After the Storm

By Marietta Miles

Then...

May’s life had been just fine.

Not happy and miles from meaningful, but fine. She lived on an out-of-the-way island fittingly named Folly. She existed as far from other people as she could manage. The distance let her to drift from memories of her careless parents, graying recollections of the life taken from her, and a sea of her own bad decisions.

Hustling here and there as a small-time weed dealer on the crystal coast allowed May to live like a hermit in the off season. Save one cold night in November, just before a killing storm made landfall.

Now...

The island is left unlivable, and May, like so many others, has become a refugee. Drifting and wandering. Blindly trying to start life over. In this foggy chaos she treads to keep her head above water and to steady and buoy poor Tommy, a boy who might be too far gone to rescue.

Meanwhile...

Four hundred miles away, in a small dying town hidden high in the mountains, a disregarded teenager named Curtis and his unwilling sister Vicki run from the consequences of his violent proclivities. In a gassed-up Mustang, they head east, to the crystal coast, where they can hide and start over. Just like everyone else.

After the storm comes a different danger.

Praise for AFTER THE STORM:

“Opening in the aftermath of May’s climatic and life-altering storm, After the Storm continues to give voice to Marietta Miles’ complicated and complex heroine, May Cosby. Atmospheric, yet shot through with tension, Miles’ third novella proves her mastery of the Southern Noir genre, distilled down to its purest essence: dark, harrowing and razor-sharp with unapologetic authenticity.” —Steph Post, author of Miraculum

“After the Storm is the type of darkness that shines. A diamond stuck in the sludge that follows a disaster. Miles’ writing reminds me of fight scenes in classic ninja movies: rainy, violent, emotional, and packed with danger. This is a tale of refugees and survivors, but lacks the clichéd hope permeating most of its kind. No, this is gloomy like the worst storm, and it’ll leave you feeling like a tree after that storm: unhinged and broken. The difference is, unlike the tree, you’ll be asking for more.” —Gabino Iglesias, author of Coyote Songs

“Although she’s published as a crime author, Marietta Miles once again fools everyone and defies all genre expectations, focusing on subtle, but all-too human emotional conflict, showing the struggle to rebuild not only after physical and natural disasters, but personal, intimate ones as well. And in After the Storm, she shows that sometimes those efforts fail.” —Richard Vialet, Black Guys Do Read

“In After the Storm, Marietta Miles celebrates the human condition in all of its messiness and glory, whether it’s May struggling to stay afloat or Vicki suffering in the wake of her brother’s violence. The prose crackles with menace as you’re taken on a journey that manages to not only be harrowing but surprisingly hopeful. Miles has the uncanny ability to navigate through the most wretched aspects of the human psyche amidst the bleakest of conditions with fragility, nuanced heart, and unwavering grace.” —Sarah M. Chen, author of Cleaning Up Finn

“If you care about working-class novels, then you need to be reading Marietta Miles. She delves into the boredom of life and exposes its horror. After the Storm is not about looking for a way out, it is the about people trying to survive until tomorrow. Marietta Miles’s books will wreck you.” —David Nemeth, Unlawful Acts

• Language: English
• Publisher: Down & Out Books
• Release date: Sep 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463416150

Book preview

AFTER THE STORM

Marietta Miles

PRAISE FOR AFTER THE STORM

"Opening in the aftermath of May’s climatic and life-altering storm, After the Storm continues to give voice to Marietta Miles’ complicated and complex heroine, May Cosby. Atmospheric, yet shot through with tension, Miles’ third novella proves her mastery of the Southern Noir genre, distilled down to its purest essence: dark, harrowing and razor-sharp with unapologetic authenticity." —Steph Post, author of Miraculum

"After the Storm is the type of darkness that shines. A diamond stuck in the sludge that follows a disaster. Miles’ writing reminds me of fight scenes in classic ninja movies: rainy, violent, emotional, and packed with danger. This is a tale of refugees and survivors, but lacks the clichéd hope permeating most of its kind. No, this is gloomy like the worst storm, and it’ll leave you feeling like a tree after that storm: unhinged and broken. The difference is, unlike the tree, you’ll be asking for more." —Gabino Iglesias, author of Coyote Songs

"Although she’s published as a crime author, Marietta Miles once again fools everyone and defies all genre expectations, focusing on subtle, but all-too human emotional conflict, showing the struggle to rebuild not only after physical and natural disasters, but personal, intimate ones as well. And in After the Storm, she shows that sometimes those efforts fail." —Richard Vialet, Black Guys Do Read

"In After the Storm, Marietta Miles celebrates the human condition in all of its messiness and glory, whether it’s May struggling to stay afloat or Vicki suffering in the wake of her brother’s violence. The prose crackles with menace as you’re taken on a journey that manages to not only be harrowing but surprisingly hopeful. Miles has the uncanny ability to navigate through the most wretched aspects of the human psyche amidst the bleakest of conditions with fragility, nuanced heart, and unwavering grace." —Sarah M. Chen, author of Cleaning Up Finn

"If you care about working-class novels, then you need to be reading Marietta Miles. She delves into the boredom of life and exposes its horror. After the Storm is not about looking for a way out, it is the about people trying to survive until tomorrow. Marietta Miles’s books will wreck you." —David Nemeth, Unlawful Acts

Copyright © 2019 by Marietta Miles

All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

After the Storm

About the Author

Also by the Author

Preview from Once a World by Craig McDonald

Preview from Forgiveness Dies by J.J. Hensley

Preview from Widow’s Run by TG Wolff

To My Family

The Damage is Done

(1987)

Dare County, North Carolina

Harbinger got off lucky. The puffy, middle-aged man with a gold Emergency Services nametag, Paul Ward, stands next to the driver’s seat at the front of the school bus. His thinning, curly hair is oily from sweat, the wire-rimmed glasses he wears repeatedly slide down his nose. He pushes them back in place, then rubs the back of his neck and shoulders. He seems automated, more machine than human. When he speaks, there is an accent that most in the crowd can’t quite place, and the sound of strangeness makes them feel even more lost.

