The Remnants of Yesterday (13 page)

37

THE STORM BROKE a few minutes after we resumed walking. Huge drops of rain the size of grapes pounded the trees and drenched the earth. The forest canopy gave us some protection, but not much. Mostly it just seemed to collect the water until there was a critical mass, and then dump it on us in a sheet of icy cold wet misery.

Lacking any real means to take our bearings, we decided to make our best guess regarding which direction to go in. I wasn’t sure if we were heading away from, or toward the motel, and the awful creatures that now inhabited it. We were left with little choice but to press on.

“This sucks,” Darwin moaned. “I wish I’d brought a coat.”

“We all do.” A rumble of thunder growled overhead, deep and ominous.

“We’re going to catch our death out here,” Emily said, hugging her arms to her body in a futile attempt to keep out the rain. “The temperature is dropping too.”

“I noticed that.” It had gone from what felt like the mid seventies, a fairly normal summer day in Vermont, to bone chillingly cold in the space of thirty minutes. I was no meteorologist, but it felt like too much of a drop, even in a storm.

“I think the rain is getting worse,” Clara said, bending her head low as she walked to avoid the worst of the moisture.

“At least it will be harder for those creatures to track us.” I stumbled forward, dragging my feet up with every step, my shoes mired in the mud. “I can’t imagine they will be able to follow our scent in this.”

“They can just follow our footprints instead,” Emily replied, pulling her own foot out of the muck.

“I’m trying not to think about that,” I said. “What I’m more worried about right now is finding some shelter until this thing passes. I’m not sure we’re safe out here.”

As if to punctuate my observation, a mighty crack of lightning lit up the sky, followed by a boom and the sound of splintering wood.

“Christ that was close.” Darwin exclaimed.

“It must have hit a tree,” Clara said. “The storm is right over us.”

“I hate lightening.” Emily looked worried.

“It’s fine. The chances of being hit are one in a million.” I soothed her. “Besides, there are plenty of trees around us and lightning always goes to the highest conductor.”

“Is that right?” Emily asked, her face relaxing a little.”

“Actually, no,” Darwin said. “Given a lifespan of at least eighty years the chance of being struck by lighting is about one in twelve thousand.”

“That’s much worse.” The panic was back on Emily’s face.

“Good going slick.” I glared at Darwin. “I guess tact is not your strong suit.”

“How do you even know that?” Clara asked.

“Discovery Channel.”

Another flash lit up the sky, followed by a second crash as the lightning touched down.

“That was much closer.” Now Clara looked concerned.

“Don’t worry about it. We just need to keep on moving forward.” I was drenched, the rain soaking my clothes, which stuck to me with every step. My sodden shoes, now half filled with mud, made walking a misery.

“Easy for you to say,” Emily replied. “You don’t have a–” She never finished the sentence.

Without warning, the air was split by a blinding spear of electricity. It slammed into a nearby tree sending charred splinters flying in all directions.

“Holy crap.” Darwin swiveled away from the blast, stepping in front of Emily to protect her from debris.

I pushed Clara forward just in the nick of time, as a large branch crashed down between us, thumping into the soft earth and sending a spray of mud into the air.

“What in hell?” Clara looked down at the branch, visibly shaken. After a moment of reflection, she glanced up at me. “If you hadn’t pushed me out of the way I would have been dead.”

“Look, the tree is on fire,” Emily said, pointing.

“Why does it seem like everything is out to kill us?” I grumbled. The tree was engulfed in flames despite the downpour. Fire licked at the trunk, which was ripped into two halves by the bolt as if a meat cleaver had separated it. An odor of ozone and soot hung in the air.

“That was too close,” Emily said.

Another crackle of lightning flashed across the sky followed by a rumbling roar of thunder. Somewhere out in the woods came a ripping, rending sound as the powerful bolt went to ground.

“I think that was another tree.” Clara stepped close to me. Her clothes were so wet they clung to her, highlighting every curve. “I’ve never seen a storm like this.”

