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| >> Static Item >> Short Story >> Thriller/Suspense >> ID #869326 |   |
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Hurricane Faith “Light my fire, come on baby, light my fire…..” The lyrics echoed through open atrium doors while two glasses of escapism ignited the night sky against a backdrop of amber waves. Karen felt the wine-soaked atmosphere wash over her as the perpetual ocean tide rolled in. Ordinarily, her keen senses would notice the particularly rough waves cresting and breaking against the shore. And surely the high winds flattening the tops of the wheat colored rye grass would have been an indication of an impending storm. But on this moonlit night, her defenses were down, manifesting rarely exposed vulnerabilities and faltering faith about her future and the general condition of her life. Three days ago, she crested on an ebb tide…then dived off the cliffs of professional obscurity and resurfaced on the shores of the family’s isolated seaside retreat, allowing herself time to prepare for another round of corporate roulette. Renowned in the financial world, Ms. Karen Copley was hotly pursued by executive headhunters. Three days ago, she turned down her dream job and left town to flee the inevitable coercion of eating humble pie laced with diminished salary offers. Muted telephones magnified her indifference while Jim Morrison’s throaty lyrics beckoned her to wander further from the reality of the moonlit undertow or the wind’s howling cries. “Try to set the night on fire…..” Midnight surrender didn’t come easily that night. Hypnotic ocean breezes danced with the draperies and another glass of Merlot slid between Karen’s lips before she finally shut the doors and turned the stereo off. She swayed toward the white eyelet canopied bed she’d slept in for well over a decade during annual summer visits to the beach. Life was simpler then. Mom and Dad fought the battles for her; she just had to be. Karen was oblivious to high winds pushing through eight foot swells that flooded the sandy ground beneath her. The sun didn’t arrive to prod her eyelids open, so she drifted even further into slumber’s lore. The mantle’s pendulum clock chimed eleven bells with barely a whimper, drowned by the noisy rain hammering surrounding deck planks. A sudden pounding vibrated against the front door. Karen stirred upon hearing the unlikely sound. “What the heck…” she mumbled while her feet tried to find the floor. The sound intensified from the living room entranceway. “Okay, okay……keep your shirt on. I’m coming,” she yelled, slightly annoyed and disoriented. She looked down and realized she’d fallen asleep in yesterday’s clothes, so she smoothed her tee shirt with one hand while arranging her long brown hair behind her back with the other. Her droopy hazel eyes, deceived by the absence of daylight, focused on the noisy intrusion. She cracked open the door to chastise whomever awaited on the other side. Instead he was overcome with strange terror. Four figures stood before her, desperately weather beaten and framed by ominous skies. “Oh, thank God, you‘re here!” she heard, layered with gasps of relief. Karen looked up in shocked dismay. The daytime horizon was consumed by a background of pitch black silhouetting a gray mass resembling nuclear mushroom clouds. Unlikely waves below the porch deck were heard crashing against the cottage’s pylons as sheets of windblown rain sliced through the air like miniature icicles. “Please forgive our intrusion, Miss,” the man's voice wafted toward her. “Our car hit an embankment a few miles up the road and now it’s completely underwater. We've been trying to evacuate since last night, but ran into a bit of bad luck” He stood beside a petite woman anchored by two drenched children, each hidden inside oversized windbreakers. Karen quickly evaluated the situation and flung open the door. “Please…….please come in.” “Oh, thank you. Bless you, dear!” the woman exclaimed as she lead her family inside. “My name is Joe Townsend, and this is my wife, Mary, and our children, Emily and Eric. We were camping at Smuggler’s Cove when the evacuation order came in. We broke down camp and loaded up our van only to discover the engine wouldn’t start. Finally, after three harrying hours of mechanical anxiety, it turned over. But by then, much of the highway was under water. We hit an embankment and have been hiking north for about four miles. Then we noticed this cottage and your car parked on the road and prayed that someone would be here. We are so very grateful for your kindness,” he humbly extended his soaking wet hand upon entering. “Hi, I’m Karen Copley,” she offered, returning his firm handshake. “Let me get you guys some dry towels.” She retrieved an armload of fluffy beach towels from a nearby closet and handed them to Mary. “I’ve been kind of disconnected here. When did this storm crop up?” “Oh, so you don’t know? We’re in the middle of a hurricane…..Hurricane Faith. The coast received evacuation orders around ten o’clock last night when the storm took a sudden turn north.” Karen glanced toward the kitchen and realized the power was out. Ordinarily, she relied on the natural light that bathed the cottage in sun rays from dawn to dusk through wrap-around glass doors and windows. She reached for the phone to discover unwelcome silence instead of the dial tone she had relentlessly avoided. “I’ve got a cell phone!” she