Vortex

by Kimberly Packard

  She sighed. “Just this one, Nim. Okay?”

  He chuffed and fidgeted, but finally thumped his tail. His brown Lab eyes said he understood.

  With her dog back in the room, Elaina rejoined the group.

  The temperature seemed to have jumped several degrees with sun’s climb to mid-morning.

  The Forecast Channel vehicles were gone. Many of the other cars with the tell-tale ham radio antennas and storm chasing bumper stickers were also missing.

  Only a few stragglers and Tuck’s Tours remained.

  “Biscuit and I will drive the vans; you kids follow in your own. I’ll pull over when I’ve got these guys in good position, but I’ll show you guys where you should go.”

  Heath hopped behind the wheel and Elaina balanced the computer on her lap, toggling the screen between computer models and GPS.

  The radio crackled between them, picking up chatter from several chaser groups. A collective excitement mixed with apprehension of what was sure to be a busy day.

  He pulled out, following the two maroon vans north on the interstate.

  The number of cars heading toward the boundary outnumbered those heading away from it. This was definitely the breakout of the season.

  “You and Seth disappeared pretty early last night,” her friend said, not taking his eyes off the road.

  Rather than look at him, she watched the fields flash by her window. Corn gave way to wheat, which gave way to something low to the ground, vivid green smearing across her vision.

  When the plants turned to cows, she finally answered him. “Tequila makes bad decisions look like good ideas.”

  Heath laughed. “I saw him walk up to your room this morning, not out of it, so you didn’t make that bad of a decision.”

  Elaina went back to studying the models, constantly refreshing the screen in hopes that, with the click of a button, the storms would fire up, they could get their final data points so she could get back to her dog.

  Maybe run into Seth along the way, although she hated that idea.

  Didn’t she?

  “Moment of weakness,” she said, flipping over to check the barometric pressure. It was sinking but not fast enough.

  Tuck’s vans veered to the right, taking a rutted out dirt road on two wheels.

  “What’s he doing?” Heath mumbled under his breath. “In all fairness, Seth seems like a good guy.”

  “Yeah, and porcupines seem all nice and cuddly until they get their panties in a wad.”

  “Are you talking about him or you?” Her partner ducked as she tossed a week-old, dehydrated French fry in his direction.

  Heath was right. Seth was a good guy. Her partner managed his relationship while always being at the beck and call of the storms. She could as well. And, it wouldn’t necessarily mean that she and Seth wouldn’t see each other. They’d chase the same storms.

  Unless having him in the field was the same distraction as Nimbus.

  Her heart sank where the barometric pressure refused to go. Was her dog worried about her? Was he as uncomfortable with her being in the field without him as she was leaving him behind?

  She shook her head and went back to watching the radar, willing her mind to push out thoughts of the reporter and her dog with each update.

  After another forty-five minutes, the vans ahead of them slowed, pulling off onto an intersecting dirt road.

  Heath pulled up next to the lead van and Elaina rolled down the window.

  Tuck leaned one elbow on her window, his eyes looking out on the open, flat landscape in front of them. The toothpick in his mouth flickered back and forth. “Well, this is as far as we go, but if you kids drive east for another ten miles, then hang a left, go north a bit, that should put you right where the hook will form. From there, the chase is on.” He took his eyes off the horizon and looked into their van, glancing at Heath, but anchoring his gaze on Elaina. His forehead creased. “But stay in constant radio contact. This storm’s a brute. I’m expecting multiple touchdowns.”

  If she’d been driving, she would’ve floored the gas pedal, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake. She’d never been more ready for a storm system to fire up. “Got it.” Her words came out in breathless excitement. “See you on the other side.”

  Elaina started to roll up the window, but Tuck covered the button with his fingers. “I mean it, kiddo. Focus. Stay aware and keep an eye on each other.” The icy honesty in his voice cooled her fiery anticipation.

  She nodded. “Always.”

