A chart displayed the track of Hurricane Isabel as it churned from the Bahamas and rapidly intensified, making landfall immediately southeast of Savannah. It spun its destruction northerly, just to the west of Augusta and the east of Athens. The eye of what was now Tropical Storm Isabel cast its destructive gaze upon Clayton, as the storm had slowed its forward progress. Record rains had fallen and were still falling in northern Georgia, eclipsing the effect of Tropical Storm Alberto in 1994, which had dropped over twenty-seven inches of rain in some places.

“Some parts of North Georgia will receive in excess of thirty inches of rain from this system,” the reporter said, almost not believing his own words. “The devastation on the Georgia coast is unimaginable, but the flooding and damage in the mountains could be equally horrific,” he added.

A panel of experts sat to discuss the impact of the storm. As with any hurricane, most of the attention was on the storm surge and the coastal impact, but a geologist on the panel spoke up and asserted himself. “I don’t think we should underestimate the effect this storm will have on the Appalachian Mountains,” the geologist, Michael Hammons, said. “Northeast Georgia and western North Carolina will be looking at major debris flows.”

The moderator probed further. “Michael, can you explain debris flows?”

“Debris flows are very dangerous,” Hammons said. “You’re looking at a mass movement of soil and rock down steep slopes.”

“Like an avalanche?” the moderator said.

“Sort of,” Hammons said. “But with an avalanche, only the surface material moves, as in the case with packed ice and snow. With a debris flow, the earth underneath detaches as well. They have far more force than an avalanche...there’s no stopping them. Anything in the path will be deeply buried.”

As the geologist spoke, an animated sequence played on the screen that depicted the sides of mountains essentially washing into the valleys below.

“What triggers them?” the moderator asked.

“Very heavy rainfalls in short periods of time,” Hammons said. “Just look at Hurricane Camille in 1969. It stalled over Virginia and dumped twenty-eight inches of rain in about eight hours. We recorded almost 4,000 debris flows that wiped out houses and killed over 150 people in one county alone.”

“In Macon County, North Carolina, the county that borders Rabun County in Georgia, a 2004 debris flow detached material from Fish Hawk Mountain and it flowed over two miles.”

The moderator was momentarily speechless, so the geologist summed up. “It’s reasonable to expect the debris flows from this storm to be much, much worse than those.”

***

For most of the night Ozzie slogged through wet leaves and standing water with Isabella as he tried to lead her to Hal’s cabin, but the ferocity of the wind and rain drove them to seek refuge under the overhang of the granite outcropping in the pine cathedral. Even though it was almost noon, there was barely enough light to see deep inside the forest. Still, Ozzie was able to make out the body of the man who had shot at him.

Evidently the coyotes had gotten to him. He was dragged several yards away from the boulder, and what was left of him lay chest down on the forest floor. His head was completely removed, evidently chewed off by the coyotes. Ozzie scanned through the downpour but saw no sign of the head. Shane’s arms and back were exposed, but virtually all the flesh was gone. A metal stick...a shotgun lay in the muck beside him.

Ozzie and Isabella jumped to their feet as the mountain roared beneath them. They looked quickly to the right to see an entire hillside begin to move slowly, impossibly. A tree lost its footing and fell backwards. Then another. The speed picked up and the entire slope behind them gave way. They ran out to their left, retracing the same path that Ozzie had fled that day that seemed so long ago.

Without knowing why, Ozzie stopped at the precise spot where he had been shot and looked back. The hillside flowed down like lava from a volcano. The huge granite outcropping split the flow and sent it to each side of the boulder. It rejoined on the other side and laid waste to everything standing in its path. Ozzie squinted to see the mountain swallow Shane’s distant remains. Isabella and Ozzie turned and plodded in the direction of Hal’s cabin and away from their life as the oppressed.

Far, far behind them, the mountainside awoke with a fury. The steep slope behind Ozzie’s former home, his prison paddock, was among the first to seek its revenge for the painful oppression perpetrated on its soil. The slope erupted in a thunderous burst and washed down the mountainside. It devoured the curing sheds and the fences, burying their sins deep into its soil. The surge continued and spread as it slugged through hundred year old trees, swallowing them whole and mixing them with mud, leaves, and rocks in mountainous piles over makeshift roads and abandoned logging roads. A black sea of muck rolled over an old F100 pickup, burying it and Blake’s sins forever from human eyes.

Ozzie’s monster was finally laid to rest.

***

Hal shivered inside his cabin. His campfire had gone out early in the morning and his thoroughly soaked blankets were no match for the wind-driven rain. The only thing warm on his body was the back of his neck. If Only Rex was big enough to cover my whole body, Hal thought, I’d be fine and dandy.

The sounds around the cabin were deafening. Branches snapped loudly and crashed to the ground with increasing regularity. Hard, driving rain pounded the ground unmercifully, and the little stream that normally flowed peacefully fifty yards from his front porch now raged over his front steps.

Hal stood at the door and knew this was his moment. He had come out here to die alone, to be a burden to no one. Now death swirled around him, encircled him and tightened its icy grip until Hal had only the doorway to stand in. And now that it was here, it terrified him. He walked back inside and peered out the small window he had cut to see behind the cabin.

To the left of the garden lay a large Sycamore tree that had fallen the year before. Through the torrential rain, Hal peered at a red blob near its root ball. He stared pensively until he was sure he could make it out. Tammy lay on the ground and slept contentedly, riding out the storm and at ease with her survival instincts. Hal thought about how he had lived five years in the woods alone but, unlike Tammy and Ozzie, he was utterly at the mercy of nature. He needed shelter. And, he realized, perhaps too late, he needed companionship.

A bolt of lightning lit up the forest and blinded Hal just as if sunshine had reflected off a mirror into his eyes. He shielded his eyes and jumped back in the cabin as an earth shattering sound of thunder shook the cabin. A moment later he felt a bone rattling thud and saw a giant oak crash across his porch, ripping a third of his roof off in the process. His bed flew off the floor and crashed back down as Rex dug his claws into Hal’s neck.

Hal shook uncontrollably, drenched and overcome with terror. He thought about Tammy, how she was a creature of nature and knew how to survive. He thought of Ozzie and figured he was just as safe...hoped he was just as safe. Mostly, he though of Connie, picturing her face as he shuffled his feet to what was left of his front porch and allowed the rain to wash away his tears and his pain. He had come to forest to die, to put an end to his suffering. He found that now, just as when he had come five years earlier, he couldn’t embrace death. When push came to shove he realized what he wanted was to survive.

He stepped out of the cabin into rushing knee-deep water knowing that he had discovered that too late.