Empty

by Suzanne Weyn

  Sandbagging along the Hudson River has already begun in an effort to hold back floodwaters. Though towns along the river tend to be elevated, trains on the Hudson Line, which run along the east side of the river, could be severely disrupted due to flooding. The many thousands of commuters who travel daily into New York City—and their number has grown dramatically since the recent oil and gasoline crisis—could find themselves stranded should the banks of the Hudson River flood.

  While meteorologists keep their attention riveted to the path of this unbelievable storm, local residents are being asked to do everything possible to prepare for the worst.

  CHAPTER 10

  Gwen sighed and stuffed her phone into the back pocket of her jeans. Nothing but static. Every time she tried to call Luke, that’s all she got.

  She tried phoning the information number just to check her phone. More static. She tried the school—the same thing.

  It wasn’t her phone. It was all charged and lit up. She’d charged it at Ghost Motorcycle when she’d gone looking—unsuccessfully—for Luke.

  It had to be OscPearl, Gwen decided as she gazed into the expanse of maples, oaks, and pines she was about to enter. OscPearl was probably messing with radio signals up and down the coast.

  The woods surrounding Sage Valley might not have been the best destination in a hurricane—a superhurricane—she realized, watching the trees rustle in the wind. But she was here now and there was no turning back. She’d come to find the old mine shaft opening she’d remembered exploring as a kid.

  It was the only safe hideaway she could think of. Staying with Tom wasn’t an option. She wasn’t about to involve him in her messy life.

  She’d tried Hector’s trailer, hoping she could stay with him, but he told her that a woman from Children’s Services had been by looking for her already, and was coming back. Someone had told her Gwen and Hector were friends. “Mom swore to her there was no way she was taking in a runaway and promised to turn you over if you showed up,” he warned.

  He’d given her a bag of salami, Oreos, a loaf of bread, and a six-pack of Juicy Juice. “Mom will notice it’s gone and have a fit, but I’ll pretend she’s crazy and just imagined we had that food,” he said with a laugh. “She’s never really sure whether she’s crazy or not, so it always works.”

  This morning, after spending a cold night on the bleachers at school, she’d noticed ominous storm clouds beginning to roll in. Gwen had heard enough news reports to know what they meant—OscPearl had arrived. Living out in the open was now out of the question. That’s when she’d recalled the old mine shaft openings set into boulders in the woods.

  Without further warning, the skies opened, releasing a torrent of rain. Gwen squinted into the blinding downpour, pushing her way against a brutal wind that had suddenly kicked up. She raised one arm to shield her face from windswept branches, leaves, and even stones that were sailing past her. With her other hand, she clutched the grocery bag containing food. Afraid the contents might get ruined, she bundled it more tightly, covered the bag with her sweatshirt, and entered the woods.

  There was one shaft, in particular, she was searching for now, as she entered the sloping, tree-packed hill. Where, exactly, was it? Gwen hadn’t been up in the woods that rimmed the valley in a few years.

  The canopy of red, orange, and yellow autumn leaves cascaded to the ground. The battering of rain against the ones that remained above created an almost deafening din as wind tossed the trees violently back and forth. Gwen realized that the leaves were providing some shelter from the rain but fewer and fewer remained every second.

  A sharp crack split the air. Her eyes darting upward, it took Gwen a second to fully comprehend what she was seeing. A giant pine had split three-quarters of the way up and appeared to move in slow motion as the top portion banged hard against its own trunk before bouncing free and spinning out into the air.

  The disconnected treetop twisted twice, and then changed course, hurtling toward her.

  Gwen stood, stuck to her spot, frozen in terror as it headed for her.

  She sprang away at the last second, just as the heavy mass of wood hit the ground where she’d been standing. It then bounced, spraying wood chips and pine into the air, and finally hit the forest floor a second and last time, shaking everything around it.

  Lying on the muddy ground just a foot away, Gwen allowed a frightened shudder to travel through her body. Tears sprang from the colliding emotions of terror and relief, and she let them fall freely, mixing with the rain pelting her face.

