; his hands were always smooth and unmarked. Hands that knew money, Ben's father said, but not the smooth grain of a wooden deck.

Perhaps it was true that the Pakeha, the white New Zealanders, had lost touch with the natural world. Many said that even the tangata whenua, the Maori people of the land, were losing that connection, preferring the good life in the city to the inherent hardship of wild forests and mountains. But their love for the ocean transcended their disparate backgrounds and out here, Ben and Lucy were equal.

Well, almost equal, Ben thought to himself.

Sometimes he had to admit that Lucy might be the better sailor. How she managed to keep her skills up while she trained to be a doctor, he didn't know. He was just grateful that she could make time for sailing with him on her holiday break from University. Not that he was getting a break. His work in the boatyard only increased in the summer months, especially with his father's diabetes getting worse. But on the days he could escape, there was nowhere else he'd rather be.

And no one else he'd rather be here with.

The strong wind dropped and they sailed alongside each other in the gentle breeze. Ben could hear the slap of waves on the hull, the call of the gulls above. The sun was a blessing, a perfect edge of warmth to the cool spray of the sea. He breathed in deeply, letting the smell of the ocean calm his mind, trying to fix this moment in his memory.

He looked back towards the shore, past Lucy's boat to the coastline beyond. The long spit of New Brighton jutted south towards the Lyttelton peninsula and, behind it, the city of Christchurch. Most of the houses had been rebuilt after the earthquakes that shook the city in 2011, but many people who had left had not returned. Those who did remain were stronger, more resilient now, but they had not forgotten.

A sharp, icy wind cut through the air and Ben let out the sail in surprise at the temperature shift. He looked up and frowned. The sky darkened as thick black clouds loomed above. Summer storms weren't unusual, but there had been nothing on the weather radar before they'd come out.

Lucy tacked and came alongside, letting out her sail to slow the boat. A deep frown marred her natural features, her blue eyes sharp with focus.

"We should go back in," she called across the short distance between them. Then her eyes widened as she looked beyond Ben to the horizon. "We have to go now."

Ben turned and his breath was sucked from him, heart pounding as he saw what came towards them.

A wave towered where the ocean met the sky. Even this far away, it was gigantic – a tidal wave like the one that had ruined the city years before. The sky above swirled with storm clouds. Tendrils of darkness crept ever closer as a wall of water raced towards them.

"Now, Ben." Lucy's voice was urgent. "We can still make it back before it hits."

Ben turned and met her eyes. There was so much he wanted to say. He prayed there would still be a chance to say it.

"Be safe," he said. She nodded, her mouth tightening as she looked east towards the approaching wave.

"I'll see you back home," Lucy said and pulled her sail taut, racing away towards the shore.

Ben followed her lead, fighting for control of the boat as the wind howled about him and the waves began to rise. Rain hammered down and needles of freezing water slammed into him.

A flash of lightning split the sky, and a deafening roll of thunder filled the air.

The tiny Moth dinghies were like flotsam as the storm grew in intensity, the waves soon over two meters high. Ben lost sight of Lucy but there was nothing he could do. He fought to keep his own boat heading back towards shore.

A huge wave rolled beneath him. One moment he was down in a trough looking up at the walls of water either side, and then he was up on the crest.

He couldn't help himself.

Ben looked back towards the eastern horizon. The giant tidal wave was closer now. There was no way to outrun it.

A calm descended upon him. The sea had called to him all his life; perhaps it was right that he would end it here. Ben was transfixed by the power of the wave. In that moment, he stared into the heart of the sea. His pulse raced as he faced the onslaught.

Words spoken by his grandfather came to his lips – a prayer to Tangaroa, the god of the sea. A karakia from the old times, the fishermen's ritual chant for protection.

The words changed something in Ben's perception. The wave shimmered, and he saw beyond the towering water to the horror beneath. The tentacles of a huge creature writhed within the wave, thick ropes of powerful muscle tipped with barbed hooks that could rip flesh and peel skin off its prey. Ben could feel its rage, its need to feast as its huge dark eye bore into him. Then, it turned back into the deep and the wave rolled on.

He saw the wreck of a ship within the water, rotten bodies still hanging from its spars, the eyes of the corpses eaten by denizens of the deep. The smell of the long dead rolled from the wave, mingled with the rank stench of rotten fish. There was a flash of silver within the surge as a gigantic ball of fish broke the surface, forced by the upwelling. The ball was broken apart by the thrust of a great white shark, its rows of teeth slashing at the feast.

