Hurricane (34 page)

She pulled herself up, hand over hand, feet kicking out, scrabbling for toeholds, arms burning, she dragged her weight higher in her frantic bid to get away from the car. Her right foot found purchase in chain link, her right hand closed on the top.

She was ten feet in the air, hanging on the top, stomach muscles contracting, pulling dangling legs up and out of the way, when the Land Rover careened into the fence, screeching along its side, sending sparks flying, despite the rain.

The fence shook like a California earthquake. She wrapped a naked leg over the top and flung herself over the fence and onto the airport side. She landed on her side, slapping her right arm on the ground and rolling. She forced her head around and watched the sliding car screech along the fence with its driver fighting the wheel.

The Land Rover mangled the fence and the fence mangled it, but the driver forced the automobile out of the muddy shoulder, away from the fence and back onto the road. Once again he spun the vehicle around, and once again he caught Julie in his headlights.

She pulled herself onto her hands and knees. The driving rain pelted her, stinging with the force of a thousand bees, as she dragged herself to her feet. She put a hand over her face, squinting through the squall, and felt a surge of relief. The fence had held. She was in. The Land Rover was out. But her relief faded when the Land Rover’s tires started to spin again.

She watched as it crashed into the fence. For a second she thought the fence would hold it back, but it folded and seemed to wrap itself around the truck. Even the storm couldn’t muffle the caterwauling sound of metal ripping against metal as the vehicle grated its way into the fence, forcing it to rise out of the ground, scratching and digging into the Land Rover, before it burst apart.

Then it was inside, stampeding toward her, plunging through the rain like a fire breathing dragon, steam hissing from its hood as it chewed up the ground. She rolled to the left and was splattered again as the truck roared by. She continued her roll, jumped to her feet, taking off on a dead run. The wind stole her breath and the mud grabbed onto her sandaled feet, sucking away her speed. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw the car sliding and turning. She kept running from it, every stride a struggle, as she pumped her arms, forcing her legs to match their rhythm. The strap on her left sandal gave way and it was lost to the grabbing mud.

I’m gonna make it, she thought, but her breath was coming in wracking heaves. Pain shot from her heels to her heart every time her feet slapped the ground, but she kept running from the car.

The Land Rover’s engine roared in protest as it slid round for another run at her. Her right foot slammed hard on a sharp rock and she went down, losing her other sandal. She slapped her arm against the wet earth and tried to push herself out of the way of the car headed for her. Just a slight change in direction and it would have her and she was powerless to do anything about it.

She stared at the oncoming beast, caught at last, bracing herself for the final blow by digging her teeth into her lower lip, drawing more blood. Thunder cracked the sky again, once, twice, three times in rapid succession. The back window on the driver’s side blew out, the Land Rover went into a spin, shooting mud from its tires as it swerved and sloshed. Then the driver had the car under his power again, but instead of turning back toward Julie, he accelerated away, racing down the runway toward the airport.

She watched till the car drove between two aircraft hangers and was out of sight.

It was over.

She stood, ignoring her pain, and tried to shake off her fear.

And a car came at her through the rain.

“
Shit,” she said, but before she could flee the car spun sideways and slid to a stop. She smiled and exhaled a breath of relief. It was a police car.

The passenger door opened and a voice yelled above the wind, “Get in.” She half ran, half limped to the waiting car. She felt the mud squish between her toes as she made the dash, felt the rain at her back, felt the wind trying to knock her down as she jumped into the car, slamming the door after herself.

“
Thanks,” she said.

“
You’re welcome,” Broxton said. She saw the riot gun, centered in the rack between the driver’s and passenger’s seats. She felt the barrel. It was hot, and she knew who had chased away the metal dragon.

“
I like the hair,” she said.

“
Seatbelt,” he said. She nodded and buckled up.

“
Police car, very strong,” he said. “We’ll be okay.”

“
Where’d you get it?”

“
Stole it,” he said. Then he put the car in gear and started for the hole in the fence. “Hurricane coming,” he said.

“
I think it’s here.” She wiped her muddy hands on her halter top. Then she grabbed onto the safety bar and Broxton plowed the car through the fence and fought it onto the road.

The wind was whipping along the road coming from the airport, so Broxton turned the other way, driving like a mad man on the narrow stretch of land between the lagoon and the sea. Waves were cresting and breaking over the pavement and Broxton was at constant war with the wheel.

“
I can’t keep it on the road any longer,” he said. He was past the narrow strip of road and now there were businesses on each side of the street. He aimed the car toward a row of buildings on the lagoon side of the road, and roared through a driveway, turned right, and raced along a small wharf with both sail and powerboats tied to it.

“
Need protection,” he said.

“
There.” She pointed and he risked a quick look after her pointed finger. “The space between the buildings,” she said. The space between the two buildings was wide enough for the car to fit into, but there was a three foot barrier between them and it.

“
We’ll have to go around,” he said. He downshifted into second, the car bucked, and they flew past a video shop, a liquor store, a small bank and several other businesses, before he was past the building, turning right, through another driveway. He didn’t slow for the locked gate and Julie braced herself as the police car smashed through it.

Back in the wind, he cranked the wheel right again and roared past the front of the businesses, not hitting the brakes until he was almost at the slot between the buildings. Then he pumped the brakes and slipped the car into the slot, stopping inches from the short wall in front.

“
Safe,” he said, shutting off the engine.

“
Really?” she said.

“
Depends on the surge,” he said.

“
What’s that?”

“
The hurricane will push a wall of water in front of it. We’re maybe one or two feet above sea level. Twenty foot surge and we’re screwed, five or six, we’ll be okay.

