Short Story Collection

Natural Disaster

I could feel my heart pounding the inside of my chest, as if it were also trying to escape the roaring fire all around us. My focus was on the road, barely visible through the plumes of black smoke. I could hear Angie crying in the backseat and Nora doing her best to soothe our daughter, trying to mask the panic in her own voice.

"Shh, shh. It's okay. We are going to be alright. Shh, shh."

"I lost sight of Jennings," I tell Nora.

"He can't be that far ahead," she says.

"I don't know. He's in that eye-sore of a truck and we are in this dinky piece of-," I hold back my curse. Despite the disaster, my daddy-in-training filter kicks in. "Crud. He is supposed to be leading us."

The fire is on both sides of the road, consuming the trees, grass, and what seems like the entire world. I'm sure we would be sitting on our porch looking at the milky way if we weren't in this living hell.

"There!" Nora shouts. "I think I see his tail lights."

I do my best to track along the road and pinpoint the location at the end of Nora's finger. It is hard to distinguish any sort of light among the flames. I see them at the exit of a long curve.

"Thank god," Nora sighs. "I thought we'd lost hi -- Jay, watch out!"

I jerk reflexively at her cry, scanning for danger. A fire-consumed tree thirty yards away is falling over into the road. It is one of those driving situations where the light has just turned yellow and you are at that awkward speed and distance to safely speed up or slow down without pause. My heart skips a beat and then another beat, and time has slowed down and I can feel the weight of my choice: speed up and possibly get crushed by the tree or slow down and die horribly in the fire.

My foot flutters above the gas pedal for the briefest of moments. I floor it. The car, bless its heart, does its best to accelerate. I sink into the seat and can feel the wetness from my sweat-soaked clothes.

The tree is falling slowly. So slowly it feels like I was worried for no reason. But then it is right on top of us as we pass beneath the point of impact. The front of the car is on the other side and I can feel the oppressive weight of the tree, its fiery shadow just over the back end of the car.

There is an enveloping sound, an upending rattle, a disorientation like being sucked under by a large wave or what I imagine an astronaut might feel being suddenly ejected into space. The tree hit the back end of the car and I lost control, sliding, skidding, and thrown from the road.

Then there is silence. For the tiniest moment, there is no sound - the purest vacuum.

I am shocked back to reality when I hear the most beautiful screaming cry from the back seat. I turn and see our daughter wailing. I sigh in relief. That is when I notice the back end of our car is crushed and we are along the side of the road. The tree must have barely clipped the car and it was enough to send us careening off course.

"Are you okay?" I ask Nora.

"I'm fine, I think," she replies after a mental self-check. She looks as frazzled as I feel.

"Is the car...," she trails.

The engine is still running and I apply gas. There is a terrible grinding sound coming from the back of the car and we make little forward progress. I pause then try again. Still, a terrible grinding sound and we barely move.

Angie's cry is like white noise at this point. I turn to Nora with a look that says more than my words could. She returns one of the same. How can the human face express so much sorrow, remorse, anger, acceptance, and beauty all at once?

"I love you," I say.

"I love you, too."

She breaks eye-contact to stare at the world burning before our eyes. I unbuckle Angie in the backseat and do my best to reassure her in my lap.

"Shh, shh. It's okay. We are going to be alright. Shh, shh."