by Nick Courage
He steadied the camera, ignoring the sideways glances of the crew while the helicopter pilot struggled with the steering yoke, correcting for a rising crosswind. They didn’t want to stay in the air any longer than they had to. Not with the reporter already on the plane and the megastorm tightening its grip on the island.
“C’mon, kid!” the cameraman shouted into the walkie-talkie. “It’s now or never!”
* * *
—
Five hundred feet below the wind-wracked helicopter, Alejo sat slumped over the kitchen table in Padrino Nando’s apartment. He was the last remaining person in La Perla. He knew that for a fact, without question, because he’d spent the last hour checking the streets to make sure. The streets he could get to, anyway. His clothes were drenched from the flooding, and his shoes dripped rainwater onto the linoleum floor.
Alejo cradled his head in his hands, trying to ignore the moaning wind.
There was a pressure building behind his eyes, and he wanted to cry. But there was no time for crying. He had to think. To figure out what he should do next. He needed to fly away, like Padrino Nando had told him to do in his note—but the van was gone. Everyone was gone. And San Juan was an island, after all—wherever he ran, the ocean would be waiting for him.
But he couldn’t stay in the apartment; that much was clear.
If he stayed, it would be the last thing he did.
Alejo rolled his thumbs over his closed eyes, pressing down until he saw stars. It seemed impossible that everything had been normal just yesterday—and now, with the wind howling and the walkie-talkie buzzing against the hardwood floor, he could barely hear his own thoughts.
“Vamos, Alejo,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. “Think.”
The walkie-talkie had slipped behind the futon in the night, jammed between the frame and the mattress. With his entire world falling apart around him, he’d forgotten that he’d taken it in the first place. It wasn’t until a break in the wind that Alejo even heard the tiny voice calling to him. He jerked his head toward the living room, goose bumps running up his arms and down his back.
“Pick up, kid,” the voice said. “You gotta pick up.”
Alejo unclenched his fists.
A way out.
“¡Aló!” he yelled, the kitchen chair clattering to the tiles as he scrambled after the sound. Rushing to answer, he pulled the futon mattress to the floor and reached between the slats for the crackling walkie-talkie. It was only when he was cradling it in his trembling hands that he remembered the van. It was gone now, and they’d want to know what happened to it. His face blanched, the static popping as he considered his options.
It didn’t take long….
He didn’t have any.
“Last chance,” the cameraman yelled.
“Someone took your van,” he finally said. “They needed it to get out of here.”
“The van’s not important, kid. We’ve gotta get you out of there, okay? Tell me, where are you, exactly?”
Alejo rattled off Padrino Nando’s address, but it didn’t mean much anymore: there weren’t really streets now—not in La Perla. Just broken sidewalks and salt water lapping against the seaweed-strewn stairs.
“Look for the yellow house,” he said. “By the yellow truck.”
The rhythmic chopping of the helicopter’s rotors filled the empty living room as the cameraman activated their channel again. He shouted above the noise, but all Alejo could hear was the chopping of the blades.
He clutched the walkie-talkie to his chest as he walked to the front door.
The sound was coming from outside as well.
It was overhead.
The little petrel flew for nine hours straight before he stopped to rest.
It wasn’t so bad in the eye of the storm, and he’d stayed aloft as long as he could, floating on updrafts and waiting for the clouds to dissipate. But even floating took effort, and his muscles were burning with fatigue by the time he settled down on a massive swell, as far away as he could get from the nearest whitecaps. He was hungry, but the water was too rough to fish, so he sat very still on the surface of the wave, tucking his black legs into the warmth of his body.
Away from currents ripping underfoot.
It felt good to rest.
To close his eyes and block out the wind.
The petrel dipped his beak beneath the dark waves and drank, filling his belly with seawater. He didn’t know how lucky he was to be able to drink, at the very least. The other birds who were trapped in Valerie’s eye—yellow and red songbirds less accustomed to the open waters—could only survive on fresh water and would have died if they’d done the same.
Some had.
But the petrel just floated on its wave.
A gentle rain began to fall, running down his oily feathers, but the petrel was so exhausted that he barely noticed. The ocean was cold. It reminded him of Antarctica and the rest of his flock. He could almost see them, spinning and diving over the glacial plains. Squawking at the scientist who spoke to him so soothingly. He had no way of knowing that nearly five thousand miles away, the sample she took sat in an industrial freezer in the basement of the ecology building at Københavns Universitet—the University of Copenhagen. The number on the sample corresponded to the number stamped onto the aluminum band wrapped around his webbed foot. He wasn’t yet old enough to mate, so if he sank beneath the waves, that would be all that was left of him.
A vial of blood in a basement far from home.
It was only when the rain began to fall harder, pummeling his head and wings, that the petrel opened his eyes again. Through the rain, he could see the sun shining down into the eye of the hurricane. But he’d waited too long, and he was no longer in the calm blue eye. The swell he’d settled on was fast-moving, and it started to crest as it propelled him deeper into the thick, ragged bands of Valerie’s spiral. Visibility was low in the spiral, but the petrel could see that the waves only got rougher beyond the gray haze. He had no choice but to fly. It was either that or be sucked into the surf, battered beneath the watery tonnage of an angry sea.
