Hearts of Avon

them to move like a kite in the wind.

  His arms felt as if they would rip from their sockets, burning as he struggled to hold on. He opened his mouth to scream, but was in so much pain that nothing would come out.

  When he thought he would slip away and crash down into the ocean, he felt Mason’s strong grasp on his arm, pulling him and the boy up on The Seaman’s Watch’s deck. Wind and rain battered his face, but he wouldn’t let himself collapse. He went to the boy, placing his hand on the youth’s chest. He wasn’t breathing.

  “Mason,” Ben almost spat out. “…Mason.”

  Soon his father was above the boy, pumping his chest to try and extract the water from his lungs.

  Ben stood, barely able to find the strength in his legs to rise. The boy’s mother was frantic at the side of her deck, at the house across from them.

  “Charlie!” she shouted. “Is he alive?”

  The boy’s face was worn and lifeless as Mason pumped his chest. “Is he dead?” Ben asked his father.

  Mason didn’t respond, only pumped again and again. In this storm, he and Ben were the boy’s only hope.

  Ben turned, looking to the mother. Fear struck her whole form. He watched her through the battering wind, unable to remove his glance from the terror in her eyes. Then, just as he turned, he saw Mason pump down on the boy’s chest and water spew up from the youth’s lips. Charlie’s hands struggled to move and he choked uncontrollably, coughing up more of the ocean from his lungs.

  “He’s alive!” Ben shouted back to the mother. “We have to bring him inside! We’ll bring him after the storm!” He didn’t know if she heard him through her tears, but they had to get the youth out of the pummeling rain. He braced the boy’s legs as Mason hefted his shoulders, lifting with whatever strength he managed to have left in his body, and bringing the youth inside.

  They brought him down to the room they had been waiting out the storm in, and then returned to the doorway to board up where the door had been. Rain beat through the sides of the boards, but it would have to hold.

  This storm was worse than anyone in the Outer Banks had expected. He feared for those who hadn’t fled the coast.

  Downstairs, as the boy’s chest lifted and fell, Ben kneeled beside the couch they had laid him on.

  His hands were folded as he prayed to God, asking for the boy to live, thanking him for his own life.

  16

  At midday the next day hurricane Irene was through devouring the Outer Banks, heading up the coastline to prey on Virginia, New Jersey and New York. But when it left, disaster epitomized its wake. It was as if the ocean had come up and clawed away a layer of flesh from the Outer Banks, taking houses, piers and anything else it could find that got in its way. It was a beast that had no care for life. But the Outer Banks held firm.

  Ben awoke to sunshine streaming through a crack in the boarded window of the room they used as a safe room. He must have fallen asleep while watching over the boy. His muscles burned. The hardwood floor beneath him wasn’t doing much to help him with that.

  “Good morning, Sunshine.” Mason smirked from across the room. “You’d think you had a rough night or something, from the way you’ve slept.”

  “Ugh…” Ben rolled to his side and slowly stood, bracing himself on the arm of the couch nearby. The boy was gone. “Where…?”

  “I brought him home to his mother when the storm stopped.” Mason interrupted him. “He should be fine. His mother was extremely grateful. I still can’t believe you risked your life like that. Next time we have a storm, I’m chaining you to the wall so that you can’t do anything stupid.”

  “I feel like I’ve been beaten.” Ben smiled, glad to be alive. “We’ll have to check in on him later, after we’ve both had some time to rest.”

  Mason made his way toward the door. “I took a look outside earlier. The Henrys’ house was completely washed away, except for its stilts. Thank goodness they left before the storm. And I think I saw Alan Brown’s boat, wrecked, sticking end up out of the sand down the beach.”

  As Ben walked out on the upper deck, he was struck by the change in the beach’s landscape. The ocean waves used to stop a distance down the beach from their house, but now they lapped clear up below his deck. Debris of destroyed boats and houses littered the shore and a sand bank had collected off in the water, marine life apparently stranded, destined to die there as they baked in the sun.

  “Wow.” Ben took a breath, and then a sip from a bottle of Fuji water he had stored in the house. They were still without power and probably would be for days. He would have to start up their generator, but not so soon that it could die if they really needed it later. “Did you get the radio up and running yet?” Somehow the gulls crying in the sky were eerie to hear.

