Now, nothing stood upright.
Only our carwash with its little store front remained intact. The windows were blown out, but the air fresheners still dangled from their hooks. Odd and improbable, but I wasn’t complaining.
A double rainbow curved in the sky, stretching from the north to the south, and softball sized hail littered the ground for as far as I could see—thousands of balls like curled white rabbits. Had they not been so destructive, it would have been amazing—all of it would have been amazing—but right now, I was only horrified.
Cole bent, still holding my hand, and picked up a piece of hail, bouncing it up and down. “Yeah, this isn’t normal.” He held it out to me, but I didn’t accept the ball of ice. I didn’t want to hold it at all.
He tossed it and when it hit the ground, it shattered like fragile glass. A shiver ran up my spine.
He didn’t mention Callie, and from the look of our surroundings, I knew exactly why.
We stood there, staring at the nothingness of it all. He didn’t attempt to remove my hand from his as we stood side by side.
“Remember how I told you about the weird weather?” He kicked a ball of ice with the toe of his boot and it splintered and cracked, but didn’t fall apart.
I nodded.
“Well, now you know what I’m talking about. Though this”—he waved his free arm—”was something unexpected.” He looked up into the clearing sky and the hint of blue in the grayness. “Mother nature sure likes screwing with us, that’s for sure.”
After I’d looked around enough to know everything was a big fat mess, I let go of his hand and started back to the car. I needed to check on my phone, though chances were clearly against it being there, clinging to the charger. But maybe, just maybe....
“This is only a minor setback.” Cole called to me. I didn’t acknowledge him, but kept walking. “Tess?”
I didn’t answer—didn’t feel much like talking.
“Tess?”
The genuine concern in his voice forced me to stop, though it took me a few seconds to turn around.
“We’ve got this, you know?”
I stared at him. What was he saying?
“We’re alive, and that’s something.” He gave a simple yet sincere smile. “Everything might look real bad right now, but we still have that.”
Yeah, we still have that. I continued to the carwash.
A thick coat of dirt and grime covered the station wagon, and as I walked beside it, I dragged my finger over the paneling, clearing a thin wiggly line. A worm. I was about to wipe my finger on my pants but instead stepped closer to the car and wrote my name and the date on the back window. It wouldn’t hurt, in case someone happened to see it.
After staring at it a moment, I decided to add Cole. I didn’t know his last name, but maybe if Dad heard I was alive and with someone, it would ease his worry. A long chance, but something.
I wiped my hands on my pants, though the material was just as filthy and hardly cleaned the dirt from my fingers.
Meow.
I whipped around, and stumbled backward, searching.
Meow.
Clinging to the large horizontal brush above the car, almost lost in the bristles, Callie peered at me with large frightened eyes in dirt-encrusted fur.
A sob exploded past my lips as I scrambled to climb on top of the car, slipping and sliding over the slick surface. “Callie!” I lost my foothold and crashed down on my knees, but I ignored the pain, and climbed again. “Callie!”
On the roof, I reached for her, but inches separated us and prevented me from scooping my scared kitten into my arms. “It’s okay!” I stood on my tiptoes, stretched upward, and wiggled my fingers. Come on, come on.
Hands grasped my ankles, steadying me, and I glanced down at Cole who grinned.
“It’s okay now. It’s okay. I’ve got you!” I stretched as much as possible, more than was safe, and when my fingers brushed over her matted leg, I took hold and yanked, freeing her.
She flew into my arms, digging her baby claws into my chest as she clambered to find safety against my neck.
I slid to my bottom, sitting on top of the car, holding my kitten against me as she wailed her high-pitched meows over and over against my ear.
Tears fell down my face. I couldn’t stop crying.
Cole patted my leg and kept right on smiling. “One life down. Eight to go.”
