When the Storm Comes
It was late but the first wave of thunder was loud enough to see the people of Grace rise from their beds. Lights came on and robes were pulled tight as kids pressed close to windows, their anxious parents beside. They stopped frozen ’cause of the sight in the sky. The cloud was twisting. Hopes of it fading quiet died. Doors were locked and prayers were said. Those with shelters made their way down with packs they’d readied. Some called family, others called the police department.
*
The agents working the Deamer land moved out of Grace as the sky crackled and flashed. A young agent, the same guy Black had spoke to, craned his neck so far back he ended up on his ass. No one laughed ’cause no one could turn from the cloud.
At the end of the Deamer track, standing in a line behind the tape, was Joe and Ava and Tommy and fifteen of their people. A little way up were families of the Briar girls and their friends. And standing alone at the end was Peach Palmer. She paced a while ’cause she couldn’t stand the waiting. And when the deputies turned she slipped under the tape and ran toward the woods and the town beyond.
“Raine?” Tommy said.
“Home. Safe,” Ava said.
They looked over at Grace lit under flashes of fire in the sky.
*
Raine kept the high beams on and her speed down till she got to Lott and then she floored it. She didn’t pay mind to the storm ’cause she didn’t much care if the whole sky fell onto Grace.
She kept to the back roads ’cause she reckoned Hallow Road would be tight with visitors and cameras and cops.
She tried to follow the Red but the tracks didn’t hold a true line so she crossed from Windale to Grace and back, from rattling thunder to easy starlight.
A couple miles up from the spot where Richie Reams’s cock had once washed up she saw a line of police tape reflecting back at her. She parked in the grass and looked out the windshield at the deep tracks in the mud where they’d come and taken the truck away.
There weren’t rain yet but the wind had picked up fast and it whistled around her momma’s truck, rocking it from side to side.
She climbed out and moved slow, her head bowed low and eyes locked on her feet as she walked the woods.
She carried a heavy flashlight and shined it a couple of feet out.
Her throat was sore and her arms were heavy but she kept moving, beyond the cut of the truck beams and into shadow. The wind whipped so loud she couldn’t make out the sound of the Red but she knew it was near.
She came to a spot where black-burned roots and leaves spread wide and she knew that was where the truck had been.
The calm that took her was so sudden and total that she almost smiled, ’cause she couldn’t feel it, not at all. She was close to certain her sister hadn’t been there. She held out her hands wide and she heard nothing but the sweep of tree branches above as they moved together.
The wind rose and died and rose again but when it dropped away to nothing she shined the flashlight out far and drew a sharp breath, ’cause glowing back at her were the light eyes of a hundred Alabama Pinks.
When she was small she’d wondered if they were real, the flowers so rare a lifetime of searching weren’t enough to find them. She reached down and picked one, and she shone her flashlight through the bell and watched the pink glow fall.
And now Summer had one, and Raine thought hard about where she’d seen another. When it came to her she turned and she ran the trail back to the truck.
*
Noah eased the Buick down Lott, the wind slamming it so hard he fought to keep the wheel straight. He’d tried to sleep, but he’d turned and rolled in shallow dreams. He’d woke sweating and thought maybe he was sick. But then his mind had run to Purv, so he’d picked up the telephone and tried calling him but the line was out.
He jammed the brake pedal when a trash can dropped from the sky and landed beside the hood. Then a cop car swerved in front and Black jumped out. Noah watched as he bent low and ran over, then climbed into the Buick.
Noah expected Black to yell but saw nothing but sad in his eyes.
“Where you headed?”
“Purv. I think somethin’s happened, Black. I can’t explain it; I should’ve waited. I usually wait out in his yard and watch the window. And I got that feelin’ tonight. I was so tired . . . but I can’t even sleep ’cause I keep seein’ what happened with the Bird and people reckon I’m brave for what I did but I ain’t. ’Cause brave people don’t cry, Black. You know?”
Noah stared at the cruiser, rocking in the wind, blue and red.
“We found Summer’s ring.”
Noah closed his eyes and breathed out heavy.
“I told Raine. You should go see her. I’ll go to Purv’s place and check on him.”
Noah nodded.
“You get there and leave the Buick at her place and we’ll sort it out in the mornin’. And drive slow, it’s gettin’ worse out there and you got a door missin’.”
Black made to get out.
“Black,” Noah said.
Black turned.
“I was thinkin’, after all this. I know you reckon it was your fault . . . my father. I know that, but at the end, when my momma was sick, she told me to stick by you. She said there weren’t a better man out there.”
Black stared out at the storm.
“I reckon just ’cause people lose their way, don’t mean they can’t find it again.”