  “Yeah, they’re saying the Outer Banks was hit the hardest. It sounds like part of Rodanthe was actually washed away. I’m glad we weren’t there.”

  Ben took out his cell phone and powered it on. He’d had the power off to conserve battery. No messages. Surely Caroline should have called by now. He searched for her number, and then called, clutching the phone nervously. Nothing. It went to voicemail. “Caroline, this is Ben. Well, of course it is. I’m calling to make sure everyone’s ok and that you made it out alright. Call me back when you’re able to and just let me know. We got hit badly here, but everyone’s ok.” He punched the phone off and powered it down to conserve battery.

  He looked to the sky. “I’m going for a walk, to see if there’s anything to see out there.”

  Mason gave him a quick hug. “You know where to find me.”

  As Ben walked along the crashing waves he was reminded of his mother. When he was younger they would often walk the beach together. She had taught him to pick up sea creatures that were out of the water on the beach and toss them back into the waves.

  “God loves all animals,” she told him. “After storms, there are people who’ll scour the beaches to collect them to sell. If they can’t sell them, they’ll leave them to die.”

  He reached down and picked up a dying starfish, tossing it back into the waves. The animals deserved to live, too. He did this as much for his mom as he did for them.

  It was strange to be a part of the aftermath of the storm. Children ran up and down the beach, laughing and shouting as if a major event hadn’t just happened, and yet there were houses that had been torn down by the storm and other debris littering the ocean. The isle of sand that had collected out in the ocean remained a major reminder of the storm’s ferociousness to him. He thought of the night before, about how Irene had almost taken his life. So much destruction, and yet all of the people here seem to be fine, he thought.

  Dead fish littered the beach before him. The sea life hadn’t been as lucky. As he came to a stranded jellyfish, he used a stick to lift it and toss it into the water a ways down the beach.

  About a half hour passed as he walked; and he was about to turn around, before seeing a decimated pier not too far in the distance. Curiosity got the better of him and he walked toward it, wondering how much of the structure still stood.

  A cool breeze cut through him and salt water sprayed his face. As he approached the pier he saw only a small section of its planks still stood. Posts protruded from the ocean and nails projected out of the wood where boards had been ripped away.

  Then, beyond the pier, on an outstretched peninsula of sand, he saw something. A mermaid? He squinted in the sunlight, but could not make out the form. Then he realized it was a person.

  “Is someone there?” he called. The form lay motionless on the sand.

  With an unknown burst of energy, he ran toward it, seeing a girl’s hair caked with sand as he approached. Her clothes were torn and half ripped from her body. Gashes ran down her form.

  Something stopped Ben cold. Then he moved quicker, in denial about who this was. He touched her dirty, blood-stained face, turning it toward his.

  “Wake up,” he said, panicked, “wake up, wake up, wake up
…” He shook her, not knowing what to do, not remembering what he should do.

  It was undeniably Caroline.

  “No!” he shouted to the radiating sun overhead.

  He moved his hands to her chest, about to attempt to start her heart again, when he realized something. Her chest rose and fell. She was still breathing.

  He cursed himself for shutting off his phone, his hands shaking and dropping it to the sand as he removed it from his pocket. He picked it up, powered it on, and then dialed the buttons frantically.

  “North Carolina Emergency Operative, Becky, speaking. How can I help you?” the voice came across the phone.

  “I… there’s…” He struggled to find the words to speak.

  “Be calm. Take your time,” the operator said.

  Ben looked down to Caroline, assuring himself that this was her, and that she was still alive. “This is Benjamin Towne. I’m in Avon. I was walking and found my friend washed up on the beach. She’s breathing but unresponsive.”

  Silence.

  “The roads are out, Benjamin. We’ll send a medic helicopter in from the mainland to take her to the hospital, if she can be moved. Can you give me an idea of your location?”

  He tried to think, but couldn’t. Then, out of the corner of his eye he saw the pier. “Crabber’s Pier,” he blurted out. “It’s been torn to pieces, but we’re right next to it.”

  “Stay there and watch over her. If you can use your shirt to flag down the