Yes. It’s moved past Coventry. Mom messaged back.
Are you and Dad okay? I’m okay. We’re all okay here. Thorn hasn’t answered my text. I responded.
He’s probably busy, sweetie. I’m sure he’ll answer you as soon as he can. She texted, and then my phone rang. It was her, and I guessed she was tired of texting.
“Sorry, I just wanted to talk to you for a second,” she said.
“You don’t need to apologize,” I said. “I’m glad you called. Is your house okay?”
“Your dad is outside checking, but it seems fine. Might be some shingles missing from the roof and some siding that needs to be reattached, but we missed the worst of the damage.”
“It’s still pouring rain,” I said.
“You know your father. He just wants to see for himself that the house is all right. Don’t be startled if you look out a window and he’s over doing the same at your place,” Mom said. “Maybe not, though. When he gets back inside, we’re going to go into town and see where we can help. It missed our house, but I know it didn’t miss them all.”
“That’s a good idea,” I said. “I’m going to call Viv and Reggie to make sure they are okay. If they are, we can start looking for people that need help. Oh, and Dorian too. I’m sure he’ll want to be out documenting all of this.”
“Kinsley, just don’t overdo it,” Mom warned. “And don’t do anything to get yourself hurt. Leave the heroics to someone else for now.”
“I know, mom. I just want to go see if anyone is trapped in their basements. If I find anybody, I’ll call law enforcement or rescue. I promise I won’t try to dig them out myself,” I said.
“Well, go on then. I know there’s no sense telling you to stay home. Call us when you decide where you’re going to start looking. I think your father and I are headed over to some of the new subdivisions. From what I’m hearing from the Aunties, they got hit harder,” Mom said.
“Okay, I’ll call you when I know,” I said.
As soon as I got off the phone with her, I called Reggie, Viv, and Dorian. Viv was heading into the shop because she planned on offering coffee and soup to anyone who needed something to eat or just some comfort.
Fortunately, the rain had slowed to a drizzle by the time I took Tangerine and Meri out to the car. I worried about having Tangerine with me while we searched for survivors, but it felt wrong to leave her alone so soon after the storm. Plus, the severe weather appeared to be clearing, but apparently the atmosphere was still ripe for more.
I arrived at the Brew Station a half hour after I planned. I’d completely forgotten that some of the roads might be difficult or impossible to navigate and had to take several detours to get there.
Dorian and Reggie were waiting there for me drinking coffee and eating soup with a few people who had already found their way there. “Where’s Isaac?” I asked when I noticed Dorian was alone at the table. “Is he okay?”
“He’s in the back helping Viv. She can cook more food with the help, and he was having a hard time sitting still,” Dorian said.
I ate a sandwich and drank some coffee quickly. We hadn’t been there long, but the place was like a beacon. People were lining up to get something hot to eat and then talk to their neighbors.
We needed to get out of there and free up a table. Before we left, we talked to people to see which areas of the town were the worst hit. Lots of people talked about the new section of Coventry where my parents had gone, but a few mentioned severe destruction in the neighborhood between where I lived and the new cemetery.
“That’s where we should go,” I said. “My parents and some of the Aunties are already in the new subdivisions. If they need us, we can join them after we’re done in this neighborhood.”
Reggie and Dorian agreed. We told Viv where we were going, and she told us to put the word out that people could come into her shop for a meal and a hot cup of coffee. “Tell anyone with kids that there’s hot chocolate and cookies. It’s on the house.”
I teared up a little bit thinking of what she was doing for the community. Isaac was new to Coventry, but he was determined to stay and help her. “We can help more people if I’m here,” he said.
As we were leaving, several of her employees showed up to volunteer. The line was out the door, but it began to move faster once she had all hands on deck.
“Should we take my car?” Reggie asked once we were outside.
“It might be better if we walk,” I said. “We’re all wearing boots, so that’s good. I know it’s a long walk, but didn’t you guys have a hard time driving here?”
“Yeah, I did,” Reggie answered.
Dorian said the same.
“I imagine that if that neighborhood was hit hard, it’s going to be even worse there,” I said. “We don’t want your car to end up in the way of the emergency vehicles.”
“You’re right,” Dorian said. “Well, come on. Let’s get to hoofing it.”
We walked through the square and past the courthouse. I did not look up into the windows because I did not want to see her face that day. It was a distraction I didn’t need.
Without looking up, I could still tell that the courthouse was undamaged. The worst of the storm had missed the square. From the outside, I could see that my shop was unharmed as well. I could go inside later and check things out more thoroughly, but it was just stuff. When it came down to it, stuff was unimportant. People were what mattered.
