by Kevin Lawler
The thundering sent Oatmeal into a barking fit. He looked around the house trying to figure out where the noise came from. Winter tried to grab him to calm him but he kept barking. She thought about letting him outside but it wasn’t worth drying him off. Chill out little guy.
The rain was coming down harder now. Winter looked around the house, which had gotten a lot darker, and which was blanketed in the constant rush of drops. Winter checked the clock. It had gotten late. She was on babysitting duty for another few hours. She went to check on Kayla. In bed early. Winter remembered how, when it had been raining for days, she would run through the flooded driveways in her neighborhood, her dad following behind on the high part of the road. She doddled off in her socks to her tablet to call Sam. No pickup.
It thundered again. Oatmeal stood in front of the front door barking.
“Dude,” Winter said, “It’s not a big deal. Look.”
Winter turned on the porch lights. She opened the door and the wind caught it, flinging it open against the side of the house.
Outside in the rain was an ambulance idling in the road, it’s lights just coming off. Huh? The two front doors opened and so did the back, and soon there were three oddly-dressed women getting out.
Winter reached out to grab the door and pushed Oatmeal back with her foot. The door came to and she turned the deadbolt. Winter tried to think. Oatmeal kept barking.
“Stop,” Winter said. She sat down and pulled on her shoes. She could run out the back. No, wait, she couldn’t do that. What if they got Kayla?
Winter stood up. “Kayla,” she yelled, trying to wake her up from down the hall. “Kayla,” she said, rushing towards her room, “Kayla, get up.”
The light from the hall came into the dark room. Kayla squinted her eyes and put her arm over her face. “Go away, Winter.” Winter switched on the light.
“Kayla, I’m serious,” she said, “You need to get up, now.”
“Winter, I’m not playing with you,” Kayla screamed.
Winter tried to pull the covers off her and then ran back down the hall.
She stood in front of the door defenseless. She felt her foot tapping on the floor. What was she going to do? Maybe they weren’t here for her at all. Maybe they just wanted to talk. If she went outside maybe they wouldn’t know about Kayla. Winter needed to look outside. She cracked the door to peek out. Oatmeal stuck his head in to squeeze through. Winter grabbed for his collar but missed. That was it. He was out in the yard and Winter was out after him.
“Oatmeal!” Winter said.
Oatmeal didn’t go very far. He stopped and hind legs tumbled over his front. He fixed himself and started barking and pacing back.
In front of him, very out of place, was a stocky lizard at least ten feet long, flicking his tongue out. A Komodo dragon, Winter had seen them on National Geographic’s channel. The dragon’s tongue was forked like a snake’s. He had a harness on that he wrestled against to get at Oatmeal. Connected to the harness was a leather leash, and at the end of the leash was an elegant woman.
Her slip was a solid blood-red, top to bottom. She wore gold-rimmed cop sunglasses over her eyes, and on her wrists there were gold bangles. It looked to Winter like a photoshoot. The rain dotted the woman’s bleached blonde hair. The Komodo struggled against the leash. In the pause Winter could see the rain dampen the woman’s red outfit.
“Don’t worry, Oatmeal,” the woman in red said.
Winter could hear the sound of the rain again. She was getting rained on herself.
“We’re not here for you,” the woman in red said to Oatmeal, “We’re here for your friend.”
“A Komodo? Isn’t that a little overkill?” Winter asked. She tried to sound tough. She could hear the cracks in her own voice.
“You’d think that,” the woman in red said, wrestling with the Komodo to keep it from charging Oatmeal, “But you never know if one of these perfecting girls hits like a canon. One already had a grizzly bear. That was messy. Come. Get in the ambulance. We’re going.”
“You’re crazy,” said Winter.
“Am I?” the woman in red asked, “Maybe so. Elodie,” she said to the shortest woman there, telling her to get in position.
She drew her leash hand around in front of her. The rings on her fist sparkled with diamonds. She opened her fist and let the leash unwind.
“Oatmeal!” Kayla screamed from the doorway.
