Chapter 3

By the time I reached Port Mason, the rain had started.

It wasn't heavy yet. A thin sheet of water covered the windscreen as my driver turned off the main road and followed a narrow lane toward the docks. Beyond the fence, cranes stood against a grey sky, their long arms hanging over cargo ships.

I had spent the drive reading the shipment records.

Industrial filters. Water containers. Chemical storage drums.

The paperwork described an ordinary delivery. The warehouse manager's report described a building with drainage problems. Neither document explained why Daniel had insisted the shipment was urgent.

“That's the place,” my driver said.

Port Mason Warehouse Four stood behind a row of shipping containers. The paint on its metal doors had peeled in long strips, and a dark stain ran along the bottom of the outer wall. Two workers were dragging a wooden pallet away from a shallow pool of water.

I opened the car door.

Diesel fumes mixed with the smell of wet concrete. Somewhere inside, a forklift beeped as it reversed.

June met me near the entrance. She was a short woman in her forties, wearing a yellow safety vest over a blue sweater. Her hair was tied back, but loose strands had stuck to her forehead.

“Mrs. Cross. Thank you for coming.”

“Show me the loading area.”

She led me inside.

The warehouse was larger than it looked from the road. Metal shelves rose almost to the roof, packed with cartons, spare parts, and sealed containers. The floor sloped toward drainage channels along the walls.

One of those channels was clogged with leaves and thick brown sludge.

I stopped beside it.

“How long has it been like this?”

“Three weeks,” June answered. “We reported it twice.”

“And nobody repaired it?”

“They said the problem would be handled after the shipment.”

I crouched and touched the edge of the water with one finger. It was only ankle-deep in the lowest part of the loading bay, but the stain on the wall showed that water had risen much higher before.

“Where are the drums?”

June pointed toward a fenced section at the rear.

A forklift sat beside a stack of metal barrels. Some were secured to wooden pallets. Others had been left near the wall, where water had gathered beneath them.

I stood up.

“Why are chemical drums being stored beside a blocked drain?”

“They arrived yesterday. The instructions said to keep them here until the next truck was ready.”

“Who gave those instructions?”

“Daniel Mercer's office.”

I looked at her.

“Did you receive a safety sheet for the contents?”

June hesitated.

“We received the delivery documents.”

“That isn't what I asked.”

“No,” she admitted. “Not a full safety sheet.”

I took out my phone and photographed the barrels, the drain, and the labels on the nearest containers.

One label had been partly scraped away.

I leaned closer, trying to make out the remaining print.

A worker approached us, holding a clipboard.

“June, the driver says he's leaving if we don't start loading. He's already waited two hours.”

“Tell him to wait,” I said.

He glanced at my clothes, then at June.

“Who are you?”

“Evelyn Cross. I own this company.”

He looked embarrassed. “Sorry, ma'am. I didn't know.”

“That's fine. Go and get the loading supervisor.”

He hurried away.

June watched him leave. “Mr. Pike told us this delivery couldn't be delayed. He said the client would cancel the contract.”

“Who is the client?”

“Vale Industrial Holdings.”

The name meant nothing to me at first.

Then I remembered the documents from the previous afternoon.

Vale Industrial Holdings was connected to several coastal facilities, including a processing plant outside Port Mason. The plant had been mentioned in the news during the first weeks of the Black Tide. Authorities had later sealed parts of the district after reports of contaminated floodwater.

In my first life, I had never known Crosswell had done business with them.

I checked the shipment number again.

“June, I want every document you have on this delivery. Emails, inspection reports, invoices. Everything.”

She nodded and led me to a small office overlooking the loading bay.

The desk was crowded with paper. A desk fan rattled beside a stack of delivery receipts, and a half-empty cup of tea sat near the keyboard.

June opened a drawer and removed a folder.

“I kept the earlier inspection report,” she said. “I wasn't sure anyone would ask for it.”

The report was dated three weeks earlier.

The inspector had marked the drainage system as unsafe during heavy rainfall. A second note warned that the lower storage area should not be used for chemical materials until repairs were complete.

At the bottom, someone had written:

REVIEW DEFERRED BY MANAGEMENT.

There was no name beside it.

“Who signed this?”

“I don't know. The copy I received didn't have a signature.”

I photographed the page.

Then I found something worse.

The shipment manifest listed twelve chemical drums, but the warehouse receipt recorded fourteen.

I checked the numbers again.

Twelve on the manifest.

Fourteen on the receipt.

“Did anyone count the drums when they arrived?”

“I did,” June said. “There were fourteen.”

“Did you report the difference?”

“Yes. The transport company told me the paperwork would be corrected.”

“Was it?”