Ben thought he heard his grandfather's voice calling to him across the ocean, telling him to keep going, to trust in his skill as a sailor. His grandfather Tamati was a kaumatua, one of the elders, a wise man who still held to the old ways. Perhaps they were the only ways left to trust in now.

Ben sent out a prayer for Lucy, asking Tangaroa to keep her safe. Then, he tightened the sail and leaned out into the storm, bracing his legs and swinging out on the trapeze over the water. The Moth planed across the tips of the roiling waves beneath. He turned the bow south towards the Akaroa peninsula. It was his best chance. If he could sail fast across the face of the storm, he could find shelter in one of the bays south of Lyttelton.

Ben aimed for the shore, desperate to reach it as the rain hammered him and the salt waves threatened to pull him from the boat and crush him to the depths.

Then, the eye of the storm was upon him.

For a moment, he soared with the power of the wind and the Moth lifted clear off the waves. He really was flying. The detail of the shoreline came into focus. If he could hold on for just a few more minutes, he might make it to shelter before the tidal wave hit.

The boat plummeted back to the waves. The jolt shook Ben from the deck.

He tumbled into the freezing sea, flailing to catch hold of the Moth's guide rope, but it was ripped away from him.

The boat spun in the water. The boom swung, smacking Ben's head.

Pain lanced through him. The cold ocean pierced his padded life jacket. The grey green of the monstrous wave loomed above him as Ben sank into the black.

Chapter 2

Lucy took a deep breath, her eyes fixed on the coastline as it loomed ever closer. The concrete of the pier and the hard edges of the buildings were suddenly a threat, not a haven. As a junior doctor, she had seen the impact on a human body up close. She could almost feel the pain of the crush as it sped towards her.

Time slowed as she rode the crest of the wave. In the roar of the storm, Lucy became part of the water and the wind, all her years of sailing experience distilled into this moment. She didn't think of Ben or her family or the thousands of people in the city before her about to be torn asunder. She only thought of adjusting the sail to the wild wind and surviving the next second.

She felt the salt spray of the chasing wave on her neck, the freezing embrace of the water reaching for her. For a moment, she wanted to relax into the elemental, to sink into the depths. Only pain lay ahead.

But the Campions didn't give up.

Her family had been among the first white settlers in New Zealand, hardy men and women who worked to tame the natural world. If it were fighting back, Lucy would not go down peacefully.

The wave rushed towards the shore as she wrestled to stay with it. She rode the crest, the Moth flying with the power of the wind. Lucy scanned the approaching shore, summoning the calm she often did in the hospital when things spun out of control. She couldn't fight the situation, only try to ride it out and stay alive.

The spit of New Brighton jutted south, protecting an estuary beyond from the power of the ocean. Her house was further up, but at Southshore the land was only one street wide and then the mangroves began. Lucy angled the Moth across the face of the wave towards the gap.

If she could just–

Her thought was cut off as a wave hit the starboard side. The tiller was wrenched from Lucy's hand. The boat tipped and she lost control.

She plummeted into the water, cold freezing the breath in her lungs. She clawed her way for what she thought was the surface, eyes open as she searched for the light above.

But the waters swirled around, cloaking her.

She didn't know which way was up.

Panic rose within her chest, squeezing her heart. She could hear the thump of her pulse in her ears.

Something bashed into her side. Pain lanced through her as the broken Moth whirled in the water. There was no hope now, no question – Lucy knew that she would die here alone.

She sent Ben her love, hoping that he would make it. He would never know what he meant to her now, for even as their lives had taken different directions, he was as much a part of her as the ocean was.

With that thought, she stopped fighting, letting the column of water propel her towards the shore.

As the final bubble of air left her mouth, the wave crashed down.

Lucy tumbled and rolled in the water but this time, instinct drove her towards the surface. Her leg smashed into something but the pain only helped her focus as she pulled herself upwards.

Sound returned in a rush as she broke the surface, waves churning about her. She gasped for breath as she trod water with her good leg, crying with relief. 

Lucy looked around, trying to get her bearings. Somehow, she had made it into the estuary and the waves had pushed her into the shallower northern end.

To the west, the wave was dipping, losing power as it moved inland. Regardless, it would crush the city of Christchurch within minutes.

