Surviving the Storm

by Heather Woodhaven

  “Let’s try the old-school method. I’ll get that radio you found from the garage.” He pointed at the computer. “You’ll need to turn that off though. We need to have complete darkness before I open this door...just in case.”

  Her eyes drooped with sadness and exhaustion. “I thought that finding out why they killed George would help me. Instead it just makes me feel all the more helpless. Do you mind if I stay here and wait for you to get the radio? It’s much more comfortable in here than the garage.”

  “Of course.” He waited a beat and watched her close her eyes. She looked spent, yet beautiful. He flicked the light off. Once the darkness returned, David slipped out into the hallway only to see a flash of light reflect off the framed artwork on the wall, ten inches from his nose. He froze, every muscle tensed. Was someone in the house, or was that a flashlight from outside, refracting through the wall of windows in the living room? And if it was light, was it friend or foe?

  There was a possibility it was floodlights from boats or helicopters coming to help tsunami victims. He tried to come to a logical conclusion, but there were too many variables. The light flashed again and this time he could tell it was the diameter of a flashlight beam.

  “David?” Aria called out, and he could hear her footsteps approaching. “While you’re out there could you get—”

  He dove for her and slipped his hand over her mouth. She made a squeak then tensed in his arms. “Stay still,” he whispered. “We’ve got company.”

  David felt her nod against his hand. She wrapped her nails around his fingers and pulled his hand down. She rose on her tiptoes and cupped her hand around his ear. “Are they inside?”

  Her whisper was breathy, most likely in an attempt to be quiet, but it was hard not to jerk away. It tickled. He shook his head. He wasn’t sure if they were or weren’t inside, but he didn’t think they’d moved indoors. There were no sounds of footsteps or breathing, except their own.

  Almost as if they wanted to prove him wrong, a loud click sounded from the back. It seemed as though someone had found the same method as Aria had to break into the house. His mind cataloged the best possible places to hide, but before he could act on any of them, Aria pulled on his arm and darted back into the office.

  He almost called out her name. The office was one of the worst places to hide—there weren’t many options and no exit except the hallway door they’d come through—until he realized why she’d returned. She yanked the flash drive from the back of the computer and tiptoed back to her bag. Ah, if they found those then the jig would be up.

  He heard shoes shuffling on the wooden floor in the living room. There was no place to hide now, nowhere to go from here and no more time for options. He grabbed the bag from Aria and shuffled her to the wall behind the door. If they hid behind the desk or the chairs they would be too obvious against the white carpet. What kind of people installed white carpet anyway? Were they human? Didn’t they ever spill?

  David gently guided Aria closest to the hinge of the door. She seemed to understand as she flattened herself against the wall and slid as far as she could, but there still wasn’t enough room for him. David wanted to open the door farther but couldn’t recall if the door had squeaked or not when they opened it. He stretched his hand past Aria and pressed against the middle door hinge—a trick he knew from many years of playing hide-and-seek with his brothers—as he shifted the door open another two feet.

  He dropped his arms to his sides. The bag slid to the carpet, the straps hanging from his fingertips, and he stepped into the space next to Aria. The only thing left to do was to remain quiet and pray the men didn’t look too hard.

  The footsteps grew louder. They were getting close. Through the slit between the hinge and the frame he spotted the outline of one of the men, his arm outstretched. David’s heart sank. He was armed.

  The man turned, and the shadow disappeared. A portion of the beam of light slid through the space between the hinges onto the back of the wood. It disappeared as quickly as it came, and David hoped they didn’t spot them through the small crevice.

  The door started moving toward his nose. David felt his eyes widen. He grabbed Aria’s fingertips, and they simultaneously rose on their tiptoes and, while keeping their backs pressed against the wall, turned their faces toward each other to prevent the door from hitting them. She dropped his hand and gripped his shoulder instead for balance. If the door bounced back at all, it would be a dead giveaway to their position.

  The office light flipped on, and Aria’s eyes widened, her eyebrows high on her forehead. She mouthed two words, but David couldn’t figure out what she was trying to say. She rolled her eyes and mouthed the words again, her mouth opening and closing in dramatic fashion. Understanding hit him in the chest. The bowls...they were still in the room. They had left them both on the table sitting between the two chairs in the corner. An obvious giveaway. David clenched his fists. Should he take a chance and make the first move? Surprise would be their only ally, their only chance if discovered.

  “Hold up!” the other man shouted from a different room. The office light flipped off and the footsteps retreated.

  “What is it?” the gunman asked, his tone indicating his annoyance. Aria dropped her hand from David’s shoulder and they both lowered to a regular standing position. David relaxed his hands and moved his head side to side to relieve the tension that had built up in his neck. He debated running to the table and grabbing the bowls while the gunman was distracted, but he knew he didn’t have the grace to pull it off without alerting the men. If only he had been the one closest to the hinge. Aria could’ve handled it.

  “They were here,” the man grunted. “Listen to this: ‘Due to life threatening circumstances,’” the man read in what David assumed was his best female impersonation the note Aria had left on the counter.

