We walked through the deep, melting snow until we were close enough to see into two small front windows that had been partially obscured by threadbare towels. It was light inside, but I didn’t see any other signs of life.
“What do you want?” someone yelled from the side of the house.
I jerked my head to the left and jumped like a dope.
The man I had met earlier that fall at the prepper meeting was standing beside the house with a large shovel in one hand and a headlamp glowing above his eyes. He looked just as I remembered him, wearing the same faded denim vest over a hooded sweatshirt. Shaggy graying hair fell around his thin face.
“Hi, Crow!” Peg yelled cheerfully. “It’s me, Peg. I was hoping we could have a few minutes of your time.”
“And who’s that?” he asked, pointing the rusting metal shovel in my direction. I was grateful that he didn’t recognize me from our first brief meeting.
“This is Ash. He’s a friend of mine helping out with some town matters. This is a friendly visit, Crow. Can we come in?”
“All right, all right,” Crow said, stepping past us to unlock the front door and watch closely as we entered. “Shoes off!”
We tugged off our winter boots and draped our coats on a nearby rocking chair. The space was small, with only enough room for a ratty couch and two chairs. To our right was a kitchen the size of a bathroom, which led to a bathroom the size of a closet. The decor was tattered, but not dirty. The floors were well swept and the surfaces almost shiny. I noticed a stack of overstuffed cardboard boxes in the corner that were all neatly labeled in marker—books, tools, extension cords. There was a very particular order to the cramped space.
Crow took a seat at the edge of one of the chairs and looked at us expectantly.
“Well, get on with it,” he said.
Peg snapped into gear, swiftly laying a small map of the plans out on the coffee table and launching into an overview of the devastation the flood would wreak. I don’t think she was exaggerating, but it was clear that she was describing a worst-case scenario, with a focus on Crow’s property and little mention of the threat to downtown or even his neighbors. He sat still, listening without interruption, but not encouraging her in any way. When Peg finally took a breath, Crow jumped in.
“Let me spare you, Peg.” He put one hand up as a stop signal. “This isn’t going to happen, not on my property. You can dig as many holes as you want in the Fabers’ land next door, but there’s no way in hell that I’m going to let a group of strangers, beholden to God knows who, come onto my property and start tearing it up. Not gonna happen.”
Peg nodded. She had been ready for this reaction. “I totally understand, Crow. Really, I do. But if I could just—”
“Does ownership mean nothing to you people?” he asked, louder than before.
“Oh, c’mon, Crow. I’m not ‘you people,’” she said. “You know that. And I’m telling you that this is as straightforward as it sounds. There are no political motives in this. Your little house will be floating down the Isole Creek if you don’t do anything! Lot of good ownership will do you then.”
Peg was more heated than I had ever seen her, but I was impressed by her ability to not be intimidated by Crow. I hadn’t spoken a word yet.
“Oh, I’m not so attached to this place,” Crow said, looking around his home. A smile crept across his face. “You wanna see something cool?”
I didn’t want to see something cool, which I imagined could only involve taxidermy, combat scars or an arsenal.
“Sure,” Peg said, recognizing an opportunity to recalibrate her approach.
“This way.” Crow motioned for us to follow as he opened the front door.
We tugged on our boots and coats and went back into the dark night where Crow would have been invisible up ahead if his headlamp had not illuminated the path. It occurred to me that if he wanted to kill us, it would have been a fairly easy job. There were no houses within shouting distance and nothing for us to run to. We were entirely at his mercy. I thought about what a strange twist of fate it would be for Pia if I died at the hands of her friend Crow. At least I would be vindicated for calling him crazy.
“It’s just up here!” Crow yelled from up ahead as he approached the shed I had heard the dog bark from before.
“Jesus Christ,” I whispered to Peg, “he’s taking us to his shed. Should we be following him?”
“It’s fine...probably,” Peg said, with less confidence than before.
