Natural Disaster (Book 3): Storm

by Lou Cadle

  “Hurts,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.” She drew her hand back, felt the moisture, and pulled her head out of the dimness to look at her hand.

  Blood.

  Her stomach turned over. He was injured. He was pinned. He was a frail old man, and there was no one to help get him out. She pushed her face back into the hole she had made in the drywall. “How bad does it hurt?”

  “I’ve felt better.” His tone was wry.

  It was like the old Jim, and it was nice to have him back. She didn’t know for how long, though. Soon enough, he’d fade back into the fog of the disease.

  “You know how much I love you?” she said.

  “I do. And I love you, too. Even when I’m…what this makes me, mean and confused. The bit that’s really me, that bit loves you fiercely.” Then he started coughing. She could hear the pain in it.

  “I need to get you help.”

  “No.”

  “I won’t leave you for long, I promise.”

  “I don’t want help.”

  “Jim, don’t be—”

  “Shut up, and let me say this while I can think. I don’t want anyone to save me. I want to die. I want to stop being a burden on you.”

  “You won’t die. You have years yet.”

  “I don’t want them. Not like this.”

  She knew he didn’t. When he’d been diagnosed, two years ago, he’d said so. He’d thought of killing himself then. But she had talked him out of it. “I can’t just….”

  “You can. I’m tasting blood, and I think—” He started coughing again. “I think maybe I’m hurt bad enough that, if you leave me be for an hour or two, that might be the end of it.”

  She couldn’t. She couldn’t just leave him to die. “It’ll hurt.”

  “Not for long, I think.”

  She reached back in to touch him, just her fingertips. “Don’t ask me to do this.”

  “All you have to do is nothing. Please.”

  She stayed silent, listening to his labored breathing. It seemed worse now.

  He coughed again, weakly.

  When he had talked about killing himself, she had begged him to stay. Maybe they’ll find a treatment. Maybe it’ll go slow with you. Maybe we’ll have some great months. She had argued hard, and argued unfairly at the end, asking if he wanted her to find his body, or to maybe get arrested for murder. He had begged her to, but she had refused to let him go.

  And if it were just her—if the Alzheimer’s was only hard on her—she’d known she could tough it out. If it took two more years or five, she’d stick with him. She’d thought as he got worse, that he’d not notice any more, that the only person who would be unhappy about his growing dementia would be her.

  But that wasn’t how it had worked out. As he slid in and out of lucidity, he did know. What if they all knew? What if they were locked inside their minds, all of them, right up until the end, the true selves wanting to scream and beg for release from such a prison?

  Who could say?

  He coughed again, a pitiful sound.

  She backed away and sent up a prayer. “God, tell me what to do. Send help, show me a sign. Tell me.”

  She heard footsteps outside in the hall, crunching through the debris, moving quickly. She turned as an orderly’s head poked in.

  “Ma’am,” he said. “There’s another tornado coming. You need to get to shelter.”

  “My husband,” she said, pointing to the fallen wall.

  “When it’s gone by, we’ll get him help. There’s no time now. You have to run, get somewhere safer.”

  “Where?” she said, but he was gone. That’s the sign. Not the one she wanted, but it was undeniably a sign.

  She leaned forward again. “Jim?”

  No answer.

  “I will always love you. Always.”

  And then she did the hardest thing she had ever done, harder even than leaving Jim here that first night, which had been plenty hard.

  Sherryl crawled back off the bed. She patted her pockets—the car keys were there. Her bag was somewhere under the debris. She left it, and Jim, and the room. And then she ran as fast as her aching old bones would take her, back up the hall.

  Captain T

  It’s hard to believe, but without chasing at all, we’re getting a second tornado, right in this same patch of Ohio. In fact, it looks like it could hit the same little town. We’re rushing back west, going around the hook echo, and then sneaking up on it from the south, hoping to get some good shots.

  Now that’s a classic supercell structure. Look, we have a tail cloud and a wall cloud and—well, no. The whole wall cloud is the tornado. It must have formed a few miles back to grow to this size now. It’s a huge wedge. Huge. Massive. Gotta be a quarter-mile wide.

