Page 1 of Going Once

CHAPTER ONE

Queens Crossing, Louisiana

Nola Landry was out-of-her-head sick with a three-day fever and had lost all track of time.

It had begun raining the day before she got sick, and it was still raining the next morning when the aches and fever began. She’d gone to sleep with the sound of rain on the roof and dreamed crazy, fever-ridden dreams about alligators in the front yard and her daddy shooting at them from the porch. Then she woke up remembering Daddy had died when she was twelve.

She fell back asleep to the sound of rain blowing against the windows and dreamed Mama was calling her to breakfast and she was going to be late for school, and when she woke up, it was dark and she remembered Mama had died just before Christmas last year.

She crawled out of bed long enough to go to the bathroom and get a drink, then fell back into bed. Her long dark hair had lost the band keeping it in a ponytail, and was damp and in tangles from the fever that came and went. After soaking her last clean nightgown from a fever-drenched sweat, she’d crawled back into bed nude.

The last thing she remembered as she was falling asleep was wondering how long it would take someone to find her body if she died.

Sometime later, another dream began, and in it Mama was running through the house, going from window to window and wringing her hands when all of a sudden, she began calling Nola’s name.

Nola! Nola! Wake up this instant! Put on your clothes! Get some food and water and get out! Hurry, hurry! You have to run!

Nola woke with a gasp, looking around her darkened bedroom in feverish confusion. She knew her mother was dead, but the urge to obey was so strong that she threw back the covers, turned on the lamp beside her bed and began to dress. She grabbed a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, then pulled a hooded sweatshirt on over that. Her hands were trembling, her legs shaking as she sat down to tie her tennis shoes. The urgency to obey was increasing as she dropped her cell phone in a pocket.

She went through her house, stumbling on shaky legs, then into the kitchen, muttering to herself.

“Get food and water…food and water.”

She grabbed a bottle of water, a few sticks of string cheese and a package of peanut butter crackers, and put them in the front pouch of the sweatshirt and started toward the door.

“Car keys…gotta get my car keys.”

She found the keys on the coffee table and was still moving on instinct when she opened the front door. Even though it was dark, she sensed something was wrong. She was all the way out onto the porch before she realized she was walking in water. Her heart skipped a beat as she backtracked to the kitchen for a flashlight.

Her hands were still shaking as she went back to the porch and swung the flashlight out into the night. It took a few seconds to recognize what she was seeing, and then, when she did, she was struck by pure, unadulterated fear.

There was nothing but black water as far as she could see.

The flashlight beam was weak, but the horror was real as she stepped off the porch into the rain to test the depth. When it went up past her ankles, she had to face the fact that her car keys would do her no good. The only road out would already be underwater.

While she had slept, the Mississippi River, which was nearly a half mile from her house, had gone out of its banks. She didn’t question what she’d been dreaming because her mama had just saved her life. Her reality now was the need to get to high ground.

She looked back once at her beloved home, thinking of all she was about to lose: her studio, the half-finished paintings she was working on and the ones ready to ship, all of her brushes and paints, and the contacts she’d spent years accumulating.

When she thought of the family keepsakes and the pictures of her loved ones since passed on that would be washed away, she had to accept that none of it mattered if she lost her life with it.

The thought popped into her head that she could climb on top of the house and wait to be rescued, but the moment she thought it, she dismissed it. Mama had said run. So she ran through the rain toward the highest point of ground within striking distance: a stand of trees nearly a hundred yards away.

Slogging through the steadily moving water was exhausting, but fear gave her strength. When something live suddenly bumped against her leg she screamed, remembering that the gators would be flooded out, as well, but whatever it was moved past her.

In a moment of gratitude for the danger that had passed, Nola leaned forward, bracing her hands against her knees to steady her racing heart.

“God, help me do this,” she said softly, her heart pounding as she made herself take that next step.

She was halfway between the house and the trees when she stepped into a hole and fell forward, catching herself on her hands and knees, and splashing water all over her face. Again she thought of the gators, snakes and snapping turtles that would be in there with her, and she scrambled to her feet and, in a panic, began running.

The next time she fell she lost the flashlight in the water and spent precious seconds feeling for it in the murky depths. When her fingers finally curled around the metal shaft, she grabbed it. By the grace of God the light was still shining, but she had no idea how long it would last. She swept the beam across the darkness, caught a flash of contrast in the distance when the light swept past the trees, and kept on moving.

The water was getting deeper now, almost up to her knees. The sweeping force of the flow made it difficult to stay upright. The urgency to get out of the water was paramount as she finally reached the grove. Sheltered somewhat from the downpour, she began trying to find the tallest, strongest tree she could physically climb, and just as she settled on one, the flashlight began to dim.

Without waiting, she swung herself up on the lowest limb just as the flashlight went out. Groaning with dismay, she had no choice but to drop it into the flood, grab the limb with both hands and begin climbing, feeling her way in the dark with the rain hammering against her face and the roar of the rushing water loud in her ears. She reached for the next limb, and then the next, climbing until she found a branch strong enough to hold her weight and managed to pull herself up, then straddle it. Exhausted, she wrapped her arms around the trunk, laid her cheek against the bark and screamed through the downpour just to hear the sound of her own voice. Just to remind herself she was still breathing.

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