Once Mike is satisfied that all is as it should be and we have everything we need, he pulls his truck from the driveway so that I can back mine in. As Aaron and Tim move the gear from the floorboards of the boat to the lockbox in the bed of my truck, Mike and I connect the boat itself to my hitch.
“Okay, then,” Mike says when we’ve finished. He steps back and gives my truck and his boat one last inspection. “We’re all set. Let’s go find Shannon.”
11.
Shannon
With the sound of Kyle’s voice comes a relief unlike any I’ve ever experienced, and for the thirty seconds or so we talk, not a single worry is able to break through the armor that his words build around me. Now that he’s here, now that he knows you need him, it’s all going to be okay.
Yet the moment the phone cuts out and I’m left by myself once more, all of the terror of my situation comes rushing back tenfold, the stark realization of where I am and what it could mean nearly knocking me sputtering from the couch. For several minutes after the line goes dead I can do nothing but stare at the blank phone screen, hoping against hope that somehow we will magically reconnect. When no miracle occurs, I try calling back, only to be met with a harsh buzz as soon as I’ve finished dialing.
Dammit! Well, at least I had reached him. At least the wheels had been set in motion. Still, it would be at least another four hours before Kyle got here, and that was if he left immediately and there was no traffic and the storm didn’t impede his progress in any way. For all I knew, I would be stuck here until morning.
You won’t make it until morning.
It was true; I wouldn’t. Not if I stayed here all night. Hell, at the rate the water was rising, I wasn’t going to be able to stay much longer than another hour or two. And with the sun fast going down…
Unfolding my legs and sliding them into the water below the cushions, I rise up off the couch. I’m on autopilot now, some deep-seated survival instinct awakened. The water is up to my knees, the current no longer a feather tickling me but a handful of hands pulling at my pant legs.
I splash my way over to the kitchen, pausing along the way to peer out the back door half-hanging off its hinges. Night has not yet fully fallen, the entire world shrouded in extra-deep shadow. The backyard, once so pristine and perfect, is unrecognizable with a lake now overlaid atop it and the once-glorious oak tree sprawled out crossways.
Turning away from the elements I’ll soon have to face, I look around the living room at the few paintings and pictures left on the walls. As I take in the house that has been my home for as long as I can remember—we’d moved here nearly thirty years ago after my father had left, when I’d been no more than a babe)—a heavy woe fills me, my soul seeming to sink deeper into the water.
It’s like saying goodbye to a loved one who’s not yet dead but is already gone.
It was eerily similar, in fact, to those last moments I had spent at mother’s bedside. Only now even my memories of my mother were being taken from me. With this thought comes fresh tears that run down my cheeks and drip off my chin into the water swirling around my knees.
It’s okay, Shannon. None of this stuff matters. Only you matter. You’re the one with the memories. You don’t need these things to remember your mom. As long as you’re alive, she’ll live on. Which means you have to save yourself first.
Sniffling, I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “Okay,” I say to the empty trailer. “Then let’s do it. Let’s get ourselves saved.”
Forcing my face into a determined grimace with the idea that my mind will follow, I wade to the island in the center of the kitchen. The water is rising exponentially faster now. In the few minutes I’ce spent saying goodbye to my life, the couch has been all but swallowed by the flood, only the top of its arms and back still visible.
Four hours, the voice of worry whispers. You don’t have four hours. At this rate, you might not even get another twenty min—
“Come on, Shannon,” I growl. “Keep it together.”
Placing my hands flat on the island counter, I hoist myself up, my feet flailing for a moment as the current catches them and nearly sends me tumbling into the murky depths. My soaked jeans seem to weigh a thousand pounds upon my hips. With a grunt, I rip myself free from the water, flipping over onto my back as I fall so that I can pull my knees up to my chest.
Please please please make it stop, I plead to no one as I examine my domain from atop my perch. Aside from the top of the fridge and the cabinets themselves, I’m on the highest surface in the trailer. I’m begging you. I’ll do any—
A clap of thunder sounds so near and with such deafening intensity that it brings the engine of my mind to an abrupt halt.
“Well,” I say with a forced chuckle as outside lightning flashes. “So much for that.”
Only…it appears my prayers have been answered after all. The rain really has lightened. It’s no longer a torrent but a soft, steady hiss. Noticing this, I sit and listen for a while just to be sure.
“Oh, thank god!” I cry when it doesn’t pick back up after a minute. “Thank fucking heavens!”
But my relief is short lived. For no sooner have I given thanks to God for answering my prayers than a second vicious crack of thunder heralds the arrival of yet another downpour more intense than anything that’s come before. So vicious is this new rain that the metal roof lets out a heartrending, pitiful groan beneath the added pressure.
My heart, which for a moment had been fluttering lightly in my chest, drops back down to the pit of my stomach instantly. Hands shaking, I reach for the flashlight at my side. Though it’s still relatively early in the evening, true darkness is now no more than an hour off, if that. Even with the flashlight, already most everything outside of my immediate vicinity has dissolved into a mixture of shadows of varying darkness, the lines denoting one object from the next blurred and impossible to follow.
Squeezing the light tight, I move its beam around the half-submerged kitchen. But I must not be holding it as tightly as I think, for as I turn to glance over my shoulder, I lose my grip on its slick plastic casing and off it goes tumbling into the water. I don’t even have time to reach for it before it sinks out of sight in the swirling brown water.
Naturally, I have to take a minute after this to compose myself. My heart is beating so rapidly it’s like there’s a beehive inside my chest. My eyes clamped shut, I inch one hand across the slick kitchen counter, my fingers searching for one of the spare flashlights I know is nestled in amongst my bags of valuables. It takes me a while, but finally I find one and click it on.
Oh God. I’m not going to make it.
The water is less than six inches from the top of the counter, the current so strong I can feel it now as it swirls around the island, the wood underneath me creaking and cracking and shifting from side to side.
Extracting my cellphone carefully from my pocket, I check the time. Less than an hour since I’d gotten ahold of Kyle. One damn hour. There was no way I was going to last another hour in here, much less four. I had to get out of here. Now.
I dial 911 and hit dial, but just like before, I can’t get through. I try a second time, and then a third, but each try is just another failure. Regardless, again and again I try, flashlight held in one hand like a child might hold a security blanket, phone in a death-grip in the other. I have the beam of the flashlight pointed down at the churning water and am watching twigs and leaves and small, human-made things float by as I listen to the great, yawning silence on the other end of the phone.