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

sister protested in his ear, but his brain was even more fuzzy and he was looking at Laura, who had blood running down the side of her head.

She still had the wherewithal to open her mouth and was screaming something—or at least Cage thought she was. He couldn't hear her voice as, behind her, the funnel touched down and ate all the angry words right out of the air.

She waved her gun, but the other brother turned and aimed for her. Cage wondered if she might shoot into the moving crowd, aiming for the house and whatever shelter Paul and Brenda had.

Dr. Murasawa and Brenda were now dragging Izzy along. His friend had blood seeping all through her clothing. Cage blinked, trying to follow all the moving pieces. He felt it was important that he turn back around but could not recall why.

He swung his head over Joule’s shoulder again as Brenda led them all up the back steps into the house. Cage tripped over the edge of the porch, pain shooting up his side once again. The intensity of the pain blurred his vision, and his sister tugging him along only made it worse.

He couldn’t think, or maybe even breathe, he didn’t know. But still he turned his head back, needing to see what was happening behind him.

The brothers stood, each with a gun facing Laura. Closer to the house, Paul stood with his shotgun ready. But if the shotgun blast reached that far, he would pepper all of them. Laura held her gun unsteadily, but close enough to one of the brothers’ heads that her aim wouldn’t matter.

It was Boomer she was aiming for, but Bob who was in the most immediate danger.

He saw it then and remembered why he had to turn and look. When he yelled, the pain of the movement cracked his head and radiated up his side, but he did it anyway. He had to.

“Bob! It’s behind you!”

70

Joule followed Brenda, rushing as best she could while she bore most of her brother’s weight. But as she took the first step through what appeared to be an ordinary closet door, she saw that it led down into the underground space, and she balked.

It was a purely emotional reaction—a sudden, seizing terror that she knew was irrational.

She flashed back to walking into the cellar with Jerry, to climbing down the rickety wooden steps. She'd been stuck there for hours. Then she’d been trapped under the house by the storm debris with no one coming. Though she’d maintained a constant forward motion and sawed a path through the flooring and out from under the Larkins’ home, she'd been petrified. Escaping that situation, only to find a worse one, didn’t make this sudden seizing of her muscles any better.

She turned her head, as behind her Boomer and Bob dealt with the Larkins. Beside them, the barn blazed and crackled as flaming sections crashed down. Joule was waiting for it to collapse in a fireball and wondered again why it hadn’t yet. Was time simply moving too slowly for her?

Beyond them, the funnel ate up the ground, grinding at the trees and puny fences in its path. It broke sturdy structures like twigs as if to flex its power as it aimed directly toward her.

She’d told Jerry that it was random, that the storm didn’t have a desire to hunt them, but right now it sure looked like it did.

“Joule!” Brenda yelled, trying to get her to snap out of it. The other woman reached up and physically removed Cage from her arms.

Now, Joule looked. She moved just two steps down, far enough to see. But her racing heart halted her again.

She looked at her brother, finally assessing what had happened. When she’d reacted, she hadn’t seen the damage, hadn’t fully understood. Now, blood was running down Cage’s leg as he moved to sit on the floor. Joule stayed frozen in place, letting Brenda help. Brenda seemed to know what she was doing, and Joule seemed stuck, observing.

Beyond him, Izzy was already laid on out the floor, her head resting in Dr. Murasawa’s lap as her boss gently tapped, then slapped, at Izzy’s face in an effort to bring her back to consciousness. Dev was hovering over the two of them, blocking part of Joule’s view. But she could see that Izzy was covered in blood.

That might have been the thing that jolted her out of it.

As she began to make her way further down the steps, she looked over her shoulder, out the wide glass windows that framed a cute back porch. The funnel was getting closer. It was getting larger. And this time, it did sound like a train, barreling directly toward them.

Turning from her position, she saw Boomer and Bob racing across the yard toward her now, Laura and Levi left behind. The Larkins were laid out on the ground, unmoving. Joule could only imagine they were dead. If they weren’t, they might be soon. Boomer and Bob were leaving their bodies to the storm and Joule couldn’t say she disagreed with that decision.

The large men moved more easily than they should have, and they hit the steps in near unison, taking them two or three at a time. Almost comically, they seemed to get jammed up at the doorway. But they immediately stepped back and, in the typical Southern fashion that Joule had seen while she was there, each tried to wave the other through first.

“Get the fucking fuck in here!” she yelled at them, still on the third step down.

Blue plaid took initiative and stepped through first, with his brother right on his heels. As she waved them forward, they each grabbed one of her arms and hauled her backwards down the stairs as they went. They gave her no choice but to move, and for that, she was grateful. But she still remained frozen on the bottom step, as if it meant she could escape if she needed to.

It was completely