“Sam, are you reading me?”
The sudden burst of the static-filled voice from my two-way radio startled me from the intense concentration I’d fallen into, staring intently through the flat windshield of my Jeep as I navigated along the muddy tract of road. The rain had grown so intense that I had trouble keeping to the center of the lane as I crawled carefully among the palmetto scrub that lined either side of my 4x4.
I pulled gently to a stop in the middle of the empty road and released my white-knuckled grip from the steering wheel, grabbing the handset from its place on my dashboard. The wind and rain assaulted the canvas top of the Jeep relentlessly, making it difficult to hear. I turned up the volume before answering.
“Hey, Jess, this is Sam. The storm’s causing some interference, but I still read you. What’s up?” I replied, massaging the bridge of my nose and resting my eyes for a moment. I was starting to get a tension headache and was looking forward to finishing my assigned area and heading back to the rally point. It had already been a long day and the stress of navigating the torrential rain and slippery conditions was starting to weigh on me.
“What’s your status, Sam? The rest of the team are finished with their routes and are either already back here or en-route,” she said.
I could hear the coloring of concern in her voice. She’d be more at ease if I had my partner with me today, but Paul had left with his family two days ago and there wasn’t anyone else available to fill in for him. I had to argue with the coordinator to even let me go out without one, but in the end, she’d relented, knowing that there were a lot of people who were at risk in the face of the monster of a hurricane that was bearing down on southwest Florida right now.
The official emergency services were all occupied with preparations for the storm and had suspended their evacuation checks yesterday afternoon. Fortunately, over the years, several emergency volunteer groups had formed from the multitude of local off-road clubs and often worked with the authorities for all sorts of tasks, from fundraisers to search-and-rescue operations and everything in between. Over the years, I’d been involved in more than a few of just about all flavors. Today we were making the rounds to the sparse residents of Lonely Key, a small gulf-side barrier island barely a mile across and five miles tip-to-tip, connected to the mainland by a single two-lane bridge.
There were a few small housing communities and a mobile home park on the key, along with a handful of homes built on the largely undeveloped southern portion. It was old Florida – the majority of the homes were stucco covered, pastel villas with carports and jalousie windows, and most of them were occupied by elderly retirees, just enjoying their golden years in the warm sea air.
That also meant that many of them would have difficulties evacuating with any sort of speed, if they were able to at all. We couldn’t just leave them to their fates in the face of a hurricane, especially the strong cat-4 that was rolling towards us at that very moment.
“Yeah, Jess, I’m just finishing up right now,” I said. “Unfortunately, most of the homes down here on the southern end are spread out and only accessible by dirt roads. It’s been slowing my progress.”
There was a moment of silence, and I could tell she was weighing a decision. Finally, she spoke through the static again. “Sam, I think you should abort and just return to the rally point directly. The latest radar shows the storm’s track shifting more towards us and accelerating. It’s moving at 15 knots east-northeast now and is predicted to come right over us. It’s going to be ugly.”
I paused a moment, looking out my rain-sheeted driver’s side window at the roiling bruised sky and then back through the windshield at the narrow and muddy road ahead of me.
“I’ve only got one more house to check on and then I’m done anyway, Jess. I don’t want to take the chance of leaving anyone out here for this thing. Besides, I’ve got nowhere to turn around right here without risking getting stuck on the side of the road,” I replied.
Another long moment of silence before she answered, the conflict of uncertainty coming through clearly despite the weak signal. “Okay, Sam, it’s your call. I don’t like it, but if you can get that last residence checked and get back out of there quickly, I’ll go along with it. Be advised that the State Troopers are holding the bridge open for you, but they won’t wait forever. If you take too long, you’re going to find yourself stranded on the key until after the storm passes.”
“Understood,” I said. “I’ll let you know when I’m on my way back. It shouldn’t be long now.”
“Roger that. Be safe, Sam, and keep in contact.”