  His eyes adjusted once more to the darkness and he watched Aria cringe. The men knew. It was only a matter of time before they found them and David had no idea how he would defend them with guns at play and no weapon of his own.

  “This girl’s a piece of work. We need to find them now more than ever, because mark my words—as soon as the phones are back up, this little girl is going to spill it all. There’s no negotiation with someone like this. Ridiculous.”

  “Let’s keep searching, then. They’re here somewhere.”

  “Is your brain on? Were you listening? Why would she leave a note if they were still here? They ate, got clothes and kept moving. My guess is they’re heading to the highway.”

  “But the highway is closed a mile in each direction.”

  “Exactly, but how would they know that? As soon as they find out, they’ll hide again, which is why we’ve got to catch them before that happens. Come on. Turn your flashlight off. We don’t know how long ago they left. We need to make sure we don’t alert them.”

  David’s mouth dropped open. Aria’s note had saved them? Her constant need to take care of little details was entertaining at times but mostly drove him nuts. And now he owed his life to it? He shook his head and ground his teeth together to prevent laughing at Aria’s broad grin and twinkling eyes. She would be insufferable.

  They remained motionless for three more minutes, but the way he itched to stretch it felt more like three hours. After the door slammed, they still didn’t move for another minute. Just to be sure.

  David snuck out of the room and peeked around the corner to make sure the men weren’t trying to lure them out of their hiding place. The living room was empty. It appeared the coast was clear. He stepped back into the office. “You okay?”

  Aria let out a loud exhale, crossed her arms and nodded at him, her eyebrows wiggling up and down. “How about that thank-you letter, huh?”

  “Yeah, yeah, don’t get a big head,” he teased.

  “Don’t worry.”

  David st
ared at the wall of bookshelves. “Next house I work on with built-in shelves, I’m going to insist they include a secret passageway.”

  “All houses should have at least one,” Aria agreed. “When you do, I have some designs you can use...some, uh, old ones in storage.”

  Once again David wanted to confront her with the decision of leaving behind architecture, but instead he ground his teeth together. “That was too close, and you heard them... They have no plans to give up looking for us. So, the very next thing we do is figure out some way to arm ourselves. You see any evidence of a gun safe in the house?”

  “Not that I’ve found.”

  “Then we’re going to have to come up with something in the garage to improvise.”

  She bit her lip and tilted her head up toward the ceiling. “It’s kind of off the wall, but the pop bottle...”

  He curled his lip. “What about it?”

  “If they have an air pump then maybe—”

  He inhaled with understanding. At least he thought he understood. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “We build a homemade air gun?” she asked. “You are, after all, the fastest nail gun shooter in the West. Or so I’m told.”

  He grinned. “I like the way you think,” he said, and turned on and headed for the garage.

  “Oh, sure, now you like the way I think,” she said, right on his heels. “Where was that guy when I was writing thank-you notes?”

  He couldn’t lose the goofy grin on his face. Why couldn’t she see how perfect they were for each other? His smile faded. Maybe she did see, but if she didn’t love him, what good did it do? He cleared his throat and opened the garage door. “Come on. If we’re going to be ready to defend ourselves, I need an assistant. Let’s go make an air gun.”

  FOURTEEN

  Aria looked around the corner, steeled her nerves and darted into the kitchen to retrieve an empty pitcher and two glasses. They needed an empty soda bottle for the base of the air gun.

  “Wait. What are you doing?” David called out. “What’s in there?”

  “We aren’t going to waste the soda, are we? I could use a pick-me-up.”

  He shrugged. “Fine by me. I want to take stock and see if we even have what we need to make the nail gun.”

  They entered the garage and she flipped back on the lantern left on the work counter. Aria lifted the two-liter soda out of the emergency box and set it next to him. She twisted off the lid and the sound of fizz bubbling to the top surged her taste buds into overdrive. Once they each had eight ounces she poured the rest of the soda into the pitcher for potential refills later. “Okay. Drink up.” She turned and toasted him. “Here’s to finding...a bike valve?”

  He nodded. “Yes, that’s a must. Along with...a gauge, a hose, some piping, a connector...”

  “And either an air compressor or...”

  “I’ll take a bike pump if I have to,” David finished.

  Aria frowned and looked around the garage with new eyes. She thought she spotted a bike hanging on the opposite wall behind some of the other storage boxes, but she couldn’t tell without a brighter light. “Not to mention the nails,” she added.

  They both took a long drink of the soda. “That really is a lot of stuff, isn’t it?” Aria asked. Her creativity worked best when she thought things through aloud. She wasn’t so sure the first idea that popped in her head was a good one anymore. “Are you sure they don’t already own a nail gun or a drill or any power tool we could convert for an emergency weapon?” She spun around. “I mean these owners seem to have nothing but the best. I see a workbench...”

  “Help yourself,” David commented. “More power to you, if you can find it. I don’t see anything but some loose tools.”

  Aria looked over her shoulder. “Well, you would keep all of your tools out in the open, ready for use, but here...if there was anything valuable and you only lived here half the year...maybe used it as a vacation rental sometimes, you would want to make sure the expensive stuff would be locked up.” She pointed to some of the cabinets below the counter. “You’d be worried about that mildew I was talking about. So you’d probably pack it away until spring.”