  Okay, look. Wow. Multiple vortices. Push in on one, Felix. There, you see it? If Felix can pull back, you should look for three—no, four more, dancing around. They’re swarming around the central tornado, like bees around the hive.

  I’m slowing down, checking my roads. I do not want to get caught too close to this one. It’s a killer. Hoping it doesn’t turn our way, and I want lots of choices for direction of escape. This next crossroads, and we’ll jump out for a minute.

  Hell yeah, I’m leaving the car running. Captain T is no fool.

  Don’t try this at home, people. Look at this massive tornado. Awesome. Nice lightning strike up ahead of it, if you didn’t see that.

  Whoa! Wait, buddy! See that truck passing me? Do not do that. People, if you pass an experienced storm chaser, see the Doppler on his truck, don’t get any closer than he is to a tornado. In fact, stay well behind him, like a mile behind, that’s my advice to you, fans.

  A car is moving to the west on the crossroads here. Told them to keep going west. And then get into shelter, just in case. Tornados don’t often circle around, but it has happened. And from what the radar tells us, there are more storms coming all evening. Doesn’t seem fair to these people in Southwest Ohio, but there it is. You can’t control Mother Nature.

  Chapter 11

  Sherryl felt tied to that room, to Jim pinned under the collapsed wall, and as she ran away, it felt like she was on an elastic band that wanted to pull her back.

  But she made herself move forward. The central area behind the reception desk was full of glass. Many residents were in their wheelchairs, stuck in place but unharmed. Staff members rushed past, yelling to each other about the second tornado.

  The receptionist was still sitting in her chair. It would be so easy to lean over, say “My husband is pinned.” And then let Fate decide—if rescuers got to him in time, that would be the decision. If they did not, then that was meant to be.

  But she had promised him that she’d let him go.

  If she walked out now, without a word, would the guilt haunt her forever?

  Quit thinking of yourself.

  Jim was who mattered. And Jim didn’t want to be rescued, or resuscitated. He wanted her to let him go.

  She took a deep breath, stepped past the receptionist without a word, and pushed out the emergency exit door. Keep walking.

  The parking lot had only taken the edge of the twister. Some cars had been spun around, out of their spots. Others had been pushed into one another. But her car was right where she left it. She jogged over, her back aching, her knees and hips feeling the extra strain.

  Problem was, she could no longer back up her car. A pair of compact cars had been pushed forward just enough to block the drive. Well, screw it. She beeped open the car, got in, and started it. She bumped over the short concrete barrier, then down over the manicured lawn, the sidewalk, and drove onto the street.

  She turned west on a side road. It ended at a T near the edge of town and as she stopped, she could see the tornado. It was moving from her left to her right. Less than a mile away. Coming this way?

  Mesmerized, she watched it flowing along the landscape. A pair of small twisters danced around it. A bright flash below
the dark cloud startled her out of her hypnosis. That was probably a transformer blowing, out at the west side of town.

  But it looked like it wasn’t coming this way.

  Go back to Jim.

  The voice came clear as if someone were sitting right beside her in the car and saying it. She would respect his wishes and not call anyone in to help. She didn’t think anyone would come in and force help on him. But she could lie on the bed, say nothing, and put her hand on him. She’d wait with him until there was no more movement.

  And then get on with the rest of her life. Grieve, yes, but move on. She’d been grieving him for years already, truth be told. And when Jim was gone, she could help in town. There were people who’d need help after the storm. What could she do for them?

  Suddenly, all the normal questions she should have been having flowed into her mind. Had her home survived? Greg and Holly? Her mah-jongg buddies and her neighbors? The Methodist church she belonged to? Schools? Downtown?

  There would be a thousand things she might do around town, even if her own house had made it. It would keep her busy, distract her from her grief and guilt.

  She made a left, and a left again, and drove back to the nursing home. No one should have to die alone.

