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He set about bracing the frame with sticks and zip tying them together. It wasn’t pretty, but it was a damn sight better than what I could ever put together.
And it worked.
We got the weather box placed on the frame, he fixed that with screws and zip ties, and after a good hour or so, it was done.
I went into the outhouse and checked the meters. “It’s good!” I yelled.
Tully came in, all sweaty and concerned. “What’s up?”
“You did it!” I said, giving him a kiss on the cheek. I was so proud of him. He did this. He fixed it all. It wasn’t perfect and technicians would need to come out and get it all up to code. But he’d fixed it. This station would now be pinging accurate readings to the bureau.
The sky rumbled overhead. “Okay, that’s our cue,” Tully said. “I’ll get the crate. You lock everything up. And let’s go home. Where there is beer and lube.”
I laughed. I wasn’t looking forward to the trip home at all, but the beer and lube sounded like a great way to spend the afternoon.
After hot showers, of course.
We packed up the crate and I took some more photos before locking the outhouse door. Tully carried the crate and headed toward the boat while I pulled the gate closed. And just as I got the padlock through the bolt hole, I had a very strong, very sudden taste in my mouth.
Oh no.
I looked upward to the cloudy sky. Cumulonimbus clouds, low and darkening. It was drizzling rain, and thunder grated along the sky.
Something didn’t feel right.
It didn’t sound right, as if everything was in a vacuum. It made the hairs on the back of my neck tingle.
Oh god.
“Tully!” I yelled. “Get to the boat! Now!”
He turned as he was halfway to the jetty. “What was that?”
The copper suddenly filling my mouth was putrid. Far too strong, as if my mouth was filled with blood.
“Run!” I yelled, trying to get my body to move. To run, to sprint. To save him.
Then the sky went white, and everything went still before the silence exploded.
And then there was nothing.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TULLY
Jeremiah spun,the same way his mother had spun in that awful footage on Collins Street.
He danced the same way his mother had, his arm extended outward as he fell to the ground.
The deafening sound of the lightning, the blinding whiteness of it, was nothing when all I could see was Jeremiah being spun like that.
The void of sound as he crumpled to the dirt.
I hadn’t even realised I was on the ground. The crate was knocked over. Had I been knocked off my feet?
I didn’t remember falling.
I only saw him.
