Hold the Light

by Ryan Sherwood

  "Where is everybody?" Betsy's sweet voice asked. "They should be back by now."

  "I don't know, Betsy, but they'll be home soon. I'm sure of it."

  The radio hissed and screamed out one more blurt and then trailed off as it died.

  Chapter 14

  Every bone in Randy's body shivered with the gale's omen. He sensed grief in his heart and let Betsy in on none of it.

  "They must have been held up, sweetie. It's a long trip to the market, no matter what the weather."

  Betsy pulled on Randy's pant leg with a wan smile her response and sat on the doorstep. Randy turned down to her with a smile. Watching storms together had been something they both enjoyed, though Randy had another intuition completely with this one. But Betsy had worked up her courage this time and her love for the colors and the sounds keep her watching, but only if he was around. Randy loved being so close to his little sister; it made him feel important in times where many people got lost in the mix.

  The storm pounded harder towards them and thunder ran up the road. Wait, up the road?

  A deafening roar rumbled the gravel as the sky raged out of control, dropping a black spout just over the horizon. Every cloud merged and savagely attacked the ground. The force pounded gaping craters and heaved anything and everything into the funnel cloud.

  Randy instinctively pounced and scooped up Betsy in his arms, ready to run. The debris sped off in every direction through the air, swirling madly about like angry missiles. Barns half a mile away burst into red splinters and the scythes and plows within scurried around the sky. Everything that was supposed to be grounded was airborne.

  Betsy clutched Randy's neck with each new thunderous boom that approached. He began to shake.

  "Where are they? This isn't right," Randy questioned.

  The longer the family was gone, the worse their chances of survival were. The entire world seemed to be toppling its contents on their town and it all headed straight for their house. Helpless and fearful, Randy's options quickly ran out until his father, mother, and two brothers raced into sight at full gallop. A crowd of stampeding horses followed right behind them in a rout of wild brown fear. Randy cradled Betsy tighter, reciting every prayer he could remember, as he watched his family try to out race the stampede.

  The rush of horses kicked up dirt from one direction and the tornado did the same from the opposite. Randy could barely see both but knew, deep in his fearful heart that the two promised to collide.

  Father yelled muted orders from the distance, but Randy couldn't move a bone in his body even if he heard. He frantically prayed, above Betsy's sweet smelling head, hastily speaking anything he could for his family to outrun the stampede before the oncoming twister beat them home.

  More portions of the town lifted into the air, piece by piece, until everything that Randy had ever seen in his whole young life was ripped apart. The Williams' black Ford pickup blew into view, hovering in the air like a big black witch, growing closer and closer until it crash landed fifty yards away, spouting into flames. The explosion warmed his face. The model T split into pieces and rained shrapnel for miles, leaving a scorched block in the road. The blaze forced Randy's arm into action and they stuffed his petrified sister into the house. She immediately sneaked behind the big picture window and watched over Randy's shoulder. Their family was riding low, racing even harder to get to the house, all of them barely galloping ahead of the storm and the stampede.

  "Stay put right there, Betsy, and keep your head down!"

  She made no acknowledgement; she just stared. Randy stood by the door, waiting to let them all in the house. They had to do this precisely and together to make it. But the thought was a curse.

  The twister barreled down and spit a terrible gust that knocked his brother John's horse off balance. The wind was insurmountable and he crashed into his mother's horse, sending them both into a trampled cloud of dust and twisted limbs. Randy reach out, it all happened so fast. Randy could barely see them topple and couldn't hear much over the clamor of the storm. But he did hear something close to screams as the horses following them stampeded over where they fell.

  Randy closed his eyes and looked away, holding his head in his hands. Tears welled in his eyes and his blood burned with anger and despair. He tried not to look up but snuck a peak out of the corner of his eye and saw Betsy watching out of the window. Randy blinked away tears and turned to shout to his family.

  Father and his oldest brother hadn't the slightest idea what had unfolded behind them and couldn't understand Randy's screams. Betsy watched all the horror from the window with tears in her eyes. The two remaining family members soared across the grass, racing towards the house as the black wall of clouds solidified into a dome over the entire sky. The entire world. It looked like Death had come for his entire family. More and more objects weightlessly populated the air: cars, barns, hay, and houses swirled about aimlessly. But something about them didn't look that aimless to Randy.

  Father came into clear view and saw Randy yelling at him. Realizing that his son was agitated over something behind him, he turned his head to see that their numbers were cut in half. Father prepared to rear the horse around and go back for them when a nearby floating bale of hay burst and shot its thin yellow strands through the air like gunfire. Every horse became pincushions.

  Randy leapt forward, cursing the world, God and everything to exist with a humble hand outstretched to help. He knew the shit in the air wasn't so goddamned aimless, he damn well knew they were gunning for his family. A hail of hay bullets grazed Randy's arm and stuck into the siding of the house. The blow knocked him against the doorframe.

