Page 45 of Possessed By Shadows
“Maybe.”
“I know you said he vanished before. But the meds and the paperwork… What if he’s supposed to be taking something and isn’t now? Like he was okay and then because of me, stopped?”
Micah squeezed my hand. “This is not your fault. Lukas is old enough to make his own choices.”
“Maybe I should walk by that old school? See if his car is there?” It wasn’t a long walk, but I’d have to do it after work if I didn’t want to leave Micah in the lurch today. That area was more housing than shops and narrow streets like the Quarter was.
“Probably not an area I’d go alone. Lots of squatters and tweakers out that way. I know the neighborhood has been complaining to the city to get it cleaned up so it’s safer, but so far nothing has happened. Politics mostly,” Micah said. “I’ve never been, but I’ve seen pictures. It’s in bad shape. Security is pretty lapse, but if they are going in as a crew, they have to have a permit.”
“Does that mean security goes in with them?” I wondered if my brother stopped to think that someone may be squatting on the property and dangerously defending it with a gun or something. Which of course gave me rising anxiety that he was laying there somewhere with a bullet hole in him.
“Sometimes. I think it varies location to location. There was talk of tearing it down and putting in apartments, but nothing has happened. It’s still privately owned, I believe.”
“If he’s just there setting up videos and stuff, not responding to anyone, I’m going to be so mad. I don’t even know how to feel right now. Do I have a right to be mad?”
“You can’t help how you feel. A right?” Micah shrugged. “He doesn’t have to tell you anything, not really. I think maybe it’s something to talk to him about, and your therapist. But I don’t know. I don’t have any siblings, and can only sort of relate.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slow, counting and trying to ease my anxiety over everything. Could he be hurt? Yes. But from what everyone was telling me, it seemed unlikely? More that he just tended to play lone ranger a lot and not keep anyone in the loop.
“We can check out the school after work,” Micah suggested. “See if he’s there. If he’s just doing his thing and not in any sort of danger, maybe we bring up that it would be nice if he didn’t worry us so much?” He gave me a tight smile that told me he didn’t expect a change.
“All we can do is ask, right?” Was there a way to not worry about him so much? My dad didn’t seem to be worried. The guys in the ghost group weren’t. Was it just me then?
Micah stood up and began cleaning up the dishes. “You have a big heart,” he said. “Don’t feel bad about that.”
“But you’re not worried.”
“I was.” In the past. He was saying it happened often enough that he didn’t worry anymore, or had learned to not focus on it. He pulled me into a hug. “It will be okay.”
“Even if he’s gone off meds or something?”
“Even if. If that’s what happened we’ll find him and get him help. If he’s just on some tangent, well then, eventually he’ll come home. It’s frustrating, and scary, but what else are we going to do?” Micah’s phone beeped a loud pulsing wail. That was the emergency signal blare. He pulled it out of his pocket and scrolled through the screen. “Fuck.”
A thousand bits of dread hit my stomach at once as I pulled out my own phone. “What?”
Micah held up his phone. “Tropical storm warning. It wasn’t supposed to come this far over.” He opened his phone to read through the information from the National Weather Service.
“I thought they didn’t start till later in the year?” We’d had two last year, sort of a breeze by of both, but everything had been boarded up and ready. The winds and water intense, but I was assured not hurricane level. I admitted I’d been a bit terrified the first time, expecting something like the movies with trees piercing walls and such. There had been trees down in places, some minor wind damage, and lots of water in the streets that drained away after a few days, but all the boarded-up windows kept any real damage from happening.
“It is early. But they can happen whenever. It’s just a cold front meeting a warm front.” He scrolled through a few things. “Not much time. This sort of turned fast.”
I thought hard to the last time. Had we kept the boards? Did I need to find a way to go get more? And supplies, it was always insane to get anything from water to flashlights on the edge of a storm. We hadn’t had to board up the house. Up a minor bit of hill, and nestled back on the property covered with trees, we’d been more worried about a tree falling than windows breaking. Micah had assured me, that if a hurricane, above level two, was on the way, we’d board up everything, take the cat, and find a hotel up north to ride it out.
“I’m calling everyone in to the shop to get it boarded up. The classroom too. We’ll close early. The storm is supposed to hit this evening.”
“We still have the wood?” My mind raced with anxiety now. Lukas was AWOL, possibly in a location known for flooding and barely holding together, right as a storm was coming, and my dad was in town. Did he know about the storm? I pulled out my phone and sent him a text.
“In the storage room. I kept the old ones. They are still good for a few more uses. We’ll have to empty the lower storage area in case of flooding. Water doesn’t usually get that high, but better safe than sorry.” Micah sighed and shoved snack bars into his bag as well as bottles of water. He was preparing for a long, busy day.
I grabbed the box with my electric drill in it and hoped the battery was still charged before we made our way out, locking the door behind us. My dad texted back that he was already boarding up the lower floor. The upper level hadn’t been opened up.
Are you safe?I sent back, knowing Lukas’s new house was closer to the water. Would we be in danger of a storm surge? I’d never been here during one of the worst, but had lived through more than a handful of hurricanes in my youth in Georgia. Usually once they got as far inland as we’d been, it wasn’t much more than lots of wind and rain. Flooding really sucked. No one told you that you could lose everything to a flood in seconds, even with preparation.
Safe enough,was my father’s reply back. I couldn’t help but worry about Lukas. So I called Jason as Micah and I hiked our way back down St. Charles, and across Canal to Chartes and down to Jackson Square. He didn’t answer, so I left a voicemail.
“Hey, Jason. It’s Alex. We just got the notice that there’s a tropical storm that’s going to hit. I’m thinking the school will have to wait? Can you by chance tell me if you’ve been that way and seen my brother’s car? Or heard from him? Call me and be safe.”
Sky was already at the shop before we got there. The chalk sign was down on the street, written in a fast scrawl wasShop closing early due to coming storm.