Storm Coming

by Free Falconer

  Sherry wasn't stupid. She knew life was a lot harder for poor people than it was for people with money, and even harder for poor, black people than it was for poor white people. She had had a charmed life, insulated by money from the harsher realities. But that money was gone, and with it the protection. Her mother was caring for her father on a pension, and now Sherry was separated from her husband and looking at living on welfare. Isabella and Damien wouldn't have the protection that money gives. They wouldn't be able to live as honorary white people. And they wouldn’t be able to count on their father either, a white man who spat out racist insults when he was in a bad mood, and found himself short when it was time to pay child support.

  She needed to find out where she came from, to find herself and her children a place in the world. She didn't even know who her people were! When she got to her aunt's house – the house of her white, adoptive aunt – she would ask about tracking down her parents. Find her birth mother, at the very least. Yes, that is what she would do. And with her decision came relief from the building panic that threatened her every time she tried to map out her future, and the future of her children. Other women had risen above the trials of single parenthood – look at J.K. Rowling! Sherry had the advantage of private schooling, a middle-class accent, and high-school results good enough to ensure a place at university. All she had to do was set her mind to it, get through the hard times, and not give into despair. And get out of this bloody valley without having an accident

  She crested another of those small rises and the house was back in sight. The wind must be really strong there, to thrash around the grass in the yard like that. It must be the hills, hemming the house in and narrowing the valley into a funnel for all the wind off the approaching storm. Everything was being pulled toward this small gap between the hills. Even her.

  Strange how the trees around the house weren't moving. What kind of trees could they be? Some European import, more sturdy than the usual gums and less likely to drop branches everywhere? They must have been, to resist the wind like that.

  Nearly there. She would be driving past the house soon. Maybe she should ask if she could stay overnight, given how close the storm was? It looked like a bad one, bad enough to wash out roads, flood rivers and reduce visibility to near zero. She might end up trapped somewhere, unable to get across a flooded bridge. A warm safe place to spend the night would be good. And a cup of tea would be lovely.

  She checked the rear view mirror again. There they were, the purple-black clouds, dark and low and much closer than she expected, following her down the valley. She couldn't even see Mt Kosciuszko any more. At this rate the storm clouds would block out the sun before it set.

  You won't be stopping in the grasslands after dark?

  The old man’s words rang so clearly in her head, it was almost as if he was in the car with her. Sherry caught her breath, startled by the lurch of fear triggered by his words. Why had they suddenly popped into her head like that? The palms of her hands were sweaty against the steering wheel, her heart was pounding, and – dammit! - gravel peppered the floor underfoot as she sped up, again without meaning to. She took deep breaths, trying to bring her heart rate down, lifted her foot off the pedal and told herself to focus on her driving. That old man must have spooked her more than she realised. What did she think he was going to do, follow her along the empty gravel road, wait until she was far away from any help, then attack her?

  She checked the rear view mirror. The road behind her stretched down the middle of the valley, bright and empty. Funny how ominous the old man’s words now sounded, when they had sounded so innocuous before.

  That house didn’t seem to be getting any closer - it was taking much longer to get there than she had thought. She was impatient to get there, to safety, and now that the road was running straight again she let the car pick up speed, her foot pushing down steadily. She glanced at the windows of the distant house, hoping somebody inside had heard her approach, and that they had seen the coming storm. That maybe, even, they would come out to greet a lost stranger. All she saw was dark windows and the walls flushed deep rose by the light of the setting sun, before the road banked into a wide curve she hadn’t noticed and a gentle rise blocked her view.

  She was driving too fast to safely take that turn - and how had that turn appeared so fast and so unexpectedly? - but the car stuck to the road like it was on tracks, and when she hit another straight she kept going. Gravel rattled against the bottom of the car and she forced herself to ease off the accelerator, annoyed at herself. Speeding up a little when she hit a straight was okay, but she was driving too fast to be safe. Too fast to realise she was approaching a turn, It was like she wanted to crash the car.

  Something moved in the grass beside the road, hurtling towards the car, and her foot stamped down on the pedal. What was she doing? It could be a kangaroo! She had a vision of her car hitting the roo and disintegrating on impact. But she was already past the point where the kangaroo – if it had been a kangaroo – would have collided with her. There was no point braking now. She set her jaw and kept her foot down on the accelerator.

  Because that had not been a kangaroo. Too low, too flat, and moving in a long slide instead of in leaps and bounds.

  And willy-willies didn't travel in groups, and that bloody rock hadn't been that close to the road when she stopped. And it hadn't been thunder she had heard it had been sobbing, dammit.

  She had to stop pretending everything was okay and start dealing with what was actually happening. Whatever the hell that was. Her children depended on her, and who else was there for them to depend upon? Not their father, that was for sure. And sure as hell not the kindness of strangers. It was her, or nothing, so she had best wake up and get things under control.