“Me either.” I put my arm around her, feeling her shiver as I did so. “Let’s push on. We have to find shelter.”

I took a step forward, but before I could take a second one the sky erupted in a deadly light show, streaks of electricity fanning out in all directions at once, then arcing down, smashing through the trees in a cacophony of bursting wood, swiftly followed by a rumble so loud it felt like my eardrums would implode.

38

“THIS WAY.” I PULLED Clara forward as the world collapsed around us. We ran through an onslaught of branches and fire, lightning bolts smacking into the earth one after the other without even the time to tell where one ended and the next began.

It was chaos.

I dodged a falling tree trunk, skidding sideways in the nick of time to avoid being crushed. Behind me, I could hear the others as they followed, each new explosion eliciting a shriek of fear from Emily and a curse from Darwin.

“Look out!” Screamed Clara as the air buzzed with a fork of lightning that hit so close I could feel my hair stand up.

Then the hail came. Golf ball sized chunks of ice that punched into the ground leaving wet muddy holes. They ripped branches, tore through the canopy and devastated the forest floor. One hailstone caught me on the shoulder sending a wave of pain flaring up my arm. I grunted and pressed on, all too aware of the cries of pain as the frozen balls of water bombarded my companions. Only what was left of the woods afforded us any protection at all.

An absurd thought came to me; a verse dredged up from Sunday school years before.

The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth.

The verse from Revelation seemed ridiculous to me back then, old dusty words written by people trying to make sense of things they didn’t understand and could not comprehend. But at this moment, right now, we were living through that very event.

“It’s no good.” Darwin caught up with me and shouted the words over the roar of thunder. “We’re never going to make it out of this.”

“Just don’t stop. No matter what happens, don’t stop.” A tree fell somewhere to my left with a creaking, cracking moan. All around us fires raged, consuming the woodlands.

Then, all at once, as if we passed through some invisible curtain, we emerged from the devastation and destruction and found ourselves back in quiet normality.

I pulled up short and stopped, bewildered. I could still see the fires raging in the woods, still hear the thunder, and the cracks as lightning tore through the trees, but here, in this one spot, we were safe. A Hailstone bounced and hit the ground, rolling toward us and coming to rest in a bright patch of unlikely sun.

“Oh thank God.” Clara leaned over, catching her breath. “We outran it.”

“I’m not sure that we did outrun it. I think it just stopped.” I looked up past the trees, at the ragged wall of angry black clouds stretching upward toward the heavens, and the expanse of deep blue sky that stretched away from it.  

“It’s like the storm can’t come any closer,” Emily said, her eyes fixed on the odd spectacle of the forest burning, the rain still falling, just yards away from us. She voiced what we were all thinking. “Weird.”

“Reminds me of Florida. One minute it’s raining, the next you drive out of it into dry sunshine,” Clara said. “Only so much worse. I’ve never seen a storm this violent.”

“Well I for one don’t care how weird it is,” Darwin replied. “I’m just happy that nothing is trying to kill us, at least for a few minutes.”

39

WE PRESSED ON through the woods, which by now seemed never ending. After a while, the terrain took a sharp turn upward and the going got tougher, especially since we were all dog tired and physically battered. The strange storm, which had seemed to come out of nowhere and end just as abruptly, did not seem to have advanced at all. Soon the rumbling thunder and sharp booms as lightning touched down became ever more distant, until we could no longer hear them at all.

Finally, deciding it was safer to stop than to keep pressing forward in our wet and weakened condition, and coming across a small glade surrounded by dense undergrowth and tall trees, I made a suggestion to the group. “We should stop here until morning.”

“The sun is going down anyway.” Clara glanced up at the sky, which had taken on dusky, pastel blue tones, a sure sign of the approaching sunset as the sun dipped low in the sky. “Plus, I’m not sure I can walk for much longer. I have a blister on my foot that feels like walking over needles every time I take a step.”

