Children of the Storm

Dougherty kids. “So am I.”

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    SEVENTEEN
        
        The man was angry with Fate.
        It just wasn't fair that some people had everything they could want in this world-while other people lacked everything and always would lack, no matter what they did. The world was out of kilter, spinning all wrong, and life was a mockery. Men were clowns, nothing but clowns, playing out a bunch of silly routines that lacked wit and made them seem like cement-headed fools. Men were clowns. And hopes were illusions. You could never hope for anything and receive it. Except for a favored few, those who had everything.
        Like the Doughertys.
        He hated the Doughertys.
        Fate had been absolutely philanthropic when it came to the Doughertys. They had money, so very much money, more money than anyone could expect to spend, reasonably spend on reasonable things, in ten lifetimes. They were healthy, well-educated, admired and respected by the people who counted, other people like them. They had such a lovely family, such a happy family, two beautiful children for whom they could buy or do anything.
        It wasn't right.
        What did he have? In comparison, he had nothing. The Doughertys had everything, and he had nothing.
        Jeremy, of course, would even things up.
        That was fair.
        Balance the inequities Fate created.
        And before long.
        He already knew the perfect moment. He had it all set up, and no one would be able to do a thing to stop him.
        He had been improvising so furiously, that he had been afraid of slipping up somewhere, but now he saw it, in crystal visions, how it would work, and he knew he'd not made a single mistake. In a little while, Jeremy would use his knife again.

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    EIGHTEEN
        
        When the rain began to fall, hard as hail and in sheets so dense that it cut their view from the kitchen windows to a mere ten or twelve yards, Bess switched on the portable radio that sat atop the refrigerator and tuned in to a weather report.
        “Hurricane Greta, seventh of this season,” the announcer told them, “is now predicted to maintain its northwestwardly movement toward the island of Guadeloupe where twelve-foot tides are already being recorded. Government officials at the marine watch station at Pointe-a-Pitre have issued warnings to all ships at sea and are presently completing calls to outlying islands to learn whether anyone there requires assistance in leaving their homes to weather Greta on the mainland. The Pointe-a-Pitre docks are closed, and all the ships in that area have been ordered to stand anchor in the Bay and ride the storm out at a safe distance from the piers and berthing slots.
        “The United States Weather Bureau, operating out of San Juan, reports that Hurricane Greta is now packing winds slightly stronger than one hundred miles an hour, with a storm front some twenty-six miles wide. It is picking up speed and moving in a northwestwardly direction at approximately eighteen miles an hour and is expected to reached the Guadeloupe area sometime before midnight tonight.
        “Anyone requiring the assistance of the island government in reaching a port of safety should either telephone one of the three following numbers-”
        Bess switched the radio off.
        “If it doesn't roll right over us, it'll come damn close,” Henry Dalton said. “Better bolt the shutters in place.”
        “You sound like you've been through this before,” Sonya said. They had congregated in the kitchen, as if seeking mutual comfort from the screaming winds and the thunder-both the Daltons, Mills, Helga, Saine, the children. Only Bill Peterson was missing, for he was still aboard the Lady Jane, trying to clear her of seawater with the use of the hand pump which, ingeniously, he had hooked up to a bicycle frame for greater efficiency.
        “Oh, my, yes,” Bess said. “We're old hands. We've weathered out two or three other storms over the years.”
        Dalton and Mills went to tend to the shutters, which were all external for the ground floors, internal on the second and third levels.
        “Be some broken glass to clean up when this is over,” Helga said. “Not all them upper windows are going to escape.”
        Henry Dalton slammed the shutters together across the outside of the largest kitchen window, slid bolts into place, while Mills tended quickly to both the smaller