She was correct. The sky was pink and it was bright enough to see every detail of our surroundings, including the pink-tinged field of ice we sat in. It wasn’t weird; it was downright scary. I felt it held the promise of worse to come.

  “We can’t walk in this. I’m going back inside.”

  I had to crawl to my steps. Behind me, the ice amplified the LED generated light that spilled out when the door of the large cabin opened. John shouted, “What are you girls doing.”

  Annette shouted back, “We were trying to walk. Don’t try it; you’ll break your neck. This stuff is slippery.”

  I gained the safety of the landing and turned to shout, “I don’t like the way the sky looks. I hope the ice melts before the real storm comes.”

  John called back, “We’re ready to go on your call.”

  Inside my cabin, watching my footing to avoid the melting hail on the floor I heard Annette’s feet on the landing. Closing the door behind her, she said, “Jesus Christ, if that wasn’t the real storm, I’m not sure I can handle anything worse.”

  I thought about sweeping the ice balls out of my cabin, but sudden hunger came.

  “I’m going to make something to eat. Are you hungry?”

  “I could eat.”

  “Can you sweep?”

  “Pardon me… oh, sweep the ice out. Yeah, I’m on it.”

  I lit the propane burner and made a meal while she chased elusive ice balls out the door. She finished and resumed her seat at the bench.

  “That smells good, what are you cooking?”

  “Cornmeal mush and fried spam.”

  “No you’re not.”

  Forking the four slices of spam onto two paper plates, I said, “Yes I am; fast and easy.” Added a dollop of peppered mush to the plates and took them to the bench. “Grab a fork and dig in.” took my chair, “Grab me one while you’re at it.”

  At my cook bench, she asked, “Where do you keep clean utensils?”

  “You’re looking at em. Wipe em on your pants leg and pretend they’re washed.”

  She returned to the bench holding two forks, which she wiped on her pants leg as she came.

  Christ, Tempest, this is so unsanitary. It’s a miracle you’re not dead from food poisoning.”

  Took fork from her hand, pried a piece of spam from a slice and I said, “You’re welcome to wash yours, but I’m hungry now.”

  She sat and looked at the food on her plate. “This can’t possibly taste like it smells.” She took a bite of mush. She chopped off a piece of spam to join it. “Christ, it is good.”

  “The secret is to fry the spam crisp and then scramble the mush in its grease.”

  “Oh god, I’m going to die,” she said before forking in another combo.

  With rain pattering the roof, we spent the next ten minutes in silence as we wolfed the culinary delight of poor people’s food. It was going to be a joy to turn her on to Vienna sausage and crackers.

  ************

  It took three hours for the hail to melt, but in the last hour, wind borne gusts of heavy rain hurried the process. The sky had changed, not that we could see it in the pitch-black that replaced our bright pink sky. Soaking wet, holding flashlights, standing on soggy ground outside the large cabin with Annette, with a heavy rain and fierce wind for company, I called to those inside that we were ready.

  They filed out, a group more sensible than Annette and I. They had fashioned rainwear from large black plastic bags, with smaller bags used for head coverings.

  Gathered loosely around us, John, having to shout above the howling wind said, “That was one heck of a storm. We had hail coming through broken windows like flying missiles. The wind lifted a section of metal roof on the back side, but it didn’t tear loose.”

  I gestured with the rifle I held. “You all need to bring weapons.”

  Preeja shouted, “Please hurry. Let us take the children from the rain.”

  I couldn’t have agreed more. The rain was turning colder and I was shivering. When John and Vikas returned with their rifles, I called out, “I’ll lead. Let’s go.”

  Halfway to the shelter the rain and wind came to a complete stop. An eerie silence took their place. A moment later, I heard a strange sound in the distance. I slowed our pace and stopped. Again, they bunched around me. Already the sound was louder. To the south was a band of far-off lightning that stretched from horizon to horizon.

  “Hear that sound? Whatever’s coming is coming fast as a runaway freight train. It’ll be on us before we get to the shelter. Get in a line and hold hands. No matter what happens, don’t let go of the hands you’re holding.”