People and pets. Meri was following quietly along as we walked, but we’d left Tangerine back at the Brew Station. She was in Viv’s office in the back of the shop. It was too busy for her to be out front, so Isaac and Viv had promised to check on her as much as they could.
Once we passed the courthouse, we saw a few houses that had some siding ripped off and tree limbs scattered around the yard, but the houses were structurally intact.
A couple of blocks later, and there were houses that were partially destroyed. Some of them had their roofs ripped off while others had large trees collapsed in on them.
As we walked down that street, I tried not to get overwhelmed. What I was seeing was bad, but it might not have been the worst of it. I’d watched the news after EF5 tornadoes, and I needed to be prepared to see sections of Coventry flattened. We didn’t know if the storm that hit the town was that bad, but I needed to mentally prepare myself in case it was.
“Kinsley, look,” Reggie said and pulled me out of my thoughts.
I looked where she was pointing, and there was an old man sitting on the curb between some debris. He was dirty and had his head in his hands.
“Sir,” I called out as we hurried over to him. “Sir, do you need help?”
He slowly lifted his head and looked at me. There was a big scratch over his eye, but other than the dirt, he looked unharmed. “My dog,” he barely choked out before descending into sobs. “Shelly…”
“Your dog was in the house?” I said and turned to look at the ruins of his home. It looked as though about a quarter of the house was still standing toward the back, but the rest was either collapsing or had collapsed completely. “Were you in the basement? Was she in the basement with you?”
He took a deep shuddering breath and tried to pull himself together to answer. “She was, but she’s an old gal. Shelly’s got dementia, and she gets so scared sometimes. She’s terrified of things that never used to bother her, so I can’t imagine what this storm did to her. Anyway, a window broke while the twister was going through this neighborhood. Made the basement door pop open. She got spooked, ran up the stairs, and into the house. I haven’t seen her move that fast in years,” he said and sniffled. “Well, you can see the house. I tried to find her, but the roof dang near fell in on me. I want to keep looking, but I’ve got kids and grandkids who would never forgive me if I died looking for the dog.” He began to sob again. “I just hope my son gets here soon. He’ll help me. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to her. I’d rather she lived…”
“We’ll help you,” I said.
“Kinsley,” Reggie warned. “You are not going in there. You think of the baby.”
“We can walk around the outside and see what we can see,” I said. “We can do that.”
“Yeah,” Reggie said. “Okay, we can do that.”
As we started for the house, I heard a soft, muffled whining sound. The man shot up off his place on the curb so fast that Dorian had to keep him from toppling over. “That’s her,” he said. “Oh, she’s alive! Shelly baby, don’t worry! Daddy’s coming!”
“Please wait here,” Dorian gently told the man.
“I can help you,” he said defiantly. “I can.”
“Let us try,” Dorian said. “If you get hurt, it will make it harder for us to save Shelly. Just stay here, and we’ll be right back. Please.”
The man gave in and agreed to wait. The three of us circled the house as carefully as we could listening for where Shelly’s cries came from inside the house. We lucked out, and she seemed to be inside the part that was still standing. That must have been why she survived. I couldn’t even think about if she’d gotten confused and wandered into the portion of the structure that was completely collapsed in.
“She’s in there,” Dorian said as we stood outside the first floor window. The wall was still standing and seemed to be holding up.
“How are we going to get to her?” Reggie asked. “The doors are blocked with collapsed boards.”
“I’ll climb through this window and hand her out to you guys,” Dorian said as he started to roll up his sleeves.
“I should go in,” I said. “I’m smaller and I’ve still got a bit of my powers.”
“Absolutely not,” Dorian said as he forced the window open. Fortunately, it was either unlocked or the locks were broken. “I’ll just be in and out.”
Before I could say anything else, he was scrambling up the side of the house and through the window. I heard a thump as he hit the floor inside, and the entire structure shook ominously. Stuff slid from the collapsed parts of the house onto the ground around us.
“Try not to do that again,” I called through the window.
“I will do my best,” Dorian hollered back sarcastically, but I could hear the tinge of terror in his voice. He was quiet for a couple of seconds and then, “I found her. I’m picking her up and carrying her to the window.”
Reggie and I waited at the window for him to return. When he did, it took both of us to get her out of his arms and clear of the house. Shelly was a collie and a sizable one at that. Reggie and I managed to carry her out to the curb where the man waited, without hurting her.
We set her down, and I turned to go back and help Dorian. Just as I did, the house collapsed entirely. Suddenly, someone was screaming.
It was me.
And then Dorian was there gripping my shoulders and shaking me. “I’m all right. I was already out,” he tried to soothe me, and I felt my thundering heart begin to slow a fraction.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I said as I tried to get a grip on myself. “I just thought that you…”
“It’s okay,” Dorian said. “I appreciate that my loss would affect you that deeply.”
