Charlie walked to each side of the attic, staring out through the small windows until lightning flashed again. He could see the trees Moose had planted on the south side of his house. They were bent to the ground. Toward the gulf side he only saw gray. Oppostite that there seemed to be no demarcation between the bay and the sky. Lightning flashed again, and he was able to see the house next door. It appeared to be faring even worse than Moose’s. As he watched, a large part of the roof simply flew off.
He staggered backward, nearly tripping over Quitz again.
“Find your truck?”
“No, but your neighbor just lost his roof.”
Moose sat down on the top of one of the boxes and stared at his hands. “You’re sure Paula’s okay?”
“I am, and she would want you to worry about yourself.” Charlie was thinking the truck was no great loss. After all, it was insured, and he had always been careful to maintain adequate coverage. But what about the things that were irreplaceable? What about the bag he’d placed behind his seat? He would have liked to have kept that.
His heart hardened toward the storm. It could take his possessions, but it couldn’t steal his memories. It could take his life, but this life wasn’t all there was. He was certain of that. Not that he was ready to go just yet.
Which took his thoughts back to the truck. As far as a means of escape, the vehicle was useless. They wouldn’t be driving to safety.
“We can’t stay here.” Moose sounded calm—disconnected, even.
“Going back outside seems foolish.”
Moose glanced up, stared at Charlie, and shook his head.
A loud screeching sound permeated the noise of the rain and wind. They both hurried across the room to stare out in the direction of the neighbor’s house. At first they saw only darkness. Then lightning flashed and revealed more than a missing roof. The entire structure listed to the far side. As lightning pulsed again and again, they watched the structure begin to teeter. Darkness shrouded the night, and then lightning struck one last time. The house was gone.
Charlie’s heart raced as his mind combed through their options. Problem was, he couldn’t come up with any. He walked across the attic space and glanced down through the hole. An eerie glow emanated from the battery lantern Moose had set on a shelf near the front door. The water inside the house was now four, maybe five feet deep. If they didn’t get out of the building soon, they wouldn’t be able to. If they did get out, where would they go?
“God help us,” he whispered. As precious seconds ticked by, he prayed, wondering if God could even hear him above the sound of the storm, wondering what it would feel like to die.
To Charlie, it seemed as if his entire life was shifting. He sat on the floor, his back against the boxes, and Quitz plopped down next to him. Moose sat across from them, resting his back against one of the roof supports. They stayed there for what seemed like an hour. At one point, Charlie looked at his watch and realized the time had crept past midnight. The next day had arrived, and with it more danger.
Water swirled beneath them, and the rain continued to fall in a deluge that Charlie thought would never end. Quitz had stopped whining and finally closed her eyes, her head resting across his feet. Occasionally she would open one eye and stare up at Charlie, as if she trusted him to find a way out. As if she believed in him.
“Seems to be letting up,” Moose said. “Think we’re in the eye?”
“Depends on how fast Orion is moving. If it sped up, I suppose yes—maybe. But if it slowed down… ”
“If it slowed down, that was an outer band, and there’s not even a chance this house will withstand the full force.”
“Same is true if we’re nearing the eye,” Charlie reminded him. “The back side is always worse.”
“But it is letting up.”
“I don’t know what difference it makes. The water’s chest high below—and that’s in the house. I couldn’t drive through what’s outside if I did find the truck, and the truck is gone.”
“We’ll walk.”
“Walk?”
“Yeah, walk. Or swim.”
“Where?”
“Over to the bay front community center. It’s built of cinderblock and just might still be standing.”
Moose nodded in the direction of the bay. The community center he spoke of had always been a thorn in his side. More than once he had called it a waste of their home owner association dues, and he’d actively spoken out against the elaborate design structure. The price had been quite high, but if Charlie remembered correctly the architect had claimed it was built to Category 5 specifications—something they had all laughed at.
