by Brian Keene
I felt frustrated and afraid. There was no way to protect them from what was raging outside our home. Mother Nature is the fiercest predator of all, and you can’t stop her with your wits or a gun or the law. If she wants your loved ones, she can take them any time she wants them, and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.
So I sat there, and I waited.
• • •
It did end, eventually, as all storms do. The power was still out, and the house was quiet, except for Sanchez’s snoring. I gently disentangled myself and stood up. My legs tingled. I rubbed them to get the circulation flowing again. Then I snuffed out the candles and went to the window. Fragrant candle smoke drifted up behind me. It was still murky and dull outside, but at least it was no longer black. Faint sunlight peeked out from be-hind the clouds. A thick layer of fog covered the ground, and I could only see about ten feet—but that was enough to tell that things were a mess. The grass was littered with fallen branches, tree limbs, and leaves. Living as close as we did to the stream, our drainage had never been good. Now, pools of water filled the low spots in the yard.
Sanchez stirred behind me. He sat up and shook his head, his ears flapping back and forth. Dylan always called that his ‘helicopter impression’. The sound woke up Marlena and Dylan, and after a few yawns and stretches, they joined me at the window. Marlena gasped, but it was Dylan who summed things up perfectly.
“Oh Hell.”
“Dylan!” Marlena’s tone was shocked and stern. “You don’t say things like that.”
“I didn’t curse,” he insisted. “I said H-A-Y-L, not H-E-double toothpicks. Daddy said it earlier.”
Marlena gave me a dirty look. Grinning, I shrugged.
“He’s right, though,” I said. “It looks pretty bad out there.”
“Do you think we’re flooding?”
“It’s hard to say. Probably. I can’t see the stream from here. Maybe I should go out and check on things. Survey the damage—see if there are power lines down or anything.”
“Can I go with you, Daddy?”
“No,” I said. “You need to stay inside with Mommy, bud.”
Dylan tried out his well-practiced pout, which worked on me about fifty percent of the time.
“But I want to go outside.”
“Not yet, Dylan. Let me go see how bad things are. You can go out later. Besides, Mommy is still a little worried, and I need you to stay here and make her feel better. Okay?”
He sighed, shoulders slumping. “Okay.”
Sanchez trotted over to join us, and cast a longing glance at the door.
“He probably needs to pee,” Marlena said. “I’m surprised he didn’t go all over the house, like he did last time there was thunder.”
“I’ll take him.”
With the prospect of going outside already forgotten, Dylan busied himself with his toys. He sat cross-legged on the floor, playing with his Thomas the Tank Engine set, making little choo-choo sounds. He laid his Spider-man flashlight on the carpet next to him, illuminating the scene.
I put on my jacket and boots. When Sanchez saw that, he knew it was his cue. He ran to the door and stood there, wagging his tail impatiently. Marlena kissed my cheek and told me to be careful. I promised her that I would.
Then we stepped out into the aftermath.
Cold, wet mist clung to my face and hair. Shivering, I zipped my jacket up tighter. My glasses fogged over, and I had to wipe them off with my shirt. Sanchez padded along beside me, sniffing the ground, head swiveling from side-to-side. The first thing I did was examine the house, making sure the gutters were still in place, and checking the windows and the siding. Luckily, none of the windows were broken, but three of them were cracked. The siding on one side of the house had taken the worst of the damage. It looked like someone had peppered it with a machine gun. The gutters were dented, but seemed sound enough. There were a few roof tiles in the yard, but that would be an easy enough fix. No major damage, and the siding and windows would be easy enough to replace.
Satisfied, we checked out the rest of the property. The mist had a strange, dampening effect on noise. I heard a lone bird chirping, but otherwise, the only sound was the stream. It was roaring. I couldn’t see it, but I knew what that sound meant.
The water was high.