  *

  Malika Landers was watching the tornado, too, as the fire truck pulled out, sirens blaring. She prayed Adam would get somewhere safe, down into a basement. The truck turned a corner and she lost sight of the tornado.

  The firefighter by her side was on the radio and signed off before focusing again on her. “Okay, hon—what’s your name again?”

  She told him.

  “Okay, Malika, we’re going to give you some painkiller now, doctor says. You allergic to anything?”

  “Nothing. But I think it hurts less now. Maybe if we just wait—”

  “No, there’s no reason to be stoic about it. Let’s just chase all that pain off into the next county.”

  “Okay,” she said, relieved she hadn’t talked him out of it. She watched him scrub at the back of her hand with a swab and then looked away as he pushed a needle in. Almost instantly, she felt a fuzzy cloud sweep over her, turning her thoughts and sensations into little bunches of soft moths that fluttered around, never finding a place to land. She felt pressure behind her eyes—not quite like tears trying to come out, but akin to that feeling—and she suspected it was the drug doing something to the pressure of fluids in her eyes. She tried to come up with a scientific explanation for the feeling, but her mind wasn’t working well enough. Her lids fell, and she slipped into a dreamy state, where her legs didn’t hurt much at all.

  She spun like a dancer across a ballroom floor, dizzy and happy. Happy but sad. The phrase began to repeat in her mind. Happy but sad, happy but sad. It made a waltz, she thought, as she faded into unconsciousness. Happy but sad.

  *

  Greg could hear it coming. Everyone in the school basement could. The wind was a scream, a warning siren itself, and with that came a low sound that pulsed like a bass beat oozing from an approaching car. He felt it in his thighs. Heard it. There was a taste of ozone in the air.

  The wind noise grew, a roaring that hit all notes at once, high and low and everywhere in between. He heard a crash, a deep thud as something hit the wall of the school. In his mind’s eye, he could see the debris cloud slamming bits of trash into the roof and walls.

  The storm was already so loud, he wished he could cover his ears. Many of the children were doing just that. It struck him that a few people would lose some hearing today—it was that loud. Maybe, for children, it’d come back eventually. If they all survived the storm.

  That was becoming less and less certain with every passing second.

  As the sound grew, the shuddering motion of the building increased.

  “Daddy,” said Holly. “I’m scared.”

  He could barely hear her. “I know.”

  “Make it stop!”

  He held her tighter. “Just don’t let go of me. No matter what happens, don’t let go.”

  She buried her face in his neck and nodded.

  The wind’s noise was like nothing he had heard before. He remembered what the fellow had said—no, not like a train. Like what? Wind. It was wind, but like a hard wind that whistles in your car window times ten thousand. It screamed, it moaned. It shook everything, harder and harder, until his vision started to blur with the movement of the walls.

  A tremendous crash. At the far end of the hall, he could see acoustical tiles falling, one, then another, then another. He would have warned the kids to cover their heads, but they couldn’t hear him yell. Another rending crash, and more tiles fell all at once. And then there was a rent in the ceiling and he could see light pouring through.

  With a snap, something cracked right over his head. He bent over Holly the best he could and turned his head toward the far end of the hallway.

  Like a zipper opening, the roof above their heads began to open. When it was a quarter of the way down the hall to him and Holly, he could see above, to the outside, to a black cloud of dirt and debris. The roof of the school was gone. The whole school, he feared, was gone.

  Wind stung his face. The ceiling unzipped more, exposing more and more children to the falling debris. It wasn’t just their own ceiling falling on them, it was stuff from outside, too.

  A final rending crash tore the rest of the ceiling away, and with that, a powerful gust of wind tore down the hallway. In a second—couldn’t have been more—the hallway was a wind tunnel. Children came skittering down the Linoleum floor, scattered by the wind like bowling pins. Two piled up against a fat woman, who had enough mass to keep her in place, and she stuck her leg out, trying to form a barrier to keep the children from flying past her. A child to Greg’s right was spun away from the wall, and Greg thrust his own leg out to pin the child’s ankle down to the ground.

