Storberry

by Dan Padavona

  Two minutes later to the second, Culter was in the shadow of the buses informing a frenzied female monitor in her first year of teaching of the imminent danger. Within five minutes of his arrival, as lightning burnt a five-foot wide hole in the school parking lot as though a missile had exploded, over 200 hundred students were safely crouched with hands over heads (which was also the recommended safety position for a full scale nuclear attack) within the school's lowest corridor.

  Less than 100 yards from the Belleview housing development on the west edge of town, the tornado bounced twice, belched out the remnants of a barn silo like it was an angry child's toy, and dissipated into thin air as though a magician's illusion. The danger was over, though nobody had forgotten the heroic command of Rory Dickson.

  When Rory's truck pulled into the police station lot on the south end of Court Street, the police chief was waiting for him. He could smell something burning on the wind as Madsen waved him down. The chief confirmed the obvious, that he could not obtain a signal on the police station’s amateur radio. As far as Madsen could ascertain, all communications were down. The chief suggested they use the police truck to reach the radio tower at the east edge of town.

  As they dodged tree branches and power lines on Jensen, they encountered two elm trees crisscrossed over both traffic lanes. Greg took the truck over the curb, and they bounced their way around nature’s barricade. Candles burned in scattered windows where portions of the east end of Jensen were without power.

  Greg worried about the potential for fires caused by the careless use of candles. If a blaze started on this section of Jensen, the fire trucks might not be able to fight through the mess until the house was reduced to smoldering ashes.

  The night air was unnaturally warm for late March. There was the sweet smell of smoke on the wind, which reminded them of wood barbecue pits and the smell of residual smoke after a fireworks display. They would have found it pleasant were it not for the context.

  Loud pops echoed from up the road. Greg knew what that meant, long before the telephone exchange building came into view. As transformers burst overhead, orange and white sparks rained down on the road’s shoulder. A fire truck pumped a steady stream of water into the exchange building interior. The fire was out, but it would be days before phone communication could be restored.

  The amateur radio tower was bent toward the earth in submission to the elements. The metal twisted around itself and broke at the midpoint, like a shattered futuristic soldier.

  “Shit,” said Rory, though he had expected as much.

  “I won’t even ask you what it would take to get a new tower up,” Greg said.

  “Good. Don’t. I couldn’t order one anyhow with the phone lines down.”

  “Do you realize Storberry has no communication with the outside world right now?”

  “The post office is still open.”

  “Very funny. Aside from driving to the nearest town for help, I have no way to contact anyone.”

  “The county will send people here to check things out if we can’t be reached, right?”

  “That’s the interesting part. It’s not like we got hit by a line of thunderstorms. Whatever happened to us only happened in Storberry. Who’s to say anyone knows we got hit at all?”

  “I didn’t think of that.”

  “You’re right, though. If nobody can contact us, they’ll send a sheriff’s vehicle to check on things. Eventually. And I can't wait until eventually.”

  “Do you have any idea what the hell happened tonight?”

  “I really don’t. Some sort of freak wind storm? I’ve lived in Virginia most of my life, and I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

  “I could hear the damned thing all the way out on Randolph Road. It was screaming down the hill. It gave me shivers just hearing it.”

  “I've heard of thunderstorms which produce wind damage with hardly any rain or lightning.”

  “Well, whatever it was, it made a hell of a mess. And it damn well nearly cut us off from the rest of the world.”

  As Greg wiped the sweat from his brow, he slapped at a mosquito buzzing at his ear.

  “The first thing we need to do is get the roads cleaned up. That will make it easier for the utility crews to do what they need to do.”

  “And keep the looky-loo's off the streets,” Rory said. “They'll just get in the way.”

  “Right. I'm going to need a team of volunteers. People I can trust. I can count on you?”

  “You know you can.”

  “I'd like the Moran guy, too.”

  “The farmer?”

  “I hardly think that guy is a farmer,” Greg said. “He's been enough places in life that he knows how to prioritize. He isn't gonna cry about getting his business up and running first. He'll understand what needs to be done.”

  “I'll see if I can round him up. We could really use the amateur radio network to organize this shit.”

  “What's done is done. As soon as we get the roads cleared and the phone lines up, we'll get you the funds for a new tower. In the meantime I'll get all of the volunteers walkie-talkies, to heck with the regulations. They won't help us radio anyone from the outside, but they'll keep us in contact around town.”

  “That'll do.”

  As the buzz of chainsaws joined the eerie wail of sirens, car horns honked in concert from the town interior.

  Greg was convinced that a small team of volunteers working with the emergency crews could have the town back to normal in a few days.

  But something else worried him as he surveyed the town lights to their west. There was something more dangerous than live wires creeping within the dark. He could feel it. What that danger was, he couldn't say, but a growing disquiet urged him to find a way to reach outside help. And fast.

  Four

  The television in the corner cycled through channel after channel of static, the screen engulfed in a blizzard of dead signals. Bill Barrister grunted and flicked the power off with the remote control.

