Description: The Last Night at Tremore Beach ONE THE STORM, which some meteorologist with a fetish for biblical verse dubbed "Lucifer," had been expected for days before it struck. It was going to be a big one, too, even by Donegal''s standards: look out for flying roof tiles and toppled streetlamps. The announcer from Coastal Radio broke in with an update every sixty minutes: "Make sure to fill up your generators with fuel. Do you have enough frozen food? Cans of baked beans? Don''t forget about candles and matches. To those of you who live near the coast, make sure to tie up your vessels. Dry dock your sailboats, if you can." That morning, they''d predicted fifty-five mile per hour winds and advised against trying to drive on the roads beyond the late afternoon. They''d said we should be ready for a powerful downpour and flash flooding inland. For everyone who lived on the coast it was going to be a night of hell on earth, they said. I had gone to Clenhburran early that morning to run errands and to shop for some last-minute groceries. Clenhburran was a little town, the only one for miles around, which makes it significant when the only thing that ties you to the outside world is a narrow and tortuous stretch of road between rocky cliffs. My first order of business that morning had been to take my lawn mower to be fixed at John Durran''s shop. "Got your windows all boarded up, Mr. Harper?" he asked as I walked into his store. "You live over on Tremore Beach, right? Supposed to hit hard there tonight." Durran was one of the people in town lining his pockets thanks to the impending storm. Piled by the door on one side of his store was a stack of plywood six or eight feet high and hanging from the roof above a light-up sign cautioned his customers, "Protect your windows!" Naturally, there were special offers on gasoline generators, candles, propane grills, and other survival gear. The few tourists or weekend residents who happened to be in town filled their shopping carts, and Durran rubbed his hands together in anticipation. Too bad--for him--we were still a month away from the official start of high season. I told him I was hunkered down for the storm, though I hadn''t as much as boarded up a single window. Neither had Leo Kogan, my only neighbor on the beach, who had counseled me against it: "I''m sure it''ll amount to nothing." He''s a veteran of the beach, and I''d always trusted his expertise until that morning. I confess, after witnessing the pre-apocalyptic tension at Durran''s and driving past homes completely shrouded in plywood, I started to get a little nervous. I pushed the mower into the shop and told Brendan, the mechanic, that the day before I had again--for the second time this month--smashed into the same damn hidden septic tank drain, which was only partly covered by my lawn. "Brand-new Outils Wolf and it''s already got four dozen battle scars, Mr. Harper. If you want, we can rig some kind of metal plate over that septic tank drain," he said. I told him the rental agency was supposed to do something about it--if, in fact, they ever got to it this millennium--and asked him when the mower would be ready. "Well, we''ve got to change the blade and check the motor," Brendan explained. "Maybe two or three days." I told him I''d be back for it then, and set off for a stroll down to the harbor. At the end of Main Street, I watched as the fishermen battened down their ships, and even Chester, the little old man who ran the newsstand, warned "something big" was headed our way tonight. "Notice there''s not a single seagull around," he said, as he placed my usual purchase into a bag: a copy of the Irish Times, a carton of Marlboros, and the latest best-selling mystery novel. "A clear blue sky and not a single one out hunting for food. That''s because they''re running from it, you know. The storm. They''ve all flown inland and right about now they''re probably shitting all over Barranoa or Port Laurel. If you ask me, there''s something big on the way. Haven''t seen anything quite like this since the big one of 1951. That night, tractors and sheep got tossed across the countryside. See that store sign over there? Wind caught it and my cousin Barry found it on the road to Dungloe a couple miles from here." But then I thought of my neighbor, Leo, who had insisted there was nothing to worry about. Just some sand spraying up against the windows, maybe a loose roof tile or two. Nothing major. He''d been living on the beach for more than three years now. He hadn''t even bothered to change his dinner plans for tonight. We''d made arrangements to have dinner together at his house more than two weeks ago and yesterday he''d called to