“Will-do, Jess. Talk to you soon.” I replaced the handset to it’s clip and took a deep breath, wondering briefly if I’d made the right decision. It was true that the road was narrow, but I was pretty confident I’d be able to turn around and head back now if I really wanted to. The reality was that it was likely this whole area would be under several feet of water in the next twelve hours, between the unrelenting downpour and the impending storm surge. Any house not built on stilts would soon find itself in a very bad way. I tried not to think about what that would mean for the residents, especially if they weren’t especially mobile.
I put the Jeep back in gear and eased on the throttle, not liking the way the mud tires felt as they fought to spin in the slick mire before gradually gaining traction and moving me forward again along the road.
The wind was blowing hard across my path, rocking the heavy 4x4 on its springs and driving the rain against the sheet metal in a deafening cacophony. Still, I kept my momentum and slowly proceeded along the winding road.
After another fifteen minutes, a drive that would normally have taken only two or three on a typical day, the road ended abruptly with a small cul-de-sac turnaround and merged with a crushed shell driveway, a solitary weathered mailbox leaning at a lunatic angle from the force of the gale. I couldn’t read the numbers on the side, but it didn’t really matter; this was the last house on the southern portion of the key.
I turned my wheels onto the drive and breathed a small sigh of relief at the confident feel of traction returning. Another couple minutes of winding travel brought the house into view as I rounded the last bend and cleared the wildly flailing palms and pines and found myself in a broad clearing. Beyond the house, the trees and palmetto scrub ended and I had a full view of the furious waters of the Gulf of Mexico, feeling uncomfortably close and threatening. Normally calm and prosaic, it was anything but right now.
Through the rain, which was now driven almost horizontal by the ferocity of the winds, I could see the huge swells and wind-sheared whitecaps rolling in from the distance. Even here, safe in my Jeep and on solid ground, I couldn’t help but stare in awe at the power of the approaching hurricane as it pushed violent waves further and further up the beach, far beyond the normal water line and dangerously close where I now sat.
I had prayed that I would find the house vacant and be able to immediately begin my retreat, but my hopes fell as I spied the late-model SUV parked neatly beneath the carport of a small, well-kept blue house. I noted with some concern that the roof was already missing swaths of shingles and the screen door of the main entrance lay torn open and flattened against the house, defying the wind as it held tenaciously by one twisted hinge. The carriage lamps on either side of the carport were lit, creating sickly yellow orbs in the dim light of the day.
I shut down the engine and grabbed the microphone again.
“Jess, this is Sam. Do you copy? I’ve reached the last house and I’ll be heading back in a minute.”
I winced as I was answered by a short squawk of static that may or may not have contained remnants of a voice. I tried two more times to reach her, but with the same results. The situation was growing worse by the minute and I knew that my window for escaping the key was rapidly closing. Every bit of my being was screaming at me to turn around now and get off the island, but I couldn’t bring myself to restart the Jeep and leave without at least performing a quick check of the house.
It could absolutely mean the difference between life and death for anyone who may still be inside the house, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to forgive myself if I’d come this far only to end up leaving folks to the fury of the storm because I didn’t take a few minutes to be certain.
With a resigned sigh, I zipped my jacket and pulled the hood up, cinching it tight around my face. I grabbed the door handle and pushed, fighting against the wind as it sought to keep me inside. It felt…alive, as if the storm had a mind of its own with its own motives and didn’t want any interference from me.
A final hard push and I overcame the pressure, swinging the door open far enough to step out into the mad nightmare that the barrier island had become. A sudden gust ripped the door from my hand and slammed it shut, at the same time staggering me back against the 4x4. The howl of the wind was even louder out here as it raged through the underbrush with a terrible and ceaseless hissing that only wavered in intensity but never weakened by much.
It made strange, shrieking sounds as it passed among the trees and scrub brush, unnerving and alien. I squinted against the rain as I looked out across the surrounding sea of uninviting flora, transfixed by the way it moved in waves, forced to the bidding of the approaching storm. The chaotic movement of the wind-driven palmettos and the dim afternoon light tricked the eyes into seeing strange shadows that seemed to flit in and out of existence.