The Komodo took off across the grass. His scaled feet whipped around as he charged toward Oatmeal. Winter had no chance of getting there in time. The Komodo caught Oatmeal by the body in his huge jaws. He lifted him up into the air the way Winter had seen a lizard lift and eat a roach. He looked as if he was about to swallow Oatmeal. The lizard chomped down hard and Oatmeal howled and whimpered. From the scene came the the muffled and disgusting sound of Oatmeal’s ribs snapping. The Komodo swung Oatmeal a few times, throwing blood in the process, and released.
Winter came down to look at Oatmeal. There was nothing left to do. She sucked in a snot in her nose. Winter looked up past the women. The ambulance was idling in the road. If Winter could get to it, maybe she could escape. Or run them over.
The woman in red had drops of dog blood on her face mixed with rain.
Winter could hear Kayla crying behind her. Winter turned her head to the side, keeping an eye on the witches in her yard. “Go back inside, Kayla,” Winter said, “No, go to Miss Miri’s. Get out of here.”
“Twofer, do you think?” Didrika asked, biting into a whole kiwi. She was looking at Kayla.
“We’re not doing that, Didrika,” Elodie said. Elodie was the shortest woman there. She was dressed in black. Her hair was wild and pink.
“Shirking work again,” Didrika said. She took a second bite of the unpeeled kiwi. In her other arm was a giant book in a plastic sleeve. She had close-cropped sandy brown hair. Winter was going to spin an ambulance tire on her chest.
The Komodo was off to the side, looking up with his reptile eyes. He was still licking the blood off his mouth with his forked tongue. He opened his mouth, revealing the folds of his pink throat, sagging strands of envenomed drool, and dog blood. He flicked the tongue out. One. Two.
Winter stood up from beside Oatmeal and sprinted. It wasn’t the greatest plan of all time but it was what she had at the moment. The grass was soaked and she almost slipped but she caught herself and adjusted towards the woman in red. She could get a good tackle out of it, or what would pass for a tackle, and then when the woman was picking herself up Winter could make for the ambulance, and that was better than just running for the ambulance. If she ran for the ambulance straight away, they might try to stop her, but if she did it this way, she might have enough time to surprise them and make it there. It was a good plan if you thought about it. Winter saw the woman in red getting closer and closer and she visualized knocking into her and splaying her out on the ground. Time to go.
The woman in red juked to her left, tripping Winter, and, for good measure, as she spun she shoved Winter’s head over hard with her palm. Winter did not anticipate the possibility that she might be tripped, but in the split second of recognition, right as she went airborne, she had to appreciate, first of all, the grace of a trip well-executed, and, second of all, the appropriateness of being tripped, having set off in a blind rage as she did with no plan. It had been years since Winter had been tripped like this, and it was almost comforting to take in the extended first moment of flight. The thought did not last much longer. Winter’s hands were outstretched, but she mostly went face- and chest-first into the ground, skidding across the wet grass, and feeling the sharp line of a pebble cut into her trunk as she slid. She came to a stop with her palms on the road, the distance of one lane of road between her and the driver side door to the ambulance. It was already hurting. Winter pushed up and could see that her shirt was covered in one large grass stain, and that blades of grass were stuck to the bottom of her face. She felt a boot on her spine knock her back down to
the ground.
Winter heard the bangles of the woman in red jingling behind her. “I’m offloading this soon, so you’re lucky to get pros,” the woman in red said.
Winter looked over. She saw Didrika’s other boot from underneath her robe. Then she saw a bangled hand spritzing a mist into her face.
“I told you this thing wasn’t going to hold!”
“Shut up and get to the truck!”
The worker looked up at the canyon-sized stone reservoir and the storm water already slushing over the brim, washing away the faulty spillway underneath.
Once inside the truck his manager floored it. Other trucks were leaving the work yard in any direction upstream of the dam.
“I better call the emergency lines for Claremont and Covington,” the dam worker said.
“Why bother? They’re toast,” the manager said. “Start with the towns out past the levees, at least they have a chance.”
