Approaching Menace

by June Shaw

  Something pricked her outreaching fingers. The flowering cactuses on the table. Josie scrambled through the kitchen. Almost to safety.

  An animal’s outcry came from behind. A wet hand grabbed her arm.

  She swirled.

  Allen’s face looked distorted as he stretched out to hold her. A metal flash came from his neck where he was pulling at the scissors, his blood purple in the dark.

  He clutched Josie’s wrist, dragging her back.

  “Noooo!” she screamed, wrenching her arm loose. With more strength than she’d ever known, she shoved him.

  She yanked the door open.

  The wind yowled. A gust sucked at her.

  She made out what was happening. Horizontal rain slashed the air. Trees’ branches thrashed. Branches flew and an awning soared on a wind blast. Josie’s knees buckled. Panic gripped her from the man inside, and out here she met her worst fears of treacherous weather.

  What she witnessed was horrible. But Randall Allen was behind her.

  She ran out, forcing her legs to fight the tugging gale force winds pulling her from the path to her house.

  Struggling to get back on course, she thought the sound in her head could be her heart pounding. Or Randall Allen’s feet tracing hers across the soaked grass.

  A sweep of howling wind blew her feet out from under her.

  Falling on her knees, Josie swung her gaze toward her house. It was totally dark. Holding Colin. Alone. Surely numb with fear.

  She stumbled to her feet and a clatter sounded. Glancing back, she saw things tumbling. One bulky object resembled a man.

  * * *

  Andrew saw the problem before he reached it. Josie’s side of town, he had just heard on the news, was without power. No lights came from houses or street posts now that he’d driven halfway across the city. A great wall of black stretched as far as he could see, except for spotlights and blue lights swirling on top of police cars.

  Trucks and minivans lined up before him, all stalled. Most had their headlights off. Those just reaching the spot kept theirs on.

  He swerved into the left lane and drove his motorcycle past the stopped vehicles.

  A patrolman flagged him down. “You can’t go through here,” he said. “Two trees are down. We’re about to start turning all these cars around.”

  Andrew nodded ahead. “I just need to get a few blocks straight down there.”

  “Some power lines fell in that area. Nobody’s allowed till we get it all checked out.”

  Andrew turned his bike around and roared back where he had come from. When he reached the next corner, he hooked a left, heading in another route down a blackened street toward Josie’s house.

  * * *

  Josie felt something catch around her face. She screamed.

  Yanking off what clung, she expected to see Sylvie’s scarf. But saturated insulation filled her hand. She flung it, thrusting her head forward and ordering her legs to keep pumping toward her dark house.

  The wind whizzed, fighting her. It followed her inside.

  She heaved the weight of her body against the kitchen door to shut it. Heart thumping, she needed to still her trembling hands to turn the lock. She threw the deadbolt.

  Finally inside her own house, Josie pressed her cheek to the door and squeezed her eyes shut. They stung. She was shaking. Flashes of Randall Allen’s wild eyes exploded through her thoughts.

  The abominable weather slammed into her mind. And the little girl’s dead body.

  “No.” Josie willed her body to stop quivering. Whatever happened was done with, and now she was here and not there. She had a young brother to take care of.

  Where was he?

  “Colin,” she managed to call out, her small voice quavering.

  She moved across the dark kitchen, hearing only the wind’s howl. Her shoes sloshed as she slid into the den. And plunged into a person.

  “Josie! I’ve been scared.” Shudders ran through Colin’s shoulders. He clung to her waist, releasing huge sobs.

  She leaned and held him tight. “Me, too.” She didn’t trust herself to say more. Here was peace. Normalcy. She held him and allowed more of her tears to fall.

  All was black, even out the windows she glanced through while they held each other. Judging from the sound, the rain had slackened. No person’s shape was apparent. She couldn’t tell whether Allen was out there.

  She certainly couldn’t speak his name now. Raising one hand, she wiped tears from her face and Colin’s.

