The Tempest

by A. J. Scudiere

  Even as she began to panic, she tapped at her jacket all the way across her chest and up to her shoulders where she found the tiny kitten. He had his claws dug into her shoulder, holding on tightly. She didn't even feel any of it as her sudden-onset panic at losing him quickly faded.

  “Toto,” she whispered in relief, and he replied with a frantic, “Mrrwow!”

  Yes, there was a tornado bearing down on them. She could only get them both into the shelter of the cellar and then hope that the funnel skipped over this house.

  Breathing out, she turned again and bolted down the steps with Jerry on her heels.

  41

  As Cage listened, the whipping sound of the wind outside turned slowly to the rumbling grind of a funnel on the ground nearby.

  All the motion inside the shelter slowly came to a stop. He stood in the middle of the space, feet apart, as if he expected the ground to shake beneath him. And honestly, if it did, it wouldn't surprise him.

  In the corner, the mother had stopped reading and now gathered her children close into her arms, their faces buried in her jacket. Cage only counted two kids now. The other two must have returned to their own parents, likely out of fear.

  Dev looked to him, as if to say, now what? And Cage wondered what they'd done.

  They were here—kindly offered an inside position in a very sturdy tornado shelter. As he looked around, he told himself that they would be okay. This place was built for exactly this problem. He didn't have any doubts that everyone down here would make it through whatever might pass overhead.

  It might sound awful. Hell, it already did. But the walls would hold.

  William Butler had already lost one family member. He wasn't going to lose anyone else.

  But Cage and Dev had left Sarah behind at the house. She didn't have a room like this, only the rented Hideaway’s central bathroom. The windows were newer, not glass but a polymer resin. Did that make them better or worse? He didn't know.

  Sarah had only one usable arm. Had she managed to get some windows open and keep the pressure in the house from building up? Again, he didn't know.

  How far had he and Deveron driven? Were they far enough away that maybe this thing wasn’t even anywhere near her? There were no answers.

  As he looked back to Dev, he could tell his roommate was having the same concerns about Sarah. And the problem was, with Sarah, it had been a choice. Joule and Izzy had been literally ripped from their hands. They'd done everything they could to stay safe, and they'd lost. But with Sarah, they'd made a foolhardy decision, thinking that the worst was over. And they’d bet that Sarah would be okay at the house by herself. Now he feared they were going to lose that bet.

  She'd insisted the phones would get hooked up quickly, but that wasn't happening now. Could they even make it back to the house to check on her? What would the roads be like after another sweep of the havoc? The noise was making it clear that—even if this storm didn’t hit this house or their house—things would be worse when they got out.

  He turned again to Dev, but his roommate was already striking up a conversation with their host. “What happens if the house collapses on top of the door?”

  Maybe not the best question in a time of crisis, Cage thought. As he watched, faces around the room turned toward Dev and William, some with curiosity, others with fear.

  It seemed their position in the center of the space made Deveron’s question ring out, alerting everyone.

  Williams, at least, stayed calm. “There's a second door over there.”

  He said it loudly enough to be sure everyone heard that they had other options. That he’d planned ahead. He pointed to the side, and Cage noticed a door outline behind a pile of supplies. Metal shelves lined a wall with food and jugs of water. It didn’t matter if they couldn’t get out. Butler had them stocked.

  The man kept talking calmly. “You can see that I don't even open it, but it exists for the exact event you just mentioned. So if the house falls on the upper door, we have a secondary exit.”

  It was almost too easy. A simple answer to a concerning question.

  If only everything else could work as well and be as easy to pre-plan for.

  Butler was opening his mouth again, but the noise outside seemed to chew at his words and swallow them.

  Once again, all eyes turned upward, as if they could see through the ceiling above, through the floor of the house, and all the way up through the roof.

  If it was still there, Cage thought, but then told himself that he wouldn’t have missed the building getting torn apart above them. As thick as the cinderblock was, it wasn’t dampening all the noise. Still, Cage didn’t know what they could do about Sarah except pray to any gods that might be listening. He wasn’t in a position to be picky.

  As the noise ground through the walls, louder and louder, even the soft conversations in the corners came to a halt.

  The relentless grind of the wind was now occasionally punctuated by sounds of the house getting beaten and pummeled. A crack made everyone jump, and then a heavy thump followed. But the time Cage heard something wrench above, no one was even fazed by the noises except the smallest of children.

  He watched as the young mother pulled them closer, her lips moving as she must have been telling them something soothing. He still stood in the middle of the room, feet apart, though the floor hadn’t shaken once.

  But then it did.

  42

  Joule hit the bottom of the twitchy cellar steps and whirled around to watch. Jerry stomped down behind her, each piece of wood bending under his greater weight.

  She saw the angry flash of sky in the distance as he turned around in an attempt to stand on the steps and still grab at the cellar doors. Joule realize the problem—there was no light down here. As Jerry tugged at the doors, what little she could see faded into the shadows.

  She decided to be grateful that there were handles on the undersides of the cellar doors. But how would they keep them closed as the wind picked up? Hanging onto the doors would prove too dangerous, even for Jerry, who outweighed her by who-knew-how-much. What was down here that she could use?