Black reached out and gripped Noah’s shoulder tight, and then he turned and ran for the cruiser.
*
Raine followed Samson into the Lumen house. It was dark inside though a lamp burned. Samson was taller than she thought, broader and more like a man.
They stood in the living room and she stared at him and he looked scared. Maybe he’d been crying too. He kept glancing at the window and the sky.
“My daddy wanted me to say sorry for what I did,” Raine said.
“It ain’t nice out, you should be careful.”
“He said I should say sorry to the pastor as well.”
“He’s in the hospital again.”
All the light flickered and died.
She saw the shape of him, the halo of hair.
“I know it’s you,” she said. “The flower. Summer had an Alabama Pink. I only ever seen one other and you got it in a frame on the wall.” She could just make it out, the bold pink. It fit now—Samson was the older man.
“He’s come for me,” he said, eyes on the window like he hadn’t even been listening.
He had the softest voice.
“My daddy should’ve drowned me that day by the Red. Momma stopped him but she was wrong. It didn’t leave me, that dark. It don’t never leave no matter what you do. I see that man on the television. The Bird. I can hate him ’cause he’s bad but then I think of what I did –”
“Are you afraid of dyin’?” Raine said.
Lightning flashed and she saw him for a moment before the shadow stole him away.
“Yes.”
“ ’Cause you’ll burn.”
“Yes.”
Raine swallowed. “Do you know where my sister is?”
“Yes.”
*
Black stared up at the house, then up at the cloud, which was twisting and flashing mad. There was light burning over at the neighbor’s place, people pressed at the windows and watched him liked he’d come to save them.
He got out to wind that howled all around like crying wolves. The sheet flashes were forking now, he’d seen strikes on the drive. Trix had radioed, told him Peach had made it to the station and that gave him focus on a night when death was strolling the streets.
He bent so low he could almost taste the dirt as he ran up and onto the porch.
He banged the door with a tight fist and kept on till he was sure no one was coming, then he started kicking. It split easy at the cracks that’d been filled and filled again. He crouched low and entered through the torn hole.
He turned the light on and saw tired bare carpet and yellow paper on the walls.
“Purv,” he called. “Ray.”
He drew his gun, trained it out, and moved into the living room. There was a couple sofas that didn’t match nothing and a mirror with a jagged crack down the edge. “Purv, you all right?”
He moved into the kitchen. It was old oak and clean. There was a painting on the wall, a cheap print of a southern scene, a farmer and a horse and a pitchfork.
“Caroline,” he called.
There were flashes in the yard, then deep thunder. The rain would come.
The lights cut.
He climbed the stairs slow, kept the gun up ’cause he got that same feeling that Noah had.
The doors around were shut.
He opened one, saw it was the spare bed so tried the next. And then he saw him, Purv, his body small and twisted and laying beneath the window.
“Hell, Purv,” he said. And he kneeled and turned him over as the sky flashed and he saw Purv’s face so white. “Hell, Purv. Jesus.”
He took out a handkerchief and gently wiped Purv’s face ’cause there was blood dried over his eyes, and then Black choked up. He thought of Peach and Della and the Bird and those deep holes they were digging in Hell’s Gate that held such horrors.
He stood and walked across the hallway and opened the last door. He saw Ray Bowdoin lying in the bed in a heavy sleep, an empty bottle of Lawson’s on the pillow and a handgun on the nightstand like he was waiting on trouble. He wondered where Caroline was but reckoned she’d run ’cause she’d done that before.
Black stared at the wicker cross tacked to the wall, and then he raised his gun and he shot Ray Bowdoin in the head.
He took his handkerchief, and he reached for the handgun from the nightstand and placed it loose in the dead man’s hand, and he ran back out to the cruiser and called it in.
The medics arrived. And then Milk got there, and he saw Purv and he saw Purv’s father, and he nodded at Black and Black nodded back.
*
Savannah watched the divorce papers burn black in the fireplace. She crouched close and felt the flames hot on her skin.
She’d heard everything about the bad man in Hell’s Gate, and how he’d taken the church girls from Briar County. She thought of Ava and Joe, and she thought of Raine. But mostly she thought of Summer. Her heart ached with the loss, with all that Summer was and all that she would miss.
Savannah felt it now, because of Summer the doubt was gone, she couldn’t lose anything more. Leaving Bobby was running and she didn’t have anyplace else to go. She would do it, stand by silent for the rest of her life if it meant staying close to him.
She left the house and the storm was loud and wind knocked her back. She wasn’t afraid, she’d lived through worse.
When she reached the church she fell on the stone path and cut her knees and palms. She forced herself to crawl till she reached the heavy door and pushed it open.
