Then a hand grasping the top of his pants. Pulling . . . Gabi pulling him; he pulling Boomie. At last, bumping down the stairs into the concrete safe room. He released Boomie, reached up, and slammed the door of the shelter shut. A barrage of something—two-by-fours? slabs of asphalt? trees? chunks of a disintegrating Gust Front Grill?—whanged against the exterior of the reinforced door, the wreckage hammering out a discordant death knell. Something, probably a tree, crashed into the earth above them, landing with a reverberating thump. “Not on the door, please,” Chuck muttered aloud.
Gabi found a switch for a set of battery-powered lights within the shelter and illuminated the blackness in which they’d been standing. The room appeared to be about ten-by-ten, probably big enough for the employees of the Gust Front . . . none of them around today.
Chuck glanced down at Boomie, who was unresponsive but at least breathing. He had no idea how badly the cameraman might be hurt. He stretched him out on the concrete floor and knelt beside him, huddling with Gabi and Stormy.
Somebody had once told him: You can’t survive an EF-5 above ground. He knew without a shadow of doubt, without waiting for the required post-storm survey, that an EF-5—probably two—the most violent category of storm on earth, was passing overhead. The Lord striking down the first born. Chuck bowed his head in thanks. They were the Israelites, protected by blood on the doorframe. Exodus.
Had they been caught in the open, a few feet above where they now nestled, they would have become nothing more than meat in a tornadic blender.
Even in their insulted sanctuary, Chuck sensed the deafening bellow of the storm above, its savagery, its cruelness. Time evaporated. He closed his eyes and endured, clinging to Gabi and Stormy. Clutching. It seemed forever.
The fearsome noise retreated. He drew a breath. It hadn’t been forever, only seconds. Gabi stirred. Stormy lifted her head. Boomie remained motionless.
“Okay,” Chuck whispered, “we’re okay.”
He nudged Boomie. The cameraman moaned.
“Boomie,” Chuck said, “can you hear me?” Boomie didn’t respond.
Chuck rose.
“You’re bleeding,” Gabi said, pushing herself up, too, and staring at Chuck’s head. She reached for his face, ran her fingers over his cheek, brought them away bloody.
He patted his cheek, found a long gash and felt the embedded piece of glass. “I don’t think it’s deep.” He wiped at the blood, but succeeded only in smearing it, mixing it with leakage from the other cuts in his face.
Gabi fumbled in the pockets of her jeans. “I’ve got some tissues.” Chuck accepted them.
Boomie moaned again.
“Hey, buddy,” Chuck said, “you with us?”
Boomie opened one eye, closed it. “Maybe, maybe not. Shoulder hurts like hell. How come we’re still alive?”
Chuck shrugged. “We’re in a storm cellar. Can you sit up?”
“If you tug me by my right arm. I think my left shoulder’s broken.”
Chuck crammed the tissues in his pants pocket, grasped Boomie’s right arm, and pulled.
“Fuck! Shit, goddamn that hurts.”
“Sorry,” Chuck said. But at least Boomie, still in his Steadicam vest, now sat with his back against the wall of the shelter.
Chuck walked to the door and cracked it open. Since it had been angled to match the slope of the mound, it remained unblocked by fallen trees or debris. In the distance, the storm churned away, the roar fading, tumbling toward pianissimo. A steady rain pattered down, as if a balm to the extreme barbarity that had passed over the land.
“Just one twister now,” Chuck announced as he pushed the door wide open and stepped out.
To his surprise, Boomie followed. “What happened to the second one?” he asked, then grimaced in pain.
“Jesus, buddy. Take it easy. Here, let me help you.” He guided Boomie toward the generator. Gabi and Stormy clambered out of the shelter.
“The second twister. What happened to it?” Boomie asked again.
“Dissipated,” Chuck said. “I’ll explain later. But what you filmed was extremely rare. The only other photographic evidence I’ve ever seen of two mature tornadoes side-by-side was shot during the Palm Sunday outbreak of 1965. That was in the days before you could photoshop stuff, so it was the real deal.” He seated Boomie against the generator.
