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

She emptied the toolbox, making it lighter, and began the work of dragging it across to the other wall. She wedged it into a space between two of the shelves, and looked again at the potatoes, root vegetables, and other boxes stored there. If she was feeling it, she might look inside them later.

Testing her weight, she stepped gingerly onto the box. Then, as she decided she trusted it, she reached upward, knocking on the wood again. She was surprised when one of the old one-by-eights fell off into her hand.

The board appeared to have been nailed in place once upon a time, but now she turned it over and saw the nails had been bent back, rounded and hammered down. The piece had been merely set in place, balancing by gravity, to make it look like it was still part of the wall.

This would make it easier to break through, she thought. Now that she had a hole, she could reach behind the other pieces and more easily pry them out.

“Can you help? Bring the phone?” she asked Jerry. She turned around carefully on her uneven perch, startled to see the light was already moving and he was handing it to her.

She lifted the dim screen and aimed it toward the hole, not wanting to put her hand onto a bed of rattlesnakes or rats. But as she looked into the now lit space and saw what was in there…

It wasn’t an animal.

Slowly, she turned and looked at Jerry. “You have got to be shitting me.”

49

Joule had reached into the opening and grabbed the package before she really thought about what she was doing. Now she stood there, holding a wrapped brick of what she was pretty sure was either cocaine or heroin.

As she turned around to face her trying companion, the look on Jerry's face told her all she needed to know.

“It looks like this isn’t much of a surprise to you.” She ground the words through her teeth and barely held back from throwing the brick at him.

In her imagination, it smacked him in the chest and exploded into a white cloud of accusation. But even as she envisioned her rage playing out that way, she also envisioned poor little Toto getting high on whatever this was. And then Jerry, too.

Sober Jerry was enough of a bitch to deal with.

She turned around and set the brick back down in its original position, as though that would erase her finding it and touching it. Then she turned back.

“What was that?”

Jerry shrugged.

Though she was tempted to get off the box, as it was slightly less than stable, Joule was currently enjoying being taller than Jerry. So she crossed her arms, cocked one hip out, and asked, “No, really. What is it?”

He shrugged again, but this time added, “I think it's cocaine.”

Another thought occurred to her. “Is it cut?” God forbid it was pure. If she’d thrown it at him, she might have killed one or all of them.

“I don't fucking know!” he replied.

“You don't know much, do you, Scarecrow?”

This time he blinked at her. “Why do you keep calling me that?”

“Oh dear God.” She was down here with her tiny kitten, trapped in a cellar with the leader of the protests and—what? a kilo?—of cocaine.

Her brain was rapidly snapping the pieces together. Click. The heavy bolting on the hinges, the reinforced door, and the nice, new padlock over the very old green paint now made more sense. It wasn’t obvious enough to look like they had completely fortified the place. But it was enough to let her know now that, yes, they had done a good bit of it.

Click. The second thing that snapped into place was when she'd asked him if the Larkins would come home and let them out. This was why he wasn't willing to just say, of course they will. Because who would leave someone trapped in their cellar and not let them out after a disaster? Drug runners, that’s who.

Click.

“The other farm earlier—the one where we got the tractor—them, too?”

Jerry shrugged yet again. She remembered thinking it was a little odd that there was a farmhouse with no farm. There were no fields plowed and no animals mucking about, just open space that seemed to go fallow.

The last thing didn't fit quite so neatly, but it was a question she had to ask. “Are you part of the supply chain, Jerry?”

He shook his head quickly.

He wasn't. Thank God.

Joule huffed out a breath and listened as, beside her, Toto did it, too. That was fucking adorable, and she needed some fucking adorable right now.

Hell, she figured the drug runners probably didn't want Jerry any more than she did. He had a little too much God and not quite enough brains. “Then why were you there?”

“There?” He didn’t seem to understand the question.

“Where we met. On the other farm.” When he didn’t answer right away, she explained more of her thinking. “You’d driven there with your truck. After the first tornadoes hit.”

“Why were you there?” he asked. Not the most brilliant counter.

And Joule almost smacked herself in the face out of exasperation. He was going to require her answer. “Because I was trying to ride out the tornado in a ditch off Highway 183 when the funnel picked me and my friend up and threw us different directions. I woke up in a field east of that farm. I don't know how much later.”

“Whoa!” His mouth and wide eyes were equally open. “You were actually in the tornado?”

“Yes. Jerry.” She punctuated each word, because he still hadn’t answered her question.

“So why were you there on the farm, then?” He beat her to the punch, but Joule figured feeding him information might get him to return the favor.

“I started walking. I found a stream, and then I heard a truck on the road. I screamed for help, but they went past and didn’t see me. So