  “Now why on earth would the cable be down on a clear night like tonight?”

  Janet Barrister watched him over the edge of her coffee cup.

  “Just as well. Nothing but trash on that thing.”

  “Well, I was hoping to watch the ballgame.”

  “Hmmph.”

  He dropped the remote to the coffee table.

  “Something bothering you tonight, dear?”

  “Dropped by the public library this afternoon. Do you know what vile detritus passes for literature these days?”

  He rolled his eyes and felt for the remote control again. Maybe if I try one more time the cable will be working again, and I can watch the ballgame in peace.

  “Do tell.”

  “Lunatics attacking teenage girls with axes. Rabid dogs mauling children. Tell me, Bill. Do you think God smiles when He sees His children reading such pestilence?”

  “Perhaps you should bring it to the attention of the librarian, Miss—”

  “Tennant. Miss Renee Tennant.”

  “That's her. Saw her the other night when we were out at the café, didn't we?”

  “Indeed.” She spat. “I brought these books to her attention. Do you know how she justified these books being in our library?”

  She didn't wait for him to reply.

  “By telling me how popular this rubbish is in the big cities. Well, that's not how we do things in Storberry. We—”

  “We try to be neighborly. Isn't that God's Way?”

  “Do not invoke His name in defense of some strumpet with big city ideas who is corrupting our town.”

  If I just press the red button, the television will turn on, and the magic fairies will have coated the cable wire with pixie dust, and I can watch the ballgame. Then maybe she will shut up.

  “Of course not, Dear.”

  “Then I expect you will be by my side next Sunday at Saint Anthony's. I mean to bring this to Father Crosi's attention. It's time decency had its da
y in the sun again. And time for Renee Tennant and her sort to be eradicated from Storberry.”

  “I concur,” he said, no longer hearing her.

  He snatched today's Richmond Times-Dispatch from the coffee table, rattling the pages until he was certain that she believed him absorbed in world affairs.

  A crease at the top of the curtains over the living room window revealed the coming of nightfall. The eastern sky was deep blue, the beginning of twilight. As she returned to her knitting and he to the sports pages, a hush fell over the two-story house. It was in this silence that they heard distant sirens, rising from the east side of town.

  “That's odd. That's the second time we've heard them in the last ten minutes,” she said.

  “I'm sure it's nothing to worry about.”

  He rattled the pages again.

  But the sirens increased and grew closer, now a musical cavalcade of various emergency vehicles. He recognized them all. Ambulance. Police car. Fire truck.

  I hope the pizza guy can get through.

  “It sounds like they are near the end of our road, Bill.”

  He folded the paper in his lap. Two sets of sirens, and the cable is dead. That was typical during spring storms, but he hadn't heard thunder. The panicked response of the emergency vehicles worried him. Something serious must have happened.

  “Maybe I should take a drive down the road to see what happened.”

  “Oh, no, you won't. You aren't leaving me here alone.”

  “It would just be a moment—”

  Seeing her eyes flare, he knew not to argue the point further. He sighed and unfolded the paper. It was odd, he thought. If it had been a bad accident, the sirens would have congregated toward one portion of town, but the prior sirens had emanated from the town center, and currently they spread west to Randolph Road.

  “The Giovannis might know what is going on. I'll give them a call.”

  She picked up the phone and was met with silence in the receiver. No dial tone. No beeping to indicate a problem with the line.

  “Well I'll be. The phone is out too.”

  A pounding on the front door broke the hush. She jumped in her chair, and her knitting tumbled to the carpet and unraveled like a spilled bowl of spaghetti. A dead silence followed, as though to emphasize their solitude amid the building darkness.

  “Who would be knocking at this hour?” she asked.

  Her lips quivered. It hadn't been a knock at all, but a pounding, as though something demanded entry. She was thinking about ax murderers, demons, and the literary monsters she had meant to run from the town.

  “I'll see who it is—”

  “Don't!”

  He sat down again, and as his eyes locked on the door, the only fortification standing between them and night, his mouth went dry. Was there anything in the house to defend him with? A kitchen knife perhaps?

  I shouldn't grab a knife. It will just alarm her more. I'm sure it's nothing—

  Something smashed against the door, and for a split second a thin strip of blue gloaming was visible between the jamb and the door as the wood buckled inward.

  Bill Barrister rose to his feet, hands trembling.

  Sirens wailed from the south end of Randolph Road, building to a frenzy. He thought he heard distant screaming when the movement of chrome caught his attention. The doorknob turned.

  Five

  Mary Giovanni put down the glass of Merlot. She stood on the back deck of her brick two-story on Randolph Road and looked into the night. The ringing of crickets filled the air, loud enough to drown out the emergency vehicles inside town. The meadow grass beyond the backyard property line swayed in silhouette, while spring peepers sang from drainage ponds deeper within.

  A sparsity of residences stretched away to the south, their windows like cat's eyes in the gloaming. The sky was alive with a million stars, but the night seemed unnaturally dark, as though a shroud blocked the starlight from reaching the ground.

