The Tempest by A.J. Scudiere (story read aloud .txt) 📗

time, when she returned to the intersection, she was facing the other direction. Taking a left, she headed for home.

But when Joule jerked her hand on the steering wheel, the whole car jolted with her.

And all four of them felt and heard something smack the side.

14

“Drive!”

Sarah’s harsh command from the backseat shot through Joule like a jolt of electricity. Even though she didn’t quite know what was happening, her hands clenched the steering wheel and she pushed back into the bucket seat.

Her jaw clenched and her vision narrowed.

She was approaching a stop sign.

“Drive!” Sarah yelled again from the back seat. “Run the sign.”

Joule’s eyes frantically scoured the roads, but from the left, the pavement turned sharply, the trees obscuring her view of oncoming traffic. She slowed so as not to get slammed by a surprise truck barreling around the corner.

“There's a tornado behind us!”

There was no other reaction but to hit the gas, and Joule passed the sign without any more hesitation. She was tense in her seat as though she controlled the gears and axles herself. Though she should have trusted her roommate, Joule turned her head and looked behind them.

Sure enough, following the path of the road was a gigantic, gray whirlwind.

Unlike the ones she'd seen as a child, this storm wasn't a whimsical twist of floating leaves twirling its way down the street. Her memory floated back to her mother showing her how to feed different colored leaves into the swirl to mark their paths. She’d been a tiny tornado scientist watching in wonder that day.

This wasn’t that.

This was a funnel with distinct edges. No one needed to throw a car into it to see where it went. This one was a massive, dark gray column, ominous and loud.

Joule pushed the gas pedal as far down as it would go, but even the sudden burst of speed wasn’t enough as Sarah yelled at her. “Faster!”

There was no “faster.” Still, she jammed the pedal harder.

“Shouldn't there be a siren?” Deveron was asking in her rearview mirror.

Joule didn’t know. There had been no warning, only Sarah being smart enough to read the weird weather and check behind the car. Joule could see both her rear passengers had turned and were staring out the rear window now. Their hands gripped the back of the seats like small children on a road trip, but this was anything but.

Breathe, she reminded herself. But it only resulted in one deep gulp that she then held tightly, using the pressure to fuel her brain.

“There aren't sirens out here,” Sarah answered. “People are too far apart. It's too expensive.”

More expensive than replacing all the homes? Joule thought, even as she realized that Sarah’s voice was now calmer… now that her own reaction was blowing up.

She took a curve in the road and then, once again, pressed the gas pedal down as far as it would go. These roads were not made for speed. They'd not been kept up—old country roads with the paving only in random spots, if they were paved at all.

The car bumped and swerved as she tried to maintain speed and yet miss the potholes. The open space behind them let her know the tornado still chased them. It lagged for a moment but then sped up. Suddenly, it loomed close behind her, taking up most of the rearview mirror. She would have been shaking were she not locked so tightly into position.

Her brain raced, watching the road in front of her. Her eyes darted back and forth, tracking the beast that tracked them as if it were hunting.

Joule thought back through everything she’d been taught. It didn't sound like a train. Though it was noisy, it roared like wind. Like a white noise machine with the switch changed from “gentle” to “horrific.”

Maybe it was too far behind them.

She was putting space between it and the car again, though whether that was from her skills in outrunning it or because the gray beast itself had backed off, she didn’t know.

Joule hated not knowing. If she didn’t know what she’d done, she couldn’t repeat it.

She flinched as another noise came, her whole body jerking—along with everyone else in the car—as something else screeched across the side of the car.

Though she managed to stay on the road, she felt the car take the hit. Forced to lift up on the gas, she to take the harsh turn without running up on two tires. That was a win in itself.

The road itself challenged her with hidden turns and uneven pavement. The last road had been straight and easy by comparison. Her heart pounded in time with her hands jerking the steering wheel side to side, as if it knew she would function better fully in sync.

She gulped another lungful of air and held it again.

And the Twister disappeared from the rearview mirror.

“Where is it?” she demanded. “Where is it?”

Her heart pounded in her ears. And maybe that was why she could no longer hear the sound of the tornado.

“It's small,” Sarah said as she put her hand on Joule’s shoulder. As if that might make her calm her shit down. It wouldn’t. “It might die out.”

That was small?

But Joule realized that, while Cage and Deveron were still shouting about where it might be, Sarah’s voice sounded almost relaxed. Honestly, once Joule had started driving away, her roommate had sounded as if everything would be okay. Joule tried to take that in. If Sarah could keep her shit in her basket, so could she.

“Where am I going?”

They were the only car on the road. As if everyone else was local, and far too smart to be caught out when there was a tornado about.

“Where is it?” Deveron pressed, still twisted around in his seat.

Cage, too, was turning all directions, acting as tornado spotter but failing to find anything. “I don't know. I'm looking for it!”

“Head home.” Once again, Sarah was a calming voice of reason.

Joule knew where “home” was. Desperado’s Hideaway was where she