Acts of Nature

Seger’s “Feel Like a Number” but before the first stanza I was up out of the blocks like a sprinter toward the outside door.
    Marcus too must have been frozen by the sounds and whatever the hell he was seeing outside because his hand did not start to move from the door. I was a step away and when the light between the jamb and the door started to widen I threw my body weight into it, trapping the four fingers I had watched in disgust as they trailed down Sherry’s breasts. I heard the kid scream in pain and felt him push back at me, and instinctively I took one hard-lunging swipe downward with my knife.
    The door closed flush with the jamb, my shoulder against it, and with my right foot I dragged over the crowbar that Buck had used to lock me in and kicked its edge under the door and pinned it. Only then did I rest my back against the panel and look down to see four fingers, sliced off at the second joint, lying like droppings on the floor next to me.
    Now I wasn’t flying on a plan but on adrenaline. I went first to Sherry and saw her twisting onto her side, struggling against her trapped hands. But just above her head on the wall I also saw the lights on the electronic door lock glowing green. Something had tripped the power, like a driver hitting the garage door opener with the remote halfway up the driveway. I figured someone from the chopper had the switch so I twisted the handle and shoved open the door with my hip and was met with a rush of the high volume music: Dat! da dat! da dat!, da da daaaa. Dat! da dat! da dat!, da da daaaa.
    I take my card and I stand in line
To make a buck I work overtime
    I put my bloodstained knife into my back pocket and grabbed the ends of Sherry’s bed frame. I scraped the legs over and then with my back into it like a rower I pulled her through the door opening and into the computer room. Then I jumped back to the door and slammed it shut and punched a series of numbers I will never remember into the locking device, and like a miracle the lights on the lock went red.
    In the closed room the music was twice as loud. Something about another drone, something about feeling like a number. I remembered the CD player on the southern wall and strode over to it but it took me one more stanza to find the off button, and the room went quiet.
    I pulled my knife again and sat down on the edge of Sherry’s bed and cut loose her wrists and ankles. Then without hesitation I laid my head down on her chest. I was listening to her heart, yes, but it was not my only purpose and she responded by wrapping her freed arms around my shoulders and holding me with the little power she had left.

TWENTY-SIX
    Harmon looked at the GPS in his hand and then down at what seemed like a thousand acres of trampled backyard wallowing in standing water and said: “Take her down. I think we’re here.”
    The helicopter pilot looked to his right to see if the look on Harmon’s face meant he was serious and Harmon simply looked back and shrugged his shoulders. The pilot was told by whomever hired him to follow Harmon’s instructions and don’t ask questions. They were less than an hour northwest of the city and had left all civilization behind when they flew over U.S. 27, the demarcation line where South Florida changes from rows and rows of orange-tiled roofs to the gray-green world of the Everglades.
    As the chopper descended, the landscape only became slightly more defined. Now they could see that those darker green blobs below were actually stands of trees. The slate- colored patches were open water, reflecting the color of the sky. And the brownish smears were acres of sawgrass beaten down at the moment by the path of the storm. Harmon pointed to a kidney-shaped island that looked more and more like a pile of pickup sticks as they got closer. Soon they could make out tall trees snapped off at their tops and vegetation and debris at their base so thick it was difficult to discern anything more. They came in lower and then from the backseat Squires called out: “Structure at eight o’clock.” The pilot swung his head down and to the left. Harmon was on the blind side.
    “Bank a turn and get as low as you can,” Harmon said, climbing out of his seat and squeezing into the back with his partner. While they swung around, Harmon and Squires readied the fast ropes, tying them to U-bolts secured into the floor of the chopper. Harmon slid open a side door and looked out.
    “Eleven o’clock,” he