All I kept thinking about was Lane saying Julius wasn’t real. That he wasn’t part of some deep NASA lab or no way did he have access to the underground bunker.
Maybe he was some guy or kid in a basement, but if that was the case, how did he get everything so right?
It just bothered me and aided in my inability to fall asleep. More than the Julius anxiety, Walter was on my mind. Every time I wasn’t focused on something else, all I thought about was Walter and his family. Watching the car get sucked up and dropped hard.
The smashed car … the blood.
It was a nightmare; a horrendous sight I wish I could erase from my mind.
I tried everything. I organized the supplies again, trying to come up with a ration schedule. What would we do if Olympus wasn’t an option? What then? How were we to feed everyone?
I picked up the empty little margarine serving cups that Lane ate like candy. I was certain he would be sick over it.
Nearly forty-eight hours had passed since I had been to bed. Other than an hour nap in the RV, and another hour just before dinner, I did not rest.
Everyone else seemed to have no problem with it. I didn’t know how they could sleep. Maybe they weren’t and were just lying there like me.
The storm had intensified to the point the power had gone. The two emergency lights, which barely lit the garage, were dimming by the minute. The lightning was bright. Bright enough to make its way into the garage like flashes of the paparazzi.
If that wasn’t enough to wake people, the wind should have been.
It grew louder, and so steady, it sounded more and more like a train in the distance.
It was my own personal horror movie, waiting for something to happen.
Peering around the garage. A lot of people slept on the ground, outside the vehicles. We could have slept in the RV, but I thought that was unfair. Sort of rubbing everyone’s nose in the fact that we had beds and they didn’t.
I was about to wake Lane, using the ‘are you sick from the margarine binge’ as my excuse, when I noticed I wasn’t the only one awake.
Dooley, the toddler was.
He sat up between his sleeping parents, staring at something that caught his attention.
Then I saw what it was.
His ball, or one of the children’s ball. Slightly bigger than a softball, the red object curiously moved on its own, spinning slowly and moving back and forth in and out of the light that entered through the ramp from the storm.
I wasn’t an expert on babies or kids for that matter, I just remember thinking that I thought Reese was a big toddler. But looking at Dooley, Reese, by my recollection, was small.
Dooley was by no means heavy. He was just big. His frame was large, and he was thick with a build that screamed he was genetically destined to be this hulking star of something … wrestling, football, something like that.
He didn’t say much. He really didn’t talk. I think his mother said he was just a bit older than two. He was still in diapers. I knew that much.
Going from a sitting position to hands and knees, Dooley slowly stood. He brought his finger to his mouth in a curious manner, then carefully stepped over his father, as if it were something he had done before.
I knew what he was doing. I didn’t need to be a child-master to know he was going after that ball. He woke up, was bored and the ball called to him.
Instead of waking his parents, I also stood and walked over to him.
I watched the toddler make his way to the ball.
“Hey,” I called to him softly.
He looked over his shoulder at me then pointed.
Was he telling me to go?
That determined look on his face returned as his focus on the ball told me he didn’t want me to bother him.
I walked over to him as he chased the ball. Admittedly I was nervous. The ball had made its way to the bottom of the ramp and I didn’t want him to run up.
Surely, even a toddler could see the rain pouring down the ramp.
“Hey, little man,” I called to him. “Dooley. No-no.”
He stopped, still eyeing that ball.
The last thing I wanted to do was make a quick movement and have him scream or worse, run out.
Quietly, I stepped a few feet from him. “Dooley,” I whispered. “Did you want to play?”
He looked at me again, then took a couple steps.
“Want me to get that for you?” I asked.
He glanced at me, then after two steps, he reached for the ball.
The second his fingers extended, like some freakish poltergeist experience, the ball shot backwards up the ramp as if it were yanked.
Dooley turned to chase it and I panicked, racing his way.
