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

emphasis, she realized that she didn’t know if the Johnsons actually had insurance. Still, he could go screw himself. “I'm not taking computer equipment or stealing their TV, Jerry.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

She rolled her eyes.

Clearly, he was fine enough to be his usual asshole self.

When he stayed silent for a moment, she added, “I'm fine, too. Not very injured, just bruised and banged up. Thank you for asking.”

He tossed her a sarcastic look but stayed silent.

This was not working. She had one goal, and working against Jerry was working against that. She took a deep breath and tried not to look like she was taking it. “I'm sorry.”

It felt like twisting a knife in her own gut to admit that she was sorry. She wasn’t sorry she’d been rude to Jerry, though. She was sorry that she’d hurt her own chances of getting home. She pushed a little further. “Listen, you seem to know where we are. Do you have a working cell phone?”

He shrugged. “No one does. Cell towers are all out.”

She’d suspected that was the case. “Is there maybe a landline in any of these houses?”

As she asked it, she looked around and saw that all the buildings were gone. If there had been a plugged in phone, it and the lines connecting it were all gone as well.

But Jerry didn’t mock her. “All out, too.”

He waved his hands around as if to indicate the things she’d just accounted for. And at least the conversation was proceeding now as if it were occurring between two normal people. But he still didn’t offer any help. She tried again.

“Do you have a car?”

“Nope!” He offered that up almost too cheerfully. “I was in my truck when the Twister hit. Got out, got into the cellar here. Came out afterwards …” He held his arms out and twisted in a full circle as though offering a fashion show. “You see my truck?”

Not now, but she had seen his truck before. It was a massive monster that made him look like he had some insecurities to make up for. She didn’t say that now, because she would have loved to have ridden in that ugly behemoth all the way back to town. Instead, she put the pieces together. Incredulous, she asked, “The wind lifted your truck?”

“Damn straight. And the Johnsons weren't home when I got here. It was coming on fast, so I busted the lock on the cellar.”

And here he'd been mad at her about a couple cans of tuna and a bottled drink. But this time she managed to bite her tongue. “Do you know where we are?”

“I told you, the Johnson’s farm.” He said it again as though she was stupid.

And she opened her mouth to call him a few choice words, instead the hood at her stomach squirmed and let out a “mmmrwow.”

“What's that?” Jerry pulled back as though she had some disease and he might catch it from how far away he still was.

“A kitten?” she said, by way of explanation.

“What are you doing with a kitten?”

Oh dear God. It was a damned tornado and it followed her! But Joule calmed herself—forcibly—and answered, “I found him. He was going the same direction as me and we decided to travel together.”

“You probably stole it from its mom.” The accusation was not surprising and Joule once again bit down her automatic retort.

“Mom was nowhere around.” She was almost angry that she'd had the exact same thought as Jerry. “And he followed me. I wasn’t going to leave him.”

At least Jerry seemed to concede that little bit.

She tried again. “So where exactly is the Johnson farm? Like, which direction is Horton? Or Arab? Or New Hope? Are we close to anything?”

Jerry shook his head and pointed into the distance. “Arab, Horton, and New Hope are all that direction. We're out in the great beyond.”

Well, shitballs, she thought. She was in the great beyond with Jerry, of all people, and he didn't even have his truck. “Would anyone else out here have a truck or something we could borrow?”

She was already emotionally tired of walking, and she was going to be physically exhausted before too long. Fueling a car would be easier than fueling herself. Whatever it was, it'd be faster.

“No cars. The Johnsons have one truck and it wasn't here when I stopped.” But he added, “There's another farm a ways over. They might be home. It’s worth a shot.”

“How far is it?” Joule was becoming wary. She’d come a long way and only found him.

He shrugged. “A couple thousand acres.”

She had no idea what kind of distance that was. “Should we walk on the road?”

She'd said we, as though she stopped and picked up Toto along the way, and now she was simply picking up Jerry, too.

“No. If we take the road, it'll take ten times as long. We can head straight through here.” He pointed to a tree line in the distance that seemed to denote a fence on a property.

Joule nodded along, wondering what they would find when they reached the other side.

As he started to take off, she stopped him. “You might want to grab one of those sports drinks, unless you have water or food on you.”

“Good point.” He didn’t acknowledge his accusation from before as he stepped into the side yard and grabbed several things to put into his own pockets.

Luckily, the walk wasn't as far as it looked. They'd carefully picked their way through the barbed wire fence and trees and crossed another yard. This house, though undamaged, was empty.

Together, they circled the place and banged on doors. Joule was getting so tired of having nothing work. She considered breaking in to find car keys, but since there were no cars or trucks available, that seemed pointless.

“Wait,” Jerry told her. “I have an idea.”

36

“Yes!” he yelled into the empty car, relief running through Cage almost as surely as gas was running through this combustion engine.

The engine had turned over cleanly