“The Panavision is gone,” Boomie said. With his right arm he gestured lamely at the debris layered over the parking lot. “It’s somewhere out there. Well, at least parts of it. I lost my grip on it after something smashed into me.”
Chuck, feeling as if he’d just been suckered punched in the gut, surveyed the wreckage strewn around him. His million dollars were somewhere out there, part of a garbage dump now. He turned slowly, making a 360-degree pivot. The Gust Front Grill had become a pile of rubble—timbers, support beams, sections of roof, all laying in a twisted heap.
Beyond the parking lot, the little town had ceased to exist. For all practical purposes, it had been leveled. Only the skeletal remains of a handful of buildings suggested a viable community had once stood there. Here and there, smoke drifted from the wreckage. A full-fledged fire raged at the far end of the former town, chewing through a head-high mound of debris. People, seeming to have no purpose, dazed and confused, wandered along the street. A strange silence, except for the occasional wail of stunned humans, permeated the scene. What had happened to the First Responders? Had they, too, fallen victim to the double dose of violence?
Chuck spotted his Expedition. It had been hurled from one end of the Gust Front’s parking lot to the other. It lay on its roof, twisted and crumpled metal, embedded in the wreckage of what used to be a motel room. A two-by-four driven into one of its doors protruded like the handle of a dagger.
“Hey, Chuck,” Boomie called, the words followed by a prolonged groan.
“Yeah?” Chuck continued to stare at the desolation encircling him.
“Look for the recorder, will ya?”
“You mean the camera?”
“No. The camera doesn’t matter. The recorder is what counts. It has the tornado images.”
Chuck shook his head; despair. “It could be in the next county.”
“It could be three feet away. It’s a unit about the size of a shoebox with a digital readout screen on one side. Has Panavision SSR—for solid state recorder—written across it. It was attached to the camera . . . but God knows if it still is.” His voice faltered. “Look, I’d help you search, but I’m feeling . . . a little . . . you know . . . lightheaded.” Boomie’s head tipped forward, his chin coming to rest on top of the Steadicam vest.
“I’ll help,” Gabi said. “I know how much it means to you.” She eyed Chuck’s face again. “Hey, keep pressing the tissues against your cheek. You’re a mess.”
He removed the tissues from his pants pocket and jammed them against his bloody face. With his other hand he pulled his cell phone from his shirt pocket and tossed it to Gabi. “Call 911. Tell them the town’s been leveled. There are injured people. Not only in town, but next to where the Gust Front used to be. We gotta get Boomie some help.”
“You think we’ve still got cell service? After the storm?”
“Probably. The tornado—well, tornadoes—cut a relatively narrow swath. There should still be cell towers standing within range.”
The smell of burning wood and plastic, despite the rain, wafted over the piles of debris that littered the vast parking lot and undoubtedly extended for miles beyond.
Gabi made the call and connected with the state police. After she’d finished, she told Chuck that authorities were already aware of the situation and that help had been dispatched, but that it might be 15 or 20 minutes away. There were other locations in need.
“Thanks,” he said. “Better try Ty, too.”
She nodded and punched in his number. Chuck took stock of Gabi as she waited for Ty to answer. She, to put it frankly, looked a mess: her hair in a rats’ nest-tangle, her face splattered with mud, her blouse torn, a hole in the knee of her slacks. But he knew he looked worse.
He glanced at his shirt, ripped and bloodied, one sleeve completely missing. Had he caught it on a sharp object or has it been yanked away by the wind? He had no recollection. Both legs of his pants had been shredded and now hung on him as if he were some sort of modern-day Robinson Crusoe.
Stormy milled around his feet, not venturing far from familiar sights and smells.
“Ty,” Gabi said, and handed the phone to Chuck.
“You okay?” Chuck asked.
