Storm Force

“Well,” Tyler said. “I really don’t like them. In case there was any confusion.”

A gust of wind slammed the truck and forced it off the road. Kate kept calm and guided the steering rather than fight it. The passenger-side tires dipped down, falling off the road entirely, picking up water and creating a jetstream against the truck’s side that sluiced the window with muddy water. Kate brought the truck back up on to the road through steady effort.

“Damn,” Tyler groaned. He looked pale in the darkness.

“Maybe you should have stayed home,” Kate suggested.

“It’s a little late for that now, isn’t it?” Tyler asked.

“Don’t you throw up in my truck,” Kate warned, trying to lighten the moment.

“Ha, ha,” Tyler said dryly. “I’m not going to throw up. But I can’t guarantee that the seats are going to stay dry.”

Despite the tension of the moment, Kate laughed. Tyler joined her, but it sounded strained. “I appreciate you coming along,” she said a moment later.

He shrugged, like it was no big deal. “There’s nothin’ on television, and Dad has a fit when I use the generator to run the X-Box. I mean, what the hell else can you do when it gets like this?”

“What’s your dad doing?”

“Watchin’ the weather. Like all the old guys do. Keeps wanderin’ out to the front porch, standin’ there nursin’ a cup of coffee an’ a cigarette, shakin’ his head, an’ talkin’ about the big ones he’s seen in the past an’ how this ain’t gonna compare to them. Like all that’s gonna do something toward preventin’ what we got goin’ on here now.”

Another lightning strike hit a dwarf cypress tree ahead and on the left. For a moment, the tree’s crown ignited in flames and sparks, and the Spanish moss stood out stark and mysterious. The flames blazed for a moment, then the tree fell over into the deep slough on that side of the road and extinguished in the black, running water that cascaded deeper into Big Cypress Swamp.

“Damn,” Tyler sighed. “We’re gonna need a rowboat to get out of here.”

Nearly an hour later, they reached the campsite. The area was primitive, holding only four screened chickees. Tyler had referred to them as “chickees on steroids” because the original designs hadn’t included walls, which these had.

Kate had built the shelters, modeling them on the small, elevated cabins the Seminole people had lived in.

As a little girl, she’d seen them in the Seminole Camping Village on the Big Cypress Reservation near Fort Lauderdale and had fallen in love with them. She’d even built one in back of the house where she now lived. That one was more traditional, without walls and with a rush roof that sometimes leaked. Hannah loved going there for picnics with her mom and to “look for dinosaurs.”

A massive SUV sat under a bald cypress tree. Water and mud were already creeping up the tires. If it didn’t move soon, it was going to get mired where it was. Kate knew she didn’t have the room she needed to haul the men and their sons back to Everglades City. They needed to get moving now, while they still could.

Electric lanterns glowed inside two of the chickees, tearing holes in the darkness and offering shelter from the storm. The hiss of rain sluicing into the earth deafened Kate for the most part, but she still heard the chuckatapop-chuckatapop-chuckatop of the gasoline-powered generator she had there for emergencies.

Water already covered most of the land, several inches deep in places. Kate’s hiking boots kept her feet dry, but mud clumped up on the tread, adding weight. She pulled her poncho tightly around her but knew it was a situation she couldn’t win. No matter what, she was going to get wet tonight.

She pointed Tyler to one of the chickees and she took the other. Climbing up the slightly inclined ladder, Kate knocked on the door. “Mr. Iverson,” she yelled, hoping he could hear her over the rain.

Rock-and-roll music blared from inside the chickee. They were watertight. She’d made certain of that when she’d constructed them, and when she weather-stripped them right before each rainy season. Maintaining the cabins, chickees and campsites was a lot of work, but it was work she felt good about.

She banged on the door again. “Mr. Iverson!”

This time the door opened. Clarence Iverson, the older brother, peered out at her. He wore thick glasses and had ginger-colored hair. He was in his late forties and had the kind of relationship with his two boys that Kate wished she had with Steven and Hannah. It was, she’d reflected a few times since dealing with the brothers over the last three years on their annual guy-trips, the kind of relationship she had with her dad.

“Ms. Garrett,” Iverson greeted. Since the chickee was so low, he had to stay on his hands and knees.

Behind him, two young teenagers sat up in their sleeping bags. There was little room for anything else in the shelter. Luxury was never offered or even mentioned when renting the chickees out. Both boys looked slightly worried.

The gale winds slammed against the chickee, causing it to sway a few inches. Then thunder exploded again and Kate felt it vibrate through the wood beneath her hands.

“You know I’m not one to complain,” Iverson said, “but you’ve really got to do something about these noise levels. I mean, blaring rock-and-roll at this time of night?”

Both teens rolled their eyes and yelled, “Dad!”

Iverson grinned at them. “Told you that you’d get in trouble playing music that loud. Man, your mom’s going to hate it when I have to leave you here in prison.”

The mention of prison reminded Kate of her earlier encounter with the DOC bus. And the fact that the escaped prisoners, except for the dead one, were still in the area.

Despite the situation, Kate grinned. The Iverson brothers were firefighters from St. Louis. They were good men, solid men. Men like her dad. If Kate was still interested in pursuing—or better yet, being pursued by—a man, that was the kind of man she’d want. Unfortunately, all the ones she knew were taken.

And it wasn’t like she was looking. The last thing she needed was a man in her life breaking her stride. Steven and Hannah came first.

“Mr. Iverson,” Kate said, “you’re going to have to leave.”

Iverson looked at her then. Concern etched his face. “The storm?”

Kate nodded. “Hurricane Genevieve. It turned. We’re right in its path.”

Iverson shoved his head out into the rain. The chickee swayed threateningly again. “Looks worse than they were expecting.”