Blown Away! Read online

  21

  THE RESCUE TRAIN

  F rom under the tarp in the bed of the truck I could hear the storm’s fury. Something landed with a crash and pounded me with a wallop. I peeked out and pushed a heavy board off me. Over the shouting winds I heard the muffled sound of Dad’s voice. I peered into the back window of the cab and could make out his hands gesturing. He was wondering if I was all right, I figured, so I waved and hoped he could see me.

  The early evening air was thick with hurtling objects and tiny, flickering lights that looked like fireflies. But as they hit sharply against my face, I realized they were hot grains of sand, and I held my hand to shield my eyes.

  As we passed the train station, the lights from our truck revealed people struggling along the railroad bed toward the station or the packinghouse. Was it the Ashburns, I wondered? Mr. Ashburn had said they planned to stay there for protection against any storm surge. The mound of earth that supported the railroad tracks and those two buildings was a good seven feet above the road.

  That’s what we should do, I thought, instead of driving to the clinic at Snake Creek! I held back the urge to jump out and join the Ashburns at the packinghouse. As I watched, the roof of the Islamorada train station blew into the air, tumbling and turning in the powerful wind.

  A branch from a lemon or lime tree plunged onto the roof of the cab, its sharp thorns slicing across my face. I felt the warm trickles of blood and dove under the canvas again.

  At times the truck slipped in the watery road, and I held my breath as we bounced and skidded our way north toward Snake Creek. Would we make it? I thought of the Bible story I heard at Sunday school, when Jesus calmed the Sea of Galilee just by saying, “Peace. Be still.” I closed my eyes and prayed, “Please calm this storm. Make it end.”

  I hid under the tarp, shuddering with fear that we would be blown away or that something huge would fall on us. I crouched there until the truck stopped and Dad opened the cab door. “We made it!” he shouted. “Are you all right, Jake?”

  “I’m okay,” I said, throwing aside the canvas and climbing out onto the muddy road. “How is Star?”

  “The same,” Mom answered, opening her door. “Take her, Jake.”

  I gathered my little sister into my arms. She seemed so small and helpless. “Oh, God, please save my sister,” I whispered.

  Lantern lights gleamed through the upstairs windows of the two-story hotel that had been turned into the veterans’ hospital, and I could see shadows of people.

  Dad took Star from me and raced ahead of us. “We need a doctor right now!” he yelled. Inside the building the water was over our ankles, and I understood why the lights were only shining from the second-floor windows. Dad took the stairs two at a time, and Mom and I dashed after him. “My daughter needs a doctor immediately!”

  A man who seemed to be in charge stepped toward us. “I’m Dr. Lassiter,” he said. “We sent all our patients and staff away in the ambulances before the storm set in. I’m the only doctor left on the island, and we’re busy with injuries and refugees.”

  “But we’re refugees,” Dad argued, “and my baby here is delirious with fever. It’s been going on for days now. She needs medical help.”

  “I’ll take a look at her,” the doctor said, pointing to a cot, “but there’s not much we can do. The power is off now, and we’re not equipped to handle anything that could be serious.”

  “Please help us,” Mom begged. “I think she has the sleeping sickness.”

  Dad placed Star gently onto the cot. Star murmured something but continued to sleep.

  Dr. Lassiter put his hand to Star’s forehead, looked under her eyelids, and then listened to her heart with the stethoscope. “She’s comatose. It does look like encephalitis,” he agreed.

  “Do you have any medication to break the fever?” Mom asked.

  “There’s nothing I can do right now. Try to keep her cool,” the doctor said. “We’ve got to get through this hurricane, and then we’ll decide what steps to take for your child.” He shook his head, and his eyes were sad. “I’m sorry.”

  Mom sat on the cot, put her hands over her face, and wept, while Dad patted her shoulder. Dr. Lassiter walked over to a man who had just arrived. At that moment the hospital trembled as a gust of wind blew out a window. The people who huddled together cried out.

  “This building will go!”