  Panic began to filter into Randy's mind. God was taking his family! With tears in his eyes and pain in his heart, Randy frantically pried out the deep hay bristles protruding from his injured arm and threw them away. He took one enraged step forward to face down this storm on his own, pain and fear lighting his heart aflame. But one step into bravery was all he was allowed.

  The horses and remaining family members writhed under the same piercing hay bullets. Another gust that carried a pitchfork punched into the eldest brother's chest and rocketed off beyond the trees in a blink of an eye. Father screamed inaudibly when a gust plucked him from his horse and launched him into the front of his own house, nearly into the picture window.

  The impact cracked the glass. Betsy huddled in tears. His body crumpled up like wadded paper against the wood paneling.

  "Father!" Randy yelled from the doorway mere feet away, reaching out his bloody arm.

  The old man was pressed flat by the gale, his tears the only thing in motion. Randy inched against the pressing wind, yelling louder as the storm grew angrier, drowning out all his cries. Father made no movements as the twister roared its way onto lawn, less than fifty yards away. Coming with it was the neighbor's barn, the largest barn in the county, and the wooden heap was aimed right at them. Another goddamned direct shot! Randy saw it coming and cursed it. The twister gusted at him in a high-pitched snicker. Randy swore he knew that was God laughing at him.

  His father was ten feet away - just ten damned felt away. You already took the rest! Just leave me him, that's all I ask!

  But there was no one to act on his pleas beyond himself. He had to reach him. He had to save his father. But it one moment all the weight of decision, the burden of choosing life for one and death for another met Randy with a flat and hard blow.

  The barn came down.

  Randy reached harder for his father, digging deep for any and all strength he might have while eyeballing the coming barn. Dammit! I can save him, too! Don't make me do this...

  But, in a matter of a few seconds, as he heard his father's stiff and commanding voice in his head, Randy let his entire childhood die. He listened to reason and his parent and he realized which life he had to save.

  "I'm sorry," Randy said, speaking kindly to his father and slid back to the door.

  His father made no movements
and heard nothing yet Randy swore there was a smirk in the corner of his mouth.

  Pulling himself into the house, he grabbed Betsy by the back of her dress in mid-stride and darted out the back door for the only place he knew to go, the cellar. He couldn't allow any other thoughts beyond saving her or else he'd collapse into tears.

  The sky was an ocean of undulating yellows and blacks as it swallowed all the trees lining the property. Holding his sister as he broke into the backyard, Randy raced to a pair of steel doors, ripped them open. Randy prayed that his Father wouldn't feel any pain.

  Everything went quiet; the creak of the ancient cellar doors was all Randy could hear as he scrambled into the small crack he had opened.

  Then the barn landed. It barreled down so fast Randy barely got the cellar door closed behind them. The two remaining remnants of his family tumbled down the cement stairs; Betsy balled under Randy's body, shielded from the hard cement stairs that crushed his kneecap. The world was truly ending above them. A freight train was rumbling through the house, tearing away the shack above them, along with their father.

  The metal doors shook and heaved. The cement walls of the cellar looked so damned old they threatened to crumble. Every violent wind insisted on coming inside for them. It pounded and screamed for them, even roared their names Betsy swore. Death barreled down with all its might. Betsy whimpered and Randy held her tighter. His hatred had reached the highest point he could ever imagine. He'd be damned if this fucking storm was going to get the rest of them. No goddamned way! God wasn't going to get away with them all.

  Crying in Randy's arms, Betsy pleaded for Mother.

  "She only fell," she said, locked up in his unyielding grasp, "We have to go up there and save them."

  "Shhh, Betsy. Just hold still."

  The old rickety cellar doors banged harder against their hinges, wind screaming death from above. Randy raged back, screaming and cursing in the dampness, tearing mixing with rain, hating God for His hand in this. He would never forget this, especially with the new pulsing pain in his knee that wrenched into him a constant reminder.

  A glacier of time passed over the cellar doors. Rain seeped in slowly and pelted their heads. Shivering in the dank cobwebbed prison, their pain slowly grew with each drop that soaked their hair and slid down their noses.

  Hours after the twister had passed, Randy slowly uncurled and released Betsy. She fought him every inch, but he calmed her with kisses on the forehead and strokes through her hair. He limped to the cellar doors. They hadn't pounded for hours, but the outside would never feel safe again.

  Randy heaved open the doors and into the dead calm he limped. He stood before wreckage that spanned all his comprehension. His world was gone.

  Betsy carefully crept from behind and gently took his right hand. Softly and sweetly, big brother and little sister stood over the twisted pile of plywood that used to be their house. Hands locked together, both their eyes processing the proof of their old life's destruction, neither of them thought once to cry. They couldn't remember how to any more.

  A yellow and purple sky broke through the black clouds, pushing beauty back into the picture. Their lean shadows spread out like bat wings across the tangled mountain of debris. Randy knew right then that they were alone.