“Are you sure we should stop?” Emily looked concerned. “We’ll be awfully vulnerable out in the open like this.”

“I haven’t seen a road, or a building, since we left the motel,” I told her. “The only other choice is to keep walking, and pretty soon it will get dark and that will be impossible.”

“I wish we had a tent.” Darwin dropped his pack on the ground and sat down. He pulled his shoes off and rubbed his feet. “Or at least a sleeping bag.”

“We can clear some space on the ground and pile leaves up so it’s not so hard.”

“And we have blankets,” Clara said. “I was able to stuff a couple into the packs.”

“Good.” I shrugged my pack from my shoulders. ”It’s agreed then, we stay here tonight and press on in the morning. First order of business, let’s build a fire.”

“Are you sure about that?” Darwin stopped rubbing his feet and looked up at me. ”If there are more Crazies out there, or worse, if any of those monster things are roaming around, we might draw them to us.”

“Well, if there are Crazies close enough to see the fire, they will probably find us anyway. Most animals are afraid of fire, they stay away from it, so that should take care of those creatures. Besides, I don’t particularly want to spend the night in pitch blackness.”

“Plus I’m freezing,” Emily said. “If we don’t light a fire we might all catch our deaths. Getting pneumonia out here would not be good.”

“Which leads me to my next suggestion,” I said. “We should get out of these wet clothes as soon as possible.”

“But not before we have a fire going.” Clara looked around. “We should collect wood before it gets too dark to see.”

“Good idea.” I looked forward to getting warm. “Clara and I will gather the fire wood.”

“What about us?” Darwin asked.

Before I could reply, Emily spoke up. “I need to take a look at that wound again and apply more antiseptic.”

“Great.” Darwin looked glum. “I can’t wait.”

40

WE GATHERED WOOD in silence for a while, venturing as far from the clearing as we dared, but making sure never to stray too far. We also kept within eye line of each other. The last thing I wanted was to lose anyone, especially Clara.

Incredibly, it didn’t seem to have rained at all here. The branches and twigs were bone dry, which came as a relief. If they had been wet, we would have been in trouble. I selected several fat limbs, figuring that they would take longer to burn, and left the smaller stuff for Clara. When we each had an armful, we made our way back to the others, deposited our wood, and went to collect more.

I had no idea how much we would need to keep us going through the night, but I did know that I had no intention of letting the fire burn out. If we found ourselves under attack, as seemed to be happening regularly, we would need to be able to see our attackers. Given the surprises of the last few days, who knew what would come at us next. It wouldn’t have surprised me to find a dinosaur charging though the woods at this point.

By the third trip, our pile of wood was fairly large, and I guessed one more would do it. The light was waning fast and we still had set up camp and start the fire. We made our way back out, skirting the perimeter of the clearing and picking up what remained of the ground wood. Whatever we had managed to scavenge would have to suffice.

Returning to the makeshift camp, we found that Darwin, his wound freshly dressed, had taken it upon himself to scoop out a hollow of earth and pile it high with wood, kindling and twigs on the bottom, along with handfuls of dried leaves, and some of the larger chunks above. The newly created fire pit looked every bit as good as anything I’d ever made during my days in the Boy Scouts. I wondered where Darwin had learned to be so outdoorsy.

“Looks good.” I dropped my last armful of wood onto the pile. “We still need to light it though.”

“Shit.” Clara looked disappointed. “I hadn’t thought about that. How are we going to get it going?”

“We could rub two sticks together,” Emily said.

“Does that even work?” Clara replied, the skepticism in her voice clear.

“I don’t know. It does in the movies.”

“No need for that.” Darwin looked pleased with himself. He dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out a lighter. “We have this.”

“You are just full of surprises.” Emily beamed from ear to ear.

“Perk of being a pothead.” He grinned.

I rubbed my hands on my trousers to clear the dirt and bits of bark away. “So what are we waiting for. Light it.”