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THE AIR FELT DIFFERENT the next morning when we woke up and went outside on deck. Terry said it was because huge hurricanes like Leona brought with them the tropical warm air and moisture from the Caribbean Sea. Racing across the swath of sky that we could see overhead between the mangroves were patches of wind-driven clouds, all streaming from the east-southeast in the direction of the hurricane’s rotation. Terry said these were the outer feeder bands of the storm and that even if it turned at the last minute, it was still close enough that we were going to feel tropical storm force winds soon. He tried to talk Mom out of the idea of leaving the boat, saying it was too late now and far too dangerous to be going anywhere.
“We’d be better off hunkering down on board like I said before. The worst that could happen back here in this hole is the storm surge will cause the water to rise a few feet, but if we’re on board to adjust the lines it won’t be a problem. These mangroves will protect us from the brunt of the wind, just like Dean said. You see how many lines we have tied to them. Even if some of them fail these springy branches will act like cushions and protect the ship from hitting something hard. Mangroves are about the only trees that can stand up to a hurricane. That’s why they have those laws against cutting them. I can see a fine for cutting the whole damned tree down, but trimming a branch? Ridiculous!”
Despite Terry’s argument for staying put, Mom wasn’t having it and demanded he take us ashore immediately. She’d already packed her bags and made Janie and me pack ours. She said we were going to Miami and that was that! Dean was supposed to be here first thing to give us an update from the TV report, but he hadn’t shown up and Mom wasn’t going to wait.
“That’s the dumbest idea you’ve ever had, Linda! You’re leaving the safety of a perfectly seaworthy ship; well stocked with all the water and food we’ll need for weeks, to go join a mob of refugees. You’ll be packed into some stadium or school with the drunks and homeless bums, sleeping on the floor; waiting for government handouts that’ll take days to get there, if they come at all!”
“You said yourself before we left that we had to avoid hurricanes at all costs! And when you first found out about this one, you wanted to set sail immediately to miss it, but Dean said it was too big and the path was too uncertain. Now that we know it’s coming for sure, you’ve changed your mind and want to stay on the boat. You’re not making any sense, Terry!”
“I didn’t change my mind, I wanted to stay on the boat all along, but out at sea rather than waiting someplace that could be ground zero for a disaster! But you refused to sail with me. I had no choice but to stay here because my whole crew threatened mutiny! So with Dean’s help, the ship is in the best place it could be to ride out the hurricane if it indeed makes landfall in the Keys. But now after I agree to stay put on the island like you wanted, you’re all planning to abandon me—and abandon our ship and our home—the Apocalypse!”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have named her that,” Janie said. “Maybe it’s bad karma! It can’t be a lucky name.”
I had thought the same thing a couple of times, but still, I liked the name, “Apocalypse.” It sounded cool and it sounded like something big—something important—which it was considering we traded everything in our previous lives to build and sail it. I hoped Janie was wrong about the luck thing though. Terry said sailors were superstitious by nature, and that they had always had been, but even though he liked the old seafaring traditions and sayings, he wasn’t superstitious at all. In fact, I don’t think he believed in luck—bad or good. He had talked about it a few times before, saying:
“Bad luck is an excuse people use when things go wrong that are really the result of bad planning or bad decisions. Things don’t just happen by chance, Robbie. It’s up to us to make them happen.”
He dismissed Janie’s comment about creating bad karma in the same way:
“The name of a ship isn’t going to steer a hurricane this way or that, Janie, anymore than Dean’s wishful thinking that his little island is somehow charmed and protected from the wrath of Mother Nature. Hurricanes are guided by air and water temperatures and currents, and the closer they get the more accurate those who study the forces involved can predict where they’ll go. We made our decision yesterday, when we moved our ship in here, and it’s a decision I thought we would live with. It’s too late to run from Leona now. That should be clear to every one of you, but apparently it isn’t. So fine, we’ll go ashore and you can do as you like, but as for me, I’m coming back to my ship. This is where I’ll make my stand, come hell... high water... hurricane... or all three at once!”
