Michael Smith - Rivers

“You hear something?”

Evan waited. Shook his head.

“Nothing,” Cohen said.

Evan put his foot on the bottom of the door and pushed and when he did, whatever was on the other side gave way and the door fell open. Almost instantly, Evan started hopping up and down and then Cohen did the same and Evan shined the light down into the room and hundreds of rats came pouring out of the storage room that had been filled with boxes of pasta and peanuts and bags of potatoes and whatever else might be good in a bind. The rats quickly filled the store and Evan and Cohen were jumping around and slipping and sliding and the rats skidded across the wet floor and went up and over the shelves and along the walls and everywhere. The women were up and screaming, even Kris whose pain had been momentarily overwhelmed by rat terror. Mariposa helped her up and then she lifted Brisco onto the counter and it was screams and leaps and rats rats rats. Evan busted his ass and went down and the rats climbed up and down his body. He came up swinging and twisting and shook them off and Cohen slapped at the rats up and down his legs and then he screamed for everybody to get the hell outta there. Nadine and the baby were the first ones out and Mariposa held Kris and helped her out. Brisco was jumping up and down on the counter and screaming and Cohen snatched him and went for the door and Evan nearly knocked them both down as he flailed like a runaway scarecrow toward the exit.

Outside, Nadine held the baby tucked like a football in one arm and she held Kris with the other and she was fighting the wind to get into the truck. The last of the aluminum awning on the storefront snapped free and crashed across the windshield as they were ducking in the door. Mariposa stepped in a deep puddle and went down with a yell. She rolled in the water and grabbed at her ankle and Evan ran to her and helped her up and over to the other truck. The rain beat and beat and Cohen carried Brisco on his hip and managed to get the driver’s door open and he tossed Brisco in.

When the four were inside, Cohen said, “I got to go see about her. Evan, drive this one.” Mariposa moaned and held her ankle and Evan climbed across her and Brisco to get to the steering wheel. Cohen was out and over to the other truck and when he got in, Kris was leaned over grasping at her sides and the baby screamed and Nadine had the look of the bewildered.

Cohen cranked the truck and turned on the lights and the rats were wild in the doorway and across the storefront but none of them went out the doorway and into the rain.

“Can you sit up?” Cohen asked Kris but she said oh shit and the baby screamed.

The storm beat like a thousand drums and the truck moved with the wind.

“Fucking-ass rats!” Nadine yelled.

“Oh shit,” Kris groaned.

“Where the hell’s a pacifier?” Cohen said.

Nadine reached around on the seat and floorboard but couldn’t find one and then Kris said, “My pocket.” Nadine felt in Kris’s coat pocket and pulled one out and touched it to the baby’s lips. He took it in his mouth and sucked and Nadine thanked God. But Kris didn’t as she was too consumed with the feeling that something was going to pop out of her from somewhere. One of the doors of the ice machine whipped open and broke off and disappeared across the gravel lot that was quickly becoming a gravel pond.

“Goshdamn,” Nadine said in a high, anxious voice. She was touching the baby’s face and head. “He’s hellfire hot. We gotta do something.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Cohen said, but he didn’t know what.

The other truck honked and Mariposa was waving to them. The truck then moved in reverse and Cohen backed up and followed Evan out of the parking lot and back onto the road.

“He don’t know where he’s going,” Nadine said.

“I can’t help it,” Cohen said. “You want me to let them ride off?”

“Son of a bitch,” Kris said with her teeth clenched. She huffed and puffed and then said help me up. Nadine held out her arm and Kris grabbed on to it and got upright. She slumped down in the seat and squeezed her stomach. “Oh hell no,” she said.

“Cross your legs,” Nadine said.

“What the hell?”

“Hell, I don’t know,” Nadine yelled.

They were back out on the skinny back road and it was almost impossible to see. Evan drove out front at a crawl and moved on until the road declined and at the bottom was a wash. Flooded as far as the headlights could show. Cohen saw the red taillights and stopped, then began to back up. Water and dirt and mud rushed along the road and the tires spun some but caught enough to make it in reverse to the store.

They turned around, and Cohen got out in front this time. So dark and so much rain everywhere. In the next few slow miles, Kris’s pain subsided and the baby sucked the pacifier and fell asleep and Nadine was oddly quiet as they crept along the back roads. The houses were separated by miles of countryside and Cohen several times went up a long driveway only to find that there wasn’t a house anymore. Or there was half a house and he couldn’t trust it to ride out a storm. After several more tries and another hour, they were all surprised when they followed a winding driveway and came upon a two-story farmhouse still standing.

EVAN PULLED UP BESIDE COHEN and they sat for several minutes with the four headlights on it. It had once been white but was weathered and the paint was peeling and half its shutters had blown away and some windows were gone. They watched for some minutes more to see if there was any light or any movement but it sat quiet, its tall rectangular windows like big black eyes staring back at them. Cohen waved at Evan and they drove up closer to the house and parked around on the backside where a porch stretched the house length. The right side of the porch had sagged to the ground and parts of its roof were missing and water dripped or poured all through the porch. The back door was closed and a refrigerator lay on its side next to the door.

Cohen waved at Evan to hold on, and then he backed up the truck and shined his headlights on the house and they watched again. Looked for shadows or anything. Still nothing.

Cohen killed the truck, got out, and hurried around to the passenger door to help Nadine and the baby out first and then Kris. They went carefully up the porch steps and opened the back door. Cohen called out, “Anybody in here? Anybody? We’re just looking for somewhere for the night. That’s all.”

“Ain’t nobody here,” Nadine said and pushed through. She walked in the house as if it were hers and Kris followed her. Mariposa and Evan and Brisco trailed Cohen through the doorway.

Cohen pulled a flashlight from his coat pocket and he shined it around the room. They stood in a big kitchen with tall cabinets and wide-plank hardwood floors that were bowed from the wet and humidity.

Together they moved through the bottom floor of the house. Four great big empty rooms with the same wooden floors throughout. Two fireplaces surrounded by handcrafted mantels that had to be a hundred years old. Water stains down the walls and on the ceilings, and branches and leaves scattered across the floor that had blown in the missing windows. The stairway separated the bottom rooms and they went up carefully, wary of rotted steps. Upstairs were four more rooms and more water stains and drip spots on the floors and only one room with its windows remaining. The wind and rain pushed in all the windows not covered with plywood and with a big gust the house moved some and they collectively held their breath. There was no furniture anywhere. A bathroom separated the rooms on the east side and there was a claw-foot tub and two pedestal sinks. Cohen shined the flashlight on the tub and he stopped. Held the light on the curved neck of the faucet.