  She bent down and started opening cabinets. Paper towels, safety goggles, nails. She shook the box at David. He crossed his arms and nodded, but she knew in her gut she was getting closer. She tugged on the next handle, and it didn’t budge. “David, this one is locked. Point the lantern at it.”

  He obliged and there it was...a keyhole. “Think you can try out those lock-picking skills you were bragging about earlier?”

  He eyed her. “You don’t secretly know how to pick locks as well, do you? Because if I sit here working on it for ten minutes and then you come along with one click and open it, I’m telling you now I’m going to be mad.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Now does that sound like me?” Laughter bubbled up inside. He knew her so well. If she did have lock picking in her arsenal, that would be exactly what she would do. The tendency came from working side by side with her dad and his employees. She’d grown tired of men thinking she was incapable and, on her dad’s advice, found it was best to play naive until she knew without a doubt she could do it faster than the man in question. The element of surprise was what earned her respect on the construction site, but alas, picking locks wasn’t something her dad had taught her.

  She sighed. The laughing, the teasing—it all felt so foreign. And for the briefest of moments when they were discussing how to come up with a makeshift weapon, it was as if her old self had returned, energized by the prospect of design and innovation. She turned her back to David and topped off her cup while he kneeled down to work. She watched the bubbles slowly disappear into the shadowed cup.

  After withdrawing from her friends—including David—her decision to leave her old life behind seemed sound. Sound... “I forgot about the radio,” she said. She strode across the garage to get it. It took a few moments before she found a station without static.

  Authorities warn that subsequent tidal waves often occur after a tsunami of this magnitude. Residents should stay in evacuation zones until the all-clear has been given. Highway 101 is closed along much of the Oregon Coast—from Astoria to Tillamook—due to massive flooding. Red Cross stations are quickly...

  Aria closed her eyes, and tried to force back the sudden despair. Highway 101 was to be their lifeline and it was closed. How would anyone be able to help them? Aria turned the volume down for a second. “Did you hear that?”

  David groaned, “Sure did. Any way we could just go straight east by foot?”

  “How good are you at rock climbing without gear? Because it’s a sheer rock wall on the other side of the highway—at least directly across the highway from the park’s entrance.”

  “Okay, never mind.”

  “I never thought my haven would become my prison.”

  “Which brings us back to here. Arming ourselves is of vital importance. Hey, would you come here and point the flashlight while I work?”

  She moved to his side and as soon as she got in a comfortable position on the cement floor she pointed it at the keyhole. He glanced quickly at her. “You interested in what I’m doing?”

  It would be a welcome distraction. She cleared her throat. “Sure.”

  “I don’t have official lock-picking tools, but I’m using the bit wrench from my pocket knife,” he said, shaking his left hand, “as a tension wrench while I’m trying to mimic the key and hit all the pins with this other four-in-one screwdriver. Obviously I’m using the thinnest one.” His shoulders rose almost to his ears as he grunted then released. “I’m not as practiced as I used to be.”

  “No doubt you and your brothers made that a competition, too.”

  He chuckled. “Mom encouraged it. Anytime she bought candy for us,
she’d lock it up and let us take turns to get it.”

  “Your mom’s hilarious.”

  David took a deep breath and inserted the tools back in the lock. “Yeah, I suppose she is. She found pretty creative ways to keep us occupied.”

  “Did she ever worry about what you boys would do with the skills? They could be used for less noble reasons.”

  “Nah. She made it clear what would happen to us if we drifted off the straight and narrow.” He glanced up at her. “You know my mom used to be a cop, right?”

  “What?” She leaned forward. “Are you serious?”

  “Completely. Made detective before she and Dad decided to start a family.” He shook his head. “We used to tease her that she never gave up that job, she merely worked for free. We could never get a single thing past that woman.”

  Aria almost asked to hear more stories but also sensed her connection to him strengthening. She didn’t want to make him think she’d changed her mind about their relationship. The moment of silence increased her anxiety. She fidgeted with the sweater, as it hung down to almost her thumbs. “Do you think we’re wasting our time? Maybe we should give up and do our best at making an air gun.”

  He grinned, turned and stared into her eyes but didn’t move his hands from the cabinet. A sudden click, and the cabinet was unlocked. He wiggled his eyebrows. The beam of her flashlight bounced off the whites of his teeth. “Now, who’s the man?” he asked.

  She couldn’t help but snicker. “Oh, you are definitely the man.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” he added, bobbing his head. “Now let’s see what’s in...” He pulled the cabinet door wide and the light caught three plastic cases resembling miniature suitcases, stacked one on top of the other. “Yes! Drill...circular saw...nail gun!” He slapped a hand on her shoulder. Shivers ran down her spine and she couldn’t reply as he continued to gush. “You’re a genius, Aria!” He gasped. “And it’s cordless.”

  He removed his hand and pulled out the case. “Let’s get this baby charged.” He grinned again. “I love these people.”