Hugh Howey - The Hurricane

Roby rolled his eyes. “Did we get much damage? Dude, we had half our windows blown in. Someone said the gusts got over one-sixty up on the hill behind us. We were in the eye wall for like an hour.” He nodded his head. “What about you guys?”

Daniel shrugged. “Lots of trees down. One big one into the house. But it wasn’t that bad.”

“Sounds like you got lucky, then.”

“I don’t know about that,” Daniel said.

“Hell yeah you did. Didn’t you hear about Jeremy’s house?”

“Jeremy Stevens?”

“Yeah, dumbass.” Roby’s eyes widened. “You remember the party, right? The night of the storm?”

“I guess,” Daniel said. Some of that night drifted back to him. He remembered a ride in a cop car, loud music, having a little to drink—

“That’s weird. I’d kinda already had forgotten about that.” He scratched his head. “Probably because of all that came after. I mean, I had the worst two nights of sleep—”

“But you remember the video, don’t you?” Roby narrowed his eyes. “Dude, it’s all anyone’s been talking about.”

Daniel stared at him.

“The video of you and Amanda Hicks? Full frontal nudity? What the fuck, man?”

“Oh shit,” Daniel said. “Oh fuck. Fuck me, dude.” Sudden images of Anna sitting in front of her dad’s computer, two hands over her mouth, Daniel spinning naked before her. “I’m totally screwed,” Daniel said.

Roby laughed. “You have no idea how lucky you are, you shit! That video is like urban legend now. If you were one of the fifty or so people to see it, you’re like in this cult.”

“What do you mean?” Daniel was pretty sure he was going to throw up on the pavement. He felt like everyone walking past was looking right at him, smiling.

“Jeremy’s house had flood damage. His home computer is toast.”

“You’re shittin’ me.” Daniel still felt sick. It was going to take days to pass. “But everyone’s okay, right?”

Roby waved his hand. “Like that’s more important. But yeah, it wasn’t even from the storm, not directly. Their pool burst open and flooded half the downstairs.”

Daniel clutched his shirt. “And the computer?”

“I tried everything.” Roby frowned. “Couldn’t save your little video.”

“What do you mean? You went over there and tried to salvage it?”

“Like I want to see your little prick.” Roby glanced around the courtyard. “I told Jeremy I would try and get their family stuff off the drive, pictures and documents and what-not, which I did.”

“You did.”

“Yeah. I plugged the drive into my computer. Worked like a charm. The motherboard was the only thing that got wet.”

Daniel was about to explode. “For fuck’s sakes, Roby, what the hell did you do?”

Roby smiled. “I put you in my debt for let’s see . . . like, forever.”

“You deleted it.”

He raised his eyebrows and grinned coyly. “Or I kept a copy. You’ll never know.”

“Dude—”

“Speaking of which, we still have a ton of debris to round up and get rid of. I told mom that you’d be coming over this week and helping me do my share.”

“Seriously, man? You’re gonna blackmail me?”

His friend smiled. “Nothing I do to you will be worse than what I prevented.”

“But you’re my friend!”

“Yeah, well, then you should’ve gotten in touch with me at some point the past two weeks.”

“Man, I’m sorry, I’ve been busy. And hey, it’s not like we don’t go all summer without hearing from each other—”

“Yeah, but this was like the storm of the century . I was dying to talk to you about everything that was going on.” Roby frowned. “I tried to get my mom to drive us by last week and see how you guys were doing, but my dad is still militant about the gas. We’ve been driving everywhere at like twenty miles an hour. I thought he was gonna cut a hole in the floor and go Flintstone on us.”

Daniel laughed.

“I’m serious, dude. He got all end-of-the-world. You shoulda seen him. We were on rations for the first week.”

The more grave Roby tried to look, the harder Daniel laughed.

“I’m glad you think my suffering is funny.”

“Ditto. But hey, at least you got to spend a ton of time with your girlfriend, though, right?”

“I wish. She has an aunt and uncle nearby. She went to their house after the party and stayed there for the storm. I just saw her a week ago as she was heading back to Columbia. I think she’s gonna come back down in a few weeks, if her parents and NOAA say it’s alright.”

Daniel laughed.

“I’m not kidding,” he said. “Her parents have already set up hurricane rules for our weekends together.”

“Guess what?” Daniel asked. He figured now was a good time to fully explain neglecting his friend the past weeks. “I kinda met someone after the storm.”

“Yeah?” Roby’s eyes lit up. “A girl?”

“Guess what her name is. I’ll give you a hint: It’s real ironic.”

“Like real ironic or Alanis Morissette ironic?”

Daniel thought about that. “I’m not sure, actually.”

“Her name’s Wendy,” Roby guessed.

Daniel laughed. “No, but close.” He shrugged his bag higher up his back. “Her name’s Anna.”

Roby stopped laughing. “Serious?”

“Yeah, and we’re like boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“Who’s playing the girlfriend?”

“Shut up, dude.” The bell rang, signifying two minutes to class. Kids stood and stretched in the courtyard. Some hurried off, backpacks jouncing dangerously.

“What’s this girl like?” Roby jerked his head to the side. “Walk while you tell me about her. And don’t forget to kiss my ass for making sure the first time she sees you in the buff is the first time she sees you in the buff.”

“No, honestly, thanks for that. You being Jeremy’s geek-on-call worked out for me.”

“The girl,” Roby said, waving his hand in circles.

“Anna,” Daniel replied. “This girl’s a category five, to be sure. Insanely smart. Pretty in a normal kind of way, not like cheerleader pretty or tall and exotic—”

“Kinda plain?” Roby asked.

Daniel shook his head. “There’s nothing plain about her.”

Roby held open the door to the English building, and Daniel stepped inside and let his eyes adjust to the fluorescent lights. He wondered what he could say about Anna that wouldn’t sound silly, wondered if maybe Roby felt the same way about his girlfriend, how much more he and his best friend might now have in common. But before he could think of the first thing to say, they passed a bulletin board with a weeks-old newspaper tacked up for the students to see.

“Holy shit,” Daniel said. He stopped and stared at the full-page image on the cover of the Journal.

“You haven’t seen this picture?” Roby asked.

Daniel shook his head. “Haven’t really seen the news at all.”

“Listen, I’ve got to run to the end of the hall. I’ll catch up with you at lunch, okay? I want to hear about this girlfriend of yours.”

Daniel nodded and waved him off.

“And I want my ass kissed properly,” Roby yelled back as he blended in with the river of kids jostling and chattering down the hall.

Daniel barely heard him. He stood and stared at the newspaper behind the glass. In bold type across the top, it simply said: “ANNA STRIKES.” Below that, and taking up the entire rest of the page, was a satellite photo. It showed a storm spread wide across the entire state of South Carolina, long trails of feeder bands curling down through the Atlantic, the northwest corner of the storm brushing Charlotte. But the part Daniel found himself transfixed on was the eye. There was a perfect circle in the center of the storm, a hole in the white shroud directly over Beaufort. Daniel stared through the glass display at the center of that hole and imagined himself down there, looking up at the blue sky, asking Carlton if the worst was over. And Carlton was saying it had just begun.