Mom didn’t argue with him because it was clear that Terry wasn’t changing his mind. I didn’t know who was right when it came to what we ought to do, but I didn’t really like just sitting there in those mangroves where we couldn’t see what was going on. I figured it would be a good idea to go ashore and see what everybody else was doing. If they were all leaving the island, it seemed to me that would be a good sign that we ought to leave too.
With our bags packed to stay somewhere else for a few days or however long we had to, there wasn’t enough room for all of us to fit in the dinghy at once. Terry rowed me and Janie ashore first and then went back for Mom and the rest of our stuff. We could hear Terry arguing with her the whole time while we waited at the beginning of the path through the mangroves. I knew it wouldn’t do him any good, and I hoped Terry would shut up before he really made her mad. Terry didn’t know Mom as well as Janie and I did, and I don’t think he realized how quickly she would divorce him if he pushed her too far. I hoped that didn’t happen and hoped this stupid hurricane didn’t tear up our ship, because now that I’d seen the Keys, I really wanted to keep sailing and see more islands. Going back to Calloway City and back to school again would suck after coming this far.
“I wondered when you guys were going to get off the boat.”
I turned around, startled by Dean’s voice. We had been talking while we waited and didn’t hear him coming down the path.
“We figured you had left the island by now.”
“Nah, man. Where am I going to go? I’ll ride it out here, but I wouldn’t stay on that boat if I were you. They’re saying it will be a Category Four when it hits, and they’re saying the storm surge will be twelve to fifteen feet! That’s more than enough to flood the highest spot on Islamorada.”
“Why are you staying then?” Janie asked. “Your apartment is under a house. It’s going to get flooded!”
Before he could answer, we heard Mom and Terry approaching the landing spot in the dinghy. When Dean saw them and all the bags, he told Terry we were doing the right thing to get off the boat.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Terry said. “My crew wants to leave, so I’ll help them carry their stuff to the bus, but I’m coming back.”
“They’re not running any more buses,” Dean said. “The last one left sometime last night and the state troopers have stopped all traffic coming back to the Keys from the mainland. Both lanes are now one way from here to there, so there won’t be anymore buses coming.”
Mom became almost hysterical at this news. “What about a cab? You’ve got to call us a cab, Terry. There’s got to be a cab that can take us to the shelter!”
Dean just laughed at this. “Yeah, there were a bunch of them, but with all the tourists packed in hotels, they’ve all gone too. They would come back for more if not for the roadblock though, believe me. I heard the shameless bastards were charging as much as twelve hundred dollars for the one-way fare from Islamorada to Miami!”
“That’s the kind of thing that always happens when these storms come,” Terry said, launching into a rant about the depravity and indecency of most of society. They’ll jack up the price on everything essential, and all the idiots who go through life unprepared and oblivious of what they need to survive are at their mercy. See what I told you, Linda? It’s too late to leave! Now we need to just go back to the Apocalypse and wait it out.”
“Dean said that would be crazy!” Janie said.
“Like he’s got a better plan!” Terry shouted back.
“Where are you going to go?” Mom asked him.
“That’s what I came here to tell you,” Dean said. “They didn’t want to announce anything sooner, because they wanted as many people as possible to leave, but they are opening a shelter here for the last few who couldn’t get a ride out. It’s not supposed to be available for tourists, but I talked to a dude I know in the fire department and told him you guys were a special case, you know, a family stranded here on your boat and all, and he said they would let you in. It’s a private school, and when they built it, they designed it to withstand up to a Category Four hurricane. The main classrooms are on the second floor, high enough to be safe even with the storm surge they’re predicting. It’s the best place on the island to go that I know of. So if you’re ready, just follow me and I’ll make sure they know who you are so they’ll let you in.”
