“What do we do now?” I asked, petrified.
Deborah had as little a clue as I did.
“I’ll go,” Jesse said, barely making it to his feet. He was bleeding everywhere, and I was pretty sure he was functioning on pure willpower alone. “I’m good enough to get across. I can do it.”
“You sure?” Deborah asked.
“Yeah,” he said very unconvincingly, grunting in pain. He turned to look at me. “Give me a little start, okay. If I’m gonna die, I’d rather go down from lightning than bullet wounds. Makes a better story, don’t you think?”
“Be careful,” I said.
He slapped me on the shoulder. “See you on the other side, my friend,” he said, and turned away.
He ran as fast as his injured body could toward the water, and as he ran, I thought about the way he had said those words. See you on the other side. I didn’t like the sound of them. What side did he mean?
Deborah reached inside her car for her microphone but hesitated a moment, and I knew her concern. Not everyone would make it across. Now it was certain. She would have to order them to send the children to the front of the line, which probably should have happened anyway. Finally, she began to speak.
“We think we are clear to cross,” she said into the microphone, “but we have less time now.”
I didn’t pay any more attention. I ran to my wife and Toby and told them they had to leave. Jesse had reached the water, and there was no lightning. I felt an obligation to remain in the back, to make sure others went before me, and to assist those who would need help. There were too many in need.
My wife didn’t want to leave without me, and Toby didn’t either; they cried and held onto me. I even told Owen he couldn’t stay anymore. I wouldn’t argue with him about this one. He had to cross with his family. Marsha, Hot-rodder, and Candice had already started to follow Jesse, and I felt the crowd begin to move toward us.
“I can’t leave without you!” my wife cried.
“You have to!” I said. “Take the kids and go! Go now before it’s too late! Go now! I’ll be behind you!”
“Daddy!” Toby cried, clinging to my shirt.
But I let them go.
This time I didn’t try to hold onto them the way I had tried to hold onto my brother’s hand before it slipped into the cold waters of the Kern. I knew they had to leave, and it had to be now.
Madison and the boys were caught up in the stampede of people as they all headed toward the water, and I prayed that my family, being near the very front of the line, would be the first to get across. Deborah climbed on top of her vehicle, and I followed her. The people moved around us like ants, and Deborah and I stood on top of that police car and saw the most amazing sight.
Even though Deborah had never ordered all of these frightened citizens to send the children to the front, that was exactly what happened. Women and children swept past us, and I saw a sight that I will never forget: people giving up their places in line to send forward the elderly and the young—lots and lots of people who, realizing that the window was short, sacrificed their own lives.
I saw a flash of lightening and heard the low rumble of thunder. It was coming back.
I looked at my watch: 8:11.
No way were they going to get across. Not even close. A lot of people were about to die. Maybe my own family. Those who lived would be trapped on this island until the storm annihilated us.
I looked at the clouds. Officer Blazer and I exchanged the same mournful look, and knowing that we were about to witness a terrible tragedy, our hands slipped into each other’s. I looked toward those in the water and then, as I saw another flash of lightening, I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to watch them die. I didn’t want to see their pain and suffering.
To this day, I can’t remember what was real, what was imagined, and what I pieced together from witness accounts. But I can see it with my mind’s eye.
Ted Lightener, fully clothed like most of the people out here, was struggling to swim across the water. His two-year old daughter was clinging onto his back, and when the first bits of lightening began to flash and he knew that he wouldn’t make it across, he turned around and told her how much he loved her. He wanted those to be the last words he told his daughter, because when his dad died of cancer five years earlier, he wasn’t given that luxury.
Thom and Wendy Butler were in their seventies and realized they wouldn’t make it when they were about halfway across. Married since college, they stopped, treaded water, and faced each other. Thom kissed his wife, and he imagined the flashes of lightening in the sky weren’t lightening—he imagined they were ballroom lights from his senior prom, where he first worked up the guts to kiss the pretty freshman he’d invited.
Ben and Archie Mermilliod, brothers, never went across the water. Both, having dreamt of being on search and rescue teams during their youth, had endured twenty-years of desk work—and often wanted the opportunity to prove their mettle. This was it! Instead of swimming across to safety, they stood at the water’s edge, crying out for the children and the elderly to go first.
And a funny thing happened.
It worked.
People stood out of the way. Gave up their position. Cleared a path for the weak, the young, and the elderly. I was far away at that point and standing on the back of the police car, but I saw the crowd part. It was as much a miracle as when the Red Sea parted for the Israelites.
I looked at my watch: 8:13.
Game Over.
There were still people in the water, splashing, and frantically moving toward the other side.
That’s when I noticed the lightening had changed. A single bolt ripped through the sky, but it looked more like the filament of an incandescent light bulb flickering out, and the sound that followed it—what should have been a peal of thunder—reminded me of a cold engine struggling to turn over.
That’s when I understood.
“I think it’s working,” I said.
“What’s working?” Officer Blazer asked.
