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

what they saw. Some were still standing on the foundation of the house, which was truly all that was left. Some of them looked out or up in awe, turning and taking in the world scrubbed free of so many things that it had had before: houses, trees, fences, outbuildings, and more.

They'd come up first to find family, but now they were struggling to even find focus.

Others were picking through the debris that littered the floor of the once-stately home. One man was walking the edge of the foundation and yelled out, “Here! This is probably the safest place to climb down. Did anyone find steps?”

But no one had.

In a flash of memory, Cage remembered the wooden front deck. As he turned and looked in what he was confident was the right direction, he found there was no deck at all. No sign of it.

Thank God for the cinderblock shelter. And for William Butler, not only letting all of his neighbors in, but standing on his doorstep and calling out for passersby with a bullhorn at the ready. If Cage had ever doubted that preparedness paid off, this would have turned the tide.

“Car looks good,” Dev told him, and Cage whipped around, realizing he'd been facing entirely the wrong direction.

While Deveron was right, and the car seemed intact, they were far from ready to resume their search. A huge tree had fallen across the driveway. He wasn't even sure he'd be able to pick a path around it.

So he still had the car, but it didn't look like he could get to a road. As his eyes tracked further beyond the car, Cage realized he couldn't even see the road. Or could he?

Trees were down, pieces of homes littered the area, and he realized that he could see bits of tarmac through the debris. The road was still there. But it might be a while before a car could pass it, so it probably didn't even matter if he could drive around Sanders’ tree.

He'd never wished for a monster truck more in his whole life. As he surveyed the damage, his heart fell. This looked worse than the last one, though he really had no real frame of reference to gauge by. Maybe it had just hit a little closer. He was sure the radio announcer would tell him everything as soon as he could get the station dialed in.

Maybe it got better once he got beyond this area. Maybe this one had simply taken out more trees and the damage looked worse. He hadn't even seen the funnel this time—not close, not as it went by. He'd seen the other one, but this one he’d only spotted in the distance.

The shelter had made everything so much easier. He hadn't been whipped back and forth, had his head cracked against Deveron’s, his arms and legs threatening to form hairline fractures or even full breaks each time the wind grabbed and yanked at him.

As he thought about it now, he and his roommates should have all been checked for mild concussions back when they were at the community center. But as Sarah had rightly complained, the line was too long.

He turned now, looking to Dev and shaking his head. Was he even thinking clearly? And how would he know?

“How do we get to Joule and Izzy now? How do we get back to Sarah?”

45

Joule felt her head snap back at the accusation. Despite the fact that it was still pitch dark, she blinked hard. “This is my fault? Me personally?”

She sounded incredulous even to her own ears. And she felt that was the right reaction to have. She heard the stairs creaking under Jerry's weight as he moved downward, and she waited for him to poke her in the chest to make his point.

“You people.” He ground out the words. “You come in here and you screw everything up.”

She was frowning, her head moving forward with a look on her face that suggested he was being a dumbass, despite the fact that he surely couldn’t see her. She didn’t try to put on her friendly face but released at least some of her sudden tension by letting her expressions loose.

“Did you really just ‘you people’ me? And what did we screw up?” He had to be talking about the Helio Systems solar array.

“You walked in here like you own the place and you stole our jobs!”

“But don't you still have a job?” she asked. Seriously, he did. Radnor had checked after Jerry had made such a big splash in the protests.

“Well, not for long.”

“So you do still have a job?”

“Not for long,” he repeated. “My family's going to starve!”

Interesting. She didn't know he had a family. For a moment, she wondered who would have him? Horrible, uncharitable thoughts, she knew, but the man had just blamed her for basically everything.

“Why would you starve? Helio Systems offered you a job.”

He didn’t reply, but she could hear his angry breathing and wondered if she was far enough away to duck a punch she couldn’t see coming. She tried again, this time shifting the topic just a little. “How much are you making now?”

“That's none of your business!”

Fair, she thought, but didn't say.

She was still standing in the dark, still wondering how the hell they were going to get out if even Jerry couldn't budge the cellar doors. But it seemed like convincing the only other person down here that she wasn't responsible for all hell breaking loose was maybe the first task.

“Helio Systems is offering jobs to anyone who's been displaced by the solar array coming in. For anyone losing some of their work from coal. They start at a good rate.” She rattled off the opening pay, remembering it from Dr. Murasawa’s comments at the town hall. “Can I ask if that's more or less than what you're making now?”

“I don't want to retrain! I work coal!”

His angry response almost surely meant the offer was more than he was currently