While Eileen was showering, I pulled the emergency bags from my closet and checked to make sure the dates were still good on the meal bars and bottled waters, iodine tablets, and basic medicines. Each knapsack also held a multi-tool knife, crank flashlight and radio, three hundred dollars in cash, a sleep sack, toiletries and a change of clothes. Overkill? I certainly hoped so. But even if the world hadn’t ended in chaos and riots back in December, we’d still had more than our share of extreme weather the past year. Besides, it was handy to have cash stashed in the house for a pre-payday emergency.
It wasn’t easy to get by on one salary, but we definitely had it better than most. The house was free and clear thanks to my dad, and Phil had lured me away from the bank with enough of a bump in salary to make sure I didn’t worry. He’d worried enough for both of us. He’d been so anxious that Maureen’s business endeavor would fail—but being newlyweds he hadn’t wanted her to think he doubted her. So he’d exaggerated my accounting background—which pretty much amounted to helping clueless customers figure out how they’d overdrafted—and convinced her that I could handle the books and inventory. Luckily, I was a fast learner.
I heard the pipes rattle as Eileen turned off the water, and it made me realize how quiet the house was. With the windows boarded up, there was just a faint roaring noise like the ocean in the distance. I wasn’t sure I liked being insulated like that. It was good to hear what a storm was doing. Especially if it suddenly shrieked like a train. Being in the living room felt better. Unfortunately, the two uncovered windows were on the northwest corner of the house—and flanked my overladen bookcase. Shit.
A minute later, Eileen found me attempting to get the bookcase onto a towel so I could—theoretically—slide it across the floor and away from the windows.
“Mom?”
Funny how kids can pack so much sarcasm and judgment into one syllable. I’d been oh-so-carefully rocking the bookcase back and forth, trying to scoot a bath towel under the bottom edge with my toe—while avoiding trapping said toe underneath said massive piece of furniture.
“Let me get dressed and I’ll help.”
I turned, expecting to see her smirking at me, but she was just standing there, wrapped in her shower towel, looking uncomfortable. Trying to figure out how to tell me I was an idiot without getting in trouble.
“Forget it. I give up. I thought it might be faster than pulling all the books off and then moving the bookcase.”
She nodded once, seemingly relieved that her mother had come to her senses. “Is Pebbles home?”
“No, sweetie. I’ll call her again in a sec. Go get your pajamas on . . . it’s late.”
I abandoned my books for the kitchen as soon as she left the room. Coffee and cat. I needed my coffee and my cat. I set the water on to boil, peeked in the carafe to make sure I’d added enough for two strong cups, and then went back out to holler for Pebbles again.
The roars and sighs of the storm were loud after the muffled silence inside. The rain was whipping around the southeast corner of the house, but the northwest was more protected and slightly quieter. I called out towards the woods and marsh, hoping my voice would carry on the wind, but Pebbles didn’t come. If she really was hunkered down underneath one of the mobile homes, that only worried me more. This storm was stronger than anyone had anticipated, and mobile homes did not fare well even in category ones and twos. I hoped the neighbors had gone to a shelter. Ashley High School was just up the road, so surely they had? If Adam hadn’t boarded up our windows, we might’ve gone too. Maybe we still should. I needed to check the weather again.
After another round of calls on the south side of the porch, I gave up, soaked again from the windspray. The night was liquid ebony as if the rain was actually black paint running from the heavens; and with our windows covered, the only brightness splashing against the front yard was from the small porch light and open doorway. I couldn’t see Pebbles, or hear anything except the wind and rain scouring the air, and the pine and birch branches scrubbing the storm-weathered oaks. We were too isolated. Cut off. Everything just felt wrong.
✽✽✽
His body sliced through the slanting rain, leaving steam trails that glowed under the street lamps before streaking away into blackness and wind. Arms and legs pumping in a rapid cadence, he settled into a blistering, ground-eating stride that should bring him to her in less than fifteen minutes. His extreme aggravation at being unable to find an open taxi service was only outdone by the time wasted in trying to find a vehicle with electronic ignition.
He had never found a need to learn the mechanics of these motorized contrivances—they had always seemed too rudimentary to bother—but now that he actually needed to start one without having a key, he found his lack of prior motivation appalling. He stretched his long legs and inhaled faster, deeper breaths through his mouth, increasing his speed. Twelve minutes.
It was awkward to keep swallowing the water that filled his mouth, but he was grateful for the strafing wetness as it mitigated his body’s heat. And he was grateful for the cloaking night that allowed