  The increased volume of the noise, now easily identifiable as wind gave testament to the fact it would soon be with us. Fear goaded, it took only moments for them to organize into a line. In the dark, I couldn’t see the order, but heard John shout, “We’re ready.”

  Holding Preeja’s hand, I started again for the shelter. It seemed with every step the pulsing freight train of wind and the band of lightening drew closer.

  In a line, we’d moved but another hundred feet when, mixed with rain, the hail returned. Marble size, not the baseball chunks of before, nor as many, but they were flat-trajectory wind-driven and we were walking straight into them. The hailstones stung wherever they hit.

  Head bent to stop the projectiles from hitting my face, I shielded my eyes whenever I needed to check our course. We passed the barn and were on the big lawn of the Causley house when the roar ahead of us came rushing. From across the gravel road in the hunting-land, I heard the sound of snapping wood.

  Then the first blast of the storm hit us; hit us with force enough to rip my hand from Preeja’s and sweep me off my feet. I landed on my back and the layer of hail let the wind blow me several feet. I slid with my flashlight pointing to the sky. The hail had stopped, replaced with tree limbs flying overhead. Some were hitting the ground nearby.

  That blast let up, but I could hear another one coming. Sweeping my flashlight in the direction we’d come I saw the others struggling to their feet.

  Waving the flashlight, I shouted, “Gather on me, link hands and let’s run for it.”

  Preeja shouted, “Vikas is hurt.”

  John shouted, “I can’t find Bella.”

  Stumbling on the hailstones, I ran to where everyone gathered around Vikas. Moving to where I could see him, a three-foot long piece of limb at least an inch thick protruded from his thigh.”

  “Can you run?” I called to him.

  “Yes, if I pull it out, but—.”

  I could hear John shouting for Bella. I pulled my knife from its sheath, said, “All of you help John find Bella,” and squatted beside Vikas. “I’ll cut it off and leave the rest until we’re where we can treat it.”

  The limb had pierced through his leg, but only three inches stuck out the backside. He wasn’t bleeding much, but I knew he’d bleed like a stuck pig when we removed it.

  It took a minute to cut through the wood, long enough for the second blast to reach us. Before it hit, I screamed as loud as I could, “Everyone on the ground. I grabbed Vikas and held on.”

  This blast outdid the first. It snapped tree trunks to fling at us. It rolled Vikas and me forty-feet, entangled, our bodies thumping and beating each other as we went.

  When the short-lived blast passed over us, unhurt, we found ourselves tangled in the limbs of a snapped off trunk of a pine.

  Struggling from it, dragging Vikas with me, I again asked, “Can you run?”

  “Yes.”

  I could see a scattering of flashlights moving around us. “Find Preeja and your children and get to the shelter…, I hear another blast coming.”

  Vikas surged to his feet and took off, shouting for Preeja as he went. I’d managed to hold onto my flashlight. I took off shouting for John and Bella.

  Annette, sans flashlight, joined me. “Vikas and family are on their way to the shelter. I lost my light. John and Bella must have lost theirs.”

  She had to be right; the only lights showing was the one I held and those moving toward the shelter.

  Playing my light over a landscape covered with debris and vision obscuring broken trees blown from across the road, I said, “Another blast coming. It’s up to you, hunt for them or run for shelter.”

  “Hunt,” was her one word answer.”

  “Shit, Annette, we only have one flashlight. I’ll hunt. Get out of here!”

  Above the rising crescendo from across the road, she shouted broken sentences. “We hunt. Four eyes are better than two. Go. Check the barn.”

  We had time to skirt the limbs of several broken trees, and enter the barn. Halfway down the center aisle John lay unmoving on his back. Taking his hand in mine, calling his name, his hand was cold and lifeless. Fingers on neck, I checked for a pulse and found none. Shouted above the racket of continuous thunder to Annette standing beside me, “He’s dead,” and the blast hit.