  Heath followed the older man’s instructions. The clouds thickened and sagged toward the ground. Thick raindrops thudded against the windshield. Not a consistent rainfall, but random, as if the clouds held tight to their moisture, but a few drops escaped.

  The world around them darkened.

  Nightfall in the middle of the daytime.

  “We finally set a date,” Heath said, navigating around ruts in the road. His already pale knuckles were alabaster against the black steering wheel. “July first.”

  Lightning fractured across the sky in front of them.

  “Something small at Chloe’s parents’ house. You should bring Seth,” he added.

  Elaina only half-listened to her friend. She watched the radar on the screen, the patches of red and purple swirled on the computer to match what churned ahead of them.

  The clouds ripened to a gray-green hue. At the next pass of the computer radar, a dimple formed in the boundary, the first sign of the hook.

  “Ha,” she said, as if catching a naughty rabbit. “Hook forming, if we can get another mile or so up the road we should be in perfect position.”

  The wind was already kicking up, whipping the van left and then right.

  She looked behind them in her side mirror. No other cars followed. As Tuck had promised, they were in prime position and it was all theirs.

  “You kids seeing the wall lowering?” Tuck asked through the radio.

  Her face cracked into a wide smile and she ducked her head down, trying to get a look at the circulating clouds above them. “This is fantastic. We should have ground truth in just a few minutes,” she said into the radio.

  The radio crackled with static at a shot of lightning. “Remember what I said. Y’all take care out there. Have fun.”

  Heath pulled the van off the road near a windmill back-bending to the ground. The only other structure was an old house being consumed by a thick vine.

  They set to work, in tandem, dropping probes and checking their computers.

  The air shifted and Elaina’s eardrums popped, a flash of pain making her pause and look over her shoulder.

  The tail of this tornado slammed into the ground with self-assured force. Even at a couple of miles away, it was a monstrous size, possibly emerging as an EF3 before picking up steam from the ground.

  She stood, enchanted by the twister.

  It wasn’t a dancer; it wasn’t lithe and couldn’t skip around the empty fields in front of them. This one was stout, a sumo wrestler of a storm. Staking its claim on the land with one thudding stomp.

  The air around her darkened more, as if the funnel cloud had sucked up even the daylight.

  She walked toward it.

  Shouts of her name competed with the roar of the storm, but the tornado lured her. Come closer, it said. I have secrets that no one else can tell you. I know where you came from. I can tell you where you’re going.

  Elaina closed her eyes against the stinging wind. When she opened them, it was night. She was running down a rain-soaked street. The streetlights overhead sparked with electrical bursts, but still stood upright.

  Fear flooded her small body, but was she afraid of the storm, or… No, it was something else, she had to get help.

  Her mommy was sick.

  She gasped. Not Connie.

  Mommy. A raven-haired woman.

  Her lungs seized and Elaina doubled over.

  The tornado in front of her tugged at her, yanked her back into present day, threa
tened to suck her into oblivion. This was the first time she’d remembered her mother.

  Her real mom. Maybe if she got a little closer…

  She stood again, but Heath’s shouts sliced into her flashback.

  “Elaina, it’s turning! We have to go.”

  She could barely see his face as thick sheets of debris-filled rain swept across the plain between them.

  The driver’s side door of the van was open, the windshield wipers working overtime but rain still enveloped the vehicle.

  The tornado tugged at her.

  Elaina looked back over her shoulder, the vortex of the giant swelled even more as it sped toward her. Getting out of its clutches was going to be tough.

  She glanced back at Heath. Her gaze caught a thin, rope tornado slinking down from the sky behind him. Like a snake, it slithered up, down, left and right before finally settling on touching down. When it did, it hesitated, getting its land legs before racing toward the old windmill.

  Toward her friend.

  “Heath!” Elaina shouted, but the pressure stole her breath and she was barely able to hear herself over the roar of the dueling storms. “Get down!” She gestured with her arms, hoping he’d see instead of hear her, but his attention was absorbed by the beast behind her, not the villain sneaking up on him.