His stiff feathers ruffled in the wind as he launched himself into the storm. He wasn’t strong enough to fly back into the eye, through the megastorm’s wall, so he leaned into the spiral instead, letting the updrafts blow him skyward. The updrafts were strong—so strong that he tumbled through the currents, more tossed than flying. For a terrifying moment, before he was able to right himself in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, it seemed as if he might be thrown back down into the waves.
Whether through luck or divine providence, the tiny petrel was spared.
He stretched his wings wide and ignored the pain.
Closing his eyes, he tried to picture the way the sun dazzled in the snow.
He would make it back someday, if the storm would let him. He was sure of it. He would find his flock and he would nest on the same rocky islet off the frigid shores where he was hatched. But for now, the wind would take the petrel where it wanted. Lightning struck somewhere beneath him, its flashing light swallowed by the darkness of the storm and the roiling sea.
The little petrel paid it no attention.
The air was thin so high up, and the petrel slipped in and out of consciousness as he drifted with the storm.
Elliot ran his fingers across his stomach as he listened to his mother argue with Aunt Lillian. The stitches would disappear on their own, dissolving into the scarred and puckered line across his abdomen, the cancer gone. He’d wanted to keep what they’d taken out of him as a souvenir for his bookshelf, in a jar between his Wonder Woman and his Wolverine—but he hadn’t been awake to ask the doctors. In fact, he hardly remembered the surgery. It was the fear leading up to it that stuck with him.
And the exhaustion afterward.
He was still tired two
weeks later, even though he slept most days.
The medicine was to blame for that.
It made him feel like he was floating underwater, and he hated it almost as much as he hated being sick. He could barely stay awake past the opening credits of a movie, much less catch up on his weekly comic books. The pills were big and blue and made his mouth dry. So dry it hurt to swallow. Elliot took a sip of the orange juice his mom had brought him just before Aunt Lillian called, and palmed the pills she’d set beside the half-filled glass on his bedside table. Saving them for later, when he might really need them. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if he skipped a day, he hoped, swinging his legs to the floor.
Inhaling sharply as his feet hit the carpet.
It was bad enough that he’d wasted his entire summer vacation in bed.
It didn’t seem fair to hurt so much on top of that.
But Elliot didn’t have a choice.
He had to get out of bed and get dressed, for Emily.
The television in the living room was turned up louder than usual and even then, it didn’t drown out the neighbors. Above and below their apartment, Elliot could hear them hammering—boarding their windows shut. Preparing for the coming storm. Some had already left, driving north through a predawn haze, and the rest were doing whatever they could to get out before the roads flooded. Elliot gritted his teeth as he dressed, gingerly pulling on an old pair of basketball shorts and a faded red T-shirt. Slipping his pain pills into his pocket. The scar on his stomach twinged as he tied his shoes, but it was nothing compared to the worry that had started twisting in the bottom of his gut as soon as his sister hung up on him.
It wasn’t just their apartment building….
The entire city was packing up, and Emily was outside—alone in the park.
As far as Elliot could tell, she had no idea what was coming.
If she did, she would’ve been home by now.
Elliot hadn’t eavesdropped very long, but he’d listened long enough to know that Aunt Lillian was stuck in traffic. That she was begging them to evacuate, too—to meet her in Arkansas or South Carolina. Away from the storm. The news was saying they had hours—not days—before it reached land, and as much as his mom hated the idea of dragging Elliot out of his sickroom, she didn’t need any more convincing. But it was too late. There was no way she could leave their apartment, much less the city. Not while his dad was driving home from the rig, and definitely not before Emily “got her butt back here.”
There was nothing she could do but wait.
“Stop shouting,” she said.
She was half shouting herself.
“We have time—we’ll be gone before it hits.”
Elliot wasn’t so sure that was true.
He stood with his ear pressed against his bedroom door, listening to the floorboards squeak as his mother paced. It was taking all her willpower not to jump in their car and circle the block, yelling his sister’s name from the driver’s-side window. He knew because that was what she had threatened to do in the voice mails she’d left Emily before Aunt Lillian called. Elliot sighed. He was glad his mom had decided to hold down the fort instead—to stay put, like they taught in wilderness training. She wouldn’t be able to find his sister, anyway. She didn’t know where to look, and besides…
Somebody had to be home in case Emily came back.
Finally, the bathroom door creaked shut.
His mother was still arguing with Aunt Lillian as she turned on the sink.
“Listen, we’ll be there when we can,” she said, splashing her face—her exasperation muffled by the running water. “That’s just the way it has to be right now.” Elliot wasn’t so sure about that either, but it was up to him to prove her wrong. His heart raced as he tiptoed past the bathroom, easing his bedroom door shut behind him. Seizing the moment while his mother reached for a hand towel. As he snuck through the living room and out of their apartment—alone, for the first time in months—he almost felt like his old self again.
Almost.
