The Tempest

by A. J. Scudiere

  “She does,” the man answered with a grin.

  It was Jerry who huffed, his own hands still in the air. “Dorothy here named it Toto.”

  She watched as Cage laughed, and she had to admit, this was the most comfortable she'd ever felt with a gun aimed on her. And she'd had three different people point a gun at her in the last several hours, which was up from zero in her entire previous lifetime.

  Alabama was not sitting well.

  “Toto’s good?” she asked.

  “He's a sweetheart,” the big man said, as if he could know that from just touching the fur.

  She grinned, although her heart was still racing. Though she was still under threat, she at least was confident that Boomer and Bob would go for the Larkins if they had to shoot someone.

  “Well, boys,” she started, acting a little bolder than she actually felt. “Jerry and I found shelter from one of the other twisters—wait, let me go back further. I got picked up by the first twister. When I came to, I walked through the woods, and I only found several empty houses. Then I found Jerry.”

  She motioned with her hand, still keeping it high in the air. “Jerry and I got a tractor—” she didn’t mention that they’d basically stolen it, “—and went tooling down the road until the next twisters hit. At that point, we aimed for the nearest house, but the cellar was the only thing we could get into.”

  The brothers nodded at her, and she kept going, telling about getting stuck, then finding the cocaine when they tried to get into the crawlspace—this revelation made everyone except the Larkins gasp—and how the Larkins had returned home just as they'd come up through the floor.

  The one brother’s eyebrows were raising higher and higher as she kept talking. But she didn’t miss that his gaze would occasionally flick over to Jerry, who must have been motioning to confirm the whole story.

  “I'm assuming these two are the Larkins.” Joule pointed to Laura and Levi.

  Beside her, Jerry, Paul, Brenda, Boomer, and Bob all nodded along. “Well, they came into the barn earlier, looking for us. I guess to kill us. And then Paul came in, and then apparently they got Brenda here...” She didn’t really understand all the nuances of this part.

  “Maybe you should explain,” she said, handing the story off to Paul. It took a while to round robin the whole thing. The brothers continued to loosely command the situation with their guns held up and the barn continued to burn brightly into the night.

  She would have thought the hay would have wooshed up in a big blaze reaching into the night sky and then died out already. The fire still roaring along showed her how little she knew. “Why isn’t the fire department here?”

  “They’re at least thirty minutes away. No local stations out here,” Bob explained. “Just the volunteer unit.”

  Joule was stunned by that. She’d never lived anywhere that didn’t have a local, city-funded fire station just around the corner.

  But the story was still unfolding, bringing everyone up to speed, until Boomer and Bob were caught up. Dr. Murasawa and Izzy both had their mouths hanging open by the time Brenda finally finished the part about them breaking out of the barn and finding Laura and Levi threatening to murder them. Again.

  The brothers then turned to Chithra and Izzy, who told about the truck and the gun rack in it. When they finally petered out, Boomer and Bob both appeared to have had enough. Slowly, while everyone had talked, their guns had shifted aim toward the Larkins. The two had stood quietly, not allowed to tell their side of the story. Joule figured they’d have time to explain their story to the sheriff, if there was one around here. She was grateful that everyone understood who was on what side here. Meanwhile, the Larkins wore sour looks on their faces about the whole thing.

  At last, the brother in the blue plaid turned toward them with a blank look on his face. “I knew your family had too much money. You were in rough straights after your farming got run under. I know it. But you can’t run coke and you can’t murder your neighbors!”

  His voice was booming by the time he finished, and Laura and Levi were squinting, as though the force of the accusation was literally aiming at them. They didn’t deny any of it.

  “All right.” The other brother stayed calmer and motioned with his gun. “You two, down on the ground. Face down.”

  The Larkins didn't seem to want to comply, and Joule found herself bending her knees, getting ready for anything. She could run away or rush one of these idiots if she had to.

