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

rocked and bounced as he brought it to a stop in the grass. Cage could only hope the ground was solid enough that, when he got back in and put it in reverse, the tires would grip and get them out.

Dev was already at the trunk, pulling the bikes from the rack and setting them into the grass, where they tipped precariously and threatened to topple. “Water!” he called up to Cage and waited until his friend tossed the bottles over. Cage put an extra in the pocket in his pants.

“More? I think we have enough,” Dev said.

But Cage shook his head. “I hope that we don't need more, but that maybe Joule and Izzy do.”

His wishful thinking was shining through, and he knew it. There was absolutely no scientific or logical reason to believe that this would lead them to his sister. But as Cage straddled the bike and prepared to follow the tornado tracks, he had a good feeling that he was finally heading the right direction.

Fifty yards later, that feeling turned to stone.

54

Dev jumped back. “No!”

Cage didn't answer his friend. What could he say? Except Yes, it’s exactly what you think it is.

They’d almost biked right over the body.

Face down, it wasn’t easily identifiable. The dark, curly hair had made his stomach clench. Though Cage fought the urge to turn around and throw up, Dev made it reality.

As he listened to the sounds of his friend retching behind him, Cage took another look. Was it Izzy?

Dev barfed again behind him, making Cage wonder just what Dev had seen before coming to Alabama. It seemed these days, they'd all seen something—but whatever Dev had been through, it appeared he hadn't had to deal with dead bodies much before. Cage was unfortunately getting far more comfortable with the dead than someone his age should be.

“Give me your phone?” He reached out, but nothing happened.

Turning from the sad sight, he found Dev a few yards away, holding his hand up as if to ward Cage and his needs off. “No, not my phone.”

“We don’t have another option. We need pictures. And then we need to roll her over and get her face.”

As he watched, Dev’s body contracted again, his mouth opening as his chest and head whipped over for another round.

Cage looked away. Vomit was worse than a dead body.

He was pretty certain this was a she… or had been. Though none of that mattered until the person was identified. He closed the distance to his friend rather than asking Dev to come closer. “Dude, I really do need your phone.”

This time, though Deveron didn’t look up at him, he fished the device out of his pocket and handed it backward before returning to his hands-braced-on-knees position of defeat.

Cage walked back and snapped several shots from different angles, his own shadow getting in the way. He told himself the clothes didn’t match Izzy, but he also couldn’t remember for certain. Without the phone connected to a tower nearby, the metadata on the pictures wouldn't include the GPS location.

“Dev. Where are we?” he called over his shoulder as he took a few more pictures, doing his best to collect evidence.

“We're in a field, man.” Dev was still bent over and not even looking, letting Cage do all the foul work.

“I mean, what highway were we on?”

“Ah, I think State Road 34. That’s where the car is.” He pointed behind him, back the way they came. “Maybe a mile and a half that way.”

Cage only nodded, but mentally dialed the estimate back to half a mile. For an engineer, Dev had a solid tendency to overestimate.

With everything else done, the only thing left was the worst task. He needed to roll her over and see her face. There seemed no easy way to do it, and he wasn't quite willing to reach down and touch the person's clothing. Aside from the ick factor, it simply felt disrespectful to him.

Walking a slow circle around the corpse, he tried to make a decision. With his toe, he nudged one arm inward. It didn't move quite right, and his stomach pitched again as he figured there was a break somewhere in the long bones, or several somewheres. She looked beaten up.

Using his foot was even more disrespectful than using his hand, but he had no way to wash up, not even hand sanitizer. So, with his shoe, he pushed the arm up flush against the torso and then snapped another picture. He hated using the phone and using the battery. He still worried that this might be Izzy, though he’d basically talked himself out of that by now, because the clothing didn't match.

But the hair did.

None of this was easy. He tried again, and walked to the other side of the body. Clenching his teeth against the churn inside him, Cage pressed hard with his foot, rolling the body up until it reached sideways and flopped itself over.

His insides roiled for several reasons, only one being the way the corpse flopped down to the grass. He didn't recognize the face—and for a moment, that seemed as awful as if he had.

It was some teenager, someone young, definitely.

It only occurred to him now that he'd never questioned that the person was dead. He'd never once wondered if they needed CPR. Maybe that was a skill he had acquired from seeing corpses before. He could recognize that the dead were dead.

Once again, he took a series of pictures. When they went back, they would stop by the community center and deliver this awful information. Then a team could come out and retrieve the body.

Waving his friend along, and holding out the cell phone, Cage said, “I’ve done everything I can. Let’s go.”

Though Dev pushed himself upright and schooled his features, he still held out a hand and refused the phone. “You keep it.”

Not wanting to argue, even though he’d closed all the apps, Cage slipped the phone into his own pocket and picked up his