  “We’ve got to get out!”

  “Where can we find a safe place?”

  Dr. Lassiter clapped his hands for silence. “I’ve just heard the rescue train will be coming through any time now,” he shouted. “It’s scheduled to head south to Camp Three on Lower Matecumbe Key, pick up the veterans there, and then turn around and head north to Miami. Some folks are already out on the tracks to stop the train when it comes over the bridge. They figure they’ll be safe in the train, even though it’s heading south first. Perhaps that’s where you should go before this building collapses.”

  Some families jumped up and ran for the stairway. “Keep order!” the doctor called after them. “Don’t panic!”

  Dad lifted Star over his shoulder. “Let’s go,” he said.

  We went down the stairs, waded out into the wild night, and climbed back into the truck. This time it wouldn’t start. “Never mind,” Dad said. “The tracks are just up the road.”

  The storm was so strong that we had to fight and push our way against the wind as we struggled toward the railroad tracks. We also had to watch out for flying debris and falling trees. Several times the heavy gusts pushed Mom to her knees, and I took her hands and pulled with all my strength to get her up. Eventually we climbed up the railroad bed and onto the tracks. The Snake Creek train-station house was gone, and men were busy pulling debris from the rails while families with children clustered together anxiously waiting for the train.

  “Oh, please, dear God,” a woman cried. “Protect us from the storm.”

  “Get us to safety,” added another voice.

  We bowed low against the blasts of wind, and from where we stood above the road, the lightning revealed the outline of the hospital clinic. Suddenly, as if it were made of toy blocks, the building fell apart in pieces and rattled off through the air. We clung together in the downpour and the wind, while Windley Key was ripped apart in front of our eyes.

  “Listen!” a man yelled. “I hear the train!”

  Sure enough, a loud whistle and the chugging of a steam engine could be heard above the roar of the wind.

  “Thank God!”

  “Make the train stop!”

  “Stand out on the tracks and wave your oilskins!” came the shouts. Between gusts that nearly knocked me over, I struggled onto the tracks, tore off my yellow slicker, and signaled. The train was coming, but we didn’t see the light from the locomotive.

  Then Dad shouted, “Stay back, Jake! Look out! The engine is in the back, and the engineer won’t see you!”

  Dad was right. The coach cars were in the front, and the locomotive was in the rear of the train. But it didn’t matter. Someone must have seen us, because the train came to a stop, and the people along the tracks ran through the rising water for refuge in the large, heavy coaches.

  “The engine is pushing the passenger cars to save time on the return to Miami,” Dad explained as we climbed on board one of the coaches. “When it heads back north it will already be in the front of the train.”

  “But we have to head all the way back to Islamorada first, and then down to Lower Matecumbe for the vets down there at camp 3,” I said. “By the time we come back through here, the bridges may be out.”

  “Don’t worry, Jake. We’ll be safe in the train,” Mom said. “Just get inside and turn a seat out for Star.”

  There were no passengers on the train; obviously it had been sent empty to make room for the refugees. We settled ourselves toward the middle of the nearest car. Dad and I sat together, and Mom faced us, with Star snuggled close to her. Star’s eyes seemed to be lost in dark
circles, and she lay so quietly that it frightened me. Then she sighed, and I knew she was still with us.

  Star, I thought, I would give anything in the world to hear your sweet chatter. Tears welled up in my eyes. Please, dear Lord, save my sister.

  The engine began to roar, the whistle blew eerily, and then very slowly the train started to chug its way down to Islamorada. Driving rain pelted the window, but in the flashes of lightning that filled the sky I could see the outlines of uprooted trees, and flat, empty land that looked like a desert.

  “Why are we going so slowly?” Mom asked

  “I think the tracks are covered with water and debris, but I can’t tell from here,” I said, squinting out the window. “I’ll go out onto the platform and take a look.”

  “Be careful, Jake,” Mom said.