  In horror, he watched through eyes slitted against the rain of debris as a tiny form was whisked out of the hall and pulled into the air. The child disappeared over his head.

  “Hold on!” he screamed to Holly, but the noise was lost in the shrill of the wind.

  His punctured hand was hurting him, he was gripping her so hard, and he started to feel his grip with that hand weaken. No, no. Hold tight, hold tight, it had to be almost over. Bear the discomfort. It’s nothing.

  Something knocked him on the head, but he just closed his eyes and held tight to her. He felt the wind try to steal the child from under his leg. He clamped down harder.

  Something big hit the shoulder of his injured hand.

  At the same moment, Holly’s legs lost their grip around his waist.

  He felt the wind trying to steal her from him. He forced one eye open, and he could see her legs, pushed out away from him, in the air, parallel to the floor.

  Hold on!

  The wind was pushing the skin of her arm into ripples, like wind over a lake. In horror, he watched as the wind tore the uniform skirt from her body.

  Impossibly, the wind seemed to grow harder, and his bad hand gave way entirely.

  He had her by one arm.

  The wind tore at her, tore and tore, and he almost lost her. She slipped. At the last second, he grabbed her arm, above the elbow, with his bad hand.

  And the arm was still slipping through his good hand.

  Holly. Stay with Daddy.

  Damp with effort, and fear, and rain, his hand couldn’t grip hard enough. He lost an inch. Then another. With a final whip, the wind tore his baby away.

  Screaming back at the wind, he tried to move, to go after her, but it pushed him, and the child under his leg, along the tile and all the way to the base of the stairs and pinned them there.

  The wind whistled. Something hit his back.

  He had lost her.

  He couldn’t believe it. He had held on with all his might, and he had lost his only child, the only child he’d ever have, to the damnable wind.

  The sound faded, and the wind
with it.

  He was able to open his eyes. He saw a tall boy, impaled on the end of the banister, as onto a spear. A crumpled adult body lay on the stairs. Screams sounded behind him.

  But he could only look to the top of the stairs, stairs that disappeared into open air now, and the direction Holly had flown.

  He disentangled himself from the boy he had saved and crawled on hands and knees up the first few steps. Pushing himself upright, he stumbled up the stairs, stepping over the adult’s body, kicking away a brick, and a chunk of twisted metal, and then running up the last five steps and coming out onto a landscape of total destruction.

  He turned and there was the tornado, not very far away, still spinning, flinging out a sheet of steel, a sofa, a motorcycle, and hundreds upon hundreds of smaller, torn unidentifiable bits.

  Holly.

  Where was she? Let her not be one of those swirling bits. Let her be alive, please.

  Dead or alive, either way, he had to find her.

  Looking out over the scoured land that had once been a neighborhood, he didn’t know where to start looking.

  Captain T

  It’s devouring this town, shredding everything in its path. Doesn’t matter if it’s alive, or inanimate, wood or steal or brick or metal. Everything gives way to the force of this EF5 tornado.

  And amazingly, we’re seeing on our satellite other EF5s are touching down elsewhere. It’s a swarm of them, an official outbreak. This day will go down in tornado history along with 2011 and 1974. And it’ll be etched in the memory of this small town, too.

  I’m looking at a town map via satellite to see what else might have been there, in the path of destruction. We told you with the first tornado, the police station and city hall were hit—and the high school was just missed. It looks like an elementary school may have been in the path of the second one. And a history museum. Many neighborhoods. A Kmart. There’s a train track, too, east of town—we’ll have to check about derailed train cars, as well, and make sure nothing dangerous has spilled out of any of them.

  As you can see, I can’t drive any further on this road. And it seems a good place to park and get out, but I tell you, Captain-fans, I barely have the heart for it. I’m seeing what you’re seeing via Felix’s camera—hundreds of homes leveled. And I’m hearing what you might not be able to—people screaming, and children crying. There are people wandering like the lost, and bodies on the ground that we aren’t filming, out of respect for the dead and their families. The smells of earth, of metal, of wood, of trash, of sewage. It smells bad.