The wind blew against my face and I became aware of the sweat that was accumulating on my forehead. I could hear trees rustle around me, but it was so cloudy that even their silhouettes against the sky were missing that night. I could smell the sweet, festive scent of balsam fir and thought I saw white spruce pinecones littered at my feet. It comforted me to be able to piece together my surroundings and made the dark seem less foreboding. Crow lived deep in the boreal forest, which was always dark. The canopy of evergreen above kept light out all year long. And aside from some twinflower and wintergreen, little could grow through the decomposing pine needles on the moist, acidic floor. If I hadn’t been so scared, I would have appreciated the beauty of it all.
We met Crow at the door to the shed, where he wrestled with a key and a heavy-duty padlock. Peg and I exchanged a glance of shared panic. But if we were considering abandoning this plan, it was too late because the lock opened easily and Crow pulled the wooden door back with ease. The dog we heard earlier slipped past us and ran toward the house.
Before us was not the interior of Crow’s murder shed, but a wall of sheet metal that followed the interior curves of the shed itself, leaving only a few inches between the two structures. It was a shelter inside a shelter. Crow dragged his fingers along a jagged edge of the metal until he found a latch that held a small combination lock. We watched as he entered a set of numbers and then opened the door to the interior shelter.
“Welcome to my backup plan,” he proclaimed.
A light flickered on and our eyes took a moment to adjust to what we were looking at. In the space that couldn’t have been more than eighty square feet, there was a living room–like area with an old couch and a chair set up around a milk-crate coffee table. A large camp stove was open nearby next to a bucket that attached to a water pump system, which I gathered served as a kitchen. In the corner of the makeshift kitchen, a curtain hung, behind which I could see part of a tiny camp toilet. There were no windows, but a framed watercolor painting of a man in a canoe hung above the little couch. It was like a dollhouse or, more accurately, a clubhouse for a young boy. I couldn’t believe the ingenuity that had gone into it.
“What is this?” I heard myself ask.
“It’s where I go when The Storm comes,” Crow bragged. “C’mon, man, let me show you what it can really do.”
He waved me into the space, which could barely hold the three of us. I squeezed in behind Crow as he reached up to a latch behind the living room chair and pulled down a small bed that had been folded into the wall. It was wrapped neatly in sheets and an army blanket and had the faint smell of mothballs. I inspected the makeshift Murphy bed and its expert hinges with great admiration. It was a pretty clever use of space.
“And that’s nothing!” Crow was getting excited.
He stepped into the kitchen area and pulled something from the wall facing the bucket sink. With a few quick motions, the object unfolded into a small table that fit neatly in the space. Next, Crow reached past me to pull out a small bench that was tucked beside the sink and provided seating to accompany the table.
“Did you make all this?” I asked. I had forgotten entirely about my fears and the purpose of our visit.
“Most of it I made, and some of it I found online. It’s not rocket science, but I’ve been workin’ on it for a while and I’m damn proud of it. It’s insulated
, flood-proof and fully stocked. If The Storm came tomorrow, I would have everything I need in here.”
Peg had been silent since we entered the bunker and seemed to be waiting for the right moment to revisit the topic at hand.
“Crow, this is very impressive,” she started, “and it’s very smart. You’re a man of great foresight, no doubt. So what do you care if we dig a little hole in your backyard while you’re living in here?”
“Well, hopefully,” Crow said, annoyed, “I won’t have to live in this thing. This is an emergency option. I’m not looking forward to a catastrophe.”
I wasn’t so sure about his last point.
He went on, “This is about principles, Peg. It’s easy to abandon your principles in moments of crisis, but that’s when we need them the most. I’m not going to surrender all my rights to the state because you think this might save some land.”
“No one’s surrendering any rights here,” she replied. “We’re simply asking you to consider the consequences of not digging extra drainage. Even if you don’t give a hoot about the rest of this town, it could drown your entire property. Do it for yourself.”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
“Crow, this is selfish!” Peg was losing her composure. “Lots of people could suffer because of your goddamn principles. If we can’t redirect the flooding, the entire downtown of Isole could be destroyed. How will you be able to live with yourself if that happens?”