But maybe Orion wasn’t a Cat 5, and maybe—just possibly—they could make it there. The distance was less than a ten-minute walk in fair weather. In this storm? Charlie didn’t know. He was staring at the wall across from him, trying to calculate the distance to the center, when he suddenly realized the wall had moved.
Charlie jumped to his feet. “We have to go.”
“Right this minute?”
“Yes, now. This place is breaking apart.”
“Down the stairs?”
Charlie didn’t like that idea. There was too much junk jammed up in the floor below. But there was no way out of the small attic windows.
“I’ll carry Quitz. Do you have any rope up here?”
Moose hurried over to one of the boxes and tore it open. He pulled out a hammer, a tarp, and a roll of duct tape, dumping them on the floor. The house was now beginning to creak, and there was no doubt it was coming apart at the seams. Finally, he pulled out a long length of rope.
Without speaking he began to tie it around his waist. Charlie looped his end through Quitz’s collar, and then tied the remaining portion around his own waist.
“Die together or live together, my friend.” Moose’s voice had grown stronger, and his eyes looked clear.
Charlie prayed that whatever form of dementia Moose was suffering from would relent until they found a safe place to hunker down.
There was a three-foot length of rope between each man and the dog, who sat staring from one to the other. Moose walked toward the ladder. “Let’s do this now before I lose my nerve.”
But Charlie was barely listening. The rain had lightened, but suddenly the wind increased, shaking the house and causing Charlie to press his hands against his ears. He felt as if his eardrums would surely burst. He felt as if his entire head might explode.
And then the roof was gone, and he was staring up into a sky that showed patches of starlight.
“God protect us, keep us safe, and guide our way.” Moose’s words sounded like a prayer—a desperate plea for divine intervention. He walked to the corner of the attic, pulling Charlie and Quitz with him.
“Wrong way. It’s going to come apart!” Charlie struggled to be heard over the wind, and then he saw what Moose was aiming for.
The boogie boards probably hadn’t been used in the past decade. Moose handed one to Charlie, and then he grabbed one for himself.
A great ripping sound confirmed Charlie’s worst fear. They hustled back to the middle of the room, and Charlie glanced down in time to see the stairs pulled away from the attic. Then the north wall of the attic was gone. Charlie’s exhaustion fell away as adrenaline pumped through his veins.
The house was shaking, moving actually—to the west, toward the gulf. Charlie fought the urge to grab onto the roof beams. The house was not going to make it through the next gust of wind. It held only false hope.
Moose must have figured the same. His head down, he walked toward where the north wall had been. Looking out, they both saw that the house had moved and was now past the neighbor’s property line. When Charlie leaned forward to get an idea of what lay in their path, he could see they were about to collide with another structure. When he looked down, he saw that the storm surge had risen even higher.
“Are you ready?” Moose called.
“No! No, I’m not!” B
ut his words slipped away into the night as he clutched the boogie board with one arm and Quitz with his other. Then he stepped forward, and they were falling into the cold, turbulent water.
CHAPTER 15
It was a miracle that Moose, Charlie, and Quitz were alive and moving in the right direction. The hurricane had weakened, and an eerie calm had settled over Port A. Charlie knew that wouldn’t last. It was a pause, not a stop. They were in the eye of the storm. The temperature had risen, and the winds were almost nonexistent. Then there were the stars—thousands of pinpoints of light. They blazed brighter than normal, probably due to the power outage.
Quitz trembled, perched on top of the boogie board while Charlie clung to the side. Moose was next to them, holding onto his board with one arm and trying to direct their course with the other. Which was pretty much like trying to maneuver across the ocean with a Ping-Pong paddle.
A scream pierced the night, but Charlie couldn’t see who or where it came from. He’d thought they were alone, but apparently not. It seemed that others had made the same costly mistake they had. The rain stopped completely, and Charlie noticed that his hands were shaking. At one point he lost contact with the board, but Quitz yipped and snagged his shirt sleeve, pulling backward and nearly falling off. It was enough of a tug for Charlie to grab hold again of the fiberglass board as he reached for Quitz. The dog licked his hand, whined, and then she sat as if she were riding in the front seat of the truck.
