“What?”
“
I agreed that they were among television’s greatest comedic achievements, but thought Carl was missing the point.
“There aren’t going to be anymore reruns of
“They could always do another one of those reunion shows, couldn’t they?”
“Who would watch it? Who’s left to make the damn thing? It’s over. Everything is gone. The world’s gone! There’s not going to be any more television programs or movies or books or Johnny Cash tapes. Don’t you understand? Are you that stupid?”
His face darkened. “Ain’t no reason to call me stupid, Teddy.”
“I’m sorry. Really, I am.”
Carl took the next turn a little too sharply, and our shoulders bumped into each other.
“That’s okay,” he sighed. “I reckon we’re both stressed.”
“Maybe, but it still didn’t give me the right to call you that.”
He grinned. “Hell, we both know I’m dumber than a stump.”
I snickered.
Still laughing, Carl turned the defroster off and on, trying to make it work. “So this is the end of the world?”
“Well, something’s gone wrong. This rain surely ain’t natural.”
“But there’s got to be other survivors, don’t there? People like us?”
I shrugged. “Sure, sitting huddled together high on a mountaintop, watching the waters rise higher and higher all around them. They’re just biding their time, same as we are. We’re just biding our time until something else happens.”
“Like what? Things are pretty bad. I don’t see how they could get worse.”
“Death. Drowning. Heck, I don’t know. Forget about it. I’m sorry. It’s just the weather, is all. It’s getting me grumpy. Makes my arthritis act up.”
“Mine too. I always wanted to live to be old, and now that I’m here, I wonder why I ever wanted such a thing.”
I nodded in quiet agreement.
He drove around a big bale of wet hay that had rolled out into the road. “What do you think caused it, Teddy?”
I shrugged. “Global warming? Though I heard some scientists on TV saying the ice caps hadn’t melted. Maybe a magnetic shift at the poles? Or a comet…or something like that? I don’t rightly know. We’ve been messing with this planet for too many years now. Could be that old Mother Nature has finally decided to fight back.”
“Yeah, but the good book says that He promised not to do it again, and God would never go back on His word.”
Thunder crashed in the skies overhead and the rain pelted the roof of the cab like thrown stones. The wind hammered into the side of the truck, forcing Carl to swerve.
“Well,” I said, “maybe the Lord got tired of us breaking our promises to Him, so He decided to break one of his own.”
Carl whistled, a low and mournful sound. “Rose sure wouldn’t stand to hear you talk like that. She’d have a fit.”
“Rose isn’t here, and to be honest, I’m glad she’s not. Breaks my heart to say that, but it would break my heart even more to watch her suffer through this—this
“Can I ask you something, Teddy?”
“What?”
“Well, you and Rose always knew the Bible better than most, especially when it came to all that prophecy and end-of-the-world stuff. I never understood all that; what with the little horn and the big horn and the lake of fire and the trumpet. But the world wasn’t supposed to end in a flood, was it?”
“No.” I shook my head. “It wasn’t. We were supposed to get a great beast, and I haven’t seen one yet.”
“Well, maybe the beast will be along before this is all over.”
“That’s not even funny, Carl.”
We continued on down the road, and I saw something out of the corner of my eye—or rather, I didn’t see it. I told Carl to stop.
“What is it?” He put the truck in park.
“Steve Porter’s hunting cabin.”
Carl wiped condensation from the window. “I don’t see it.”
“That’s right.”
He tilted his head. “What’s right?”
“You don’t see it.”
“Teddy, are we doing an Abbott and Costello routine here, or what?”
“No.” I pointed to the empty, muddy field. “You don’t see Steve’s cabin because it’s not there any longer.”
Carl scratched his balding head. “But that’s the spot where it used to be. What are you saying, Teddy?”
I fought to keep the impatience out of my voice. “I’m saying it ain’t there no more. The cabin is missing.”
Carl’s jaw dropped. “Well, I’ll be…”
We both stared at the vacant field, not sure what to make of it. Steve Porter’s cabin had sat far in off the road, right next to the tree line. It was hard to tell through all the rain, but it looked like there might be a sinkhole there. There was a depression where the cabin had been.
Carl must have noticed the sinkhole, too, because he said, “I reckon it must have collapsed into the ground, same as my place.”
“Could be.” I nodded. “At least we know there was nobody inside. Steve doesn’t use that camp except during deer season. This time of year, he works in Norfolk.”
“They got flooded out pretty quick,” Carl noted. “Guess Steve won’t be coming around to use it this year.”
“No, I don’t reckon he will.”
We continued on our way. Carl didn’t say much, and I figured he was focused on staying on the road. I stared out at the rain and the mist because there was nothing else to look at.
“Here’s what I don’t understand,” I finally said. “With all this rain, you’d think it would do something to the atmosphere.”
“How so?”
“Well, I’m not sure what exactly. But it would seem that a storm this prolonged would affect the oxygen balance or something. Course, I’m not a scientist.”
Carl pumped the brakes, bringing us to a slow, sliding halt in front of Dave and Nancy Simmons’s place. He stared out the driver’s side window.
“Why are we stopping again?” I asked. “Dave and Nancy’s house is still standing.”
“Yes, it is.” Carl squinted through the driver’s side window. “But that’s not what I’m looking at.”
“Well, what are you looking at?”
“I didn’t notice it before when I drove past earlier, but their door’s open.”
“What?”
I looked at the house, and sure enough, the front door was wide open. The screen door hung crooked, swinging back and forth on one hinge and banging into the aluminum siding. Every new gust of wind blew sheets of rain into the living room. Dave’s truck and Nancy’s Explorer both sat in the driveway, buried up to their bumpers in mud. Dave and Nancy were good folks. Dave worked as a corrections officer down at the prison in Roanoke, and