Terry said if we wanted to go huddle inside some school building with a bunch of people we didn’t know instead of staying home on our ship that was fine with him. He said he would walk with us to see where the shelter was so he would know where to look for us when it was over and we were sick and tired of the rations they would dole out. Mom told him he was being ridiculous and that he ought to just stay with us so we would all be together. She said if that hurricane was as bad as they said it was, we would probably never find the Apocalypse or his body either when it was over. I tried to tell him too, and I reminded him that Hal Jenkins said they still hadn’t found all the bodies from Katrina yet. Terry just laughed and said we were all being gullible to media hype. He said he would be fine and the Apocalypse would be too, just as long as her captain was on board to look after her.
It was a long walk to Islamorada because we had to cross the bridge from the little key where the lagoon was, and we were carrying our bags with the clothes and other things we needed. It was strange how the highway was deserted now after most everyone who had a car or truck had left and no one else was permitted to come this way from the mainland. From up on that bridge, we got a good look at the sky all around and the angry waves on the Atlantic side. It was starting to look like a storm was coming for sure. There were whitecaps everywhere out there on the steel-gray water and the passing clouds overhead were bigger, more ominous and more numerous, all of them moving in the same east-west direction like they had been all morning. The wind was blowing at a steady twenty-five to thirty-five knots but a couple of times we felt gusts that Dean said were nearly fifty. They were strong enough that I had to lean into them to keep my balance, but they only lasted a few seconds. Terry said that back in the hole where the Apocalypse was tied up, we wouldn’t have even felt them. I wondered if he was right as I turned to look back one last time before we left the crest of the bridge. From up there, you could see the tops of the two white-painted spars of our ship’s schooner rig poking out in stark contrast from the green canopy of mangroves. Before I turned away, it occurred to me this might be the last time I ever saw them, but I was keeping my fingers crossed that it wouldn’t be.
When we got to the school, the building did look pretty substantial. It was made of concrete and brick, with steel columns and steel staircases going up the second floor, where a balcony wrapped around the entire upper level. There was a small crowd of people standing around outside talking, all of them discussing one thing—Hurricane Leona. Dean said there were probably a lot more people on the island who chose to ride out the hurricane in their own homes, despite all the warnings that it was not a good idea. He said the ones who came here to the school were mostly the homeless and a few people like him who lived somewhere that clearly wouldn’t be safe in a hurricane. I was glad Dean was staying there with us, because that way at least we knew somebody there and he could tell everybody else that we weren’t homeless too. Janie said it wouldn’t matter because to most people, living on a boat was the same thing, just look what that park ranger in the Everglades had said.
Terry wouldn’t go inside with us because he was afraid the cops that were there to keep things organized wouldn’t let him leave again “for his own safety.” He said they did things like that in shelters and that’s why he wouldn’t stay in one even if he didn’t have a perfectly good ship to take refuge aboard. He waited around awhile, staying outside talking to Dean, while we went in and got our things situated after learning where our assigned space on the floor was. Then we all went outside to give him the latest update on the storm and try one last time to talk him into staying there with us.
“They’re saying it’s going to hit sometime before dawn tomorrow,” Mom told him. “They’re still saying the storm surge could be as high as fifteen feet and they’re warning people that nowhere in the Keys is safe from a storm surge like that. They said they’re expecting extreme property damage and destruction, and that loss of life will be likely for those who ignore their recommendations to seek safe shelter immediately. Please, Terry! Just be sensible and stay here with us until this is all over!”