He wasn’t jumping down the stairs three at a time—he had to hold on to the banister—but it felt good to be out of his bed and in the world. Elliot smiled as he stepped onto the sidewalk. There weren’t many people on the street, but the people he did see were busy. Trucks trundled up the avenue, their reinforced beds weighed down by sheets of plywood. A baby cried in her car seat while her mother loaded their station wagon with plastic jugs of water. A helicopter flew low overhead, its tail emblazoned with the logo from a local news channel.
It wasn’t until Elliot had walked a few blocks that he noticed how strangely quiet the city was, despite all the activity. The trolleys weren’t running, and he only counted three cars on the road. One was the parked station wagon, the other two were police cruisers. Otherwise, there were no idling engines, no laughter from people waiting for the bus. The air was so still that he could hear the gibbons in the zoo whooping and howling from four blocks away. Their calls echoed through the empty streets as Elliot walked, and he wondered if they were going to be evacuated, too, or if the zoo was just going to leave them there, trapped in their cages.
The old Elliot would have wanted to break them out.
To save them, too.
The new Elliot wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. He was starting to feel a little queasy, and fresh guilt mixed with the worry in the pit of his stomach. After everything she’d been through, scaring his mom was the last thing he wanted to do. Elliot stopped walking and looked homeward. He wasn’t so far away—he could be back in his bedroom in fifteen minutes.
In the distance, the gibbons whooped.
“Come on,” Elliot muttered, dialing his sister one last time as he walked beneath the whispering trees. It rang once, then went straight to voice mail. “Hi,” Emily said, but it was just a recording. “I don’t really listen to these, so just text me, okay?” Elliot frowned as a police cruiser sped past him, flashing red and blue. Another cruiser followed it, joined by a fire engine with its siren blaring. Elliot watched them race down the avenue, barely slowing as they pulled onto the grass of Audubon Park.
He craned his neck to see where they were heading, then flinched as he felt his stitches pull—pinching at the soft skin above his waist. Elliot gripped his side, squeezing his scar so tightly his knuckles whitened, then sat heavily on the sidewalk. The concrete was hot on his bare legs, and his stomach hurt so badly—and so suddenly—that all he could do was spit, breathing heavily through his teeth as the pain subsided. He took one deep breath and then another, exhaling as a trio of ants converged on the wet spot at his feet.
“You’re all right,” he told himself. “You’re going to be all right.”
But there was something about the strange green and yellow cast of the sky that made Elliot feel unsure of himself. Despite the heat, the sun had disappeared behind a wall of gray clouds—and the emergency sirens had quieted, replaced with mournful gibbons. The quiet was unnerving, especially since red and blue lights still flashed from deep within the park. Overhead, the canopy rustled in the rising wind. The trees had lived through more storms than anyone. They were ancient, and their twisted branches arched over the avenue like the ceiling of a cathedral.
“Please let her be okay,” Elliot whispered, staring up into the leaves.
He fingered the pills in his pocket, but he couldn’t afford to be foggy.
Not now.
“Let me be okay, too,” he said, gripping his stomach as he walked toward the flashing lights.
You meet the blast, and your little wings bear you up against it….
—JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, BIRDS OF AMERICA, VOLUME VII, “WILSON’S PETREL”
“Ten feet starboard,” the cameraman yelled, loud enough for the pilot to hear him over the chopping blades. “Now five!” It was hard to see the boy through the s
haking viewfinder—but he was there, standing on the sinking front porch of the yellow house, squinting up into the rain. The cameraman waved with his free hand as the crew fed a thick nylon rope through the open doors of the helicopter.
It was all they had.
There was no white stretcher strapped to the back wall of the cabin. No climbing net stowed beneath the grated floor. Just a coil of workaday black rope, heavy enough not to whip in average winds.
As far as rescues went, it was far from perfect.
They’d circled La Perla twice looking for a safe place to land, but it was too risky, even with the helicopter’s small footprint. They’d even tried farther inland, buzzing low over Old San Juan—inspecting the coast, from the rocky outcropping of the Castillo San Cristóbal to the rolling fields of Punta del Morro. But the damage was widespread on either side of the wall, and there was no telling how many felled power lines were hidden beneath the flooding. Between the wreckage and the mudslides and the rising surf, the cameraman didn’t want to risk a landing.
Not with Megastorm Valerie breathing down their necks.
* * *
—
Alejo shielded his eyes as he watched the heavy black rope wriggling like a worm from the belly of the helicopter. It was so far up that he couldn’t see any faces—just silhouettes: arms feeding the rope into the empty air, dangling it from the open door. His heart was racing, but he wasn’t scared to hang on to the loop they’d knotted into the bottom of the rope. To swing out over the cresting waves. He just wished Padrino Nando could see him….
That he could know that Alejo was taking his advice after all.
That he was flying away.
Away from the house he loved and away from his padrino—who would be worried sick, Alejo realized, when he came back to look for him. While the helicopter adjusted, hovering ten feet to the right and then forward—positioning itself as close to Alejo as possible—he sprinted back inside, jumping over a capsized chair on his way to the cupboard. Nando had a chipped coffee mug full of pens that he kept there, next to his stationery. Alejo uncapped one, conscious of the walkie-talkie buzzing on the table beside him. He didn’t have much time, so he grabbed the first thing that came to hand: a birthday card, one of many his padrino had been saving and would likely never send.