  It was then that Izzy, who seemed to be paying attention to everything, looked up. She glanced left then right, and then left again, and Joule didn't have any idea why until Izzy said, “Why is the sky getting so dark?”

  68

  Joule looked up. Sure enough, dark clouds were sweeping in, cutting the moonlight out.

  The blaze from the barn had made everything so bright that only Izzy had noticed.

  “Crap,” the blue plaid brother muttered, seemingly to himself. Then, louder, he added, “That's funnel weather.”

  “Is it always like this?” Dr. Murasawa asked, incredulous.

  Joule understood. They’d been told the area was relatively tornado-free. They knew storms might happen, but this was epic.

  “No, we don't get it, not like this. Not two straight days of funnels touching down,” the other brother answered her, as the first added, “We've already had seven in the area.”

  All ten of them turned their faces skyward, the conflicts on the ground paling in comparison to the one threatening from the sky.

  They jolted as a unit when the burning barn cracked loudly next to them, but when nothing else seemed to happen, they all looked up again and watched as the sky seem to roll in on itself. The orange of the blaze reflected off of the thick clouds above, illuminating clearly the way the clouds began to fold.

  “Crap,” the brother said again, and the second added quickly, “We need shelter. Now.”

  The barn wasn't going to be any help, Joule thought, looking first to the nearest structure. It was already ablaze and it wouldn't have been good even if it was untouched and sturdy.

  The second brother apparently had different concerns. “If a storm or a funnel catches this barn, there’s two options for what can happen.”

  They all waited as the wind began to kick up again and the roar of the approaching storm started to fight the fire for noisiest night creature. He yelled, “It's either going to put the fire out, or it's going to throw pieces of flaming wood everywhere.”

  That would be even more ass-tastic than this day had already been, Joule thought, as she remembered what she’d seen yesterday when the big funnel had collapsed houses like a fist on gingerbread and flung the pieces into the air. What if they had been on fire?

  Looking to her brother, Joule’s hands dropped now, one tucking into her pocket and checking for Toto. She found him still curled in a tight little ball. The poor thing had to be hungry and petrified, but there was nothing she could do for him now except save him to be fed later.

  “I've got a shelter!” Paul hollered at them as the winds rose even higher. “Come on!”

  Joule watched the embers start to move in uniform directions as the wind whipped them first one way then another. They all turned to go, but only Boomer and Bob were smart enough to watch for Laura and Levi.

  As the sky rolled in and the wind picked up, the fire burned higher, shooting long yellow tongues of flame up into the sky.

  A thick, dark funnel turned and touched the ground near the edge of the property, the heavy roar of the wind beginning to overtake the roaring of the fire.

  Joule and her brother were already following Paul, as most of them were, but she turned to check over her shoulder. She counted on Cage and Izzy on either side of her to keep her upright as her feet flew over ground she wasn’t watching.

  As Joule looked back at Boomer and Bob and Levi, she saw Laura jump up. The woman had found a gun and was brandishing it wildly.

  Her eyes looked feral and s
cared, or maybe that was just the reflection of the flames in them, Joule couldn't tell for sure. But Laura spun around and, swinging erratically, fired three times.

  Next to her, Joule felt her chain of friends jerk and start to fall.

  69

  Cage tripped. He’d stubbed his toe on something or gotten bumped maybe. He didn't know, but the white-hot poker of pain searing through his leg brought him to his knees. He was still holding Joule's hand as his knees hit the wet grass.

  It all must have happened very fast, but it seemed that it took forever for him to recognize the sounds he’d heard as gunshots. Behind him, things were going down but he didn’t know quite what only that it was bad. He worried about Boomer and Bob. He wondered why his own leg wasn’t quite working.

  As Joule leaned over to pull him back to his feet, Cage turned and saw past her. Izzy jolted and fell face-forward, into the grass.

  Dr. Murasawa screamed, her hands flying to her face as she watched Izzy crumple. Had she been hit, too? It looked like Izzy had, but he wasn’t sure.