He made it only a few steps to the bottom of the ramp and he did this strange fall. It looked like he leapt sideways and landed hard on his shoulder.
At first, I thought it was just a fall until I saw him, like the ball, begin to glide up the ramp.
He wasn’t doing it on purpose.
I lunged forward, grabbing on to him. The moment my hands grabbed his waist, I felt this tremendous pull, both of him and me. I was fighting something, something beyond me, something stronger. It wasn’t enough that I couldn’t overcome it, at least that was what I thought. I clutched the boy, pulling him to me. It took strength, fighting against the pull of an invisible magnet. When I had him in my grip, confident it was done, I stepped back, only to be yanked forward by this suction. My arms instinctively wrapped around the boy, bringing him to my chest as I slammed hard to the ground.
He screamed.
I cried out as well, a long shrieking, “Help!”
My feet weren’t brakes, I knew that, yet I tried to use them to stop us. I couldn’t, I couldn’t get out of the pull.
The wind instantly picked up as well as the noise. As my body moved with the force of the wind’s suction, I feared my cry wouldn’t be heard.
I struggled, my God, I struggled. Feet kicking, trying to fight against the grain, but it was useless. As much as I tried to resist, it dragged me.
Then I stopped.
I felt a grab to my legs, looked down to see Skip, holding my ankles.
He stood, slightly bent over, grabbing on to me, pulling me back. The look of struggle on his face was real. It took all I had to hold on to Dooley, and yet I could feel, by the pressure in my hips, how hard Skip was pulling me.
“Someone!” he hollered. “Someone help!”
Another gust and not only did I move backwards, Skip dropped to the ground.
On my back, with Skip at my feet holding on to me for dear life, I tilted my head backwards, to try to see up the ramp.
There wasn’t much time to study or figure out what I saw at the top of the ramp. It was a literal whirlwind, with its own lightning storm. The lights sparked amidst the debris that circled fiercely within.
The air rushed beneath my body, my arms clasped tight to Dooley. It was like I was on a raft and the current struggled to get me as much as Skip tried to pull us back.
I looked back down. Dooley’s father had grabbed on to Skip, trying to form a weighted human chain, holding me back until the funnel passed.
Then I saw Dooley’s mother. She did what any mother would do in that situation. She charged in a panic; hands extended for her child. Her mouth was open and moving, screaming something I couldn’t hear through the wind. She probably felt invincible, not knowing where the speed came from. How she was able to rush forward so quickly. How brave she was, not caring about her own safety, only that of her baby.
She came within a foot of us, her hands nearly touching Dooley. Then her body twisted sideways before folding in half, and in a snap, shot backwards right up the ramp.
Dooley’s father removed one hand from Skip’s leg, reaching out, as if he could have saved his wife or grabbed her. That caused an immediate imbalance and his vulnerability. The suction pulled at him and he dragged us all along, swirling us around counterclockw
ise. I went from being nearer the exit to facing the bottom of the ramp and a desperate looking Lane.
He was reaching for me, Martin and another man were holding him back, not letting him go any farther.
His hands were so close and all I could think of was Dooley.
It took all of my strength, fingers digging into Dooley’s midsection, I lifted him from me, aiming him at Lane.
“Take the baby!” I cried out.
I felt Lane’s fingers brush against mine when he grabbed Dooley.
Dooley’s weight.
That thirty-some pounds made all the difference in the world. That small amount of body weight tipped the scale, and like Dooley’s mother, out we went.
I never felt the concrete of the ramp, my chest was a few inches above it. Arms reached out, all I saw in that second was Lane and Martin, the look on their faces as I flew backwards.
I went into darkness, tiny flashes of light around me. I felt like I was flying, not in control. I wasn’t whipping around. In fact, I didn’t have a clue if I was high in the air or how far I had gone.
I just knew at that second, I was done. I closed my eyes and I felt … released.
Whether on purpose or out of his control, Skip let go.
