“Don’t use them now,” I caution. “We have plenty of light in here. Just take one if you need to go in the other room.”
“And don’t flush the toilet without making sure there’s water in the back of the tank,” Sam says.
“Yeah, in fact, whenever you flush, pour more water in the tank afterward,” I counter.
“Thank you,” Susannah says. “Because none of the rest of us have been in a hurricane before.”
“Or lost power on a sunny day,” Rick says, smiling.
“For utterly no reason,” Thomas agrees.
“Okay, okay. I was reminding everyone,” I reply. “Jeeze. Sue me.”
Susannah stands. “On that note, let me be the first to pee.”
Everyone laughs.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Thomas asks.
“No, I have my trusty mag light. If there’s something scary in the bathroom, I’ll handle it.”
“That’s my amazon,” Thomas laughs.
Susannah hefts the mag light, making an exaggerated flexing gesture.
“I think we want to leave when the eye hits,” Karen says.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Sam laughs. “Have you been listening to the storm?”
“The road will be washed out, Karen. And I’d be surprised if there weren’t trees down all up and down the road. You aren’t going anywhere.”
“Settle down, Karen. What’s wrong with you?” Rick is exasperated.
“What’s wrong with me? We haven’t spoken to each other in weeks. We haven’t had sex in months. And now I’m cooped up in here with you and all of your friends.”
“Well, technically we’re your friends, Karen,” Sam says.
She screeches and storms down the hall in the dark, slamming the door of my spare room. Rick looks at us helplessly. Sam hands him a flashlight.
“I’d recommend going after her,” she says.
“I don’t know what good I can do. I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on for weeks.”
Mandy slides down in her chair, waving a beer bottle in Rick’s direction. “Don’t bother, Ricky old boy. Women are crazy. You’ll never understand them.”
“Pretty,” I whisper sidelong to Sam.
Breaking one of my own rules, I open the fridge, reaching for a pound of bacon, a hunk of cheese, and some eggs.
“Oh yeah,” Sam yells. “Bacon and eggs, baby.”
Roxanne joins me in the kitchen. “Want hash browns, too?”
“Totally.”
Grabbing a cutting board and a knife, Roxanne starts dicing potatoes. Sam chops an onion while I crack some eggs into a bowl. Thomas jumps up, offering to fry the bacon. Before I can light the stove, I realize that the sound has died down. Sam looks at me.
“The eye?”
“Yeah. We gotta go.”
“I’ll take over here,” Roxanne says. She lights one of the burners with a match. “Thank God for propane.”
“We’ll be back in a few. We have to take care of that shutter.”
“It will take a while for the potatoes,” she says, smiling. “I’ll wait on the eggs until you get back.”
“Do you need help?” Jackie says, standing.
Sam doesn’t even look at her. “We can handle it.”
“We could use an extra set of hands,” I tell Sam.
“Not hers.”
Thomas steps forward. “I’ll help.”
The three of us head out into the rain. Looking up, I can see a bit of sky through the clouds. Mesmerized for a minute by the swirling clouds, I stop dead. Sam and Thomas stop too, and we all stand there staring at the sky.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Thomas says.
“Amazing and horrifying.” Sam replies, turning to smile at him.
“Come on.”
The yard is littered with branches and leaves. There are several decorative shutters down, but the rest of the storm shutters look good. Sam and Thomas go around to look at the broken shutter while I run through the yard picking up debris and securing it in the shed. Sam jogs back, grabbing a handful of nails.
“We’re just going to secure it for now,” she says. “We can fix it after the storm.”
“Good idea.”
“And you should check out Roxanne’s car,” she calls as she trots away.
Walking around to the other side of the other, I look around the corner. All of the cars are covered with sticks, but Roxanne’s car is smashed under a huge tree limb. It has flattened the roof, broken the windshield, and caved in half of the hood. “Shit.”
Continuing around the house, I spy Sam and Thomas hammering the shutter back together. They have it under control, so I continue patrolling. There’s an awful lot of debris, but the wind is starting to pick up again and I doubt I can get it all cleaned up before the other side of the storm kicks in. Someone’s grill is in my yard. Dragging it along, I decide to shove it under the deck. That should brace it enough to keep it from moving. Kicking it under the deck, I look at the sky again. The little patch of visible sky is gone and the wind is whipping through the trees again. The remaining leaves are starting to drop from the trees. Thomas and Sam meet me at the corner.