  She scrounged through what she could see, even as she checked the corners of her brain for an idea. They had tossed the pieces of the padlock aside when they yanked it off. Would the small curve of metal even stay in place? She didn't think so. As soon as the doors rattled, it would bounce around and fall off without the lock to hold it in a secure spot.

  Though she wouldn’t have said her eyes had adjusted, she could still see a bit with the light that filtered through the gaps. The spaces wouldn’t play well if the twister went over them, which was all the more reason to get these doors secured by some means other than “Jerry holds tight.”

  Sure enough, there were shelves down here, filled with things that might be turnips, or rutabagas. She recognized a bag of potatoes, but they'd clearly been purchased at the grocery store. Joule would have laughed, but it would have burbled out into a high pitched hysteria, so she held it in.

  “Got anything?” Jerry called down from his odd perch on the steps.

  “Still looking.” She didn’t look up as she searched as best she could in the fading light.

  Jerry stayed put, with his thick fingers laced through the two door handles, holding it shut. It didn't seem yet the wind was actually trying to steal it from him. And it was entirely possible that the storm would shift direction and they'd never be in danger. But having already been carried away by one tornado today and left with very little memory of what she'd endured, Joule wasn’t eager to repeat the experience.

  She scrounged further until, “A-ha!”

  Under the steps was a wooden box with a hinge lid. When she lifted it, it creaked but she was thrilled to find tools.

  “Here!” she called, holding up a short crowbar, and watching as Jerry slid it through the door handles. It didn't seem to be the right size to jam into place, leaving Jerry holding it much as he had held the door handles. />
  That sucked. She rummaged through more, pawing in the dark through rusted screwdrivers and hacksaws and old door knobs. Eventually, her fingers brushed against fabric and she felt her way through the dark box until she pulled out tie down straps and then several bungee cords.

  “Here!” Once again, she held her find up to Jerry, who very neatly anchored the crowbar into place with a figure eight of bungees.

  “Good,” he said into the dark. Between the day being wiped away by clouds and the doors being secured against the remaining daylight, there was little left to see by.

  “Do you have a light?” she asked. Her eyes were now useless. Her hand went to her shoulder to check that Toto was still sitting there, claws still dug in. As her hand patted his soft fur and he squirmed a little under her touch, it calmed her racing heart for just one more moment.

  “Hold on,” Jerry told her, bringing her back to the task at hand as a light flicked on.

  Joule blinked, her head automatically jerking back and her hands coming up to ward off the brightness. She hadn't yet adjusted to the dark, but she wasn't ready for the light. Jerry walked down the last two steps with the way well lit.

  Only then did she place what he had. “That's your cell phone!”

  “Yeah,” he replied as if to say, what of it?

  He'd had his cell phone this whole time?

  He seemed to hear her incredulous thoughts. “The towers are out. I've got no signal.”

  True, she thought, but still… “At least turn off the light and conserve the battery, so that when we do get signal, we can call someone.”

  He didn't comment one way or the other, but the light quickly disappeared.

  Once again, Joule blinked as her eyes adjusted. At least this time she'd seen her way around and knew where she was heading.

  Jerry started to ask her something, but the roar from outside grew as it grabbed at the cellar doors and began to pummel them.

  “What did you ask?” she called out, glad she couldn’t feel the wind down here, even if she could hear it. She pulled Toto from her shoulder and clutched the tiny kitten in front of her.

  “I said—” he yelled. “I hope the cellar doors hold!”

  She nodded, then realized he couldn't see her either. So she added, “Me, too.”

  She wondered if he was having the same thought she was. The crowbar and the bungee cords were excellent and he’d put in the same knot she would have. Her dad had showed her how to build and design, and then she’d added a mechanical engineering degree to it. She knew that the doors themselves were likely to be the problem.

  But she thought back to what she'd seen … When she pulled one open, it had been heavier than it had appeared. The plywood was a little warped, indicating it was thin, but the doors weren’t.

  As Jerry tried to pull them closed, she’d seen the thickness of them, the flat side underneath. Her engineer’s brain had cataloged all of this. The hinges looked relatively heavy and new, though the doors were old. But they were bolted into the wood that framed the opening of the stairs, and that wasn’t too sturdy. The system was only as solid as its weakest point, and her money was on that wood giving way first.

  She realized now what had bugged her about the doors: they had an underlay of newer, fresh plywood. It was done as though someone had seen fit to reinforce what was already there, rather than simply making new doors from the clean plywood …as if the builder didn’t want the repair noticed.

  “Can we sit down?” he called out, and it seemed better than just standing here and waiting for the doors to blow off.

  “I think so,” she said, then slowly began shuffling along, one hand out to feel for the edge of the shelves she'd seen before. “We should sit in a corner. Away from the cellar doors.”

  The floor was made of wood, old slats that didn't quite look sturdy, and it brought to mind the Little House on the Prairie books she'd read as a kid. But she found the shelf and followed it along to the wall where she slid down and seated herself. Maybe she was glad she couldn’t see well. The place had seemed less-than-clean when the light was on. Definitely a root cellar.

