by L. B. Carter
A pitter-patter started up that quickly escalated into a steady rush of water, adding a blurring filter over the scene of the backyard. Grandpa was going to get soaked. Rena peered at an angle, flattening her cheek against the glass trying to see him inspecting the windows. The pane was freezing. The temperature had dropped a lot when the sun disappeared and the winds were likely cold coming off the ocean too.
She jumped when a loud crack, much closer than thunder, was followed a few seconds later by a crash and the splintering crunch of wood added percussion to the cacophony. The earthquake under Rena’s bare feet confirmed the source was nearby.
Wait, was that a human howl mixing with the wind’s?
Her heart started hammering with the pace of the rain hitting the stone-tiled walkway that vanished into the obscurity of the curtain of rainfall.
Grandpa? Rena pulled open the door, the noise of the storm magnifying. Her green strands whipped to and fro adding another layer of visual obstruction. Droplets, angled by the wind, pelted her face and splashed up onto her toes.
Grandpa? She hesitated on the threshold, wishing she could call out for him. She strained her senses, squinting into the curtain of water and leaves. Was that her name being called or the hiss of the rain?
Oh, heck it.
Rena darted out the door, immediately becoming drenched as the downpour saturated her loose sweatshirt and exercise pants. The soles of her bare feet slapped against the wet stones as she darted down the path until she reached the point where it split, one offshoot going towards the woods where the shed was and another heading around the side of the house to the gravel driveway.
She danced from foot to foot, unsure. Could it have been the sound of a shutter breaking? Or had he gone to the shed for tools?
“Sirena!”
She sprinted toward the shed, knowing she was close now she could hear him. Rena shoved wet hair from her eyes, though it didn’t help clear her vision much. She instead followed her memory of the path.
Shrimp!
The pointed end of a pine tree speared out of the gloom right towards her face. She pulled up short, stubbing her big toe against the edge of the next tile.
The sodden grass squelched between her toes when she edged around the side of the tree in amazement, following its widening body until she came upon the edge of the shed.
Amazingly one wall remained standing with a short bit of roof still attached, while the front and right-side walls were in piles of rubble beneath the full pine branches. The back wall was only partially destroyed, such that the tree was propped up, tilted forward so the bare trunk stuck up like legs protruding from the skirt of one of the girls who Rena had seen drunkenly fall over a driftwood bench at the beach party. She shoved at several branches, trying to get closer to the shed.
Was Grandpa in there? Was he all right? He’d been okay enough to yell.
As she got closer, she could see that the trunk ended abruptly, with a jagged edge showing it had snapped at the base and fallen. She heaved another branch, this one as thick as her arm, and the tree lurched. A groan responded. Grandpa!
Rena ran back up the length of the tree, around the tip, and down the other side. She couldn’t feel her feet anymore thanks to the frigid puddles, so she didn’t hesitate before tromping through the debris of the north wall, ducking under big limbs to follow the trajectory of the voice.
Goddamn it, how would she find him? Fuck it. And fuck non-curse words.
She swallowed hard. “Grandpa?” she called out over the continued assault of the storm, voice warbly.
“Guppy!”
She clambered over a broken-off limb, slid across a precarious stack of wooden boards and slowed only for a moment to take a big step over Grandpa’s chainsaw, half-buried under the pegboard his smaller tools usually hung on up on the wall. Grandpa!
He was tucked under a few sawhorses and the lawn mower, which was thankfully overturned, blades facing up and away from him. His face was a little bloody and stuck out from the pile so he saw her coming and relief eased some of the pain from his expression. One arm was free, pushing feebly and ineffectively against his prison.
She rushed over and began to lift, hefting the mower by the handle and shoving it to the side. It fell against a pile of shovels laying atop each other like kindling. The sawhorses were heavy but once she heaved one off, she was able to simply lift the last one enough that Grandpa could slide out, pulling himself with that one free arm. Once he’d dragged his feet clear of the thick hunk of wood in her trembling arms, Rena let it drop with a thud that was barely audible under nature’s racket.
