Death Wind

by William Bell

  “You O.K., Brainy?” Razz’s voice sounded wonderful.

  “Yeah,” Allie gasped. “I think so.”

  Razz helped Allie to her feet. The adults surrounded her, touching her, telling her how brave she was. Allie didn’t feel brave—just embarrassed and sore. The mother, holding the baby tightly, thanked Allie again and again, talking through her tears. They made Allie tell them her name. And that made Allie remember her own family.

  She said to Razz, “Let’s get going.”

  Chapter Eight

  Allie and Razz were back on the street, hurrying to the school. The air was warm and the sun shone brightly.

  They had to keep going around things or stepping over things. A crushed baby carriage, tree limbs, a TV set, smashed couches. Allie was terrified that she would see a dead body in the road.

  Sirens screamed in the distance. People yelled constantly. They shouted names and called out orders to each other.

  Finally Allie and Razz reached the elementary school that was serving as an emergency shelter. Many of the windows had been blown out, but Allie could tell that the whirlwind had not hit directly. Some of the houses around it were still O.K. They had no windows now, and some had a lot of shingles missing, but they were all right compared to Allie’s house.

  Allie and Razz went in the front door of the school, their feet grinding on broken glass. People were moving back and forth quickly through the dark hall. There were cops, firemen and people in other uniforms. But these people weren’t like the ones on the street. They all seemed to have a purpose.

  Allie and Razz went to the main office. A fat woman in a cop uniform was talking quickly into a walkie-talkie. The cigarette in the corner of her mouth bounced up and down as she talked. When she said, “Over!” Allie told her she wanted to find her parents.

  “What’s your name?” the woman asked.

  Allie told her. The woman looked at a clipboard that had a lot of dog-eared sheets of paper clipped to it.

  “I have nobody of that name working here,” she said. “But we’ve only been set up for ten minutes, so we might hear something. We’ve just started to make up a lost-and-found list. So if your parents are looking for you, I can tell them you’re O.K.”

  The walkie-talkie crackled. The woman held it to her ear for a minute, then the cigarette began to bounce again. “O.K., make sure the gas, electricity and water are turned off for the entire area. We already have two gas fires reported. We got one clear route to the hospital, along Elm, then west on Ranch Avenue. When does the army get here?”

  The walkie-talkie crackled some more, then the woman said, “Over.”

  Razz asked, “Are you calling in the army?”

  “Yeah,” the woman answered, “the base is pretty close and we need lots of manpower to close the area off, search for injured people, prevent looters—all that.”

  “Looters?” Allie replied. “What kind of creep would do that?”

  “You’d be surprised,” was all she said. People ran in and out of the office, firing questions at the woman or giving her reports. She was the only calm person in the school, it seemed.

  When the office was empty of people again, she said to Allie, “Was your house damaged?”

  “It’s gone!” Allie replied. She began to cry again. She felt Razz’s arm around her.

  “Do you know where the gym is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go there. We’re putting up a huge poster on the wall. Soon as we get information on people—where they are and how they are—we’ll post it. Now, you live nearby, right?”

  Allie said yes again.

  “O.K., then you can be a big help because you know some of the people around here. We’re going to need lots of help in the next couple of days, Allie. Lots of it. Will you help us?”

  “Of course,” Allie said.

  “Good. Now, off you go. And,” the woman added as the walkie-talkie crackled at her, “try not to worry. Your parents are likely O.K. It just may take a while to find that out.”

  Allie turned to go but Razz stayed put. He told the woman about Slammer. She shook her head and made a note on her clipboard.

  “Was he a friend of yours?”

  Razz looked at Allie. “Sort of,” he answered. “We don’t know his real name.”

  “All right, we’ll keep an eye out for his… for him.”

  Razz nodded. “Um, do you need anyone to do some driving?” he asked.

  The woman looked up from the clipboard. She lit another cigarette from the butt of the last one. “Well, probably we’ll need that, yeah.”

  “I’ve got a van. Maybe I can help,” he said.

  “Sure. Is it here?”

  “No, but I think I can get it here in a little while.”

  “Great. Come on back in when you can.”

  Razz turned to Allie. “Will you be O.K., Brainy?”

  “Sure, Razz.”

  When they were out in the dark, busy hall, Razz added, “I’d… I don’t know …I’d sort of feel better if I could do something, you know? Like you did back there at the house.”

  Allie went to the gym. There were about twenty people there, setting up tables, talking into walkie-talkies, spreading mats on the floor. She saw grouchy old Mr. Beekman, who had chased her out of his backyard a million times when she was little. He was wrapping a bandage on Mrs. Pearce’s arm. She lived two doors from Allie and right now she looked a little rough.

  Allie went over to a guy in a fireman’s uniform.

  “Can I help?” she asked.

  “You know how to use one of these?” he asked, holding up a walkie-talkie.

  “No.”

  The fireman showed her.

