Storm Surge

by Rhoades, J. D.

  Max looked surprised. “How’d you get hot water?” he said.

  “The stove is gas,” she said. She dipped a napkin in the water and began gently cleaning the blood away. Max sat there, his face expressionless, making no sound as she worked. The only sign of any discomfort was a light sheen of sweat that broke on his forehead.

  “Sorry,” she muttered. “I know it hurts.”

  “It’s okay.” His voice was tight with strain.

  “So,” Glory said. “I guess Max isn’t really your name.”

  “No,” he said. His eyes went distant.

  “So when are you going to tell us?” Glory demanded. Sharon was going to tell her to stop prying, but maybe the conversation would distract him. Plus, she was burning to know as well.

  “Tell you what?” he said.

  “Your real name.”

  He looked at her. His face was still blank. It was starting to make Sharon nervous. Then he seemed to come back from somewhere. “I don’t have one.”

  Sharon stopped wiping the blood away. “What do you mean, you don’t have one?”

  “I mean I don’t have one. Not officially.”

  “Who do you think you are, Clint Eastwood?”

  “Who?” Glory said.

  He shook his head. “My parents died, right after I was born.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Both of them.”

  “What was it, a car wreck?” Glory said.

  “No.” The silence hung in the air, then he sighed. “Somebody shot them.”

  “My god,” Glory said.

  “But how does that…” Sharon said, “I mean, why couldn’t they…”

  “It happened in a little rural hospital in Eastern Tennessee,” he said. “This guy and his wife, or girlfriend, or whatever, walked in in the middle of the night. She was in labor. He refused to give any details about who they were or what they were doing there. But she was so far along, they had to do something. They took her in the back and delivered the baby. Me. Twenty minutes after that, two men walked into the front of the hospital, shot the man dead at the front desk, then went into the back and shot the woman in her bed in the delivery room. They also killed the doctor and one nurse, and wounded another nurse so badly she spent the rest of her life in a wheelchair. Then they walked out.”

  “Holy fuck,” Glory said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Who were they?” Sharon asked. She started cleaning the wound site again.

  “No one knows. The shooters walked out and disappeared. The man and woman didn’t have any I.D. on them, or maybe the shooters took it. They found a car outside. It had been stolen from a lot in Chicago.”

  She had finished wiping the blood away. The exit wound was a ragged red hole in the hollow of his shoulder. Blood still flowed sluggishly from it. She picked up a tube of antibiotic ointment and rubbed it onto her fingers. “Hold tight,” she said, “this is going to hurt. Glory, cut me some strips off that tape.” Glory picked up the blue and white metal roll and began unrolling the white adhesive tape from it. Sharon began tenderly began rubbing the ointment into the area of the wound. He sucked in his breath with a hiss. “Sorry. Sorry,” she whispered.

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  Glory was cutting off a long strip of tape. She stuck it to the table and began unrolling another. “So what happened after? Why didn’t anyone ever name you? That’s fucked up.”

  “Yeah. That’s one word for it,” Max said. Sharon picked up a large gauze pad and began fastening it over the wound with the strips of tape.

  “When the cops got there, they turned me over to Social Services. They never could locate any relatives, so I grew up in foster care. Some families called me one thing. Some decided they liked other names better.”

  “Turn around,” Sharon said. “Let me get the hole in your back.” She had finished bandaging the front wound, but she was also grateful she didn’t have to see his face for a few minutes. The detached, emotionless way he told the horror story of his life was tearing at her heart.

  He got up and straddled the chair backwards, facing out into the darkness of the room, facing to where the storm rattled and wailed and thundered and rattled the building. “Years later,” he went on after a pause, “Somebody got around to telling me where I came from. I headed down there to try and find out whatever I could. The only birth certificate that was ever recorded for that date was in the name of ‘Baby Boy Doe.”

  “Fuck,” Glory said.

  “Honey,” Sharon said, “I really wish you’d stop using that word.”

  “For chrissakes, Mom,” Glory said. She turned to Max. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did your parents get shot? What did they ever do?”

  “Who knows? Maybe they stole from the wrong people. Maybe they saw something they shouldn’t have. Maybe they cut the wrong guy off at an intersection getting to the hospital.”

  He picked up his shirt. One side was crusted with blood that looked black in the candle light.

  “You can’t wear that,” Sharon said. “Let me check the break room. Maybe somebody has a spare.” She got up and went in the back, carrying a candle for illumination.

  The tiny break room was right off the main kitchen. It was in more than the usual disarray, with empty cups and glasses stacked in the sink and snack food wrappers on the beat up table. She quickly located a spare shirt of Sonny’s hanging on the back of the door. Max was stockier than Sonny, but it would have to do.

  As she got back to the door of the dining room, she head Glory’s voice. Something in her tone made Sharon slow down and listen.

  “That story you told,” she was saying. “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Quietly, she opened the door. Her daughter was standing next to Max, her hand on his shoulder. Her eyes were glistening with tears.

  “Yeah? Well, you’re still young,” Max said. “Stick around. You’ll hear worse.”