My body moved with the momentum of the wind for a second, then with a slight turn of my body I dropped.
I was closer to the ground than I thought. I felt the sensation of landing in a shallow pool of water, before my hip and elbow met the ground, bouncing me out of the puddle, and rolling me violently.
Finally, I stopped. There was no severe pain or ache from broken bones. The scraped skin on my arms and legs were somehow soothed by the cold rain that poured relentlessly down on me.
The wind was still in control, moving my body, fighting to get me back into the funnel. I couldn’t see where I was or what was around me. All I could do was what I had learned and that was not to move. I did my best to lay as flat to the ground as I could, scared to death and fearful for my life. Chest against the pavement, covering my head with my hands to protect it, I screamed at the top of my lungs. I cried out shrill and long, and I knew no one could hear me because I couldn’t even hear myself.
THIRTEEN – ENTRANCE RAMP
There was one other time in my life I thought I was going to die. Thinking back, I realized how unfounded and silly it was in comparison to what I faced now. Lane and I were on a flight to Cleveland and there was a ton of turbulence. Of course, I didn’t fly much and any bump in the sky was unnerving to me. I remember Lane laughing because I was so scared, my hands in a prayer fashion, praying with everything I had.
Loudly, too.
Lane just laughed.
“You’ll thank me when we live,” I had told him.
But I learned, when truly faced with the prospect of death, something internally clicks letting you know there’s nothing you can do. After my initial panic attack, my screaming as if that would help save me, a calm took over.
I listened to the sound of the wind, tuned in to the feel of it and how it pulled against me and whipped at my back.
There was a slight stinging to my body, nothing much. I didn’t know if it was the adrenaline covering up any real injuries I had. I could feel the cold, that was for sure as icy rain beat against me. Exhaling short breaths through my nostrils to shuck any water that seeped in my nose from the puddle beneath my face.
Finally, I listened as the wind sound faded and I could no longer feel it against me. The rain let up some. Thunder still clapped loudly, although in the distance and with each sequence getting farther and farther apart. When the lightning flashed it was green bright specks through the dark of my tightly closed eyes.
Then that too stopped.
Quiet.
I didn’t know where I was or how far I traveled. For all I knew I was right outside the ramp to the garage. I wasn’t in a field; I knew that by the pavement.
It was time to get up.
I dreaded it, thinking as soon as I moved I would feel a world of hurt. That wasn’t the case as I slowly stood. The tightening and stinging of my skinned knees and elbows, that was it.
I shivered in the cold; my arms wrapped tightly around my body to try to stay warm. Somehow, I lost my top. I was wearing a pink tee shirt and it was gone. Wind had whipped it from my body leaving me in only my bra.
It was so dark when I stood. My eyes would adjust, I was certain of it. It wasn’t raining as hard.
Staggering some, I turned left to right, trying to gauge where I was in this strange town. I couldn’t tell the extent of the damage in the night. Cars were flipped, telephone poles down. Taller buildings looked like shadows of partially erected buildings.
Then I saw it.
Bent some, tilted to the right, but still standing … the Golden Arches of McDonalds.
I gathered I was on the street behind it, and I used that sign as my point of direction because I knew the garage was across from it.
I wasn’t far.
From where I stood, I saw the yellow roof of McDonald’s, half of it, lay in the parking lot. It blocked my view and my ability to see if our building was still standing. My eyes were adjusting nicely, it was dead quiet and eerie.
My legs were like jelly, unsteady. Debris was everywhere, some in plain view, some hidden in puddles. I walked cautiously so as not to trip or twist an ankle.
At the edge of the fast food restaurant, the ‘enter’ sign was untouched and a few feet from it, off the lot was a tipped over picnic table on its side. There near the bottom was my pink tee shirt.
I don’t know what possessed me to go get it. It wasn’t like it was dry and would keep me warm, but I was glad I did.
When I bent down for my shirt, I realized it was wrapped around Skip’s wrist. He was nestled in there.