  He burrowed his head against her. “The phone won’t work. All the lights went out,” he whimpered.

  “I know.” She rubbed his back. Everything inside her screamed for her to stay where they were. Their brick house was much safer than being out there. Randall Allen might be waiting right outside the door. Surely the hurricane was. Sooner or later their electricity would be restored. But when? Surely not today. Branches were down and probably poles and wires.

  Colin needed dialysis. She couldn’t crank his machine for three hours. Suppose he couldn’t use Fred for another day or two?

  A simple answer, she thought as she peeled her brother from her rib cage. Colin would die.

  “We need to get out,” she said. “The hospital will have electricity.” Colin would feel safer there with the lights on. So would she. She clutched his hand and led him through the kitchen. At the door, she looked down at Colin. Then she peered out the window.

  Nobody right outside stared back at her.

  But suppose their neighbor was near the steps?

  She strained to see through the window over the sink. Chains from the swing twisted, whipping around. She couldn’t see the swing but doubted that anyone sat on it. She hoped not.

  “Come on, let’s go.” She swallowed and unlocked the door, gripping the eight-year-old’s hand and keeping him behind her, hoping she could protect him if needed.

  The wind shoved them. She felt Colin pull back. He sounded barely able to catch his breath.

  “It’s okay,” Josie said, squeezing his hand, forcing him to look at her. “We’re going to be all right, Colin.”

  His pupils were wide. His lips folded, held tight between his teeth.

  She gave him the best smile she could muster.

  “Okay,” he whispered.

  Leaning into the chilled wind and pulling him behind, Josie fought her rising fear. No one was visible near their door. She strained to see toward the Allen house.

  She made out a rectangle darker than the rest of his house. The side door—still open.

  Rain fell lighter than before, sweeping sideways. Objects she couldn’t make out flew by in the yard and what appeared to be a child’s large toy. Maybe Annie’s bike. Josie kept a tight grip on her brother’s hand and dashed to her car.

  “A light,” Colin said when she opened her car door. He looked hopeful at the small glow overhead and she also felt grateful.

  “We’ll find some others.” She shut her door and started her car.

  The motor whined.

  Colin’s face whipped toward her.

  Please God, not now, Josie thought, again cranking the engine.

  Gas fumes burst forth.

  Stop, Josie told herself, heart thrusting against her chest. Just wait a minute. Then use a light touch.

  Colin’s eyes were pale spheres watching her in the dark car. He knows, she analyzed. He knows how terrified I am. He knows my horror of this weather.

  But he doesn’t know about the other terror out there.

  Where was Randall Allen? Was he hobbling toward them this minute, wounded and furious? Staggering inside the garage? Was he getting behind them right now?

  She cranked the ignition and the motor caught. Shifting to reverse, she saw Colin’s anxious expression lighten a pinch.

  Where was Andrew? Josie would have wanted him near for so many reasons. She attempted to run her hand through her hair. Her fingers caught in drenched knots on her scalp. She rubbed her palm over the fabric
seat of the car to dry it and willed herself to speak with courage. “We will be all right, Colin.” She patted his arm and offered a wan smile. “You know stupid me and automobiles.”

  The comment made him grin.

  She backed to the driveway. Something slammed against the rear of her car.

  Josie’s head jerked, not from impact but terror.

  Randall Allen.

  Josie smashed her foot to the floorboard, and her brother gave a sharp cry as her car propelled backward.

  Not until she reached the road did she look to see what had accosted them.

  A cracked tree limb lay behind the garage.

  She didn’t wait to study their surroundings to determine whether Randall Allen was coming near. Josie jettisoned down the street.

  Chapter 24

  “I need to use a phone!” Sylvie yelled, shoving through noisy people and shadows in the darkened mall to reach Amber Lockland. “I can’t wait any longer. I need to call my children!”