  The rope twister hit the windmill at its base, and the dilapidated structure exploded. Thin rods of wood shot out in every direction.

  Something hit between the shoulder blades. What little air she had in her lungs fled and she fell face first on the ground. Elaina tried to get up, but an unseen force pinned her to soggy earth.

  She must’ve passed out.

  What felt like seconds later, she was able to lift her head, to push upright.

  The rope tornado was gone, the monster lumbered off to the south.

  Above her blue sky shoved aside the gray and the sun warmed her soaking wet body.

  Elaina winced as she stood, reaching one arm back to see if she was bleeding on the back of her head.

  The old farmhouse was gone. The vine, boards and foundation whisked away somewhere else. The windmill looked like matchsticks scattered across the ground. Except one...

  “Heath!” She sprinted to her friend. “Heath, oh my God.”

  He was pitched forward, his hands gripping a bloody beam that’d impaled him through his stomach, like a javelin stuck in the ground.

  His whole body shook.

  Her partner’s face wasn’t just pale, it was a grayish-yellow and blood dribbled from one corner of his mouth.

  Elaina skidded to a stop, wanting to reach out to him, but afraid to touch him, afraid to cause him more pain. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. Sweetie, stop, don’t move.”

  Heath was trying to get his feet under him, tugging at the wood. “I’ve gotta pull it out, once I pull it out I’ll be fine.” His pupils were dilated, his words slurred together.

  “No, stay still.” She wanted to put pressure on his wound, but blood flowed out of him like a river bursting through a dam. “You’re losing a lot of blood. Let me radio Tuck.”

  It was then he stopped moving. As if her acknowledgement of blood awakened in him the direness of his situation.

  He let go of the wood and looked at his hands. A wet cough rattled his lungs, flinging bloody spittle on Elaina. “Shit. This is bad.”

  “Yeah, it is, don’t move, I’ll get help.”

  He grabbed her wrist. The blood on his palm was warm, but his hand was icy beneath. “No, too late.” His words came in gasps. “Stay. With me.”

  A sob burst from her lungs, but she held it back, not letting it out. Elaina nodded, but Heath couldn’t see her, his gaze was now fixed on some spot in front of him.

  Something only he could see.

  “She’s going to be beautiful.” Peace coated his words. Acceptance. “The most beautiful bride.”

  The shaking stopped first.

  Then his back stopped lifting with each pained inhale. Finally, his body went slack, draping over the stick.

  As if in solidarity with her dead friend, Elaina’s lungs refused to work; resisting air until her vision grew fuzzy and she had no choice but to take a deep, painful breath.

  Her hands were numb, her legs weak, her brain unable to think. Her heart…shattered.

  “Elaina, Heath, check in. Over… Elaina, Heath, check in… Where are you kids? Over.” At first Tuck’s voice over the radio sounded like white noise. It was only when he was shouting that she jolted back to reality.

  “Tuck,” her words came out hoarse. Hollow. “Tuck, there’s been an accident. Heath’s—” She couldn’t say it. He’d know soon enough.

  “Are you okay?” His panic was palpable.

  “Yeah, I think—”

  What did it matter? Her best friend was dead. He’d never see the beautiful bride Heath had see in his dying breath.

  “Elaina, I’m so sorry.”

  “I-uh, I don’t know what—”

  Tuck cut her off again. “Kiddo, the motel was hit.”

  37

  Tuck had never seen someone so torn in half. Not just Heath, although that poor kid was skewered like a shish kebab.

  When he’d finally made it to Elaina, she clutched her stomach while pacing in front of her friend’s dead body. Her small fist tugged at her T-shirt, as if she were trying to rip herself in two. Half of her would stay with Heath until the authorities arrived, the other wanted to race to the motel to find her dog.

  He’d had no clue this storm would turn out to be such a son of a bitch.

  From his vantage point, the giant wedge had touched down roughly where Tuck had told them to set up. It’d touched down as a fiend and grew into a devil.

