The Storm

Rain swept over the van before he’d gone far from the drive.

The light on the road had gone flat and pale, and the grass along the fence was moving all one way.

J left more space behind the pickup ahead.

Two stops. Both in the same direction. If it stayed like this, he could finish. If it didn’t, the packages could enjoy the scenery a little longer.

The backpack shifted against the passenger seat as he rounded the bend. He glanced at it, then back at the road.

There would be something perfectly ordinary in the parcel. Somebody knew him. Somebody had read something he’d written. People did occasionally read the things he wrote, despite his efforts to explain them afterward.

He had a whole book for the other possibilities. Dreams, fragments, ideas that seemed reasonable at two in the morning and required considerable supervision in daylight. Putting them into scenes helped. A thing could be important without being true. It could mean something to him without requiring everybody else to evacuate.

He liked having somewhere to put it.

A hard crack hit the roof.

He lifted his foot from the accelerator. Another struck the hood and jumped out of sight. Then several hit together, sharp enough to separate themselves from the sudden wash of rain.

The pickup’s brake lights brightened. J eased down with it.

Water spread across the windshield faster than the wipers could clear it. For half a stroke there was a road. Then only the dull red shapes ahead and the dark suggestion of a fence to his right.

He increased the wiper speed. It made very little difference. Lightning branched sideways behind the rain, then flashed again through what looked like the same small patch of cloud. The field went white. The report came before he could count.

The road curved around the lower end of the field. A gust rocked the van, and rain thinned across the side window for a moment. He caught the Mr. Wizard house between the two stands of oak.

The peaks were gone.

So was most of the pale upper wall. A broad, folded mass of dark roof and broken structure lay across the front of the house. He could pick out the porch railing beneath one edge of it.

J eased farther off the accelerator.

A tree? Wind? Lightning?

He’d been on that porch perhaps three minutes ago.

Rain swept across the window again. Ahead, the pickup’s lights brightened. He brought his attention back to the road and felt the tires beginning to lose their firm contact with it.

The packages could wait. He needed somewhere to stop.

The noise thickened until individual impacts became one continuous blow. Hail bounced high off the hood. A white lump struck near the bottom of the windshield and left a star in the glass.

“Okay.”

He said it quietly. He needed the word more than the van did.

The pickup moved farther ahead, its lights disappearing behind a sheet of water. J let it go. He wasn’t following somebody into a ditch just because they looked confident about it.

The tires began to hiss differently. Ice was collecting between the wheel tracks, white grains turning to a loose, moving layer over the road. He could feel the steering grow lighter beneath his palms.

Slow down. Keep it straight.

A gust hit the broad side of the van. The nose wandered toward the center line. He eased it back, scarcely moving his hands. Somewhere behind him a package fell from a shelf.

At the next bend the road dropped away. He knew the place. There was a gravel access on the uphill side, a broad space behind a cattle guard, set back from the road. He’d used it to turn around before. No trees over it. No low ditch to fill with water. If he could see the entrance, he could get clear of traffic.

The high sound began while he was looking for it.

At first he thought the radio had found a signal. A narrow squeal rose above the hammering on the roof. He took one hand from the wheel long enough to turn the volume all the way down.

It stayed.

His right ear felt blocked. He swallowed. Something clicked in his jaw. The note sharpened until it seemed less like something he was hearing than something being pressed through his head.

He loosened his grip on the wheel. He had been squeezing it without noticing.

Through one sweep of the wipers he saw the fence opening. The van was almost level with it.

He signaled anyway.

The front tires crossed the edge of the pavement. For an instant the rear carried on in the old direction, a slow sideways movement he felt in his hips before he saw it. He stopped adding steering, let the van settle, and brought it onto the gravel.

The cattle guard rattled beneath him. The van jolted hard enough to knock his teeth together.

Then he was through. He rolled far enough in to clear the road and stopped, pointing toward the open field. Brake. Park. Hazard lights.

A hailstone hit above his head with a deep metal knock. He flinched so hard his shoulder hurt.

The sound in his ear went higher.

He checked the mirror for traffic, although he was off the road now. Habit. He could see only part of his own face and the pale, jumping blur outside.

The van rocked in another gust. Something slid across the floor behind him and struck the partition.

A second star appeared in the windshield. A crack ran out of it, fast and crooked, and met the first one.

The passenger window burst.

J folded forward, forearm over the side of his head. Something struck his arm. Cold water hit his neck. Glass rattled across the dashboard and down into the step, and a hard white piece of ice bounced off his thigh.

He stayed low. His seat belt pulled across his shoulder. He couldn’t tell whether the sharp little impacts were glass or hail. The roof was still taking the worst of it. He kept his head below the side windows and his feet where they were.

Another gust drove ice through the opening. A piece hit the wheel where his hand had been. He tucked that hand down and pulled his rain jacket from beside the backpack, dragging it over his neck and arm.

He could hear himself breathing, too fast, under the noise.

One thing at a time.

