“Beer isn’t, either,” Dan said. “But you’ll drink it anyway when you’re older.”
Liz sat in the front next to Dan. The radio played country music. At the time, Liz—with her Egg McMuffin and not having to sit next to her brother—thought the moment could hardly be improved. Well, at least the fast food was awesome. The smell and country music, not as much.
The wipers went on when it started to rain a few miles before the turnoff to the lake. At first, small droplets smeared the brittle remains of dead bugs over the surface of the glass. The droplets grew larger and then suddenly multiplied into such fearsome numbers that individual drops could hardly be discerned. The pelting water sounded like a hundred nail guns hitting the roof.
“We don’t need no stinkin’ sunshine,” Dan said, sipping his now-tepid McDonald’s coffee, which earlier had been too hot to drink. Taking his foot off the accelerator a little, he put down the cup and leaned forward to swipe the inside of the windshield with his fingertips in case condensation was contributing to the difficulty in seeing the road ahead. “Man,” he said, glancing at Liz next to him and the boys in the backseat, “this is some cloudburst.”
The wipers fought wildly against the rain, but it only kept coming faster and faster. The car was enveloped by a continuous sheet of water.
As the vehicle eased up an incline, Dan lowered the driver’s window and looked to the sheer walls of blasted basalt on either side as a guide.
Liz couldn’t be sure, but later she came to believe she’d been the first one to feel it. A slight rumble. Maybe something was wrong with the radio. Jimmy liked to turn the bass up real high on the dial on their parents’ stereo system. But it wasn’t the radio. Liz looked at Dan and their eyes met for a second. Was it the sound of the tires on the roadway? She didn’t think it could be. The road had been freshly paved. It looked smooth, like black licorice. Without warning, the wheels began to shake.
“Crap,” Dan said, moving his gaze to the rearview mirror. “Boat trailer must be dragging that back taillight. It was loose when the dealer sold it to me. Said he’d fix it. I need to pull over for a second, guys.”
Just as the car and the trailer stopped, it suddenly turned dark, as if Liz’s mother had pulled her blackout shades against one of her all-too-frequent migraines. It would always be difficult to accurately place what happened in those moments when the wall of water first hit the front of the station wagon. It was fast and fierce. Liz and the boys screamed.
Everything was staccato in her eyes. Dan’s terrified face. The rising water. Even the roaring sound emanating from outside seemed to come in pops or flashes.
Dan, who had not yet opened his door, yelled, “Hang on! Flash flood!”
The vehicle lurched from its resting spot. It was a cork. It was a feather. The force of the water shoved it back down the highway. Bumper pool. A steel ball in a pinball machine. The station wagon and the boat trailer careened back down the highway.
Dan stretched his arm over to Liz as though he could protect her.
Washing machine.
Dryer with shoes inside.
Liz looked out her window, and the boat trailer appeared next to her before snapping off and hurtling away with the dark water—along with logs and what might’ve been a capsized horse trailer. All of it passed in the kind of frightening blur that doesn’t allow the mind to fully comprehend what one is seeing.
Shards of memory.
Debris of all kinds pelted them as they rattled backward down the highway. Liz was wondering if that had really been a horse trailer, when, through the filthy windshield, she could suddenly make out the image of an immense horse as it lunged at them. Its hooves hit the glass, and the animal let out a terrified scream, the likes of which Liz would never forget but never be able to describe no matter how hard she tried. It was sharp and guttural at the same time.
After hitting the windshield, the animal rolled over the top of the station wagon. Were they underwater now? It was impossible to tell.
Then a small red car was coming at them, at the last instant sweeping to Liz’s side of the station wagon. A young woman pressed her hands against the window and called out for help as she passed. Her eyes were more white than blue. So open and full of terror. She was young. Maybe still in her teens. Her gaze caught Liz’s for a second before turning back to wherever the churning water would take her.
Liz screamed, “We have to help her!”
The roar of the water outside the car obliterated her words.
Sleeping bags. A cooler. A child’s dinosaur-shaped flotation device roared past the Ford in a soupy mixture of water, mud, foam, and all of the things that lake goers would have enjoyed throughout a lazy day on the shore. The pod off the top of a car had dislodged and split open, sending suitcases, clothing, and backpacks into the torrent that carried away everything in the road that had become a spillway.
And then, finally, the station wagon stopped. It had come to rest listing on an outcropping that had been blasted into the basalt when the road to the lake had been forged.
Now that their progress had halted, the pace of the flood outside flew into a much higher gear. Every few seconds, the water surged against one side of the car or the other, sometimes with enough force to rock the vehicle on its perch.
“Everyone okay?” Dan yelled out.
Liz, who had somehow ended up in the backseat with the boys, was the first to respond. “Something’s wrong with Seth,” she said, shaking as water began to pour inside.
“I’m okay,” said her brother. “Seth? Wake up.”
The boy, who looked so much like his mother—and often had a quip ready—opened his eyes. “I’m not dead yet,” he said.
Even in the chaos of the car, Dan’s gasp of relief was audible. Water had begun to pool at their feet. Despite the summer day, it was ice-cold. He rolled up the window.
“We need to remain calm,” he said.
“We’re going to drown, Dad,” said Seth.
“No. No, we’re not,” Dan said. He undid his seat belt and peered through the condensation and muddy stain of the driver’s-side window. The windshield itself had been transformed into a spiderweb of broken glass. “We’re going to get out of here. We’re going to be just fine.”
Liz wiped her eyes. “Promise?” she asked.
Dan studied the boys and managed a calming smile. “We’re going to have a hell of a story to tell. I’m going to get out of the car now,” he said. “I’ll get out and up onto that ledge. Then I’m going to get you out. All of you. One at a time. We need to do this very carefully. All right? One at a time.”
None of the three in the backseat said a word.
“Is that understood?” he asked, his voice finally betraying the fear that was eating at the edges of his normally calm resolve. The crack in the veneer of his can-do persona had begun to widen: slowly at first, then quickly to a chasm. Liz could see it. The boys too.