  “We’re working on a list of missing persons,” he said. “Any news you get from the other end,” he held up the walkie-talkie, “you make note of it. Mostly, you’ll be putting names on this list, but after awhile, you’ll get news, from the hospital, from the streets, that someone has been found. You put them on this list. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Allie said.

  “Someone will collect your sheets and put the dope on the big posters over there.” He pointed to the wall across the gym from Allie. One huge poster was headed MISSING, the other, FOUND.

  Allie sat down behind the table and pulled the stack of sheets toward her. On the top of the first sheet she wrote the names of her parents.

  Chapter Nine

  Allie sat behind the table for the rest of the day. She was very busy. She got calls from the hospital, the police station, the radio station, and from the streets. The list on the big poster headed MISSING grew and grew, and they had to start another one. Her parents’ names were still on the top of the list.

  No matter how busy she was, she couldn’t stop thinking about her parents. Her imagination ran wild at times. She pictured them crushed by a fallen wall or sucked up into the black finger-cloud like Slammer. When those thoughts grabbed hold of her mind she got scared and cried again.

  But she was still able to do something useful. It didn’t take Allie long to get used to talking into the walkie-talkie. It reminded her of all the war movies and cop movies she had seen. She got to recognize the voices on the other end. The hospital voice was a woman. The voice from her neighborhood was a guy. She could tell he wasn’t very old. He sounded a little like one of the guys at the skateboarding meet who had wanted Razz to autograph his new skateboard.

  After it got dark, Allie had to work with a big flashlight. The gym was lit with big gas camping lanterns. It was a little creepy.

  Later, Allie asked someone to take over while she went to the washroom. It was dark in the halls of the school too, and lanterns lighted them. It was eerie. Shadows moved along the walls and groans came out of the darkness. The halls were full of people. Some lay on mats, some sat against the wall, in a daze. A lot of them were injured, waiting for rides to the hospital. Some were getting fixed up by the dozens of nurses and St. John Ambulance workers. Kids cried.

&nbs
p; She took a walk past the office. The same woman was there in the same place, talking into the walkie-talkie. She looked very tired. The hall by the office seemed full of uniformed men and women—cops, army, gas company, electric company, medics. It was like everyone in town was gathered in this one building.

  A few hours later, the lights came on in the gym and Allie snapped off the flash-light she had been using. She was taking down a name on the FOUND list when she looked up and saw Razz standing in front of the table.

  He looked awful. His yellow silk T-shirt was torn and bloody. He had scrapes all over his arms. His face was dirty and tired looking. But he was smiling.

  “Hey, Brainy, looks like you’re an important person around here.”

  “Not me. I just answer the radio.”

  Razz tossed a chunk of chocolate cake wrapped in plastic to her. “Hungry?”

  “Yeah, thanks.” Allie unwrapped the package and bit into the cake. It tasted wonderful.

  “Sorry I took so long,” Razz went on. He fished a couple of red twisters out of his pocket and began to munch. “I’ve been hauling passengers to the hospital. The ones who aren’t too badly hurt. They sent me over here to pick up a load, so I thought I’d come and see how you’re doing. I guess you haven’t heard.”

  “Heard what?” Allie was too tired to fill in the blanks.

  “Your parents are at the hospital.”

  “Really? Are they O.K.?”

  “Well, your mom got pretty banged up. Nothing real serious, though. Your dad is fine. He was at work when the tornado hit—and your mom was shopping. She was hurt when the mall got hit. I saw them. I told them you were O.K.”

  Allie said nothing for a minute.

  “Razz,” she said at last, “can you take me over there?”

  “Sure, Brainy. No probs. Let’s go.”

  “Wait a second. I gotta find someone to replace me first.”

  Before she left the table, Allie wrote her parents’ names on the FOUND list.

  Chapter Ten

  The hospital was a madhouse. The emergency ward, the halls, the rooms were packed with beds and cots and worried people. Nurses slipped back and forth quickly through the noisy halls. Every few seconds a doctor’s name was called over a loudspeaker.

  Razz led Allie to a big ward on the second floor. “I’ll leave you here, Brainy,” he said. “Gotta get back to work. Will you be O.K.?”

  “Yeah, no probs, Razz. See you later.”

  I wish I felt as brave as I sound, Allie thought. She wanted to go back with Razz. She didn’t want to see the Hurt Look her father would give her and the I Told You So Look that would come to her mother’s face as soon as Allie walked in. But she knew she had to stay.

  She took a breath and walked into the crowded ward.

  She saw her mother at the far end of the room, propped up on a bed. One leg was in a thick white cast that was attached to a rack over the bed. One of her arms was in a cast, too. Allie’s father stood beside the bed.

  “Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad,” she said as she got to the bed.

  Allie’s father spun around. He grabbed her and held her tighter than he had ever done. He said nothing. He held her for a long time.

  “Allie!” her mother cried, her voice starting to wind up. “Where have you been? If I could get out of this bed I’d give you a darn good slap!” Then she calmed down and asked, “Are you all right?”

  “Sure, Mom. I’m fine. What about you?”

  “Oh, I’m all right, now. Where were you? We were worried sick. We even called the police.”