“Even if I wanted to I couldn’t, Linda. After all that damage, if it happens, it’ll be nearly impossible to get back to the lagoon to the ship. Power lines will be down, debris will be ten feet deep on the roads, and the bridge to the other island may not even be there. Katrina knocked down two major bridges on Highway 90 in Mississippi and it took years to build them back! I’d be stuck here for days at best, but you know who would get to the boat first? Looters! The scum of the Earth who crawl out of their holes like a colony of cockroaches to pillage and plunder everything left in the aftermath of disaster. They’ll find our ship and strip it to two bare hulls in a matter of hours! They’ll take everything we own and worked so hard for and leave us with nothing. Then, we really will be homeless! Do you want that Linda? I didn’t think so! So you just stay put with Robbie and Janie and I’ll go do what I have to do as captain of my ship. I’ll be fine through the storm, and when it’s over, I’ll be there waiting with the SKS and that Colt .45 that I told you we were probably going to need sooner than later. I intend to break them out of hiding as soon as I’m back on board, and you can believe me when I say any looters thinking they’re going to plunder the Apocalypse will be in for a nasty surprise when they try!”
I didn't know anything about looters because I had never been around the aftermath of a disaster before, but Dean said Terry was right and that even when there wasn't a storm, theft was a real problem here in the Keys. He said you couldn't leave anything of value unlocked or out in the open because there was always somebody on the lookout for what they could steal next. He said it was even worse in Key West, but after a hurricane looting would be a problem all over the Keys and on the Florida mainland too.
“I just can’t imagine people being so evil they would take advantage of someone else’s misfortune like that,” Mom said.
“Believe it! It’s going to be a whole lot worse when the entire country collapses! What have I been telling you for more than two years now? Why do you think we’re here in the first place? We couldn’t survive the onslaught if we stayed in America, especially way up there on the mainland and as far inland as Calloway City. Looting is nothing compared to the rape, murder and arson that will take place when the crap really hits the fan! Think of this storm as just a small taste of it—a drill. We’ll get through this and then get the hell out of here, and maybe after you see how things really are, you’ll understand what I’ve been trying to say all along and why we’re never coming back!”
“This dude’s a trip, isn’t he?” Dean said, giving me a jab. “He’s pretty serious when he says he’s done with the whole American way, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, it’s all he ever talks about, at least to anyone who will listen. Nobody else seems to be worried about it though. Why is that? What about you? What do you think about all that stuff?”
“Man, I don’t know. I’m just living on island time, you know. One day at a time is about as much as I can stand. Some days like today living in the moment is not so cool, but what can you do? You just gotta keep believing the storm will turn or fizzle out. You gotta believe the Universe will keep it in check. The rest of the country? Who cares what happens up there? I haven’t been back in twenty-five years. I don’t plan to ever go north of Key Largo again for any reason I can think of right now. They can do what they want up north!”
Terry gave us all hugs and kissed Mom goodbye, setting out alone on foot to go back to the lagoon before it got dark. The wind was already blowing near gale-force and the people in charge of the shelter told us it was time to go inside and stay there. A few of the other people standing around outside who heard that Terry was planning to ride out the hurricane on a boat said he was insane and that what he was doing was the same thing as suicide. I wondered if they were right but hoped they weren’t. Like everything else Terry believed, it seemed like he was the only one on the island who thought going back to the ship was a good idea. It was no different than when we first built it and told the people in Calloway City we were going to sail away across the ocean. They thought Terry was crazy, and he thought they were all idiots. Some things just never changed.
Everyone inside the school crowded around two big TV screens in the main hall, watching the National Hurricane Center’s updates on Leona. The hurricane had left a swath of devastation across the island of Cuba and was once again over open water in the Straits of Florida. It had diminished to a Category Three while over land, but they were saying for sure now that it would regain strength and become a Category Four before its next landfall. That landfall was predicted to be somewhere between Key West and Key Largo. Islamorada was smack dab in the middle between those two edges of the cone of probability.
“We’re all going to die,” Janie said.
“No, we’ll be fine. They wouldn’t let all these people stay here if they didn’t think the school building could withstand it,” Mom said.
“Terry’s going to die for sure, being outside like that.”
“I think he’ll be okay,” Dean said. “He’s going to be in for the ride of his life though. I’ll bet he won’t ever ride out another hurricane on a boat after this.”