  Gwen pulled herself to a sitting position after a few more minutes and searched around for the rough, irregular opening in the rocks that would lead to the mine shaft. As kids, she and Luke had played in these woods with friends. He’d been the one who’d pulled off the plywood boards that nailed shut the old coal mine opening so they could use it as their secret clubhouse. Companies didn’t mine coal anymore in Sage Valley, and no one, as far as Gwen knew, had ever nailed the mine opening shut again. She hoped no park ranger had come by since her last visit.

  There it was! Just beyond an outcropping of rock Gwen spied a black hole. Not covered!

  From the ever-intensifying growl and toss of the wind, Gwen knew she’d found the opening just in time. But where was her bag of food? She’d lost it when the tree had fallen. She had to go back to find it.

  As she scanned the area with her eyes, a second crack, this one louder than the last, told her another tree was coming down. She raced into the mine shaft opening just as a branch came crashing past her.

  Gwen slumped against the inside of the crooked doorway of the mine shaft, built into the side of a hill deep in the Sage Valley woods. Rain poured in a sheet. The wavering image filtering through the waterfall in front of her was nothing but a blur of brown, gold, and red, with a few spots of remaining green.

  A terrible howl filled the black, open space behind her, bouncing off the walls and rattling the loose, decaying stone. Gwen flattened herself against the wall, terrified. “It’s just the wind. Just the wind,” she told herself in a hoarse, frightened whisper.

  Pushing back her soaked hair, Gwen shivered. Her hand came up bloody when she wiped it across her face. The branch that fell before she could get inside had cut her cheek. It stung like crazy.

  Lowering herself to the dirt floor, Gwen let out a low chortle of grim laughter that began in her belly and traveled upward. Could things be any worse? Her situation was so bad that it was almost funny.

  Almost.

  “This will end,” Gwen told herself aloud. “Storms end. Gas shortages end. Wars end.” But she couldn’t see an end to any of it. Maybe this was the start of something new, a world of misery without end.

  Outside, ancient trees fell, one after the other, smashing to the ground and shaking it, crashing into one another and shattering with the force of bombs. Rain pelted the leaves in a rhythmic tattoo that made Gwen imagine knives being thrown from the heavens.

  She hung her head, shivering, letting the cold water from her hair and body soak the dirt floor until a mud puddle surrounded her.

  How had this happened to her? Why did no one love her enough to come out to find her?

  Pressing her forehead against her knees, she once again let her tears fall freely. She cried for the loss of the selfish woman who had been the only mother she’d ever had. She cried for the father she’d never known. She cried because Tom would never be interested in her, and she couldn’t even figure out why she wanted him to care. She cried for the terrible condition of her life right then and there. She sobbed until she exhausted herself, and then she fell into a sleep that was just as sad as the waking.

  Gwen awakened and immediately registered a change in the quality of the light coming through the mine shaft door. It was exquisitely clear.

  There was no rain or wind. Just this strange light.

  Standing, Gwen wiped her eyes and stepped out.

  The scene of awesome destruction, breathtaking in it
s ferocity, was lit in the crystalline, white glow. Everywhere, trees were down—sometimes propped against one another, other times lying in piles of threes and fours on the ground. Above, the leaves had been stripped from the broken and bent remaining trees. The foliage floated in clumps in the puddles and raced along in small rivulets that had formed everywhere.

  It was the most beautiful thing Gwen had ever seen.

  Gazing upward, she saw a bright blue sky, but dark clouds hovered at its edges. It told her where she was.

  Gwen was standing in the eye of Superhurricane OscPearl.

  CHAPTER 11

  Tom dropped down from his first-floor window, landing hip deep in filthy, frigid water. It rose nearly to the top of his father’s old fishing waders, which Tom had donned for the post-hurricane exploration. The big maple in front of his house lay sideways in the brown torrent running down the street. Its massive roots pointed toward an amazingly blue, crystal-clear sky.