  Allie looked at her mother. Her mother’s blonde hair was a mess. She had a purple bruise around her left eye. She looked like she’d been through a war. Allie’s father didn’t look so hot either. His suit was dirty and wrinkled and there was an angry red scratch across his forehead.

  “I left you a note, Mom. I ran away.”

  “What on earth for?” her mother almost shrieked.

  “Maybe we should talk about this some other time,” her father said. “This isn’t the right—”

  “No! You’re always avoiding things,” her mother cut in angrily.

  “I don’t always avoid things! You’re the one—”

  Allie clapped her hands over her ears and shut her eyes.

  “Stop! Stop arguing!” she shouted.

  She opened her eyes again. Her father looked embarrassed. Her mother hung her head and picked at the bandage on her leg.

  “Allie, what was it?” she asked softly.

  Allie looked into her mother’s bruised face, then at her father. She thought about why she had run away—the fighting between her parents, the four red circles. Three on her report card. One on her calendar.

  Should I tell them? she thought. How much should I tell them? Will it do any good?

  Then Allie realized they were going to find out anyway. She took a deep breath and started talking.

  She told them everything — about the three subjects she failed, about Jack and how she might be pregnant, about the skateboard meet and about Slammer’s death in the whirlwind. When she was finished, she was crying. And she felt worthless.

  Allie’s mother and father were silent for a minute. They looked shocked. But they didn’t yell at her.

  Her mother said, “Are you sure?”

  Allie knew what she meant. “Yeah, pretty sure, Mom. I’m way overdue.”

  Allie’s father ran his fingers through his thin hair. “I guess we shouldn’t think of you as our little girl anymore,” he said quietly. “You’ve been through a lot. Are you and Jack—”

  “Dad, I’m through with him,” she cut in. “I don’t even want him to know. He’s not important anymore.”

  He gave her a strange look. “No, I guess he isn’t,” he agreed.

  Allie’s mother said, “Come here, Allie.”

  Allie stepped closer to the bed, half expecting the shrieks to start. But her mother took her hand and held it. Her face looked serious and worried.

  “You forgot to tell us a few things, didn’t you, dear?”

  What did she mean, Allie thought. “Honest, Mom, I’ve told you everything. Honest.”

  “You didn’t tell us you saved that baby’s life. You didn’t tell us how you helped out at the school. Razz told us all about it.”

  “Mom, that doesn’t mean anything,” said Allie.

  “Of course it means something,” her mother said. “It means a lot. We’re proud of you, Allie. You’re a very brave kid. And you’re a very good kid.”

  Allie looked at her father. He was smiling. He pointed to the window.

  “Look,” was all he said.

  Allie let go of her mother’s hand and stepped over to the window beside the bed. She looked out across the sunny neighborhood. She could see the scar-like path the tornado had left as it chewed up trees and smashed houses. It changed people’s lives forever. She remembered what Razz had said, that it looked as if the neighborhood had been bombed.

  Then she began to pay attention to the small groups of people. Already they were cleaning up the streets, moving furniture out of houses to waiting trucks, starting over. In the distance she saw a tiny figure on a roof, swinging a hammer.

  Her father’s voice came from behind her. “I guess we—the three of us—I guess we’ve got some things to work out. We’ve got some rebuilding to do.”

  Allie turned to see he was looking at her mother.

  Her mother nodded. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, you’re right.”

  “Mom, Dad, we can do it together, can’t we?”

  Allie’s mother and father spoke at the same time, “We can try.”

  Author note

  There are lots of words to describe the atmosphere on that final day of May—brooding, ominous, foreboding—but I’d choose weird. The day before, Thursday, had been stormy, with thunder and downpours and damaging winds. Friday dawned hot and humid and stayed that way. When I walked through Innisdale Secondary School’s parking lot at 4:30 p.m.,
the air was heavy and clammy. The sky was dark gray, the clouds low. On the towering maples in front of the school, not a leaf stirred. The birds were strangely silent.

  When I drove down the hill on Fairview Avenue it had grown so dark it was like nighttime. In the northwest, the sky was an ugly purple with a yellow tinge, like a bruise. I turned onto Highway 400 and headed north, passing through a few showers on my way home. I put a rock ‘n’ roll tape on the deck to brighten the mood.

  When I got home, I turned on the radio to hear the news. Two words struck me: Barrie Tornado. I had missed being swept up in the whirlwind by twenty-five minutes. On that afternoon, fourteen tornadoes ripped through southern Ontario, killing twelve people, injuring dozens of others and causing about $100 million in property damage. The largest tornado left a path of destruction 90 kilometers long—much greater than the average. The Barrie Tornado was really five separate tornadoes that slammed into the town at 5:00 p.m., May 31, 1985.

  This novel is based on the tornado and its aftermath. With many other teachers, I was part of the clean-up crews that set to work immediately to bring order back to the community. Thousands of people helped. Death Wind is dedicated to them, and to the many who suffered from the storm.

  William Bell