The Hurricane (6 page)

“I guess my mom called you?”

Daniel sat in the front seat of the squad car. He faced the
side window as he spoke to keep his beer breath from puffing over toward the cop.
Zola sat in the back, snapping her phone’s keyboard open and shut, over and
over.

“I’m friends with your dad,” the cop said. “We had calls
from quite a few concerned parents, actually, so I was heading this way
anyhow.”

“You know my dad?” Daniel asked. He somehow doubted that,
unless fingerprinting had been involved.

“Stepdad. Sorry.” The cop glanced over at him. Daniel saw it
in the reflection of the window. “Carlton and I went to school together.”

“Why won’t my phone work?” Zola asked. Daniel turned and saw
her leaning forward, her fingers wrapped around the open window of the
Plexiglas barrier rising up from behind the seat.

“One of the towers lost power, and there’s too much demand—”
The officer glanced back at Zola. “There’s a ton of people trying to make calls
all at once. Don’t worry, they’re working on it.”

“So the storm’s heading this way?”

Daniel peered through the windshield at the dimly lit trees
bending on the sides of the road. Branches and leaves were already scattered
along the shoulder and on the pavement ahead. It looked like any one of the
dozen tropical storms and near-misses he’d seen while growing up in Beaufort.
The city hadn’t had a direct hit since the fifties, hadn’t had a major pass
since Hugo. This was supposed to be just another windy weekend in an unusually
banal hurricane season. Downed trees and lots of rain and excellent surf—

“It looks like it’s heading right for us,” the officer said.
“As soon as I drop you two off, I’m hunkering down with my family. Lots of folk
are trying to evacuate, but it’s too late to do that safely. The interstate is
jammed.”

“Evacuate? I thought Anna was heading for Florida.”

The officer turned on his blinker and swerved into Daniel’s
neighborhood. “This morning, it was looking more like Georgia. Then this low
pressure north of us pulled it more our way. It’s been churning in the Gulf
Stream for half a day and picking up steam. They’re saying it might be a
category three or four when it lands.”

Zola stuck her face by the window in the Plexiglas. “I still
can’t reach anyone,” she said.

Daniel spun around in his seat. “Forget about your phone,”
he said. “Who’re you calling after ten anyway?”

“I wanna make sure Monica got home okay.”

“We’re going to make sure everyone gets home, don’t worry.”
The officer steered into their driveway and hit his siren for half a second,
sending out a high-pitched bleep. Lights came on in the foyer, spilled out
around the front door, and then their mom was down the stoop, her blazer
flapping in the wind.

Daniel popped out the door and walked her way. Zola cried
out at not being able to open the doors. The officer consoled her through the
window as he stepped back to let her out.

“Are you okay?” Daniel’s mom asked. She grabbed his shoulder
and studied his face.

“I’m fine, Mom. It’s not like anything’s happened yet. It’s
just a storm.”

“Have you been drinking?”

Carlton joined them on the stoop. He hurried down to speak
with the officer.

“I had a sip of someone else’s,” Daniel lied. “Just to taste
it.”

“Get in the house,” his mother said sternly.

“Are either of your phones working?” Zola asked as she
stormed up after them.

Their mother shook her head.

“Where’s Hunter?” Daniel asked. He filed inside the house as
his mom waved them along.

“He’s staying at his girlfriend’s. I told him I didn’t want
him driving in this.”

“It’s just a little wind,” Daniel complained. He kicked off
his shoes and plopped onto the sofa as Carlton came back inside, shutting the
door hard against the wind.

“Is that it?” Zola asked.

Daniel followed her wide eyes and looked toward the TV. It
was the weather channel, the word “MUTE” in green letters across the bottom. It
showed a satellite image of Anna overlaid with the standard oblong, concentric
circles of varying colors. A chart on the side gave wind speed. Daniel ignored
all of that. All he saw was the size and shape of the thing. Anna was the size
of Georgia and South Carolina put together. As the time lapse went back twelve
hours and ticked forward, he watched it grow before his very eyes. It went from
a disorganized patch of white with the barest hint of an eye to a killer
buzzsaw with a perfect circle in the center.

