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She scurried inside and slid the door closed, making sure to lock it. She wasn’t sure why she’d locked it. It wasn’t like the wind was going to blow her sliding glass door open, but it made her feel safer.
She stood there and watched for a minute as the rain over the ocean inched its way closer and closer until huge drops splattered across her balcony. About thirty seconds later, those huge drops turned to a solid sheet of rain. It was coming down so hard and fast that she couldn’t see past her railing. The wind howled, and the thunder crashed.
Molly backed away from the window, finding a cozy place on her couch under a blanket, and turned on a movie. She could see why delivery people wouldn’t go out in this. There was no way anyone could drive even if the streets didn’t flood. The rain was blinding.
She’d just gotten past the opening credits when the electricity flickered. She froze, as if her movement might trigger a power outage, but her gaze darted around the room. Several slow seconds ticked by, but nothing else happened. The lights stayed on.
“That was close.” She returned to her movie, turning the volume up so she could hear it over the constant rumbling of thunder and the sounds of the rain pelting the door.
Then there was a blinding flash. It was so bright it flooded the room like a search light. Almost simultaneously, there was an ear-shattering crack, louder than anything she’d ever heard before. The entire room shook, and the hairs on Molly’s arms stood straight up. Molly’s heart pounded in her chest as she pulled the blanket up to her eyes. That was close. Too close.
The lights flickered again and then went out completely. The storm continued to rage outside, but inside was eerily quiet. Molly sat there in the darkness for a moment with her eyes peeking out just above the top of her blanket, willing the power to come back on. It didn’t.
“It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine,” she whispered into the darkness. It was just a storm. Sure, it was the worst storm she’d seen in possibly forever and she was all alone in a fourth-story condo with nothing but sand between her building and the raging ocean, but storms passed. She was safe. Everything was going to turn out okay. Hopefully.
Maybe what she needed was a little light to chase away the darkness. Light always helped, and she was pretty sure she’d seen a large lantern-type flashlight under the sink.
Another clap of thunder rattled the windows as she stood from the couch. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders for protection—not that she knew what she needed protection from inside her own, safe condo. Or what the fuzzy blanket was going to do about it even if a problem did arise. But the cape thing seemed to work for superheroes, so she figured it wouldn’t hurt.
She fumbled her way through the darkness into the kitchen. Holding the counter as a guide, she made her way to the sink and squatted down. It was pitch black inside the cabinet, but a well-timed lightning strike lit up the room enough to catch a glimpse of the lantern. The lightning was good for something, after all. She reached for the lantern and switched it on.
Light filled the room. “Better,” she said out loud. Now that she had some light, she felt more confident about her safety, and headed into her bedroom to get her phone that had been on the charger.
The first text message was from Ellyn.
You ok? Lightning hit a transformer. Electric company estimates power back in five hours.
Five hours, huh? Looked like it was going to be a quieter evening than Molly had thought. She typed a quick reply to tell her friend that all was well there, then headed over to the bookcase. If she remembered correctly, there was a jigsaw puzzle that someone had left. A night without electricity seemed like the perfect time to get it out and put it together.
She held the lantern up to view the items on the shelves until she found it, a tropical scene of a sea turtle swimming over a reef.
Sea turtles!
Molly had almost forgotten about the turtles. Grant had explained to her on one of the more in-depth tours of the facility that the turtles were fine in most storms. They were animals used to living in the wild and instinctively knew what to do to stay safe. The only real concern was if there was a storm surge from a hurricane that came up higher than the tanks, or…
“A power outage that stops the pumping system,” she said out loud. According to Grant, the turtles would be fine in a short outage, but anything longer than half an hour required the generator to be turned on. It was one of the reasons they always had someone living on the property. But Grant was out of town until tomorrow.
Concern swirled through her as she stared at the picture of the sea turtle on the box and then looked out the window. The storm was still raging with no sign of letting up soon. She grabbed her phone and typed a quick message about the power outage to the only other person she knew was in town: Mateo. His reply dinged almost immediately.
I got the alarm but I’m in Seagrove.
Seagrove? That was a twenty-minute drive in good conditions. Even if he could do the drive in these treacherous conditions, there was no way he’d make it in time.
Molly, on the other hand, lived just over a mile from Turtle Rehab. The roads might have water building up on them, but she doubted there’d be anyone else out. Who else would want to drive in this? If she drove slowly and in the middle of the road to avoid the water pooling, she’d be okay. Besides, what other choice did she have?
Stay there. I’ll go. I’m much closer.
Driving on the dark roads through a sheet of rain didn’t sound like a great idea, and there was a healthy dose of icy nervousness flowing through her veins, but what other choice did she have? There was no way she could sit here and let something happen to Hope or Shelley or Buzz or Woody.
She tossed the blanket on the couch and grabbed her raincoat from the rack. “Let’s do it.” With new resolve, she marched out the front door with her keys in one hand and the lantern in the other.
As she predicted, there wasn’t anyone else on 30A, which was probably a good thing. Molly drove in the middle of the street to avoid the growing puddles as she crept down the highway at fifteen miles per hour. Even with her windshield wipers going full speed, there was no keeping up with the rainfall. The normal five-minute drive felt like it’d taken forever when she finally pulled into the empty Turtle Rehab parking lot. Her shoulders were one solid knot and her jaw hurt from clenching her teeth, but she’d made it. Step one: check. Now all she had to do was get through the building to the generator outside.
That, of course, required her to run from her car to the door in the raging storm. Making sure she had her keys ready, she grabbed the lantern, took a deep breath, and dashed for the entrance. It was only a three-second trek, maybe four at the most, but by the time she got inside and pulled the door closed, water poured off her raincoat. She was pretty sure her clothes underneath were damp too. How could that much water fall from the sky at the same time?
She leaned against the door, letting out a long exhale. Her heart thumped in her chest, and she held her lantern up to survey the room in front of her.
She’d walked through the gift shop dozens of times and was very familiar with the facility as a whole, but in the darkness it looked different. The lantern cast eerie shadows on the walls and floor, and the continuous flashes of lightning and crashes of thunder added an extra layer of fear.
