“Now is the time,” he whispered and held the nail gun to his head.
He looked at the long row of tools along the garage wall, the bikini calendar right beside the hammers, and the little refrigerator in the corner of the room where his uncle liked to keep his beer.
“You won’t control me anymore,” was probably the last thing he said, as he pressed down on the trigger.
Later that day, a neighbor, scouting the block to see if anyone needed assistance, supposedly saw the garage door ajar. When he walked in, the neighbor saw the body of Robert Pierson lying on the ground.
A nail gun was at his side.
---
It would be inaccurate to mention only the grave tragedies that struck Naples. While some neighbors didn’t trust each other much during those first couple days, many neighbors banded together.
While at first many were afraid to step outdoors, there were plenty who were brave enough to venture across the street or down a few houses to offer assistance. People took food and medicine to neighbors in need, and according to one account, a group of neighbors built a fire pit in the backyard of one of their homes, rounded up all their beers and handguns, and sat around the fire for a couple nights polishing off the beers and talking about how they would put together a team to hunt down the crazy killer. But they never put together that team; when the beers ran out, it seemed their courage did as well.
By July 7th—the day after Robert Pierson ended his life with a nail gun—I think most residents were aware of a couple things:
First, help wasn’t coming. All three bridges had been taken out by lightning, and even though a mediocre swimmer could have swam to the mainland in a matter of minutes, the lightning forbade it; it struck anyone in the water going to or from the island. The young engaged couple were the first of many who fried in those waters.
Large emergency teams gathered across from the island at all three of the entry points but couldn’t find a way to get across. The first of the rescue teams were killed instantly by lightning as they tried to cross the water, and even later, once the governor declared a State of Emergency and called out the National Guard, they could do no better. The first two copters they sent in were struck by lightning before they reached the island. One of the pilots was fortunate and was able to make an emergency landing in Belmont Shore, but the other pilot, whose tail had been taken off by a massive bolt, spun around in the sky like a bewildered hornet and crashed into a home.
Later, I learned the government tried other things as well. They put divers in the water during one of the breaks in the storm, when the lightning had subsided, but just as the divers made it about halfway across, lightning forked down through the water and turned them into electrified fish. Some of the residents tried to leave the island too. I’ve learned that sometimes the affluent feel just as entitled as those who are impoverished, and some residents just didn’t feel like they “deserved” to be stranded on that island in the midst of the freakish storm. They climbed into their boats and thought they could outwit the storm. Perhaps in some cases, they genuinely didn’t know any better, but the result was always the same: none of those boats made it across.
We were encouraged to know there was some police presence on the island—though later I discovered it was much smaller than I had hoped. The one active police vehicle drove up and down Second Street several times a day with Deborah Blazer, the SLO, always speaking that same message through her P-A: “All residents of Naples Island, this is the Long Beach Police Department. Outside authorities are working hard to make entrance to the island. Remain indoors. Do not leave your homes. Do not attempt to leave the island. The lightning is destroying anything attempting to get onto or get off of Naples.”
Her words rarely changed. Apart from that, we had little information. None of our phones worked, so we couldn’t dial out. We had no electricity, no web connectivity on our laptops, no cellular reception, and we couldn’t get any signal on our radios. I spent those first few days coming to terms with how technologically dependent I had become in my life; it seemed completely backwards to go hours, let alone days, without the ability to telephone or text someone or look something up online. I was one of those typically over-stimulated-and-addicted-to-his-toys Americans. Guilty as charged.
But we learned something else those first few days, and by the evening of July 7th, it became more apparent. Apart from the police, a second authority was emerging. Several times a day, we heard people running down the streets, and they seemed to be just average citizens. They were armed, which was of some concern. One of the men, a little skinny guy who looked like a marathon runner, was carrying a rifle as he passed by. A couple others—business men from the looks of them—were also carrying rifles as they trotted by. As they ran down the street, they yelled the same message.
“Klutch offers his protection,” they cried. “The big brick house by the fountain. He knows what this is! Klutch offers his protection! And weapons! Join us! Klutch offers his protection! He knows what this is!”
The first time I heard the men yelling this as they ran past my home, Jesse and I looked at each other in complete stupefaction.
“Klutch?” I said, turning to Jesse. “The crazy biker guy who thought you took his knife?”
Jesse scratched his beard and nodded.
It was difficult to believe.
“Looks like this here storm just got more interesting,” he said. “Much more interesting.”
Chapter Nineteen
On the morning of July eighth, four days after the mass killing by Drake, we were all becoming terribly frightened. Although we had not yet met the officer in the police car that patrolled up and down Second Street, we knew there was no help coming anytime soon and she, being stuck on Naples Island, was probably doing her best to keep the citizens at peace.
When we looked out the windows, the dark storm clouds still swirled overhead, and from my perspective at least, they seemed to be lower than even before. Perhaps the storm was descending? I wasn’t sure. Less lightning struck buildings and objects on the ground by July 8th. Although the activity didn’t completely cease, every few hours a loud thunderclap rattled my home. We assumed those were due to some sucker trying to make his way onto or off of the island. But by and large, most of the lightning now was cloud-to–cloud, and when I looked up, the constant electrical activity in the clouds looked sort of like a giant plasma globe.