That part he knew from dreams. When a nightmare filled everything at once, he could start with something small enough to hold onto. A hand. The feeling of his feet. The fact that he was still the one noticing it.

His left shoe pressed against the floor. His right hand found the lower edge of the wheel, beneath the jacket. The belt dug into his collarbone. He counted a breath out.

An impact made him duck farther. The jacket slipped. He pulled it back over his ear and let the next breath come without dragging at it.

The pressure behind his eyes changed.

It wasn’t stronger. It had acquired a direction. The note felt drawn taut from the back of his skull to a spot behind his eyes.

He lifted his head just enough to see the base of the windshield. Beyond the cracks, the fence seemed much farther away than it had been. One post stood clear through the rain. The next was lost in it. He couldn’t work out the distance between them.

A small point of blue sat near the branching crack. Dashboard light, perhaps. There was water on both sides of the glass now.

A heavy knock came from the driver’s side. He turned toward it before he could stop himself. The window was still there. He lowered his head again.

But the place around him seemed to have come to its edge.

He knew that feeling. His room ought to be on the other side. Morning. A smaller noise that would explain the enormous one. Whatever the dream had been doing would become something he could remember instead of somewhere he had to stay.

The roof rang. The van rocked beneath him. He felt his hand slipping on the wet wheel and tightened his grip.

He knew this part. Breathe. Get hold of himself. Then make the dream behave. He tried to bring the fence back to its proper distance. It wouldn’t settle. The blue point stayed where it was.

The note pressed harder. For a moment it was difficult to care about the belt cutting into his shoulder. The fence and the rain and the bright place appeared to belong together in a way he almost understood.

Then a blow above the windshield sent a fresh crack down through his view. J recoiled, dragging the jacket with him. The glass held.

That was what mattered. The glass was still there.

He pushed his heel against the floor. The van pushed back. He let a breath out slowly, feeling the belt cut into his shoulder, then let the next one come. The wheel was wet. His arm hurt. Everything stayed there while he breathed.

“I’m awake.”

Just the book. He held onto the weight of his body and let the rest go, the way he did when a dream was ending.

The high note stopped.

The hail did not.

And the familiar return happened—the sudden, complete feeling of being back in his body, with its weight and its particular place in the world. He knew that as well as he knew getting out of bed.

His eyes were already open. The gear selector was still in park.

The belt was still digging into the same shoulder. His hand hadn’t left the wheel. There was cold water running down his neck.

He waited for the rest of it. The room. The bed. The little adjustment of his limbs when the body he had been dreaming with gave way to the one lying asleep.

Ice struck the dashboard and broke against it. A fragment caught the jacket beside his cheek.

He was still in the van.

He pulled the jacket tighter and bent his head. Whatever had just happened, this part wasn’t finished.

When he next looked up, he almost accepted the blue as dashboard light reflected in wet glass. A thin trail of water had gathered along the branching crack. It seemed to be climbing toward the blue point while the water beside it ran down. A wiper smeared the view. On its return the blue was gone, and he couldn’t pick out the same thread again.

He hadn’t time to settle it. Hail was still coming through the passenger side. His backpack had fallen into the footwell; he dragged it beneath the seat, out of the water, then got his arm back under the jacket.

His phone lit up in the mount. A call, or a warning. Before he could read it the screen went dark again.

He didn’t reach for it.

The hail gradually acquired gaps. He could hear rain between the blows, then the sound of water moving along the road. A few last heavy pieces hit the van after he had begun to think the worst was past.

He waited longer.

When he finally sat upright, his back objected. The windshield was crazed across most of its width. Glass covered the passenger seat. The mirror on that side hung at a different angle from its housing. A white lump of ice was melting inside an empty cup.

The engine was still running. He turned it off.

His hands shook when he put them in his lap. They hadn’t while he needed them. He watched them for a few seconds without asking them to improve.

There was a shallow cut on his forearm and a little blood from the upper edge of his ear. His neck and shoulder were sore. The ringing had dwindled to a smaller, more familiar sound. He could move his hands and feet. He remembered the window breaking, the wheel under his hand, and the waiting. As far as he could tell, he hadn’t blacked out.

The phone had no service. He looked through the broken windshield at the road, white with ice, and stayed where he was.

One bar appeared. His first call failed. The second reached dispatch.

“Off the road at the gravel access past the bend,” he said. “I’m awake, breathing fine. Got a cut and a headache. Passenger window’s gone. Windshield’s no good. I’m not driving it.”

He repeated the last intersection and sent his location pin.

“Got you,” she said.

He hadn’t realized how much he wanted somebody to say that.

“There’s something else. The house I just delivered to looked collapsed from the road.” He opened the completed stops and read her the number and road name. “The roof and the upper wall. I only saw it for a second. I don’t know if anybody’s there.”

She repeated the address. He confirmed it.

Phones rang behind her. Other drivers were stranded; emergency calls were backed up. She’d pass the house report on. He was to stay put. His remaining deliveries were suspended.

