Sissy came up behind Lilly and grabbed Lester under the armpit. They grunted and tugged and grunted some more, for what seemed like hours instead of seconds. Lester finally let go of Lilly’s hand to dig his fingers into the ground. When he wrestled his way out of the hole, he flopped onto his back and gulped down air until the pounding in his head faded to an annoying throb.
Lilly nudged him with her foot. Her sympathies were clearly exhausted for the day. “The truck’s gone. How we gonna get Junior to the doctor?”
Lester sat up and took a good look around. Sure enough, the truck was gone. He had hoped to find it maybe just tipped on its side, or even amongst the Yoder’s chicken houses. But no such luck.
There were a few trees uprooted, mostly where Ricky’s trailer had been catapulted over the acre of woods that ran between their lots. All that was left of the Miller trailer was a scattered ring of cinder blocks and crushed bits of their personal belongings. It looked like a toddler had dumped a box of Captain Crunch and threw a fit when there was no prize, stomping the cereal into an angry mess. Chunks of steel siding and pink insulation dotted the surrounding trees like the Grinch had come early.
Lester’s head was spinning with a nauseating mixture of elation from escaping the shelter and an overwhelming panic from not knowing what to do next. It was over ten miles to the nearest hospital. Junior was sprawled out on a bed of crabgrass, his head wrapped in Lester’s dirty flannel. He occasionally came to, just long enough to mumble random accusations at Ernie for eating his jerky or wetting the bed.
“Les?” Lilly groaned, rubbing her hands over her face.
“Shhh. I’m thinkin’,” he said. Though he was pretty sure his well of brilliant ideas had run dry.
It wasn’t like Lilly to leave the disaster planning to Lester, and he found himself longing for the spiteful bossiness he had grown used to over their eighteen years of marriage.
Lilly huffed and looked back at Junior. “Think faster.”
Chapter 2
Ricky Schmitt wandered around the Miller’s backyard, trying to remember who he’d bought his last bag of grass from. Either it had been laced with something, or else his trailer was actually wedged in between two of the Miller’s maples like a bloated treehouse on wheels.
There was a gaping exit wound in the bathroom wall where the toilet had pulled loose and punched its way out. His futon was lodged halfway through the living room window, tangled in the remains of a screen and a cheap frame. He had been lounging on it just moments before, and was on his way to the pisser when the storm hit. He was suddenly glad he hadn’t made it that far, considering the MIA status of the toilet.
Surviving a tornado in a trailer wasn’t something Ricky had expected to do today, and he’d been more confused than relieved when he found his way out through the hole in the bathroom wall after being rattled around in the hallway like a rock in a hubcap.
Ricky had just finished a transmission job on an old dodge that morning, and it seemed like as good a reason as any to celebrate with a toke and coke.
He hadn’t thought to check the weather, since he wouldn’t have another truck to work on until next week. Not that the weather hampered his schedule much anyway. The new garage he had built was a mechanic’s wet dream. And miraculously, the thing was still standing. He spotted it through the shredded trees that separated his lot from the Millers.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Lester Miller was pacing around the yard, slapping his hands on the side of his head like he was trying to conjure up a new word. Lilly watched him with glazed eyes, clutching Junior’s limp hand to her chest, while Sissy huddled in next to her.
He’d seen a lot more of Sissy lately. Lester let her take the truck in to him whenever it needed work done, which seemed to be a more common occurrence, now that the thing was on its last piston. The twister had guaranteed that the clunker wouldn’t be giving them any more trouble. Though it also wouldn’t be bringing Ricky another paycheck. A new truck would be the least of the Millers’ worries, after they managed to get Junior to a doctor anyway.
Ricky was relieved that he’d thought to pull his Jeep into the garage after the Dodge had been picked up. A light bulb flickered on in his head, and he was almost embarrassed it had taken so long. To be fair, Lester’s mantra of profanity wasn’t making for a very conducive environment.
“Well, shit fire. I could getcha inta town with my Jeep,” Ricky said, throwing a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the garage.
