Page 70 of The Final Storm
The words echo in my head as I trail behind them.
Global Killer. GK. Global Killer.
I think about the storm I saw on the screen when I was looking for Sam. A mass of clouds and death stretching up, barreling toward us with no end. Spinning and growing stronger, angrier.
Where was Sam during the first and second storms? We never talked about it, and he remembers nothing about the third storm. Our days on the island were a respite of peace from all that, and I thought we left it behind.
It’s back, the wind and rain and death, slamming memories to the forefront. Scavenging houses for food and water, that damn email from Dean I printed and threw in the floods after the first storm, BeLew crying themselves to sleep after days on an air mattress after the third.
The men turn a corner, and I rush to catch up, every limb aching and my head throbbing. I stop at the end of the hallway, placing a hand on the wall and rubbing my temples. Their footsteps carry away. “Wait,” I say, but my words sound soft in my ears.
I close my eyes, the sharp pain shooting through them, and hit my knees, my palm dragging down the wall.
“Global killer,” I hear on my right.
The pain releases its hold, and I’m able to breathe. “Ya, I know. Another one,” I grumble.
“What politiccccian made that shhhiit up?” my mother slurs. “Those are jussst little storms. This one’s got the daaaamn Assembly up in arms.”
I open my eyes, and I know I’ve drifted.
I’m in another place.
Another time.
An old rug itches under my knees. It’s the one Lewis bled on when he ran into the wheelbarrow and needed stitches. I run my fingertips over the dark spot I never could get clean, and stand up, ready to face my past.
Chapter 24
Plans
We’reatmysister’shouse. My mother lived here during her last few months. She drank her wine straight from the gallon jug. The doctors said to keep her drinking, her body was too weak to handle the withdrawal.
She’d die a few months before my sister, right before the first big storm. I look at her haggard expression and withdrawn face.
She dies soon. They both do.
“They’re full of sshhhhit,” she yells at the television. “It’s been rainin’ and hailin’ and stormin’ for years. This thing-” She flicks her wrist, almost dropping the bottle. “ssno different.”
Oh, fuck.
The first storm makes its way onto the television and closed captioning scrawls across the bottom of the screen.
Global Killer… seek shelter… Do not attempt to flee… All areas of North America will be affected… looting… two weeks
I turn away, already knowing what it says is half right, half wrong. Everyone fled after. The storm swings left, hitting half the continent with such force and spitting itself out into the other ocean, still spinning, still killing.
No one had seen anything like it, but they would again.
And again.
And again.
“Ma, don’t worry yourself with that,” my sister says. “What can I get you to eat?”
“I gots my breassfast right here,” she slurs, shaking the half-empty bottle in her shaking hand. My sister shrugs and turns, slipping her boots on bare feet.
She doesn’t look well, and I move closer to her, examining her. She’s thin, and I spot the scar on her arm when she slips on her flannel shirt. It hurts to see even now.