  Oh lord, did it hit. Wind roared through the open barn doors, lifted me from John’s side and carried me toward the rear door. I didn’t make it too the rear door. With lightning illuminating my flight, I watched the rear of the barn move away, making it seem I was going backward.

  The barn, offering more surface area for the wind to push was moving faster than I was. Before it passed completely over me, it began to come apart and then the roof came off and the walls disintegrated, all of the mess flew into the trees behind where the barn had stood.

  ************

  I woke in my cabin. Opened my eyes and instantly regretted it. Pain ripped through my forehead and I leaned over the edge of my mattress to vomit. I didn’t vomit, but I scared the hell out of Sunil who was sitting in a chair near my bunk.

  I let my head hang over the edge. Sunil was at the door shouting that I was awake. Soon I heard the voices of Annette, Sunia, Vikas and Preeja asking me how I felt.

  Now my entire head throbbed. “My head hurts. Shut up and leave me alone.”

  Annette said, “I’ll stay with her. I’ll come let you know when she feels better.”

  I heard the clatter of feet and the door close and knew I was alone with Annette. “What happened? Whisper please, my head is exploding.”

  “You suffered a concussion. First thing is to get you propped up and then get some painkillers in you.”

  I felt her hands on me. “Stop, I can do it myself.”

  I muscled through the pain and nausea and sat with eyes closed, my back against a wall. My hands went to my head, felt the thick bandage wrapped around my temples. “My head; is it busted open?”

  Annette took my hand and pressed a pill into the palm. “Can you hold a cup?”

  I blindly reached with my free hand. “Let me try.”

  I was able. Decided to chew the pills in hopes they would work faster. “What about my head?”

  “It’s not ‘busted open’ as you put it, but you have a severely bruised temple. Your head’s as big as a pumpkin.”

  Again, my hand sought my head, felt it and realized she’d punked me. “Damn it Annette, if you knew how bad my head hurts you wouldn’t make jokes.”

  “Sorry,” she said in a voice that wasn’t. You do have a serious bruise on the left side of your head. I think your head hit a metal part of the tractor when the storm blew the barn apart.”

  “I remember the barn coming apart, but nothing after that.”

  “Pitch black as it was after the lightning stopped, you’re lucky your flashlight landed close to you or I would’ve never found you. You were under the tractor wedged against a rear wheel. There was so much debris trapped with you that I almost didn’t think you were there, but I checked anyway.”

  “Did ya’ll find Bella?”

  “We searched for two days. She’s dead. Yesterday the children and I went mushrooming. We were about a hundred feet from where the barn used to be when Sunia spotted her hanging twenty feet up in a tree. A limb went through her side and pinned her there.”

  “I’ve been out for three days.”

  “No, you’ve been in a coma for four days. We’ve all took turns sitting with you. Sunia found Bella a day after we stopped looking. We’d already buried John in their back yard. We buried Bella beside him. The tornado tore off their roof.”

  “We had a tornado?”

  “The storm that took out the barn was a tornado. It cut a path of destruction as wide as a football field is long. It missed our cabins, but not by much, even so, we had to replace tin on the big one.

  “We had more straight-line winds after that. The damn storms lasted until noon the next day.”

  I could feel my headache receding. “What’d you give me?”

  “Are they working already; A Vicodin and two Ibuprofens?”

  “Yeah, my head’s better. How’d you get Bella out of the tree?”

  “Vikas used your chainsaw to cut it down.”

  I remembered his injury. “How’s his leg.”

  “We found the first aid kit, crate actually, in here. Christ, your friend Billy had that box packed with everything; sutures, Novocain, opioids, everything. I pulled the stick out and helped Preeja clean and suture the holes. So far so good; he’s walking without a limp and we don’t think it’ll infect.”

  I asked the puzzler, “How did I end up here in my cabin?”

  “As I said, the tornado wasn’t the last of the storms. You were out cold and I couldn’t carry you that far. I wrapped us together underneath the tractor in a windblown tarp I found tangled in a downed tree.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’d have done the same for me.”

  Without hesitation, I said, “Yes I would have.”

