For several seconds, the distant light did not answer.

Gruff kept the flashlight aimed through the rain, his palm cupped around the weak beam. Three flashes. A pause. Three more.

Beside him, Brute watched the darkness as if anger alone could force it to reveal what it was hiding.

"Again," Brute said.

"Battery's dyin'."

"Then let it die useful. It will fit the family culture."

Gruff lowered the flashlight and looked at him.

Brute's mouth tightened. The joke had arrived sharp because fear had reached it first.

The water below them had climbed high enough to swallow the porch roofs, the tops of parked vehicles, and nearly every landmark that had helped Gruff understand where they were. The flooded town no longer looked built. It looked scattered. Walls rose from the current without houses attached to them. Trees moved where trees should not move. A propane tank rolled slowly past, turned once in the muddy water, and vanished between two buildings.

The damaged roof beneath Gruff and Brute shifted.

Both men froze.

The sound came through the shingles as a deep wooden complaint.

Brute looked down. "Was that the roof?"

Gruff pressed one palm flat against the surface.

"Lee."

"Quiet."

"You saying quiet does not make the roof less alarming."

"Ken."

Brute became silent.

Gruff listened through his hand. Rain struck the upper surface in thousands of separate taps. Water battered the outside walls below. Somewhere under them, a beam flexed, held, and flexed again. The western corner had begun lifting in the current.

The roof was no longer resting on the building.

It was becoming part of the flood.

Gruff reached for the rope around the ventilation pipe.

"Unclip," he said.

Brute stared at him. "You told me never to unclip."

"Pipe's goin' with the structure."

"And the structure is going where?"

A violent crack answered him.

The roof dropped nearly a foot.

Brute slid sideways. Gruff caught the front of his soaked shirt and hauled him back before he reached the edge.

"That way," Gruff said.

"I dislike that direction."

Another beam broke beneath them.

The center of the roof folded inward, forcing both men toward the higher eastern side. Water burst through the broken opening and spread around their boots.

Gruff pulled the carabiner free from the pipe and clipped the line instead through the straps of both their emergency vests.

Brute looked at the rope connecting them.

"You have tied us together."

"Yes."

"Romantic."

"Move."

"There he is."

They crawled toward a rectangular section of roofing that had separated from the main frame but remained trapped against it. Beneath the shingles was a thick layer of rigid insulation and wooden sheathing. It floated badly, but it floated.

Gruff tested it with one knee.

The panel sank several inches.

Brute studied Gruff's shoulders, then his own stomach, then the narrow piece of roof.

"That board was designed for a chimney cap and perhaps one medium raccoon."

"It's what we got."

"We are two heavily marbled adult men."

"Get on."

"You first. If it rejects your body, I will know not to take it personally."

The roof beneath them groaned again.

Gruff moved onto the floating panel. It dipped until cold water covered his thighs, then rose slightly beneath him.

He reached for Brute.

Brute remained on the collapsing roof.

"Ken."

"I see your hand."

"Take it."

"I am calculating whether love requires me to join you on a wet cracker."

The main roof split.

Brute lunged.

Gruff caught both of his forearms and pulled. Brute's weight struck the panel hard enough to push it entirely beneath the surface. For one terrible second, both men disappeared into brown water.

Then the insulation fought its way upward.

Gruff broke the surface first, coughing.

Brute emerged beside him with both arms wrapped around the panel.

"I hate you," Brute gasped.

Gruff spat floodwater. "Get in line."

The remains of the roof rolled away behind them.

Their panel spun into the current.

The distant rescue light vanished.