  She grabbed the phone Amber held and punched in her number. To hell with the others around who’d been waiting. So had she.

  Shadowy clumps of people with frightened voices filled the mall’s center court outside the jewelry store where her co-worker Amber stood.

  Buzzing sounded in Sylvie’s ear. She pushed the off button and redialed.

  Again she heard buzzing.

  “It’s no use, Sylvie,” Amber said. “A lot of phone lines around town went out when that tornado went through. Nobody’s been able to dial out in the last twenty minutes.”

  Almost everyone left in stores had come to the center court after the mall’s lights blacked out. Women screamed and men yelled, some barking orders. Down the common area, dim emergency lights glowed in shops. A fainter light than usual had come on in the central hall, but the air conditioners remained off. People sweated. Sylvie was warmer from anxiety than from the heat of so many bodies crowded together.

  She had been showing an elderly woman a watch when the lights went out. Then people sounded the alarm. Her customer ran off into the cavernous black, but within minutes, wane emergency lights kicked on. Someone yelled that heavy outer bands of squalls were reaching Windswept.

  “I have to get home,” Sylvie cried.

  “Me too,” a man near her said. Weak glows spotted the long corridor. Sylvie scuttled to where people were scrambling and crowding into the center court. Concerned voices rose. Intermittent grating noises came of gates rolling down, locking the emptying stores.

  Sylvie elbowed through throngs of noisy people, all of them trying to do the same thing. She bustled her way through many when a bullhorn ordered quiet.

  Voices were still heard, but the person with the horn announced louder, “Leaving is not advisable right now.”

  Dozens of voices swelled to complain.

  “At least one tornado just came through Windswept.” That announcement made people utter, then grow silent. “And more have been spotted near us,” the unseen speaker said.

  “I need to get home.” “I have to get out of here.” “I’m not going out there.” People called out and some swore. Throngs headed for exits.

  “Deputies are around the exits and throughout the mall,” the announcer said through his bullhorn. “Everyone is advised to stay calm. No one should leave. There are downed trees and live wires blocking many roads.”

  “I’m not about to go out there,” said a beefy man Sylvie passed. She pushed through a mass of people standing near a door.

  A policeman touched her arm. “Where are you headed?”

  She gave her address, and he glanced at a pad he was holding. “Everything’s blocked over there.”

  “Blocked? But I need to get to my family.” She brushed past him.

  “Lady, you could never get through. Most of the streets between here and there are flooded. You’d get stalled in your car and put yourself in extreme danger.”

  Terror gripped Sylvie. She’d had no idea things would be so bad. Lately she’d paid little attention to the weather. “But I can try. My children….”

  “It won’t do them any good if you get killed.” He turned his focus to others who pressed nearer. Asking where they’d be headed, he checked his pad to note the advisability of their going in that direction.

  Sylvie reached a spot where she could see out the open doors. Three people elbowed past. Others stood like she did, staring out at the black night. She could see no lights. Sheets of rain fell at an angle. The few cars she could make out looked like they had been dropped into a black swimming pool.

  More than anything she had ever wanted, she yearned to get out there. To reach Colin and Josie and take care of them.

  “You’d never make it,” a small voice near her said. It was Sylvie’s friend Tina who worked in the bookstore. Her friend also looked sad. She held a cell phone and let Sylvie take it.

  Sylvie tried calling her home. She heard a buzz and dialed again. More buzzing.

  Lines were down, someone just said.

  Limply, she returned the phone. A man bustled out past them, and she watched the wind pushing him, forcing him sideways.

  Sylvie felt hot within the mass of people huddled inside the door. Voices swelled and hushed as viewers saw the man outside scrambling, getting knocked to his knees in the dark water. He floundered, then rose, his figure disappearing into the night.

  “Colin,” Sylvie whispered. “Josie.” Her mind formed pictures of them both smiling. She felt wind gusts shaking her and recited prayers for her children.