  From across the street, Carlos hung out his first-story window and swung his left arm in greeting. His right arm stayed stationary at his side, encased in the plastered gauze of a cast and supported by a sling. His bruised face instantly reminded Tom of the fight at the high school. He could hardly believe it had only been five days ago.

  Water was sloshing inside the waders by the time Tom reached Carlos. “Who ever thought we’d have waterfront property?” Carlos joked.

  Tom grinned. “Yeah, who’d have thought it?”

  “Now we’re just like those snobs over on the water at Lake Morrisey,” Carlos added. “I bet those houses are floating around in the lake now.”

  Tom wondered how Niki was doing. Her house was high up, so she was probably all right. She’d texted him after the bonfire to say she’d gotten home. He’d called her to apologize for leaving her stranded. He hadn’t expected to become involved in a fight when he left her to check out the situation. Niki had said she understood.

  And then OscPearl had begun moving up the coast, disrupting radio signals for hundreds of miles. It was off the coast of Boston now. Everyone was hoping it would veer off toward the ocean there and spare the rest of New England from its rage. It was still considered a Category Six hurricane. Tom’s phone still wasn’t working.

  “You’d better get out of this water,” Carlos told Tom. “You don’t know what’s floating around in here. There could even be live electric current traveling through. There are lots of downed wires. So if the power comes back on, you could get fried.”

  “I’m grounded from electric,” Tom said, bouncing lightly in his waders. “Rubber boots. Electricity will run down the boots into the ground.”

  “Nice idea, but I wouldn’t count on it,” Carlos said. “For one thing, those waders are filled with water. I wouldn’t bet my life on them protecting you from getting zapped. Besides, there could be all sorts of nasty stuff, including sewage, in this water.”

  Tom turned pale. “Sewage?”

  Carlos nodded.

  Tom boosted himself up into Carlos’s window and Carlos helped pull him the rest of the way in. “Nice boots, Tom,” Carlos’s fifteen-year-old sister, Maritza, teased from the couch where she was reading a fashion magazine. “They’re spilling all over the floor.”

  Carlos’s mother came in, looking frazzled and tired. “Carlos, find some towels. He’s soaking the floor. Maritza, get a pot from the kitchen.”

  Tom stood on the towels Carlos brought and, as gently as he could, emptied his waders into the kitchen pot. “Sorry, Mrs. Hernandez,” he apologized.

  “Whatever. Forget it. How’s your mother?”

  “Not so great this morning. She’s trying to bail out our basement, which is completely flooded.”

  Mrs. Hernandez raised a skeptical eyebrow. “And you’re not helping her?”

  “She sent me out to see if I could buy a dehumidifier.”

  “What’s she going to run it on…love?” Carlos’s mother asked.

  “She figures the power will come back on once the lines are repaired. We had power before the storm.”

  “I hope she’s right, but it’s not going to happen anytime soon, I can tell you that. Besides, nothing’s open anywhere today. Tell her to come on over here. I have a little pancake mix left and some butter and syrup. I can cook us up some breakfast on Carlos’s camping stove.”

  Maritza sat up on the couch looking alarmed. “That’s all the food you have in the house?”

  “Don’t give me that look,” her mother cautioned. “Have you been in the supermarkets lately? There’s nothing on the shelves. The truckers are rationing their trips because of the gas. I stood in line for two hours just to get what I have in the house now—and it cost three times the usual price.”

  “I’m just saying…what are we going to do?” Maritza replied. “We can’t eat pancakes forever.”

  “My mom has some stuff still in the fridge,” Tom volunteered. “I think she wants to eat what’s there before it all goes bad. If you run short, come over to us.”

  “That’s sweet of you, Tom,” Mrs. Hernandez said.

  Carlos’s father came into the room holding a hand pump. “The dinghy is blown up if we need to get out of here,” he announced.

  “Joe, could you take Carlos and Tom back over to Tom’s house? Karen needs help bailing out her basement.”

  “Sure. Get some buckets, guys,” Joe Hernandez replied. “Let’s go.”

