Daddy's Little Girl

by William Malmborg

  “I looked them up the other day after Mom made you ask me to come with,” Tess said. “They were experts. Scientists. Not thrill seekers like all those others that go out.”

  Ramsey nodded. “The storm that hit them was an odd one. A wobbler. And it made a turn that no one expected. Several people died that day and many chasers were injured, but things like that are very rare.”

  Though he didn’t know if it played a part, storm chasing had become so popular in recent years that chasers would often find themselves caught in large back-road traffic jams as all the chasers went after the same storm. Being caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic on an unpaved farm road with nowhere to go for shelter would be a disaster and was one of the new dangers that storm chasers faced. Fortunately, such traffic jams were unlikely to happen with the storms they were chasing. They might see a couple other amateur chasers, but they would be few and far between. “We’ll be fine. Nothing to worry about.”

  With that, their food arrived, both their plates being meatless. Grilled cheese for him, a pasta dish for her.

  “I bet this eats up tons of data,” Tess said while looking at the iPad screen. “Is this all on the family plan?”

  “Yeah, but I pay Mom whenever it goes over,” Ramsey said, memories of the first time he had used his phone as a hot spot so that he could have a radar going on his old laptop returning. That bill had been quite the shock. Things were better now, the new plan his mother had gotten for the three of them providing more data than they’d had back when he first chased. Plus, he didn’t chase as often as he once had, the ugliness that had unfolded with Courtney having ruined things for quite some time.

  Courtney.

  He gave a mental sigh and pushed her from his mind.

  “See anything yet?” he asked.

  “There’s a storm southwest of us. I don’t see any hook though.”

  Ramsey could see the storm on the horizon, the cones looking like distant mountains one could spend years climbing. Every now and then a bolt of lightning would dance through the upper layers, eventually making its way down to the earth. No rumbles would follow, the distance too great for them to hear.

  “The hook will only appear just as a tornado starts to develop,” Ramsey said. “This one is firing, but it may not actually produce a tornado until it’s further north—if it does at all. We’ll watch it, but I think the ones that are just getting started in Missouri will be better.”

  “They have a warning on it.”

  “Tornado?”

  “Um…no, just a severe thunderstorm. Hail and high winds.”

  “I’m not surprised. It’s a monster, but not a supercell. Still, you wouldn’t want to get caught outside in it.”

  With that, he pulled over to the side of the road.

  “What’re we doing?” Tess asked.

  “Let’s watch it for a bit,” he said. “We’re in a good position to skirt north and then west once it passes and catch the ones that are crossing over from Missouri.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “Oh my God!” Tess said. “Is that a tornado?”

  Ramsey risked a glance in the direction she was pointing, his foot having brought the Kia to eighty miles an hour as they raced to get ahead of a storm that had just had a tornado warning issued on it, one that they were in danger of missing given a detour they had to make thanks to a farm road that had been closed.

  Sure enough, he saw a funnel reaching for the ground.

  “It is,” he said and quickly slowed the car so that they could pull over and film it.

  They weren’t in the best position, and they had missed the touchdown, which would lower the asking price on the footage if he did try to market it, but it was still a tornado, and if they caught it destroying a structure like a house or a barn, the footage would sell.

  “You got the camera?” he asked as they stopped on the shoulder.

  “Y-yeah,” she said, reaching behind the passenger seat to grab it.

  They exited the Kia.

  “It’s so calm,” Tess said, hands getting the camera ready to record.

  Ramsey didn’t reply, his hand holding his cell phone sideways, filming the storm.

  “Eerie even,” she added, tracking the tornado with the bigger, professional camera.

  Ramsey wanted to remind her to stay quiet while filming. Background commentary made the footage less appealing to the networks. But then he decided against it. This tornado, while classic looking, wasn’t going to be marketable. Local news agencies would use it if offered, and it might even make it into a broadcast about the storms in St. Louis or Chicago if no other footage was produced, but the most they could hope to achieve as far as it being valuable would be having their name credit beneath the clip.

  Someone honked at them while driving by.

  Ramsey shook his head and thought about all the expletives Courtney would have used about the honker once they were back in the car.

  Why people felt the need to lay on the horn like that always puzzled him.

  It made no sense.

  Worse, it could startle one to the point of dropping the camera. Such had never happened to him and Courtney, but they had known chasers who had lost cameras because of it, ones who sometimes had to call it quits for the day because they didn’t have a backup, or because they were so distraught about the cost they couldn’t focus on the chase.

  Fifteen minutes later, the two were heading north, Ramsey having pinpointed what he felt would be a great position for the storms that had developed in Missouri and were now bearing down on the central Illinois area.

  “It didn’t sound like a freight train,” Tess said, eyes on the fold-down mirror, fixing her hair.

  “What?” he asked.

  “The tornado. Everyone always says it will sound like a freight train, but it was completely silent.”