“Turn it up,” he said as Zola grabbed the remote.

The experts at the hurricane center rattled off all the
reasons the storm was changing and moving, and some of the excuses for why they
hadn’t seen it coming. They repeated what the officer had said about the Gulf
Stream. They showed similar storms from previous years, even one that crossed
Florida twice, stopping in the Gulf and inexplicably reversing directions.
“These things happen,” they said. “It’s an inexact science.”

When they went back to satellite shots of Anna, her clouds
ticking through the last half day of movement, Daniel could see it deflect
northward, riding the warm and upward flow of that giant mid-ocean river off
the East coast. A meteorologist drew in the lines of a cold front with a
digital marker, showing how it was sucking the storm northward. There was a lot
of talk about Charleston and “another Hugo,” even though the current track
lines had it running right through Beaufort.

“They’re worried it’s gonna brush Charleston,” Zola said.

“But it’s gonna slam into
us
,” Daniel muttered.

“Zola, help me round up the candles.” Their mom hurried off
toward the utility room. Zola dropped the remote and went to the mantle to grab
the fancy ones.

“What can I do?” Daniel asked, not taking his eyes off the
TV.

“I’ve got the tubs filling with water,” Carlton said. How
about you filling some containers with some more. Tupperware, buckets, anything
you can find.”

“For drinking?”

“I’m not drinking out of the bathtub!” Zola yelled from the
dining room. She stuck her head around the corner, a bundle of red candlesticks
in her arms.

“Nobody’s drinking out of the bathtub,” Carlton said. “It’s
for flushing the toilet and whatever else we might need it for. If we lose
power, we won’t have the well pump.”

Daniel followed Carlton into the kitchen and started
rummaging around in the cabinets for pitchers and containers with lids. He
noticed a few flashlights and a ton of loose batteries on the island counter.

“So the worst that can happen is that we lose power for a
while?” He topped up a pitcher with water and set it on the counter. Carlton
fit the lid inside the pitcher and rotated it closed. He slid it to the side
and frowned at Daniel as he began filling the largest Tupperware.

“The worst is that we lose the house or someone gets hurt.”

Daniel saw that he was serious. “Were you here for Hugo?” he
asked. Some things lived in his brain as legend, or historical curiosity. For
him, Hugo was nothing more than before and after pictures in Charleston area
restaurants. It was commemorated lines on the sides of buildings showing how
high the tide got. It was the news clips of boats in trees that they used to scare
people into evacuating, convincing families to get on the interstate and sit
for twelve hours on what should be a two hour jaunt. In his neck of the woods,
Hugo had become the name of the prototypical storm, even though he was sure
there’d never be another like it. It was the bogeyman of meteorology. It lived
in the weather closet, and parents used it to terrify kids.

“I was in Charlotte for Hugo,” Carlton finally said. His
eyes seemed to focus far away, his lips pressed together. When he returned his
attention to Daniel’s face, he must’ve seen the relief there, for Carlton’s
guise hardened further.

“It was still an amazing storm, even that far inland.
Tornados were spun off every which way. You’ve never seen so many trees down or
houses demolished. Nobody had power for days, most for weeks.”

Daniel felt water spill over the lip of the full container.
He sloshed a little more out so it could be handled and passed it to Carlton.
He grabbed the next one as the window over the sink rattled in the wind, absorbing
its fury and shivering with it.

“What do we do next?” Daniel asked. He looked out at the
fluttering leaves and the twisting trees in the back yard. He remembered, as a
kid once, helping his father put plywood over every door and window when Floyd
looked like it might be the next Hugo. It became a category five, the worst
sort of storm, but never made landfall. They had done all that work for
nothing. And now they had done
nothing
in preparation, and already the
wind outside seemed dangerous.

“Now you should go get some sleep. Take a flashlight with
you. Your mom and I will wake you up if it gets bad.”

Daniel handed him the last container and shut off the water.
Carlton squeezed his shoulder. In that instant, and for the first time, Daniel
realized Carlton was his own person. It seemed obvious in retrospect, but the
thought had never hit him before. This man who had stumbled into their lives,
and then their home, had existed
before
he did either of those things.
He had lived somewhere else. He had been through other storms. He had been a
kid just like Daniel. These were alien thoughts.