  His brain was a touch fuzzy now. Time was out of scope and flowing oddly, as he struggled to get everything into its proper mental place. He was trying to run, but every time he took a step on the hurt leg, the pain shifted from feeling as though someone had pierced him with a burning arrow to feeling as if it was shooting up his entire left side.

  He stumbled forward again, but this time Joule grabbed his right hand and viciously slung his arm around her shoulder. It felt as if she had tackled him, shoving her own shoulder into his ribs and lifting him as she ran. He’d known she was strong, but he hadn't quite known she could do this.

  Another retort fired behind him and he wondered if anyone else had been shot. To his right, Paul turned, raising the shotgun—but he looked as if he was too unsure to fire it. Instead, he yelled, waving them all past him. As the wind and fire tried to steal his words, he cried out, “Brenda! Brenda take them down into the shelter!”

  Cage tried to be useful and run, but he also wanted to see what was going on behind him. He twisted around but realized he couldn’t actually hear anything. Once again, the gunfire had rung his brain like a bell and he was still listening to the echoes inside his skull.

  But he saw Laura, Levi, Boomer, and Bob out on the open grass in an epic struggle. One of the brothers—he couldn’t tell which at this point—had Laura by one arm. It seemed he’d pulled her hands behind her, as though he were struggling to handcuff her. Cage had a ridiculous thought: Did the brothers simply carry handcuffs on them all the time?

  As he watched, the other brother took a hard right to his jaw. Levi had managed to make the move without anyone noticing the windup, and Boomer’s—or Bob’s—head snapped back as he stumbled. The man seemed too big for quick moves, but he countered by bringing his hand up rapidly against the side of Levi's head.

  Cage was surprised to see a single punch have such an effect. It appeared that Levi reverberated from the hit, stumbling away and shaking his head until he simply collapsed.

  Cage was still trying to focus on putting his feet on the ground—but one leg screamed each time he stepped—to help Joule run forward, but he was clearly doing a crappy job of it. The scene behind him was fascinating. He saw as the brother raised his hand back up that he had a gun in his fist and he must have clocked Levi with it.

  Laura had escaped and turned around, still somehow with a gun in her hand. Had she and Levi brought spare weapons? Had they stolen guns from Boomer or Bob? Cage couldn’t keep straight who had what, or even what he should be doing.

  “Come on, Cage!” his sister protested in his ear, but his brain was even more fuzzy and he was looking at Laura, who had blood running down the side of her head.

  She still had the wherewithal to open her mouth and was screaming something—or at least Cage thought she was. He couldn't hear her voice as, behind her, the funnel touched down and ate all the angry words right out of the air.

  She waved her gun, but the other brother turned and aimed for her. Cage wondered if she might shoot into the moving crowd, aiming for the house and whatever shelter Paul and Brenda had.

  Dr. Murasawa and Brenda were now dragging Izzy along. His friend had blood seeping all through her clothing. Cage blinked, trying to follow all the moving pieces. He felt it was important that he turn back around but could not recall why.

  He swung his head over Joule’s shoulder again as Brenda led them all up the back steps into the house. Cage tripped over the edge of the porch, pain shooting up his side once again. The intensity of the pain blurred his vision, and his sister tugging him along only made it worse.

  He couldn’t think, or maybe even breathe, he didn’t know. But still he turned his head back, needing to see what was happening behind him.

  The brothers stood, each with a gun facing Laura. Closer to the house, Paul stood with his shotgun ready. But if the shotgun blast reached that far, he would pepper all of them. Laura held her gun unsteadily, but close enough to one of the brothers’ heads that her aim wouldn’t matter.

  It was Boomer she was aiming for, but Bob who was in the most immediate danger.

  He saw it then and remembered why he had to turn and look. When he yelled, the pain of the movement cracked his head and radiated up his side, but he did it anyway. He had to.

  “Bob! It’s behind you!”

