shelter
by Kris Green
The cruelty of death is not those involved but of those left behind. Trent’s family is dead. If they had listened, things might have been different, but no. Everyone is gone. He is alone. Digging inside, he resolves to shut the door of his heart and let the sadness go – a necessary task if he is to last the days ahead.
“Trent, come out!”
Trent trembles at the sound before clenching his eyes shut, pushing a tear down his cheek. The knocking, the voice - it isn’t real. Another hallucination at the devastating reality of the darkness in the bathroom- no one is there. Isolation. Darkness. It is enough to make you crazy.
His body tremors begin to get worse again, so he goes back into the bathtub. The water is out. The power is out. The door is blocked by debris, and although he has tried to push it open a few times, it doesn’t budge, even a little.
How long has it been? He isn’t sure. Friday, the forecast had been a tropical storm brewing somewhere outside of the world of America. The newscaster said there would be a lot of rain but nothing major.
Saturday, he had decided to catch up on yard work. Life gets busy, and although the neighbor across the way could afford someone to do his yard every week, he couldn’t.
October was already in full swing; somehow, they were two months into the school year. Trent wasn’t just in charge of the athletics department of the high school but also oversaw all after-school events. It helped to supplement their income.
On Sunday, he took Moriah, his daughter, to the grocery store. His daughter laughed, not understanding what she was looking at, but Trent knew better. If only that was his last memory of her, her laughter, but he remembers her scream.
The water aisle was trashed. A tired grocery manager was flinging gallons of water from a pallet onto the shelf. People were reaching around him to grab them. The shelves were starting to empty. Same with the milk and eggs, canned tuna, bread – everything was going.
Someone asked the grocery manager if he had a specific kind of water. The grocery manager muttered something, too busy throwing water to chat. He remembers that, thinking about even when a hurricane is coming, people are still holding on to their preferences.
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday – school was closed across the county. The tropical storm was now predicted to be a CAT 5. Why had they not evacuated?
He heard noises. He didn’t want to admit it. Admitting it meant that maybe he has gone a little crazy over the past few days, but who wouldn’t? The laughter in the background makes it feel like everything has been some sick divine joke. Even God is mocking him for not evacuating. Had he not sat in such willful disdain for people who had not evacuated in the past? Sitting on his couch as the people who had lost everything shrugged on the television and said, “We should’ve left.”
Trent, feeling his heavy breathing begin to subside, crawls out of the bathtub. He took a deep breath and felt around in the darkness before pulling the box out from under the sink. On the side of the box, Amazon’s tired self-promoting philosophy and commentary on the American culture read: “WARNING: HAPPINESS INSIDE”.
He opens the box. Keeping it under the sink makes him feel better. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t want to follow that line of thought.
The small battery-powered radio doesn’t work. He moves it aside as he rummages in the box. It had clicked on with a whirl of static when he had tried it on Monday, around the time they canceled school for the rest of the week. Now, nothing but dead air.
The flashlight clicks on. The movement in the mirror causes him to startle at his reflection. His eyes look sunken, and he looks away, unable to size himself up. He coughs, smelling the garbage can that he had put under the sink. He had been using it as a toilet so that he could drink some of the water in the bowl. His stomach grumbles.
“I’m not sleeping in the living room.” His wife had said.
“If mom’s not, I’m not,” Moriah says.
“We should all be together.” He tried. “I think the living room is the safest place in the house, especially after everything is boarded up.”
“The ground gets damp.” The meteorologist said on Tuesday. “All that rain coming down, then the wind, and you have to worry about trees falling.”
Trees falling. That was it, he thought. There were eight oaks on the corner lot of his house, his and his neighbors. “Were” is the optimal word. The trees were close to each other. It wouldn’t take one to knock into the other, and well, dominoes falling with a big thud.
Trent takes another deep breath. Thudding on the door causes him to spill the toilet water onto his shirt. When will his mind ease?
“Honey, we’re waiting for you. Come to us!” Even from death, his wife calls to him.
He cries, afraid of the hope surging inside. He presses his eyes closed, hearing the storm blowing the night it came. Hearing the first tree begin to fall, and then another. Yelling at his family to come to the bathroom where he was. Yelling at them to come to the shelter. Yelling and hearing his daughter scream. It was too late. They should’ve been together.
“Trent, this is the fire department. Can you hear me? We’re coming in!”
The lock clicks. Trent trembles as if his very thoughts are betraying him as light shines into the bathroom. Standing in silhouette, the heavenly angels come to guide his way.
“Sir, are you okay? Your wife and daughter are worried about you.”
Photo of Kris Green
BIO: Kris Green lives in Florida with his beautiful wife and two savage children. He’s been published over 80 times in the last few years by the wonderful people at Nifty Lit, The Haberdasher: Peddlers of Literary Art, In Parentheses Magazine, Route 7 Review, BarBar Magazine, and many more. He won the 2023 Barbe Best Short Story and Reader’s Choice Award for his short story, “Redemption”. Currently, he has regular nonfiction articles being published by Solid Food Press on fatherhood entitled: “On Raising Savages”.