by Roland Smith
“You mean stalking us.”
“I guess,” Nicole said.
The wind had dropped off dramatically, but it was still raining hard, which meant the water was still rising. Chase was also worried about the barn where the Shack & Shop was parked. It might have collapsed too. He pulled his watch out of his pocket, surprised to see that they had been gone almost forty-five minutes.
Chase slipped the watch back onto his wrist, wincing at the pain in his shoulder.
“You okay?” Nicole asked.
“Yeah. My shoulder hurts a little in certain positions.”
She gave him a doubtful look. “Like when you put your watch on?”
“I’ll be fine. We need to keep moving. We’ve already been gone too long.”
Nicole nodded and started toward the last barn. The rain pummeled them so hard they had to keep their heads down to breathe. The closer they got to the last barn, the deeper the water became. By the time they reached the door, the water was up to their knees.
“The barn’s completely flooded,” Nicole said.
“But it’s still standing,” Chase said. “Do lions like water?”
“No.”
“Good. Let’s get the gas and get out of here.”
They waded inside, bumping debris away with their knees. Chase shined his light along the side of the fifth-wheel that he and his father had nicknamed the Shack. Water lapped against the bottom of the door.
“There’s water inside,” he said. “It’s ruined.” He looked at the side of the semitrailer they called the Shop. It sat higher than the fifth-wheel, so the water hadn’t reached its threshold yet.
“We’re going to have to move the Shop to higher ground,” Chase said.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m serious.”
“I thought we were in a hurry to get the gas back to the circus barn.”
“We are. But along with the gas there’s a hundred thousand dollars of tools and building supplies in there. If we leave the trailer here, we can kiss the contents good-bye.”
“Do you know how to drive an eighteen-wheeler?” Nicole asked.
“I know how to start it, put it into gear, and step on the gas,” Chase answered.
“And do you also know how to back one up?”
Tomás had pulled the semi into the barn tractor-first so they could get to the tools and supplies in the trailer easily.
“How hard can it be?” Chase said.
“A lot harder than going forward,” Nicole said. “I’ll drive.”
“Now you’re kidding?” Chase said.
“I’m a circus girl. I’ve been driving big rigs around the farm since I was eight.”
“You couldn’t even reach the pedals at eight,” Chase protested.
“I was as tall as my father when I was eight,” Nicole shot back.
“No offense,” Chase said. “But your father isn’t very tall.”
“Exactly,” Nicole said. “Neither is my mother or my grandmother. Which means every truck on the circus is equipped with pedal extenders, which is how I was able to drive a semi when I was eight years old. I know how to back a semi.”
“Okay,” Chase said. “You win. You’re driving.”
“We may not get very far with this much water on the ground,” Nicole said.
“It can’t be worse than leaving the rig where it is,” Chase said. “I’ll stand behind the trailer and flip on the headlamp’s emergency flasher if you’re going to slam into something. Are you sure you can do this?”
“I think so,” Nicole answered, sounding a little less confident than she had a minute earlier. “I’ll be okay if I can see your headlamp in the side mirror.”
“The spare key’s above the visor. Good luck.”
They waded in opposite directions.
As Chase passed the fifth-wheel he wondered if there was anything he should grab before water got to it. He and his father had lived inside the Shack for two years. He couldn’t think of one thing inside that could not be easily replaced at a Walmart. There were no photographs of his mother or sister, no mementos from the house they’d lived in before the accident, nothing from their past. Chase’s father had told him that everything was in storage to protect it, but Chase wasn’t convinced. He and his father rarely talked about their life before they started running toward storms.
It’s as if we never had another life. As if we’ve always been on the —
His foot connected with something underwater and he fell forward with a splash. He got up choking on oily and gritty floodwater, one of his father’s favorite sayings echoing in his head: In an emergency you must focus. The moment you leave the moment could be the last moment of your life.
Chase wiped away the water and grime from his face, along with any thoughts of his past.
Focus.
Nicole pulled open the heavy driver’s door and clambered into the cab. It smelled like sweat, coffee, and fast food. She loved the scent. It reminded her of traveling with the circus — something she rarely got to do anymore because of school. She wondered if her mother even knew about Hurricane Emily. Probably not. With the show in Mexico, her mother was juggling a thousand tasks, made harder by being in a foreign country. She rarely called home when she was away because Nicole’s father was notorious for misplacing his cell phone, running the battery dry, or turning the ringer off.
She pulled the visor down and the keys dropped into her lap. She made sure the semi was in park before putting the key into the ignition. The powerful diesel engine roared to life. She put on her seat belt, then adjusted the seat and side mirrors as the engine warmed.
Chase’s headlamp looked like it was a mile away behind her.
“Here we go,” she said. “Nice and slow. I don’t want to run over my boyfriend….”
Nicole blushed.
I haven’t even known Chase for forty-eight hours. We’re not boyfriend-girlfriend.
“Not yet,” she said with a slight smile. “But I better slow that idea down too.”