We came across the first downed tree about fifty feet from the house—one of the old pines that had been there long before we moved in. Lightning had shattered the top half, and there was debris everywhere. The trunk’s remains looked sturdy enough, but I’d have to take it down before the rest fell over. That meant struggling with my chainsaw. I groaned aloud at the prospect.
Sanchez and I continued exploring, winding our way around fallen limbs and puddles. The sound of rushing water grew louder. He paused and lapped at a pool of rainwater while I turned around and looked behind us. The house was gone now, concealed in the fog. I’d hoped to see Marlena and Dylan watching me from the window, and their absence made my breath hitch, though I didn’t know why. I chalked it up to a case of post-storm nerves.
Sanchez lifted his leg and pissed on a pile of leaves. After a moment, I joined him. Steam rose from our urine. I glanced towards the marsh. It was covered with standing water, and the hailstones had flattened the reeds and other vegetation. The marsh was usually full of frogs and ducks and snakes. I wondered what kind of damage they’d incurred.
Finished peeing, we continued on. The mist parted as we neared the trout stream, and I groaned again. The creek had breached its banks. The rhododendron bush that Marlena and I had planted when we moved in was completely underwater, and a nearby elm sapling was partially submerged. As I’d suspected, my fruit trees and crown vetch were all gone, along with much of the grass and soil along the bank. I could only imagine how bad the erosion would be once the waters receded.
I edged forward, cautious. The churning rapids kept Sanchez cowed, and he remained where he was. Brown water, the color of caramel, rushed by. The constant roar was incredible—louder and more awe-inspiring than the thunderstorm that had preceded it. Foot high waves, topped with white, bubbling foam lapped at the yard. A constant barrage of debris rushed by—branches, plastic bottles, a Styrofoam cooler, leaves, a fishing rod, a dead deer, old tires, scraps of cloth and plastic sheeting, chicken wire, aluminum cans, siding, roof shingles, a tangle of barbed wire, lumber, a wooden crate, shattered planks from someone’s footbridge, fence posts, a telephone pole with the wires still attached and grasping at the banks like tentacles, and a massive whole tree, roots and all, barreling down the creek like a hundred-foot long battering ram. It slammed into the far bank, shearing off a huge chunk of topsoil and revealing the red clay beneath.
The water was so loud that I didn’t realize Sanchez was growling until he barked.
Startled, I spun around and glanced at him. The dog stood stiffly, haunches up, tail low to the ground, ears flattened against his head. He stared at the creek. One lip was frozen in a sneer. For a moment, he looked like a canine version of Billy Idol.
“What’s wrong, buddy?”
He bared his teeth and growled again. His hackles were raised. I’d never seen him like this. He barked when a delivery truck pulled into our driveway, or when someone came to the door, but otherwise, Sanchez was usually pretty serene.
I followed his gaze, and then I saw it. The problem was, I didn’t know what it actually was. At first, I thought it was just another tree or log, partially submerged beneath the foam. About three feet of it jutted above the surface. The rest was below the water. It was solid black, about five feet thick, and appeared smooth and slick. Convinced that he couldn’t be barking at a tree, I was about to look elsewhere ...
... when the object moved.
It curved, like a hump, and then slid beneath the churning waters. Sanchez’s barking grew more frenzied. Beneath the surface, I caught a glimpse of a long, shadowy form. It glided towards the far bank and then, as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone.
&n
bsp; “What the hell?”
Sanchez looked up at me, his ears flattened to the sides of his head, and whined.
I turned back to the creek and glanced across the way. The thing—whatever it had been—hadn’t surfaced again. The flooding was worse on the far side. The mist wasn’t as thick along the banks, and I saw Thena’s house clearly. It sat only thirty feet from the shoreline, and now, waves lapped at her front porch. Thena’s Jeep was parked in the driveway, and the water had crept above the tires. She’d had a rabbit hutch in the front yard, and it was gone, swept away in the flood.