She ran over and dropped down beside Grandpa, frantically trying to assess if everything was okay. It reminded her starkly of Nor at the beach.
“I’m okay, Guppy.” He struggled to push himself up. “It’s just…” He grimaced, paused and grabbed his left forearm with his right. “It’s just my arm.” Rena’s hands hovered as though to cradle his injured limb as well. “Just help me up would you?”
She gripped under his good arm and pulled him up, slowly. Finally he got his feet under him, and she slipped a bracing arm around his cushy middle. It would be ideal if he could loop an arm around her shoulders for support. The way he was holding his left arm made that impossible. She guided him a step away from the tree. Unfortunately, that meant over the debris. He stumbled a bit and she tightened her grip. She would take a step, testing her weight first, and then he would follow, his right elbow continually jabbing her in the chest. That wasn’t important. Heck, it was no different than her sparring bruises.
Reaching the wood pile that was all that remained of the eastern wall and roof, Rena gingerly stepped atop one plank, then was forced to let go of Grandpa to hop down the other side onto the grass. She turned back around, arms outstretched as if to catch him, only to witness the board he’d just put his left slipper on shift down the pile, with the water relieving the friction, and his left hip and arm hit first as he fell. She shut her eyes against the agony in his hoarse yell.
Rena cast about looking for some answer. Was there some makeshift gurney? The wheelbarrow! She darted around Grandpa, giving a “stay there” gesture as she passed. The wheelbarrow was in the corner on its side. Of course. Of course she had thrown the lawn mower onto it and twisted the metal attaching the wheel to the base.
Fuck the wheelbarrow, too.
“Guppy?”
Rena spun in a circle feeling helpless and stressed. They’d just have to go more slowly. She took another huge step over the chainsaw.
Chainsaw…
Some more heaving, and the device was free. She was grateful for all her boxing when she picked up and discovered how heavy it was. By the time she’d made it back to Grandpa, he’d maneuvered himself into a seat by the tree at the bottom of the pile. His eyes bugged when he finally noticed her coming at him with the huge tool. She quickly adjusted so the sharp teeth were pointed to the side away from him. Thankfully he understood her head jerks and shuffled himself, awkwardly further into the crumpled shed.
She put the machine on the floor and hunted around until she found the cord. With her toe holding down the handle and her left arm braced on the top, she wrenched once. Nothing. It was old and rusted. Did gas-powered engines work in rain? The second jerk was harder and faster, her shoulder muscles pulling against the rope’s resistance. Only a rev and sputter were her reward. The motion was kind of like elbowing an enemy behind her. Once she thought that, the next pull got a loud growl. Her sodden state and the deep rumble reminded her of the first day of school, watching Nor pull up next to her. Rena was going to be the savior today.
She bent and lifted the whirring saw, her arms vibrating with the motor and aimed it toward some of the branches creating a natural barrier in the place of the shed wall. As soon as the edge met with the bark, bits began to fly off, and a little pressure caused an eruption of sawdust that plastered to her damp forearms. She squinted, trying to keep enough view to see what she was doi
ng—she’d be no help to Grandpa if she cut off her own arm—without allowing any splinters in. It was too late to find any goggles now. Or gloves. Or earplugs. The saw jerked out the other side of the thick limb and the whine dropped in timbre again.
A choke of thunder made Rena jump and she almost dropped the saw. Shrimp! Though it probably wouldn’t affect her utility to Grandpa, she wanted to keep all her toes, as well.
Grandpa’s warning was half-drowned in the ruckus. “’e carefu’, ‘uppy!”
Obviously. What did he think she was doing? Using a very dangerously sharp and uncontrollable device without any safety equipment in the middle of a blinding thunderstorm? Her life was like a horror movie. Except that she was the good guy. This time. She could probably eviscerate some aliens.
Rena repeated the process with three more branches. The last was thinner and much quicker work. There was now a slight gap of level flooring that transitioned from the concrete of the shed to the stone tiles.
