Monk sat in his car and wondered if he was going to get storm-surged the fuck back to the Delaware River.
Streams of muddy water came running out of the fields to fill the gullies on either side of the road. A torrent slapped its way past his car, gurgling along the doors. He had the heater on but didn’t know if he had enough gas to keep the engine running until the storm let up.
“Should have gassed in goddamn Doylestown,” he told the night.
The perverse and contrary voice that lived inside his head told him he should have stayed in New York. He told that voice to shut the hell up, but it only laughed at him.
Monk thought about Patty and tried her cell four more times. Got nothing. Nerves made him try to get to her, but his car never made it off the muddy verge and back onto the road. The wheels spun mud into the storm and accomplished exactly nothing beyond digging him deeper into the muck. Monk slammed it back into park and glared through the slap-slap-slap of the wipers. Thunder was continuous, as if the storm had parked itself overhead and simply refused to move on until it had beaten Pine Deep to a pulp.
“Fuck you,” Monk snarled.
The storm just laughed, just rained harder.