“We’re doing what we should be doing. We’re starving it.”
But maybe I was wrong.
Now I heard a low grumbling in the clouds. It sounded like some fiendish monster was growing, awakening from its slumber, and it grew so loud, I let go of Officer Blazer’s hand and covered my ears. The air felt saturated in fuzzy static, and all the hairs on my arms and hands began to stand on end.
I knew what this was. Like a dragon, the storm was breathing in, sucking up one more gulp of atmosphere, before it spat down a torrent of electricity. This was its Hail Mary attempt to finish what it started. I saw others in the crowd cover their ears, stagger, and lose equilibrium.
“You won’t win!” I cried defiantly, but I couldn’t hear my own voice.
There was a great burst of light. Hundreds of blue-electric bolts shot from the clouds. I thought it was over, and shielded my eyes, but something was different. When I had the courage to open them, I saw that the bolts didn’t hit the water and annihilate those crossing it. Instead, each stream sputtered out, lost trajectory, and fell in slow arcs toward the water like the glittering ends of a great plume of fire that had exploded over our heads.
The clouds broke apart almost instantly, as if a sudden heavenly wind was pushing them into some netherworld.
I fell to my knees in awe.
Not because of the storm’s power to generate fear.
I was in awe of how we stood up to it. How we fought it.
Maybe it really began when my son, Owen, ran through a swarm of bullets to save Mia’s life, or maybe it began when most of the citizens of Naples actually banded together to make it through the storm instead of turning on each other. But I’m pretty sure it ended with what I witnessed from atop that police car: strangers giving their lives for one another while Jesse, dying and bleeding, paved the way for everyone else.
I don’t think those things computed with the storm. It misunderstood the full scope of our humani
ty. It must have been like pouring coolant into the storm’s gas tank.
Those who had thought they wouldn’t make it realized what was taking place, cheered, and celebrated as they ran, and every one of us made it across. Every one!
Even though many could have stayed on the island, since the storm was suddenly gone, nobody wanted to take a chance. Maybe it would come back. Who knew?
I followed the crowd and swam across to the other side, no longer in fear that I wouldn’t make it.
It was complete pandemonium on the mainland shore. Emergency crews and sirens were everywhere, but I quickly found my family and our entire group. I saw Mia and Candice first, both dripping wet. I learned later than Candice had grabbed a boogie board from the stack of floatation devices Deborah’s crew had rounded up and pulled Mia across the water on it. Bessie, a pretty good swimmer in her own right, dogpaddled behind them.
Overwhelmed with joy, I clung onto everybody. I didn’t want to let go. Never again.
But before long, I realized that one person was missing.
Where was Jesse?
I went searching for him, and I eventually found him. A circle of paramedics surrounded him as he lay on the sand, working on him. I didn’t know what exactly they were doing, but it didn’t look good. It didn’t look good at all.
“No!” I cried and ran toward my friend.
One of the paramedics turned around and stopped me.
“Is he okay? Is he okay?” I asked.
“Sir, I’m gonna need you to stay back right now.”
“I need to talk to him, I need to─”
“Sir, please stay back.”
I fell to my knees in the sand. I knew what was going to happen. The storm had given me back my family, but it wouldn’t give me back my friend. That was its nature. I began to cry. All around me, as everyone broke into celebration and joy because the storm was gone, I alone wailed in agony.
“Do you know this man, sir?” another paramedic asked. It may have been the same one who stopped me. I wasn’t sure. I was lost in the madness.
“Yes,” I said, weeping. “I owe him a beer. I owe him a beer . . .”
Chapter Thirty-Five
I never did find out what the storm was. But I suppose that’s the way with all of the storms that confront us in life. Does the person who has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer find any more reasons for why it happened? Or what about the parent who gets that call in the middle of the night? Can those people find any more sense as to why those storms passed through their lives? Are those questions any easier to answer?
I’m afraid the answer is no.
And it certainly did what those other storms in life do to us. It taught me who I really am, and it certainly showed me a glimpse of who my son, Owen, was on the verge of becoming. I sometimes think the flashes of lightning illuminated the people we really were. I don’t know why some became brave, like Owen, and why others, like Darrel, let the storm defeat them without one lightning bolt ever touching them. But I suppose that’s how life works.
Maybe, in the end, it’s not the storms that are important—it’s the way we perceive them. Maybe there’s nothing more noble than standing beneath the storm-filled sky, looking up at a power you cannot possibly overcome on your own, and putting up a fight anyway. Maybe that’s what separates the truly brave from the cowardly.
Whether it was some kind of monster, alien life form, or a living creature from a dimension alongside ours, I still believe it was feeding on our fear. It wanted to destroy us in the same way that it wanted and even expected us to turn on each other. But it backfired because it didn’t know us; it didn’t know what we really were.
And that gives me hope.
The change in the static crashes wasn’t an alarm that indicated the storm was nearing the end of its demolition. It was another thing entirely. I like to think that the change Dominic heard was the storm’s own alarm because it had begun breaking down and falling apart. Code Red. We weren’t pumping enough fuel into its tank, and it was preparing for shutdown.