“I doubt I’m the only person in Isole who is putting my foot down,” he said.
“You might be!”
“Not likely.” He shook his head. “Anyhow, I think I’d do greater harm to our society by giving in to this. Now is the time to stand up for our rights.”
I felt awkward, standing between the two of them as they argued in the small space, and I wished we could go back to exploring Crow’s secret hideout. But I was there on behalf of the Subcommittee and I needed to say something.
“This affects my property, too, Crow, and I think this plan is in all of our best interests,” I said weakly.
Crow turned to me. “That’s for me to decide.”
We stood there silently for a minute until Crow said, “You two should go.”
He seemed hurt that the unveiling of his creation had been overshadowed by conflict. I felt it, too, somehow. I liked Crow. He was thoughtful and smart, even funny in his own way. And maybe he wasn’t as crazy as I had originally thought.
Peg gave me a stern nod and I swept my eyes over the secret hideout, taking it all in for what would likely be the last time. I noticed that there were plastic storage containers suspended from the ceiling above the couch. They had drawers that pulled out and could have held a small wardrobe for one person. Brilliant. I was also curious about the bathroom, but now was not the time to explore it. A generator-powered refrigerator sat across from the tiny toilet and I wondered what foods might be in there.
Peg and I walked silently across the dark property, using our cell phones to light the way. When we arrived at the car, she let out a deep sigh and sank into the driver’s seat.
“This isn’t going to be easy,” she said. “I like Crow, but he’s a damn fool.”
I nodded. “I like him, too. He’s kind of a surprise, you know?”
“And yet, he’s also just the angry recluse you’d expect.” Peg shook her head in frustration. “We have to keep trying. I’m going to wear him down.”
I felt bad that I couldn’t help Peg, or Isole, and vowed then to commit myself more to the business of convincing doubters that they needed to get on board with the runoff plan. But what would convince someone who had no concern for their town or neighbors, I wondered. I remembered that Pia had no idea we were a part of the drainage plan. Our own backyard would be changed by it. I guessed that she would put up a symbolic fight, on the grounds of personal freedom or whatever talking points she had been fed by the preppers, and then go along with it because ultimately she’d lose interest in the banal matters of home and property maintenance. No matter what, she could never know that I had gone to Crow’s house or, worse, that the guy impressed me. For some reason, I needed to keep that to myself.
Peg and I didn’t speak on the long drive back to my car. It was nine o’clock and there was hardly anyone else on the road. She turned the radio on and we heard the tail end of a weather report about another snowstorm that was expected to start the following afternoon. I wasn’t listening closely.
As Peg pulled into the courthouse lot, an alarming thought occurred to me and I turned to her, “Do you think other people in Isole are building bunkers like Crow’s?”
“I don’t think so,” she said, “but I guess it’s not the craziest idea in the world.”
“It’s not, no... Do you think we should all be doing things like that?” I asked. Seeing Crow in a new, rational light was confusing.
Peg put the car in Park and turned toward me.
“No, Ash. Once you go there, you’re already living in a state of emergency. You’re praying for the reckoning just to make all your efforts worthwhile. It’s a fine line between being prepared and letting the fear run your life, but you have to respect the line.”
“Even if it means being unprepared when something bad really does happen?” I asked.
“Yes, most definitely.”
I nodded and thanked her for the ride, closing the car door gently behind me. Seeing Crow’s bunker and hearing his utterly rational explanation for his actions had rattled my understanding of what we were all supposed to be doing then...of what sane behavior looked like. It had been easier to dismiss Crow as a laughable, rural caricature. Considering that he was right was more complicated.