  The coach trembled in the violent wind, and I had to force the door open between our car and the one behind us. I clutched the door and the handrails, praying I would not be blown over. Looking down at the tracks, I could see that the water had risen higher than the wheels of the train. The island was underwater.

  The train’s whistle blew over and over, and I could see the familiar faces of the townsfolk who huddled alongside the tracks, screaming for the engineer to halt. The locomotive pushed the cars beyond the crowd and came to a stop. We were back in Islamorada! The refugees from the storm sloshed up to their waists in water to get aboard. I wondered if Mara was somewhere in the crowd.

  As the frightened locals crowded on board, I pushed my way back to where my family was seated. The sea was sweeping into the car around our feet.

  “Hurry!” called the conductor as he helped women and children on board. “We’ve got to get on a side rail to the water tower. The boiler is almost empty, and the train won’t make it to Miami without water. We still have to get down to Camp Three! This train has been sent by the government especially for the veterans, you know.”

  “You can’t leave other citizens behind!” a man yelled.

  “That’s why we stopped for you,” the conductor called out angrily. “Get a seat and—” The rest of his words were cut off by the earsplitting shrieks of wind.

  I sat next to Dad, who was peering anxiously out the window. “It’s hard to see, but it looks like the water has risen.”

  “It has, Dad,” I told him. “These people who were waiting on the railroad bed were already up to their knees in water.”

  As the conductor walked by, Mom grabbed his arm. “Can the train still move?”

  “As long as the water doesn’t reach the boiler and put out the fire and steam,” he answered.

  Mom and Dad looked down at the train floor and then at each other. The floors inside the coach were now ankle-deep in water.

  “We’re going to head for the side rail to fill the boiler!” the conductor announced. “Keep the doors shut.”

  The whistle blew again, and we could hear the sound of the throttle roaring, but nothing happened.

  “The brakes won’t release. The water has jammed them,” Dad said. “I’ll bet that’s what’s happened.” He got up and ran out, back toward the locomotive engine.

  Mom reached over and held on to my hand and I could see hopelessness in her eyes. All the while, our little Star slept on as sweetly as if she were in her own bed.

  When Dad returned and opened the door between the cars, a gush of water followed him into the coach. His pale face stood out in the gloom. “The brakes are locked.”

  Suddenly a man rushed in from the forward car and dove behind a bench. “The sea is on top of us! “he screamed.

  Dad and I looked outside the window, where the lightning made the sky as bright as noonday, and I saw a rising, moving horizon that I would relive in my nightmares forever.

  “Oh, my God!” Dads voice shook, and he grabbed Star in his arms. “Hang on!”

  People screamed and pointed with shaking fingers toward the windows that faced the east.

  “Look!”

  “Oh, my dear Lord!”

  “Our Father who art in heaven…”

  “We’re all goners!”

  “Let’s get out,” Dad exclaimed, “or we’ll be trapped in here.” He grabbed Star with one arm and shoved Mom toward the door with the other.

  Would we be safer outside? I had no time to make a decision. I followed my parents as they jumped off the train into the rising water. But it was too late for me. I was still inside the train as the gigantic wall of foaming, angry water roared toward us!

  22

  MONSTER FROM THE SEA

  T he monster from the sea charged upon us with the sound of a billion oceans combined with the screams of those of us trapped inside the train. The powerful wave hit, lifting our heavy passenger car off the tracks. A gigantic barrage of water poured through the broken doors and windows of the coach. It seemed as if the entire ocean were upon us as I felt myself underwater—somersaulting and turning, flung against the walls and smashed against the seats. Bodies floated and flailed around me. My lungs were bursting and I tried to breathe, but I only gulped in salt water. I was drowning.

  Then the passenger car bumped and shook and settled on the ground. As if a plug had been pulled in a tub, the water inside began slithering out through the open places, pulling me along in the current, sucking me through some opening, and then hurling me into the air.

