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

discarded bike. He stood up on the pedals, pushing hard over the uneven terrain. It might have been easier without the debris littering the ground, but maybe not. He clearly wasn’t an off-road biker, and his muscles were already protesting a second day of this.

With Dev quickly catching up, they skirted the edges of the path. It was rough going. No one had cleared anything in the field, and they had to slow down. He recognized a good bit of weird detritus, like the expected snapped and tossed tree branches, but he also saw pieces of homes that he couldn't identify.

When they’d been on the freeways, he could see the neighborhoods and the spots where the missing houses had stood. His brain automatically assumed that the freshly snapped wood lying in the road belong to the nearby missing structures. But out here, there was nothing to tie the old pipe with the boiler tag to, or the three shingles that had somehow managed to stick together and make it this far from civilization.

As they made their way through, they checked out everything they could. Cage tried to assess the damage to the trees. They picked up a few objects along the way, using the carry bags they’d stolen from the bike shop with everything else. Cage had now bungeed one teddy bear, a set of car keys, and an embroidered dog collar to the back of his bike. In his pocket, he had another cell phone he'd found dead in the grass. But it was blinged out with rhinestones and glimmer to the point that he knew someone would be able to identify it.

Hopefully, it was someone who would say, “Oh, you found my phone. Thank you.” He was afraid someone would say, “Yes. That's our daughter's—and we haven't found her yet.”

Given the looks of it, he didn't think the phone belonged to the teenager they’d found. The shine and purple glitter didn’t match her old, loose jeans and the Grateful Dead T-shirt.

They were still to the left of the tornado track, not having needed to cross the rough ground yet. It was difficult going. Cage had thought for a while that they would simply bike right down the middle of the path the storm had cut, but the tires only sank into the freshly turned dirt. The rocks and debris churned in had forced them to stop every three feet. The grass, as difficult as it was, was still easier to cross.

“What's that?” Dev asked, pulling Cage from his thoughts. He continued to scan the field in front of them, but he didn't see what Dev was looking at. He was grateful that there were two of them and that Dev was clearly catching things that Cage was missing.

“I don't know. Where?”

“Look.” Dev pointed to their left. “All this grass is even, and then nothing right there.”

They turned their bikes, slowly pedaling through the mess, avoiding what had been dropped from the tornado as they approached the dent in the grass.

It was another dead body.

“Holy shit!” Dev muttered as Cage thought the same.

He didn't like this. This one was face up. And the only saving grace was that he could quickly identify that it was neither Joule nor Izzy.

“No!” The cry sounded like it was ripped from Dev’s throat.

As Cage watched, Dev dropped the bike and ran the last few feet.

“No!”

When Cage looked again at the face, though it was gray and laid to the side, eyes closed, this time he recognized it.

55

Joule sat quietly tense, petrified that Toto would meow and give them away.

Distinctly human shuffling noises broke the regular sounds of the animals … the noises Joule had become used to during her short tenure in the loft.

Somebody was searching the barn. But why?

There was no reason for a search, unless they knew that she and Jerry were up here, or at least suspected it. She waited for the ladder to the loft to creak as someone climbed it. But as she—

“Mrrrwow!” Toto looked up at her, his tiny plaintive cry seeming to echo visibly in the air around her.

Shit.

She tensed every muscle, staying perfectly still except for her gaze, which flicked to the side to look at Jerry. She saw that he, too, had simply frozen, mid-move. The sound didn't seem to faze their searchers though. And Joule suddenly realized her foolishness.

A cat in a barn meant nothing. There was no reason for them to suspect a mewing kitten meant human intruders were nearby. Toto hadn’t given them away; his was the only expected sound here. The shuffling below them continued, but now with a murmured conversation she couldn’t make out at all.

Relaxing marginally as Toto meowed again, Joule put her finger to her lips and scooped him up. She would have made a hushing noise but was afraid that would have alerted the searchers to humans.

Her heart stopped as she heard the thing she’d been afraid of—the creak of steps on the barn ladder. Someone was rapidly climbing up to the loft. Should she stand and fight? Could she plant her foot in their chest and send them backward off the ladder and probably to their death?

She didn’t know who was coming up or who might be searching for them, though their face would clear the top at any moment. Joule would have to decide. And fast.

Then other footsteps broke into the shuffled conversation. Her fingers dug into the hay and she heard it crinkle with her grip. Could they hear it below?

“What are you doing in here?” the voice demanded.

“We wanted to be sure you were okay.” The return answer rang insincere, even to Joule, who couldn't see the person's face.

Jerry's eyes widened at the second voice, and Joule could only guess that it was either one of the Larkins or maybe someone worse who was speaking. Whoever it was, her partner in tornado refugee crime seemed to know them.

“No, you're not. You're in my barn for, and I want to know