STORM SURGE
STORM SURGE
by Guy Riessen
Howling wind blasted the old man’s yellow slicker as bruised, bloated clouds churned overhead. Rain slashed, and Sam Baylee cut the video as Sarah Jennings, “Channel 7 News,” jabbed her mic under her arm. Head down, she stalked away from the old man.
Sam had been Camera for Channel 7’s on-scene weather reporting for a couple years now, but this was the worst shit he’d ever seen. Squinting toward his reporter as she drew near; he shoved his camera rig into its clear plastic cover that writhed in the squall like a transparent eel.
Sarah shouted, “WHAT A FUCKING WASTE OF TIME! THAT GUY’S SLURPED ONE TOO MANY CANS OF STERNO.”
Sam nodded, cupped a hand to block the wind and yelled back, “SARAH, STATION SAYS…,” he slapped at his headphones, “ROAD TO BOSTON IS WASHED OUT BY THE STORM SURGE….”
She pointed to her ears. “I CAN’T HEAR SHIT, SAM.”
Sam hooked a thumb toward the van and she nodded. Together, they slogged through the wind-whipped water that was already cresting the gutters, to the news van that rocked in the violent gusts.
Yanking the sliding door open, Sam tossed his camera onto the van’s cable-choked metal floor. With both hands, Sarah pulled herself up into the van. Sam leaned in and shouted, “YOU THINK WE GOT ENOUGH?”
“THEY SENT US INTO GOD DAMNED HURRICANE. I THINK WE GOT FUCKED ENOUGH, YEAH?” Sarah stumbled around inside, stooping to avoid the low van ceiling, kicking cables away and tugging off her rain boots.
Sam climbed in, slammed the door shut, lifted the camera rig off the waterlogged floor and locked it onto one of the metal racks bolted to the van’s wall.
Sarah looked at him, one hand pressed to the roof for balance as the van lurched in the buffeting wind. “What was that about the station?”
“The station radioed that the road from here to I-Ninety-Five is totally fucked — washed out at Hartford Bluff. We gotta head north and get ahead of the worst. Then we go inland and figure out if we’ll hole up somewhere or try to swing back down to Boston.”
“What the… you shitting me, Sam?”
Sam shook his head.
“Can this get worse? Let’s just get the hell out of here.” She shoved the hood of her rain slicker back and leaned over, squeezing the water from her auburn hair.
She climbed over their gear bags to the front passenger seat, shucking her rain gear in heaps as she went.
Sam turned and wiped his forearm across the van’s side window. He looked out toward the old man, who was still standing where Sarah had tried to interview him. The geezer was leaning into the wind’s rage; his wide-set, flat-black eyes burrowed into the shadows under the yellow fisherman’s hat. The brim snapped up and down, revealing the man’s smooth sallow skin in a staccato dance of light and shadow.
“Shit,” Sam grumbled. They couldn’t just leave him there with the hurricane of the century barreling into the Atlantic Coast, could they? A guy who didn’t have the brains to do anything but stand there, staring at the storm?
Sam yanked the sliding door open and climbed out. The wind was thundering like a freight train. He yelled back into the van, “I’M GONNA SEE IF WE CAN TAKE THE OLD MAN SOMEWHERE.”
“WE GOTTA GET OUTA HERE, SAM.”
“I KNOW, BUT WE CAN’T JUST LEAVE THE OLD COOT. I’LL BE RIGHT BACK.”
Sarah was scowling at him from the passenger seat as he slid the door shut. He splashed back to where the old man stood staring into the heart of the hurricane.
Sam bent toward the old man, then stumbled a step back, his nose wrinkling. Even with the wind screaming between them, the old man stank of rancid fish, creosote, and mildewed oil slicker.
“COME ON.” Sam pointed to the van.
The old man’s head swiveled toward him, mouth open as if he were about to say something, then it snapped shut before hinging open again. A rotten Red Tide smell lapped at Sam’s face.
“HEY, WE’RE GOING NORTH TO INNSMOUTH. WE CAN DROP YOU THERE. IT’S NOT SAFE HERE.”
Those bulging, wide-set eyes stared. The old man’s mouth gaped wide and closed again. A glottal sound wrapped in sun-rotted seaweed reached Sam. “Ichsythos Ftagn.”
The old man pointed toward the wall of roiling clouds and Sam gazed out toward the sea. Colossal shadowy forms moved in grotesque, repulsive parody of human motion. Towering above all, a cyclopean silhouette shambled forward, its great red eye glaring with baleful malevolence. Surely it was just the sun burning between towering clouds.
Sam turned back toward the old guy. “LOOK MAN, WE GOTTA LEAVE….”
The old man’s arm was still outstretched, not pointing after all, but beckoning. His head pivoted toward Sam again. A dark vapor streamed from his foaming gullet and wrapped a miasmatic haze around Sam’s head, defying the powerful gale that shoved him off balance.
Waving his hands around his face, Sam stumbled backwards, splashing to the pavement. The stench of rotted wood, mold-blackened canvas, and gutted fish choked him as he scrambled, regained his footing, and ran to the van.
Flinging himself into the driver’s seat, Sam fumbled the keys into the ignition. The van fishtailed as he gunned the engine.
Sarah was staring at him. “You OK? You don’t look so good. Your skin’s all pasty… sallow. Maybe we can find a place to stay for the night in Innsmouth and get you out of this weather.” She shifted in her seat to lean toward him. “Yeah, you’re definitely coming down with something. Your eyes are all puffy, kinda bulgy… and ah god,” she waved a hand in front of her face, “What is that horrible stink…?”
Sam tried to say he was fine and that finding a place in Innsmouth sounded great, but he only uttered some glottal gibberish as his mouth opened, snapped shut, and hinged open again, as the fetid stench of rotting fish filled the van.
Fiction © Copyright Guy Riessen
Image by Guy Riessen
Guy Riessen is a Californian author of Dark Fiction now living in Montreal, Quebec. He’s been published in numerous magazines and anthologies including Cosmic Horror Monthly, Shotgun Honey, Miskatonic Dreams, Close to the Bone, Urban Temples of Cthulhu, and more. His novel, Piercing the Veil, is available on Amazon, and you can follow him at www.guyriessen.com or @GuyRiessen on twitter.
