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

I checked the farm for people and there you were.” She took a breath and steered back to the place she wanted to be. “So the question is, Jerry, you had a truck, and you picked that place to wait out the storm. Why?”

“I wanted to check it out.”

“Check what out?”

“I was just curious if the tornado had … revealed anything.”

“So you just drove to that farm to see if there was cocaine around and … got stuck?”

He sounded sullen this time. “Well, I didn’t expect another twister to steal my brand new truck, now did I?”

Obviously, he hadn’t.

“I didn't see anything there either,” she admitted. She sure as hell would have had a different reaction if the first farm had revealed taped up, plastic-wrapped bricks of drugs lying around instead of tuna cans, cereal, and sports drinks.

Jerry just looked at her, waiting for the next question. He wasn’t volunteering any information, though she couldn’t tell if he was specifically holding back or if he’d just run out.

She needed more. “What were you looking for? Were you going to steal a brick of cocaine and sell it yourself?”

He shrugged yet again.

Oh, good Lord. “Well, Jerry, this cements it. We have to get out of here. Give me your phone.”

“I thought we were supposed to preserve the battery.”

“We're gonna preserve it the best we can, Scarecrow. But we need it for this.”

“Stop calling me that!”

“Then stop acting like it!” She bit off the rest of her rant. “Sooner or later, the Larkins are going to come back and probably kill us both if they find us down here with their cocaine. So I hope you had a lot of battery when this started.”

His eyes lit up a little bit. “I had the phone plugged into the dash. I think it was almost at a hundred percent.”

She lifted the phone and looked. He was close. Good. “We’ll do everything we can to keep this running as long as we can. And we pray the Larkins don't come back. We have to find a way out of here. And this phone is our only light that I know of.”

If the Larkins found them, Joule was pretty sure she and Jerry would wind up dead. And if the phone battery died, they died, too.

50

“I need something else to stand on,” Joule told Jerry.

They both looked around but didn't see anything.

“Maybe they won't know we were down here,” he offered up hopefully.

She almost looked back over her shoulder to give him an incredulous glare.

How on earth would the Larkins not know that someone had been down there? If she and Jerry either tunneled their way out, broke their way out from the cellar doors somehow—which they didn't seem strong enough to do—or crawled out through the crawlspace under the house, over the top of the cocaine, they were going to leave a gaping hole. The board that had been pushed into place had been pushed from the cellar side. There was no way to leave this place as though they hadn't been here.

She didn’t reply, just looked forward.

The crawlspace still seemed like the best bet, but that meant going up and over the cocaine. It meant choosing a direction and a plan and actively trying to get out. The Larkins would know, likely right away, that someone had been in their stash.

Joule decided faster was better and reached up to grab the wood planking. She pulled and tugged at it, but the old stuff was sturdier than it appeared. The one plank that had come out was the only one that was loose, and she couldn't boost up and crawl through the hole until she'd made the opening wider. She wasn’t going to be able to tear it out with her bare hands.

Stepping down from the box, she reached to the floor and scooped up Toto in one hand. With the other, she pulled the sports drink from the pocket on her pants and took a swallow. Then, because she had nothing better and electrolytes for cats had to be about the same as electrolytes for humans, she poured a small bit into the cap and let Toto take a few sips. She screwed the cap back on and scooped the kitten back up, all while Jerry watched.

“It’s your turn up on the box,” she told him, hoping it didn't break under his heft. “I need you to rip the boards out and make the space wider.”

He gingerly climbed onto the box, smart enough to place his feet at the edges and not the middle, where he might go crashing through. He reached up and grabbed the wood tightly. He’d seen her struggling with it and put his weight into the tug.

He managed to get two of the pieces out. Though the hole was noticeably bigger, it was barely wide enough for Joule, and still not wide enough for him. Jerry tried again.

He looked down, checked his foot placement, and put his hands over his head. Grabbing at the bottom of a plank sticking down into the gaping opening, he rocked it back and forth. But it still didn't want to quite give, and he wound up snapping it, leaving harsh shards like evil teeth hanging down into the space.

“I can't get the side ones,” he said without turning around.

As he checked out the pieces, Joule walked back to the space under the steps and rummaged through the tools she’d left. A smallish, square-headed hammer that looked perfectly evil caught her eye.

“Try this.” She held it up to him and then stepped back as Jerry swung. He now quickly opened up the space between the shelves.

“All right. Got it.” His triumph was hers, too.

“Can I look?” she asked.

He stepped down, but he asked, “Why do you call me Scarecrow?”

He stood in the center of the small space, looking down in the dim light over his flannel shirt, white T-shirt, and old jeans. “I don't think I look like a scarecrow. Is it the