Lester’s panicked chanting cut off, and he spun around to face Ricky. The look on his face was a far cry from the suspicious and disapproving scowl Ricky was used to seeing on the old man.
“You’d do that?” Lester asked.
Sissy jumped up and threw her arms around Ricky’s neck. “Of course he will. Why wouldn’t he?”
Lilly pulled Junior up into a sitting position and motioned for Lester to help. The boy’s eyes were open now, but they were half crossed and didn’t seem to focus on anything for long. Lester scooped him up in his beefy arms, and they all made the long trek through the woods, back to Ricky’s garage.
The path was soft where the twister had ripped up tree roots, and the trees that had survived were split and mangled, leaning on each other like soldiers hauling one another away from a battlefield. Naked limbs were scattered everywhere, their once lush foliage now carpeted the earth. The air had grown still, with not so much as a cricket or bullfrog to fill the silence.
Ricky’s garage stood tall and proud in the empty yard his trailer had seen fit to abandon. The tin siding was hardly even scratched, and Ricky took it as a divine sign that he was too exceptional a mechanic for God to spite his livelihood. He also sent up a prayer of thanks that he hadn’t found time to wrench on his custom seventies Harley, which was safely tucked in the garage, along with the secret stash of grass he had taped behind the speaker cover on the fairing.
Ricky toed aside a limb that had fallen across the gravel drive leading up to the garage. “Just let me run in an’ grab my keys—” He frowned and glanced over at the patch of dirt where his trailer once sat. “Well, shit fire. I left ’em on the kitchen counter.”
Lilly narrowed her eyes at him. “You reckon they’re still there?”
Lester sighed and gently turned to hand Junior over to Lilly. She grunted under the boy’s weight, but cradled him carefully like a newborn. Then Lester bent over and grabbed the handle to the big metal garage door, giving it a tug, just in case Ricky hadn’t locked it in his baked state.
Ricky snorted. “I gots at least five grand worth a tools in there. Ain’t no way I’m leavin’ it open for meth-heads to rummage through.”
Lester groaned and looked like he might start slapping his head again. “This the only door?”
“No, There’s a dadgum side door, but it’s locked too.”
Lester circled around the side of the garage to take a look at the door. It was the cheap wood variety, but it had a deadbolt. He gave the doorknob a try, earning another snort from Ricky.
“I told ya.” Ricky sighed. His hero moment with Sissy felt sadly premature, and his buzz had faded into a frustrating pang of failure.
Lester’s frown deepened, pulling his jowls down into a droopy bow under his chin. He took a step back and rammed his shoulder into the door, rattling the metal building. The sound echoed out in the empty sky like thunder. On his second go, the door caved in around his shoulder, splintering a hole through the center.
Ricky’s eyes bugged out in surprise. “Those dirty bastards. That’s ’posed to be a solid door. I was ripped off!”
“Lucky you’re too dumb to tell the difference.” Lilly said, nudging past him to hand Junior back to Lester. She poked her slender arm through the hole in the door and unlocked the deadbolt and doorknob.
The inside of Ricky’s garage was dark. The storm had knocked out the power, so the Millers waited for him to trip his way over to the overhead garage door and roll it up. The saw dust he’d put down ove
r a puddle of transmission fluid swirled up in the sunlight. Sissy sneezed and fanned a hand in front of her face.
Ricky nodded at the Jeep. “Just need a second to hotwire ‘er, but you can get on in.”
Ricky almost didn’t care that his trailer was shot. The Jeep meant more to him than the rusty tin can he’d called home for the past four years. Sure, the beast wasn’t much to look at. The hood and driver’s side door didn’t quite fit right, and they were primer gray, rather than black like the rest of the body. But the 304 V8 engine he’d rebuilt sparkled like a diamond in a billy goat’s ass. That was all that really mattered.
The Jeep had been his saving grace, after his old man had kicked him to the curb when he got expelled for smoking pot. It was a CJ-7, and he’d found it at the auto salvage place just north of Ivy Mills. The vultures had already begun to pick at it, so it had been missing the hood, the driver’s side half-door, and the top.