“Fine,” Ty answered, sounding almost exuberant. “We got some great footage of a tornado. It might be your breadwinner.”
“Did it hit anything? I mean like buildings? Homes? Barns?”
“Luckily, it missed the town. I think it stayed in open country. Lots of trees and farmland ripped up.”
“Here’s the thing, Ty, unless a tornado hits a built-up area, there’s no way to categorize it. EF ratings are determined by structural damage. There’s no way to prove a twister was an EF-4 or -5 unless it wrecks buildings. Unfortunately.”
Ty fell silent. Chuck sensed his disappointment seeping through the phone signal.
Chuck tipped his face into the rain, which now seemed not a balm after all, but a mocking accompaniment to a double whammy. A lost video recorder. And now footage of a tornado with no way to prove its intensity.
“Listen,” Chuck said, “it’s okay, we got some great shots here, but the place got leveled.” He drew a deep breath. “There’s nothing left.”
“But you’re fine?”
“We found a storm cellar. We’re scratched up and bruised, but moving. Boomie, the camera guy is hurt, though. I don’t know how badly, but he needs medical attention. Then there’s this little problem of a missing camera and its video recorder. Boomie may have filmed something never shot before, something spectacular, but now it’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“Carried away by the tornado. Two of them actually.”
“Two?” Incredulity threaded the word.
“Hard to explain. Work your way back here. We could use your help.”
“We’re on our way,” Ty responded.
Gabi tapped Chuck on the arm and pointed in the direction of where the Gust Front Grill had stood.
Chuck stepped to peer around the side of the generator to where she pointed, but Gabi yanked him back.
“An SUV just pulled up to the front of the building,” she said, “at least to where the front used to be.” She spoke in a deliberate manner, as though still countering the effects of the migraine-fighting meds she’d consumed earlier. Her eyes appeared wide and alert, however.
“What kind of SUV?”
She smiled. “A black GMC with a grill guard.” She pulled her Glock from where it had been tucked into the back of her jeans.
Chapter Twenty-seven
SUNDAY, MAY 11
LATE AFTERNOON
CLARENCE PULLED the GMC to a stop near the stack of debris that marked all that remained of the Gust Front Grill. The windshield wipers beat out a steady rhythm as he peered through the rain-speckled windshield at the wreckage.
“Christ on a crutch,” Raleigh said, “never seen anything like this. And the town—you believe that? Flattened!”
“An EF-5 for sure, bro’. First one I’ve ever seen.”
“First two,” Raleigh corrected.
“Like Siamese twins. That was incredible, unbelievable. Good thing we decided to hang back a little south of town until that thing swept through.”
“You always make the right call.” Raleigh removed his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose. “You ever heard of such a thing? Twin tornadoes, side-by-side? Big ones?”
“I saw an old black and white photograph of double funnels on the Internet once, shot back in the ’60s, I think, someplace in Indiana. Never thought I’d see something like it for real.” His heart rate had ratcheted way up when the storm had hit and only now had begun to settle down.
“So, whaddaya think?” Raleigh said. He replaced his spectacles and peered intently at the stack of broken lumber, fallen bricks, and bent metal that used to be the Gust Front.
“Well, I can tell you one thing,” Clarence said.
Raleigh turned his head toward his brother.
“If there’s anybody in there—” he nodded at the rubble “—like that guy Monty, if he exists, they’re either dead or badly hurt. More likely anyone in there got the hell out when the sirens went off. Probably stowed away in a shelter someplace. We should have free run of the place. At least for a while.”
Who knew what they’d find in there. At least they’d have a chance to explore for a bit without having to worry about interference. Monty, whether the product of a tall tale or not, obviously wouldn’t be a factor. It would be dicey, poking around in fresh wreckage, but the payoff could be enormous. Worth the gamble. If they found nothing, then the myth would be laid to rest. But who knows, some fairy tales have happy endings.