It looked beat to hell—more so than when I actually dropped it on the roof of the apartment building and broke the screen—but the dirty cell phone still clung to the cigarette lighter. Barely. I’d never completely bought into miracles, but as I held my phone in one hand, my cat in the other, all while sitting in a car in the only intact building on the block, how could I not?
“Just do it already.” Cole pointed to the phone. “What are you waiting for?”
What am I waiting for?
I pressed the on button and the backlight glowed. I checked to see if any new messages had come in, though I realized the nil probability. As I expected, the screen didn’t blink. No new texts. Nothing. Still, I had hoped.
I played the saved messages, listening to each of the voices again. Tears nipped at my eyes and I wiped them with the back of my hand. How I missed all them, my family, my friends.
Cole watched me, saying nothing.
But when Dad’s voice came on, I straightened, the tears flowed, and Cole leaned closer. I wished I could have put it on speaker for him, but the broken screen wouldn’t allow it, so I leaned near him, our heads together, with the phone in between.
“Tess, it’s me, Dad. I don’t know if you have your phone or not or even if you can get cell service in the bunker, but honey, I’m not going to be able to get back to you as soon as I thought. I’m sending someone for you though. They don’t know Morse Code, Tess, so open the door for them, okay baby. Just open the door. They will find me and your brother and bring you to us. Right now, we’re staying at the lodge up Rockport Canyon. You know the one.”
I did know it. I hated it. We’d spent every spring vacation and Labor Day hiking the mountainside or fly-fishing in the frigid rivers. Not my favorite location by a long shot, but it had become tradition and getting out of the excursions had become nearly impossible—except for Toby.
All he had to do was show up drunk, piss off Dad, and he’d be banned, which put me in the weird position of trying to make it all up to Dad and pretend I loved the great outdoors. I didn’t mind the woods and the mountains, but when all my friends had glorious trips to Cancun or New York to brag about, saying I’d spent my spring break gutting trout didn’t quite compare.
“It’s better than being in the cities. Safer. They’ll bring you here and then we’ll head over the mountains and into Colorado. I wish I could come get you myself, but Toby’s hurt. Nothing horrible, but I need to stay with him. I hope you understand, Tess. I love you. Get here quick, okay?”
That was it. That was everything. No more messages.
I lowered the phone to my lap and stared out the dirty window.
“Rockport Canyon, huh?” After we’d sat in silence for several moments, Cole sunk into his seat with his hands threaded behind his head. By the solemn look on his face, he had to be thinking the same thing I did: impossible, far, too difficult. What was Dad thinking?
“I guess I was kind of hoping your dad would have picked something closer, like a Hilton Inn near an interstate, but why make this easy, right? Where would be the fun in that?” Cole placed a hand on my knee, forcing me to look at him. “You a good hiker?”
I shook my head. “No, not really.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so. But hey, this will be an adventure. You, me, the great outdoors! What could go wrong?”
I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or sarcastic, but either way, I stared at him without replying.
He sat up, smiling—always smiling. So annoying. “We’ll get a tent and some gear and some of those nasty, but good-for-you energy bars—nutr
ition in the shape of a brick—and we’ll head to Rockport. Should only take like”—he counted his fingers, his mind seeming to calculate the length of the journey, but he stopped when he’d used up all ten fingers and simply waved his hand—”well, it’s going to take a bit, but that doesn’t mean it ain’t doable. People do crazier stuff all the time. It isn’t like we’re backpacking across Europe or anything.”
Rockport Canyon was a good two-hour drive north from here. The lodge was probably another hour up the winding canyon roads and through the dense forest. Yeah, it was definitely a safe place to be when all hell broke loose in the cities, but by foot? We may as well have been backpacking across Europe.
“Why is this happening?” I turned away from him to look out the window again, staring at nothing.
“I don’t think your dad figured it would be that difficult for you to get to him when he left the message. A couple of hours at most.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean, why is this happening? Why aren’t people back yet? Where is everyone?” I looked back at him. “Besides Callie, I haven’t seen even one other animal. No birds. No stray dogs. Nothing. You can’t evacuate this many people without someone or something being left behind.”