  It was when he’d seen the rope tornado touching down around them that he’d nearly swallowed his toothpick. If they’d listened to him, if they were where he’d told them to be, they’d be boxed in.

  When Tuck parked his van behind their ruined vehicle, he could hear the wailing sirens growing louder.

  “Heath. Nim.” Elaina’s words came out in breathless gasps. Her face was wet, eyes bloodshot and unfocused. “Heath’s…I can’t lose Nim, too.” She covered her mouth with the back of her hand and doubled over.

  Tuck shuddered. Her pain radiated from every pore of her body. Threatened to infect him. To infiltrate his body like a virus, spreading in his blood, settling in his heart. The result would be disastrous.

  He hadn’t given a shit about anyone in decades.

  Starting now would send his body into shock.

  “Listen, kiddo.” He gripped her shoulders hard to get her attention, but still gently enough to not leave any marks. Mostly on him. “Heathcliff knew the risks. We all do. Stuff’s flying from all directions and sadly, shit happens.”

  She shook her head and backed out of his grip. “That’s not—” Elaina looked out over the now empty field. Her forest green eyes focused on something out of his reach.

  The ambulance emerged on the horizon, the Sheriff’s car followed. Both had their lights going, but had cuts their sirens once they’d turned off the main road. They knew this was no emergency.

  Tuck pulled away from Elaina. He’d let her talk to the authorities. Even if he was doing nothing wrong, cops seemed to sniff guilt on him. Like he wore eau de low-life or something.

  The stick that’d impaled Heath had to be about seven feet long. The end stuck into the ground was splintered, sharp. It was probably better for the kid to have been pierced with the sharp end than the blunt side. He’d been struck mid-back, and it emerged from his stomach in the O of his Tuck’s Tours T-shirt. Bull’s eye.

  Blood dripped down the spike in thick, dark dribbles. His glasses were askew, but it didn’t matter, his unseeing eyes were focused on something on the ground in front of him. The young man’s usually pale skin was even whiter, except for his chin which was covered in rivulets of blood.

  He’d had seen a lot of messed up stuff in the field, but this was t
he most messed up of them all.

  The mechanical chattering of the radio broke the silence. No one was in a hurry to get out of their vehicles. There’d be no unseeing what’d happened to Heath.

  Tuck separated himself from the authorities. He stared at the spot where the EF3 touched down, the twister burned into his vision like staring at the sun. His hands found the change in his pocket. Three quarters and a dime in the right pocket. Four nickels, two pennies and a rusty old pocketknife in his left. The feel of the metal soothed him. Cool to the touch, some smooth on the edges, others ridged. Same but different.

  Like Elaina. Same, but…

  Every time he saw her, he had to urge to run away and pull her to him. Like a junky trying to get clean. He’d swear her off, tell himself she was just some nerdy scientist out to get in his way, but then he’d see her and feel that tug. Not sexual, not even close.

  He was old enough to be her…

  “They’re all done with me.” Her voice was quiet, flat. “The van is totaled. I really need to find Nimbus, can you drive me?”

  The change in his pocket had grown warm. Not just warm, it seared his palm. “Sure, kiddo.”

  Elaina was so quiet on the drive, he’d nearly forgotten she was there. The road out from the touchdown point was perfectly intact. Like two separate worlds from the one he’d just left. Twisters did that.

  They picked their prey.

  Tuck passed Biscuit with the other van and the full tour group. Flicking his pointer finger in recognition as they flew past them. The chasers were all gone. No doubt following the beast. In their place was the electric company, first responders and volunteer groups.

  The motel was mostly still standing, but the marquee sign had a hole in it. Several cars in the parking lot were huddled together, as if comforting each other. The U-shaped, two story building was lopsided now. The office on the far side was flattened, but the motel seemed to grow from that pancake as it went around.

  Elaina’s room, on the first floor in the middle of the structure, wasn’t crushed all the way, but the room above hers sagged heavily on top. If her dog was still in there, still alive, they had to get him out before the building collapsed.