The only thing wrong with it had been the distributor cap. Some idiot had failed to rotate it in the right direction. It was a monkey fix. He’d driven the Jeep out of there like he had just saved the Titanic. It was the proudest day of his life.
His miracle work was even impressive enough to land him a job at a dealership in town. He’d lived out of the Jeep in the back parking lot for a couple months, until the dealership went under. About that time, he found the plot of land with the trailer next door to the Millers. A good chunk of the dealership’s clientele looked him up, and after a year, he was able to build the garage. He felt pretty official now, though the IRS probably wouldn’t agree.
Lilly wedged herself into the backseat, shoving a heap of dirty shirts onto the floorboard. Sissy climbed in next her. The garage was cool, making her nipples poke through her shirt like pencil erasers. Lester caught Ricky staring and cleared his throat before setting Junior in Lilly’s lap and climbing into the front passenger seat.
“You know what you’re doing?” he grumbled.
Ricky’s ears turned red as he turned away and hunkered down under the steering wheel. “Yep. Won’t take no time at all.”
He reached under the dash and yanked the ignition wires. It only took a few seconds for him to get the engine to turn over. He twisted the wires together and then dug around in his tool chest until he found a flathead screwdriver, a hammer, and a pair of vice grips.
He poked the screwdriver into the ignition and gave it a whack with the hammer. Then he locked the vice grips around the handle of the screwdriver and gave it a hearty kick. The ignition lock snapped, releasing the steering column. Ricky tossed the tools on his workbench before climbing in and slamming the door behind him.
The trip into town was slow. They had to stop every half mile or so to move branches out of the way. There were other cars broken down in the ditch. Ricky would have normally stopped to offer his services, but one look from Lester had him biting his tongue.
When they reached the first streetlight on the edge of town, Ricky got an uneasy feeling in his gut. The tornado sirens were still wailing through the air, along with car horns, people screaming, and he wasn’t certain, but he had thought he’d heard gunshots.
A splintered telephone pole was smashed over a car just beyond the intersection, and there was smoke coming from under the hood. The smell of melting plastic and wet dog oozed up from cracks in the blacktop road.
“Try a block over,” Lester said, pointing a finger up Main Street, toward G2M, the closest thing Ivy Mills had to a Walmart.
A minute later, they were all wishing he had gone the other direction. People scampered in and out of G2M like cockroaches, their arms ripe with stolen goods that they hadn’t taken the time to drop in a grocery sack.
An old woman in a muumuu had stuffed half the cracker isle in the front of her dress. She ran barefooted down the sidewalk with the hem bunched in her tiny hands, flashing her granny panties and veiny legs for the whole world to see.
Sissy gasped. “Daddy, look!” She leaned up over the seat and pointed to the end of the block.
A Dodge Neon had made it halfway through the front window of Ivy Mills Pawn and Taxidermy. Gunshots fired, and this time Ricky was sure of it. Two men crunched through the glass on the sidewalk and climbed inside the Neon. The thing sputtered to life, and the tires squealed as they fled the scene.
“We hafta stop,” Lester said, his hand already on the door handle.
“What about Junior, Les?” Lilly squeezed the boy tight enough to rouse him, and he mumbled out a garbled protest.
Lester looked back at the boy. His forehead crinkled as he struggled through his thoughts. “Bub has a first aid kit, and I don’t think we should be goin’ much further into town until folks get their heads screwed back on tight.”
Ivy Mills Pawn and Taxidermy sat by its lonesome on a mostly empty block. It was a small brick building that had formerly been a dress boutique, a diner, and a shoe repair shop. Nothing seemed to last long on the outskirts of town, but Bub Haggers had managed to keep the place running for nearly ten years now, mostly due to his ability to make the puniest buck look like Stag of the Year on the wall. He was also the local lawn mower whisperer, but he’d left that off the sign.
Ricky pulled the Jeep up next to Bub’s RX7, and Lester hopped out before he even had time to put the thing in park. He reached over the side of the Jeep and pulled Junior out of Lilly’s lap, cradling the boy in his arms. Then Ricky helped Sissy and Lilly out of the backseat, and they all carefully followed Lester through the broken window.