  “Over here,” she called out, using her voice to direct Jerry to sit next to her. She would have put him on the opposite wall were it not for fear of the tornado grabbing one of them and pulling them out. They had better odds together, and she liked those odds more than she disliked Jerry.

  He thumped down next to her, taking a moment to arrange his less-than-lithe form. Clearly, sitting on the floor wasn’t something he did often, but she didn’t say anything.

  As the noise outside got higher and higher, it seemed that each moment, the twister must be right on top of them. But in the next minute, the noise would get louder still, and the cellar doors would rattle even more, proving her previous thoughts incorrect.

  She and Jerry fell quiet.

  The raging noise outside seemed to calm for a moment, but Joule couldn’t tell what a calm day sounded like anymore. Maybe it was just a slightly less terrifying noise, but it made her wonder if the funnel had twisted away from them. Joule felt her hopes rise.

  Jerry took the reduced noise as a hint that they should make conversation. She couldn’t fault him; maybe he was just soothing rough nerves.

  “What did you say the kitten’s name was?”

  “Toto,” she replied easily, thinking she could do this. She could make small talk with Jerry, especially about a cute kitten that had burrowed its way into her pocket again. She put her hand against the soft fur and thought that the studies about cats lowering the likelihood of heart attacks was probably right. By his very existence in her pocket, Toto was calming her.

  She could survive this tornado, too. They could. And she could live to be mad about Jerry’s stupid protests another day.

  “Why?” he asked. “Did you miss the rains down in Africa?”

  She could hear him chuckle.

  “Nooooo.” She drew the word out and wondered if he’d simply missed the reference. She prompted, “I found him after a tornado.”

  “So?” Jerry asked. “That doesn’t explain his name. You could have named him, ‘Hold the Line.’”

  Something inside her snapped. She'd had enough of this day, enough of these storms, and honestly, she'd had enough of Jerry long before this conversation had ever started. It was not her best foot forward.

  “Listen, Scarecrow. It's actually an easier reference to get than an eighties band!”

  But whatever Jerry had replied was overpowered by the sound as the winds kicked up and yanked at the cellar doors harder this time. The roar of the wind and the damage and sheer anger of the storm stole everything as the new funnel once again targeted them.

  43

  Joule pressed her back against the cold earth wall of the cellar, clutching Toto closely to her chest. Given the wind and the noise, the tiny kitten didn't seem to object at all to being held so tightly.

  The harsh sound of the storm seemed to scrub at everything beyond the cellar door. It whipped at the plywood, wracking it against the hinges and trying to steal it away. From beyond the dark, she could hear trees cracking, or maybe that was the house above her. She heard splintering noises, pops, thumps, crashes, and more. In here, it was dark, and still. But beyond the tiny space, the world was being ravaged.

  For a moment, Joule panicked that she wasn't tied to anything. But this time, she didn't have to be; she wasn't stuck out in the open. She was safe—or at least as safe as she could be.

  Her brain ran wild, thoughts leaping radically from one idea to the next. She considered the possibility that she would die here, that—after everything else—this would be where she met her demise. She considered the possibility that she would survive this tornado but be trapped. And who would look for them here? She wanted to ask Jerry if anyone would come, but the effort it would take to yell such a ridiculous question wasn't worth it.

  Her heart pounded in her chest, and she broke out all over in a cold sweat. Rubbing Toto’s
soft fur, she petted him in long strokes from his ears to the tip of his tail until the tiny kitten actually began purring. Oh, she thought again, to have a giant of her own. Someone who could make her feel safe enough to purr in the middle of all of this.

  Certainly, the tiny kitten needed to be fed again by now, but there was no good way to get to a tuna can. Pulling a metal tab in the dark was a good way to cut her finger. She had no supplies, no light, and this cellar was probably the best place to pick up an infection. So she decided to wait at least until the kitten whined.

  In the pocket on her pants leg, she still had most of the bottle of red-flavored sports drink. But she realized she might now need to start rationing it. It had been intended to last only several hours while she walked. Either until she found someone or until she got back to a stream where she could scoop up more water. Down here, there was no water and nothing to drink, only a bag of potatoes and some root vegetables. At least she was glad she told Jerry to pick up his own drink out of the yard and that she wasn't rationing the one bottle between the two of them.

  But what should Toto drink? Anything other than water or kitten milk probably wasn't appropriate for a kitten his age, but she was equally out of both. At least he wasn’t mewing at her. He didn't appear hungry and seemed perfectly content to burrow into the front of her jacket and let her pet him.

  Her head snapped at a harsh crack above them. Beside her, she felt his movement as Jerry flinched at the same time. He seemed like such a big burly dude that knowing that he cringed at every sound, too, was at least a little comforting.

  She didn't know how long she sat there, but the storm seemed interminable. The noise shifted and changed every second, keeping her muscles clenched and never letting her know if the cellar door was going to fly off or crash inward. Never knowing if the roof would cave in on them, because it certainly sounded like it would.

  Though the cellar doors flapped and creaked and lifted as though they were going to get sucked away, the hinges held. Every minute that the doors were still there, Joule was grateful. If she’d known any tornado survival prayers, she would have prayed, because it was all that was left.