She shook her head.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

I had come expecting to find poor management and a neglected warehouse. I hadn't expected missing information about chemicals being stored beside a faulty drainage system.

I called the company lawyer and explained what I had found. He told me to preserve the records, keep the shipment on hold, and arrange an independent inspection before anything moved.

I followed his advice.

Then I called Graham Pike.

He answered on the fourth ring.

“Evelyn, I'm in a meeting.”

“Then I'll be brief. The Port Mason shipment is on hold.”

A pause.

“Excuse me?”

“The drainage system has been marked unsafe. The chemical count doesn't match the manifest, and the warehouse has no complete safety sheet for the drums.”

“Those are administrative issues.”

“Two extra chemical drums are not an administrative issue.”

His voice hardened.

“You're disrupting a contract worth several million dollars over a paperwork discrepancy.”

“Then you should have no problem explaining the discrepancy to the inspector.”

“You don't understand how these operations work.”

“Then explain them to me.”

He said nothing.

I could hear voices in the background, someone asking him a question.

“Put Daniel on the phone,” he said at last.

“No.”

“Evelyn, don't turn this into a personal dispute.”

“I'm standing in a warehouse with a blocked drain and chemical drums that aren't properly documented. This stopped being personal when someone decided to ignore a safety report.”

I ended the call.

My hand was still on the phone when a loud crash came from the loading bay.

June and I rushed to the door.

A worker had driven a forklift too close to the drainage channel. One wheel had slipped into the broken edge of the concrete, tipping the pallet it carried.

A metal drum rolled off and struck the floor.

The sound echoed through the warehouse.

Everyone froze.

The drum stopped near a shallow pool of water. A dark liquid began seeping from a dent along its side.

“Back away!” I shouted.

The nearest worker took a step toward it.

“Don't touch it!”

My voice cracked across the loading bay. He stopped.

I ordered everyone out of the affected section and called emergency services. June pulled the fire alarm, and workers began moving toward the exits.

Rain struck the roof harder now. Water poured through a gap near the loading doors, spreading across the concrete.

I watched it flow toward the damaged drum.

For a few seconds, I was back at the evacuation gate. Water against my chest. Daniel stepping away from me. The world closing its doors.

“Mrs. Cross?”

June's voice brought me back.

The workers were gathering outside. No one had been hurt, but the drum was leaking, and we had no reliable record of what it contained.

I looked at the warehouse again.

This was how it began.

Not with the whole world drowning at once, but with a report ignored, a repair delayed, and a shipment nobody wanted to question.

My phone vibrated.

A message from Daniel appeared on the screen.

YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE INTERRUPTING. RELEASE THE SHIPMENT.

I read it once, then slipped the phone into my pocket.

The emergency team arrived minutes later and secured the loading area. Their inspector examined the labels and asked for the full safety documentation.

We couldn't provide it.

He ordered the affected section sealed until the contents of the drums could be identified.

As the workers stood outside beneath the warehouse awning, June came to stand beside me.

“Do you think this is connected to the storm?”

I looked toward the road. Water was already gathering along the curb, and the rain showed no sign of easing.

“I don't know,” I said.

It was the first honest answer I had given all morning.

I had returned from the dead believing I knew how the next sixty days would unfold. I remembered the flooded streets, the empty shops, the people fighting over bottled water.

But I hadn't remembered this shipment.

I hadn't remembered the early warning.

And I certainly hadn't remembered a company my father built being involved in something nobody could properly explain.

I opened the photograph of the damaged label and enlarged it.

Beneath the scraped paint, I could make out part of a code.

I copied it into my notes.

Then I called June's personal number and asked her to send me every email she had saved about the shipment. I wanted the original messages, not the printed copies.

She promised to send them before the end of the day.

I turned toward my car.

My phone rang again.

This time, the number was unfamiliar.

“Evelyn Cross?” a man asked.

“Who is this?”

“My name is Adrian Voss. I'm calling about the Port Mason shipment.”

I stopped walking.

“How did you get my number?”

“That's not important right now. You need to stop the transfer immediately.”

“The transfer is already on hold.”

“Good. Keep it that way.”

His voice was tight, hurried. I could hear a machine humming somewhere behind him.

“What exactly is in those drums?” I asked.

He went quiet.

“Mr. Voss?”

“Listen carefully. Whatever Daniel Mercer tells you, do not let those containers leave that warehouse.”

My grip tightened around the phone.

“Why?”

A sharp sound came through the line, followed by a muffled voice.

Then Adrian spoke again.

“Because if those chemicals reach the water supply, the storm will be the least of your problems.”

The call ended.

I stood in the rain, staring at the dark screen.

For the first time since waking up sixty days before the apocalypse, I wondered whether I had returned to prevent the disaster—or to discover what had caused it.