The wind echoed high and she called his name but her voice swept to nothing. She looked around and saw the small door open.
She climbed the steps till she was high in the tower and then she heard him.
He knelt on the wood plinth and cried so hard and raw she stood still. His eyes were clenched tight, his body shook and his hands knotted tight in prayer. The sound came in waves, from someplace deep inside him, guttural like he was hurt too bad.
She watched him fall, his head pressed to the wood like he couldn’t hold himself any longer. And then she crossed the beams and he heard her.
He wiped his eyes fast and hard and she dropped to kneel beside him.
“She’s one of the Briar girls, that’s what they’re sayin’.” He said it quiet but desperate.
She felt the pain.
“I saw a lawyer, in Maidenville,” she said.
“I know.”
She closed her eyes.
“I saw the papers.”
“How did you find them?”
“I was lookin’ for Michael’s shoebox.”
“Oh, Bobby.”
The tower lit white as the sky blinked and they heard thunder roar loud.
“Will you leave me?” he said.
She fought back tears.
“My mother left me,” he said.
“I know.”
“Do you know why?”
She cried and shook her head.
“’Cause there weren’t room for me.” Bobby looked up past the clockface and saw the spinning air as the storm cloud fell.
“I wanted to die,” he said.
“I love you. It’s not lost,” she said. “I thought maybe it was but now I see you, I see you kneeling right here. I’ve done things, I’m so sorry. I wanted to feel something. It’s been so long since I felt anything. Tell me you understand, Bobby. Tell me.”
“I understand.”
She moved to face him, her knees pained.
“How do I save you, Bobby? Tell me what to do.”
He shook his head.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. You can find it again, Bobby. You can. I won’t leave you.”
He took her face in his hands. “Summer . . . I can’t lose anyone else. I see it, she made me see it.”
“You haven’t lost me, Bobby. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Everything bad. Anyone close to me, I ruin.”
She shook her head hard. “That’s not true.”
“My path and where it began. Those men and that home.”
She took his hand and held it to her chest. “I’m your home. I am, Bobby.”
He dipped his head and closed his eyes. She pulled him close and kissed his head and held him tight.
*
Raine stood behind Samson on the porch of the Lumen house. Samson was shaking, she could see that, his whole body shaking like he was sick.
“Where is she?”
He turned and looked at her like he’d forgotten he weren’t alone in the world. “The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.”
She looked into his eyes. She didn’t know what was waiting on her, or where he was leading her.
“Is this him comin’ for me?” Samson said, as the sky roared and he crouched and cupped his ears with his pale hands. “Which he, is that what you’re thinkin’, Raine? But you ain’t ’cause you know. I won’t go to heaven.”
“Where’s my sister?”
“I couldn’t do it. What Ray said. I dumped the truck someplace they wouldn’t know about. But not with her inside. Cremation like that, profane, that desecration. I was weak, when Ray came and saw me at the station. He told Black it was just about the money but he held a blade against my throat.”
“We’ll run to the truck.”
He shook his head. “She’s near. I couldn’t move her. I couldn’t do it.”
“What did you do to her?”
“I tried to save a life before it was taken. Redemption, for her and for me.”
Raine swallowed. She had the gun in her bag and she kept her hand on it. She’d kill him, after, not tell Black or her daddy. If Summer was hurt she’d shoot him dead.
“He talks about forgiveness but some things shouldn’t be forgiven or they kill the hopes of many to absolve the few. Does that sound right?”
She stared out across the plains, at the tall crops folding and ripping from the ground and flying into the darkness. Lightning fell and burned the land.
“Take me to my sister,” she said.
“Don’t be afraid, Raine. You’ll keep safe.”
He stared at her, tears in his pink eyes.
He ran then.
She tried to follow but he was fast and clear on his land.
She fell when the blue light dropped from the sky and struck him dead in a flash of fire, like he was damned.
She got to her feet and moved close and saw his body, the white burned black and his eyes locked in eternal fear. And she screamed at him and against the wind drew her gun and threatened him but he’d always been a ghost.
So she spun and looked around ’cause he said Summer was near but there weren’t nothing near.
Then she saw it. Merle’s farmhouse with the caved roof standing ruined.
*
Raine felt it so strong she could barely stand. Wind hurtled in through the window she’d broke. She tried the lights but the power was out. She breathed short and quick. She looked around, blue flashes lighting the farmhouse kitchen.
“Summer,” she called.
She moved through the kitchen slow, jumping as the wind rattled the glass. The smell grew stronger in the hallway. Raine coughed, fighting for breath. She entered the living room; it was grim and dark and she looked up where the roof bowed.
The carpet was wet beneath. She reached out, touching the painted wall, feeling it slick.