Now just to turn off the perilous weapon… She turned to Grandpa, panic in her eyes. He backed further into the debris. She was trapped. She’d just have to hold it forever, afraid to put it down, and unable to figure out how to turn it off. Was this how you became the bad guy in those horror movies? Maybe they just hadn’t been able to stop the stupid chainsaw and hadn’t actually intended to kill anyone. Oh, God, don’t let her kill Grandpa after all this effort.
“’uppy!” Grandpa yelled through the storm and her internal hysteria. She raised her alarmed expression. He had his left arm tucked tight in against his body. With his right, he was making the shape of a gun and pulling an invisible trigger. He wanted to shoot her? She hoped he didn’t really see her as the villain just yet. “ull...ig...er” was all she got over all the racket. Oh.
Wiggling her small hands a bit, her right pointer finger touched a trigger by the handle. Rena played with that a little. The chainsaw sounded more menacing. Well, obviously; it had a gun trigger! This was the scariest object she’d ever held. JT would think twice about spraying her with puddle water if she’d been holding this weapon during that thunderstorm. Or on the beach. The trigger folded against the handle and the motor died, the blade slowing to a stop.
Rena slowly, gently, very carefully placed it down a good arm-length away from her in the shed, peeled her fingers one by one off the handle and lifted them above her head, before taking an exaggerated step back.
Her gaze pulled back up to Grandpa reluctantly as though the deadly thing would wake back up spontaneously and start taking lives. It remained inanimate. She became more horrified when she found Grandpa folded over at the waist. Was he worse? She didn’t think she’d gotten close to him at all. Amazingly, her bewildered state intensified when he straightened again, and she discovered he was laughing! At her. Maybe she should have let the chainsaw on him.
Then he winced and clutched his arm again and she dashed over. Together they finally escaped the shambles of his family shed, her herding him toward the glow of the back door before the final creaking wall felt the urge to topple. She definitely wasn’t the villain; Rena had just saved a life. That made her one for one. Progress.
◆◆◆
It had taken a stifled inhale of pain from Grandpa to convince Rena to stop sitting like a useless lump of rock with her fingers on the keys in the ignition and turn the engine over. Being a passenger was one thing but driving itself felt like a betrayal to her parents. Worse yet, the only way to the hospital was over the bridge that served as their tombstone. According to Kayna, who Rena had texted before leaving the house, mediating between her mother, the storm had taken out the other bridge upstream and the ambulance that had been en route to a power-dead elderly home with it. All emergency vehicles were there, hoisting out the unharmed EMTs. It was down to Rena to get Grandpa the medical attention he needed.
The engine shuttered off.
“Don’t forget the clutch,” Grandpa ground out through teeth clenched tight enough to damage his dentures.
On top of those super circumstances, Rena couldn’t recall if she’d ever learned to drive. A standard in a hurricane sure felt like a bad way to start. After a few more stall-outs and a momentary lurching roll backwards, they accelerated up the gravel. At the turn off onto their little road, Rena jerked the wheel to the right, jolting Grandpa’s injury and bounding them across tree roots and shrubs. Water was lapping greedily at the tarmac. They joined the road on higher ground, both Rena and Grandpa gaping at the car’s mirrors as the engine revved them uphill. Gil lived down there. Not anymore. Unsure if she could start the car up again, Rena pressed down on the gas, vowing to come back after dropping Grandpa off.
With no one else on the road, Rena’s tension eased slightly. It also enabled her to keep a steady speed and avoid having to shift. Able to glance over, Rena noticed the closed eyes in the dashboard lights and gave a muffled start.
Grandpa’s eyes snapped open. “I’m fine, Guppy. Just focusing on ignoring the pain.” He looked out the window. It was too dark and rainy to see anything. The wipers and high-beams barely previewed the road. “How close are we? Oh.”
