The Storm Before the Storm

by Joe Russell

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  Mike jumped a little at the sound of the gunshot from inside the cabin. He regained his composure and froze, hoping to hear or see anything that would give him a clue as to what was happening inside. He didn’t hear a thing and he didn’t know what to do.

  He was debating on whether to go inside or go try to get help when he heard movement through the brush. He was terrified for a moment, not sure what it was or if it was coming his way. He relaxed slightly when he saw a stocky man carrying a hunting rifle and moving quickly toward the cabin on the other side of the driveway from his little hide. The man looked to be a mix of suspicious, angry, and concerned. He quickly made his way up to the wooden front door and disappeared inside.

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  Dave woke with a start to find he was still lying on the cold floor of the cabin cellar. He didn’t know if it was day or night, much less what time it was or how long he had been out. He remembered being shoved down the stairs, shooting, and taking a tumble to where he assumed he was currently. He sat up stiffly, trying to assess if he was badly injured or just sore from falling down the steps and laying on the cold, hard floor for God knew how long. Standing up and feeling like a resurrected dinosaur fossil, he stretched, feeling his joints pop like a string of firecrackers. Although he felt far from good, he didn’t seem to have any serious internal injuries and couldn’t find any exterior wounds, other than a few scrapes from his trip down the stairs. He picked up his pistol and flashlight that were lying on the ground to the side of the stairs, checked them both for damage, and satisfied, returned them to their respective places. He turned to look out the filthy windows above him, trying to get a clue as to what time it was. It was difficult to tell with all the filth, but it seemed darker than before. Not evening dark, but cloudy. He stood pondering this a moment longer than he had intended when the window lit up in a blinding flash of white light, startling him so badly that he fell backward and landed on the stairs with a thud. About the time his butt hit the bottom stair, booming thunder shook the house, rattling the old windows. He stood up quickly, as if embarrassed in front of his nonexistent audience and began to ascend the stairs.

  Reaching the top, he was confused to find that the interior of the cabin was not exactly what he had remembered from earlier that day or whenever he had arrived. Despite no apparent electric lights being on to illuminate the hallway, he found that he could see just fine, unlike earlier. He wandered down the strange hallway, taking in the view that just didn’t seem real to him. The walls were lined with pictures. Some small and some large, and they were all different scenes, but all had one thing in common - they were of lighthouses. He continued down the hall, regarding each hanging picture as if it would tell him a story he needed to know. Outside, lightning and thunder continued to take turns flashing and booming, illuminating the little gallery in a strobing eerie light. He stopped dead when he came to the opening where the kitchen was. On the floor in the middle of the room was a backpack. Sandra’s backpack. He moved quickly to it. It was hers all right. She’s here, he thought. He straightened, drawing his pistol with a new zeal aroused. He heard a muffled sound coming from the next room around the corner. He moved slowly to it, steeling his nerves for what lay beyond. He rounded the corner quickly, leveling his pistol at the potential threat and gasped. There, on the far side of the room was a man and in front of him, gagged and bound to a chair was Sandra. She met his gaze with both hope and terror in her eyes, pleading wordlessly for him to save her. He reluctantly tore his gaze away, aiming both his eyes and his gun at the man’s face behind her. He was wearing a red shirt and he was smiling, no, sneering, but Dave couldn’t see his face, other than the mouth and teeth that greeted him mockingly. Dave almost began speaking, either to ask the man who he was or to demand that he let Sandra go, but his mouth wouldn’t move. Not in the mood to negotiate anyway, Dave aimed his pistol at the man’s forehead and squeezed the trigger, but it just clicked. The man began laughing, a deep, sinister laugh like a cliché movie villain and Sandra tried to scream through her gagged mouth. Lightning flashed outside, and the brightness was reflected off the man’s exposed teeth so brightly that it blinded Dave. He tried to shield his eyes, but it was no use. He was completely engulfed by the blinding light, the deafening thunder, and Sandra’s screams that had somehow defeated the gagging job and escaped her throat like a breached dam. In a moment, the sounds faded and all that remained was the light, and he melted into unconsciousness again.

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  Dave woke with a start, still blinded by the bright light. It took him a second to register his surroundings, then he realized that he couldn’t move because he was tied up by the wrists and ankles. He was still in the cellar, but not in front of the stairs and it was not storming. Then, he realized that the bright light still in his face was the beam of a bright flashlight.

  “What’s going on?” he groaned, pained by having to move even his jaw to speak. His eyes were squinted shut and he turned his face to avoid the beam of light, but it was still painfully bright even with his eyes closed.

  “Oh, nothing,” replied a voice that was somehow familiar. “We were hoping you could tell us. And maybe,” the voice continued, “why you had to shoot ol’ Doug here.”

  It was them, Dave realized. Billy and Doug, the guys from the day before. “Cut that light off,” Dave responded, not interested in talking about much, but irritated with not being able to see.

  “Fine, but you're gonna talk or we can do a lot worse than shine your flashlight in your face.”