confirm. "You think it''s a good idea to be out tonight with the Apocalypse on its way?" I had asked him. "It''s just two miles to my house, Peter," he''d said with his usual cheeriness. "What could happen in the space of two miles?" AROUND SIX in the evening, when I awoke from a nap, the storm front had already rolled in like a carpet across the late afternoon sky. I lay on the couch watching it through the living room''s large picture windows: A titanic mass of storm clouds bloomed on the horizon, as deep as an abyss and as wide as the eye could see, advancing like an implacable army. Its darkened innards crackled with lightning, threatening an epic battle with the earth below. I stood up and the so-called best-selling mystery novel--whose first fifty pages had managed to lull me to sleep--tumbled off my lap and onto the Aztec-patterned rug. I picked my guitar up off the floor, laid it against the throw pillows, and pulled open the sliding glass door to go outside. I was met by a furious gale that whipped across my lawn and shook the bushes like baby rattles. The white picket fence around my yard was bearing the brunt of it, as well. Down on the beach, sand swirled in giant clouds and pelted my face like needles. Watching that monstrous storm fast approaching the coast, I felt like an insect about to be squashed by a giant. I thought back on John Durran''s plywood and instantly regretted not bringing home a few sheets. This goddamn storm was going to swallow the entire beach whole. Jesus, Pete, what were you thinking? I ran back inside and slid the balcony door closed. The latch had never really worked, but I slammed the door hard until it was sealed tight. Relax, Harper, it''s not the end of the world. I went upstairs and made sure every north-facing window was shut tight. It was a two-bedroom house: a master bedroom, a guest room with twin beds (which, in a few weeks, would welcome their first visitors: my children), and one bathroom. Beneath the tile roof was a tiny attic filled with dusty boxes and a few old pieces of luggage. I went up there for the first time in weeks just to make sure the skylight was locked. While I was up there, I grabbed a few candles, which I would spread throughout the house in case the lights went out in the middle of the night. I unplugged everything and came back downstairs. The kitchen had just one window facing the sea, a double-paned glass that looked strong. I went out the kitchen door to the backyard, rounded up a few loose wooden chairs, and stacked them in the shed. Inside were several tools and planks of wood that some previous resident had bought. There was also a small ax, which might have been used to split firewood. I briefly thought about trying to board up parts of the house but just as quickly dismissed the idea. I''d probably only manage to hack off a finger or worse. And with no one to come to my aid out on this desolate beach, I''d bleed out and die alone. Back inside the house, furious gusts of wind rattled the living room windows. Would they shatter? It was best not to risk it. I dug out a plastic cover to wrap my Steinway piano and figured it would at least keep the glass and rain off of it if the windows gave way. Once I''d wrapped the piano (a baby grand that was almost seven feet long and weighed nearly eight hundred pounds), I unlocked the caster wheels and rolled it as far as possible from the window. It left an empty space in the room, surrounded by notebooks, stacks of sheet music, pencils worn to the nub, and countless wads of balled-up paper. I shut my MacBook Pro and stashed it as high as possible on a bookshelf away from the window. I did the same with the electric keyboard I used for my recordings. That done, the living room was ready to receive the mother of all house guests, this impending storm. Raindrops started to pelt the window, and you could hear distant thunder, though I couldn''t see any more lightning just yet. And then the phone rang. I ran to answer it. Leo said, "Evening, Harper. Looks like we''re about to get under way. You coming over or what?" "Sorry, Leo, I''d totally forgotten," I said, pacing toward the window with the phone to my ear. "Hey, so, do you still think we don''t need to board up the windows?" His laughter calmed me down just a bit. "Durran put a scare into you, did he? Trust me, Pete. Unless a meteor hits your house, I doubt anything is going to break your windows. Still, get over here before that huge thunderhead reaches the coast. They say there''s going to be a lot of lightning." I promised I''d be there in ten minutes. I hung up and chuckled at myself. So you wanted to live on the beach,

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