The edge of the bridge loomed in the far reach of the headlights, a single streetlight illuminating the halfway point. Rena stared hard at it—avoiding looking out her periphery at the metal barriers, willing her body to remain calm. The odometer crept up.
“It’ll be fine, Guppy.” This was what Dr. Spelmann had asked her to do—return to a traumatic spot.
Face the fear.
Boom. Thunder shattered Rena’s nerves and she gave a shriek as the streetlight went out. The car careened, and she tried to swivel the steering wheel, immediately overcompensating. They hydroplaned on the water, skidding out into the ditch on the roadside. It was a sharp but gentle, all things considered, bump that halted them, their tail against a tree trunk, the grassy bank having slowed them down. Their headlights pointed back the way they came, the bridge out of sight. They were both breathing heavily.
A crackle sizzled through the interior. Rena’s arm shot out in front of Grandpa to shield him from the unknown.
“It’s fine. I’m fine. We’re fine. It’s my radio.” Grandpa struggled to pull it out, somehow maintaining his cool with a broken arm in a crashed car alone on a roadside during a storm.
The garbled voice was higher-pitched, more rushed than before, mangling into one indistinct run-on contraction. Grandpa’s hand slackened, the radio slipping to the edge of his grip. He pulled himself together. “On our way.”
When he turned to Rena, she knew it wasn’t going to be good. “Drive to the marina. And hurry. They got an SOS and Sam and Dave are still dealing with that renegade yacht. Gil went after it, on a rescue mission.” He shook his head. “They just lost his signal.”
Rena’s only thoughts as her trembling hands fumbled with the unhappy but functioning Subaru, pulling them back onto the road was that this news meant Gil wasn’t trapped in his flooded—or perhaps toppled into the ocean—house. That didn’t mean he was out of danger.
Rena glanced in the rear-view mirror as they sped away from the bridge. Refocusing on the dark road ahead, foreboding seeped back in, as she realized where they were heading.
◆◆◆
Her knuckles were white around the steering wheel, or whatever it was called on boats, the way Nor’s had been when he’d brought her home from the beach. Except back then, she’d been leaving the water, not stepping right on top of it, with only a thin layer of wood and metal between them.
It had taken extensive coaxing from herself and Grandpa to get her foot on the boat. Rena had literally had to threaten herself. Did she really want to be responsible for another death? Resting on her soaked shoulders was not only the life of Gil and whatever idiot he’d been attempting to help Sam and Dave save, but Grandpa, who was in no shape to attempt a rescue himself, his pallor pale in the lightning flashes. Her elastic band had snapped when she’d hesitated, pinging right into Grandpa and making him groan. He was mor
e a worry than a reassurance.
The pier—the new pier—was gone, consumed by the storm surge, either hidden under a few feet of agitated swells or destroyed by their relentless smashing force. Their trek now had an added transitional transportation step in an inflatable raft hoisted from Grandpa’s trunk—because who didn’t have an emergency car boat? Rena had forced down the wonder if that would’ve saved her parents from their peril, and climbed in to the extremely precarious object, literally taking some of the soil beneath her fingernails as she’d reluctantly pried her grip from solid ground when Grandpa launched. The sturdier tugboat—their only option left with Sam and Dave out in the Coast Guard vessel—wasn’t feeling any more secure.
She wasn’t sure she could even pry them off the wheel now that she was in position. Given that her limbs were numb, it was possible her fingers were frozen in their grip. In fact, her shivers and braced stance could also be attributed to the temperature rather than fear. Even behind the glass windshield which at least took the lashing from the rain, the cold wind managed to whip around the partitioning, slicing right through her damp clothes, freezing her to her core. Every rock of the boat made her stomach tumble and her lids would close, a prayer for solid land pointless. A huge wave crested in front of them. Her heart lurched as it lunged at her.
Would the ocean get her this time? Before she could be hero for once?
Rena was distracted from her nemesis as she lost sight of their goal—in the least ideal moment too, because the little tugboat tipped backward and then lurched forward down the other side of the angry wave in a totally different direction than they had been heading.