Eric Dimbleby - White Out

Annie stared up at the black ceiling, glad that she hadn’t been dreaming after all. If she wasn’t dreaming, then she still had a chance. She wasn’t sure what her chances were, but a single chance was better than no chance at all.

Drip—drip.

That was the sound of the new morning.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

So began the end of one nightmare and the start of another.

Annie couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it. In her wildest nooks of imagination, she’d imagined something like this. It wasn’t obvious, but something had nagged at her ever since she started on her journey with Tony. This was natural cause, and then effect; what freezes must one day melt, be it in a day or a century.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

The ice outside was letting go, dripping beneath the basement door at first, and then the water started to flow heavier, pulsing almost like a heartbeat. The soft sound of water filled her aching ears.

In less than ten minutes time, the floor of the basement was covered with a half an inch of icy water. The brown floor paint bubbled from the moisture seeping through its pores. The steady rhythm of water entering the basement echoed against the soundproofed walls.

It was melting. Annie couldn’t quite believe her eyes, but it was melting.

And it was melting fast.

DRIP. DRIP. DRIP.

It felt like God (there he was again, that silly phantom that kept reminding her of what she once believed when she was a little girl) had flipped a switch on the whole universe, resetting an electrical breaker that he had forgotten all about in the cellar that was Earth. The frigid world was exiting, gathering up its belongings and running for the exit at top speed.

Since the global warming craze started in the 1970’s, there was never a shortage of people commenting on how hot it was or how cold. One side would purport that the entire concept was a myth, plain and simple. And the other side was also split into two camps—those that believed in global warming and the rest of them who believed in global dimming , never agreeing that they were actually talking about the same thing. Still, the observers of the universe would point out thirty degree temperature shifts from one day to the next, speaking as though it was utter madness. Those days were gone. This new shift was more than seventy degrees, or so Annie estimated, feeling a calm warmth returning to her bones that she hadn’t known for a long, long time. The sun had finally come out, allowing the planet to heal from the destruction it wrought in its hiding.

DRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIP.

“Paulie. Paulie, can you hear me?” she asked, shaking her son. He was awake, but still pulling himself from the depths of sleep. They’d cuddled on the futon all through the night.

After he’d pushed his “family” out of the way, Edgar—or whatever the hell his name was—had secured boards over the basement door. His fury had overtaken every logical path, pounding the nails in, not even taking a moment to think it through; all the food and logs were in the basement. If he locked them down there, it wouldn’t be long until he was forced to return, cursing to himself as he pried the nails loose. The image almost made Annie laugh out loud.

Their captor didn’t seem very bright. Sick in the head, and monstrous, but a simple-minded dolt all the same.

“Mammah,” whispered Paulie, parting his sticky lips and looking up to her lethargically. He needed medical assistance and if he didn’t receive it soon, she wasn’t sure what long lasting effects it might have. Were there internal injuries to pair with his external ones? His left eye was still swollen and half shut, looking very much like Rocky Balboa at the end of the first movie. She wasn’t sure what Edgar had done to her son. She didn’t dare to speculate for the wrenching feeling it would give her on the inside. She’d been a terrible mother, allowing this to happen to her innocent little man.

“Hey, baby,” she said, trying to bite back the fright that she experienced when she looked at his broken face. The bastard would pay for what he did. Who in their right mind could harm a child like this? She’d been through worse with the men, if one was delusional enough to call them that, from The Purple Cat.

DRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIP. DRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIP.

Edgar was a bully, a psychopath, but he didn’t stand a chance against Annie. Not the New Annie. Not the woman who’d been ravaged, ripped, and stalked through the snow. This new woman wasn’t to be fucked with.

As Annie looked over at the door to the bulkhead, she suddenly recalled the previous spring, when the snow had also melted, albeit in smaller measures. Last winter was less than two feet of accumulated snow. This was closer to twenty feet in some areas, depending on the wind and drifts. But still, she almost had a chuckle as she pictured Christian, scrambling with buckets and a wet-dry vacuum, cussing beneath every strained breath. Every year he forgot to seal the bulkhead edging with foam insulator, and every year this happened. Poor Christian. He didn’t stand a chance as a homeowner. Annie had giggled at the sight of him, tossing old blankets in front of the door, thinking he could stop the water with a centimeter worth of fabric. It was sort of cute, in a way.

With this new storm ( apocalypse, Annie, it’s the damn apocalypse, just say it and be done with it … stop pussy-footing ), the bulkhead was surely covered with snow, but would it still be, with all of this rapid melting? She had to give it a try. Edgar wouldn’t have bothered sealing up the outside of the bulkhead, as he couldn’t have predicted this rapid flip-flop of temperatures.

“Wait here a second, baby,” she said to Paulie. He attempted a nod, but he was back asleep—more unconscious than asleep, really—in less than a few seconds.

She grabbed a miniature flashlight that Paulie kept under his pillow, muscling it out of his clutches. She wasn’t sure where he got it from, but Christian was always hiding survival tools around the place, always ready for just such situations. Christian had always been good like that, expecting the worst.

Annie approached the door that led to the bulkhead, turning the knob. As she pulled the door towards her, a wave of chilly water swept over her boots, splashing up against her ankles.

“Oh, my God,” she said, looking down at her boots and then staring at the cement steps for what felt like an hour, though it might have been a minute.

Clicking on the flashlight, she scanned the bulkhead’s steps.

And there he was.

She’d found her husband. His body was lightly jostling as water rushed over him.

Christian looked up at her, his face transfixed in a permanent look of shock. His body had stiffened so much that his arms and legs reminded her of The Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz , frozen in place, desperate for a can of oil to move freely once again. There was no oil that could bring him back though.

“Christian,” she said out loud, a rattle inside of her chest trying to escape, something just short of a scream. She couldn’t even manage a scream if she wanted to, though that was for the best. That would alert Paulie to what had happened, if the poor kid didn’t already know. Far worse than that, it would alert Edgar to what she had uncovered.

Get hopping, Annie. Step over your husband’s corpse so you can get that bulkhead door open. It’s still gonna be loaded down with some mighty heavy snow, and it’ll take everything you got, but it’s the only way you’re getting out of here. Try not to look at him. Try not to think about the times you fooled around on him.