Just when he thought they were lost, that they’d been pushing in the wrong direction, the community center loomed out of the darkness to the side of them. A dim light shone from one of the upstairs windows. All of the electricity was out. That had to be a flashlight or emergency lantern. Could someone be in there?
“We’re going to miss it!” Moose yelled.
And they almost did. There was no way to slow their progress. Though the rain had stopped, the current itself was quite strong, which explained how they had covered the distance from Moose’s house to the center in such a short time. Moose snatched a piece of lumber floating by, and then he lunged to the right, still holding on to his boogie board. The lumber came in contact with a power pole that was still standing, and they spun, twisted, and turned backward, finally colliding with the east wall of the community center.
Pain shot up and through Charlie’s shoulder—the arm he’d slung over the top of the boogie board. Quitz tumbled off, and with his good hand Charlie reached out and snatched her collar, dragging her first under the water before he managed to push her up and back on to the board.
Moose was still beside him. They were basically pinned against the facade of the building—which had indeed held through the first affront by Orion. But at least they hadn’t floated by it. If they had…
Charlie shivered. He didn’t want to think about spending the entire night floating in the bay. He didn’t want to think about being out in the elements when the back side of Orion hit.
“How are we going to get in?” Moose asked.
Charlie looked for the doors. Finding none, he realized they were level with the second floor windows, and the water was still rising.
“Hand me that plank you used to turn us.”
With the plank in his right hand, he pushed them north, along the wall until they were even with one of the windows. The pain in his left shoulder was excruciating, but he managed to hold on. What choice did he have? When they reached the first set of windows, he took the piece of lumber and attempted to smash it through the glass.
No luck.
He couldn’t hold on to his board and still gain enough traction to slam the board with any amount of force. And the time he tried letting go to ram the wood into the window with both hands, he sunk under the water. Quitz yelped. Moose grabbed the collar at the back of Charlie’s shirt and yanked him up and back over his board.
Charlie could no longer feel his left shoulder and his teeth were chattering. How long had they been in the water? How long would the eye of the storm hover over them? Panic rushed through his veins, and he began to holler, “Help! Someone help!” as together they futilely attempted to smash the window.
A voice from above hollered, “Stay where you are! We’re sending someone down.”
Charlie craned his neck back and saw a black man around thirty years old calling down to them.
“We’re upstairs, but we’ll get you in. Just hang on!”
Before Charlie could answer, the voice and the man disappeared.
Would they be rescued? Tears stung Charlie’s eyes, and he looked away from Moose, suddenly embarrassed. But his friend only reached over and patted him clumsily on the back. Charlie was glad that words weren’t necessary, because he didn’t know how to voice all the thoughts running through his mind and emotions filling his heart.
Suddenly the window they’d been trying to smash opened. Kurt Jameson reached out and grabbed Quitz, lifting the dog up and into the room. A younger man, Charlie suddenly remembered his name was Dale, grabbed Moose’s arm and pulled him in. Finally, Kurt reached for Charlie.
“I can’t… it’s my shoulder.” Charlie had switched to holding onto the board with his right arm. “Left arm’s no good. If I let go with my right, I’ll sink.”
Dale and Kurt filled the window, both leaning out.
“I’ll get the board,” Dale said.
“Charlie, I’ll grab your right arm.”
When Charlie nodded, Kurt said, “On three—”
For a moment it seemed that Kurt might pull his arm out of the socket, but then he was standing beside the man, and Dale was holding on to the boogie board, grinning. Kurt and Dale helped untie the rope that had kept Charlie, Moose, and Quitz together.
When they moved away from the window, Charlie’s legs began to shake.
“Can you make it upstairs?” Kurt asked. “We have some blankets and dry clothes. Even some food, but not much, and there’s bottled water.”