  70

  Joule followed Brenda, rushing as best she could while she bore most of her brother’s weight. But as she took the first step through what appeared to be an ordinary closet door, she saw that it led down into the underground space, and she balked.

  It was a purely emotional reaction—a sudden, seizing terror that she knew was irrational.

  She flashed back to walking into the cellar with Jerry, to climbing down the rickety wooden steps. She'd been stuck there for hours. Then she’d been trapped under the house by the storm debris with no one coming. Though she’d maintained a constant forward motion and sawed a path through the flooring and out from under the Larkins’ home, she'd been petrified. Escaping that situation, only to find a worse one, didn’t make this sudden seizing of her muscles any better.

  She turned her head, as behind her Boomer and Bob dealt with the Larkins. Beside them, the barn blazed and crackled as flaming sections crashed down. Joule was waiting for it to collapse in a fireball and wondered again why it hadn’t yet. Was time simply moving too slowly for her?

  Beyond them, the funnel ate up the ground, grinding at the trees and puny fences in its path. It broke sturdy structures like twigs as if to flex its power as it aimed directly toward her.

  She’d told Jerry that it was random, that the storm didn’t have a desire to hunt them, but right now it sure looked like it did.

  “Joule!” Brenda yelled, trying to get her to snap out of it. The other woman reached up and physically removed Cage from her arms.

  Now, Joule looked. She moved just two steps down, far enough to see. But her racing heart halted her again.

  She looked at her brother, finally assessing what had happened. When she’d reacted, she hadn’t seen the damage, hadn’t fully understood. Now, blood was running down Cage’s leg as he moved to sit on the floor. Joule stayed frozen in place, letting Brenda help. Brenda seemed to know what she was doing, and Joule seemed stuck, observing.

  Beyond him, Izzy was already laid on out the floor, her head resting in Dr. Murasawa’s lap as her boss gently tapped, then slapped, at Izzy’s face in an effort to bring her back to consciousness. Dev was hovering over the two of them, blocking part of Joule’s view. But she could see that Izzy was covered in blood.

  That might have been the thing that jolted her out of it.

  As she began to make her way further down the steps, she looked over her shoulder, out the wide glass windows that framed a cute back porch. The funnel was getting closer. It was getting larger. And this time, it did sound like a train, barreling directly toward them.

  Turning from her position, she saw Boo
mer and Bob racing across the yard toward her now, Laura and Levi left behind. The Larkins were laid out on the ground, unmoving. Joule could only imagine they were dead. If they weren’t, they might be soon. Boomer and Bob were leaving their bodies to the storm and Joule couldn’t say she disagreed with that decision.

  The large men moved more easily than they should have, and they hit the steps in near unison, taking them two or three at a time. Almost comically, they seemed to get jammed up at the doorway. But they immediately stepped back and, in the typical Southern fashion that Joule had seen while she was there, each tried to wave the other through first.

  “Get the fucking fuck in here!” she yelled at them, still on the third step down.

  Blue plaid took initiative and stepped through first, with his brother right on his heels. As she waved them forward, they each grabbed one of her arms and hauled her backwards down the stairs as they went. They gave her no choice but to move, and for that, she was grateful. But she still remained frozen on the bottom step, as if it meant she could escape if she needed to.

  It was completely irrational, but she wasn’t able to override it.

  Paul, who'd been standing on the porch, shepherding each of them in, now had his entire flock safely down the steps. Joule could just see him standing in the upper doorway as he took one last look at the oncoming funnel. His hair whipped in the wind and his clothing plastered against him as he watched the funnel. She imagined she could hear his flannel shirt snapping like a flag around him. Joule understood. The storm itself was mesmerizing.

  Boomer was yelling up to the man, but Paul had already caught on. He slammed the door behind him, ducking down even as he slid three deadbolts into place. He raced down the steps, passing Joule in a huff before finally hitting the concrete floor and joining the rest of them.

  “Levi and Laura?” he asked the two big men, but they shook their heads.