To the east, the spit of New Brighton. The houses on the southern tip were mostly underwater, the trees crushed and bent. She could see people clambering onto roofs to escape the swelling water. The houses to the north were still standing, but even from here she could see the destruction.

The chop chop of a helicopter made Lucy look up. She thought about waving her arms but she knew they would have more urgent cases than picking her out of the estuary.

She was so tired, so cold. She could just lie back here in the water. Surely someone would come eventually.

The doctor inside her noted the beginnings of shock setting in. This was not a normal day. No one would come for her.

If she stayed here, she would die.

Lucy began to swim towards the shore, heading for home. Earlier that day, she had waved to her mum in the kitchen as she'd left to go sailing with Ben. She had kissed her father's bald head and he had grunted his goodbye, focused on the morning's paper. Her little sister Amber hadn't emerged from her teenage den, sleeping in like most fourteen-year-olds on a weekend. Since leaving for Uni, Lucy actually felt more charitable towards her, despite how much they used to fight when she was at home.

And then there was Ben.

She sent out a positive thought to him, willing him to survive. With every stroke towards the shore, Lucy whispered the names of those she loved as a mantra to keep her going.

It seemed like an age to get to the shoreline, but it was probably more like ten minutes. Lucy pulled herself up onto the pebbled beach, panting with the effort. It was eerily quiet, as if the world waited for permission to respond to the disaster.

The quiet after the storm, and before the aftermath.

She should get to the hospital. They would need all hands on deck. Lucy shivered. First she had to get home, check on her family and get some dry clothes. Her leg throbbed, but she couldn't tend to it yet. She ignored the pain and struggled to her feet, taking an inventory of her physical state. Aches, bruises, battered, cut, but not broken.

She limped down the road, away from the estuary and into the streets that led into what had been the pretty suburb of New Brighton only a few hours ago.

Now it was a ruin.

The first house she came to looked like it had been stomped on by a giant. The ground floor had been pulverized into timber slivers and loose bricks, shaken and torn apart. The roof hung inches from the ground at a sharp angle. An old woman clawed at the bricks, tears running down her face.

"Please help me," she called out to Lucy, her face a mask of agony. "My husband, he's in there."

Lucy felt a wave of empathy for the woman, but she knew she had to get to her own family. There was no way the man was alive in there. Nothing could be done for him.

As she walked on through the streets, the devastation only worsened.

The sound of children crying, the pained screams of the injured and the barking and howling of dogs filled the air. A man sat in the rubble of his yard, the body of a young girl on his lap. He rocked her, his eyes fixed on the sky above. A couple huddled together on the edge of their property, a deep fissure splitting it open between them. They stared into the darkness, seemingly unable to move.

One house had all its panes of glass still miraculously intact, but the entire brickwork had crumbled, the house collapsing in on itself. Another building had lost one whole side, leaving the rooms open to the elements. Lucy could see bookshelves and a bed inside, but no people.

There were bodies, too. Crushed and broken, ruined by a force of nature no one had seen coming despite the alarms put in place after the last disaster. New Zealand had ever been God's Own Country. Was it now forsaken?

Those she passed called for help, but Lucy kept her eyes fixed forward, a sense of foreboding growing in the pit of her stomach as she approached her own street.

The sight was no different than what she had already seen, but this time it was her world that had crumbled. The house she had played in, the home she had grown up in, was now a ruin.

Ignoring the pain in her leg, Lucy ran up the street, tears blurring her vision.

The road had buckled and the tarmac split. Steam poured out of the cleft. Her dad's Volvo had fallen sideways, crushed into the hole in the earth, the metal crunched flat. The force of the water had come at an angle, shearing the roof of the house off on impact. The debris had landed on the house next door, flattening their garage. The window where her mum had waved goodbye was gone, along with that whole side of the building. It lay in blocks of brick and plaster now, dashed into its component parts.

"Mum! Dad!" Lucy called in desperation as she reached the gate. "Amber!"

She tried to keep herself from sobbing. She had to search for them.

They might be OK.

They had to be OK.

She picked her way through the rubble towards the back of the house, careful to avoid the deep holes that now peppered the yard. The air smelled of sewage and escaped gas and a pervasive salty damp where the ocean encroached into the human realm.

The back door of the house stood open, and Lucy felt a surge of hope. They had been taught since they were little to get under a doorframe. Maybe her family huddled inside.

She pushed the door open and stepped in, her eyes widening at what she saw.