Out here, I could hear the crashing rumble of the surf less than a hundred yards away, taste the salt in the spray that stung my exposed skin painfully. I could feel the vibrations from that angry sea under my feet.
Berating myself for wasting some of the precious time I had left, I leaned into the wind and ran toward the front door of the house. I could see the flicker of a television through the closed blinds of a nearby window. My thoughts went once again to imagine an elderly couple, or perhaps a solitary and frightened widow, huddled within, incapable of doing anything other than hiding as best they could from the fury that was approaching. Perhaps they had planned to evacuate, but were not able to leave before the skies grew dark and angry. Perhaps they had nowhere to go and had resigned themselves to whatever fate the storm chose for them.
I glanced over to the silver SUV in the carport. It looked expensive and comfortable, but it was clearly made for paved streets, not the messy soup that the dirt road had become. Despite the outward appearance, I knew it didn’t have four-wheel drive or tires that were capable of traversing the slick and treacherous road I’d used to arrive here. If they’d waited too long to evacuate and tried to leave after the dirt road had gone to mud, there’s no way they’d have made it ten feet past the foot of their shell drive. The owners would surely have known that, but that didn’t tell me whether they were still here or not.
I turned and pounded the heel of my fist against the door as hard as I could, noting the fresh scarring across the painted surface. The wind had certainly grown fierce and I could only imagine what sort of detritus had been hurled from the surrounding scrub to cause the deep scrapes and scratches in its wooden surface.
I cupped my hands around my mouth and leaned in closer to the door. “Hello! Is anyone inside? I’m here to help you! We have to leave – it’s not safe to stay here!” I shouted, my voice sounding pitifully small against the roaring din that surrounded me.
I waited a moment before pounding again, but could hear no response from within.
I struggled with myself at that moment. By all accounts, my responsibility was done and I needed to get out while I still could. It was possible that the residents had a second vehicle that they had used to evacuate, and had done so without thought to turn the television off before they left.
It was possible that a family member had come to collect them or that they had called a taxi or even left with a neighbor days beforehand.
This was all possible, but I had to be sure.
I grasped the door handle and turned, silently hoping that it would be locked, and cursed under my breath when it turned and the door swung inward. With a quick rush, I entered and closed it behind me, shutting out most of the fury of the storm.
The contrast was jarring. I’d spent the day in a canvas-topped Jeep, assaulted by the ever-intensifying winds and rain, and had grown accustomed to the incredible clamor of the storm.
Now, however, I stood in a neat little living room, decorated in the stereotypical tropical style found in just about every beach-side motel in the Sunshine State. The television was on, the volume sounding far too loud over the semi-muted sounds of the storm outside. The familiar face of the local meteorologist stood before the green-screened computer map of the storm, which was now teasing close to a category-5 status. The images were animated and choppy as they showed the inexorable approach of the rotating mass over the last twelve hours. The highlighted track of the hurricane had indeed changed, as Jess had told me, and instead of tracking up the coast towards the panhandle, it was predicted to make a right-hand turn at the bay inlet and was marching right towards us.
This was going to be bad.
“Hello?” I said loudly, pulling my eyes away from the television. I had to move – there was no time left for dawdling. I should be ten minutes gone by now.
Hell, I should be an hour gone, sitting back in the warm shelter of the rally point and drinking bad coffee with the rest of the volunteers.
How long would they keep the bridge open for me? It was a draw-bridge, and I knew that in many cases they would raise them during a storm so as not to block the waterway in case it took damage and became inoperable.
I moved from room to empty room as I traversed the house, noting with interest the empty suitcases laid open on a bed in one of the small bedrooms. I couldn’t tell whether they had just been unpacked by an arriving visitor or whether they were laid out in preparation for evacuation, but I didn’t have time to spend worrying over it.