She took a deep breath, let it out, then eased the gear into reverse.
06:47 AM
“Marco thinks he knows a way to get us to the farm,” John said.
Cindy, Mark, Richard, and Tomás were gathered next to the cot.
“I was going to try it myself,” Marco said. “But I had a blowout. The police picked me up while I was changing the tire. I didn’t want to go with them, but they threatened to slap the cuffs on me, so here I am. Frustrating. And now you tell me Hector’s out. It can’t get worse than that. He’s the most dangerous animal we have on the farm.”
“I did a report on him,” Richard said.
“I saw it,” Marco said. “But you don’t know half the story about that cat. I should have never left my mother in the house by herself. I should have stayed on the farm and made sure the animals were secure.”
“We need to get moving,” John said.
“If we all try to leave at once, the police will try to stop us,” Marco said. He looked at Richard. “Where’s your van parked?”
“Out front.”
“You need to pull it around back. There’s an exit in the locker room the police aren’t monitoring.”
John held his hand out for the keys. “I’ll drive.”
Richard shook his head. “That’s against company policy.”
“I’m not driving,” Cindy said.
“Neither am I,” Mark said. “Not in this weather.”
“I guess you’ll have to take the wheel, Richard,” Cindy said. “Have you ever driven in a hurricane?”
Richard tossed the keys to John. “If something happens, I was driving.”
“Fine,” John said, and gave the keys to Tomás.
They headed toward the locker room.
06:49 AM
“You think he’ll be okay?” Rashawn asked.
Momma Rossi had managed to set Poco’s arm with a makeshift splint made out of a tongue depressor. Then she’
d laid him in a nest of hay and covered him with a dry towel to keep him warm.
“It’s a miracle he’s alive,” Momma Rossi said. “Not many animals survive a leopard attack.”
“When I saw him hanging all limp from that leopard’s mouth last night, I thought for sure he was dead. I didn’t even know what kind of farm this was. I thought I was seeing things.”
“I wonder how Hector got out of his cage,” Momma Rossi said.
“I hear you. I wonder how Poco got …” Rashawn looked out into the darkness. “The window.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The broken window in the bunkhouse,” Rashawn said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “It’s a good four feet off the ground. How’d Poco get through it with his arm all busted up?”
“He couldn’t have,” Momma Rossi said.
“Unless that leopard jumped through the window with him in his mouth,” Rashawn said.
They both stared beyond the light with the same question: Was there a leopard staring back at them?
06:51 AM
Chase was walking back and forth several yards behind the semi, checking the clearance as Nicole reversed the rig in slow motion, when a strange feeling crept up the back of his neck. At first he ignored it, thinking it was cold rain running under his shirt collar, but the feeling persisted. He turned his head and froze. Simba was standing twenty feet behind him in water up to his golden belly.
Simba bared his yellowed teeth and roared.
I’m going to die, Chase thought. Slowly he reached up and switched off his headlamp, but he was far from invisible in the glow of the rig’s taillights. Nicole continued to back the truck toward him. If he stayed put, the semi would run him over. If he moved, Simba would attack him.
I thought Nicole said cats don’t like the water!
Simba looked as comfortable as a shark.
Why is Nicole still backing up? She can’t see my headlamp. Why doesn’t she stop? Why …
Chase realized that if Nicole stopped, the rig might lose momentum and get mired in the soft ground. He could see Simba clearly thanks to the taillights that were now only four feet away. His body was shouting RUN. But his brain was telling him to FREEZE.
Simba is just waiting for me to move.
Three feet.
Nicole continued to back up the truck at a steady rate. Chase slowly looked away from Simba and focused on the back of the trailer.
Two feet.
He put his arms out and laid his hands flat against the trailer doors.
One foot.
He felt the powerful truck push him over backward. He planted his feet and let the truck take him down into the water, which came nearly up to the undercarriage. He tried not to think of Simba’s fangs sinking into his neck.
Concentrate. Keep your legs between the tires. Keep your head above the water.
He stretched his hands above his chest and let them play along the undercarriage until he found a strut he could grab. He felt his heels making furrows in the soft ground beneath the water as he was dragged along. A searing pain shot through his injured shoulder.
The trailer began to veer to the right.
She’s cleared the barn. She’s turning the rig so we have a straight shot to the circus barn. She’s wondering where I am. Don’t stop, Nicole! Keep cranking it!
The trailer stopped for a moment, then started forward. Chase managed to spin around so his heels were dragging again. The truck started to slow. Chase let go of the strut he’d been clinging to and rolled to his right, narrowly clearing the rear tires. He stumbled to his feet, wiping the water from his eyes in time to see the cab lights blink on as Nicole opened the door.
He splashed forward. “Stay in the cab!”
“What?”
“Simba!”
Nicole turned her headlamp on.
Chase glanced behind him and saw Simba come around the end of the trailer.
“You’ll make it!” Nicole shouted.
Not if I trip or faint. Not if you slam the door.