Chapter 3

Ben woke to agonized screams. For a moment, he couldn't tell whether he was dead or alive. The anguish and pain in those voices made him feel as though he were in his people’s underworld, deep within Rarohenga.

A sharp pain in his thigh forced his eyes open. He brushed the sand from his leg, where a deep gash oozed dark red blood. Ben winced, the saltwater searing the wound as he sat up. His dark hair was matted and stiff with salt. He blinked as blurry shapes ran past him on the shore, but as he rubbed his eyes, his vision began to clear.

The beach in front of him was littered with the wreckage of the storm. A few meters away, a man huddled over the body of a woman on the sand, surf churning around him. A splintered hunk of wood slid up the sand and nudged the corpse. The man moaned in despair, clutching her to his chest.

There were more bodies in the surf, angry water pushing and pulling them in a macabre dance of the dead. Ben wanted to go and pull them to shore, but there were so many. Shingles and pieces of what used to be homes stuck out of the sand, smashed into splinters on the hard-packed shoreline. An old Volkswagen was perched atop a fifteen-foot fishing boat that had capsized and now sank, buried slowly by the tide.

Ben clutched his leg and did his best to ignore the pain. His head pounded, but at least the blood had slowed to a trickle. He moved his hands over the rest of his body and felt no other pain. He had survived.

Lucy, he thought. Did she make it?

He couldn't even consider that she hadn't. She was a survivor.

Sirens wailed in the distance, followed by a series of short explosions. He had to move. He had to get to his father. Ben stood and took a step, wincing at the pain in his leg, but he stumbled on. He was in better shape than the corpses that bobbed in the surf.

He turned his back on the ocean and looked west. The mountains loomed in the distance beneath blackened clouds. Closer to him, smoke rose over the city, spires of black haze climbing into the sky.

Christchurch had been hit again.

Ben orientated himself to the surroundings. He was on a beach near Pigeon Bay, looking across the tip of Godley Beach State Park towards the city. The tidal wave had left behind a wall of debris, blocking the only road from Pigeon Bay to Diamond Harbor. He picked his way through the rubble and followed the road regardless. There was no other way back to the city.

Back to his father … and Lucy.

But Ben sensed something else, something more primitive – more powerful. He felt his grandfather call out. The man was in trouble. He needed Ben’s help. Soon.

Ben pushed away the pain and started to jog. The increased oxygen lifted the fog in his head. He couldn’t think about Lucy. They had been on the water with no identification, no phone, no money. Even if he had his phone, Ben doubted service would still be operational. After the last disaster, the lines had been swamped and it had been impossible to reach people.

He took a deep breath and pinched at the cramp now blossoming in his side. He needed water and, despite the destruction, his stomach rumbled.

I should go south, he thought. There's no way to get to Dad in Christchurch. Grandfather will know what to do.

He stopped and turned to face southwest, towards Tekapo. It would take days to reach his grandfather's place on foot. He needed a vehicle. If he got further away from the shoreline, there might be some areas untouched by the wave. Ben walked further into the maze of debris left behind.

He emerged from one street to see a couple huddled on the side of the road. They tended to a wounded child between them. The little boy wept in agony and, even from a distance, Ben could see his leg was twisted out of shape. Ben's years of first aid training at the boathouse would come in handy now. He jogged over to help.

As he reached the roadside, he noticed a group of teenagers gathered together, loitering and watching the scene. Then the air shifted around them.

Thin, black smoke curled up from the ground. It wound around the legs of the group like a semi-transparent, fast-growing vine. Tendrils crawled up their bodies to their heads and then billowed out. With every breath, the boys inhaled the darkness.

What the hell?

They turned as one to face Ben, expressions blank, dark eyes shadowed as curls of smoke clung to their skin. They took a step towards him, cutting off his path to the injured child.

A woman stumbled from a house across the street. The boys turned in unison at the sound and a tall, lanky boy, their leader, approached her in two long strides. He grabbed the woman by the arm, holding her while the others formed a circle around them both. The woman screamed and tried to pull away but the boys closed ranks, grasping hands reaching for her clothes.

Ben ran towards them, leaping over rocks and other debris.

"Hey, leave her alone," he shouted.

The tall, lanky boy turned at Ben's approach and pulled a knife from his belt, hefting its weight.

"She's ours. Go find your own."

"Get away from her," Ben said with a step forward. "She's not for you."