  The light clicked off and Dave slowly opened his eyes, not completely trusting that the light would stay off. It did however, and he took in his surroundings as his eyes adjusted to the dimly lit cellar. There was Billy all right, with a pissed-looking Doug sitting just behind him and to his right. He was cradling a bandaged right hand in his lap and glaring back at Dave. Realization finally hit Dave’s groggy brain, but he didn’t say anything.

  Dave’s gaze returned to Billy when he began speaking again, a sick smile on his face. “So, where shall we start?”

  Dave saw the bigger man lunge toward him in time to probably have countered the attack, had he not been bound and unable to move much. Billy’s left hook caught Dave on the side of the face and all Dave could do was try to brace himself for it. It didn’t help much.

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  Dave awoke in a strange place for the second time that day. This time, on a beach. He was barefoot, wearing nothing but a swimsuit and sitting in a beach chair with his toes half buried in the sand in front of him. He regarded the scene before him and recognized all of it. It was definitely his swimsuit, and as a matter of fact, his chair. Actually, the whole thing seemed awfully familiar, unlike the hallway full of lighthouse portraits. No, this was real life for sure. At least, a memory of it.

  He turned to see Sandra on the chair to his right, a book in her lap. She was wearing a sun hat and sunglasses, and didn’t seem to notice him looking at her. He reached over and put his hand gently on her leg, and she put her hand on his without looking away from her book.

  “Let’s take a walk,” he said. She didn’t respond for a minute and although there was no way for her not to have heard him, it made him wonder if she didn’t hear him. After a moment, she folded the paperback shut and dropped it flat in her lap.

  “Where to?” she asked, turning to him.

  He spoke without thinking about it, as if his actions were already programmed and he was just there to watch from a first-person perspective.

  “To the lighthouse.”

  The two got up and walked down the beach, hand in hand. Sandra’s parents were nearby, so they didn’t worry about their stuff. Dave knew where they were. Every year, Sandra’s family took a trip to the Outer Banks and this was the trip of 2012, almost exactly six years ago. He recognized the beach, the houses on the other side of the dunes, and the black and white Cape Hatteras lighthouse in the distance. He remembered this walk well e
nough to know it was a mirror copy of the real thing, as if he had been transported back in time to live it again, only with the knowledge and experience of having already been there. He concluded that this was a vision of some kind and not the real thing all over again, and tried his best to go along with the ride, weird as the whole thing might be.

  They walked along the sand just talking and to Dave’s amazement, he recalled most of the conversation as it was happening. He and Sandra were engaged and were to be married that September. She was younger, having just finished college and presumably he was too, although he obviously couldn’t see his own face. It was strange; he was thinking his own thoughts, but his body was acting out all the events that had taken place six years earlier. He focused intently on Sandra every time his gaze turned to her and wondered how differently he felt now than when his eyes had first fallen on her when this memory had actually been in the present. He had loved her then, but more in the romantic way that young people loved each other. They were still young in the grand scheme of things, but even five years of marriage has a way of maturing a relationship much more profoundly than a young couple ever realizes ahead of time. Seeing her the way he had then, but knowing her the way he did now was something difficult to describe in words, but it made him realize how much he loved her now. There was still somewhat of the flame that is often referred to when describing young love, but his feelings toward her, if that was even a fair term to use, were being transformed into the more mature, deeper love that happy older couples share with each other and everyone around them envies. Having only been married for a relatively brief five years, they obviously had a long way to go before their love really resembled this, but seeing her now, or then rather, and feeling the way he did about her now, gave him a rare, unique perspective. And even though she appeared to be right there walking beside him, he missed her.

  They had arrived as close as they were going to get to the lighthouse. They both gazed up at it, fascinated by the majestic structure.

  “It’s like it’s a symbol of help,” Sandra said, admiration in her voice.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Dave agreed. He spent a moment looking at it, then turned to the woman who was soon to be his wife and took her hand. “Let’s remember this,” he began, the seriousness in his tone. “If either of us are ever in trouble and we need to communicate that to the other but can’t speak it plainly, this will be our code word. Lighthouse.”

  Sandra eyed Dave, considering what he had just said. They had been dating now for just over two years, but she was still trying to figure him out sometimes. She had seen him be sensitive and fun, but knew he had a protective side; a serious side. This was it, although there was a romantic aspect to what he had said, or setting in which he said it. Although she got the impression that she often didn’t understand him or why he felt certain ways about certain things, she did understand that it was not only just the way he was, but it was a good thing that she shouldn’t resist. She did know one thing for sure, that he truly loved her. And when he did things like this that she didn’t quite understand, she often assumed that was the reason and did her best to go along with it.

  “Okay,” she said simply, squeezing his hands and moving in to embrace him.

  It was an event that Dave hadn’t really thought much of since the time it had happened, but seeing it now gave it new meaning. He didn’t know why he was seeing this, but he would remember it this time.

  Chapter 14

  Spruce Knob, West Virginia. Present Day.

