You have to stop thinking like that, Shannon. Everything will be just fine. Focus on the now. First you need to get out of this water. You need to find a tree whose branches you can—
“Yes!”
There! Straight ahead! My prayers had been answered. There was a tree I hadn't thought about in ages, had forgotten had even existed. The old magnolia – of course! The one I had always used to climb as a little girl, the one in whose top I used to sit for hours on end, watching the secret inner world of the forest.
About time I catch a break!
The magnolia's bottommost branches are just above the line of the water, stretched out towards me as if beckoning me into their protective arms. Come, I can almost hear the tree whispering in my half-delirious state. I was put here for this very purpose, Shannon. To save you. As a little girl, did you ever think you would need me, me who watched over you silently all those years, me who sheltered you when things went wrong with your mother or friends or boys?
Snagging a ride from a passing trunk, I push myself away from the oak I’m wrapped around and shoot towards the magnolia. Hooking an arm around the first branch I reach, I swing a leg up and use it to roll myself up and out of the water. The bag on my back is twisted, one strap around my neck; like a garrote it's digging into my trachea so that I can barely breathe. A small offshoot of the branch I’m hugging is stabbing into the front of my thigh. But these are minor inconveniences compared to my relief at being out of the water, which is so palpable I want to cry.
The flood is still rising though, which means I can’t stay here long either. Wanting nothing more than to do just this, to lie on this branch, close my eyes and sleep forever, I push myself up from my belly and reach blindly above me. Finding the next branch, I pull myself up to it, the flashlight around my wrist swinging so that its beam skips wildly over the churning water below.
I don’t stop at the next branch either. I have no idea how high the water is going to rise and the last thing I want is to relax only to find myself in an even worse predicament later on. So on and up to the next branch, and then the next, and then the next I go. I climb until the branches are so thin I'm not sure they'll support me, though luckily they’re so close together that when I do finally settle in, I’m nestled firmly between two, my legs straddling a third.
I’m facing the tree, my arm wrapped tight around it, my fingers digging into its smooth bark as I hold on for dear life. Up here the wind is voracious, and the magnolia is swaying quite a bit from side to side.
Oh God oh God oh God, I whisper. Please don’t let me die. I’m not ready. There are so many things I still need to do. I haven't even met Kyle yet…
Leaves and sticks, picked up by the storm, are pelting my back. I have my cheek pressed to the trunk of the tree, my eyes firmly shut, one hand holding the hood of my raincoat to my head to protect my face. With every lurch of the tree my stomach jumps too; it’s all I can do to keep down the little food still in it.
“Help!” I cry weakly, knowing it's useless before I even open my mouth. The storm is just too loud; my voice is swallowed the moment it leaves my lips.
And yet, there’s nothing else I can do. I have to try. Any chance I have at survival depends on it, and I’m not yet ready to accept what failure means.
“Help! Help!”
You can’t die yet, Shannon. The love of your life is on his way. Hold on. Just hold on. It won’t be much longer now.
No, it wouldn’t. One way or the other, it was all going to end soon.
14.
Kyle
I’d be lying if I were to say I’m anything other than terrified being out in the storm alone. When I first strike out from the guys, the fear is manageable, but with every impediment I encounter and subsequently overcome, my terror grows. It’s as if for the first time I’m beginning to realize just what being out here could mean.
I could die.
This thought freezes me, though only for a moment. The next is powerful enough to push me right on through the dread that has seized hold of my soul.
You might. But without you, Shannon surely will.
And so, because I know I could never live with myself if that were to happen, I forge ahead, the terror taking backseat to my thoughts of Shannon stranded somewhere out in this mess. No matter the cost, I could not fail her. Even so, my brain is yelling at me every step of the way to go back. This is crazy, it’s telling me as I drive deeper into the storm. By far the craziest thing you’ve ever done.
Aside from not being crushed by a falling branch or capsized by the unrelenting wind, my luck holds in other ways too. Namely, that I don’t come across any other half-drowned refugees to whom I might feel obligated to stop and help. Still, even with this “luck”, it doesn’t take long for me to realize I have no idea where I’m going. With the darkness all around and the storm coming at me from every side, it’s impossible to make out one thing from another.
Thus, for a while I have no choice but to use my compass to keep me guided south. Unfortunately, though not unexpectedly, the third time I pull it out to readjust course, a particularly powerful gust of wind catches it and sends it tumbling into the water, where it disappears before I can move to grab it. As one might have guessed, my flashlight proves useless in probing the murky depths.
The map proves to be even more useless. Within a minute of pulling it out, it’s mush in my hands. With a frustrated sigh, I crumple it up and fling it away, the wind picking it up before it hits the water and pulling it up into the trees whose branches are now not so far overhead.
One arm slung around an oak about half a foot in diameter to hold myself and the boat in place, I peer into the impenetrable darkness, scanning for any sign that I’m heading in the right direction. The wind has whipped the water into a frenzy; I’m bobbing violently up and down, the water in the bottom of the boat, now half a foot deep, splashing against my shins and shooting droplets up into my face.
There’s no time. You just need to pick a direction. Shannon’s waiting.
But how do I know which way to go? I don’t have a map; I don’t have a compass. How am I supposed to find her?
I guess now’s a good time to start praying…
Taking a deep, steeling breath, I let go of the tree and rev the motor. The boat skips forward, the hull crying out as it scrapes over some submerged thing impossible to see. For a moment I think I’m about to tear a hole in the only hope I have left, but then I’m past the branch and moving free and clear again, the ring of the metal in my ears overridden by a vicious clap of thunder.
I move more cautiously after this, eyes straining for anything I either might want to avoid or investigate, ears straining for any sound that might indicate human life hiding in the darkness. At first, what I’m looking for is a trailer, the trailer that I can picture in near full detail thanks to the thousand and one photos I’ve seen of it. Whitewashed walls, grey roof, unpainted front porch with three steps leading to the screened door.
But then I pass a chimney sticking up out of the water, which makes clear just how deep the floor has grown. It wouldn’t be the trailer I was looking for then. It would be her.
“Shannon! Shannon!” I yell, pulling from deep within my diaphragm in order to project myself over the growl and grumble of the storm. “Shannon! Shannon!”