“You don’t know Terry like I do. He’s about as hardheaded as they come. I thought Janie’s father was bad, but Terry beats them all in that department. I hope you’re right though. I’m really worried about him out there in this.”
The first bands of near hurricane-force gusts were already pelting the building, and looking outside you could see the rain going sideways in the wind and palm trees bent so far over they just had to break in two if it didn’t stop. I thought it was bad when this first started happening, but Dean said we hadn’t seen anything yet. He said when the hurricane got here you’d see trees flying by in the air along with pieces of houses and appliances and cars and all kinds of stuff like that. He said the ocean would come all the way over the island and that the tops of the waves might even reach the balcony on the second floor if the storm surge predictions were right. I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping a wink that night for sure, because not only was I too scared to sleep, I didn’t want to miss seeing all that stuff because most people never got to.
What I hadn’t counted on though was how dark it was going to be in a hurricane that hit during nighttime. The wind got strong enough by midnight that it tore down most of the power lines on the island and put us in the pitch black. They had battery-powered lanterns and flashlights in the shelter, and Dean said they had generators they would run later when it was over, but that didn’t do any good for seeing what was going on outside. Everybody inside kept going to the windows to look until they made us stay away from the glass because it was bound to break. When the wind got stronger, it turned out they were right because glass started shattering everywhere, letting in the rain that was blowing sideways so hard it stung like BB’s when it hit your skin.
Every time I thought it was as bad as it could possibly get, things just got worse outside, at least from the sound of it. You could hear metal clanging and banging against stuff and wood tearing and breaking. Things kept hitting the building too, some of them really big from the sound of it and the way the concrete walls shook on impact. On top of all that was the roar of the wind and crashing of waves that were now breaking against the first-story walls beneath us. I thought for sure the building was going to fall in or be blown down at any minute, and Janie and Mom did too. Dean wasn’t worried about it too much though because he had fallen asleep before it got really bad. I don’t know how he did it, but he had been pretty chilled out anyway from all the dope he’d been smoking all day and Janie said he probably took something stronger to knock himself out. Some of the other people in the shelter were passed out drunk and not too worried either, but others were screaming and freaking out. It was hard not to scream with them the way everything sounded outside.
Even though we had lost the TV reports along with the power, the firemen and policemen at the shelter had radios and they were keeping up with the storm. They did their best to keep everyone calm as they passed along the updates on the position of the storm’s center. It seemed to take forever, but finally sometime just before daylight, they said the eye of it had already passed over Key West. Now it was headed north towards Marco Island. We were still in for a few hours of storm-force winds, but they said the worst was over and that the building had come through fine.
When it was light enough outside to see, I got as close to a broken window as I could without getting soaked by the rain and looked outside onto a scene of utter destruction. Nothing within view looked the same as it had the afternoon before. The stores, houses, signs, power line poles and most of the trees that had been there were gone or reduced to piles of rubble. Cars were stacked up in crumpled heaps on top of each other or turned sideways or upside down, sitting on what was left of houses and buildings. Boats that had been anchored or docked somewhere were on their sides in the highway or in people’s yards, some of them smashed-in and broken up beyond recognition. I could only imagine what had become of the Apocalypse. Was she thrown onto the island somewhere in scattered pieces with all the rest of the debris, or had she been swept out to sea on the storm surge and torn apart in deep water, only to sink? What had Terry’s final moments been like when it happened? Did he go quickly, bashed in the head by a flying tree trunk or chunk of metal? Or did he end up treading water somewhere in the dark, trying to stay up for air a little longer before he drowned with no hope of reaching the shore? Whatever had happened to him, I was sure it must have been fatal, but looking out there I didn’t know how we would be able to find him to find out. Hal Jenkins’ words about bodies never being found kept replaying in my head. I felt an arm around me and realized it was Mom. She’d finally worked up the courage to come to the window and look outside herself.
“Oh. My. God!” she whispered. “My poor husband, Terry! How could anyone caught outside have survived this?”