The boy's eyes rolled back in his head. Ben could have sworn he saw the black smoke inside them. A deep laugh rumbled from him, a voice that couldn't possibly belong to this body.

The circle of boys all turned to face Ben. The woman seized her opportunity and bolted from inside the circle, running off down the road. They ignored her, focused on Ben now. They drew their weapons – knives, pipes, cricket bats and rocks.

Ben took a step back, his eyes fixed on the boys. He had one chance to run. If he fell, they would be on him.

He saw the lanky boy's eyes narrow, his hand clenched on the knife handle.

Ben turned and ran. The boys roared as one, their footsteps thunderous on the cracked pavement as they dashed after him. Ben darted down a side road, zigzagging where he could.

But he was tiring.

The boys whooped at the thrill of the chase, the primal sound of hunters closing in on their prey.

Ben ducked down another street and into a park. There was a children's playground in the middle, a little wooden house and a sandpit covered in overgrown vines behind it.

He ran and hid himself quickly just as the boys emerged from the side road.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," one of them sang in a falsetto.

Ben held his breath as the footsteps approached.

"He must be in there," one voice said.

The sound of a baseball bat thudding into wood broke the air as the boys attacked the little house.

"It's empty, you idiot," another voice said. "He must have run down the other way. Let's go. There's plenty more fun to be had today."

Their footsteps grew quieter. Ben let out his breath softly. He waited a few more minutes to be sure they were gone, then shook himself free from the sandpit. He pulled the vines off his arms, brushing his full-sleeve tattoos clean of the dirty sand.

Time to get out of here.

He headed out of the park and into a residential area. It was quiet; he supposed the residents had evacuated already. The place certainly felt abandoned. There were a couple of cars left on the street, deliberately parked as opposed to being dropped there by the gigantic wave. His father had taught him more than a few practical tricks, and it didn't take long to get one of them started.

He drove towards the city first, thoughts of Lucy and his father swirling in his mind. But at a fork in the road towards Christchurch, a pile of rubble dumped by the ocean blocked his way. He considered his options. There was only one that he could see: the road south was clear. The road towards Tekapo and Grandfather. The old man would know what to do and Ben still felt drawn there somehow.

He looked to the horizon, where a swirling mass of black clouds descended upon the land. The thick, inky blackness rolled across the sky. He thought he could see a misshapen face in the smoke, one with eyes of pitch and fangs of ash. A bolt of lightning shot through the black and the face dissipated.

Hurry, Ben.

His grandfather's voice. He had to go. His father would be fine and Lucy … Ben pushed aside his dark thoughts.

* * *

He drove southwest as night fell. The smoke mingled with the encroaching darkness, and the tiny bulbs in the car's headlights could not cut through it all. As Ben wove his way, he thought of the black smoke that had seemed to possess the gang. How long would it be before all-out anarchy gripped his beloved island?

A little further on, Lake Tekapo glowed like a plate of silver in front of him, the water rippled by an unseen wind. Ben scanned the horizon until he identified his grandfather's house ahead by the outline of the roof. The chimney still jutted from the top. That, at least, was a good sign.

His grandfather's home had always been a refuge, especially when his father's drunken violence had run on for days. He used to escape here and carve wood next to his grandfather before fishing on the lake together in the quiet of dusk.

But now it was too quiet. An eerie silence hung over the lake. Not even the insects made a sound.

The wind picked up, and on the gust came the odor of decaying flesh. The sky shifted, the clouds bleeding red. Shadows like claws crawled down from the hills. Ben shivered as an ominous feeling crept over him.

He drove quickly to his grandfather's house and parked outside. He got out of the car, slamming the door hard. The sharp noise echoed in the still air, but there was no other sound. Ben walked up the front steps towards the door, each foot putting pressure on the wooden stairs and cracking in the quiet.

The porch swing rocked back and forth in the breeze, creaking slightly. The chair where the old man spent countless evenings staring at the lake sat empty. Broken bottles lay strewn across the porch and his grandfather's fishing poles lay tangled in the corner as if tossed there by a giant.

Ben's hand shook as he reached for the doorknob. His fingers touched the cold brass. He slowly turned the knob until the door popped open a few centimeters. It was as dark inside as it was out. Then, he caught a whiff of tobacco from inside the house.

"Grandfather?" he called.

There was no reply.

Not a single sound. He pushed the door fully open as shadows lengthened around him.

"Grandfather? Are you here?"