I punched him in the arm, but his teasing helped me considerably. Reggie was there too rubbing my back.
“No, I’m sorry,” said the old man.
“It’s okay,” I reassured him. “I just freaked out a little. I’m glad we were able to save her. It’s good that we came along when we did.”
“I think she needs a vet,” the old man said. “My car is down the block on top of a neighbor’s garage.”
Just then, a man across the street came out of his mostly intact house. It was so weird how the tornado had destroyed most of the houses on the block but had left a few relatively untouched. It had no rhyme or reason.
“Mr. Casen?” The neighbor called out. “Is Shelly okay?”
“She needs to go to the vet. I don’t have my car,” Mr. Casen called back.
“I’ve got mine,” the neighbor said. “Let me pull over there. I heard the vet over on White Oak is open for pets hurt in the storm. If it’s not, we’ll drive until we find one.”
“You’d do that, Tyrone?” Mr. Casen started to cry again.
“Of course I would. Let me get my car.”
We helped Tyrone load Shelly into his car, and Dorian helped Mr. Casen into the front seat. I started to believe he was injured somehow the way he was stiffly moving about. He was obviously in pain. His focus was on his Shelly, though, and I figured his injuries weren’t life-threatening. He’d get around to seeing a doctor when his dog was safe.
Still, I mentioned what I’d noticed to Tyrone before he got into the car. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”
With that assurance, they pulled away from the curb, and we continued on our mission to see who we could help.
Chapter Four
A few blocks later, we came across a group of people all standing around the front yard of one particular house. The houses on that block had sustained extensive damage, but none of them appeared to be on the verge of collapse. They had siding stripped off, roofs or sections of walls blown off, and windows broken, but they were still standing.
“What’s going on?” I asked as we approached the group.
“We’re all here,” one woman said. “Everyone on the block is here except the man who lives in this house.”
“Who cares?” another woman spat. “I don’t know why we are wasting our time on this fool. If the storm took him, it was the Lord’s will.”
“Beatrice, don’t talk like that,” the first woman said. “I don’t like him either, but we need to see if he’s alive. We agreed that the block sticks together.”
“That was before he moved in,” Beatrice complained. “Olivia, that man is a scourge.”
“We don’t make exceptions or else we’ll start making them for any willy-nilly reason. The block sticks together. That includes Stewart Randell, whether we like it or not,” Olivia said.
“Fine, but I’m not going in there after him,” Beatrice countered.
“I’ll go,” Dorian volunteered.
“Oh, no,” I said and stuck my arm out to stop him from walking forward. “You’re not going into any more houses today that might fall down on you.”
“The house looks mostly fine,” Dorian protested.
“Yeah, it looks like that from here, but we don’t know. The middle could have collapsed or whatever. We don’t know why he hasn’t come out, but you’re not going in.”
“Wasn’t his kid with him this weekend?” a man in the small crowd asked.
“Oh, he was,” Olivia said. “Oh, no.”
Dorian shot me a look. “Fine,” I said. “Go in.”
“I’ll go too,” the man who had just asked about the kid said. “I’m Herb. Might as well introduce myself if we’re going to face death together.”
“Dorian,” Dorian said and extended his hand to the man. “Let’s do this as quickly and safely as we can.”
Reggie and I followed them up to the house, but we didn’t go in. Instead, we circled around the outside to look in any windows that weren’t covered.
We were around the back looking in a dining room window when I saw him. “Dorian, go back outside!” I yelled out.
“What?” I heard him yell back from inside the house.
“He’s dead! Go back outside!” I tried again.
He didn’t respond that time, but I could only assume he heard me. Of course, what I’d yelled brought all the neighbors around to the window where Reggie and I stood.
They all started taking turns looking as I dialed Thorn’s cell phone. My heart thundered in my chest as I waited for him to answer.
“Sorry,” he gushed as soon as he picked up. “Some of the cell towers are down, and I just got back to an area with reception. I swear I was going to call you or text you as soon as I wasn’t driving.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m glad
you’re okay, and I love you, but that’s not why I’m calling.”
“What’s going on?”
“Okay, so we were out walking around looking for people who needed help, and we came across a house where a bunch of neighbors said a man was missing in action. Dorian went inside while Reggie and I walked around the outside and looked in the windows. I didn’t go in, but I did see a man. His neighbors say his name is Stewart Randell, and he’s dead,” I said.
“Maybe he was killed in the storm, but I’ll head over that way,” Thorn responded.
Stormy Sky Magic (Familiar Kitten Mysteries Book 9) Page 4