  After collecting buckets from a closet, Tom followed Carlos and his father back to the kitchen. Gazing out the window, he saw a yellow blow-up boat, large enough for four, bobbing in the three feet or so of muddy water below. The small craft was tied to the doorknob of the back door. “Out the window, boys,” Carlos’s father instructed. “Stay low in the dinghy. You don’t want to tip and land in that muddy water. Who knows what’s in there?”

  Carlos went out first and Tom followed him down. Mr. Hernandez handed down the buckets and some oars before climbing down also. “Thanks for doing this,” Tom told Carlos and his father. “Mom is going to really appreciate the help.”

  “No problem, Tom. That’s what neighbors do. They help each other when times get tough,” Joe Hernandez said, untying and pushing off from the house.

  Every bump and small wave rocked the rubber vessel as Carlos’s father rowed it around the side of the house and down the driveway. When they were out on the street, Tom realized immediately that the rush of water had increased by a lot. Joe Hernandez was pulling hard on the oars just to keep the small boat from being caught up and carried away in the current.

  All around them, their neighbors were standing at their open windows calling out for help.

  “My grandmother’s stuck in our flooded basement. Help me carry her. Please!”

  “We’re out of food!”

  “I’ve run out of my heart pills. I could die without them.”

  A golden retriever that Tom didn’t recognize was being carried past the boat by the rushing torrent. The dog tried with futile movements to paddle away, but he was no match for the racing floodwaters. On instinct, Tom reached out and clutched the big dog’s long, reddish fur. The boat rocked precariously as he hoisted the animal into it.

  “Whoa! Tom!” cried Joe Hernandez. “What are you doing?”

  “He would have drowned,” Tom explained.

  The dog shook himself dry, spraying them all with the foul water. When Tom stopped ducking away from the shower, he looked at the animal more closely and saw that the retriever was no longer a puppy, but still young.

  “We’ve got all these people to try to help. We can’t take on a dog right now,” Carlos’s father insisted.

  “Maybe the dog can help,” Carlos suggested.

  “A dog has to be fed,” his father replied.

  “I’ll take care of him,” Tom insisted. He examined the collar the dog wore. There was no tag, but the name Larry was stitched onto it. “Larry,” he repeated. “That’s a funny name for a dog.” He patted the dog’s soaked fur. “Welcome aboa
rd, Larry.”

  Joe Hernandez put his back into the work of rowing, turning the boat away from Tom’s house. “Maybe we’d better see about that woman’s grandmother, first.”

  NORTH COUNTRY NEWS

  Climatologists Now Believe OscPearl

  Caused by Global Warming

  More Superhurricanes Could Be Brewing

  Now that OscPearl has blown out to sea, scientists at England’s University College, London, are busy studying the devastating superhurricane. The conclusions they are drawing all seem to point in one direction: heat. To be more specific, the college’s Benfield Hazard Research Centre is attributing the never-before-seen ferocity of OscPearl to the rise in sea surface temperatures that has been happening steadily over the last forty years—put even more plainly: global warming.

  The researchers speculate that ocean temperatures may be climbing even more rapidly than atmospheric temperatures. A senior analyst with the National Hurricane Center likened warm ocean waters to the fuel for a car, claiming that just as high-octane gas produces more power, warmer ocean waters produce more powerful hurricanes.

  Senator Thomas Rambling (D-MA) stated in a press release today: “As our state struggles to recover from this horrific storm, it makes us view the current fuel crisis in a new light. If indeed global warming is the culprit in the formation of this ruinous storm, then we must look to carbon emissions as the underlying cause. It flows logically from that, that the current unavailability of gas that has so curbed our driving and general mobility could be a blessing in disguise. We have just seen, in a wildly dramatic way, what our lack of leadership and grassroots action is costing us. Rather than striving to regain the oil that feeds our current way of life—and continues to raise carbon levels to dangerous highs, polluting and warming our planet—we should be searching for cleaner alternatives. Perhaps it is already too late, but we must try.”