  Chapter 15

  It had been years, a decade, maybe more, since God had orphaned Randy and Betsy. He hadn't been able to come back to the Midwest, let alone the lot where they used to live, but work was impossible to find and he, like millions of others, would do anything for a job. Roosevelt started the program and if the government could keep it going, Randy could stay with the WPA for a while, even if they had him come back home again.

  After the blaring heat of a Tuesday, late in the afternoon after work, Randy hitched a ride in the back of a truck traveling to the next town, a mere mile away from where his youth and family died.

  "Thanks," Randy said hopping out of the back of the truck.

  The truck sped away. A dust cloud from the spinning tires enveloped him. The sky grew dark. The space around Randy closed in on his head. A pounding rumbled under his feet and in his ears. He spun around looking for horses, but only the sound came closer. He began to run. His muscles tensed and his eyes grew wild, but no matter how fast he ran, the dust cloud seemed to close in tighter, strangling him harder with every step he took. The thundering hooves were so near that his ears and eyes throbbed. Dust spun about, debris stabbed his skin and invaded his eyes, all twisting into a funnel around him. Falling to his knees and whimpering, he covered his head and cried for his mother and brothers, cursing God and his life. The sounds trampled on his heart. His family was dying again in his head. He saw bodies strewn along the fallen timber. Over and over his family tumbled and bled, crying out for Randy to save them, as their outstretched limbs fell to the dirt. The heavens screamed out and the world settled on his shoulders.

  Then there was silence. Dead calm covered the land as pain pulsed in his right knee. His ears very slowly realized the rumble of a train rumbling in the distance. He slowly raised, knees crunching against the gravel, as he looked around for movement but saw none. Randy patted his body down and dust busted out all around. Running his hand through his dirty hair, Randy stood and jogged down the path towards his old home.

  It was a beautiful evening. Warm colors splotched the sky resting between dark blue and black clouds, but all he could see was a hazy wall of a black storm approaching from the past. He knew this would happen, but Randy was a man, just turned twenty-three, and he had to face up to the dread. A decade had to be enough time to come back.

  The wind shook the trees lining the dirt road. They were newly planted evergreens that replaced the lost maples, but there were a couple of old trees still mixed in the bunch; enduring and out of place like him and Betsy.

  Randy pushed on, kicking up gravel as he strolled, until he reached their old lot. A new house proudly adorned the sea of grass. He questioned his memory, but recalled the distance and the landmarks. The two story chicken coop about a half-mile from their old house still squawked and spit feathers and the old buried wagon wheel at the intersection of their road still stirred memories of market trips. The smell of summer was the same but amplified; aromas that were once buried now flourished with life. Sparkles shone off the pond in the back, still visible from the road, as the setting sun behind it yawned. Almost everything was the same, including the brick houses and horse ranch across the street. Not much had changed, except for everything.

  Randy stood dead still, heels on the road and toes in the grass, half-waiting for something to happen. The cool appeal of the grass shuffled his feet towards the house without his command and before he knew it, he was almost in front of his childhood home. The new residents had a bigger house than their old one, more of a home than a shack, but it still floated in the lake of grass, almost bobbing in the same spot laboriously. It sported a different color and style, but they still had a big picture window with a little blonde girl behind it. She gazed at Randy, scanning him up and down indifferently, wondering if he was just another transient. He wondered if she was even real. But she responded to his smile with a giggle and ran off with a wave.

  That was all Randy needed to see to leave his past behind him. He headed back with his hands in his pockets, whistling and knowing he had to get a hold of Betsy. It had been too long since he last saw her, he had stayed away too long, but she and her husband had plenty on their minds with their third baby coming shortly. He made sure to be in Boston when she was wed at nineteen, and he would be damned if he was going to miss any more nephews or nieces. Someone had to be her family and wherever she was, was home.

  Though he was envious of her family and steady life, that wasn't his course. He never wanted the responsibility; he needed to roam about and see the world, but settling for the nation as of late. He wanted to join the navy, but his bum knee stood in the way. Everything seemed to stand in the way. Every time a huge storm would come though, his
knee ached and ceased to function properly, whether it was out of remembrance or actually physiology he couldn't know, but he couldn't help but think if the next storm was the one that would finally take him.

  Randy walked back through the countryside and back to camp. The small clusters of temporary houses he and his fellow workers lived in were dark. Long shadows emerged from the bottoms of huge trees, jabbing across the fields like serrated teeth over his past. The moon was ghostly and illuminated a white object that grabbed Randy's attention.

  He warily approached the white letter that sat snugly in his mail slot, curiously staring at it. Only Betsy knew his whereabouts and the letters she wrote appeared every Friday.

  "Hell, she's practically the only person that knows I even exist."

  Hurriedly tearing open the letter, he sat in the grass, ignoring all the poverty surrounding him as he unfolded the note.