  “Well, we were a couple miles away. When it’s bearing down on you, things are different.”

  Tess didn’t reply to this right away and when she did, it was with a statement about how she wondered if the storm chasers who were killed had noticed the freight train sound.

  Ramsey considered this. “They probably were too terrified to really think about anything other than getting away as it shifted toward them.”

  “Did you know when Mount St. Helens blew, people in town didn’t hear it because the blast was so powerful it actually knocked the sound waves up into the atmosphere rather than directing them at the town.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” he asked, risking a glance over to her.

  “My science course.”

  “Seriously?”

  “You know,” she said, slapping the visor mirror closed, “despite what you and Mom think, I do actually pay attention during my classes.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You had a tone.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You did.”

  “Okay, if I did, I’m sorry. It was not intended.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Tess, I’m serious—fuck!”

  A car was racing up upon them, the lights on top of it flashing.

  “Did you know, despite all the media hype on the shootings of police officers, the most dangerous part of the job of a law enforcement officer is the traffic stop?” Tess noted.

  “Which class was that one?” he asked.

  She gave him a look, arms folded. “I’m just saying, it’s pretty dangerous for them to be walking around on the road like that.”

  “Then maybe they should stop pulling people over,” Ramsey said, bitterness present. He had gotten a speeding ticket. His first ever. Even worse, he didn’t think they were going to catch the storm that was bearing down on an area north of them, one that had several warnings issued on it given how dangerous it was looking on radar.

  “Tickets are an important part of the revenue for the various jurisdictions. People would also get upset if there were no stops, though they don’t like being stopped themselve
s, because everyone feels it makes things safer. Statistically, it doesn’t, but the implication that it does is all that people care about.”

  Ramsey didn’t reply to that.

  “And you were lucky,” she added.

  “How so?”

  “At the speed you were going, she could have added reckless driving to the ticket, and then you would have had to appear in court. And I’m not certain, but you might not have been allowed to drive after that, which wouldn’t be good, since, well…”

  Ramsey hadn’t considered it, but now that Tess had brought it up, he realized that such a situation would have been a disaster since Tess didn’t have her driver’s license, their mother having taken it away several days earlier after she had been at a party where booze had been consumed by several underage participants. Not by Tess though. In fact, she had taken keys and driven her drunk friends home, but angry mothers had conferenced about the situation and extracted statements from their own daughters that implicated Tess as having been drinking the most of anyone, and the next thing she knew, their mother had confiscated her driver’s license and car keys.

  Tess was also grounded, which, in her words, was total bullshit!

  But such was life.

  “I don’t think we’re going to catch this storm,” she said, her focus back on their task.

  “We’re almost there.”

  “You said that it’s best to be in front of it.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “With the speed it’s moving at and the distance we still need to go, we will reach the area just as it reaches it too, and that could be dangerous.”

  “I think we’ll be okay,” he said.

  Tess didn’t reply.

  They weren’t going to make it.

  He knew she was right.

  Even so, he was going to try, mostly because the storm was bearing down on a small farming town, and if they couldn’t get footage of the tornadoes, maybe they could get footage of the destruction. Such footage was marketable, though not in the same way that tornadoes were, and while the storm-chasing community frowned upon marketing such footage, he would do it anyway.

  Memories of Courtney unfolded and the fight that had ended their friendship.

  He had gotten footage of a body, a teenager, her legs sticking out from the rubble of a house that had been destroyed.

  It had looked nothing like the scene from The Wizard of Oz, part of the right leg having been ripped open, bone exposed, but he had made a comment about ruby slippers anyway, and then, despite her telling him not to, had uploaded the footage online knowing it would bring attention to their site.

  Bring attention it did, but not in a good way.

  They were ousted from the storm-chasing community, which then led to him being ousted from Courtney’s life.

  Oops.

  “You have the camera ready?” he asked a few minutes later, the storm looming to the left as they neared the town.

  “Yes,” Tess said.

  “Good, because we are going to be cutting it close.”

  “Too close,” Tess said.

  Ramsey didn’t reply.

  A hailstone hit the windshield with a cracking sound that caused Tess to shout.

  Ramsey was startled as well, but kept his foot on the gas.

  Another stone hit, causing the passenger side of the glass to spiderweb.

  “Fuck!” he snapped.

  “The bridge,” Tess shouted.

  He saw it.

  It was about a mile ahead of them.

  More hail was falling, and while he couldn’t tell exactly how big the stones were, he knew they were large enough to cause serious injury should someone be caught out in them. He also knew the car was going to be a mess.

  Another stone hit the windshield, causing a second spiderweb before they made it to the overpass.

  Shortly after that, they heard tornado sirens echoing from the town up ahead, one that was about two miles from them if the big blue sign beyond the overpass was correct.

  “Are we safe here,” Tess asked.

  “Yes,” he lied.

