water and rock out like shrapnel and instantly the skies began to throw down buckets of rain and as Jeff, Fox, and Karen started running their ears were being assaulted with thunder and also the sounds of more lightening strikes.
They ran as fast as they could up, around, and down the trail back to the Visitor Center screaming for each other to keep running every time one of them slipped in the gaining mud or tripped over a log or rock.
Karen has seen some storms in her life having lived in Florida for most of it but this was unlike anything she has ever seen or been in the middle of. She doesn’t remember the weather from the Florida Impact. There may have been a chance that she and Jeff were really drunk during that but she has been told it was pretty bad for the short time it lasted.
The rain was coming down so hard they could barely see. Then the hail started first with a couple large ones but after a few large hail balls hit the ground the smaller golf ball size pieces began to hit the trees surrounding the trail. The impacts were bouncing off tree trunks, braking tree limbs, and sounding like a gantline gun turned on a forest.
The Triumvirate was feeling like they were being attack by the full force and anger of nature itself.
And they were right.
Karen tripped for the third time, tried to catch her balance, and slide into a not cleared clearing of poison ivy.
With no time to itch Karen looked up trying to spot Fox or Jeff but the rain had stung her eyes to the point were she could no longer see anything.
Karen was wiping her eyes trying to get her sight back when a pair of hands grasped her by the shoulders and helped her to her feet. She could feel a face close to her ear and then heard a voice she recognized, ‘I’m right here.’
And those words calmed her enough for her to get her feet steady and be pulled a few steps up a hill where her vision finally cleared and herself, Jeff, and Fox raced away from the Visitor Center building to the parking lot.
In the parking lot they found their rental and once they got one of the doors open everyone piled in and collapsed inside.
But this wasn’t over.
And part three isn’t over.
Park Rangers made their way around to each car, risking their lives in the weather, and informed everyone that the park was being evacuated because four tornados have touched down in the park with warnings foretelling more to come.
You might ask why everyone didn’t ride out the weather in the Visitor Center?
You mean the one burning down in flames in the rain from a fire started by three back to back to back lightening strikes?
The Park Rangers and Visitor Center employees were directing everyone out of the parking lot and one Park Ranger in a small pickup truck was leading the vehicle convoy down the mountain because mudslide reports had already started to come in.
As the saying goes, there was no time to waste.
The rental was a few vehicles back from the lead truck. One of the reasons the Park Rangers wanted a lead truck was to keep everyone’s speeds down and on the correct road. The roads that lead to, from, and around the Visitor Center could be quite confusing even on a nice clear day of weather.
Everyone was scared being attacked by huge wind bursts, heavy rain, and spotty hail- spotted further by minute by minute by in sight lightening strikes- the trek down the mountain was progressing at a good safe tempo until the whole convoy started rear ending one another because a unbelievable sight was unfolding.
A tornado was coming up the road in the direction of the convoy but only the first few vehicles could see this as the visibility was only at the most about two or three car lengths.
The tornado tossed the Park Rangers truck off the right cliff side, flicked a SUV against the left side rock wall, and one other car before it reached the truck in front of the rental, then it dropped down the cliff side and started making its way towards Gatlinburg.
The full size truck ahead of our heroes speed off like a demon but Jeff keep the pace and speed the Park Ranger had established.
There was no time for character developing dialogue during all of that.
When they reached the bottom of the mountain Karen spotted the full size truck that had speed off resting on its roof in a river bed but before they could even think about helping a water flow washed the truck away.
Jeff turned the rental and headed up the road in the direction of their hotel.
As they got close to their hotel the lightening and hail had stopped but the rain had gotten unbelievably worse. It was coming down to the point of it being a splash down of gallons of water.
A little more than normal rain drops.
I need to say right now that Jeff is a great defensive driver. The guy could get lost pulling out of a parking space if distracted but he had gotten them back to their hotel in one piece and out of the fifty or so vehicles that started in the convoy down the mountain only six were lucky enough to even make it down in one piece.