  Mike ran like he had never run before, with a purpose that pushed his body far beyond what his mind would have considered possible. It was up to him now and he was scared shitless. He had Dave’s backpack in his left hand, and the Junglas in his right and was back to the main forest road before he stopped to take a breath and think about what his plan would be. He knew he had to find help and by now, agreed with Dave that if at all possible, it needed to be close. He just didn’t have two whole days to make it back to civilization on foot and he hadn’t seen a single vehicle in the forest, except the truck belonging to the people that had at this point, captured his whole group but him, so asking them for a ride wasn’t looking too promising. As uncertain as it was, he figured that his only real option was to continue down the road in the easterly direction that he and Dave had been traveling, in hopes of finding help from someone else that was camping or hiking. He had no idea what he would find, even around the next bend, because he hadn’t been here before. Eventually, the road would take him back to the ridge where the group had parked the day before, but he had no idea how many miles it was to get back there by way of the road and what he would encounter along those miles.

  Breathing heavily, he gulped down some water from a bottle in his pack and continued down the forest road. After a few minutes, he realized that it just wasn’t practical to continue to carry Dave’s pack with him. He didn’t want to leave it so close to the cabin but now, he figured he should hide it somewhere off the road and get it later. After all, he would have to be coming back this way for one reason or another. He looked around and after a few seconds, found what he was looking for, a large tree with an awkwardly broken branch on one side, not far from the trail. He figured it would be easy enough to recognize it when he came back this way. He moved off the trail toward the tree and found what must have been the branch that had broken off. He tucked Dave’s pack into a nook under the branch where it couldn’t be easily seen, especially from the road, and then threw some leaves and small branches on it. He was simply mimicking what he had seen Dave do earlier that morning, but it made sense to him.

  With Dave’s pack effectively cached, Mike picked up the sheathed Junglas that he had set down on a different part of the long branch. Eying his own pack, he took a few seconds to study the webbing and straps on both the backpack and the sheath and then attached the sheath to the side of the pack. He wanted to have it in a position where he could draw it like a medieval warrior from his back, but he couldn’t get his arm back enough and gave up after a few tries. If he needed the big blade, he would just have to drop his pack as quickly as he could.

  After another drink of water, Mike slung his pack and made his way back to the road. He was cautious, doing his best not to move too quickly and make too much noise. He paused in the shadows of the trees before stepping out into the open again, looking each way to make sure he was alone. Not seeing or hearing anything but the leaves whispering peacefully in the afternoon breeze and a few birds singing to each other, he stepped back out of the woods and continued up the dirt road. He envied the trees and the birds for their carefree air, wishing he could join them. After all, that’s what this weekend was supposed to be about and right now, he was anything but carefree. He moved on quickly, doing his best to ignore anything that might serve to distract him.

  He tried desperately to assemble a plan, but kept coming up empty-handed. He didn’t want to wander around in the wilderness until dark, then wander around all night or have to stop and sleep on the ground. He feared that as Dave had said, it was a race against the clock and the girls needed to be found today. Well, Dave might have found them, but now he was caught, too. Mike had not seen this coming. Mike hadn’t necessarily been fond of Dave in the past, seeing him as unwelcoming. Dave had never been outright mean to Mike, but he certainly hadn’t gone out of his way to be nice. Mike knew this because he had been around Dave enough to see him interact with others and had to admit that personal feelings aside, he was actually a pretty nice guy and people seemed to like him. As far as Mike could tell, he was generally liked by those who knew him, respected by those who knew him well, and the few enemies he did have were not really worth caring about. Mike wanted to like Dave, but couldn’t be comfortable around him because he knew Dave didn’t really like him in return. Mike knew why too.

  Mike had grown up in the city and his outward image reflected it. Same as people in the more rural parts of the country, especially in the southeast, tended to dre
ss or talk like hillbillies, in his opinion. He figured that he stuck out in equal proportions to them. Dave and his family weren’t exactly ‘Mountain People’ in comparison to the folks of deeper Appalachia, but on a scale from Boston to Small-town Texas, they were definitely on the country side of the spectrum and he was not. Woodbridge, where he was from, was basically a suburb of Washington, DC, and although there were some nice neighborhoods, it was generally not regarded as one of the better areas in the DC Metro area. Mike had grown up in a regular middle-class family in a regular middle-class neighborhood. He was not from “the hood”, although Dave would have contested that. Still, the urban fashion, way of speaking, and everything else that had been bestowed upon him by his geographical upbringing, made him stick out like an ugly duckling in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Not necessarily at Shenandoah University in Winchester, but in the area in general and especially out here. He knew that there was nothing wrong with him in that regard, but had a vague understanding that Dave, like most country people, had some level of distrust for outsiders, especially those from the city. Mike’s tough outward appearance, somewhat real and somewhat a facade, kept him from really trying to make the first move and get to know Dave better, much less admit to Dave that this bothered him, but Mike figured that it would all work out in the end. If he and Jen stayed together, time would eventually bring understanding between him and the family and they would know him for who he really was and hopefully, appreciate him more than they did now.