Eric Dimbleby - White Out

Paulie reached out, away from the steady branches of the tree, reaching out as they watched Edgar drift on down the driveway, emitting a terrible cry. Not only was the water washing him away, but the dummy hadn’t a clue how to swim. Annie knew this by the desperate flailing of his arms. She’d worked two summers as a lifeguard during college, so she could pinpoint that desperate brand of fear from a mile away.

Good , she thought. She hoped the delusional madman was in for a boatload of suffering.

Now he was gripping to a smaller tree on the side of the garage, just beneath them. He called up to them, his eyes growing large and moony, “Help me, Timmy! Don’t let Daddy die!”

The psychotic monster didn’t even know the kid’s name.

“Eggah,” Paulie said again, fighting against his mother, pushing away from her.

“Stop it,” she said, clutching tight to her son’s forearm. What the hell was he thinking? She knew that he was in pain, presumably from something Edgar had done to him, but still he had some connection to the man that wouldn’t allow him to sit still. Paulie hadn’t a clue about the evils of the world, rife with innocence and seeing only the best in people. After all, he was only four years old, so he wasn’t capable of the hate that Edgar so deserved.

“Eggah, swim, swim!” the boy cried. Paulie was motivating the murderer, who would surely kill them both if he had another chance. And as the sicko grabbed on to the trunk of their safe haven of a tree, she realized that was a possibility that may come to fruition.

“Please… no,” she said, looking down at the desperate man with the wild grin, pulling himself up the tree, grappling his legs and digging his fingers into the knots of the oak. He’d nearly drowned, but now he was saved by some higher form of fate. He couldn’t swim, but he’d been spared drowning for a bit longer.

“Climb, Eggah, climb!” Paulie shouted, wiggling in excitement.

Paulie wished he’d given Eggah back his cool boots. They would have helped him climb up the tree. Instead, Eggah was wearing his pop’s sneakers, which were all worn out and stinky and falling apart. Poor Eggah. He’d tried to get him inside of his dream, when everybody had turned to chocolate, but that didn’t change the fact that Eggah was a scallion .

It wasn’t too late though. He could still give Eggah back his boots.

It only seemed fair.

Edgar could not recall a more perfect sight. His loving family was perched above him, looking down, waiting for him to ascend and claim his spot at Jesus’ side. As the morning sun’s glorious rays ( thank ya, Jesus, thank ya much ) poked through the tree’s limbs, he could only see the outline of Tommy, the outline of… Jezebel. Oh, so sexy. Oh, so Jezebel. It was like his lovelies were ghosts, drifting just above him, waiting to touch his cheek and make all the bad parts of his brain go away like he’d always prayed.

He could feel tears on his cheeks, salty and foreign. Edgar couldn’t remember the last time he had cried, not since he’d cut the shit out of himself real bad last fall. This was a day of days, one that would forever define his soul, no matter if it existed in heaven or on earth. The King of Kings was just above, using his heavenly brood as bait. The world was being clobbered by a holy flood, one that would make Noah’s look like a pink pussy parade.

The world was getting’ clean again.

Cleanliness; it sung from every rooftop and cloud and everything in between. The world was being purged of all the sinners, of all the dummies with terribly knit sweaters and cat piss on their pillows. Of all the spineless fathers and weak-kneed freaks, of all the people who made the world a place of wasted days, a place where the only way to survive was to keep on the move, to travel with an eye on nothing and everything at the very same time.

There it was, just above him, only two branches higher, wishing that it would come closer to him. His legs were giving out and the sound of the rushing water beneath his feet was throwing off his concentration.

A long rope of drool dripped from Edgar’s lips. He screeched up at the warm silhouettes of his family, “Help me, boy! Help your Daddy.”

When the hard object hit his face, he lost his grip. Then a second one came, making his eyes and head spin in confusion. It felt like he’d been hit with a hammer—stars filling his eyes and a rush of pain jettisoned through every inch of his face. He couldn’t tell which way was up and which was down.

As he landed in the water again, he felt the rush of a higher power pulling him away from his home. He couldn’t be sure what had struck him in the face, twice in the face, but as he choked on water, he recollected the musty, oily smell. Something in that smell made him smile one last time.

The boots. Paulie had thrown the bastard his boots. He’d returned them at just the right time.

“My baby,” she said, unsure if she was supposed to congratulate him for saving their lives or scold him for killing somebody.

They were both shivering. Paulie started to cry and then so did his mother.

“Eggah,” he said over and over again.

The water would not cease for the first few hours, but then it eased up. It had found the paths that it would find through gutters and rivers and streams and valleys and seeping into the ground. By the time night fell, it was mostly gone. Annie couldn’t be sure where it had gone off to—perhaps hell, right along with Edgar—but it was a blessing.

They’d been spared, though their trouble was far from over.

The sun blazed all the way through the afternoon. Annie loved the feeling of it, sobbing at how wonderful it felt, basking her body and reminding her that all was not completely lost, not while there was a sun in the sky and air in her lungs.

Paulie slept against her chest as she kept a tight grip on the tree. It was the longest day of her life, but she couldn’t ever recall feeling such love, having her offspring so close, relatively unharmed and ready to fight a new day with her.

As they descended the tree, they sloshed through the water. The whole world was ruined, but it could be rebuilt. Annie had rebuilt herself already, to some extent. The world was always ready to move on, to try again, over and over, ad infinitum.

The people in their neighborhood wandered the streets, in a daze, counting and hiding the bodies that they found. Some had been taken by the madness that had pervaded their world, in the form of Edgars and Shiny Bald Ones and Yetis and Chuckle Machines and Midget Men. There were countless more to be found, victims of a frightened rage that came when hope seemed forever lost.

Annie thanked God for sparing her. For sparing Paulie.

But Christian. What of Christian?

No matter what happened next, she would never live down the feelings that still surfaced when she pictured his face. He’d loved her so damn much, but she’d never reciprocated enough for his deserving. For this, she was certain that she’d feel a perpetual guilt that she would very well be buried with.

“We’re going to be okay,” she said to Paulie, but even still, it sounded like a lie.

They were okay, for the time being.

The freak storm was gone, but its effects would be felt for decades.

Paulie smiled at her. No matter what happened next, everything would be okay.

“You guys all right?” a man asked, looking very much like he’d just been hit by a Mack truck. “Everybody okay?”

“We’re fine, thank you.”

Darkness had overtaken the world once again, but the warm air of the daytime was reassuring. Annie thought that it might very well be the finest night of their lives, knowing that they had survived and would continue to survive. The temperature had dropped considerably, as was to be expected with the overnight hours, but knowing that the morning would bring back fresh sunrays was all that Annie needed to know.