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

it. The clear need to stay beyond the borders of the storm.

He’d told Sarah to turn left, but then he doubted the call.

Everything was a gamble. The funnel could turn on a dime. It could stop and hover, it could speed up. It could easily outrun cars. Tornadoes were known for that.

He wasn't as well-educated about them as he should be, but he'd looked up a little after the first one. He’d decided to stop learning, as the information had become more and more disturbing.

Funnels could cause an almost infinite amount of damage. They could appear and disappear at any time. They could form, touch the ground, and snatch a whole house into the sky, then be gone—all on a blue, clear day.

The first one they’d encountered had made his heart pound. And that had been even when they were sitting in the small room with the four of them feeling relatively safe. Though the windows had shook a little at the time, the walls hadn't.

But now, the car was rattling as the twister closed the distance.

The gray funnel took up a wider and wider section of his vision.

Sarah was aimed toward an intersection, the red light blinking as it swung wildly from a far-too-thin wire that threatened to snap at any moment.

“You have to turn!” Even as he finished yelling it, the tires squealed, and it felt as if the car rocked up on the outer two.

Joule and Izzy slammed into his side, as Sarah cranked the wheel around the sharp turn, completely ignoring the flashing red light.

Though he knew he was in the car, Cage cringed and ducked in the fear that the large traffic light would come through the air like a projectile aimed right at them.

But maybe the light wouldn’t kill them. Maybe the car would roll and they’d never make the turn… his stomach pitched again as the car tilted higher and higher toward his side.

He tried to calculate the kinematics of having Joule and Izzy's extra weight slamming him against his door. The momentum of it was horrible. But the weight of the car compared to their own weight shouldn't be enough.

The thought cut off as the car bounced back to its original horizontal orientation and the breath he was holding whooshed out suddenly. Maybe from relief. Maybe from the added weight of Joule and Izzy scrambling back to the other side.

“Seat belts!” his sister snapped, though she was the only one who seemed to be able to buckle hers.

He and Izzy were completely unable to get the ancient silver tabs into the slots.

“Here,” Joule yelled, snapping Izzy into place and reaching across to try to help her brother. But as he felt her hands grab the webbing of the strap, Cage turned around, making her job nearly impossible.

The wind whipped through the car and stole his voice the first time he yelled it. So no one heard.

He cranked himself back down into his seat, his heart pounding from what he’d seen. There was likely nothing they could do, but he would try. And Sarah would try. And they would all hold their breath and see if it worked.

Leaning forward, he ripped the seatbelt from Joule's hand. He was not going to be buckled in. It simply wasn't going to happen.

He tapped at Sarah’s shoulder far too harshly for it to actually be the tap that he had intended.

“Sarah! You have to go faster!”

“What?” she yelled back to him, barely turning her head.

How had she not heard?

He tried again. “You have to go faster. It's right behind us.”

23

Joule’s fingers dug into whatever she could hold onto. It wasn’t much. The door handle offered her left hand some stability and the edge of the seat gave her something to smush.

Those were the only two things that had any effect.

There was nothing she could do about the car rocking as it sped along, trying to outrace the monster. Nothing she could do about her hair getting pulled and twisted one way or the other. Nothing she could do about the roar in her head and on the ground behind them.

Her grip was tight and her muscles tense in hopes of not slamming into Izzy or Cage as Sarah took the sharp turns. But there was every possibility she was just hanging on to hang on. They were all petrified of the noise and gray bearing down upon them.

At least Sarah had something to do—operating the steering wheel, taking her aggression out by mashing her foot into the gas or the brakes. Joule could only hang on and deal.

The car bounced with a pothole, or maybe Sarah had run over a piece of someone’s house that had already been ripped away… Joule’s eyes bounced closed with the movement and, for a moment, she just listened. It did sound somewhat like a train. The roar was akin to white noise, a coffee grinder, and a train all spun together as the beast crept up behind her. The heavy sound took over until she couldn't hear anything else—even the pounding of her own heart or the words her brother, a mere two feet away, was yelling at her.

As she turned her head, feeling as though she moved in slow motion, Joule could only see Cage's mouth moving. But somehow she still made out the words.

“It's too close!”

She watched as Izzy turned and looked out the back window once again. Joule could see her friend’s eyes widen at the sight.

It was stupid, she didn’t need to see it, but Joule automatically turned to look too.

Unlike her brother, she didn't yell. Instead, she reached forward and smacked the back of Sarah’s seat, getting her attention the only way she could guarantee. Leaning forward, she hollered out. “It's too close, Sarah!”

“I can't go any faster,” her friend yelled back, her voice breaking with stress or fear.

The conversation was difficult. Their faces had to be close to even hear each other as their voices were ripped away by the high winds