I warned them! And just as I said it would happen, it happened!
The rushing water overflowed the banks of the gulley, making a path up the hill where the cabins sat like targets, just waiting to be picked off and one by one in the torrential showers that fed the bloated gulley, cabins disappeared—some floating, some engulfed until only the rooftops were visible.
The girls in my cabin screamed, terrified that we would be washed into Lake Huron since our cabin was closest to the lake.
“Hush!” I cautioned, knowing screaming would not solve anything. “Quickly, get everything you can onto a top bunk, and then tie yourselfs to the bunks with your sheets.”
“I don’t want to drown,” Petra screamed, sitting on her lower bed.
“Well, if you don’t want to drown, get off your butt and move it!” I yelled. I jumped from my perch on the top bunk as I watched the rising water and hurriedly threw stuff on the top bunks that were not being used and then started stripping the sheets, wrapping the girls into a hammock wrap and tying the sheets to the bunk.
“Hurry, Mrs. C.” Donnetta yelled, looking at the water.
“I will. I just have to get a few things done.”
I quickly tossed them the plastic containers they had used for snacks and told them to keep them close for bathroom purposes and wrapped the food into the rain ponchos. By the time I threw the last container on my own bunk, water crept in under the door.
“Help!” the girls screamed.
“There’s no one to help us, so you might as well stop screaming,” I said, grabbing some snacks and a six pack of water, wrapping it my raincoat.
“Don’t use your flashlights unless it is absolutely necessary,” I yelled above the sound of the water, trying to invade our little domain. I prayed as I tied myself to the bed, but inwardly cringed as I heard the beams give with the tug of the water. And off we went. Floating with all the debris that managed to get into the path of the water.
The girls were silent and I couldn’t see what they were doing in the dark, so I dared to turn on my flashlight and they were curled into their wraps, eyes bugging out, frightened beyond measure.
“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream,” I started singing. They looked at me as though I’d lost my mind, but I encouraged them to join in the song. Eventually they did.
I don’t know how long we sang that song when we heard a loud thump. I looked out the window, but could seeing nothing but blackness and I didn’t dare get out of the bunk.
“What was that?” Tonya asked, crying. “I want to go home.”
“Sh.” I said. “I don’t know. I’m not sure where we are and…
I didn’t get a chance to finish that sentence because boards of the cabin walls came crashing into our cabin—the last cabin in the camp.
“Lord, have mercy!” was the last thing I remember saying.
The rain stopped!
The sun was shining!
I tramped along the wet grass to the bathhouse humming, “Thank You, Lord!”
© Mary M. Hall-Rayford 2015
My first attempt at flash fiction. Please let me know how I did with it. 🙂
maryhallrayford 