“Try and get some sleep,” Carlton said.

Daniel patted his stepdad on the arm, even though he felt
like doing more. He was just so used to doing
less
. He grabbed a
flashlight, clicked it on and off to make sure it had juice, then ran off
toward the stairs. He stomped up them, rounded the bannister at the top, and
headed for his room. As he passed his sister’s room, he saw the door had been
propped open with a chair. She was inside, sitting up in her bed, holding her
nonworking phone toward the window and grumbling at it.

Daniel laughed at her as he changed into sleep pants and a
clean t-shirt. He placed the flashlight on his side table, turned off the
light, and rolled over to gaze out the darkened window. Outside, shadows
shivered. Trees waved their arms like ghouls, and leaves threw themselves flat
against the glass, peeked inside for a moment, then raced off to some hurried
elsewhere.

Daniel woke to a flashlight shining in his face. At first,
he thought it was the cops. He was back at the party. Had he passed out drunk?
He was dreaming of being naked at a party with his entire class there, even his
parents. Everyone was laughing. Was he being arrested for being naked in public?

“Daniel, I need you to get up.”

“Huh?”

He sat up and rubbed his face. He was home. Why was he
getting up? Wasn’t it a weekend? Was it Monday already?

“Daniel, honey, get some clothes on and come downstairs.”

Daniel saw flashlights dance through the hallway outside. He
could hear Carlton and Zola conversing. He reached over and twisted the knob on
his lamp. It clicked and spun, doing nothing.

“The power’s out,” his mom said. She pressed a flashlight
into his palm before he could begin to think of groping for it. “Put on some
pants and some socks and shoes. And bring a pillow.”

With that, his silhouette of a mom took her cone of light
out of the room. Daniel could hear her rummaging in the upstairs bathroom while
he tugged on a pair of jeans. He grabbed socks, slid them on, his head still
groggy as he reached for his shoes.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“It’s two o’clock.”

“Only two?” He’d only been in bed for a couple of hours. He
slid a shoe on. Whistling sounds coincided with vibrations throughout the house.
He could hear air forcing its way through the tiny gaps around his window.
Studs in the walls creaked as the upper floor seemed to move a little. Daniel
grabbed his flashlight and raced out of the room, then remembered his pillow.
He went back, grabbed it and his comforter, and ran downstairs, trailing the
blanket behind.

“Zola?” He waved his light over the living room, but nobody
was there. Pillows and a blanket were scrunched up on the sofa, the remote
lying on top. It was where his mom and Carlton had played sentry while they
slept.

“In the bathroom!”

Daniel walked through to the kitchen and shined his light
down the hallway. The bathroom door was open.

“Are you using it?”

“Don’t be gross! Carlton’s in here.”

Daniel went down the hallway, confused. A lambent glow
spilled out of the bathroom. He peeked inside and saw candles on the counter.
His sister was scrunched up on the tile, between the tub and the wall, a pillow
behind her head. She looked upset at having been awakened.

“Are we supposed to all fit in here?” He stepped over
Carlton legs and sat down beside his sister. She reached for his comforter and
spread it out over her knees.

“This is so stupid,” she said.

“It’s in the center of the house,” Carlton explained. “No
windows, and the walls are close together. It’s this or sitting in the pantry
and hoping the canned goods don’t jump off the shelves.”

“Why couldn’t we just sleep through the whole thing?” Daniel
asked. He flicked off his flashlight to save the battery as their mom squeezed
into the bathroom. She unloaded an armful of their toiletries by the sink, then
sank down with her back to the cabinet door.

“Everyone okay?” she asked.

“Fine,” Carlton said. He squeezed her knee. “How’re you?”

“I’m not needing this right now,” their mother said. She
tucked her hair back behind her ear, then pressed both hands against her face.
“I’m so behind at work. I did not need this right now.”

“So Hunter gets to spend the night at Chen’s?”

Carlton threw Daniel a look. “Her parents are there. The
officer who brought you two home said it was best not to be on the road if it
could be helped.”