Here's an old story I wouldn't mind seeing what others think of it...
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Hurricane Mitchell


A light rain tickled the window of Roger's office, blurring his view of downtown Atlanta.  Walking up idly to look out the window he looked down towards Olympic Park where he saw dozens of tourists scurry for drier locations.  With a bemused grunt, Roger yawned a bit, and slumped back into his chair, leaning his arms on the oaken desk in front of him.  The ticking of an old alarm clock echoed in the office, just out of sync with his heartbeat.

Things were slow today; not that Roger minded.  He was starting to feel a little jaded about the banal world of pursuing lost loved ones and tracking down the evidence of spouses' infidelities.  The glamorous life of a private eye; the scenes that Magnum P.I. and The Rockford Files never quite touched upon. Besides, he felt, it was better being here in the cramped office than out there in the rain. 

With the familiar click-swoosh of his Zippo, Roger lit a cigarette and drummed his fingers idly, looking over the pile of mail in front of him.  After a long drag, he muttered, "Bah," and chucked the pile of junk mail and bills into an in-box already overflowing with other such detritus of modern society. 

As the pile sailed across his desk, a small yellow envelope landed near the edge of the desk.  With an interested noise, Roger snatched the envelope and looked it over; shaking it to make sure it wasn't a present from a jilted lover trying to take revenge, or something of the sort.  Placing his finger under the flap, Roger tore the envelope, and after blowing into it, he dumped the contents out.

A locker key and a pair of photographs spilled out, and the moment Roger looked at them, his blood turned ice cold.  A spot on the inside of his elbow began throbbing suddenly as he analyzed them over and over.  Checking the back for any clues, Roger found a simple note, scrawled hastily.

      Mr. Kerensky-

      I wouldn't leave such things lying out if I were you.  If you would like to claim
      the items pictured, let's make a deal.  Bring your wallet to the Key West
      Greyhound station by Saturday afternoon.  Use the key there and you’ll find
      instructions there.

                                                           Cheers,
                                                           L. Gaffer

Roger closed his eyes as if in pain and swore.  Lucius Gaffer was an old demon from his past, from the days when the troubles began.

Roger was a rookie cop for the Baltimore police force.   He loved the job, the power it gave him and the feeling he was doing something right, but the stresses of the job started getting to him.  In a moment of weakness, he started looking for chemical induced relief.  Lucius was the officer in charge of evidence, a shifty weasel with a slick smile and balding pate.

It took four years of living a lie, sneaking drugs from Lucius while trying to maintain a normal façade. Then finally, Roger snapped, going into a detached rage as he roughed up a suspect; trying to subdue him. 

Roger realized he’d gone over the line; so he ran away.  Rather than face drug charges, Roger quit the force, and left Baltimore completely.  While he never forgave himself for taking the quick way out of his problems, he was deathly afraid of going to prison.

The photos were damning to be sure.  Lucius had always assured Roger that the camera trained on the evidence locker was off whenever they made their illicit deals.  But these photos proved that Lucius was just slowly tying the noose around Roger’s neck.  Even after three years, Roger knew that these weren’t clips from the station’s camera, but another camera entirely, centering his face in full view while obscuring the other party.

“Damn it all to hell!” Roger yelled, violently throwing the photographs across the room.  He rose from his desk, and sighed dejectedly.  Here was the price of cowardice; when you run from your demons long enough they have a habit of creeping up on you.

Slamming his fist onto the solid desk, Roger jerked his head towards his calendar. It was Friday; he’d have to leave immediately.  Grabbing his coat, Roger hurried towards the door.  A thunderclap pealed outside, announcing the coming of harder rain.


The car whined loudly as Roger flew down Highway US-1.  His windshield wipers flapped quickly, desperately trying to throw the driving rain from his windshield.  Roger took the last sip of a cup of cold coffee and tossed it to his side, adding to the growing pile.  Driving on the long taxing stretch, Roger bobbed his head now and then, trying to shake the cotton from his mind.  It had been nearly fourteen hours straight, with only four brief breaks to shake his legs and fill the gas tank.  He would have appreciated to see the sunrise to recharge his batteries, but all he was offered was a dark grey blanket hanging over the sky.

