Free Landfall by Dawn Lee McKenna

you.”
    Boudreaux looked over at Amelia, who was toasting a slice of bread for her mother over one of the gas burners. “I’m going to have to go out for a bit,” he said quietly.
    “What you mean, go out?’ Amelia asked. “Ain’t no ‘out’ out there.”
    “Flood come up, too, like I told you,” Miss Evangeline piped up. “Water come all up Mr. Benny yard like I say.”
    Boudreaux turned around and looked at her. “Yes, Miss Evangeline, you were right,” he said politely. “I was wrong. Again.”
    “Wrong, right don’t matter, no,” she said, but she looked satisfied anyway. “Matter that the shark gon’ be in the yard, eatin’ all the drown cats and messin’ round my mango.”
    Boudreaux sighed. It had taken him hours yesterday to convince Miss Evangeline to come stay in the house with him. The house was elevated on a brick foundation, while the cottage in back was not. Miss Evangeline had wanted to stay back there and guard her TV set against sharks and looters. The only reason she’d finally come was that he’d pointed out how much dear Lily would hate the idea of Amelia and Miss Evangeline sleeping in the guest room.
    He looked back at Amelia, who had turned off the burner and was sliding the toast onto a saucer. “I won’t be long,” he said. “Just stay put and you’ll both be fine. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
    “But where you goin’?” she asked.
    “Who go?” Miss Evangeline snapped.
    “He say he goin’ somewhere,” Amelia said.
    Boudreaux sighed as he heard Miss Evangeline’s chair bumping against the floor. He turned around to find her grabbing onto her walker and standing.
    “Mr. Benny ain’t go nowhere!” she said. “I ain’t gon’ tolerate no nonsense, me.”
    “I’ll be back in just a few minutes,” he lied, trying to sound soothing to someone who hadn’t been soothed once in almost a hundred years.
    She jabbed a bent finger at him. “Where you think you got to go in the hurricane?”
    He took a breath and let it out slowly. “To Maggie Redmond’s.”
    “No. I won’t have none of this,” she said, and started inching toward the hallway that led to the front door. “You need stay right where you at, and you get your mind off that girl. I told you leave it alone, me!”
    Boudreaux watched her head out the kitchen doorway at what would have been breakneck speed for someone whose neck was already broken. Boudreaux supposed she was going to head him off at the pass. He looked at Amelia. “Go make sure she doesn’t unlock that door,” he said.
    Amelia sighed and put down the saucer, then went after her mother. Boudreaux dropped his cell phone into his trouser pocket and heard it tap against the switchblade he’d carried every day for forty years. Then he headed for the back door. On his way, he could hear Miss Evangeline in the hallway.
    “You think you go somewhere,” she was saying. “You try and I put my foot to that Cajun ass.”

B oudreaux saw with some frustration that the few remaining late season mangoes had been stripped from the full-size trees, and that the wind was beating the hydrangea, bougainvillea, and hibiscus bushes to death. The smaller, potted mangoes had been moved to the brick potting house, and he hoped they were faring better.
    The water in the yard was shin deep, and branches, small garden pots, and unfamiliar debris from other yards swept across his path as he made his way to the garage.
    He had to use the key to open the door to the garage where he kept his hunting truck, a Ford F450 that had been lifted and set upon oversize tires for mucking through Tate’s Hell Forest. It was overkill, but he occasionally enjoyed a little overkill.
    It took him a minute to work the key underwater, then he pulled up the door. The garage, too, was flooded, and he sloshed to the truck, glad for a brief respite from the wind and the rain. He was already soaked, despite grabbing his yellow raincoat and, at 45mph, the rain felt like broken