  She was nearly at the house. Finally. Close enough to see that the front door gaped open and the chimney had fallen in. Close enough to see the wire fence was toppled in parts, and that the tangled grass that choked the garden had ran up the walls. Close enough to see that the darkness within the black squares of the glassless window was not merely shadow, but that it shifted and heaved and that some of it gleamed, like eyes watching watching watching-

  She slammed the pedal down as far as it would go and shot past the house, gravel strafing the chassis like rifle fire. Something shrieked or maybe it was the rising scream of her car engine. She wasn't sure and she wasn’t stopping to find out. She kept her eyes locked on the road, clinging to the drab normality of gravel and dirt, telling herself she could not have seen what she had seen. Because she hadn't, had she?

  She could not have seen something dark inside that house that rippled and shifted. She could not have seen the reflection of something huge and hungry in the glass of windows that had no glass.

  The road lifted before her and her car hurtled into the air, engine screaming as the wheels left dirt. They were airborne for a few gut-clenching seconds before the car crashed to earth, suspension bottoming out. The car bounced, came down on the road again, a little askew. Sherry fought the steering wheel, wrestling the car back into the middle of the road, her neck aching with tension. In the back seat Damien wailed.

  “Not now please, baby boy,” she said, keeping her voice calm even though she wasn’t. She couldn't turn to look at him, couldn’t afford to take her eyes off the road, or to slow down. It was taking everything she had to stay focussed and to keep the car under control. If she looked at her children, if she even let herself start to think what might – NO. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She clutched at the steering wheel and grit her teeth. Stay calm. Stay in control.

  The road curved before her and she had to slow to take the bend. She didn't want to, but she had to. Damien wailed louder. Sherry bit back a sob, tamped on the brakes and turned into the corner. The car began to slide. She tapped the brakes again, shoving Damien's cries to the back of her mind, and felt the back of the car slew, pulling itself free of her control. Gravel rolled under the tyres and the car ski
pped sideways. She turned into the skid, got control back, tried to turn back into the corner too soon and again began to slide. This time she turned into the skid as it started, getting control back straight away. Just in time to take the bend in one long, controlled slide.

  The road straightened and she glanced in her rear-view mirror. Behind her roiled a cloud of dust, sullen red and full of darting shadows.

  She looked ahead to the road, stretching wonderfully straight into the distance. Relief flooded her and she planted her foot, letting the car have its head. Damien’s crying had lifted to a scream, a grating, rhythmic wail she would have to ignore until they were safe. Only then she could stop the car. To tend to him, to take a breath.

  There was movement to the right of the road, grass swirling and thrashing like a wild thing. Sherry couldn’t look away. A dark shape lifted from the grass and lurched forward, reaching for the car as she hurtled past. She shot a glance at the side mirror, saw it was big, far bigger than anything that could hide in the grass could be. Sherry thought dog, cow, kangaroo, but even as she did she knew if was panic speaking, disbelief. None of them had anything to do with whatever it was coming after her out of the grass.

  She heard a rushing sound - the breeze? - followed by a loud crack!, like a sail catching the wind and pulling taut. Then then was a hollow whump!, followed by another and another, steadily drawing closer, and all the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She knew that sound. Wings. Fuck-fuck-fuck those were wings, huge fucking wings beating faster and faster, trying to catch up with her. She wanted to look, was afraid to look, couldn't look now because there was another curve coming up and she couldn’t slow for it, she just couldn’t.

  Her car lurched to the left, buffeted by a sudden wind. Please be the storm. Not giant black wings, sweeping down and sending out a gust of wind strong enough to shift her car. Sherry gulped and directed the car back to the centre of the road, refusing to look at the flash of movement in her side mirror. Something scratched and scrabbled at the handle of Isabella's door, like claws scraping a blackboard, but louder, much louder. Isabella shouted something, there was a loud crunch and the back of the car bounced high. Sherry glanced at the rear-view mirror, just in time to see something black kick loose from beneath her rear tyre to thrash and tumble into the rising cloud of dirt behind her.

  She snapped her attention back to the road, clutching the steering wheel in a white-knuckled death grip and keeping her foot jammed down hard on the pedal. Because there had been something else inside the sullen red cloud of dust thrown up by her car, something dark and only partly hidden. And it was gaining on her.

  The car hurtled along, barely under control. The road stretched straight to another crest, but it was hard for her to focus on it. It looked – blurry. She blinked, squinted, felt her eyes straining. Then she realised what it was. Darkness. The dying light in the west was behind her, sinking into the mass of dark storm clouds. And ahead of her was the night, rushing towards her, chasing the sun. Why had she never before realised that the east is not just where the sun rises, it’s where the night comes rushing in? She squinted again, struggling to understand what she was looking at, then flicked on the headlights. High beam, so she could see.

  The road ahead passed through some kind of cut, ground rising to either side. Sick panic rose inside her but Sherry struggled to think, tried to ignore the rising terror. A cut? What were cuts for – flatten out steep inclines, keep the road level when the ground rises, pass through the banks either side of a river- A RIVER!

  Just make sure you’re past the river before sundown, and you’ll be right.