I continued onward, finally finding myself at the rear, standing at the threshold of a large, window-lined Florida room that had once been an open porch before being enclosed. The bamboo blinds had all been drawn up into tidy rolls, providing an unobstructed view through the waist-to-ceiling windows. It was unlike anything I’d seen before - a front-row seat out over the raging gulf waters and into the heart of the coming hurricane. The churning waters were startlingly close from this vantage point – no more than thirty yards from where I stood.
The walls and roof groaned with the onslaught of the wind, and I was momentarily transfixed by the incredible display of nature’s fury playing out before me.
In the distance, I heard the sharp report of what sounded like a gunshot, and the lights flickered out in the house, the television going silent in the living room. I knew that meant a nearby transformer had blown and it was unlikely power would be restored for several days, perhaps even weeks, depending on how much damage the hurricane would exact across the region.
Things were getting worse by the minute, and these were just the outer bands we were experiencing right now. When the main body of the hurricane made landfall, the situation would deteriorate dangerously.
There were two high-backed rattan chairs out here, one facing outward towards the view of the beach and raging seas, and the other laying over, as if it had been knocked aside, perhaps as the residents raced about to gather a few belongings before evacuating. A couple of empty beer bottles and a pair of binoculars decorated the small round table that sat between them.
The harsh whistle of wind drew my attention to the exterior door to my right, wedged partially open in the swollen wooden frame. Without a thought, I walked over to it and yanked it fully closed, ensuring the latch caught. It was amazing that the wind hadn’t ripped it off the hinges already and it was pure luck that it had been flung closed hard enough to stick in the frame.
Finally satisfied that the house was empty, I chanced one last look out across the wild waters, unnerved by how low the dense cloud cover had grown. It seemed to almost touch the waters, swirling and rotating madly with some inconceivable vengeance. My mind sought to find patterns in the bedlam of the storm and formed imaginary shadows darting in and out of existence within the tumultuous cloud front.
I turned away from the window-lined wall to hurry back to my Jeep and begin my own evacuation, but froze in my steps as my eyes fell on the high-backed chair that still stood upright.
The shock was so sudden and abrupt that I couldn’t understand at first what I was looking at, and when my mind finally comprehended it, I staggered back a step and felt a cold wave wash over me.
The man was dead, of that there was no question. I didn’t need my first aid certification to tell me that much.
He wasn’t elderly, as many of the other residents here were – probably no more than forty-five or fifty years old at the most. He wore a loud tropical shirt and khaki cargo shorts that looked a size too big for his slight frame. His mussed hair was black and streaked with gray, and a five-day growth of stubble shadowed his jaw.
All of these details melted away in an instant, however, swept aside by the fixed expression of abject terror on his face. His eyes were wide, showing the whites all around the lifeless irises and his mouth stretched open, as if frozen in the middle of some unimaginable and now eternal scream of horror.
How long had he been dead, his sightless eyes fixed out across the water and upon the approaching hurricane? It would have been the last thing he’d seen.
I tried to tell myself that he’d likely had a heart attack due to the stress of the situation, that what I was interpreting as an expression of fear was more likely one of the inexorable pain he felt as his heart gave out, now exaggerated by the rictus of death. He had been alone and faced with some of the most violent weather the region had seen in a generation or more, in an isolated home with no means of escape. The mental strain must have been immense, perhaps more than his constitution could handle.
I tried to tell myself all this, but then I noticed the dark scuff marks on the white linoleum floor that marked the space in front of the other chair. A light beige cushion with a haphazard polka-dot pattern lay on the floor nearby, which gave the impression that the chair had been overturned with some force. When I looked closer, though, I saw that the polka-dots, in varying shades of red and maroon, were glistening and wet. I stepped backward a half-step, seeing that similar spots were intermixed with what I had initially assumed were scuff marks on the floor. I now understood that the scuff marks were the result of frenzied footprints smearing the spots of liquid across the smooth surface.
Blood.
It had to be, though I couldn’t see who or what had caused it, which somehow made the scene worse.
My eyes followed the ugly streaks, which led to the exterior door I had just pulled shut. My own footprints were marked there as well, and I suddenly felt sick at the thought that I was tracking someone’s blood across their floor.
