“Death. Drowning. Heck, I don’t know. Forget about it. I’m sorry. It’s just the weather, is all. It’s getting me grumpy. Makes my arthritis act up.”
“Mine too. I always wanted to live to be old, and now that I’m here, I wonder why I ever wanted such a thing.”
I nodded in quiet agreement.
He drove around a big bale of wet hay that had rolled out into the road. “What do you think caused it, Teddy?”
I shrugged. “Global warming? Though I heard some scientists on TV saying the ice caps hadn’t melted. Maybe a magnetic shift at the poles? Or a comet…or something like that? I don’t rightly know. We’ve been messing with this planet for too many years now. Could be that old Mother Nature has finally decided to fight back.”
“Yeah, but the good book says that He promised not to do it again, and God would never go back on His word.”
Thunder crashed in the skies overhead and the rain pelted the roof of the cab like thrown stones. The wind hammered into the side of the truck, forcing Carl to swerve.
“Well,” I said, “maybe the Lord got tired of us breaking our promises to Him, so He decided to break one of his own.”
Carl whistled, a low and mournful sound. “Rose sure wouldn’t stand to hear you talk like that. She’d have a fit.”
“Rose isn’t here, and to be honest, I’m glad she’s not. Breaks my heart to say that, but it would break my heart even more to watch her suffer through this—this mess.”
“Can I ask you something, Teddy?”
“What?”
“Well, you and Rose always knew the Bible better than most, especially when it came to all that prophecy and end-of-the-world stuff. I never understood all that; what with the little horn and the big horn and the lake of fire and the trumpet. But the world wasn’t supposed to end in a flood, was it?”
“No.” I shook my head. “It wasn’t. We were supposed to get a great beast, and I haven’t seen one yet.”
“Well, maybe the beast will be along before this is all over.”
“That’s not even funny, Carl.”
We continued on down the road, and I saw something out of the corner of my eye—or rather, I didn’t see it. I told Carl to stop.
“What is it?” He put the truck in park.
“Steve Porter’s hunting cabin.”
Carl wiped condensation from the window. “I don’t see it.”
“That’s right.”
He tilted his head. “What’s right?”
“You don’t see it.”
“Teddy, are we doing an Abbott and Costello routine here, or what?”
“No.” I pointed to the empty, muddy field. “You don’t see Steve’s cabin because it’s not there any longer.”
Carl scratched his balding head. “But that’s the spot where it used to be. What are you saying, Teddy?”
I fought to keep the impatience out of my voice. “I’m saying it ain’t there no more. The cabin is missing.”
Carl’s jaw dropped. “Well, I’ll be…”
We both stared at the vacant field, not sure what to make of it. Steve Porter’s cabin had sat far in off the road, right next to the tree line. It was hard to tell through all the rain, but it looked like there might be a sinkhole there. There was a depression where the cabin had been.
Carl must have noticed the sinkhole, too, because he said, “I reckon it must have collapsed into the ground, same as my place.”
“Could be.” I nodded. “At least we know there was nobody inside. Steve doesn’t use that camp except during deer season. This time of year, he works in Norfolk.”
“They got flooded out pretty quick,” Carl noted. “Guess Steve won’t be coming around to use it this year.”
“No, I don’t reckon he will.”
We continued on our way. Carl didn’t say much, and I figured he was focused on staying on the road. I stared out at the rain and the mist because there was nothing else to look at.
“Here’s what I don’t understand,” I finally said. “With all this rain, you’d think it would do something to the atmosphere.”
“How so?”
“Well, I’m not sure what exactly. But it would seem that a storm this prolonged would affect the oxygen balance or something. Course, I’m not a scientist.”
Carl pumped the brakes, bringing us to a slow, sliding halt in front of Dave and Nancy Simmons’s place. He stared out the driver’s side window.
“Why are we stopping again?” I asked. “Dave and Nancy’s house is still standing.”
“Yes, it is.” Carl squinted through the driver’s side window. “But that’s not what I’m looking at.”
“Well, what are you looking at?”
“I didn’t notice it before when I drove past earlier, but their door’s open.”
“What?”
I looked at the house, and sure enough, the front door was wide open. The screen door hung crooked, swinging back and forth on one hinge and banging into the aluminum siding. Every new gust of wind blew sheets of rain into the living room. Dave’s truck and Nancy’s Explorer both sat in the driveway, buried up to their bumpers in mud. Dave and Nancy were good folks. Dave worked as a corrections officer down at the prison in Roanoke, and Nancy worked part-time at the telemarketing place in White Sulphur Springs. They were a young couple, early thirties and married for about five years. No children. Both of them had been awfully good to Rose and me over the years, and secretly we’d thought of them as our adoptive kids. Dave had helped to shovel snow in the wintertime and Nancy had come over to socialize with Rose at least once a week before she’d died. She’d come to visit me, too, after Rose was gone. They both had.
Last I’d heard from them was when Dave called to check on me about two days before the National Guard showed up. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed them until now.
Carl put the truck in park and left the engine running. The wipers squeaked on the windshield. “You reckon they’re still at home?”
“I doubt it. They probably evacuated just like everybody else. More likely that a strong gust of wind just blew the door open.”
“Dave would have locked that deadbolt tight before they left. I can’t see the wind undoing the lock.”
I considered this. “Then maybe it was looters or someone looking for valuables that got left behind after everybody evacuated.”
Carl nodded. “Or maybe it was Earl.”
“Well, one thing’s for sure.” I reached for the door handle.
“What’s that?”
“We’re not gonna find out by sitting here.” I opened the passenger door and stepped out into the rain. Cold drops pelted my face, blinding me for a moment, until I wiped them away.
Carl grabbed his 30.06 from the rifle rack behind the seat, worked the bolt, made sure it was loaded, and then followed along behind me. I wished I’d brought a gun along, too. Even a handgun would have been comforting. A pistol is primarily a weapon that buys youtime to get back to the rifle you should have been carrying in the first place, but both of them will make a man dead. And both provided comfort in times like this.
Mud had replaced the grass in Dave and Nancy’s front yard. Our boots sunk into the muck, making loud squishing noises. Carl got stuck halfway to the house, and when he tried to pull free, his foot came out of his boot. His sock was dirty and soaked by the time he got his foot back inside.
I crept up the porch, carefully taking the wet steps one at a time so I wouldn’t slip and fall. Last thing I needed right then was a broken hip. I also didn’t want to give away our presence, just in case there actually was somebody still in the house.
Carl clomped along behind me seconds later, shattering the silence I’d worked so hard to maintain. I shot him a dirty look and then peeked inside the home.