The dam worker looked out the rear window while he waited for somebody to answer.
Winter’s eyes opened as slits. She was in some kind of cramped operating room. Her head rested on its side. There was a tiny lady unrolling a bundle on the counter. Winter felt like the room was turning and the tiny lady steadied herself against a cabinet. Elodie, from before. Winter’s eyes closed.
She opened them again and Winter could see that the bundle was filled with arcane surgical instruments, black and jagged and chipped from stone. Elodie selected a scalpel with a curved blade like a scimitar and placed it on a tray covered in deli paper. Then she chose a long hook that looked like an ancient Egyptian embalming tool. Winter’s eyes closed.
When she opened them Elodie was in her face, looking into her eyes, the long hook in her bare hands.
“Agnes!” Elodie shouted, “Wrong aerosol!”
The shout pierced the fog in Winter’s mind. Agnes. What a...dumb name. The woman in red? Winter wasn’t going to forget it. She repeated it in her mind, “Agnes. Agnes.” She was going to get Agnes.
The ambulance. Winter sat upright and spilled Elodie’s tray as she came up. Elodie rushed to restrain her, putting her delicate hands on Winter’s shoulders and trying to force her down. Groggy as she was, Winter was not going to be manhandled by someone as petite as Elodie. What the heck was going on? Having just woken up, from poor sleep no less, Winter was cranky, and soon she was up off the gurney, flailing on Elodie as best she could. Winter was no boxer and she was soon winded. The flailing slowed. Elodie, shaken, took advantage of the lull to go for her tools on the floor. She came up with a snaking blade shaped like a lockpick. Winter moved back, and Elodie came at her, swinging the edge in her hand back and forth.
Winter grabbed hold of the side of the gurney and swung it between her and Elodie. This kept Elodie back, for the moment. Winter moved around the side of the gurney, and Elodie and her short arms lunged at Winter with the scalpel. Elodie slashed high towards Winter’s face, and Winter backed up against the wall. Winter saw the shining ebon reflection of the scalpel and then heard the air cutting as the blade separated it. Elodie was maneuvering for another stroke and bumped the gurney into Winter. Winter responded by grabbing the gurney and ramming it into Elodie’s waist. Painful as it looked, it was more surprising than debilitating, and soon Winter was ducking as Elodie leaned over the gurney to swing at her with the scalpel. The squeak of the wheels on the ambulance floor and the sound of the scraping and creaking metal frame of the gurney was the sound of the terror that any moment the polished end of the scalpel might come slicing through Winter’s face or neck.
Winter crawled quickly across the floor through the underside of the gurney, lifting it over her back and watching for Elodie’s outstretched arm, which came down at her but missed. From outside there was a loud onrushing noise. Winter could hear it over the commotion in the ambulance, building. On top of the gurney, Elodie could hear it, too. It was too loud to ignore. She stopped atop the gurney to listen.
All of a sudden the direction of gravity in the ambulance shifted, and the far wall became “down”. The gurney smacked against the wall, Elodie’s spilt tools crashed off the paneling, and Winter and Elodie were both dumped on top of this mess. The ambulance was underwater. The water level had already covered the rear windows. Water rushed into the rear of the ambulance. The outside of the ambulance sheered against the ground, making a terrible grinding sound. The sheering stopped for a split second and then the ambulance was rocked again as it connected with the ground.
Was Winter being rescued? It didn’t seem like it. The level of the water was rising very fast. Winter looked at Elodie. She was rooting around desperately in the mess of the upturned ambulance. For what? Ah, an oxygen tank. Smart. Elodie affixed the mask over her nose and mouth. In a few seconds her arms would be barely above the water. She brandished a scalpel and waited patiently. That ruled out Winter taking the mask. The lights went out and the rear of the ambulance was lit only by the moonlight filtering in through the back window. The water level continued to rise and soon the room was almost entirely submerged. Winter took a last breath. Her hair floated around her in the water. Blurrier now, she could see that Elodie held on to a rail on the far side of the ambulance. Winter’s options were running out. She would drown, or Elodie would get the idea to come after her. Either way she was done.