Another flash, she saw a picture above the fire, could’ve been a boat but it was lost to the dark.
She stared out as another bolt struck the ground outside and cratered the dirt. And then she heard it, another sound close behind her.
She spun.
There weren’t nothing there.
She stepped back, heard the sound again, this time loud. It was creaking. Her mouth fell open but the scream didn’t make it to her lips before the ground fell from under her.
*
At the dark wall a crowd of hundreds gathered and stared into Grace. Reporters stood in front of cameras trained at the sky, most struck mute by the sight playing out behind them. Rollers from White Mountain had shown, and they watched from their knees certain the end was close, that the Lord had come and the powers of the heavens were shaking.
Joe and Ava and Tommy rode in a truck down Hallow Road as people looked on and wondered what kinda mad it took to see people so keen to meet their end.
*
Raine lay flat and stared up from the flooded basement of the farmhouse. Her shoulder hurt and maybe her ankle was twisted ’cause the pain was so hot she felt sweat running into her eyes. She coughed and choked, trying to find clear air through the dust that smoked up around.
She yelled out for help.
She pushed at the heavy wood on top of her but the pain stole her breath. She could see her bag but couldn’t reach it.
“Summer,” she called.
She ran her fingers along the cement and tried to push and kick but couldn’t do nothing. The water was cold and black and a few inches deep like it’d been flooding in over months. There weren’t calm to be found ’cause the pain was searing, but she closed her eyes tight and she searched for Noah and Purv, and her sister and the photograph, and the glass globe with the falling snowflakes.
She heard the wind and the storm, she heard the roof tear from the farmhouse and felt the first falling rain. The water rose quick and climbed her. She thrashed and she screamed and she fought.
*
Black made it back to the station and he rolled the cruiser into the lot as the rain hit hard on the windshield. He sat awhile and thought of what he had done, and he looked at his hands but there weren’t room for no more blood on them.
When he opened the door he stopped still and let the rain push him down. And then he looked up and he saw her and she ran at him.
“Della,” Peach said, and he nodded and tried to hold her as she dropped to her knees and beat on his chest.
He kneeled with her and smoothed wet hair from her face. “Did you know? Did you know about the baby?”
“I couldn’t let ’em see it,” she said, desperate.
“What?”
“Me in her.”
Black swallowed and nodded and didn’t say all that he could have. He held her tight as the rain washed her tears.
*
The Grace roads turned to rivers. The Red filled and began to spill over.
The rain fell with a weight that left people believing the glass in their windows would shatter and the storm would fight its way into their houses and claim them. They hid in closets, under beds and in basements. They huddled together and closed their eyes. Prayers were spoke loud ’cause maybe God couldn’t hear over the thunder.
The crowd on Hallow Road grew to a thousand as word spread to the towns around. They stood dry; a stark line of rain fell ten feet in front. The winds had eased but the rain fell harder, and the cloud still drenched the land with its shadow.
Merle was the first to notice the break, the thin line of blue moonlight that cut through as the cloud began to crack. He hollered but no one looked ’cause maybe they reckoned he was lit.
Then he grabbed a newsman and pointed.
There were cries.
*
Noah stared through the windshield at moments of clear that swept with the blades. He saw light in the distance and it stretched from the sky to the ground. He didn’t know what it was but he headed toward it ’cause he didn’t know where else to go. The Buick struggled for grip but he kept his foot on the gas.
It was only when he passed the yellow fields and the Kinley house that he realized where he was headed.
The Lumen house.
The light had fallen by the Lumen house.
*
Light flooded the basement bright. The water had risen to Raine’s neck and she lifted her head back, trying to breathe slow. The rain fell relentless and she was so cold nothing hurt no more.
The black water weighed heavy and it shifted the wood enough for her to reach a hand out and grab hold of her bag. She found the gun and raised it high and she fired till the clip was empty.
And then the water rose over her head. She fought hard ’cause she always had, it was what she did, she fought and she struggled and she got no place at all.
It was quiet beneath, light and quiet and she stared around the basement floor with wide eyes. She saw broken wood and cans of food and an old mattress, and papers that floated like water lilies. And then, in the far corner, she saw strands of gold hair fanned and beautiful.
She cried out for her sister till her lungs burned and hope died around her.
Maybe she saw Noah dive down, and maybe she felt his hands on her, but she closed her eyes tight and she asked God to take her.
*
She woke on the bank of the Red. She turned and saw Summer laying beside her.
They were eight years old.
Above they watched a distant star tumble through the night sky. This time Raine remembered what to do.
She turned to Summer and took her in her arms and held her tight as sobs broke her small body, ’cause she knew she was too late for her wish to come true.