Her radio was gone, must have come loose as she’d fallen in the water. She still had her phone, but it now appeared drowned out. Something small and dark whipped past her and she turned around to see an array of objects of all shapes and sizes being driven by the wind, each one a potentially lethal weapon—like the one that had nearly killed her. God, Laurie. Focus. She needed shelter before it was too late. Placing her hands over her head to protect her against any other airborne projectiles, she waded on down the street, each step sending shivers of pain through her head and down into the rest of her body.
With the streets engulfed by the storm surge, she now had to navigate purely by the road and shop signs, only the tallest mailboxes in view. The water was slowly consuming everything in its path. It was as if she was the only person left in Galveston, and the island wanted to get rid of her too. It was hard to believe that a couple of days ago she’d run across these same streets, sweating as she’d pounded from one block to the next.
Would there even be a shelter waiting for her? The water was so high that it must have flooded the first floor of the high school. She was sure David and Warren would be OK, but was worried that she’d waited too long to get back. Maybe she should not have gone to find Frank, but then they would never have found the body of Maurice Randall. Although that would be the last thing on the minds of most people, it was hard for her to think of anything else—until her numbed, aching mind fastened on the letter. Again, she considered that she was giving it too much significance, but it felt like a turning point in so many ways. Probabilities were still high that Frank was the killer, but what if he wasn’t? What if something had been missed, something concerning Sadie that had been overlooked in the initial investigation? Frank had pleaded his innocence to begin with, so it could be true. She was grasping at straws, but just thinking about the effect it could have on David was enough to drive her forward. It would still be difficult, if not impossible, for father and son to reconcile, but even the possibility that David could have an active relationship with his dad again filled her with such hope. Now all she had to do was reach some form of safety, where she could share the information and investigate more.
What had to be the full body of the raging storm was visible now, the monster clouds swirling and throwing sheets of rain down onto her as the wind spun her in all directions, sending her staggering off balance every few steps. Approaching 44th Street, her hope of reaching the high school was diminished as she saw a number of motor vehicles making their way toward her. Each had been caught in the surge of water, and were floating like eerie vehicular corpses in the makeshift river. The first, a two-door hatchback, meandered toward her, Laurie not knowing which way to turn as it veered off to her left and drifted down 44th as if it were being guided by an invisible presence. The other two—a red minivan and a black Camry or Honda coupe—peeled off in the other direction like they’d both just been called home.
There didn’t seem to be a sensible place for Laurie to go. She was fighting the artificial tide, each step harder than the next, as the pain raged in her head. At a point where the road narrowed, two more cars passed her by, the second of which cutting close enough to bump against her shoulder as she crouched and braced against the impact. It nearly sucked her underwater in its whirling wake—as it was, Laurie had to sink mostly into the water and use the momentum to kick herself away.
And there she was, swimming now, the absurdity of her situation intensified by the occasional bobbing vehicles providing a shifting obstacle course. Although swimming wasn’t her main form of exercise, her strength was good and her running had given her more stamina than she’d ever had in her life, all of which she was utilizing to its fullest now as she stuck her face into the foul water and stroked and kicked, fighting to establish an every-other-stroke breathing rhythm.
Just when she was feeling more than a match for the current, something traveling in the opposite direction grazed her leg, creating a whirlpool effect that screwed up her cadence. As she treaded water to catch her breath, she caught sight of a dolphin darting away from her down a side street. She almost choked, then realized with a jolt that she’d just lost half a block of progress. She threw herself back into her crawl and reclaimed her rhythm.
The situation both above and beneath the water was now so otherworldly that Laurie began to wonder if the blow to the back of her head had been fatal. The water was a swirling, fetid mess where she could hear her own desperate breathing, but it was fast becoming a refuge from the thrashing devastation above the surface, where nothing behaved in the way it should. The wind spun in unfathomable cross patterns that threatened to lift her into the air and away every time she dared to breach the surface, not to mention the flying objects sizzling just over her head.
Laurie adjusted her system to do all she could to keep her below the maelstrom. Now she took a minimum of six front crawl strokes before she dared to take a breath. She felt like she should be making progress, but more and more it was as if she was treading water, the force of the onrushing tide increasing with every stroke. Something had to change. Working herself into what passed as an eddy near the road’s edge, she tried to kick herself far enough above the surface to survey her surroundings. Only yards away, she caught sight of the top half of a lamppost wagging wildly in the wind. Surely her weight would stabilize it, and she’d be out of the water and could at least catch her breath and figure out her next move. She made it her goal and launched herself toward it, thrashing the water with her strokes and kicks.
She thought of David and Milly as she battled through the water. She needed to give meaning to both their lives, and her surviving this would be her last hope for that. She felt as if she were flying over the water then, and when she looked up, there was the lamppost only a couple of strokes away. Her heart soared, then immediately froze at the sight of an unmoored SUV hurtling through the water toward her at a frightening velocity.
Laurie had seen wildlife freeze in the glare of headlights before. That was precisely how she felt now as she stopped, her arms and legs acting on their own volition and keeping her afloat, as the SUV made its way toward her. There seemed little point in moving one way or another. Time was limited and the trajectory of the SUV was unpredictable. The movement of the vehicle was almost balletic as it danced through the surge of water toward her. Laurie took one final thought of Milly and David, and whispered a wish to the universe that she would see them again, as the SUV crashed into the lamppost and veered off to the side, missing her by inches.
She wasted no time, battling through the water and grabbing hold of the now damaged lamppost as, behind her, the SUV careered into the first-floor windows of a shop and was sucked within.
The bent lamppost was battered, but after some struggle afforded Laurie an unsteady perch. She managed to sit atop it, balanced precariously on the bent, bobbing metal, which threatened to give way at any second and throw her into the swirling water already nipping at her heels.
The monster hurricane was everywhere. Laurie watched the crazy patterns of the thundering rain with hypnotized horror as her body convulsed. Everywhere she looked there appeared to be something that would kill her, be it the wind, the swirling water, or the flying objects that kept shooting past her. From her new perch, she could see that the high school was on the next corner, less than a hundred yards away, but her strength was gone, and the surge seemed twice as strong as before. It now carried its own terrifying new soundtrack—an ungodly throbbing rumble that chilled her more than the water had. She tried to dig out her phone again, as if miracles could happen, but it hadn’t survived the last few minutes. How I’d love to take one last look through my photos, she thought, as the rumble deepened and its volume swelled.