The Light Pirate(19)
The salary she earns teaching biology at the community college isn’t enough to cover some of the more in-depth preparations she wanted to do, but when her father passed away a few years ago she was able to put her inheritance straight into the house. The investment was her version of a retirement plan—she had no use for stocks or bonds or annuities, so she spent the money on solar panels and an irrigation system. Her sister couldn’t wrap her head around it. The last time they spoke there was no screaming, no horrible insults. Just a quiet chasm between them, becoming wider and wider until finally it had grown too wide. They’d never been close. The loss was more acute in theory than it was in practice. After a while, Phyllis realized she doesn’t even miss their calls. She has no regrets. Her money is much better spent on supplies and modifications than sitting in some IRS account, only to disappear when the banks go belly-up. The generators, the garden beds, the fruit trees, the ground well, the weapons and the skills to use them—all of it. This is her future. She is done trying to convince anyone else that the sky is falling when all they need to do is look out the window.
Phyllis fixes herself a snack of sardines and crackers in the kitchen, then opens a fresh gallon of water and pours herself a glass. Outside, the hurricane wreaks havoc. In here, it is almost peaceful. Loud, but peaceful. She has a stack of tests to grade from her Intro to Biology course. Or maybe she’ll begin that romance novel she picked up from the Goodwill instead. She adds some garlicky pickles she canned herself to the plate and licks her fingers. Not her best batch, but not her worst.
A repetitive thudding sound registers as she makes her way back down the hall to her living room—she assumed it was the trees knocking against one another, or a piece of debris battering against the siding. But no, it almost sounds as if it is coming from the front door. Is it…“knocking” is not the right word. It is an erratic, desperate pounding. She steps out into the hall, listens. Yes, it’s coming from the front porch. She is hesitant to check. After all of this work to keep the outdoors out, why would she open the door and let it in? But there is something about it…something impossible to ignore. She undoes the dead bolts—there are three—and prepares to brace herself should the wind try to overpower her. She turns the knob.
There, on her front step, is a drenched little boy, his mouth open, his cries snatched away by the wind and tossed up into the sky. Quick as a flash, she reaches out, grabs a fistful of his shirt, pulls him inside, and slams the door.
Chapter 23
Kirby tunes and retunes the CB to channel 9. He checks the single reception bar on his cell phone, which flickers in and out. No news is hardly good news. He’s driving at a crawl, barely able to discern road from ditch. At this rate, the eyewall is going to catch up to him and slam his entire vehicle into someone’s house. He catches sight of an apartment building’s sign on his right—THE PELICAN PERCH. It’s a newer building, the kind with beach views and a doorman and probably a rooftop swimming pool. Kirby knows the type. A roost for wealthy snowbirds who will spend only a few weekends per year taking in the salt air before they tire of Florida and fly away to one of their other nests. There is an underground parking garage beneath, he recalls, and without pausing to consider he swings the steering wheel, jumps the curb, and manages to find the in ramp. There’s a thin iron gate—there’s always a gate with these people and their fucking beachfront properties. He drives straight through it.
Below, the garage is beginning to flood. Kirby idles there, surveying the half-empty lot—SUVs; a few sports cars in storage, wrapped up in tarps like enormous presents; an old painter’s van, undoubtedly the maintenance vehicle, too dented to belong to anyone who might live here. The water does not trouble him in a truck this high and this heavy, not yet. He turns around to face the entrance of the garage and leans up against the steering wheel, straining to see what’s happening on the street outside. Visibility is sparse. The radio crackles.
Eye has made landfall in the township of Rudder heavy
rain potential flooding a few blocks south of
Marriott, approximately half a mile wide
speed measured 155 mph repeat eye landfall
The eye. Of course. Could he…? He will. He can’t just sit here and wait; he has to try. Kirby accelerates toward the ramp. Any minute now. He watches as a small fishing boat crashes into the storefront across the street from the mouth of the garage. So this is the eyewall, where the storm does its worst. He thinks about what these winds could do to a human body. Pictures it.
And then the quiet arrives. That eerie, inexplicable pause in the destruction. The rain ceases. The fishing boat falls to the earth, along with an accompanying shower of splintered siding and glass. Kirby guns it.
Chapter 24
Frida tries to hold on to the singleness of her purpose: making it back to the house. But there is so much happening, inside her and all around her. Her mind feels slippery, weak. She crawls across the flooding grass, dragging her limbs through the water that is continuing to rise. All she can do now is move in increments, and so she does. The wind rages above her head, but she stays close to the ground, on her hands and knees, making slow progress through the muck. There is a pause between contractions and she uses it to drag herself the rest of the way to the kitchen door, hauling herself to her feet with the sandbags as support. She loses a boot to the mud, sucked off her foot, and she goes on without it, hauling herself over the sandbags and falling through the door in one fluid motion.