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

Sarah were smart enough to keep their mouths shut. Probably like him, they were simply listening for an answer. But none came.

Hoping to get any response, he called out for Izzy, too. Once more, he held his breath, wondering if the unfairness of life would have her hollering back, but not his sister. He truly did want to find Izzy, but there was nothing he could do about the pure, soul-deep panic that he felt when he worried about his twin.

When he heard nothing, he turned the last edge and peered around the mangled carport. The car was sitting there, appearing entirely undamaged.

His first thought was that he needed to start it and check that it ran. Which led to a second thought. He needed the keys.

Dashing toward the house, he saw that the cement steps leading to the kitchen door had been tossed aside. The door was missing too. But it appeared the brick siding and the flooring was intact.

He had trouble picking through the rubble that piled at the side of the foundation, but he climbed carefully, eventually getting his hands on the edge and testing it to see if it would bear his weight. When it seemed to pass his quick and dirty test, he hoisted himself up to the floor of the small walkway in between the dining room and the kitchen.

The kitchen appeared intact, thank God. The tiny island had been jostled, but that wasn’t surprising, given that it was on wheels. It was a shock that it hadn’t moved far, given that it was merely fifteen feet from where the wall was missing.

He walked the short path around it to see that the hooks on the other side were now empty. Was that his fault? Had he forgotten to leave his keys there?

Patting his pockets again, he confirmed that—aside from his wallet and phone and work ID—he didn’t have anything else on him. Sarah had driven today. He would have left the keys behind. On the hook.

He was already on his hands and knees, searching, as he heard Deveron in the background saying, “Wait here. I want you to come in, but with your arm, you shouldn’t be trying to muscle your way up.”

“I can jump down. I just need help climbing up,” Sarah protested back.

Still Cage frantically searched the room. Napkins were strewn all over the floor. The paper towels had been pulled from the holder and thrown around as though someone had TP’d the inside of the house.

Cage patted at the floor, wondering where the keys might have gone. Dev’s keys should have been here, too. It took only a moment to find his roommate’s keys and, as he turned, he saw his friend had boosted himself into the house through the same open doorway.

His brain was firing in odd patterns, and it only just now occurred to him that they could have just walked up the front porch and come in the door like normal people.

He hollered that idea to Deveron, who called back, “Well, there you go, making sense.” And he walked past Cage, stepping over their things to unlock the front door and let Sarah in.

Cage wanted to laugh hysterically. He wanted to lose it over the fact that the front door had been double bolted while the back of the house was missing. Much of the screen was missing off the back porch and though the back door was intact, the wall next to it was completely gone. But the front door was fully locked.

He clamped down on the rising hysteria and held out his findings with one hand. “Your keys.”

He didn’t get up though, and the other hand was still patting at the floor, searching for his own keys. Dev didn’t have a car, so the find wasn’t all that useful to Cage right now. At last, he moved the island aside and found his own keyring underneath.

“Got it!” he yelled, thinking he would run right out the gaping hole and jump to the ground right in front of the car. But what if he landed on something and twisted his ankle? He couldn't afford that.

So he headed out the front door, letting the screen slam behind him. He couldn’t see the car from here, and irrational fear gripped him that it had been lost in the last five minutes, or that he’d hallucinated it in the first place.

But it was still waiting and he took a deep, calming breath, reminding himself that he had to stay fed, healthy, and calm if he was going to find his sister.

Not even closing the door, he shoved the key into the ignition and waited.

35

“You've got to be shitting me,” Joule uttered into the air or maybe to Toto.

In front of her, Jerry's brows pulled together. Though he was almost too far away to recognize, he'd heard her.

She instantly regretted saying it. Because the fact was, if Jerry could lead her to people, she would take it. She didn't have to be his friend.

“You!” he responded, the single accusing word indicating that all of her feelings were mutual.

She decided that she wasn't quite ready to say, Oh, it's good to see you. Because, while it was good to see another person, Jerry would have been the last of her choices. Instead, she asked what she could honestly ask. “Are you okay? Are you injured? Do you need anything?”

“I'm fine.” He put his hands on his hips and adopted his best “angry elementary teacher” expression. “But I see you’re stealing from the Johnsons?”

“Yes.” Joule offered it back with zero expression, because fuck him. “I'm in the middle of nowhere, after a disaster, with no food or water. And I picked up a sports drink, five nature bars, and two cans of tuna. I'll give the Johnsons the twenty bucks the first time I see them. I suspect they were going to claim their ‘ground food’ on their list of losses on their insurance.”

Though she said the last part with