Empty by Suzanne Weyn Page A

waking.
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    Gwen awakened and immediately registered a change in the quality of the light coming through the mine shaft door. It was exquisitely clear.
    There was no rain or wind. Just this strange light.
    Standing, Gwen wiped her eyes and stepped out.
    The scene of awesome destruction, breathtaking in its ferocity, was lit in the crystalline, white glow. Everywhere, trees were down—sometimes propped against one another, other times lying in piles of threes and fours on the ground. Above, the leaves had been strippedfrom the broken and bent remaining trees. The foliage floated in clumps in the puddles and raced along in small rivulets that had formed everywhere.
    It was the most beautiful thing Gwen had ever seen.
    Gazing upward, she saw a bright blue sky, but dark clouds hovered at its edges. It told her where she was.
    Gwen was standing in the eye of Superhurricane OscPearl.

CHAPTER 11
    Tom dropped down from his first-floor window, landing hip deep in filthy, frigid water. It rose nearly to the top of his father’s old fishing waders, which Tom had donned for the post-hurricane exploration. The big maple in front of his house lay sideways in the brown torrent running down the street. Its massive roots pointed toward an amazingly blue, crystal-clear sky.
    From across the street, Carlos hung out his first-story window and swung his left arm in greeting. His right arm stayed stationary at his side, encased in the plastered gauze of a cast and supported by a sling. His bruised face instantly reminded Tom of the fight at the high school. He could hardly believe it had only been five days ago.
    Water was sloshing inside the waders by the time Tom reached Carlos. “Who ever thought we’d have waterfront property?” Carlos joked.
    Tom grinned. “Yeah, who’d have thought it?”
    â€œNow we’re just like those snobs over on the water at Lake Morrisey,” Carlos added. “I bet those houses are floating around in the lake now.”
    Tom wondered how Niki was doing. Her house was high up, so she was probably all right. She’d texted him after the bonfire to say she’dgotten home. He’d called her to apologize for leaving her stranded. He hadn’t expected to become involved in a fight when he left her to check out the situation. Niki had said she understood.
    And then OscPearl had begun moving up the coast, disrupting radio signals for hundreds of miles. It was off the coast of Boston now. Everyone was hoping it would veer off toward the ocean there and spare the rest of New England from its rage. It was still considered a Category Six hurricane. Tom’s phone still wasn’t working.
    â€œYou’d better get out of this water,” Carlos told Tom. “You don’t know what’s floating around in here. There could even be live electric current traveling through. There are lots of downed wires. So if the power comes back on, you could get fried.”
    â€œI’m grounded from electric,” Tom said, bouncing lightly in his waders. “Rubber boots. Electricity will run down the boots into the ground.”
    â€œNice idea, but I wouldn’t count on it,” Carlos said. “For one thing, those waders are filled with water. I wouldn’t bet my life on them protecting you from getting zapped. Besides, there could be all sorts of nasty stuff, including sewage, in this water.”
    Tom turned pale. “Sewage?”
    Carlos nodded.
    Tom boosted himself up into Carlos’s window and Carlos helped pull him the rest of the way in. “Nice boots, Tom,” Carlos’s fifteen-year-old sister, Maritza, teased from the couch where she was reading a fashion magazine. “They’re spilling all over the floor.”
    Carlos’s mother came in, looking frazzled and tired. “Carlos, find some towels. He’s soaking the floor. Maritza, get a pot from the kitchen.”
    Tom stood on the towels Carlos brought and, as gently