  Through the notch of the cut she could see fir trees, lit gold by the dying light. A hillside? A hill covered in fir trees, on the other side of a river?

  But that meant there was a drop somewhere, between here and that hill. Was the cut the beginning of a steep incline? Or did it lead into a sharp bend, the first of many that led down to a river? Whichever one it was, she couldn't afford to hit it at this speed. She glanced at the rear-view mirror, at the flapping lunging thing that was thing, or shadow, and which was worst? She couldn’t afford to slow down, either.

  The grass on the left of the road thrashed and swirled in the way she had come to dread, not just in the one place but in several. On the opposite side of the road, the grass on the other side of the road also began to thrash. Sherry bit back a whimper. She would have to drive between the two points, plunge between them. She stared at the cut, willing herself not to see anything else, trying to work out how long she could leave it before she had to hit the brakes.

  What if that wasn't a river on the other side of the cut?

  Dark shadows lifted from the grass to the left and shot towards the road. On the other side of the road the shadows were forming, as if in reply. In the back seat Damien's cries shifted to shrieks, salt on Sherry's shredded nerves. Isabella was saying something, her words drowned out by Damien's screaming. Sherry grit her teeth and ignored them both. The second set of shadows shot forward, mirroring the first group, both closing in on the road. The ones on the left were closest, might even get to the road in time to intercept her, and Damien’s screaming was getting louder, why didn’t he stop?

  Damien's screaming stopped. And now she could hear what Isabella was saying. “You want bottle, little man? There there, sweet baby.”

  A wave of gratitude swept over Sherry. “Love you, Isabella sweety,” she said, keeping her voice low. Don't let this be the end for us. Tears pricked at her eyes and she blinked them away. “Love you too, baby man.”

  “Love you mummy,” sang Isabella. The engine shuddered and whined, the cut looming huge, and Sherry slammed her foot on the brake. Something huge and dark flapped its way into the air on her left. Tyres slid, and the back of the car swung left. They were going into a spin.

  “No-no-NO!” Sherry eased off the brake and turned the wheel into the spin. But it was no use, the car kept turning. She saw a dark thing flapping its way towards them, arrow straight and oh god its face was two black, gleaming knives! She turned away to face the cut, to judge the distance, to will the car out of the spin towards the gap. She didn't dare look back at her darlings. Not now. The car kept spinning, she and her children trapped inside like flies in amber, and the side of the car hit the flapping thing with the smooth power of a cricket bat slamming into a ball. Thunk! went the thing; and the whole car shook. The thing bounced off, collapsing like a black umbrella turned inside out by a strong wind. The car, graceful as a dancer, kept turning, until it finished one complete rotation, Until it once again faced the cut.

  Holding her breath, not daring to believe, Sherry lightly touched the brake. The car glided forward into the cut, two walls of orange clay rising either side and flashing past in a blue. Then the walls dropped away and the car was back in the open, the road dropping away in a steep straight line leading all the way down to a wooden bridge. The water under the bridge was shallow, and so clear she could see the rounded stones of the river bed. The car was airborne again, just for a moment, then it plummeted down the steeply sloping gravel road. Sherry tapped the brake occasionally to keep the slide under control, but otherwise left the car to it. It was going the right way.

  They hit the bridge hard enough to bottom out the suspension. Isabella cheered. Damien hiccuped began to cry again – his bottle must have been jarred loose. The wooden planks of the bridge drummed beneath the tyres, then stopped. They were across the bridge and on tarmac, the tyres silent. And they were driving upward, into the haze of gold that was the sunlit slope. All the trees were gilded, like it was Christmas, and Sherry recognised the straight, strictly spaced rows of a commercial tree farm.

  In the rear view mirror she saw the swirls of grass slow and falter against the other end of the bridge, like spent waves. Can’t cross running water. Where had that thought come from? She didn't know. But like the old man’s words she knew it was true, with a certainty she could not explain.

  She pulled
over to the side of the road, her hands shaking and her heart still racing, and left the engine running. Turning in her seat she reached back and found Damien’s bottle, still in the capsule. Her hands were shaking so hard it took her three tries to get it into his mouth, but she persisted. She smiled at her darling boy, focussed on sucking at the bottle, his concentration total. She smiled over at her precious little girl, who looked back at her with big curious eyes before beaming back at her. Then she looked through the back window of the car, down the road to the bridge and across the river. The bank on the other side of the river was shadowed, the grass still. She got out of the car, bracing herself against the roof, and looked back.

  Above the shadowed river the western horizon was piled high with storm clouds, black and angry and outlined in sullen scarlet, still coming after her and dragging sheets of rain beneath them. But above those clouds the sky was washed pale with light, and in it a single star glittered, blue-white and lovely.

  Maybe she had imagined it. A lone woman travelling along a lonely stretch of road, letting her imagination get the better of her. Stress could do that to people, and divorce was supposed to be one of the most stressful experiences short of a bereavement. And she was moving house as well, and worried about money. Stress triggers, all of them, the kind of thing that kept people up at night. A simple explanation, and a sensible one. It could all have been her imagination.