THIRTEEN
OUR LIVING ROOM smelled like old gym clothes by the second Saturday in January because of the worms. Pia checked on them regularly to make sure their movement was lively and the soil temperature within the appropriate range. Her care for the worms looked almost parental at times, though she could forget to check them for days on end. Sometimes when I was home alone, I would pull the top off and watch them writhe around in their moist box. They were fascinating, but I hated them intensely. Once, I even carried a single worm out the front door and dropped it in the snow. It moved around for a minute and then just stopped. Murdering that worm was a quiet, disturbing act of protest that I kept to myself. The violence of it surprised me. They were like roommates by then—roommates I resented but never wished any real harm upon.
“I’m going to a meeting,” Pia said, keys in hand. It had started to snow.
I looked up from my computer at the kitchen table. “Wait, we really need to talk about August.”
She sighed. We hadn’t had a chance to discuss August’s near-disappearance into the woods, but Bev The Social Worker would be calling any day now to announce that time was up: he would need to be placed in a home.
“Pia, I really want this and I think it could be good for us,” I pleaded. “I don’t know what else to say. I really want this.”
The expression on her face was soft and sympathetic, but I could see that she wasn’t going to change her mind. “I’m sorry, Ash. I love you and I would like to make you happy, but this is bigger than us. It’s another life. Maybe you can handle this, but I’m telling you that I can’t.”
She pulled on her coat and walked out the door.
I watched Pia drive off into the first stage of a snowstorm. The roads were unpredictable then, as we oscillated between blizzards and warm fronts. Accumulation from the previous snow had finally melted, but the temperature was dropping fast again. There was already eight new inches on our front lawn and the sky had turned to a dark charcoal gray even though it was two o’clock. I sat at the kitchen table in front of a drafty window. My laptop was open in front of me in an attempt to catch up on work, but nothing had
materialized. I watched the falling snow for a long time. It was hypnotic: the wall of white puffs falling against a gray sky—more like a spooky digital loop that I could have programmed than anything I’d ever seen in nature. The sound, or lack thereof, was strange, too. Maybe I’d lived in the city for too long and forgotten what snow sounded like, but it seemed as if the low hum of life that was always outside had been turned down.
“The entire Northeast and parts of the Mid-Atlantic will get snow. Everyone from western New York to the coast of Maine and down to Pennsylvania should be prepared,” the radio voice explained. “Northern New England can expect eighteen to thirty inches, with less as you move south. The southeastern part of the country can expect damaging rains. The heaviest snow will hit the Northeast in about thirty-six hours. At the same time, we have a tropical storm forming off the Gulf Coast. As long as that dissipates before it makes landfall, this snowstorm will simply be a nor’easter—a big, snowy nor’easter, but not a superstorm as many fear. But if that tropical storm speeds up and they collide, we will be faced with a challenge.”
I looked back at my computer, trying to think about anything other than the conversation I’d just had with Pia. That was it; August would be taken away. And I’d be left there, with my panicked wife, as the deadly weather approached.
An email appeared on the screen before me. It was from Salty:
There’s no way to know if this is going to be The Storm, so we have to keep moving forward with the runoff plan. It’s possible that we will get a reprieve after this snow and still have some time to get into the ground and start digging. I made great progress yesterday with a portion of our affected landowners. Heard you guys hit a wall, but we can’t get discouraged. We have to press forward with this. Good luck riding out this storm. Hope for the best.
I tried to focus on the words in front of me but couldn’t stop thinking about August. When would he leave and where would he go?
I got up from the table to look at the snow outside, which was piling up shockingly fast. I knew that I needed to clear the driveway for when Pia got home with the car. If I didn’t do it soon, it would be too late and she’d have to park it on the road, where it would be buried under a pile of snow after the town plow went by. I didn’t feel like doing this for her, plowing obstacles out of Pia’s way. I considered leaving the driveway untouched as a gesture of selfishness to match her own. But eventually, I did what I knew I would do all along and I pulled on all my outdoor gear and stepped outside into the cold. The work would be good for me, I decided, maybe hard and exerting enough to keep down the rising tide of sadness in my stomach.
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