by Holly Hook
* * * * *
Janelle rolled down the truck window, gaping at the damage as the muggy air crept over her face. Fallen trees. Branches everywhere. Roofs with shingles peeled away, and a street that was taped off with a power line hanging low over it. Her stomach rolled. This was so much different than seeing it on TV. On television, at least, there was some distance that made it unreal somehow. Now that protective wall had come down.
“This is awful,” she said. “How can people live with this?”
“It doesn’t happen every year, Janelle,” her father said. “Or even every ten years. It’ll all get fixed. It always does.”
A branch had shattered the windshield of a car—a shiny red convertible’s, of course—and a tree had caved in the roof of a pink house. The truck crunched small branches and shingles under its tires as her father drove them past, silent. He cleared his throat like he was going to say something, then went silent again.
“I hope nobody died,” Janelle said.
“I hope so, too.” Her father looked away, lost. He sure didn’t think hurricanes were cool now.
At least, she hoped he didn’t.
“We’ll get home in just a few minutes.” Her father tapped the steering wheel in some kind of rhythm, daring only quick glances at the houses around them.
Now was the time to ask him about Vortex Guy. Nobody else was around.
“What do you think was wrong with that kid?” Janelle asked. “He had a birthmark like mine. Didn't you see it?"
Her father stared hard at a house with sheet metal wrapped around one of its corners. “He had a birthmark, too? That’s odd.”
“But you saw it, Dad. You even pulled his sleeve down over it. Come on. I know there was a lot going on today, but you can't deny that one."
He coughed. “Maybe you were just seeing things.”
“I doubt it. And didn’t you see how one second there was this tornado thing in the parking lot, and the next, he was there?” Her head started to pound with the stress of the whole day.
“It could have been a tornado, after all. Hurricanes do spawn them.”
“Not eight foot tall ones made out of water.” He was totally dodging the question.
They made another turn, and a bent sign labeled Missoula Street stuck out of a fallen branch as if greeting them. Janelle’s stomach lurched and she forgot about Vortex Guy. This was their street—and it didn’t look any better than the others they’d passed so far. Fallen trees grabbed for the road with leafy fingers and the pieces of an orange gas station sign had wedged up against a car. People stood in tight groups and surveyed the damage. A pair of women hugged and comforted each other in front of a house with half its roof missing. The sobs from one floated over the sound of the truck’s motor as they passed.
Janelle twisted her hair around her fingers and swallowed a bad taste in her mouth. Their house was next, and there was nothing she could say to delay the inevitable. "Dad, I can't look at this anymore."
His lips twitched, but he said nothing as they rolled the rest of the way down the street. At last, just as the tension had built up to the point where she couldn't hold back her nerves anymore, he spoke. “Well, would you look at that,” her dad said, pulling into their driveway. “We came out pretty good in all of this.”
His voice gave her the strength to look. Words escaped her. "What?"
Their house waited in front of her. Undamaged.
None of the front windows were broken, even though her dad hadn’t boarded them up or put tape over them. Not a single tree had fallen in their yard. No branches littered their lawn, and all of their shingles had stayed put. It was as if someone had lowered a giant box over it while the storm raged overhead.
Janelle looked up and down the street as he pulled into their driveway and stopped. They were the only house without any damage.
“Dad, I need to lie down.” A whole mountain of weird weighed down on her, crushing down on her harder by the minute. Nothing about today added up. “My head feels like it’s ready to explode.”
“You’d better,” her father said. He sounded relieved. “I’ll go see if I can help anybody. Keep the door locked.”
“Sure thing.” She’d think about all of this later. Janelle knew she should probably go with her father and see who needed help, but her headache was going into Migraine Land. It was lie down, or start throwing up in about an hour.
The house was still dark. Janelle went right to her bed, changed into her pajamas, and flopped down. The headache dulled.
Was her father relieved that their house was okay, or was he relieved that she had stopped asking him questions?
After an hour in a haze, Janelle drifted off to a swirling maelstrom of darkness, chaos, and pain.
