Induction

The rain pelting the windows sounded like someone was throwing pebbles at the corrugated metal. Jake and I went back to the living room and knelt on the loveseat with our arms on the back as I pulled the cord to raise the blinds. The rain was coming down sideways in thick sheets. Lightning lit the gray sky and was followed by a thunderous boom. It was moments like this that I fully appreciated adding surge protection through the electric company. If any of our electronics or appliances kicked the bucket during a storm, they were responsible for replacing them.

The electricity flickered, but it didn’t fail. Overhead, the sound of a helicopter flying low could be heard above the storm. The beast came into view as it traveled directly over the house. It was so low, the windows rattled in their frames. Jake and I gave each other looks of surprise and craned our necks to look up again. It was gone, but three more followed in its wake, flying just as low and fast.

“Where the heck are they rushing off to?” he asked, as if I would know the answer.

Shrugging my shoulders, I mumbled a phonetic sound close enough to an I dunno and jogged to the front windows in time to see them fade to nothing in the storm.

We spent the afternoon cuddled on the sofa watching DVDs. The unusually-heavy air traffic continued in spurts. At one point we were jarred out of TV Land by the sound of an explosion. Running to the front door, we huddled under the porch searching for the cause. Off in the distance, we could make out a plume of black smoke rising into the sky. Unlike inside, we could hear more than the rain and helicopters. Muffled pops could be heard from various directions. I closed my eyes and tried to make out individual sounds above the rain.

“Is someone yelling?” I asked.

“It sounds like it, but I think there’s more than one person.”

Our efforts to remain dry under the small covered area were futile, and we squished back into the house with wet socks.

“Let’s see if the news is on. I want to watch the weather and see how things are looking,” I said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and it will peter out or skip us altogether.” With Jake on one side and Daphne on the other, I tuned into the local news station.

Chapter 05 Buried Treasure

“In the midst of what is surely the worst storm Floridians have seen all year, we are getting reports of extreme violence throughout the community. Law enforcement officials recommend all nonessential personnel remain in their homes until what they are calling ‘civil disobedience’ has been contained. We have received news that St. Vincent’s Hospital has been overrun with crazed citizens. Reports state that there has been an outbreak of what medical professionals have determined is a form of the rabies virus. Highly contagious through transmission of saliva and blood, this pathogen has a one hundred percent infection rate and is believed to have originated from a female patient at St. Vincent’s Hospital. The hospital has been placed under quarantine, and we have been asked to direct anyone exhibiting symptoms of the infection to St. Mary’s Hospital on Metro Parkway in Fort Myers.

“We have received reports of similar activity from hospitals along the east coast, reaching as far north as Delaware.