Fifty miles to hit Key West; by now he was on the stretch that took him on a guided tour of the Florida Keys, pulling on a series of bridges that connected the far-swept islands to the rest of the country.  They all looked the same to him though; tropical tourist traps that enticed him to pull in and explore, but mainly empty towns and cities that were being pelted by rain.  Palm trees shook like a cheerleader’s pom-poms in the mild winds that were starting to pick up.

After nearly passing out a with twenty miles to go, Roger reached out in desperation to the knob of his car stereo, hoping that some annoying DJ or loud music would keep him awake long enough to finish the trip.  Fumbling with the stereo the best he could while jerking on the wheel to keep the car from sliding across the eerily empty bridge and crunching into the embankment, Roger finally landed on a station that was permeated by static, but serviceable.

What greeted his ears however, made him terrified. The teeth-grinding warning tones from the Emergency Broadcast System rang loud and clear through his speakers, but there was no comforting “this is just a test” never followed.  Instead, a frazzled-sounding official voice announced, “This is a major hurricane warning for the South Florida area.  Hurricane Mitchell has taken an unexpected path west and is expected to make landfall this afternoon.  Citizens are ordered to evacuate the area, or to report to shelters.”

Roger’s heavy lids snapped open.  He looked forward, seeing the skyline of Key West beginning to form in the horizon.  A cold realization tingled in his spine; he was already too far to turn back now, he would have to push it and hope the hurricane was late.  He narrowed his eyes again, a scowl crossing his face.  Had Lucius known that this was going to happen?

With the determination of a hunting dog, Roger gripped the wheel tightly.  He was going to need all his instincts to keep the car on the slick road; with ten miles to go he couldn’t afford to screw this up now.  He wouldn’t let a hurricane stop him from going to jail, not when he was within reach. 

The wind began to howl outside Roger’s car, pushing the car around and making it a struggle to drive.  Struggling to keep it straight, Roger let out a sigh of relief when the bridge ended and he was deposited into the beginnings of the city.  Watching the palm trees begin to creak roughly, Roger feel somewhat better; at least he knew he wasn’t going to be blown into the water. Pulling out the directions to the bus terminal from his glove box, he struggled to find the way, hampered by the driving rain coming in sheets and the quickly thrashing road signs. 

He was about to pull towards one of the main thoroughfares when he noticed a black speck ahead among the wildly dancing debris.  It was a police car with lights going, stopping every block.  Sweating lightly, Roger knew that he had to avoid the police.  They were on final evacuation patrol, getting any remaining citizens to shelter before the hurricane arrived.

Making a sharp turn down a side street, Roger sped away from the police car, praying frantically that he hadn’t been noticed.  The last thing he needed right now was to be forced away from his goal.

It took him twenty minutes of avoiding police cars, zig-zagging down the streets of Key West as he looked for the Greyhound station.  Larger debris was now flying down the city streets; a plastic garbage pail had nearly slammed into the car a few streets ago.  According to the map he was two blocks away.

Barely keeping the petulant car from slamming into a building wall, Roger could see the Greyhound terminal in his view.  Across the street from a high school, the building was abandoned and dark; he knew he’d have to break in to get to the lockers inside.  With a sigh, Roger reached for his glove box again.  Fishing out a Colt handgun, he slid it into the pocket of his coat; that would probably be the only way to get in right now.

As he was pulling towards the station, a thunderous crack echoed through the windows.  Looking around quickly to see where the sound came from, Roger jerked his head back. “Shit!” he yelled out, as a felled palm tree blew right in front of his car, slamming to earth and cracking concrete. 

Slamming on the brakes before the tree folded his car in half, Roger lost complete control of his car, sliding in circles in the flooded street. The car finally came to a stop by flinging its passenger side into the unyielding concrete of a building’s wall, nearly flattening the machine.  Roger jerked sharply to his right, barely kept in check by the seat belt.


