Galapagos Beach at Tortuga Bay was alive with tourists and pleasure-seekers. Young women with perfect bodies walked across the white sand beaches, their muscular men by their sides. Colorful sails danced along the blue horizon, waves rising high for perfect surfing conditions.

Tia rode the board belly-down, paddling out into the surf, Marcus by her side. They shared a smile as they headed out, the big waves crashing ten yards ahead, the promise of a thrilling ride. Once out among the breakers, Tia and Marcus waited for the right wave, boards lolling on the chop. Marcus turned to Tia, pointed out a swell coming up over the horizon and nodded. Tia started off first, paddling into the wave, knowing Marcus was right on her tail.

Tia could sense the power of the wave building beneath her, drawing her board to cut faster across the surface of the water just at the foot of the wave. Tia clamped her hands on both sides of the board and jumped into a crouching stance, arms out to secure her balance. She was perfectly placed at the trough of the wave, her body low and lean, legs in a solid stance. The wave rose up on her left, the board speeding even faster across the surface.

She glanced to her right and back, gratified to see Marcus surfing the same wave only a few yards behind her, his magnificent body balanced on that board with almost weightless grace. But her head snapped forward as the wave swelled, a gigantic wall of water rising to her right, pushing her forward even as it seemed ready to envelop her.

Tia reached out with her right hand, fingers cutting into the wave as it rose up, drawing a watery white scar across its rolling surface and helping her keep her balance as the board trembled beneath her.

She knew that if she rolled, the results could be terrible. Concussion, paralysis, drowning, and her errant board could be a danger to others, too.

Marcus.

But she kept her balance, legs strong beneath her as the wave rolled over above her, a blue tunnel all around her, closing in and getting smaller by the second. But the more narrow the wave, the faster her journey through it, until Tia felt like a human bullet in some tremendous natural gun barrel, shooting through and out the other end in an explosive launch, the wave collapsing behind her.

Marcus!

Tia sped out onto the shallows, a precise finish to an incredible ride, glancing back to see that Marcus was still behind her, still on his board and on his feet, rising out of the crashing wave like Poseidon. The two rode a bit farther toward the shore and dropped down to sit on their boards, Marcus once more by her side and reaching out. They joined hands and broke out in a crackle of spontaneous laughter, Tia’s body rushing with exhilaration. Neither spoke; there was nothing to say that would add to their amazing experience, and they knew each other too well to need to speak. Each knew what the other was thinking.

They paddled a bit forward until they could get off the boards and raise them up over their heads. Their towels and cooler and some clothes were only ten yards or so from the water, and the sun was hot and refreshing.

Dropping down onto their towels, Tia and Marcus looked out over the grandeur of the Pacific Ocean and one of the most gorgeous beaches on the face of the earth. But her blood ran cold, a chill running up her spine as the waters pulled back from the beach. She looked at Marcus, the two of them standing to glance around, other beachgoers doing the same.

“That’s not the tide,” Tia said, the ocean pulling farther and farther away. “Is there a hurricane nearby, maybe in the Gulf?”

Marcus shook his head. “Checked this morning, it’s all clear. Tsunami, probably, could be bad.” Marcus looked around, cupping his hands around the sides of his head. “Everybody off the beach! Tsunami coming, everybody off the beach!”

The others started to react, sharing muttered fears, faces going wide with wonder and worry. “Off the beach,” Tia shouted, “there’s a tsunami coming!”

The beachgoers started to walk up the beach, some of them faster, others gathering their goods and quickly packing them.

“Never mind that,” he called out, “get off the beach now!”

The crowd straggled up off the beach, people glancing back at the ocean as it stopped receding. He waved them farther, up toward the highway and the series of little beach houses lining the coast. Tia shouted, “Keep going, over the highway! Go up to the hills, high as you can!”

Once the beach was empty, Marcus and Tia followed the crowd, the last to evacuate the beach.

And just in time.

The tsunami came in fast and hard, a rush of water that was dark with soil and rocks, boulders tumbling and smashing up onto the beach.

A terrified wail rose up from the crowd as they rushed with new urgency across the highway. Traffic was light, but cars were still speeding along as if nothing unusual had happened. But the water was quick to rush up to the highway and then to splash up over the concrete partition. Tia and Marcus followed the crowd up onto the footbridge running over the highway. Most of the crowd had already run across the bridge, but many of them lingered, transfixed by the sight of the water pouring over the highway beneath them, water rushing at the cars from the side and smashing them off course. Cars slid and swerved and smashed into each other, others knocked into the lane of oncoming traffic. The crowd screamed when one car smashed into another beneath them, running across the bridge to relative safety on the other side.

Marcus and Tia climbed up the stairs to the footbridge with the water rising around them, a massive boulder rolling past just beneath them, smashing into the concrete bridge and tearing away massive blocks of ragged concrete and rebar.

They scrambled up to the bridge and ran across, only a few members of the beach crowd still lingering. Beneath them, the water kept rushing, and what had to be another big boulder striking the footbridge had the whole bridge shaking. She slipped, falling to the floor of the bridge. He turned and pulled her to her feet, the two of them running across the bridge even as it started to give way beneath them.

The bridge lurched but held, Marcus and Tia thrown hard to the side, knocking into the safety rail on the side, Tia flipping over the side of the rail.

“Marcus!”

And Marcus was there, reaching out and grabbing Tia’s hand just as she spilled over the side. She grabbed hold with desperate strength, Marcus’s powerful hand clenching around her wrist. She swung hard, gravity wrenching at her, the tsunami churning beneath her feet. It was a deadly melange of shattered glass, splintered wood, twisted metal, jagged rock, shattered stone.

And Tia could feel herself slipping out of Marcus’s grip, every second bringing her closer to a fall and almost certain death.