“Holy shit. What the hell happened here?” I cursed involuntarily, unconsciously retreating another step, my back contacting the vibrating windows that lined the walls of the room.
With numb fingers, I fumbled in my pocket for my cell phone, eyes still fixed on the seated corpse. The screen lit and I saw with frustration that I had no signal. As if to remind me of my precarious situation, a sudden swell in the ferocity of the storm shook the foundations of the house and shrieked through the eves angrily. I heard a frightful cracking from somewhere over my head as it seemed the entire roof struggled to maintain its hold.
I had to get to my radio.
I had to get out of here. Whatever happened here would need to be handled by the police after the hurricane passed. There was nothing to be done about it now, and I certainly wasn’t the person to deal with it, in any case. This was above my pay grade.
Tearing my eyes away from the body and the bloody streaks, I rushed back into the house and made my way towards the now-darkened foyer, keeping my thoughts focused on my own escape.
I was two steps away from the front door when I heard it, and my blood froze in my veins.
It was one of those rare moments during violent storms when the wind patterns somehow aligned just perfectly and the wind fell still. It didn’t last more than a few breaths before resuming, but in that brief respite, I realized that the distant howling and shrieking that I had attributed to the storm still remained.
It seemed to come from all around the house, tempered somewhat by the incessant drone of the rain and the crashing of the surf, but there, nonetheless. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see an oddly shaped shadow pass fleetingly across the windows of the sunroom at the back of the house, as if someone or something had just moved past in a rush.
I frowned and turned around as the momentary reprieve from the wind’s assault ended, the sounds of the storm returning in full.
“What the hell is that?” I wondered aloud, trying to piece together what I’d seen. I took a tentative step back towards the rear of the house, eyes narrowed at the window-lined view of the Florida room. My ears strained, and I began to discern those wailing cries, layered just below the wild bluster of the wind.
They were haunting – otherworldly, almost. They no longer seemed part of the storm; no longer just another result of the gale as it passed between trees and scrub. I now recognized that they didn’t align with the swell and ebb of it.
No, they were something else. Something in the storm, but apart from it.
A sudden and scrabbling clatter jerked my attention back to the front door, sounding sickeningly like someone frantically trying to claw their way into the house, perhaps seeking shelter.
“Hello?” I called hesitantly. I was tempted to go to one of the nearby windows and peek through the drawn curtains, but something in the back of my mind kept me from it. Some warning voice, quiet and low, cautioning me that I may find something I didn’t want to see.
“Hello?” I said again, louder, finding my voice. “Is there someone out there?”
The frantic scratching ceased momentarily, then resumed with an eager, almost hungry, persistence. There was definitely something out there, and I no longer entertained the possibility that it was someone trying to escape the weather.
I saw the doorknob tremble as whatever assailed the door must have accidentally hit it, and then the clawing sounds fell silent. I saw the knob tremble once more, almost tentatively, and then watched in horror as it began turning in small little bits, as if being manipulated by appendages never meant for such a task.
In an instant, I leapt for the door and threw the deadbolt, abandoning all rational thought as I became certain of only one thing – I did not want whatever was on the other side of that door to open it.
At the sound of the deadbolt being thrown, the doorknob shook violently for a moment before falling silent. A terrible and frenetic clawing and pounding erupted from the door, and I could visibly see the shuddering, even in the dim light.
Then, it fell silent again and, to my horror, I watched as an ill-defined shadow swept rapidly behind the curtained window. In an instant, I realized that whatever it was now rushed to round the house, perhaps seeking an alternate entrance.
I remembered how the side door to the sunroom had been only partially closed when I arrived and how I pulled it shut far enough for the latch to engage. I hadn’t thought to lock the door, of course – why would I have?
Now, I forced my feet to motion, slipping across the wet tile floor as I barreled out of the darkened living room, through the small dining room, and out into the window-lined area. I raced for the door as a shadowy figure rounded the corner of the house in an awkward, stumbling gait that was still far faster than it should have been.