  I don’t know how long I was out cold, but in the early hours of the morning I awoke and found myself cradled in the broken bough of a tall gumbo-limbo tree. It seemed I was at least twenty feet off the ground. As the giant wave receded, it must have lifted me up into the limbs. The wind howled in gusts through the leafless branches, but the storm had passed. I was hurting everywhere, and I had stinging cuts all over me.

  “Star! Star!” I screamed hoarsely over and over. “Mom! Dad!” There was no answer. I put both my arms around the trunk of the tree as if it were my only friend in the world, and I began to sob.

  As dawn came, the horror of the storm surrounded me. Where was I? I knew I must be in Islamorada, but this place was some strange desert that was as desolate as the moon. I could barely discern what was left of the packinghouse. The timbers and shingles were scattered over the embankment where the train tracks had been. What had happened to the Ashburns, who had gone to the packinghouse for safety?

  The Millionaires Club and the hotel were gone completely. Some houses remained, but they’d been moved or had been wrecked so badly they were indistinguishable. I strained to see where our house had been. All I could make out were scattered piles of rubble. Then I turned toward Miss Ediths house—the one that had been anchored so securely to the rock coral beneath it. Except for one wall, there was nothing left.

  Seaweed and litter hung from the branches of other trees, where the giant wave had tossed them. I shuddered at the sight of a torn orange apron draped across the fronds of a palm tree. “Oh, no! No! Miss Edith!” I screamed in panic. My stomach knotted and I began to cry.

  Then I thought of Mara;. I scanned the other trees that were still standing, praying she was not there, praying she was alive.

  Had my family survived? “Mom! Dad!” I called, not recognizing my own trembling voice. “Star!” I was stabbed with pains everywhere, and finally I slipped into darkness and let it take me to a faraway peaceful place.

  Later when I awoke again, I realized that beyond my pain I was alive, at least. Where was my family? They had made it out of the coach before the wave hit, but where were they?

  I glanced toward Miss Edith’s tattered apron, which swung silently on the nearby tree. I remembered that Mara had feared something was about to end. She had been right. “Mara!” I yelled to the empty sky.

  I had to get down! I had to find out if Mom and Dad and Star had survived. I would never forget all the times I’d teased my little sister and called her a pest. Now I would give my own life to find her safe. “Star! Star!” I called into the air. “Please, God. Let her be all right.”

  I saw a few p
eople staggering around as if in a trance.

  “Help me!” I called. If they heard me, they were in such pain or so stunned, they never looked up. I must get down and find my family, I thought.

  The ground looked so far away. I couldn’t jump without breaking bones. There were large branches lower on the tree, and I began to descend. Once I got to the lowest branch, perhaps I would be able to shimmy down. “Dad! Mom!” I called. Over by the black shadow of the upturned passenger car I could hear faint cries. Were people still trapped inside?

  “Jake!” My dad’s voice! He was limping as he ran toward me. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay. Where’s Mom? Where’s Star?”

  “Mom’s hurt, and Star is pinned down under a timber from the packinghouse. I can’t get her out by myself.”

  “I’m coming down, Dad.” I scrambled down through the branches. “Stay below me.”

  Dad ran to the base of the tree and looked up at me. “Come ahead, Jake. You can do it.”

  From where I was on the lowest bough, it was about fifteen feet to the ground. I could jump fifteen feet, couldn’t I? But I decided to slide down the trunk instead. Dad stood below, watching. I noticed a cut on his forehead that had bled until his shirt was drenched. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m all right. But Mom is hurt pretty bad—broken leg and God knows what else.”

  “And Star?”

  “I can’t get to her, so I don’t know how badly she’s hurt.” I was close enough to see the deep worry in Dads eyes. I wrapped my legs around the trunk and descended quickly. I had to help Mom and Star. As soon as my feet touched the ground, I was in my father’s arms. “Thank God you’re alive, Jake.” His voice broke and we held on to each other for several moments.

  “Let’s go to Mom and Star,” I said. “Where are they?”

  “The wave dropped us near the packinghouse.”

  “The Ashburns went there. Did you see them?”