  Despite what many people thought, being under a bridge was not a safe place to be if a tornado came down upon them because it would act as a funnel for all the debris the tornado would be throwing around. Instead, finding a drainage tunnel that went beneath the sides of the bridge would be ideal, just as long as they weren’t flooded. Failing that, dropping into the drainage ditch itself would be the best option.

  Beyond the bridge, hail bombarded the land.

  Ramsey opened his car door.

  “Are we filming this?” Tess asked.

  “Nah, I just want to get a better look.”

  Tess did not reply to that and stayed in the car while he approached the edge of the underpass, the sound of the hailstones crashing down echoing within the concrete structure. It was so loud he could barely hear the sirens in the distance.

  A stone bounced toward him, settling near his foot.

  It was the size of a Ping-Pong ball.

  He picked it up and snapped a picture with his cell phone.

  “Ramsey!”

  He turned.

  Tess was halfway between him and the car, shouting his name.

  Behind him the hail started to slow.

  “Yeah?” he asked.

  “I saw a hook,” she said, concern present.

  “A hook?” he asked, momentarily confused. Then he understood. “I’m not surprised. The sirens are going off in the town.”

  “No, just now, a new hook.”

  The hail stopped.

  “Where?” he asked and then, sensing something, “Oh shit!”

  On cue, a heavy rumble filled the air.

  Freight train!

  Beyond the bridge, the wind started to pick up, grass, crops, and other pieces of debris flying by.

  “What do we do?” Tess shouted, voice barely audible.

  Ramsey looked up at the concrete girders near the top angle of the bridge structure, memories of watching footage from the nineties of a TV news crew and a family that sought shelter behind such structures appearing within his head. As a kid, while watching the clip over and over again on his VHS tornado tape, he had desired to experience such a thing. Now he wanted to be anywhere but where they were.

  “Ramsey!” Tess screamed.

  “Come on!” he shouted and grabbed her hand.

  As expected, there was a ditch alongside the road, one that had a tunnel that passed beneath the bridge.

  He guided her toward it, Tess screaming something that he couldn’t understand given the wind.

  “Get in!”

  She did, though most likely it wasn’t due to his words, but simple common sense when she saw the opening.

  He followed.

  Inch by inch, foot by foot, Tess worked her way to the center of the tunnel, Ramsey right behind her.

  It felt very confining, the sensation made worse for him given that Tess’s body was blocking the light at the end.

  Panic started to work its way into his system.

  He took a deep breath.

  Beyond the tunnel the roar of the tornado became deafening, yet amazingly, Ramsey couldn’t feel any wind. Not even a trickle. They were safe. And as long as nothing ended up blocking both tunnel ends, they would be fine.

  “It’s not so bad,” Tess said.

  Ramsey looked from the car to her and then back to the car.

  “I mean, it’s still going to be drivable, right?” she added.

  Ramsey didn’t reply. Couldn’t reply. All he could do was stare at the car, one that he had bought brand new last year. One that only had ten thousand miles on it. The windshield was completely gone, as was a wiper. It had also lost its passenger-side window and mirror, and the back windshield had a hole through it.

  He opened the driver-side door.

  Glass spilled out onto the pavement.

  “I bet it was a fence post,” Tess said.

  “What?”<
br />
  “That went through the windshield.” She hesitated, studying the car. “Actually, it probably went through the back window first and came out the front.”

  Ramsey simply nodded.

  “Whoa!” Tess shouted. “Look.”

  Ramsey followed her finger.

  The large blue sign that announced the exit ahead was mangled, the metal having been twisted around and crushed in such a way that some might view as artwork, had a famous sculptor designed it. Ramsey did not. He viewed it as a testament to how lucky they had been.

  Get a picture.

  He did, the storm-chaser side of him kicking into gear, his phone documenting the aftermath of the twister.

  And then Tess was at his side, video camera in hand.

  “It still works?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “And there isn’t a scratch on it.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “You were right.”

  “About what?”

  “About how crazy tornadoes can be. Didn’t you say you’ve heard stories about how houses would be destroyed, but then they would find a carton of unbroken eggs from the same house a mile away? Or that people have been pulled from houses and set down in fields without a scratch on them.”

  “Yeah, there are stories like that.”

  “Well, this camera can now be a part of all that.”

  Ramsey nodded, though honestly, he didn’t think that a camera surviving inside a car that had something fly through the windshield was as remarkable as a carton of eggs being carried a mile and set down unbroken. Had the car been picked up and thrown a mile with the camera going unscratched, then that would be something.

  “Shit.”

  “Is it live?” Tess asked.

  “Only one way to find out, go touch it.”

  Tess glared at him.

  “We’ll have to find another way into town.”

  “There was a road back there,” Tess said.

  “Yeah?” Ramsey questioned, head twisted back toward the rear window, eyes looking straight through the hole as he made a three-point turn. “Well, let’s try that and see where it goes.”