Kurt was a round man with a bald head and a large, prominent nose. He was not in the best physical shape despite being twenty years younger than Charlie. But he was as honest as the day was long. He owned the lube and oil place in town, and he’d been working on Charlie’s vehicle the last ten years.
Dale shook hands with Moose and then Charlie. “Boogie boards. Good idea. How’d you think of that?”
“Desperation,” Moose said. “Happened to be close at hand when my house blew over.”
Charlie suddenly remembered where he’d seen Dale before. It had been a few years earlier. They had been on the city planning board together. Dale Northcut had a tendency to dance on the progressive side of things, a stark contrast to Charlie’s usual conservative stance. He’d dressed then as he did now—jeans and a plain T-shirt. His hair was always a tad too long and his voice a mite too loud. In other words, he’d grated on Charlie’s nerves, and still Charlie was glad to see him.
“What are you two doing here? Why didn’t you get off the island?”
“Let’s talk about that upstairs.” Kurt had pushed the window shut, but already water was creeping across the room, coming in through the window seals and possibly rising from the lower floor.
They started across the room, and that was when Charlie noticed Quitz limping. Looking closer, he saw a trail of bloody paw prints on the wet floor.
“Come here, girl.” Charlie attempted to pick the dog up, momentarily forgetting that his left arm wasn’t working.
“I got her,” Dale said. He picked up the dog as if she weighed nothing.
Charlie started to argue, but he realized that would be foolish. His legs were still shaking, his shoulder had begun to ache again, and his throat felt as though it had practically closed up. He’d be lucky to make it up the stairs himself.
Five minutes later they were standing in the middle of the activity room on the third floor, and Dale had thrust bottles of water into their hands. He uncapped another bottle and poured half of it into a paper cup for Quitz. The dog immediately lapped it up,
and Charlie’s estimation of Dale rose another notch.
It seemed odd to Charlie that he was so thirsty. He’d nearly drowned! And before that he’d nearly been swept away. But thirsty he was, and he had to force himself to drink the water slowly. As he did, he studied the room they were sheltering in.
This floor of the community center had been planned for all ages, so it contained everything from Lego bins to Ping-Pong tables to reading chairs. Someone had moved one of the Ping-Pong tables to the middle of the room and placed supplies on it. The chairs had been positioned around the table. A woman and child sat on one side. Limping across the room toward them was the black man who had leaned out the window and called out to them to hold on.
“Lamar Johnson.” He shook Charlie’s hand and then Moose’s. “What’s it like out there?”
“As bad as it looks,” Charlie said.
Moose sank into one of the chairs, and Charlie did the same. It felt good to be inside, and to be with other people. Some of the panic that had threatened to overwhelm him faded.
“My house is gone.” Moose sounded as if he were describing an everyday event, his voice devoid of emotion. “Broke apart and then floated away.”
“Sorry to hear that.” Dale squatted down in front of Charlie. “Want to let me look at that shoulder?”
“Nah… it’ll be fine.”
“Charlie, you need to let me look at it. It could be twenty-four hours or longer before anyone comes to rescue us.”
“You know first aid?” Moose asked.
“He fixed me up.” Lamar pointed down to one of his legs, which had been splinted with a board from one of the shelves. “It’s broken, but I can walk now without doubling over from the pain.”
Charlie tried to remove his shirt and found he couldn’t.
“Here are scissors.” The woman holding the child picked them up from a box on the table and handed them to Dale.
“Charlie and Moose, this is Angela, my wife.” Dale proceeded to cut away Charlie’s shirt as he introduced his family. “And that pretty little girl is Sophia Claire.”
Sophia hid her head in her mother’s lap. Charlie figured her to be about three years old. Both Sophia and Angela had long dark hair. The mother’s face was scrunched in an expression of concern. The little girl peeked out at Charlie from the safety of her mom’s arms.
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