We used candles and the lanterns in my garage to see by and made quick trips to Marsha’s next door to stock up on more food and supplies. We had seen enough people running down the street to realize the lightning wouldn’t indiscriminately strike anyone moving outside; it focused on people near the water. Every evening the storm intensified, and by July 8th, I wondered how bad the evening storms would become. It was a frightening thought.
Marsha and Samantha did alright coping but quarreled too much. Marsha went into episodes of paranoia, questioning what was happening and if this was God’s judgment, and Samantha, exasperated, often snapped back that she needed to shut up and stop complaining because it wasn’t going to help anyone. Sometimes it reminded me of the popular kid at school trying to get along with the nerd; it was annoying, to say the least, and I wondered when, if ever, the gravity of the situation might pull them together rather than push them apart.
My wife was occupied mostly with Toby and taking care of the little girl who said her name was Mia. The two-year-old probably fared better than any of us. Maybe ignorance is bliss. My wife brought out the toys and Legos from Toby’s bedroom. Her strategy worked well; it took the kids’ eyes off themselves, and in the end, it kept my wife sane.
Even though it was clear that we had absolutely no cell reception, Owen tried constantly for the first couple days to text his girlfriend, Candice. He was completely distraught over her and worried about what had happened to her, and I think he had a hard time focusing on anything else during those first days.
My neighbor, Darrel, was a complete
mess. There are hardly words to describe him. He spent most of his time alone in our guest bedroom, sobbing, crying, wailing, and throwing things. He would come back to join the rest of us for brief moments of clarity. He would smile and talk positively about how we were going to get out of this and how everyone was going to be just fine, and then, almost without any signal for transition, he would descend back into a state of despair. Hour to hour, I had no idea which Darrel I was with. Sometimes he’d look right through me and mumble to himself and scratch his nails through his thinning hair. He was completely disheveled. I could often spot snot dripping from his nose and drool running out of his mouth. Maybe he just didn’t care. Maybe it was due to all of his weeping, but he looked like a man who needed some serious help. I grieved for him deeply.
Jesse seemed unfazed, and I was glad to have him there. He didn’t fall into emotional hysteria and kept a level head, and I guess I did pretty much the same. Maybe my wife was right about me. Maybe I am pretty good in moments of crisis.
Early afternoon on July 8th, Jesse and I were sitting in my office, drinking beer. We’d put some outside the night before to keep cold because the fridge had long since died.
“We need to get those weapons,” Jesse said, sipping a Crescent Moon beer. He’d complained about it when I first offered it and insisted that Crescent Moon was a lady’s drink, but he went on drinking it anyway.
He was referring to the weapons under the bridge. I’d looked back over the map in the spiral notebook Drake had dropped. It was clear that it was his map for his route that night, and I was pretty convinced that the big B he referred to on his map was the bridge I’d seen him under one night. He’d stashed weapons. He must have. Didn’t many mass murderers do that sort of thing? Shoot up a bunch of innocents and then retreat to an arsenal nest? Isn’t that what those evil kids did at Columbine?
“We really need to get those weapons,” Jesse repeated.
“You really think so?”
“Yep,” he said. “People start running out of food, people start getting more afraid, and they’ll start turning on each other. And you have no idea what that guy Klutch is up to. We need protection. One handgun isn’t doing it.”
“That means we need to go back out there, down a ways,” I said.
“He’s still out there.”
“That’s a risk we’re gonna have to take. Plus, I’d be willing to bet he isn’t out there anymore. Guys that go crazy like that almost always kill themselves after. I’m sure he’s already dead somewhere with a bullet in his head. I’d put my money on that one.”
I knew that Jesse was trying to be helpful, but my thoughts were still on Hot-rodder. If Drake had killed himself, then what had become of Hot-rodder? It made me sick to even think about it, and deep inside myself, I was grappling with major guilt. I’d had the spiral notebook with the map in it, and if I’d had enough sense to look at it closely and think about it, maybe I could have prevented the whole thing. Maybe Hot-rodder would be sitting inside with us and maybe all of those dead people wouldn’t be lying there in the park.
Complete nausea swept over me when I even thought about it.
“We could go into that crazy guy’s house too. It’s right across from you. Might have guns there too that we could use.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “He could be in there.”
“Probably would have seen or heard something, don’t you think? Only one in there is maybe his dad, and he’s dying. Isn’t that what you told me?”
“That’s what I’ve heard.”
“We could always head there on the way back from the bridge. Look for more.”
“I don’t think so,” I said and Jesse, nodding, set down his beer and stood up.
“I’ll meet you by the front door. Let’s get what we can before someone else gets those guns.”
I nodded.
“And you need to get yourself some real beer,” Jesse said and walked out of the room.