Simba had cut the distance between them by half.
I’m not going to make it.
Nicole jumped out of the cab with the shotgun. She put it to her shoulder and pulled the trigger. A red flame came out of the barrel, followed by a deafening BOOM.
Chase glanced back at Simba. The lion was standing still, staring past him at Nicole. Chase threw himself into the cab, and Nicole clambered in next to him, slamming the door closed. A second later Simba’s head appeared outside the passenger window. Nicole shrank back, practically landing in Chase’s lap.
Simba roared, then his head disappeared.
Chase and Nicole stared at the window for a full minute before realizing they were both sitting in the passenger seat holding each other. Nicole flushed, then climbed back into the driver’s seat.
“That was scary,” she said.
Chase wondered if she was talking about them holding each other or the lion.
“It’s still scary,” he said. “Can he get in here?”
“No.”
“Did you wound him?”
Nicole shook her head. “I fired into the water at his feet, or I guess his paws. It was enough to make him … pause.”
“Funny.”
“Where are your shoes?”
Chase looked down at his feet. Not only had he lost his shoes, but his socks had been pulled off too. “I guess they came off under the truck.”
Nicole smiled. “Wanna try to find them?”
Chase smiled back. “Nah, I’m good.”
Nicole released the brake and put the truck into gear.
06:59 AM
Tomás put the van into drive and pulled out of the high school parking lot. John was in the passenger seat with Marco sitting next to him. Cindy, Mark, and Richard were in the back, wedged between expensive television equipment.
Richard looked at Cindy and Mark. “Now that we’re partners, let’s take a look at that hurricane footage.”
“Partners?” Mark asked.
Richard flashed his best anchorman smile. “Okay. How about colleagues, then? We still work for the same station.”
“You told the boss that we resigned,” Cindy pointed out.
“I can smooth out that misunderstanding.”
“Maybe we don’t want it smoothed out,” Mark said.
“Whatever,” Richard said. “We have nothing else to do. Let’s see what you have.”
Cindy nodded at Mark. He pulled a memory card out of his pocket and popped it into a laptop.
“How is it out there?” Cindy called up to John.
“Wet. Treacherous. But the rain has died down. I’d guess it’s seventy miles an hour sustained, which puts Emily back into the tropical storm category. The bad news is that there’s a lot of water on the road. The good news, at least for us, is that it’s washing the lighter debris out of our way.”
“This hurricane footage is fantastic!” Richard said. “We need to get it on the air right away.”
“We’d have to stop to position the satellite dish,” Mark said.
“Someplace with shelter,” Cindy added. “This wind would rip the dish off the van.”
“Turn right up ahead,” Marco said.
“And pull over,” Richard added.
“No,” John said. “We’re not here to get video on the air for the morning news. We have to get to the Rossis’ farm.”
Tomás turned the van right and ran over several small palmetto bushes.
“Is this even a road?” Richard said.
“Used to be,” Marco answered. “They closed it down years ago after the highway opened. If we can get through, it will take us into Palm Breeze, and there are several ways to get to the farm from there.”
“And if we can’t?” Cindy asked.
“Then it’s back to the shelter,” John said. “This is our last shot.”
07:02 AM
Chase looked out at the passenger side mirror. There was
no sign of Simba, but that didn’t mean the lion wasn’t trotting behind the rig in the dark.
They had just reached the second barn, and Chase could see that another challenge was still ahead. To reach the circus barn they would have to drive across the water rushing between the two buildings.
“Stop here,” he said.
“Why?”
“Just stop for a second.”
Nicole stepped on the brake and took the truck out of gear. “What’s the matter? We’re almost there. It’s only fifty yards away.”
“It might as well be fifty miles away,” Chase said. “Look at the water in front of us.”
“I see it,” Nicole said. “It doesn’t look nearly as wide as it was before.”
“But it’s moving faster now and I’m guessing that’s because it’s deeper.”
“I think we can make it across,” Nicole said. “If we get bogged down, we’ll still be closer to the barn.”
“This rig is worth a lot of money. To say nothing about the stuff inside the trailer.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I think we should get that gas out of the back and wade across. If we find that it’s not too deep, we can get back in and drive across instead.”
“You’re barefoot,” Nicole said.
“I’ll have to be careful where I step.”
“And Simba is out there.”
“Believe me,” Chase said. “I’d rather drive too. And if we could get the rig there, I might be able to hook up the two generators we have in back to the barn. We’d have power for a week. But if the truck gets stuck, we might lose everything inside.”
Chase looked at his watch. They had been gone for more than an hour. He wondered if the generator in the barn was still working.
07:04 AM
Inside the circus barn, the lights flickered and then went out.
Pet trumpeted. Rashawn screamed.
Momma Rossi put her hand on Rashawn’s arm and said, “Be calm, dear.”
“Sorry,” Rashawn said. “It’s embarrassing but I’m kind of afraid of the dark. Add a leopard to that and I’m petrified.”