exclaimed while searching for her purse. She quickly activated the power on the miniature piece of technology and gasped in disbelief. “What? No service!” “Some of the towers are probably down because of these high winds. I estimate about an hour before the eye of the storm passes over this area. Do you perhaps have a battery-powered radio?” “Yes, just a moment.” Urgency gripped Karen like a contract deadline in Manhattan. She shuffled through the bottom drawer of the darkened kitchen and retrieved a flashlight, portable radio and a handful of assorted batteries. She remembered Dad’s emergency drill practices as a child, although they never had occasion to actually experience one, much less, ride out a hurricane. She handed Joe the radio while inserting fresh batteries in the flashlight. “The southern coast of South Carolina has been completely evacuated as it prepares for Hurricane Faith, now upgraded to a Category 4, with winds in excess of 160 miles per hour…” the radio’s voice proclaimed. “It was a Category 2 last time I heard. I doubt this cottage can sustain a direct hit,” Joe murmured softly, trying to avoid panic. “Faith is expected to make landfall around one pm today south of Winyah Bay…” “This place is south of Winyah Bay,” Karen blurted in disbelief. “Yes, it is,” Joe replied calmly, trying to buffer Karen’s fears. “Dad, are we going to die today?” Eric tearfully trembled. “No son, we‘re not. Not today,” Joe focused his steel gray eyes straight into Eric’s fear-stricken glare and reassured the group. “Karen, are these windows and doors shuttered?” “Yes, Dad closes the place down every winter. He’s always maintained that he can single-handedly batten down the hatches in less than ten minutes. Of course, he always takes a week to do it.” “Well now, that’s encouraging. I’m going to secure the outside. Everyone gather up as many pillows and blankets as possible and find an interior room for us to wait out the storm in. I’ll be back in ten minutes,” Joe announced while managing a half-hearted smile based on Karen’s statement. “Joe?” Mary moaned as she watched him head toward the door. “It’ll be ok honey. I promise.” Joe reassured her before going outside. “He seems to have things under control,” Karen observed. “That’s my Joe…..always cool under pressure. God knows he’s had his share. He’s a veteran of Desert Storm. We keep expecting the reactivation papers to appear at our door. Every day they don‘t is another day my kids get to have their father.” “And you get to keep your husband safe,” Karen added sensing Mary’s devotion. Mary just nodded, trying to deflect attention away from her needs. “Well, I guess we’d better find our spot to wait out the storm. My bedroom is probably the safest. At least it doesn’t have floor to ceiling windows like the rest of the house. Come on….. follow me,” Karen pointed the flashlight down the dark hallway and led them into her quaint doll house bedroom, unchanged since she was in pigtails and braces. “Mom look, this is the kind of bed I’ve been wanting!” Emily gasped in awe at the canopy bed cocooned in white eyelet. “Why don’t you and Eric climb on up and check it out just to make sure you like it,” Karen offered. “Can we?” Emily pleaded while waiting for Mary’s permission. “Sure, if Miss Karen doesn’t mind, I guess it’s ok.” The two eager kids kicked off their soaked sneakers and climbed up unto the fluffy mountain of cottony lace, temporarily distracted from their ordeal. “Mary, if you’ll help me, we can round up more blankets and pillows from the other bedrooms,” Karen offered while leading her down the hall. The children settled quickly into the bed, exhausted from their perilous hike. “So, what do you think our chances are?” Karen whispered, just slightly above the level of pounding rain. “I can’t really say. I guess it will depend on how strong the foundation and roof are and whether or not we take a direct hit.” Mary echoed Joe's calmness, despite her underlying concerns. “This place has never been through a major hurricane. A few tropical storms and a nor’easter perhaps, and of course no one was actually here for any of those. It’s still standing, so I guess it’s pretty strong,” Karen offered as the floors swayed from the strong current pushing against the pylons below. “Whoa, that’s new!” “It seems Faith is going to test us all today,” Mary offered while steadying herself against a side wall. Boom! Bang! Crash! The sound of breaking glass was detected in the distance. “What was that?” Karen jumped from the sudden sound. Mary dashed down the hall to check on the kids. She was instantly relieved to see them both fast asleep beneath a cloud of lace. “It must have been outside.” Karen blurted, before realizing Joe was still securing the shutters. Suddenly, the front door burst open, pushing wind and rain inside with Joe. “It’s coming. We need to get ready...now! Anything that isn’t secured outside is airborne,” Joe exclaimed with heavy breath while forcing the door shut. The sleeve of his windbreaker was ripped at the shoulder. “We’ve got these blankets and pillows. Will they do?” Karen queried, holding an armload of linens. “We need mattresses….and lots of rope. We're going to build a bunker around us.” The floors of the wooden cottage swayed and creaked beneath them, verifying the urgency of the situation. “We’ve got four other beds besides mine. I‘ll get some of Dad‘s sailing rope from the storage room,” Karen winced. They quickly dragged