  * * *

  Josie and Colin were well under way when he asked, “Where’s Annie?”

  She looked at him, her vision hazing over.

  He leaned toward her. “Josie, Annie called you. Where is she?”

  She returned her gaze to the road. The rain struck harder. It slashed against the windshield. The wind was holding the wipers back, making them hesitate. Dully, she replied, “Annie’s with her mother.”

  “Oh.” Colin surely had more questions. He kept them inside and pressed his head back.

  “Electricity might be out for hours or days,” Josie said, making herself concentrate on the bleak road her headlights swept across. “So all you have to think about is getting to the hospital for a treatment.”

  The streets were half hidden beneath water. Branches and other debris lay scattered on nearby lawns. Every house sat in darkness, except for two or three with small glows at their windows.

  “There’s some lights,” Colin said, pointing.

  She scanned their surroundings, hoping to see more. Maybe street lights. Houses all aglow.

  Instead she saw blackness. It was difficult to see where a street ended and she reached a corner. “Those people have generators,” she said.

  As they reached the highway, wind and rain again slackened. She felt her tangled nerves loosening, especially when she spied a stately house on the levee with lights on in its two stories. Between gloomy dark structures and some with boarded windows, this house looked so appealing, Josie was tempted to stop there.

  But her purpose was to get Colin to the hospital. His blood needed purifying. And needed it now.

  “Did you see that house?” she asked.

  When Colin didn’t answer, she glanced at him. He slumped against the far door, his face looking blanched with a gray pallor.

  She reached out and tapped his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  His eyes seemed sunken. His gaze slid toward her and his head slowly bobbled.

  She rubbed his arm. “We won’t be long.” Hoping she’d told the truth, she turned her attention to gripping the wheel with both hands and driving.

  The road was becoming more hazardous. She was driving through an area where branches from huge oaks were down. Patio chairs and unrecognizable items lay along the roads as if a giant had tossed them around. In one spot she drove through, water splashed so high and her car dropped so low it seemed a wet hole would swallow them.

  Water had spla
shed that high from a road before, she remembered. During the ride home from the party when the girl died and Josie squeezed against her friend in the car, praying her own parents would arrive right away to take her home.

  “Five four three,” Josie whispered now, the same terror she’d known then returning. She scanned the roadway. Thunder rumbled. More water splashed on her windshield. I’m the adult now.

  She made herself swallow the dryness and forced her concentration on their surroundings. They passed few cars. Most people must have listened to emergency information. They would’ve been told to stay inside and avoid the roads.

  Of course she hadn’t listened to their portable radio. She had been jostling with her neighbor.

  Josie’s gaze swept back to Colin. He looked listless. His eyes were shut. His breathing seemed shallow. Poisoned impurities were settling inside him instead of moving out through his blood stream. He could be going into a coma.

  Forget Randall Allen. Forget this weather. Get your brother to safety!

  She shoved the accelerator. She wouldn’t turn on her radio now. It might tell her not to go where she needed to reach.

  Wind battered her side of their car as Josie thought she reached a corner. Tightening her grip on the steering wheel, she yanked back to keep from being shoved off the road. New squalls were blowing in. Even with all the windows closed, she smelled sea air. Swells from the gulf swallowed the beach. Water rushed over most parts of the highway.

  Seeing only rain through the blackness, Josie barely slowed at a flooded intersection. Her car dropped into water that appeared deeper than the bottom of her door.

  A flash of light came into her rearview mirror. The car behind theirs seemed out of control with its headlights rushing toward her. Those lights glittered.

  Her heart thrust with great strokes. Was Randall Allen in that dark sedan?

  Water splashed up to her window. Her car hesitated. “Don’t flood now,” she pleaded, her gaze sweeping to her slumped brother.

  The headlights behind glistened, bumping closer.

  In her rearview mirror Josie watched them fall back. The car turned. Water splayed from its tires like a speedboat creating a massive wake.