He called Lisa next and told her where he was and what hurt. He heard himself nearly call it nothing and stopped before he did.

“Enough damage that I’m getting a ride,” he told her. She asked him to call when it arrived. He did.

While he waited, he made a note on his own phone. Off road before window broke. Conscious as far as I can tell. Head stayed down. Hand stayed on wheel. High sound stopped when breathing settled. Hail continued. Felt the return from a dream. Eyes already open. Still in van. Blue point by crack. Water seemed to go up. Couldn’t find it again.

He saved it with the time the phone supplied.

A supervisor reached him in a pickup with another driver. They arranged recovery for the van and moved the undelivered packages under cover. The other driver showed him a photograph of a hailstone that filled most of his palm.

It was helpful, having a thing of the right size to blame.

J retrieved his lunch bag and backpack. The parcel had stayed mostly dry. He closed the zip and climbed into the warm cab.

At the station, somebody had put a bucket under a leak exactly where a person needed to walk. A supervisor kept crossing names off a printed list, and each time she drew a line, J looked up to see whose it was.

The dispatcher brought him water.

“That noise must’ve been unreal in the cab.”

“It was.”

Enough to account for sore ears.

The incident form asked whether the vehicle had been moving when the damage occurred. He asked which damage they meant.

“Put what happened.”

He wrote that the hail began while he was driving, that he pulled completely off the road, and that the side window broke after he stopped. He included the pain, ringing, and cuts. He didn’t think he’d lost consciousness.

There wasn’t a box for feeling as though he’d woken up. Stress did things to people. So did getting knocked around inside a van.

On the work phone he opened the delivery photograph. The porch and upper wall were still there. The delivery system had logged the time with it.

Lisa arrived while he was estimating the time. She looked at his face, then at the cloth on his arm, and put her hand carefully on the back of his neck. He leaned into it for a moment.

She took the backpack, checked that the zip was shut and folded the wet strap away from his arm. He started to say he could carry it, then picked up the lunch bag instead.

They went to have him checked before going home. He answered questions about the jolt, noise and headache. The cuts were cleaned, and he left with instructions to take home.

At home, the green-rimmed bowl was still empty on the counter.

“Forgot the tomatoes,” he said.

Lisa looked at him, then at the bowl. “I think we can manage.”

The house smelled of dinner. Lisa cleared a place for his wet things and brought a clean shirt. She held the sleeve while he raised his arm through it.

After dinner Lisa photographed the parcel and both lines of the tag. A corner of the wrapping was damp. Otherwise it was the same.

“Someone at work?” Lisa asked. She hadn’t arranged it.

“Could have. I wasn’t supposed to be there today.”

“Maybe it’s been sitting there.”

He hadn’t considered how long it might have been waiting.

She looked at him, then back at the tag. “Ask Kira.”

He sent Lisa’s picture. Their daughter’s first reply said Mom had told her about the van. Was he really okay?

Sore. Been checked. Home, he wrote.

She didn’t know anything about the parcel.

Lisa spread the damp medical instructions flat. He set the parcel on the dry shelf beside his books. They could ask again later. Tonight it wasn’t going to get an answer merely because he kept looking at it.

When Lisa went to shower, he opened the notebook he used for the book.

He turned to a clean page.

September 2.

He copied the phone note unchanged, then added the cuts and the time of the completed delivery. He left seemed in the line about the water because he hadn’t found it again.

On a separate page, under Evening, he put the explanations he was considering: impact noise, pressure, stress, reflection, the angle of the glass. He left them on that page.

There had been no bed in the van. No dark room. He hadn’t even let go of the steering wheel.

He wrote one more sentence.

The part where I wake up happened, and I was still there.

He read it back. It sounded like something for the book.

The date was already there. He took a photograph of the page and sent it to Lisa. Then he closed the notebook.

The next morning his shoulder was stiffer. Lisa put the medical papers in a folder and wrote the follow-up number on it. When the work phone buzzed, she brought it to him.

Dispatch had linked a public fire/rescue update. The address matched. In the photograph, the pale lower wall stood behind a heap of roof and timber. He recognized the tipped cooler beneath the surviving end of the porch.

The house had been destroyed. He had not imagined that much.

He read the update twice. Nothing about anybody inside. Nothing that explained how the structure had come down.

Lisa sat beside him. He showed her his timestamped delivery photograph, then the public one.

“Do you know who lives there?”

“Never really talked to them.”

“You gave them the address.”

“Yeah.”

He saved both photographs, keeping the delivery time with the first and the public link with the second. He acknowledged the message.

In the notebook he made a new entry dated September 3: House confirmed destroyed in public update. No occupant information. He left the previous day’s account alone.

He could see the parcel from where he sat. It had been on the porch before the damage. He’d seen the damage after taking it. He hadn’t seen what did it.

He set the phone beside the dated page. His delivery photograph showed the porch intact. The public one showed it half buried under roof and timber. The parcel sat on the shelf beside his books.