  “Glory,” Sharon said, her voice sharp with apprehension. “Go in the kitchen and see if they left anything we can eat.”

  Glory looked up, startled. She picked up the flashlight. “Yeah. Okay.” She brushed past Sharon on her way into the kitchen. Sharon walked over and handed the shirt to Max.

  “Thanks,” he said. He tried to pull it on. It wouldn’t close in the front. He grimaced. “Guess this’ll have to do,” he said.

  “Max,” Sharon said. “She’s only fourteen.”

  He looked startled. “What?”

  “Glory. She’s a child, Max. Let her alone.”

  Realization dawned on his face. “You think I…” he stood up, his mouth tight with anger. “That’s what you think of me.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “I saw the way she was looking at you.”

  “Maybe that’s something you need to talk to her about.” He turned away. “Jesus.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  He turned back to her. “I’m not what you or anyone would call a good man, Sharon. I’ve done some things I don’t think you’d come anywhere near approving of. Hell, I can tell right now you didn’t approve of what I did to that animal who was getting ready to rape and murder you.”

  “It wasn’t that you stopped him,” she said, her voice trembling. “It was…the way you did it. And the way you looked afterward. Like it didn’t bother you.”

  “It didn’t. Not one bit. He needed killing.”

  “And the way you say that. It scares me.”

  “Good,” he said. “It ought to. I’m a scary guy, Sharon. I know that. I come out of a place you should never have to even know about. But those people out there…” he gestured towards the storm outside. “They come from the same place, or some place a lot like it. And there’s more of them, and they’re better armed. About the best chance you and your daughter have of surviving this, assuming that storm out there doesn’t kill us, is to trust me.”

  “Why should I trust you?” she de
manded. “You won’t even tell us your name!”

  “I already told you…”

  “Well, you have to call yourself something!”

  He shook his head. “Okay,” he said. “If that’s all you want to know…my name’s Kyle Mercer. I used to live in Chicago.”

  “How do I know that’s even true?” she whispered.

  “You don’t. So what does it matter?”

  She shook her head. “It’s just that…you wear so many faces. You change so much. One minute you’re this nice guy that works at the marina and rescues cats, the next, you’re this guy who kills someone with no more emotion than swatting a fly. It’s like you’ve got some kind of split personality.”

  “I’m not that much different from you, Sharon.”

  “Oh, yeah. Right.”

  “Think about it. When you’re here, waiting on customers. When you were at that school. When you’re with your daughter. Don’t you wear different faces? Don’t you show everyone different sides of yourself?”

  “None of my sides ever buried a meat cleaver in a man’s head.”

  “You never needed a side like that. But now might be a good time to start developing one.”

  “No,” she said, “I can’t be like you.”

  “You already pointed a shotgun at a man’s face and pulled the trigger.”

  “I did what I had to.”

  He gave her a smile that sent something that felt very much like a rivulet of ice water down her back. “That’s how it starts.”

  The kitchen door opened. Glory was standing with a platter in her hand. It was piled high with sandwiches. She stopped when she saw the two of them standing there. “I found some leftover roast beef,” she said. “I think it’s still good.”

  “Just set it on the table, honey,” Sharon said, trying hard to keep her voice normal.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” Mercer said. “I’m going to check the front.”

  “Do you think they’ll find us here?” Sharon said.

  “Not right away. I don’t think they’ll move again on us in this storm. I think they’ll wait for the eye to pass over before they head out.” He held out his hand for the flashlight. “But I’m not taking any chances.” Glory handed the flashlight to him, looking uncertain. He walked off into the darkness.

  “What’s the matter?” Glory said. “He seemed kind of upset. What’s wrong with him?”

  “More than either of us know, I think. In fact, I think he’s got some serious issues.”

  “He saved our lives, Mom,” Glory said. “He’s a total bad-ass.” She grinned. “And so were you. You really unloaded on that guy.”

  “Glory,” Sharon said. “This isn’t a game. There are some really dangerous people here.”

  “And you’re one of them, Mom.”

  “Eat your sandwich, honey,” Sharon sighed.

  The sandwiches were dry; Glory had wisely decided not to trust the mayonnaise she’d found in one of the coolers. They washed them down with warm tap water. Mercer was back when they were half finished. His face was grim.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he said.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  They had filled the bathtub with seawater brought up in buckets from the beach. The lights were on in the rest of the house, but the bathroom was lit only by the harsh beams of their flashlights that always seemed to be shining painfully into his eyes. Bohler hadn’t gotten a good look at any of their faces, but he had heard them conversing in low, worried voices as they discussed the advancing tide. He knew what they were talking about. He and his evacuation team had been briefed about it by a professor from Duke University whose calm, matter of fact delivery had made what he was describing even more terrifying. But the advancing tides, he thought, were nothing compared to what was going to happen when the surge hit. The storm surge, a ridge of water blown by the wind and sucked up by the low air pressure at the heart of the hurricane, would push the ocean up and over the island. And they wouldn’t have time to sit around and talk about it when it happened.