“
Then we have to get out of here,” she said, but it was too late.

“
Hold on,” he said and the wall of water smashed into the back of the car, slamming it forward into the safety wall in front despite his full pressure on the brakes.

Julie screamed as water flew by, splashing above the windows. He reached over and squeezed her hand. “It’s going to flood us!”

“
No,” he said, as the water drained out of the slot, “We’ll be all right now. If that didn’t push us over the fence and into the lagoon, the winds won’t either.”

“
What do we do?”

“
Wait.”

The joining roofs overhead kept most of the rain out, offering them a front row seat to one of nature’s horror shows. Boats were tossed about the lagoon like toys in a bathtub. Millions of dollars wiped out in minutes.

“
Duck!” he yelled. A deck chair flew, missile like, up from the lagoon, heading straight for their front window. She jammed her eyes closed and dropped, winding up tangled in his arms as the chair hit, shattering the window and turning the view off.

For three hours the car shuddered and shook as the wind funneled rain through the slot. She clung to him the whole time, digging her nails into his arms. And then suddenly, without warning, it was over.

Chapter Nineteen

“
It’s eerie,” Julie said. They were captured by the quiet. “We have to get out of the car. I want to see.” She pulled up the door handle and pushed against it. “It’s stuck,” she said. She popped the door with her shoulder, but still it refused to give. “Come on, we have to get out.”

Broxton, tried his door and it opened with no trouble.

“
Hurry,” she said, and he scooted out of the police car and stepped into the clear, crisp quiet. Julie slid across, grabbed onto the steering wheel, and pushed and pulled herself out of the car.

Broxton ran both hands through his hair, starting at the front, stretching his fingers and scratching the back of his neck with his thumbs. He turned away from the lagoon and started toward the street. Julie followed. She wanted to see, and she didn’t want him to get too far away.

Water skimmed along the center of the road, rushing toward the lower ground at the airport. They were circled in gray twilight and the wind was calm, but they could see it off in the distance, a moving black wall of haze, blocking out the sun, turning the day somber, murky and dark. Broxton left the protection of the two buildings and walked into the street.

The businesses on the ocean side of the street, a pizzeria, an ice cream parlor, and a tee shirt shop, were devastated, but still standing. The windows that hadn’t been boarded were blown out. A man stumbled out of the ice cream parlor, dazed, holding on to the door jamb for support. Broxton guessed that he’d just had his business destroyed. He hoped he had insurance. Three other people emerged from the pizza restaurant. An older man and a woman, Italian looking, with a younger woman who looked like them both, their daughter.

Broxton stared at a child’s stroller, smashed flat by a heavy white door that had been torn from a walk-in ice box. He hoped the child was somewhere faraway, someplace safe. Down the street he saw two youths running from an electronics store, one black, one white. Both were carrying portable televisions. Looters. It happened everywhere.

He looked up. Julie stepped alongside, took his hand, and followed his gaze. The thick moving gray-black cloud wall had them surrounded and locked in. It grew from the ground, like Jack’s beanstalk, into the heavens, a swirling, churning, devil’s brew that snapped and sizzled. Julie shivered, but she wasn’t cold.

“
It’s like we’re caught under a giant bowl, like insects, and there’s a huge kid up there, sliding it around, toying with us, before he pulls off our wings,” Broxton said.

“
Brrr.” Julie shivered more and clutched his hand tighter.

“
Are you okay?” he asked.

“
For a while there I didn’t think we were going to make it.” She ran her tongue along her swollen lip and tasted the dried blood.

“
We haven’t yet,” he said, and she shivered still more, because she understood.

“
We have to go through it all again, don’t we?”

“
I think so,” he said and she looked out at the swirling wall of thunderstorms and she knew it was true. Just as surely it was moving away from them, it was moving toward them as well, coming from behind.

“
Look at that,” he said, his voice filled with awe. She hadn’t let go of his hand and she squeezed even tighter, just for a flash. Then she eased off the pressure and followed his gaze.

Several boats had been thrown from the sea and were beached along the road, gaping holes in their sides, masts and rigging bent and broken, radar antennas, life rafts, sails ripped from their decks — sucked up into infinity.

“
Fallen Angel,” Julie gasped, and she tugged at his hand, pulling him back toward the space between the two buildings. He went along with her, holding her hand, the way school kids do that are going steady for the first time. She pulled him past the battered police car to the dock beyond.

Five boats had been tied up there. Two sailboats and three sportfishers. For three hours they had been slamming into each other. Fiberglass sides were holed. The masts on the two sailboats were twisted and bent out of shape. One of the sportfishers was on its side, another was overturned on the shore.

“
Oh, God,” Julie moaned.

The lagoon was rimmed with boats ripped from the water by the storm’s fury and thrown onto the shore. Three hours ago there had been over a thousand boats, anchored, moored, tied down and docked in the safest hurricane hole in the Caribbean. Now, barely any were still floating, and the storm was only half over.

“
She’s gone,” Julie said, and Broxton looked out to where Voyager had been anchored. She was gone, too.

“
They all went down,” he said. Tall masts poked from the shallow lagoon, jutting at every angle. “It reminds me of a forest after a fire,” and the stark truth of his statement made her shudder.

“
We have to find some cover,” he said. The swirling grey eye wall was moving steadily closer. In minutes it would be on them.

“
Where?” Julie said.

“
Inside,” he said, and a quick look told them that the first floor of both buildings offered no hope. They were retail shops with large window displays in front and back, opening on both the road and the lagoon. The storm surge had washed right through, taking out the bay windows and cleaning out the merchandise, like a fire sale in a New York department store.