Michael Koryta: So Cold the River

The cloud crossed the field and met the road and enveloped Josiah Bradford’s truck. For one instant, there was nothing but the cloud, and Eric had time to form a they-can-survive-this hope and then the truck exploded.

The blast was muted by the roar of the storm, but even so, Eric heard it and felt it. The whole car shook and the pavement vibrated beneath its wheels and a burst of orange flame showed itself in the center of the cloud. The wind took the heat and sucked it upward, the flame climbing the center of the white rope into the sky like it was a fuse dangling from the heavens. Then the cloud was past and the flame within it was gone and Eric could see the truck again.

It was upside down on the side of the road, at least forty feet from where it had met the funnel cloud. The roof supports had caved in and it rested flat on the ground, the white paint blistered off to reveal charred metal beneath. Flames crackled across the chassis and licked out of the cab.

Eric couldn’t scream. He stared at the burning wreck and wanted to scream but could not. His jaw worked and his breath came almost against the will of his body, but he was silent. He was hardly aware that his car was being dragged until he felt the right wheels slip off the road, and then he realized the storm had been pulling him toward it. Then it was too far away and its grip loosened and left the car sitting half on the road.

He fumbled the driver’s door open and got out and ran to the truck. A light rain had started to fall again, a sprinkle that had not the slightest effect on the flames. He got within fifteen feet before the heat drove him back, and he heard himself sobbing now, looking down at the smoldering metal.

No one could have survived it.

He stood there for a long time, with his hands held up to shield his face from the heat. The flame roared and crackled and then burned down, and there seemed to be nothing left of the cab at all. He stepped closer and saw a thin rod of white amidst all the black char, knew it was bone, and fell to his knees and vomited in the grass.

He was down there on his hands and his knees when he heard the voice. Not the scream from Claire that he’d been fearing, but a whisper that now felt familiar.

You brought me home. Been a long time coming. Too many years I was gone. But you brought me home.

He jerked up and stared at the smoldering truck and saw nothing inside, just all that ash and heat and thin black smoke, and then his eyes rose and he saw Campbell Bradford standing just beyond, close enough to the truck that he could touch it but unaffected by the flames.

Think that would kill me? You don’t understand the first thing about me, about what I am. I’m strong here, stronger than you can believe, stronger than you can stop. I don’t die. Not like your wife.

Eric staggered backward, up to the road. Campbell smiled and ducked his head and then crawled through the burning cab and out onto the other side, following. Eric turned and ran.

There was another car parked beside the Oldsmobile now. A heavyset guy in an Indianapolis Colts baseball cap was climbing down out of a large Chevy truck.

“Buddy, you okay? Shit, did that tornado get it? Man, there ain’t nothing left of it, is there. You see what happened? Was anyone inside?”

Eric stumbled past him and around the open door of Danny Hastings’s Oldsmobile and got into the driver’s seat. The guy was following him, and over his shoulder, Campbell Bradford walked leisurely down the road.

“Buddy… you need to wait for help. I’ve called the fire department. You can’t drive, man, not after something like this.”

Eric slammed the door and put the car in reverse and backed up, feeling the jar when the right-side wheels popped back onto the surface of the road. He kept it in reverse as the heavyset guy closed in and Campbell Bradford walked toward them in the middle of the road. The stranger was talking and just a few feet away, but now Eric couldn’t hear his voice. He could only hear Campbell’s.

She’s dead, and I’m still here. Forever. Thought you could control me, contain me, defeat me? She’s dead and I’m still here.

Eric backed up all the way to the intersection beside Wesley Chapel. The old white church was still standing, oblivious to the two tornadoes that had snaked through on either side of it today. He cut the wheel then and swung the front of the car around so it was pointing south. He looked in the rearview mirror as he accelerated down the road and saw Campbell just behind, strolling along but somehow keeping pace with the car. Eric dropped his eyes and hit the gas pedal, tore up the road. Ahead he could see police lights flashing, maybe a half mile away. He ignored them and banged a left turn back into the gravel lane, drove all the way to the end, and parked the car beside its dead owner’s body. He got out and leaned over and placed the keys in the dead man’s hand. This time he did not recoil at the touch or the sight of the wound.

You’ve left people dead all over today, haven’t you? Campbell said. He was no more than five feet behind Eric now. How many have died today? I can hardly keep the tally. We’ve got this one, Josiah, your wife…

There were flashing lights through the trees now, back toward the road, and a police car blew past and continued on toward the wrecked Ford Ranger. Eric watched it go, and the lights set off a blinding pain in his skull, a single burst like all of the headaches of the past days combined into one extravagant stroke of agony. He gasped and dropped to his knees in the wet, bloody grass.

So many dead people, Campbell said. So many. But guess what? You’re still here, and so am I. So am I.

Eric looked up at him, into the horrible shadowed face beneath the bowler hat, and thought, He is right. The blood is on me, Claire’s is, at least. She came for me, came to help me, to save me, and I left her behind. Went out into the storm in search of that spring and left her behind.

It was all gone now, everything he’d ever needed and loved was lost because he was too selfish, too stupid, to know what he needed or how to love.

Only Campbell remained with him now.

The muscle tremors in his hands had worked into his forearms, and his left eyelid was fluttering constantly. His skull ached as if someone were piping in additional air pressure; it was hard to walk in a straight line once he got back to his feet and pointed toward the trail, Campbell following him with a strange whispering laugh.

The hell with it-let him follow. All that mattered had been lost; all that was left did not matter.

Eric walked on for the gulf.

ERIC WENT LEFT INSTEAD of right at the first fork in the trail, ignoring the path that would have taken him down to Kellen and walking instead along the top of the ridge. Soon he left the trail entirely and climbed down into the trees, went out right to the precipice and looked down.

The gulf still swirled. It was higher now than it had been, still climbing those cliff walls. He could hear a churning sound and saw that on the low end it had crested the hill and begun to pour into the dry channel. He could not see Kellen, but that was a good thing. He’d probably climbed farther away, into a safe place.

The truly dark clouds had moved away, passing to the northeast, and the sky now was a winter gray with a light rain falling from it. Eric worked along the rock rim, using trees to keep his balance as he moved toward the far end of the gulf, where the cliff walls were highest.

He circled around to the back, and now he could see Kellen. He wasn’t far from where Eric had left him, maybe five feet back. The water wasn’t near him yet, though. He was on his back with his hands pressed over his eyes, and he didn’t see Eric.