the remaining mattresses into Karen’s bedroom and fashioned wrap-around walls and a ceiling, bound together with rope and tied to the same canopy top that had sheltered her as a child. Inside, the five vulnerable lives braced themselves as the wind rocked the cottage with unpredictable swaying and creaking. Karen’s flashlight provided the only light inside the makeshift padded room. After uncountable minutes of enduring the storm‘s whiplash sounds, the room became uncharacteristically quiet. “Listen,” Karen whispered. “I don’t hear anything,” Mary replied. “Exactly! The storm has stopped. The worst must be over,” Karen's voice offered a glimmer of hope. “Don’t know much about hurricanes, do you?” Joe somberly asked Karen. “What do you mean?” “We’re inside the eye wall now. We need to brace for the tail. That’s what follows the calm. It’s the worst part.” “Calm before the storm?” “They didn’t just make that up,” Joe murmured. Twenty minutes passed like twenty hours. Mary prayed aloud off and on. Joe gave worst case scenario instructions to everyone and Karen silently clung to a canopy post, while her psyche flipped back and forth between childhood and adulthood. The wind’s howl kicked up again and the cottage resumed it’s now familiar swaying and rocking motion, only this time cracking wood could be heard beneath them. With each new sound, the children’s eyes widened, waiting for the adults to signal a reaction of panic. The three adults sat silently, denying fear the chance to enter their small space. The floor rumbled and cracked beneath them as it lost the support of a corner pylon. The bed slid across the room, barely resisting gravity's pull; its inertia slowed only by the thick Berber carpet beneath, finally coming to rest against a mangled inside wall. Another supporting pylon fell beneath the master bedroom and then crashed into another and then another, falling like pick-up sticks from a child’s toy box. The makeshift bunker was repeatedly poked and jabbed at from the outside as if by weather warlords trying to wrestle their way inside. Rushing water could be heard beneath them, suggesting the floor itself had crumbled from the pressure and disappeared completely. The reinforced bed frame held strong, keeping them all inches away from the sinking floor and the cold, unforgiving waves below. Mary embraced Eric tightly while Emily clung to Karen. Joe held them all together with sheer determination. Another fifteen minutes passed and the merciless sounds of wood giving way finally subsided. The hungry winds wailed like a pack of wild wolves searching for prey to devour. The children finally drifted off to sleep, comforted only by the sounds of their father’s voice reassuring everyone’s imminent survival. Another twenty minutes of muffled destruction was audible, conjuring visions of nature’s worst nightmare converging around them. The cottage floor held the unrecognizable bed together between two sections of wedged floorboards like a manger nestling a newborn child in a barnyard menagerie. Finally, Joe muttered the words they had all longed to hear. “The worst is over. The storm has passed.” Sighs of relief filled the small space and replaced well-worn apprehension. “Everyone stay put while I check out the situation.” Joe slowly began to saw a section of rope loose with his pocket knife and peeled away a corner of their weather-beaten bunker to peek outside. “Oh my God!” “What is it, Joe? What do you see?” Mary was afraid to ask, but had to know. Joe gazed a moment longer, stuck his head further outside to verify his suspicions and then pulled back and stared incredulously at them all. “Joe?” “Noah’s Ark comes to mind. And I think we got here via Dorothy’s Kansas farmhouse. “What’s left of the cottage?” Karen somberly asked. “It’s completely beneath us now. We’re floating atop its remains.” Silent gratitude thickened the stale air inside their weather-tight bunker. Tears streamed down Karen’s face as Joe removed the top mattress to allow air and light in. “Copters will be hoovering soon, searching for survivors. We’ll be needing the flashlight to signal the rescue team. Better save the batteries, Karen,” Joe’s steady voice suggested. Karen switched off the light then slowly stood up to view what remained. Her heart sunk at realizing nothing was left. Ceilings and walls were invisible, and except for shreds of memorabilia floating half-sunken around them, only her childhood bed remained in tact. The sky was an unrecognizable shade of pale gray, as if life itself had been sucked from the atmosphere. Karen looked down at the awestruck children. Then she gazed at the young couple, overwhelmed with esteem and admiration for them. At that moment, she knew her reason for being there had nothing to do with retreating from her professional status. The reasons were all sitting before her - alive and grateful for the privilege of breathing. In the blink of an eye her childhood bed had become the main prop in a never ending story that begged to be continued. She did feel like Dorothy waking from a twisted fairy tale that landed on a yellow beached road that was under siege by the wicked weather witch. But the witch was dead and Dorothy and her new friends were all still there. “Thanks, Joe and Mary....... for saving our lives.” "Thank you, Karen. . . .for saving ours," they beamed back.
© Copyright 2004 Celestial (UN: celestial at Writing.Com).
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