Winter twisted the handle in the door and pushed...
Chapter 4
By the time they reached the house Agnes was just starting to breathe again. Her slip was covered in mud. Mud was in Didrika’s eyes and ears. She had complained about it the whole way. It was caked in her hair.
Agnes stepped over the badminton set and beach toys clogging the doorway into the same ankle deep water. Inside the house the walls reflected the sound.
“Winter?” Kayla said from down the hall.
Agnes sloshed toward where she was. The waves moved through the moonlight image on the wall.
“Should we wait for the hellarunari?” Didrika asked.
“No, I’m done with this,” Agnes said, “Going to be a hatchet job.”
Kayla saw them and tried to slam her door. It went slowly through the water before closing. Then the lock clicked.
Agnes reached for the knob and turned it and unlocked it in one motion.
Inside the girl was standing on her bed in her tennis shoes. The broken glass on the coverlet twinkled in the candlelight. There was a swingset sticking in through the window. Agnes drew her knife.
Winter woke up in the crook of a tree. She looked down at the ground for a moment. Her eyes were bulging from the pressure on her chest. They felt like they had been bulging for a long time. She pushed out of the crook and slid to the ground. Sliding out she felt a sting where she had been cut by the pebble. After she had been tripped by Agnes. The ambulance. She felt her side to see if there was a deeper incision.
The pressure in her chest was returning to normal. She felt a lot of cuts and stings now. Her clothes were soaked and the air made it cold. The dirt she had kicked up when she had landed was damp. She looked around.
The ground was covered in tree branches and wet leaves and all sorts of junk like someone had dumped cans of yard waste everywhere and dragged ripped trash bags through them. Mud was underneath it all. There were pools of water wherever the ground was low.
What happened? The dam? A tsunami? It took Winter a moment to recognize where she was. She was behind the Chuck E. Cheese’s on the outside of town. But the side of all the buildings were covered in black muck to over her head and the Osterfield skating rink had finally fallen over.
Winter looked around to see if anybody was following her. No. And why wouldn’t they just come up to her? She could run to Deermont the next town over, but then what was she going to do? She had no money or food. Maybe she could find a pizza and some breadsticks in the Chuck E. Cheese’s—were there kids inside when the flash flood happened? probably not, it was too late/early. And were the animatronics safe?—but she wasn’t going to be able
to loot her way across the country. Maybe she could do that. The punks on Ashe street seemed to do it. Or panhandle. Winter was regretting not taking Ipsy up on her offer. If she was going to run she needed to get some money and supplies. They wouldn’t know where Miri’s was. And she could say goodbye to Kayla.
Winter started toward Miss Miri’s. She had never walked this far across town.
It was very hot and Winter had nothing to keep the sun off her. Winter passed through the devastated town she had called home. A lot of the roads were covered by fallen trees and telephone poles and newly formed lakes. The main roads in and out of town were filled with bumper to bumper traffic, completely still. The worst parts of the walk were when the horns were honking.
Winter arrived at a tent camp after what seemed like hours. The Red Cross had set it up in the middle of the field by the old City Hall. There were big open tents with volunteers handing out supplies. Tired and sweaty people walked around everywhere. It seemed weird to be building something on top of the wreckage. Especially something so shifty.
There was a table with a lady taking the names of survivors. Winter steered clear of it. It probably wasn’t even a good idea for her to be here.
The line for the food was the longest. It stretched around the camp. At the front where the particle board tables were the volunteers were handing out silver rations and cooked rice and beans in compostable beige carryout cartons. Winter debated getting in the line but she wasn’t hungry. There was a girl Winter’s age at the end of the line taking babysteps behind the sweaty back of the woman in front of her.
“I heard it was a tsunami and the dam,” someone said.
Winter went up to a stack of crates of bottled water that towered over her and puled a few bottles from an opened pallet at the bottom.
Winter felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned and it was Ipsy. There was a grey-haired lady behind Ipsy watching her.