  “Good to know. We had a grace period after the tornado passed. Vikas and I lugged you to the shelter but we used the ATV and trailer to bring you here. Damn, girl, you were so lifeless I thought you’d die. I’m glad you didn’t.

  “So am I.

  “Tempest, can we be friends? No more sniping at me?”

  We were friends since the time we spent looking into each other’s souls, but I didn’t say that. “Yes Annette, we can be friends.”

  “Can you open your eyes now?”

  “Do I have to?”

  “If you want to see my smile, yes.”

  I opened my eyes to see her thumbs stuck in her ears and her fingers wiggling. She’d punked me again.”

  “Ha, ha, ha, how very funny you are.”

  She dropped her hands and her face did smile. “I was worried you wouldn’t wake from the coma. Your bruise is very deep. Preeja thinks you may have a cracked skull.”

  “I’m going to miss John and Bella.”

  Annette said, “Yet you haven’t shed a tear. We cried for an entire day.”

  “Annette, the body isn’t the person, just a vessel for their spirit. The body can die, but the spirit lives as long as someone is alive to remember the person. What if John and Bella weren’t dead, but had decided to leave? Their corporal beings would be gone as if they were dead, but they wouldn’t be. To me, Billy, John and Bella aren’t dead. I’ll always have them, only gone from sight.”

  With a catch in her voice, she said, “That is a beautiful way to believe… What about the spirits of the ones you’ve killed?”

  I shrugged and the pain that ripped through my head made me wish I didn’t. “Them… they’re erased, out of mind. They went straight to whatever hell they believe in.”

  Surprising me, she agreed, “And that’s a damn good place for them to go. Hey, you haven’t eaten in four days. Are you hungry?”

  I glanced to the window that someone had taped clear plastic to seal. “It’s dark. What time is it?”

  “It was after three when Sunil woke us, probably close to four a.m. by now.”

  Maybe it was the pills, but I felt more weary than hungry. “Don’t make a special effort. I need to sleep. Try me when breakfast is ready.”

  “I’ll stay with you. Let me help you—.”

  “I can lay down by myself.”

  ************

  I lay ‘Abed’ as Grandma Sophia would’ve worded it, for three days. I grew tired of it, tired of the five waiting on me, tired of having someone escort me to the outhouse. Mostly I was tired of watching through my window and seeing beautiful, spring-like days slip by.

  On the fourth day, I had Vikas go search for the aluminum crutches I knew were in the barn before the tornado hit it.

  I wasn’t crippled, nor was I dizzy, but my balance came and went, though the episodes were coming less with each day. That day, I found that a single crutch did the trick, used it to lean on the few times that it felt as if I would topple. Two days later, no longer needed, I propped it in a corner of my cabin.

  That same day, I went to survey the damage at the barn. Annette and the Popat family had spent many hours scouring the area for the stuff I’d transported from Billy’s place. The only sign there had ever been a barn on the spot was an area clear of growth, bare dirt with my recovered tarp-covered belongings piled and stacked in the middle.

  Scattered all around were the remains of the barn and the Causley’s roof. Pieces of paper and pink fiberglass insulation were everywhere, including in the limbs of trees leading into the WMA and across the road in the pines where the wood company’s trees grew.

  Annette told me they’d found stuff past John and Bella’s house, almost as far as Billy’s place, both theirs and mine. Vikas found my push mower over a hundred yards into the WMA.

  They’d salvaged a large amount of the metal torn from the barn roof. What amazed me was how small was the number of crumpled sheets they’d piled compared to the number of usable pieces.

  Except for the van, our vehicles weathered the storm in good condition. The van was on its side. That was one of the reasons I’d come to the area; to see if it could be righted. Looking at it, I could picture a chain and the tractor righting it with Vikas helping.

  I checked John and Bella’s house. Other than soggy carpet, the downstairs was not disturbed. The roofless upstairs bedrooms and small study were a different story. Furniture was out of place, dressers and desks overturned, drawers sucked from them to scatter clothing and paper.

 

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