He pointed at me then at himself. “We’re the left-behinds.”
He was right. Very right. Sort of. “I’ve been left behind. You... you’re having a blast! You love all of this!”
“Hey now, I never said I loved this. I’m simply quite fond of this new way of living—a big difference—but that doesn’t change anything, does it? We’re still the only ones here.”
I didn’t say anything.
“And as for the animals and why no one’s back yet, could be because the water’s contaminated, so don’t drink anything not bottled.”
“Seriously? You’re just telling me now?” I could have died.
“Figured you knew. Also, keep in mind with all the changes going on it’s not safe for anyone. Not yet. It’s like a war zone.”
“And you like this? How can you possibly want to live this way?”
He shrugged as if it was no big deal. “It beats the alternative.”
“The alternative?”
“You know, working my butt off for ‘the man,’ getting little to show for it. Right now, I’m free from all of that. The world is my oyster, so they say. Yeah, it’s dangerous, but my other life was slowly killing me. This is an improvement.”
I slid out the passenger side of the car, carrying my harnessed cat in one hand and my cell phone in the other. I didn’t want to be anywhere near Cole, not now, not when he rejoiced in a situation that frightened, hurt, and depressed me.
I pushed past the carwash bristles and brushes and made my way out into the open. A thick haziness hung in the air even though the sky was clear of ominous clouds. It didn’t seem safe, but sitting in a damaged car with a deranged person didn’t seem much better.
I started walking, not really caring which direction I headed in this mess. I needed to get away and think. How in the world was I going to get to Dad, and was he even there, waiting? After all this time?
But what other option did I have? I wasn’t like Cole. To me, this whole situation was totally unacceptable. I couldn’t live like this even if he thought he could.
I needed my family. I needed my friends. I needed people and civilization.
This couldn’t be it for me. It couldn’t.
A few minutes later, I noticed Cole walking a safe distance behind me, carrying a few bottles of water and had his stupid George Foreman grill tucked under one arm. I closed my eyes and shook my head. What an idiot.
He didn’t call to me or try to catch up, but followed without saying a word.
Crumbled buildings and the aftermath of the whirlwind tornado hindered much of my path and forced me to meander and take a more crooked course. The easiest path from point A to point B was a straight line, except when an apocalypse occurred. Then it became left, right, right again, maybe go in a circle, and head left until you can’t head left no more. But since I had no idea where I was going, it didn’t really matter.
I didn’t look at much, but stared straight ahead, holding my still nervous, but wonderfully obedient, cat in my arms. Clothes would soon be important. Food and water for both me and Callie too, now that everything I owned happened to be clinging to my back. It would be foolish to walk to where we’d left the shopping carts and my things. I doubted my duffle bag had even survived. For the moment, I didn’t really worry about any of that.
More important things dominated my thoughts—Dad, the impossible journey ahead, the fact that nothing would ever be the same again.
“Hey, Tess!”
I didn’t answer. He viewed this all as a big joke, and I wasn’t in the mood for his bizarre humor and lack of social grace.
“Tess, stop!”
“I don’t want to talk to you, Cole. Leave me alone.”
“Seriously, don’t take another step.”
Callie wiggled in my arms, and I had to change my hold on her. “Tess!”
I whipped around, “What? What do you want?”
His forehead creased and his lips drew into a line, and he waved me toward him—almost like a stalker trying to lure his victim into a white van. “Why don’t you come back by me, okay?”
“I don’t want to be anywhere near you right now.”
“Okay, that’s fine.” He put his hands up. “But can you walk back this way? We’ll take that side street a couple of blocks back and go around. It’ll be better.”
I shook my head. What is wrong with him? “You’re free to go wherever you want.” I turned away, managed a few short steps, then stopped.