She must have been inside the house, watching. Or maybe she’d heard Sanchez barking. Whatever the case, the front door opened and Thena stepped out onto the porch, wearing sweat pants and a baggy t-shirt. She cast a pensive glance at the rising water and then looked at me. I waved, and she waved back. She hollered something, but I couldn’t hear her. The raging torrent drowned out all other noise.
She pointed at the water, and I nodded.
“Just stay inside,” I yelled. “Go upstairs and stay put.”
She frowned, trying to understand me.
I pointed at her Jeep, and then at the water, trying to convey that the creek was already too high and attempting to drive out wasn’t a good idea. I don’t know if she understood me or not, but she raised her hand to her ear and mimed making a phone call.
I shook my head. “The phones are out!”
Her shoulders slumped. Thena stared at me, her eyes imploring. Then she glanced back down at the water again. She went back inside, closing the door behind her.
My thoughts returned to the thing in the water, trying to figure out what it had been? A car tire, maybe? Or a catfish, taking advantage of the floodwaters to swim upstream from the river?
“Come on, boy.”
Sanchez trotted along beside me as I cut across the yard, heading for Jeff and Anna-Marie’s house. The flooding was just as bad along their portion of the creek. Being retired, Jeff entertained himself as a gentleman farmer. He had a small contingent of chickens, along with two goats and a beehive. The hive was already gone, claimed by the flood, and the waters crept perilously close to the chicken coop. If they didn’t recede soon, my guess was that they wouldn’t stop there. His goat pen would be next. Jeff must have realized that, too, because as we drew nearer and the fog parted, we caught sight of him standing next to the goat pen. He raised his hand in greeting and Sanchez ran to him, wagging his tail and sniffing the ground at Jeff’s feet. My neighbor bent over and scratched behind the dog’s ears. I hurried to catch up with them, but the wet ground didn’t cooperate. My boots squelched with each step.
“Heya, Evan!”
I nodded, out of breath. “Hi, Jeff. This is pretty bad, huh?”
He shrugged. “It’s bad, but I’ve seen worse. Second year after Anna-Marie and I moved in here, the water got all the way up to the house.”
“Really?”
“But that was a long time ago,” he conceded. “This is the worst I’ve seen it since then.”
“I’m sorry about your beehive.”
“Don’t be. It’s my fault. Shouldn’t have put them so close to the creek. I just hope it lets up soon.”
“Do you think it will?”
“No.”
The wind picked up, dissipating some of the fog.
“I saw Thena.” I pointed towards her house, and noticed that in the brief time it had taken me to walk from the creek bank to Jeff’s house, the water had risen even higher on that side. Now, the waves were breaking over her porch.
“Her and the kids okay?”
“I’m not sure. I guess so. We couldn’t hear each other, because of the noise. It looked like she was thinking about making a break for it.”
“Hope not. That water will wash that Jeep of hers right down the stream. She’ll end up in the Susquehanna.”
“We should do something.”
“Don’t know about you, but our phones are out. Cell phones, too. No coverage, what with this storm.”
In truth, cell phone coverage was spotty in our valley even on clear days. I don’t know all the technical aspects, but it had something to do with line of sight between us and the nearest tower. I didn’t think it would help to bring that up, though.
“What about your bass boat?” I suggested. “Maybe we could bring her and the kids over to this side, until the waters recede?”
Jeff shook his head. “Can’t. The current’s too strong. That little motor would never cut it. We’d get swept downstream just like everything else. End up in the damn river.”
He quit petting Sanchez and stood up, wiping his hands on his pants and leaving behind tufts of wet dog fur. I was about to ask if he had any other suggestions when we heard a loud crash from the stream. We both looked in time to see a sprawling old oak tree that had been jutting out over the creek bank topple into the waters. It floated there, bobbing atop the brown waves, and then slowly started to disengage from the bank and float away.
“How did that happen?”
“Wet ground,” Jeff said. “It’s all clay along that bank. Reaches a certain point where the roots just can’t hold on anymore. I’m surprised it lasted this long. I thought for sure it would fall a few summers ago.”
