Broken Promise

Rachel and her parents had arrived at Wellington High around two o’clock the previous afternoon. There they were sandwiched into the gym with about five-hundred other people seeking shelter from the storm. The first rain had begun to fall around four; the first strong gusts of wind had begun howling around eight. By midnight, it sounded as if bombs were exploding outside. The ground was literally shaking from the violent wind and lightning and thunder. The power finally went out around one in the morning, and flashlights started flickering on all over the crowded gym. Babies and small children were shrieking in fright, their poor parents doing their best to comfort them in the blackness. And then, right around three in the morning, all fell silent. It seemed as if everyone in the gym was holding their breath – the eye of the storm was passing directly overhead. About forty-five minutes later, the wind and the rain began again, screaming even more ferociously the second time around. Through it all, Rachel sat quietly, unable to sleep or speak. Jonathan and Carol were lying beside her on the hardwood floor, obviously trying to conserve energy for the aftermath, but Rachel couldn’t sleep. She hadn’t slept for two days, but she wasn’t tired. All she could think about were the horses and their farm – what would be left of any of it once Hurricane Aaron had its fill of Florida? Screams broke out from the far end of the gym, and Rachel turned her head in the darkness. She gasped when she realized that strips of the roof were starting to rattle and blow loose. There was a frenzy of activity as people began stumbling across the gym, trying to stay out of harm’s way. Frantically Rachel shook her parents awake, afraid they would be trampled under the onslaught of people. Daylight was starting to show as the first large sections of roof peeled away, and the gym was suddenly inundated with water and debris. “Stay down!” Jonathan barked to his family, forcing Rachel and Carol up against the wall and shielding their small bodies with his own. The sounds of the storm and the wind and the people screaming in terror deafened Rachel as she cowered behind her father, wondering if any of them were going to make it out alive. She reached out for her mother, who was also soaked to the bone and shivering, and wrapped her arms around her for comfort. Hours passed as Rachel huddled amongst the mass of sweaty bodies, the wind and rain howling without any signs of letting up. Rachel had expected the storm to be bad, but she’d had no idea that nature was capable of such sustained fury. “There’s not going to be anything left!” Carol shouted to Rachel, her voice choked with sobs. Finally, sometime in the early afternoon, the rain began to ease. The winds began to drop. Rachel lifted her head and stared at the hundreds of terrified faces around her, then up at what was left of the roof of the gym. At least a foot-and-a-half of water was swirling around their ankles and knees, muddled with leaves and dirt and miscellaneous debris. “Is it over?” she dared to ask her father. Jonathan nodded slowly. “It’s over,” he said quietly, looking down at his watch. The DeConti’s had been inside the gym for twenty-six hours. The school officials did their best to try and hold everyone in, but once the skies began to clear, crazed families burst down the doors and stepped outside. Rachel and her parents let the larger families clear out first, then followed, soaked, shivering, and filthy. They emerged into the parking lot of Wellington High and stopped dead in their tracks. The parking lot was completely submerged under at least four feet of water. Cars of every shape and size bobbed along uselessly, floating amongst a mass of tree limbs. Rachel gasped when she saw their family car drift by, its windshield smashed to pieces and the roof collapsed. She looked at her parents and could tell that they were trying very hard to keep their composure. Rachel hardly dared to breathe as she followed her parents around the side of her high school, doing their best to stay in areas that were above the water. Far across the football field, a lone power line dangled, sending sparks flying across the grass. The two huge ficus trees that marked the entrance to the school had been toppled over, their roots protruding fifty feet into the air. Most of the buildings of her high school were either leveled or close to it, scattered into millions of pieces across the ground. She and her parents stepped carefully, trying to avoid the broken glass and standing water. They stepped out onto the main road and began walking alongside several other families who had been with them in the gym. No one said a word, and the silence was almost deafening. Everyone just stared around their hometown in shock, trying to understand how this could have happened. House after house was demolished, lying in toppled heaps of wood and brick. Fences were down. Barns were down. As far as the eye could see, there did not appear to be one building still standing in all of Wellington. Rachel knew, before they even got there, that Blue Diamond Farms was completely gone. She felt it in the pit of her stomach.