“Okay, let’s grab our jackets, a crowbar, and a couple of flashlights and see what we can find in there,” Clarence said.
Minutes later, the brothers stood at the threshold of the mound of debris, the razed Gust Front Grill. Raleigh brushed raindrops from his glasses. At least the precipitation had settled the dust.
“What a mess,” he said.
“Let’s be careful,” Clarence said. “Follow me.”
He stepped into the tangle of wood and metal, played his Maglite beam into dark crevasses searching for a safe passageway through the wreckage.
“This way,” he said. He ducked under a fallen support beam, moved broken electrical wires out of his path, and shoved a shattered strobe light to one side with his foot. His feet, clad in heavy work boots, crunched through thick layers of broken glass. He moved slowly, continuously sweeping his flashlight from side to side.
After ten minutes of cautious exploration, they reached the stone fireplace of the establishment. It had remained intact, but its brick chimney had tumbled into the amalgam of disintegrated building materials, a trash heap that constituted the burial mound of the Gust Front.
Clarence paused at the fireplace and ran his light beam over the wreckage surrounding it. “As I recall, the fireplace was on the back wall.” He pointed the Maglite to his right. “So, if memory serves, that means the offices would have been back that way. Let’s work our way in that direction. If there’s a safe or lockbox or something, that’s where we’ll find it.”
Their journey became tedious. They slithered on their bellies underneath fallen beams, squirmed through narrow gaps between piles of brick and twisted aluminum, and clambered awkwardly over broken furniture and smashed kitchen appliances. Water sprayed from broken pipes and, in spite of their jackets, soaked them thoroughly.
“Shit,” Raleigh said, “you sure this is worth it?”
“Won’t know ’til we know, bro’. Let’s press on.”
From outside, the distant wail of sirens announced the approach of help for the tiny, ruined town.
A wave of unease surged through Clarence. Their exploration had taken much longer than he’d anticipated, or least hoped, it would. He pushed through the rubble more determinedly. Gotta be almost there. Wherever there was.
“Hey,” Raleigh said, his voice soft, “hear that?”
“The sirens?”
“No. Something else. Listen.”
A faint hiss. Then it stopped. Then another short hiss.
A natural gas leak? Clarence sniffed the air. No telltale odor of rotten eggs.
; “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s not gas. Probably just compressed air leaking from something. Look, we’ll give this five more minutes. If we don’t find anything of interest, we’re outta here.”
Raleigh nodded. They moved on.
A minute later they reached a broken door frame. They ducked to get through it and entered what appeared to be the wreckage of an office. Shards of glass, splintered wood, and chunks of plaster covered a heavy mahogany desk. Next to it rested an upturned chair with broken legs. Sheets of paper, like the aftermath of a ticker-tape parade, littered the room.
Clarence switched off his Maglite and looked up into a brightening sky. The rain had ceased and rays of sunlight filtered through the roofless wreckage to where he and his brother stood.
“Look around,” he said. “We might get lucky, find a safe or storage box of some sort.” Collapsed book shelves and broken tables gave further testament to the suggestion this once had been an office.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Raleigh said a moment later, his voice rising each time he pronounced the word. “Look at this.”
Clarence went to where his brother knelt in the debris, brushing away pieces of plaster and glass from . . . a safe!
“Well, whattaya know,” Clarence said. “Myth becomes reality.” Maybe. He studied the safe, a small depository model with an electronic lock and weighing maybe a few hundred pounds. “It’s a little more than you might need for keeping petty cash.”
“Yeah,” Raleigh mumbled, “how do we get it open?”
“We don’t. Look, we’re near the rear of the grill, or what used to be the rear. A few yards that way—” he pointed “—and we’re clear of the wreckage. We’ll bring the Terrain around, attach a tow rope to it, string the rope in here, secure it to the safe and drag the motherfucker out. Sound like a plan?”
Raleigh didn’t answer. He remained frozen in place, his gaze fixed on something beyond the safe, his expression a mask of terror.
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