Tight rows of shelves filled the store, twisting into a labyrinth of VHS movies, comic books, music boxes full of costume jewelry, baseball cards, worn sneakers, used tools, and things Ricky couldn’t even begin to guess what they might be good for. A row of dusty mounts stared down at them from the back wall: deer, rams, and a raccoon balancing on a piece of drift wood anchored across one corner. In the very center, a singing plastic fish announced their arrival.
It was just past noon, and a half-eaten tuna sandwich lay abandoned on the front counter. The register door had been left wide open and all that remained was a sad handful of change that not even a piggybank would boast. The shelf behind the register was lopsided and splattered with blood. Ricky poked his head over the counter and sucked in a ragged breath.
Bub Haggers was slumped on the floor in a puddle of his own blood. He’d been shot so many times in the chest, it almost looked like he’d given birth to one of those horror movie aliens. His dentures had popped out from the impact, and they lay atop his belly, spotted with blood and bits of tuna. One hand still clung to the .45 he clearly hadn’t reached in time.
Sissy stepped up next to Ricky and caught a glimpse before he could block her view. She slapped both hands over her mouth and moaned into them.
“You don’t need ta see this,” Ricky said, backing her up by the shoulders.
Sissy’s knees wobbled. She plopped down on a folding chair next to the freezer of sweets Bub kept stocked to entertain kids while he nickeled and dimed their parents.
Lester handed Junior to Lilly and walked around the counter to squat down next to Bub, carefully positioning himself around the puddle. He pressed his fingers through the ring of fat around the old man’s neck. Ricky was pretty sure that even if Bub still have a pulse, Lester wouldn’t be finding it that way.
More gunshots fired in the distance, and Lilly jumped. “Where’s that first aid kit, Les? We hafta get outta here.”
Lester’s hands were shaking as he pulled them away from Bub. He wiped them on his jeans and then slammed open a cabinet beneath the counter, shuffling things around until he found a rusty box with a big red cross on it. He glanced back at Bub and cringed before snatching the bloody .45 out of his hand. “Sorry, boss. But you won’t be needin’ this no more, and we might.”
Someone began screaming outside. It was cut short by more gunshots that sounded closer than the last set.
“Les?” Lilly whispered sharply, straining under Junior’s weight.
<
br /> Ricky’s head began to pound. He tried to keep a straight face for Sissy’s sake, but he found himself nervously rocking from foot to foot. Lester made his way around the counter and tucked the .45 in a front pocket before taking Junior up in his arms again. When they all stepped back through the front window, the Jeep was gone.
“No, no, no,” Ricky raked his fingers down the sides of his face as he turned in circles. He stomped and kicked the gravel, screaming at the sky.
Lilly looked like she was ready to tear him a new one. “You left it runnin’?”
“’Course I left it runnin’. I had to hotwire the damn thing to get it started!” Ricky ground his teeth together.
“Don’t be raisin’ yer voice at my wife now, boy.” Lester glared at him, but his expression quickly shifted as he looked up the road. “Back inside. I gotta think.”
“We can’t stay here. It ain’t safe,” Lilly said.
Lester waved her down. “We’re not gonna. I just need a minute.”
He ushered them all back through the broken window and began pacing in front of the counter with Junior still in his arms. Sissy shivered. She kept her distance, but her eyes kept drawing back to the counter of horror.
“Bub’s car’s out front. He’s gotta have keys ‘round here somewhere,” Ricky grumbled, still stewing over the Jeep.
Lester shook his head. “The Mazda only seats two. There’s—” he paused to count, “five of us.”
“Don’t Bub keep any old cars out back?”
Lester scratched his head. “Just the Winnebago, but it ain’t got no gas in it. I don’t even know if the thing runs. Been sittin’ back there a couple years now.”
Ricky slapped a hand on the counter. “Well, ain’t the Mazda got gas in it?” He was getting fed up with Lester’s crawling thought process. Lilly was usually the sharper tack, but she was busy fussing over Junior, whose eyes were open again.
“Where’s Ernie?” he whined.
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