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And I realised then that I was having a moment of disassociation. That perhaps this level of fear had made my brain disconnect the emotional reasoning, and I started to assess the storm clinically, methodically. As if it were happening to someone else and I was simply analysing the data.
Winds up to 280 km per hour.
Low down to 925 hectopascals.
Another 100 ml of rain.
And those numbers, those statistics, meant high level destruction. That meant buildings would be gone.
People.
There would be a death toll. A fact those numbers couldn’t deny.
And I’d warned people. I’d tried to tell them when that news reporter asked me.
Had they listened?
Tully didn’t. His family didn’t. Apparently they had acyclone-proof cellar, but the more I looked at those numbers, and given their house was fully exposed, fronting the ocean... I had to wonder howanythingwould survive.
Like the islands that had been mowed off the map.
I glanced up at the screens.
The camera on the news building was gone, now just a screen of fuzzy white snow. And then I looked at the security camera out the front of the building we were huddled in...
A sheet of something had been swept into the yard. It looked like roofing iron. And there was rubbish and debris stuck in the fence, and something dark on the landing at the steps.
Something... an odd shape. A moving odd shape...
“What’s that?” I said. I tapped Tully’s shoulder to get him to loosen his grip so I could get up. I went to the screen to get a better look.
It looked like a...
Something alive.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, doubting they could hear me. I went into the foyer area and grabbed the door. It wouldn’t budge at first, as if it were locked or suction-cupped shut, and I had to pull it with all my strength until it budged, and then the wind got it and it flew inward, almost knocking me off my feet.
The wind...
My god.
And the rain, and the noise. So much louder than I could have imagined. Something flew through the air past the building. A garden chair? Part of a house?
But there, huddled against the wall and utterly defeated, was a bird. Drenched, and the sorriest thing I’d ever seen. I wasn’t even sure it was still alive, but I stepped outside, trying to keep my body mass as low as possible, almost getting blown off the landing. I grabbed the bird as the wind tried to take me, and I almost lost my footing... until an arm grabbed me.
Tully, holding the door with one hand, holding me with his other, a wild look of fear and anger on his face. He pulled me inside, the door slamming shut behind me. I think he’d kicked it.
The whole building shook.
“Are you in-fucking-sane?” he screamed at me.
The pot plant was knocked over, the baseball bat across the other side of the foyer. Tully’s face was pale, his eyes wild. “Are you trying to get us all killed? Opening the fucking door could have blown the windows out or the goddamn roof off. What were you thinking?” He tapped the side of his head.
I shook my head, his anger at me was not expected, and my adrenaline was starting to crash. I tried to speak but couldn’t find the words, so I held up the bird instead. It was the size of a magpie or pigeon, but it was hard to tell what it was because it was so wet and ruffled. Soaked to its fragile, hollow bones.
It was limp, but it was trembling.
Or maybe that was me.