  She looked to the north toward her family's farm, where the silhouette of the silo loomed over the countryside like a tranquil giant. The farmhouse windows appeared as distant pinpricks of white.

  She had never heard so many fire trucks and police vehicles on the road at one time. They seemed to be buzzing like worker bees between the town center and the far ends of Jensen Road.

  What sort of wind storm strikes out of a clear sky?

  She worried about the café. It was madness to try to drive to Main Street with so many road closures, so there was nothing to do for it tonight. If there was damage, insurance would cover most of it. The rest she would take care of herself, just as she always had.

  Grabbing the Merlot, she slid open the glass door from the deck to the dining room. The smell of apple and cinnamon met her at the entrance, as leftover pie from the café reheated in the oven. She walked past the dining room table and entered a perfectly-organized kitchen with new laminate flooring. The clock on the microwave read 9:56 in digital green.

  Mary slid the leftovers out of the oven and cut a generous slice for herself, then she carried it to the living room with her wine. She felt a little embarrassed to be eating dessert and drinking wine alone on a Saturday night. She was always so busy, she reasoned. There wasn't enough time in the day for starting new relationships. Maybe someone would walk into her café and sweep her off her feet, like in one of the idyllic black-and-white movies she liked. Or maybe he never would, and that would be just fine too. She enjoyed independence.

  She didn’t worry about the town. Give us a few days to clean things up, and it will be like nothing ever happened, she thought. That's how things were done in Storberry. Neighbors helped neighbors, and you worked until you got the job done. You didn't form committees to study the problem. You fixed it and moved on.

  Most of the town still had power. So what if the television wasn't working? She hardly watched the darn thing anyhow. Losing the phone was a little inconvenient, but it also meant that she wouldn't be disturbed tonight.

  A little dessert, a glass of wine, and a book. Then sleep. Tomorrow was a new day, and there would be plenty to do. If the roads were open between Randolph and Main, she would check on the café.

  She swallowed the last morsel of pie and put the dish in the kitchen sink. She looked out the back window, but her eyes had adjusted to the bright fluorescent lights and she could see only black.

  Her reflection stared back at her. She had a few more gray hairs every year, but she felt as strong as she had in her twenties.

  She wondered, how will I feel if I am still on my own ten years from now? If the reflection in the window knew, it wasn't talking.

  She started to turn from the window when her breath caught in her chest. For just a moment, she swore she had seen a face in the window.

  It occurred to her that anyone could be watching her from the darkness behind the house, and she would never see them. It was a disquieting thought, and presently she began to feel very alone in her little house on Randolph Road. As she strained her eyes against the glare, the only face she saw in the glass was hers.

  The house took on a heavy silence that weighed on her. There was a master light switch for the kitchen above the counter. She eyed it with trepidation.

  Something scraped against the side of the house. Her heart beat faster, and her eyes fought against the glare to no avail. She thought of the cherry tree on the back corner of the house. Had its branches grown long enough to brush against the bricks?

  The master light switch seemed to be looking at her now, as though it dared her to plunge the room into darkness. What would she see at the window when she flipped the switch? She saw her right hand move toward the switch, as though she was watching a movie. The inside of her mouth felt like cotton.

  There's nothing out there.

  You wanna bet?

  Her fingers twitched. Just a little farther.

  It's like pulling off a bandage. Do it quick.

  She pressed the switch. The click rever
berated through the kitchen, and the room went dark. Contours began to emerge out of the gloom as her eyes adjusted.

  There was no face at the window.

  The vague outline of the meadow grass marked the back border of her property line. She found her hearing to be more acute without the light to distract her, and she listened for a recurrence of the scratching sound.

  Leaning forward against the sink, Mary craned her neck at the window toward the silhouette of the cherry tree, its branches covered in blossoms. One branch extended toward the back wall, but it was impossible to tell from this angle if it touched the house.

  I’ll trim that branch tomorrow, when it is light out.

  When it is light.

  As the microwave clock cast a green reflection off the laminate, she let out her breath and leaned back against the counter edge, feeling embarrassed.

  Next you will be sleeping with the closet light on to keep the boogeyman away.

  Beginning to worry, she thought of the dead phone line and wondered what she would do if a prowler tried to break into her house tonight. The Remington rifle was in the basement. She would sleep better if she had its protection nearby.

  When she flipped the master switch on, the light hurt her eyes.

  The basement door was chained shut at the back of the kitchen. She considered the pointlessness of chaining the door every night before bed. If a person went through the trouble of breaking in through the basement window, how would a flimsy door chain stop them?

  She removed the chain and flipped the light switch at the top of the basement stairs. Wooden steps descended to gray concrete. A black pool of darkness spilled out of the laundry room to the left of the staircase. Fretting more, Mary wished there was a master light switch for the entire basement. Maybe Hansen Electric could install one for a reasonable price. They had done good work for her at Sweet Nothings. For now, her only choice was to walk from darkened room to darkened room, illuminating each one at a time.