Had I been only a few seconds slower, I would never have made it. However, I reached the door and threw the bolt just as the thing emerged fully from the blurred obscurity of the downpour and halted, separated from me only by a thin pane of glass.
Even now, I have difficulty describing the thing. It had the general shape of a person, but taller and gaunter, with limbs stretched too long for its body and joints that seemed to bend in wrong ways. Its movements almost seemed as though it was still trying to gain control of itself. It twitched and convulsed, even as it stood there, glaring at me with two dull black smudges where its eyes should have lived. Its chest hitched in a quick, unerring tempo of shallow breaths that never sped or slowed the entire time I watched it.
Its flesh was a mottled green and gray pattern, in some places loose and hanging like ill-fitting clothing and in others stretched so tight over its form that I thought it would tear and split open. Even as I took note of it, I could see weeping jagged slashes here and there, oozing an amber liquid that looked as if they had done just that.
The drawn-out torso was nearly skeletal and I could count each of the ribs as clearly as if it had no flesh at all. Above, the skin and tendons seemed to all gather together, like the drawstrings of a moldering leather bag, and formed the too-thin neck of the thing. Though the appearance suggested emaciation, I had the overall impression that this was the normal, intended appearance of this horror.
The head was the worst, though, and I know I’ll see that nightmare visage each time I close my eyes, for as long as I still draw breath. It seemed certain that the thing must have been blind – I’ve already mentioned how it had no discernible eyes in its malformed and over-sized skull. Its nose was nothing more than two narrow lesions in the taut surface of its face, raw and open and weeping that same disgusting amber fluid.
Its mouth - oh, dear Jesus, its mouth!
It was more of a torn and ragged gash that stretched too far from one side of its skull to the other, splitting its face in half. Where those jaws came together, multitudes of ill-fitting needle-like teeth, gleaming an ebony sheen in the heavy rain, protruded at random angles, a thing conceived in the midst of a fever-dream filled with horrors from the pit.
As I stood there, paralyzed with fear, the thing leaned closer to the window of the door, tilting its head almost quizzically, as if trying to figure out what this invisible barrier was that separated us. As it moved, its jaw opened and closed minutely, rhythmically in small spasms of uncontrolled movement. At one point, the jaws gaped wide and then snapped shut with such abruptness and force that I could hear them with startling clarity through the door and above the howl of the wind, sounding as if someone had taken two heavy sticks and clapped them together sharply. I had no doubt of what might happen to me if I found myself between those jaws.
My eyes took it all in, as much as I wanted to close them tight to this abomination before me. They saw the abbreviated webbing between the clawed four-fingered hands, the small cluster of barnacles just below the rib cage, the stringy remnants of sea grass caught on the spiny growths protruding from the back of the thing’s limbs.
This creature had come from the depths, I thought with a sudden surety. Those inky black places far below the surface of the water, where sunlight held no sway and hidden away from the world of man. It seemed impossible, a foul aberration that should not exist, yet which stood in front of me right now.
A predator, there was no doubt.
I couldn’t help but stare at the thing, though in truth I was fighting to keep my wits about me, grasping for those last vestiges of sanity that were threatening to flee.
We stood there a long moment, me not daring to move a muscle for fear of drawing its attention, and it trying to discern where its prey had vanished. I felt it knew I was still there, even as I was growing more certain it could not see me directly.
The wind gusted again, and from somewhere nearby came the distinctive crack and low-pitched crashing of a tree finally surrendering to the unceasing assault. Drawn by the foreign sound, the creature before me whipped its head around in the direction of the noise and blurred into motion, disappearing into the heavy rain before I even realized what was happening.
In an instant, I made my decision, turning and sprinting as fast as I could towards the front of the house, bursting through the door and onto the shell drive, to my waiting Jeep, my salvation.
To my right, off amongst the palmetto scrub, I saw of a hint of motion, something terrible rushing in my direction. Then, to my horror, I saw another, rising like a decaying phantom from atop the house, and the crashing of frantic movement somewhere off to my left spurred me onward, crashing into the side of my Jeep painfully before wrenching the door open and throwing myself inside.