Tommy eyes the stranger, not liking or trusting anything about him.

Folly still has no electricity. It could be one of the underground cables or it could be one of the generators. Crews from Carolina Power will be here later today. Either way, it’s going to be awhile before you folks get to go home for good. This man is breathing heavy, worn out.

Ward looks at the floor, seemingly working hard to ignore the group of survivors as they begin to appeal his words and judgment. They assault him with questions and complaints. Someone floats a curse word or two. The man holds his hands up and shakes his head. You people need to calm down. This bus won’t leave till I finish talking.

A few people take a step back, surprised by the abrupt nature of his tone. Tommy stands at the back of the group and May stands in front of him. Her arms are crossed, she’s chewing so hard on her irritation she might bite through her cheek. Three days after the massive nor’easter, she and Tommy, along with twenty or so other evacuees, are packed into a Dare County school bus, on their way to Folly Island.

Each person on board holds out hope they might find something to salvage or recover. Clothes or shoes. Walking canes, heart pills, asthma medicine. Pictures from a christening or framed wedding certificates. Checkbooks. Deeds. Maybe just a coat or shirt. A memory that might be saved. Anything that proved this or that spot of land had once been their everything.

Tommy thinks of his mother’s cigarette case. He gave it to her for Christmas years ago. Paid for it with money he stole from her tip pocket. He thinks of her black work shoes. He hopes he might find something left of her.

With the sharp thought of his mom he feels a pain, like a cut, through his head. The smallest part of himself, hidden in a corner of his mind, tells the largest part of himself that he just has a headache. Tommy manages to calm down and ignore the feeling of having nothing. For now, he pretends the ache isn’t there and rocks back and forth to concentrate. Takes a deep breath and jumps into being okay.

He’s not sure how much longer he can go without something to help him feel different, though. His knees tingle like bee stings, it makes him squeeze his leg muscles tight, clench his jaw. Tries to stay normal. How many days since a hit? He needs something. Anything. He’s sure May has a stash. She’s just keeping it to herself.

The man in charge is still talking. You’ll have an hour. An hour to search through everything they had to abandon. One hour and they must leave again with no idea of when they will be allowed to return.

Like I said there’s no electric and we have no idea when it’ll be back on. You can’t be here when it’s dark. Paul Ward’s lips turn down and his eyes close. The septic system overflowed and run-off has settled in the lower areas.

My God. An old man with liver spots and a deep red scar across his left cheek sits on the front seat, he whispers to himself before covering his mouth with his leathery hand and closing his eyes. Our house.

There’s a lot of high water. Mostly in the middle ward.

How high did it get? A question spills from the crowd.

County and state workers have removed fallen trees and power lines from Bay Avenue only. There are two teams working on adjoining neighborhoods, but it will be several more days before street-by-street damage can be assessed. Ignoring everything but the sound of his own voice, Mr. Ward wipes his forehead with a red handkerchief and returns it to his pocket.

Tommy waits and watches, keeping his breath shallow so he can hear everything. The man puts his fingertip to the plastic bridge between his eyes and slides the glasses up once more. Stop it! Tommy exhales and a few people begin to move forward. It will be another week before excavators, backhoes, loaders and dump-trucks are able to move-in and start the really hard clean-up. Mr. Ward allows a an ugly, heavy pause.

If you are looking for missing family or friends there will be someone from the police department at the hotel. You can talk to them when you get back from Folly. You will need some form of identification. For you and the missing.

Tommy hears gasps and whimpers flare from the group. The noise doesn’t sound real and he connects it to a television show, like when something bad happens on a sitcom. He squeezes the noise out before it gets too far inside his head.

I don’t know anything about rescue or recovery. County is setting up that office as we speak. Recovery.

A hasty little man in a yellow slicker, holding a clipboard pushes open the bus doors and pops his head inside. Let’s go, he says.

Mr. Ward quickly jumps down the steps of the bus and out the door before folks can ask him any more questions. Tommy thinks they are up to something. Tricking him and everyone else. These people might not even be with the Red Cross. Maybe.

The bus driver pushes down the clutch, pops the gear and revs out of the Holiday Inn parking lot beginning their twenty-minute drive east.

The late afternoon sun bounces off hundreds of puddles born from the storm, each glinting like crystal gems and shining through the windows. Soon the bus passes the vacant lot where Stuffy’s used to stand, then the dark, damaged Gas and Go and finally they start over the Pocahontas Bridge.

The returning residents are accompanied by two weekend soldiers on loan from the Virginia National Guard. Both young men are red-faced and sweaty from the heavy gear they wear. They look drained and worn-out. Tommy watches them from under his floppy hair, wishing he had sunglasses so he could spy on everyone without being seen.

The sun slips behind a gray cloud and