Stunned for a couple seconds, Roger shook his head violently to regain mental faculties.  He let out a light groan, and struggled a bit to pull the weight of his body up by the steering wheel.  Breathing hard, he turned the car off and looked outside, surveying the scene. 

Rain was coming down in large drops, sounding like machine gun shots on the hood of his car.  Roger could see the sheets of rain dancing across the flooded streets, buffeted by the blowing winds that were ratcheting up in speed every minute.
Freezing winds began to blow into the car through the shattered windows, followed by pouring water slowly enter.  Roger tensed; he thought he could feel the car beginning to lift from the winds.  He guessed from the winds that he could still walk to the station, but it wouldn’t be too long before he’d be blown away, car or not.
Unbuckling his belt, Roger wrapped his coat around his body. Roger struggled to open his door, struggling against the hurricane’s force.  Flinging himself out from the car, Roger was greeted immediately by being soaked to the bone by the rapidly raising water on the street.  The rain felt like sledgehammers beating against his body, and he had to strain every muscle to crawl towards the station.

As he groaned loudly just trying to avoid being blown across the water, he heard something just above the howling winds.  It was an anguished cry, someone in pain.  His old police training suddenly came to Roger, and he jerked his head to see where the sound came from as he took refuge next to his car.

Underneath the head of the fallen tree that nearly flattened his own car, Roger saw a car that wasn’t so lucky.  A Geo Metro flipped upside down was pinned underneath the tree, and inside was a wailing family, a mother and son struggling to get out of the car before it filled with water.

Roger looked back to the bus station his car was leaning against.  It was in his grasp he knew, but he looked back to the family.  With one look back to the station one last time, he knew what he had to do.

Wind and rain slammed into his body as he ran at full bore to the trapped car.  He felt like he was about to take off to be blown into the Caribbean once or twice, sliding across the street as his feet flew to the pinned car, but through determination alone he kept his course, breathing heavily.

“Keep calm! I’m here to help!” Roger yelled, trying to pull on the door as he looked to the mother and son.  He yanked hard on the handle of the car, slipping against the rain-slick handle of the car with the screams for help of the family urging him on. The door was stuck tight.

With a realization, Roger felt a lump in his drenched coat.  “Get back!” Roger yelled, and grabbed for his pistol.  The he trapped family backed off and screamed in fear when he aimed the gun at the window.  Pulling the trigger, the gun jerked in Roger’s hand and the window shattered as a bullet ripped out.  Roger kicked the rest of the glass out. “Come on!”

The wailing woman and boy eased out of the car with Roger’s help, sliding out over the pieces of safety glass into the picking up winds.  Roger looked to the high school gym just ahead of them and led his new charges ahead. 

The boy tugged tightly to Roger’s arm as they ran across the sidewalk, dodging a mailbox that broke free and flew across the soaked road.  The rain slapping then in the face with the force of a boxer, Roger made across the school parking lot to the doors of the gym, where the trio collapsed, beating on the doors and yelling for help.  Miraculously, the doors slowly opened, and they fell into the gym.


It was Sunday morning.  Mitchell had passed completely by, its rage long since thrashed the Keys.  As the shaking and tired people began to file out of the gym to see what was left of the city.  Roger yawned raggedly, and blinked his eyes to clear his sight. 

A light rain was still dusting Key West, and everything seemed peaceful; a picture postcard. As he looked to the goal that drove him to this city, Roger let out a groan of surprise.  The building had collapsed, another car blown through the side just over his own.  Roger sighed deeply.

Though he wondered idly if this meant Lucius Gaffer was done with his blackmail, reality finally sank in.  Lucius wasn’t going to quit.  Roger knew that the wily snake wasn’t stupid as to leave the only evidence here.  He was back to square one.  As more people filed by, the mother and son that Roger saved stopped to thank him.  Roger smiled to them and was about to say a few platitudes, how it was no problem, when he cut himself short.

He knew what he had to do now.  The right thing.

There.  Should be fixed, though I don't care if you're too much of a nitpicker. The story's old.

Yeah, a while while ago, like '01, I believe.