“Stay put, son.” Doc waved his flashlight. “I’ll be right back to close dat arm up.”

“Ain’t goan nowhere.” Once he’d made it to the stairs, I shone the light on my arm. He’d finished up one layer of sutures and was nearly done with the second.

Sure enough, he’d looked at my injury and said, “Coo-wee! Boy, you goan to learn how to run one of these days.” He’d also checked out my taped fingers. Vigneau’s teeth had sliced up my knuckles.

I’d just powered down the phone to save the battery when some rumble sounded from upstairs.

“Damn,” Clotile said. “That generator could wake the dead, non?”

Minutes dragged by, and Doc still hadn’t returned. Uneasy, I flicked the phone back on. “Something ain’t right.” My self-preservation instincts were honed razor sharp. I could usually tell when shit was about to hit the fan.

I hunted for scissors, then snipped the thread in my arm. When I rose, I lurched from the booze and blood loss. “Goan to check things out, me.”

Clotile nodded. “I’m coming too.”

I staggered up the stairs, with her right behind me. Opening the basement door, I yelled, “Doc? Where you at?” At the end of the long hallway, his front door was wide open. A hot, bone-dry wind rushed inside, hitting my face. He lived on the bayou front—where was the mugginess?

From here, I could see down his walkway. He stood motionless on the sidewalk, gazing up at something.

Other people along the shore stared skyward too.

When I strode down the hallway, Clotile followed, peeking past me. “What’re they gawking at?”

Doc’s pecan trees blocked my view of the sky. “Doan know.” A light began to glow over the water.

“You think it’s a fifolet?” A swamp light.

“Peut-être.” Maybe. “If it is . . .” I trailed off when a doe bounded down the street right past Doc. He didn’t react, just kept staring up.

Then came more animals, a parade of them fleeing from the east. Dogs, coyotes, rats, nutria.

I swallowed. One of Evie’s sketches had been of fleeing animals.

In a hushed tone, Clotile said, “Something bad’s coming.”

That rumbling sound we’d been hearing got louder and louder until it was more like a roar. “A twister maybe? Christ, I left Maman passed out!”

“If a tornado’s cropping up here, it probably woan reach your place.”

For true. Still . . . “I gotta get to her. Give me your keys.”

“Jamais.” Never. “We need to stay down in the basement.” Clotile backed toward it, yanking on my good arm.

That mysterious light grew even more intense, like the bayou was trying to catch fire. And that roar . . .

I said, “Ain’t a tornado, no.” That roar could wake the dead. Seemed like it was ringing in the end of days.

The apocalypse.

I burned to get to Maman, but I got the sense I wouldn’t make it to the truck.

“We got to hunker down, Jack!”

“Not without Doc.” I pulled free of Clotile, then hurried toward the front door. “Get your ass inside, Doc!” From here I could see the sky. My God. Past him was the rising sun, like a ball of fire.

From the basement doorway, Clotile screamed, “Come back here! Please!”

I yelled, “Allons-y, Doc! Now—” A flash of light exploded like a bomb. Fingers of fire stretched over the bayou, about to reach us. “DOC!” I’d never get to him in time.

He finally shook himself and turned to me. Meeting my eyes, he mouthed: Run, boy.

For once, I did. I lunged for the basement door, yanking it closed behind me.

Clotile cried, “Down here!”

When the knob seared my hand, I leapt down the stairs. The building groaned, dust raining over us in the pitch dark.

Clotile blindly reached for me. “I-I’m scared.”

So the hell was I. “We’re goan to be okay.” I took her hand.

“What happened to Doc?”

“I think . . .” How to explain what I’d just seen? “There was all this fire, and he told me to run. I doan see how he could’ve . . . lived through that.”

“You think we got bombed? Or maybe it’s the Rapture?”

“I doan know, me.” All I knew was Maman was in her bed, defenseless as a baby.

_______________

“I’m done waiting,” I told Clotile after pacing that dark basement for hours. Nothing else I could’ve done. We’d tried to call 911—and anyone else we knew—but couldn’t get a connection.

I was gut-sick with worrying. And I hated myself ’cause I was also worrying about someone who should’ve meant nothing to me.

I’d thought of Evie more than I’d thought of my podnas Lionel, Gaston, and Tee-Bo. Once this was over and I’d gotten Maman safe somewhere, I’d ride to Haven.

“Just a little while longer.” Clotile had insisted on bandaging up my arm, but I’d assured her that would be the least of our worries. “Please. It can’t be safe out there.”

We’d heard what sounded like an inferno outside, the entire Basin gone up in flames. There’d been more crashes and glass shattering. Doc’s entire building had quaked.

And always, always there was the smell of smoke.

But the sounds were fading.

Clotile asked, “What if there’s . . . radiation or something?”