Sanchez started growling again, staring at Thena’s house. We followed his gaze but the fog had descended again, and we couldn’t see anything through the mist.
“What’s wrong, buddy?” Jeff reached down and scratched his ears. Sanchez barely noticed. His attention was focused elsewhere.
“He did this earlier, too,” I said. “I don’t know what he’s barking at. We saw something, but I couldn’t tell what it was.”
“Well, let’s go have a look.”
We waded back across the yard. Sanchez trotted along beside us. He moved stiffly, his body tensed. His growls increased as we neared the swollen creek. We stopped along the bank, not daring to go further in case it gave way and we fell in. The fog parted, and we caught sight of Thena’s house again. The Jeep was still parked in the driveway, but now the water was over the tires and lapping at the underside. It had also crept over the porch. Tiny waves buffeted the stoop beneath the front door.
Sanchez erupted, barking furiously. At the same time, he backed away from the stream.
“See anything?” Jeff asked.
I wiped the moisture off my glasses again and tried to catch sight of Thena or her kids in one of the second-story windows.
Instead, I saw something else.
My brain didn’t process it at first. I mean, I saw it, but what I was seeing didn’t register. It was so unexpected, so unreal, that my gaze only lingered on it for a moment. I looked elsewhere, then paused and brought my attention back to it again.
A long, thick form jutted from one of the downstairs windows. I’d never been inside Thena’s house, so I didn’t know which room it was. The thing—whatever it was—looked like a giant black tentacle. It wriggled slowly from side to side, as if agitated. At its thickest point, I’d guess it measured close to five feet in circumference. The tapered end was much thinner—maybe a foot round. I couldn’t see a head. Just that thrashing, elongated form, coiling and uncoiling.
Jeff reached out and grabbed my shoulder. He squeezed hard, his fingers grating against my bone, but I barely felt it. Sanchez kept barking.
“My God,” Jeff gasped, swaying back and forth. “Do you see it?”
Speechless, I nodded.
The thing continued wiggling, oblivious to our presence. Maybe it couldn’t hear us over the noise of the flood, or maybe it just didn’t care.
“What is it?”
Jeff didn’t answer me. I turned to him. His face was ashen, his eyes wide. His mouth hung open so wide that I could see his fillings.
“Jeff? What the hell is it?”
He muttered something but with Sanchez’s racket and the roaring creek, I couldn’t hear him.
“What?”
“Old Scratch. It has to be!�
�
I started to respond, but he pointed at the house. His finger trembled.
“Look!”
I glanced back at Thena’s. The thing had wriggled farther into the home. Now, only the tip was visible, hanging over the windowsill. It smacked against the side of the house, denting the aluminum siding. There was still no sign of Thena or her kids.
Jeff pulled my arm. “Come on.”
“But what about—”
“Now!”
Sanchez yipped in agreement. I allowed the two of them to lead me away from the creek. I glanced over my shoulder once, and the thing had vanished into Thena’s house.
Then the mist closed around us and I saw no more.
If Thena and her children were screaming, I wouldn’t have been able to tell.
• • •
Jeff led me back towards my house. He walked quickly, splashing heedlessly through the puddles, and I had to hurry to keep up with him. Sanchez ran ahead of us, apparently happy to be away from the creek. Despite my protests, Jeff didn’t speak until we were standing in my driveway, and then, he answered my questions with one of his own.
“You own a gun?”
“What?”
“Do you own a gun?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve got a little .357, and my father’s old deer rifle. But what—”
“Get them.”
“Jeff, tell me what’s going on. What the hell was that thing? I mean, I know what it looked like, but it couldn’t have been.”
“It was. Get your guns. Try the phone. If it’s working, call 911.”
“And tell them ... what?”
“That Thena’s house is flooding and they need to do a water rescue. That the ghost of Osama bin Laden is shacked up there with the spirit of Saddam Hussein. I don’t know. Tell them anything that will get them here. Then meet me back here right away.”