My heart lurched. I couldn’t breathe. For a brief minute, I was paralyzed.
The tornado had demolished the medical center, like everything else in its path, tearing it apart like a loose thread in a sweater, a semblance of what it once was. Bricks, beams, walls, and ceilings lay in a giant pile mixed with broken hospital beds, emergency equipment, and medical papers that now blew with the breeze.
In my mental haze, I hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary before—I hadn’t been looking at anything. Not really. Everything had simply blended together, becoming a backdrop to my sadness and anger.
Now, I put Callie down, secured her leash, and ran for the pile of rubble.
“Help me, Cole!” I knelt in the debris, not bothering to be careful of broken bottles, syringes, or anything else, and tugged at a large section of drywall then tossed brick and concrete aside. “Come on, Cole!”
“Tess—”
“We have to help them!”
I dug around the unmoving human leg peeking through the mess. I’d save this person and then move onto the next. An arm here. A leg there. Dozens of body parts poked out of the wreckage. I’d dig each of them out. All of them. It wasn’t too late. It wasn’t. Were they patients left behind? Doctors staying to help the injured?
“Cole!”
He shook his head, not coming closer as I wanted him too. “They’re gone, Tess.”
“No! Please!” Frantically, I pushed away garbage, maneuvered wires, metal, and dirt, and chucked what I could lift. Had they been taking shelter in the medical center? How many of them were there? Maybe we weren’t the only ones left behind. Maybe there were others, somewhere else too.
“The tornado didn’t do this to them.” Cole maintained his distance. “Look.”
I couldn’t. Looking wasted time. I kept digging, becoming angrier at Cole and his unwillingness to even try.
“They’ve been dead a long time, Tess. Well before the tornado destroyed the building.”
He didn’t know anything—anything at all. He was all for himself, selfish and ridiculous. He hadn’t even put down the George Foreman grill. Maybe he should live all alone away from humanity. It would be better for everyone, especially me.
I couldn’t stop digging and trying to uncover the buried person, determined to save them.
Throw away one more brick, lift one more section of wall, and they’d be free to breathe again.
It seemed so simple.
I wanted to make it work so badly.
But when I removed the last of the trash surrounding the leg, the limb fell away, tumbling down the small hill of discarded debris. A dark, discolored, rotting leg, severed at the thigh.
A piece of a person.
I froze, next to a crooked hand sticking out only a few feet away from me and the bloated human leg almost brushing against mine. Blood pounded in my ears like a kettledrum—boom, boom, boom. Everything spun in dizzying circles. Bile clawed its way up my throat, but I swallowed it back.
“Hey, it’s going to be okay.”
No, it wouldn’t. None of this was okay.
“Tess?”
I was sitting on a pile of broken people.
“We’ll go back the way we came and take that side road like I said. We’ll get out of the city and into the open and avoid this, okay?” Cole set the grill next to my cat and carefully made his way to me, watching his step. He held his hand out.
Mr. Stanger and now this? I’d hoped that Mr. Stanger’s dead body had been a fluke, a once in a lifetime kind of thing, but this... this was worse.
“Take my hand, Tess.”
What else could I do? I reached out; he clasped my trembling hand in his, and drew me to him.
His hand, beside my own, was the only one attached to a living, breathing person.
I had no idea where he was leading me, but since I had no suggestions of my own, I walked behind him and kept quiet. Even Callie toddled at my side as I held the end of her leash. The tornado must have put enough fear into her that the idea of a leash and collar no longer seemed to bother her. She didn’t scratch or tug at it, but skipped along like an obedient pet—something cats weren’t known to be.
Cole continued to carry his grill under his arm. Every once in a while, he’d turn around, smile, and encourage me to keep up.
“Where are we going?” My first question, my first words really, since witnessing the body parts. Yes, I wanted to escape the city and get away from the possibility of finding more dead bodies, but walking off into the unknown didn’t seem like the best choice.
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