Thinking, ‘please don’t let him be dead’, I called his name. “Skip. Skip.”
He turned his head and looked at me.
Dropping to my knees, I gasped out. I couldn’t see how badly he was hurt.
“You’re alive,” he said. “Thank God.”
“Thank God, you’re alive, too. Are you hurt?”
“I think something is broken. Ribs for sure. Nothing I can’t handle.”
“I’ll go get help.”
“I … I think I can get out.” Skip inched some and paused. “I let go when Bryan let go of me. I’m sorry.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m fine. We need to go look for him. Get some flashlights. Well, maybe not you and I.”
“I’m fine.” He cringed as he looked up. “A lot of good that table did.”
“You crawled under?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He scooted again toward me, grunting. I knew he was hiding his pain.
Skip just had to make it over the bench seat. He rolled to his side with a loud groan.
“Okay,” he said. “It’s the rib and the arm.”
“I’ll go get help.”
“No. No. I think my legs are fine.”
One arm tucked safely to him, I grabbed his good arm and pulled using mostly his legs, Skip wiggled his way out.
I helped him to stand.
“Thank you,” he said, then looked down. “Ha.” He raised his hand. “I have your shirt. How about that.”
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. Probably more so from being relieved.
I took my shirt and held it as I put one arm around his waist.
Together, leaning on each other, we hobbled across the parking lot.
Once we made it around the fallen rooftop, I saw the dancing lights going back and forth, four of them along with shouting.
“Jana! Skip! Bryan!”
“Jana!”
“Maria!
Lane and Martin’s voice carried over them.
I called out with a cracked voice, “Here.”
They were calling out so consistently, they couldn’t hear us.
I stopped, let go of Skip and backtracked a few steps to the roof. Lifting my leg, I s
tomped it four times. I wasn’t even sure if they’d hear that, but they finally stopped calling.
“Over here!” I called out.
A flashlight moved and the LED light caused me to squint.
“Jana!” Lane cried out.
The light was in my eyes, but I could hear the running footsteps.
“Oh my God,” he gushed, grabbing on to me. “Oh my God.”
“I’m okay, a little banged up. Skip needs help.”
“Oh, stop,” Skip said. “I’m fine.”
“I need to get you inside,” Lane said and without hesitating, lifted me in his arms.
“I can walk.”
“I got you,” he said.
I felt safe and even warm within his hold, I rested my head on his shoulder, slinging my arm around his neck. “Lane. You can’t stop looking. They’re out here. Bryan and his wife. You have to keep looking.”
“We will,” he replied. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll find him.”
There was something in the way he said it, a waver, he lacked confidence.
He didn’t believe his words. But if Skip and I made it, they could have, too.
✽✽✽
The hot mug of tea felt so soothing against the palms of my hands. I sat on a folding chair, wearing dry clothes, but also a blanket draped around my shoulders. I couldn’t warm up.
The hugs from Carlie and Reese helped, but Anita shooed them away so she could clean what she called road rash out of my elbows.
“How’s Skip?” I asked.
“He has a couple broken ribs and that forearm is broken as well. I have an air splint on it now …” she said. “I’ll mix a cast during our next stop.”
“He saved my life, you know.” I glanced down to my tea. “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay him.”
“If I am correct, you’re bringing him to this survival shelter. That’s a huge thanks. You know,” she lowered her voice. “I was online before it all went down and even if this big storm you’re talking about, if it doesn’t hit, there’s nothing left out there. Not behind us.”
“What did you learn?”
“Places are flattened, hit a couple times. Yeah, there are places not hit, but more are than aren’t.” She shook her head. “There is no Red Cross to help the injured or to rebuild. There will be no fundraisers or celebrities sending money. Sure, people will rebuild, but there’s not gonna be a Home Depot to run to for supplies.”
Winds of Ares: An Apocalypse Thriller Page 9