Just as he left, Owen walked in. He looked nervous, and he had his hands stuffed into his back pockets. I offered for him to sit down, but he didn’t. He just stood there acting squeamish. I recognized his posture immediately; this was usually his demeanor before asking a difficult question involving girls, money, or anything that would most likely warrant a no for an answer. I took another sip of my Crescent Moon and listened.
“Dad, I want to go look for Candice.”
I didn’t know how to respond to this at first, so I just remained quiet.
“I want to go look for Candice,” he said again. It sounded more like a statement than a question, and I didn’t like that.
“What do you mean, you want to go look for Candice? You don’t even know where she is.”
“That’s why I need to go look for her. She was by the fountain, and you yourself said that guy Klutch was taking people in by the fountain. I bet she’s there. I just want to go and see her and make sure she’s okay.”
“Owen, you don’t know if she’s there,” I reasoned with him. “There’s a thousand places she could have gone by now and we can’t take that chance. Plus, Jesse and I are going to do a quick errand to get something we need. I need you to stay here with the women and kids, okay. I need you here.”
At first, I thought he had actually listened to me. I was about to get up and throw away my beer bottle, when he did something that unnerved me; he raised his voice. Almost standing over me, I felt like I was suddenly the child and he was the parent.
“Dad, you don’t understand, I need to go!”
“No, you’re not going,” I said calmly and stood. I hated that he was nearly two inches taller than me.
“Dad, Candice might be in danger. I’ve sat here for days, and now I think I─”
“You’re not going,” I said again. “I don’t care. How old is she? Sixteen? How long have you known each other? Two months maybe? Are you joking me? This is your family here.”
“You and mom were boyfriend and girlfriend when you were sixteen, Dad.”
“That’s different.”
He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “What do you mean that’s different? How is it different?”
“Because that was me and your mom,” I said.
He wrinkled his nose in disgust again. “You’re not making sense.”
“I don’t have to make sense. I’m your dad. You’re staying here.”
My wife, hearing us bicker, walked into the office to see what was the matter.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, and Owen, knowing his defeat, slumped his shoulders and began to head toward the door. Those two inches of height didn’t compensate for the decades of living I had beyond his own and my position as a father, but it was clear, storm or no storm, that all of that was changing. He had his own ideas, and I think he wanted me to treat him almost as an equal. But I just wasn’t ready. Not by a long shot.
“Dad’s just not listening to me,” he said and walked out of the room.
I leaned back in my leather chair, sighed, and my wife sat in my lap and kissed me. She rubbed her fingertips along my eyebrows, smiled, and kissed me again on the forehead this time.
“How are the troops holding up?” I asked.
“Okay. The kids are doing well. I got them playing Legos.”
“Legos, huh?”
“Yeah,” she said. “You know, that little girl Mia is so cute. I forgot how cute they are that young. Almost makes me think that, maybe when this is all over, what it'd be like to─”
“Have another?” I finished for her.
She nodded.
“I think this storm has messed up your thinking. We’re getting too old. How’s everyone else?”
“Marsha and Samantha are driving me crazy,” she said, kissing me delicately on the forehead. “They were just bickering about what to make for lunch. Samantha’s complaining that she hasn’t had ‘real’ food in days, and Marsha thinks she isn’t grateful enough. That kind of thing.”
“And Darrel?”
&nb
sp; “The usual. He’s in the guest room now. I’m pretty worried about him.”
“Yeah, me too. Listen, we’re gonna make a run to the bridge for the weapons like we were talking about earlier. It’ll be quick. Hopefully they’re there, and we’ll be right back.”
“Okay.” She nodded. We’d already discussed it earlier, and the idea had settled in with her. “But how are you doing with the kidnapped boy?”
“Hot-rodder?” I asked.
She nodded.
We’d had a couple conversations about him and the guilt I’d carried like an anchor for the last several days. My wife insisted, like the others, that it wasn’t my fault and that I couldn’t have possibly predicted what the map was and what Drake was going to do. But the encouragement didn’t help much. Guilt, I learned during that storm, is a heavy burden for a soul to carry around.
“He’s not your brother, Eddie,” she said softly in my ear. “You don’t have to save him. It won’t bring him back.”
“I know,” I said, but I didn’t completely believe her.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about my kid brother, Alan.
He was only ten years old when he died, and I was twelve. My parents took us on a trip down to the Kern River in California for white water rafting. It was the first time we’d done a trip like that, and when I think back to those memories, it is the last I can remember of my mom and dad being happy together. I remember them laughing, and I terribly miss that sound. I never heard it after our trip on the Kern, and sometimes when I daydream and wonder what it would be like to have anything I want in this world, I think my parents’ laughter is what I would ask for.
It was the afternoon of our first day, and my brother, Alan, and I were in one of the six rafts. My mom thought we should have gone in one of the oar boats carrying the food because we’d be safer in them, but we’d begged and begged, and our father eventually caved in and let us ride in the rafts with some of the older teenagers.
Storm Taken: A Supernatural Thriller Page 13