Henry Franks(47)
He clicked on an item at random, scrolling through the windows. Link after link, Google traced his father’s history in Birmingham until the articles stopped.
“Is that you?” Justine asked, her finger resting on the screen.
“Dr. Frank Williams,” he read from the caption beneath her hand, “and his son Henry, 13, at a 10K walk/fundraiser for cancer research.”
“You’re bald,” Justine said.
With sunken eyes, a pale smooth hairless skull, and a defiant smile, thirteen-year-old Henry stared at the camera, holding tight to his father’s hand.
“Cancer?” he said, the word as quiet as a sigh.
“Google ‘Henry Williams,’” Justine said, her grip on his shoulder tightening. “In Birmingham.”
The links made for a far shorter list than that for his father.
Outside, rain patterned the windows. Dark clouds raced across the sky and the wind pushed against the house, banging the shutters that hadn’t been nailed down properly. A crash of thunder shook the room and the lightning slicing open the sky sent crazy shadows behind them.
Henry followed the links to short notices in the Birmingham News about thirteen-year-old Henry Williams: Relapsed Acute Myelogenous Leukemia and stem-cell transplants and countless sessions of chemotherapy as they walked the annual 10K. The Chief Medical Examiner and his dying son. Raising money so that, just maybe, others would live.
From around the island, evacuation sirens cut through the storm as thunder rolled across the sky.
Justine squeezed down on his shoulder, her fingernails digging into his skin through his shirt, but he didn’t feel the pain. “Henry,” she said, her voice almost drowned out by the storm, “Google Victor, Alexandra, and Elizabeth in Birmingham.”
Henry typed and hit enter. Almost three million results. On the third page, beneath the glowing blue letters, Dr. Frank Williams was also listed. Henry clicked one more link, the page loading as thunder ripped through the house and the power died, leaving them in blackness.
The transformer shot sparks into the sky with an explosive roar and the streetlights went dark. William tried his high beams but they didn’t penetrate very far into the pounding rain. The yellow line in the middle of the road was between his tires as he drove, fighting his way home. Through the storm, he could hear the sirens blaring their evacuation warnings, the sound mixing with the wind until it disappeared.
The car stalled as he pulled into Harrison Pointe, water flooding the engine. William turned the key, pounding his hand on the dashboard until the car roared back to life.
NOAA Alert: Hurricane Erika Potential Category 5; 150 Miles Southeast of Savannah, GA
Miami, FL—August 28, 2009, 7:13 PM: At 7 p.m. EDT, the National Hurricane Center is reporting that the center of Hurricane Erika is located about 150 miles southeast of Savannah, GA.
Erika is moving toward the west near 15 mph and this motion is expected to continue tonight and Saturday. On the projected path, the eye of Erika is expected to make landfall along the northern coast of Florida or the southern coast of Georgia late tonight.
Maximum sustained winds are near 150 mph with higher gusts. Erika is a potentially catastrophic Category 5 hurricane with some weakening in strength expected prior to landfall.
Hurricane force winds extend outward up to 50 miles from the center with tropical storm force winds for an additional 100 miles.
twenty seven
“We need to leave,” Justine said, but she made no move to stand up.
The hissing of the wind came alive in the dark. Henry slid out of his chair and crawled beneath the desk to unplug the laptop from the docking station. Sitting on the floor, he tugged Justine’s hand to pull her down next to him.
“This isn’t good, Henry.”
“I know.”
The last page to load glowed on his laptop, running off the battery. “Without power there’s no Internet,” he said. “So, this is it.”
His voice barely carried over the rain and wind, and the evacuation siren blared its ugly warning across the island.
On the verge of panic, William slid the car into the driveway, rolling up onto the grass. He jumped out, not even bothering to close the door as he ran up the steps, slipping in the rain and banging his knee into the wooden porch railing. The key wouldn’t fit in the lock as his hands shook, and he tried to take a deep breath to still his fingers. Up and to the right, he jerked the knob but it didn’t budge. Again, he fought to open the door.
Rain beat against him, and the wind howled in fury as the lock finally released. A branch broke off a tree, the sound echoing in the storm. The crack seemed to be right behind him and William stumbled against the door, pushing it open further. When he turned around to close it, lightning lit up the world. In the corner of his vision, he saw the shadow before anything else, long hair caught by the wind.
William opened the door wider. The rain flooded the floor until, with one more flash of lightning, the shadows were banished. The door broke halfway off its hinges with the blow as he staggered under the weight of his attacker. Long hair flew everywhere as he fell into the house and, with one final spike of lightning, William caught a single glimpse of the pipe right before it landed above his eyes.
The fury of the storm whistled up the stairs from the door, which banged open and closed downstairs. The wind seemed to be coming from all directions at once as Henry and Justine stared at the monitor.