The overhead light flared and then winked out.
Liz and Joe were on their feet. They turned and helped Alan up.
“We have to leave,” Joe said.
“Alan, your foot,” Liz said.
“Forget it. Joe’s right.”
They moved fast. Alan brought up the rear and tried to ignore the pain in his foot. Each time he tried to push off with the bad foot, the leg wanted to buckle under his weight. The other leg wasn’t much better. He felt a burn where the thing had been pulling him down, and when he brought the leg forward, he felt new pain.
Joe and Liz led the way down the shed hall. Joe stopped at the locked door. He couldn’t turn the handle. Alan’s arm shot between Joe and Liz and he unlocked it. Alan heard a snap from behind them and he turned to see the kitchen lights snuff out. The darkness was following them.
They ran down the long shed. The shed door was banging against the side of the building. The rain was blowing through the opening. Joe and Liz pulled away as Alan limped after. He finally turned the corner and saw his wife pulling open the door of her little BMW.
“Liz—farm truck,” Alan shouted.
She nodded and ran for the big green truck. Joe followed. They piled through the passenger’s door as Alan pulled himself up into the driver’s seat. He gunned the engine as he turned the key. The giant truck roared to life. Liz pressed the button to open the barn door and spun to watch its slow ascent. Joe locked his door.
Alan mashed in the clutch with a foot that felt both numb and on fire. He jerked the shift lever over to reverse and started the truck rolling. The lights in the shed went dark.
“Come on,” Liz said.
The door wasn’t high enough, but Alan popped the clutch anyway. The truck lurched on the dirt floor of the barn and sped towards the opening. The top of the cab clipped the barn door and they burst out into the evening. Rain, wind, and blowing leaves hit the windows from all sides. Alan jerked the front end of the truck around and they paused in the dark. They saw no lights on in the house. Alan flipped on the truck’s headlights and the shadows fled. He jammed the truck into first gear. It bucked and protested as Alan fed it too much gas. Finally, the wheels spun and the truck darted down the drive.
Joe was pressed against his window. Liz looked out the back. Alan followed the path of the headlights and swung them right on the road. Liz had said the road was flooded to the north, but he intended to challenge that assertion.
The windshield wipers slapped back and forth. The high beams showed a foamy brown river cutting through the middle of the road.
“This was just a few inches of water when I came through,” Liz said.
“Well, it’s a washout now,” Alan said.
The truck will never make it. A tank would never make it.
“Can’t we go around, Dad?” Joe asked.
“There is no around. There’s the Broken Bridge Road, and our road,” Alan said.
“We have to try the neighbors then,” Liz said.
Alan put the truck into reverse and pulled away from the flood. As the headlights swept across the side of the road he saw the barricades. The water had taken them downstream. “None of the neighbors had lights on, and I don’t know what we’d find if we went there. Whatever is in our cellar might be in their houses as well.”
“What do we do then? We can’t go home,” Liz said.
“I’ve got an idea,” Alan said.
He didn’t slow as they passed their house. Liz watched the white house go by in the darkness. Down the road, Alan turned on the old forest road that led out back to the pine trees. The truck bounced and whined and tore at the muddy tracks. Joe’s seatbelt held him down. Liz grabbed at the seat and tried to keep herself from banging off the ceiling. Lightning flashed, lighting up the clouds overhead.
The muddy road ended.
“What’s your plan?” Liz asked.
“We hike across the marsh to Bob’s. He’s up the hill from all the flooding. We can borrow his car.”
“What if he’s not home? What if we can’t get there in the dark?”
“I think I can find it,” Alan said. “And even if he’s not home, at least his house isn’t on the path of those things.”
“How do you know?” Liz asked. “What were they?”
“They were… I don’t think we should talk about it,” Alan said. “If we can’t make it to Bob’s house, then we can come back to the truck.”
“Let me see your foot first,” Liz said. He flipped on the interior lights and pulled his foot out from under the dash. “Alan, you can’t walk on that.”
Normally, he’d be inclined to agree. His right leg was bad enough. His jeans were torn and his calf muscle had a cut that spiraled down from his knee down to his ankle. The skin was split and the gash was nearly a half-inch wide. His other foot hurt more. On his left foot, the toes of his shoe were gone. The leather and rubber was severed clean to reveal four naked toes. His big toe was only half there. Just beyond the knuckle, where the nail started, the toe was gone and angry red flesh surrounded the exposed bone. It was a constantly burning fire at the end of his foot.
“We don’t have a choice.”
“Yes we do. We can stay here and ride out the storm. It’s cramped, but it’s dry.”
The interior light dimmed and then came back on.
“We have to go,” Alan said. “They might be coming for us.”
He turned off the interior light and pulled the key. The lights came back on briefly as they exited. When they closed the doors, they were in the dark. It took Alan’s eyes a second to adjust. The rain had slowed, but the wind picked up even stronger. It tossed the trees, and pelted the trio with sticks and leaves. They had a short distance to cover between the rows of pines. Alan dragged his left foot behind him. Joe took the lead. From all their brush clearing over the summer, Joe knew the woods almost as well as Alan.
The clouds above flashed again with lightning. No thunder followed.
Alan focused on the ground, trying to find a clear path. He glanced up frequently to keep tabs on the progress of Joe and Liz. With the next flash, he saw Joe at the end of the pines, waiting near where the stand ended and the snowmobile trail cut through their property. Alan saw Liz pull out her phone and check for signal. She stuffed it back in her pocket.
A gust of wind hit Alan in the back, driving him to his knees. He clawed at the pine needles, pulling himself forward and trying to find his feet again. Liz caught up with Joe and the two hugged each other tight and endured the gale. Alan clenched his teeth against the waves of pain radiating up his legs as he stood. He limped over and joined Liz and Joe.
Behind them, off in the distance in the direction of the truck, they heard a slow creaking pop. It built to a crescendo of snapping limbs as a tree came down. Wind whipped down the row of trees, hitting the family and making them shield their faces from the blowing debris.
Alan pushed them ahead. There was a small bank that led down to the trail. Joe went first. Liz propped herself under Alan’s arm and helped him down the bank. His injured foot seemed to hit every rock and weed down the slope and their descent turned into a barely-controlled fall. When they arrived at the trail, Joe ran ahead. Liz helped Alan take some of the weight off of his bad foot.
The trail ran down the gentle slope of the hill into the marsh. The scrubby weeds along the sides of the trail had lost their leaves and the grass was dried out since the last time Alan had walked the path. A small stream of runoff followed them down the hill. Another tree crashed to ground behind them.