Once again it’s not over yet folks.
This shits getting real.
As soon as they pulled into the hotels parking lot Fox saw something out of the corner of her eye. Fox got Karen and Jeff’s attention and through the rain and hail created cracks in the rentals windows the two of them saw what Fox originally caught sight of. Someone was trapped being crushed between two trucks pushed into each other by strong winds.
Karen turned to Jeff, ‘They could be dead already.’
‘The winds must have pushed the trucks.’ Fox
‘I’ll go.’ Karen
‘No!’ Not meaning to Jeff yelled that at Karen. That popped everyone’s attention to him, ‘You have problems seeing in this shit,’ he turned to Fox, ‘You need to make sure she makes it inside.’
They both just looked at him.
‘When the doors open you two go and I’ll go but in a different direction.’ Jeff
They all edge closer to their doors.
‘But…’ Karen
‘Discussion means thinking about what we are about to do. Thinking can be a dangerous issue in times like these.’ Fox looked at Jeff, ‘Let’s do this.’
‘And neither of you ass fucks come back out if I don’t show.’ Jeff
Karen and Fox nodded.
Karen’s heart sank after he said that.
Fox touched Jeff’s back. Karen noticed but Jeff didn’t.
The doors opened and Fox forcefully by hand lead Karen up to the parking lot incline towards the hotels front entrance.
Jeff was face first in the parking lot soon after exiting the rental because after only a few steps his feet slide out from under him, he went down face first, and was tasting asphalt flavored water which also had a strong salt taste. Right away his tongue let him know he was missing a number of his front teeth.
Jeff bit his own lip with one of his now jagged fang teeth to regain his focus because the fall had rung his bell a bit.
He pushed himself back up to his feet staggering a little and it had nothing to do with the winds. The face plant against the parking lot not only knocked out some teeth but also rang his bell a bit.
Wait, did I already say that? Well, things are repeating in Jeff’s brain also and he was lost for a few minutes in his concussion.
Another barrage of lightning strikes reminded him of what he was actually trying to do. About six parking spaces ahead of him a woman was pinned between two solid white work trucks.
Jeff could see now that the woman was waving her arms and yelling. The yelling was drowned out completely by the storm. As she tried to get his attention, not knowing if he had seen her, Jeff felt his jaw shifting a little as he breathed in and out because adding to his injuries he had dislocated his jaw.
The woman’s fear was heightened by the wind once again turning directions to push the trucks further against each other rubbing metal against metal and slowly squeezing the life out of her.
She gave a half smile through the large amount of pain she was feeling as she saw Jeff was fighting the rain and winds in a m
arch towards her. This sight was keeping what little life there was within her body.
Jeff was beyond exhausted when he reached the trucks. The fight against the winds reminded him of trying to run in neck deep water. He reached out to grasp the woman’s hand when a piece of the hotels pool slide hit him from behind knocking him up and over the trucks, over the parking lot fencing, and into the road in front of the hotel.
In the time he was laying in the road all the events of this trip passed through his mind. Gail and Karen arguing during the car ride, the flight up to Knoxville, the smile on Fox’s face, and everything else. It all danced through his head in fast forward, reverse, and then certain scenes paused and spun like a 3D camera had filmed everything from all angles.
After a couple of minutes Jeff got to his feet again in an accomplishment that he just could not believe he was capable of. He did so without much thought which is probably the only reason he was able to do it. He steadied himself and got his head back to thinking about what he was doing before he went flying through the air.
He turned around to face the hotel and was finally able to spot the lady was trapped but then was overcome with fear seeing a large rush of water and mud slide moving down the mountain behind the hotel looking like a large ocean wave.
Jeff closed his eyes and ran his fingers through his soaking wet hair. His body was overwhelmed with fear and pain but he opened his eyes again and ran against the winds with only one thought in his head. People he loved were about to die.
Notes From The Author
Tin Universe Monthly #10 Page 4