The media made up their own stories, of course. The most mainstream of the media stations declared it the storm of the century and said scientists would be studying and discussing it for years to come. There was lots of speculation and too many theories to recount. Some, like Klutch, thought it was a weather weaponization system that had gone awry; some thought it was God’s judgment and explained everything by quoting different passages of Revelations; I even heard some claim it was an alien attack, and seeing that our planet was not habitable for their life form, they left for another planet.
But I didn’t care about the theories and the speculation, because when you live through something like that, you realize the answers won’t make anyone feel better. And it won’t bring back those who were lost.
We returned to Naples Island. If what they say is true—that lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice—then I must live in the safest house in America, because no way is something like that storm going to go down twice in the same place. I’d place my bets on that.
Marsha is still my neighbor, and just yesterday, she brought over her first published story in Urban Suspense Magazine. My wife broke open a bottle of champagne, and we had a lovely evening together on the front patio, watching the sunset. I’ve come to admire Marsha more than I ever would have imagined.
Not long after the storm left, Mia was placed in the custody of a local aunt and uncle. I haven’t heard from her since, but I trust she’s well. I think about her sometimes, and I wonder if she will even remember the storm when she’s older.
Hot-rodder is back at his parents’ house down the street. They lived through the storm, hiding out in a neighbor’s house. I don’t think a single week passes without him coming by the house for a free soda or snack, and of course, we’ve resumed our word of the day tradition. I think “absolved” was the last one. I’m pretty convinced that I couldn’t get rid of the rug rat if I tried, and I enjoy having him around my home. My wife does too, and ever since Owen went away to college, I feel like I have another son.
And I like it that way. I really do.
Owen drove off to the University of Arizona just a few months ago. Candice even came to say goodbye to him, even though they’d broken up long ago and are just friends now. I forget their reasons, but I was happy they broke up. He’s too young, and I was scared he’d get too attached to her and not see the world. I wanted him to see things and go places and do a better job at what his old man has such a hard time doing: letting go. When he told me they’d broken up, he was pretty distraught about the whole thing, so I listened, tried to give him some fatherly advice, and reminded him that he could talk to me as much as he needed if he was having a hard time.
Then I went into my room, told my wife, and we did the Happy Dance.
On the day Owen left for college, my wife, Toby, and Bessie said our goodbyes in the driveway, and I watched as he drove down the street and out of sight. I’d always imagined that I would go back into the house and collapse in grief, but I didn’t. I looked at my wife, held her, and reminded her that Owen was never ours to begin with. Neither was my little brother.
We have so little time here with those we love, and sometimes—for reasons we don’t know—they’re taken from us. Sometimes it’s to another city, to another state, and sometimes to the other side, as Jesse said. I suppose the best we can do is love the time that we have with them and let them go when the time is right.
That’s what the storm taught me, and I don’t ever want to learn that lesson again.
I miss Jesse the most, and I think of him often. He died that night, with me standing in the sand behind the team of paramedics. I wept for hours, and while I was overjoyed that my own family was alive and well, his loss hit me harder than any lightning bolt could have.
We attended his funeral the week after the storm left, and I sat in the front pew between my sons and fought back tears. I’m sure Jesse would have called me a
pansy and told me to suck it up, but I did my best.
I remember the song they played: You give and take away, you give and take away, my heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be your name.
I closed my eyes, and for the first time in my adult life, I struggled to formulate some kind of prayer on my lips. It wasn’t pretty, and in my anger and my loss, it was filled with more expletives and cursing than was probably proper for any church. But it was real, and it came from the broken part of me that wanted to desperately understand why everything had happened.
After the preacher said some words, I walked up to the closed casket and stood beside it while my family waited outside. I just wanted a few minutes alone with Jesse. Just some time for the two of us.
Only a moment later, a young lady, probably around thirty or so, walked up to the casket beside me. She was a complete mess and could hardly keep herself upright. It didn’t take me long to figure out who she was. She looked aged and worn, and the lines on her face and the grey in her hair proclaimed a difficult life.
This was Virginia, Jesse’s daughter, and when I told her that I was friends with her dad and was there with him at the very end, she nearly fell into my arms. She sobbed hysterically, and I held her—even though she was a stranger—because she was still a part of Jesse.
“I wanted him to know that I loved him,” she sobbed, and I held onto her.
The tears came back to my eyes again, and this time, I didn’t resist them.
“I haven’t talked to him in years,” she said. “I just wanted him to know how much I loved him. I’m so sorry. S-so sorry . . .”
“He knows you loved him,” I told her, and when I had wiped the tears from my own eyes, I looked at her very firmly. Just like with Owen, I really wanted to get this right. “And he loved you, too. He loved you with everything he had in him. And he forgives you. He wants you to know that.”
Storm Taken: A Supernatural Thriller Page 23