  But as he sat on the bathroom floor, his arms bound behind him with a pair of plastic flex cuffs, Bohler figured he wouldn’t be around to see that happen. He didn’t think they were filling the tub to give him a relaxing bath. Damn shame though, he thought with a slight edge of hysterical laughter. It was the nicest bathroom he’d ever seen. Huge raised tub, gold fittings…

  “Okay,” the man who seemed to be the leader spoke up as one of his captors dumped a bucket of water in the tub. “That should be enough.” He put down the machine gun he’d been holding on Bohler and walked over to where he sat. He grabbed Bohler by the collar of his flight suit and hauled him up to his knees next to the tub.

  “It’s possible,” the leader said, “that you’ll answer my questions without me having to do this.” He thrust Bohler’s head and shoulders up and over the edge of the big porcelain tub and plunged his head beneath the water.

  Bolher barely had time to take and hold a deep breath before the sting of the salt water was up his nose and in his eyes. He tried to stay calm, tried to make the oxygen in his lungs last as long as he could. But eventually, he felt the building panic, the increasing urgency, the desire to take a deep breath. It built and built until it was an overwhelming ache in his chest. Still he held on, knowing that to give in, to cave to that yearning to just inhale, would be to suck the harsh salt water into him. And that would be the end. He felt his focus narrowing, all other thoughts shutting down, until there was only the all-encompassing impulse to breathe. Bright lights began flashing at the edge of his consciousness. Finally, he gave up. His last coherent thought before the final surrender was the phrase he’d heard so often in Sunday school as he grew up, the last words of Christ: “Father into your hands I commend my spirit…” He hoped it was all true. Before he could find out, however, his head was yanked back.

  “The thing is,” the leader said, and Bohler realized with a sinking in his gut that he wasn’t about to see the gates of Heaven, and worse, that the ordeal that had seemed to go on forever had probably lasted less than a minute. “The thing is,” the leader said, “you’ve kind of pissed me off. You and you buddies in that helicopter annoyed me. So I advise you not to upset me any further.”

  Bohler cleared his throat. “Fuck…” he started, but before he could complete the insult, he was underwater again. He hadn’t even had time to spit defiance.

  It went just like the last time, the iron-hard hand holding him under until his vision darkened and he saw the imminence of Heaven, then the yanking back to the harshness of life.

  “Now,” the voice said. “Let’s get down to business. Why are you here?”

  There was no point in dissembling, Bohler thought. What would be the harm in telling them about the waitress and her daughter? It wasn’t the kind of threat these people would even need to do anything about. If they knew that, part of Bohler’s mind thought, it’d be okay. And this other character, this Mercer, had every reason to keep his head down. Still, there was something that stuck in his craw about telling these bastards anything. As the hand at the back of his neck plunged him beneath the water again, he realized he’d thought too long.

  It went the same as last time—the resolve to hold out, fading as the craving for oxygen became more and more irresistible, the oncoming darkness, the resignation to the inevitability of the end….this time they left him under just a little longer, and the stale oxygen in his lungs exploded out in a mass of bubbles. The sudden reflexive intake of breath drew in some of the seawater, the harsh sting of the salt and the shock of the cold water making him cough and retch.

  “You know the best part?” he heard a voice say. “This isn’t even legally torture anymore.”

  He turned his head slightly. He was dazzled by the flashlight in his eyes but he could barely make out a shadowy figure behind it. He grinned at his captor. Then he threw up on him. His aim was true; the light dimmed as the contents of Bohler’s stomach, mixed with bile and seawat
er, covered and coated the lens.

  “Son of a…” the laughter of the other men in the room was the last thing Bohler heard before the side of his head exploded and everything went black.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  “Oh, my God,” Sharon said. They were standing in the open door of the clubhouse, looking out from beneath the covered entrance. The ocean was up higher than she’d ever seen. Waves were actually breaking over the seawall, drenching the perfectly manicured lawn in front of the clubhouse.

  “It’s going to get worse,” Mercer said.

  “Will it get inside the clubhouse?” Glory said from over Mercer’s shoulder.

  “Probably.”

  “What do we do?”

  “We need to find higher ground,” Mercer said.

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. The ground slopes up from here. All the way to the lighthouse.”

  “Maybe we need to go there,” Glory said.

  Sharon shook her head. “Don’t you think that’s where those men are going?”

  “When I saw them,” Mercer said, “they were going the other way.” He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “Now why would they do that? We need to know what they’re doing. What they’re here for.”

  “To do that,” Sharon said, “We have to go find them.”

  “No,” Mercer said. “I do.”

  “And what?” Glory said. “Leave us alone?”

  Mercer turned a cold stare on her. “You’d get in my way.”

  Glory raised her chin and looked defiantly at him. “Looks like my Mom saved your ass back there.”

  “Yeah,” Mercer said. “But then you wouldn’t let me kill the son of a bitch.”

  “We needed to run,” Glory said.

  “That,” Mercer replied, “Is why you don’t come with me. You get an enemy down, you first thought is to run. Mine is to take him off the board for good.”

  “Jesus, What the hell did you DO in Chicago?” Sharon said.

  Mercer gave her a tight smile. “Human resources. I took care of personnel problems.”