How many were there? How many could exist?
Without a moment’s hesitation, I turned the key in the ignition and threw the Jeep into gear, tires spinning harshly as I lurched forward, leaving the isolated house behind me. I sped down the long driveway as quickly as I was able, absently drawing my seat belt across my chest and not daring to check my mirrors to see if I was being pursued.
All I needed to do was to get back to the main road and I could escape this island. It was only a couple of miles to the bridge, which I prayed would still be accessible. I knew that a half-mile of muddy and slick dirt road separated me from the nearest pavement, though, which would make my progress agonizingly slow.
I kept my speed as high as I dared along the shell drive, navigating the curves carefully as I felt the big off-road tires fight to maintain traction. Water sprayed from either side of the Jeep as the levels grew, at times making it difficult to even see where the driveway was.
A burst of static erupted from the radio speakers, and I could hear the distorted tones of Jess’ voice riding just under the interference. I couldn’t understand the words, but the anxious tone was unmistakable.
Keeping my eyes strained upon the path ahead, my windshield wipers almost ineffectual against the fury of the rain, I fumbled with my right hand for the handset. I needed to let someone know what was going on. I needed to make sure they knew I was coming, that they needed to keep the bridge open just a little while longer.
My fingers touched the handset just as my tires found a sharp dip in the drive, jouncing me violently and throwing the microphone to the floor. I cursed, fighting to keep the Jeep straight on the almost invisible path, and then reached blindly at my feet to find the radio handset.
The speakers screeched again as Jess tried to reach me. I still couldn’t understand what she was saying, but she sounded almost frantic now. There were sentences there – she was trying to tell me something and the urgency of her message was unmistakable, even as the content was unintelligible. I pounded the steering wheel in frustration and continued my blind search for the handset at my feet. The palmetto scrub on either side blurred past, now only visible through the wind-blown rain as blotches of muted greens.
If I hadn’t been so distracted, I would have remembered how the shell drive ended abruptly around a curve, meeting the treacherous mire of the flooded dirt road. I would have been prepared for the transition. I’ve spent countless hours traversing even worse terrain in this Jeep – it was fully equipped to handle it, so long as the driver did his part.
The mistake was mine.
I barreled around a curve at almost forty miles-per-hour, the dense copse of palm trees obscuring the path ahead until it was too late.
I hit the mailbox at full speed, the heavy wooden post snapping off at the ground and disappearing under my steel bumper with a crash. I felt the distinctive loss of traction as my tires sank into the slick and traitorous mud and I lost all control over the 4x4, now at the mercy of my momentum.
The heavy Jeep slid across the small turnaround, fishtailing as it did so. I felt the aggressive tires plow through the muck as I turned sideways, the opposite side of the road racing towards me through the passenger window. I left the road at speed, dropping down the shallow embankment to the swampy palmetto scrub beyond.
I only had an instant to feel the tires find sudden purchase in the marshy ground before the Jeep tipped and my world went black.
*
I’m not sure how long I was out – it couldn’t have been too long, I was pretty sure. The Jeep rested on its tires, but the windshield was smashed, the steel frame crumpled in towards me threateningly. The engine was silent and the canvas top shredded by the violent foray into the unforgiving Florida vegetation. Groggily, I glanced above me at the roll bar that likely saved my life, bent somewhat to the side but still mostly whole. The seat belt, which I had instinctively fastened as I began my flight, was locked painfully across my chest and hips, the latch stubbornly refusing to release as I fought with the button.
My head hurt, and when I wiped a hand across my face to clear my vision of the encroaching rainwater, it came away frighteningly crimson. I tried the ignition, but the key did nothing when I turned it. Likewise, the radio was dead. The only sounds around me now were those of the wind and the rain in face of the coming hurricane.
And something else, just under the wild din of the tempest.
Something in the storm, but apart from it.
Growing closer.