“It’s right over us,” he said, squeezing the air out of me, his face in my neck. Anxiety set in, but not because of the storm. It was the close contact that was giving me vertigo and tunnel vision.
“I do solemnly swear,” I whispered, “to uphold the Constitution of the United States . . .”
I heard a tornado siren in the distance, which the wind outscreamed in volume.
“We have to go back,” Dekker shouted.
“Where’s back?” I said.
“We have to get in Uncle Curt’s shelter.”
All I could see was gray water pouring down the windshield backed by a weird green glow. Thunder sounded all around. Darkness devoured us. The pressure in my ears alternated painfully as the buffeting winds forced the tractor to rock tire to tire. Hail pelting metal sounded like gunfire. Only the continuous lightning broke up the blackness.
“No, no, no, no,” Dekker said, and the terror I felt, the certainty we were about to die painfully, swallowed up my conscious mind and I began screaming.
The air raid siren deepened in pitch until it was no longer a sound but a vibration that could burst eardrums and eyeballs and peel your skin off. The rocking accelerated until it seemed as if the tractor was trying to run away.
Then we rose in the air.
Chapter 18
THE FIRST THING I thought when I woke up staring at the sky, a wedge of brownish light at one end and black angry clouds at the other, was that I wanted a cigarette. I reached up to scratch my nose and came away with a handful of glass slivers and cuts. In fact, my hand was covered with blood.
I was trapped beneath a dead weight pinning my pelvis to the ground. I lifted my head. It was Petty, lying crosswise over me, her face in the mud.
With a jolt of terror--fueled adrenaline, I reached forward and shoved, rolling her across my knees and feet, sending missiles of pain up my legs. She ended up on her back, her face clotted with blood and mud. She gasped a gulp of air and her eyes flew open as she sprang to her feet, looking around wildly.
“Dad?”
“Petty.” I got to my feet just as she charged at me. “Petty, it’s me. Dekker.”
She stopped and bent sideways, clutching her side and groaning. “What happened? I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.”
“Tornado,” I said. “We gotta get out of here.”
The tornado siren was still blaring in the distance. I turned in a circle and saw that the tornado had moved us a good fifty yards closer to Uncle Curt’s house, which was still standing, thank God. No doubt Uncle Curt and Roxanne had herded all the cops down into the tornado shelter. Their cruisers were still parked, undisturbed, in front of the house.
The tractor lay on its side ten yards away, the windshield and windows shattered, the metal twisted and crumpled like tinfoil. Its deformed shape gave me the shivers. Petty and I stared at each other in amazement.
We should be dead.
Petty ran toward the tractor and I ran after her. Now that I was up and moving, I felt specific pains. My ankle was the worst, but my right elbow and my neck hurt too.
“What are you doing?” I said.
She looked in what was left of the tractor. “Where is it?”
“Where is what?”
“The laptop.” She ran in ever widening circles. “The laptop!” Her tone was frantic.
“Never mind,” I said. “We’ve got to get out of here before the cops come out of Uncle Curt’s house.”
“I need that laptop!” she screamed.
“Why?”
“Stuff about my mom’s on there. I have to—-”
“No you don’t! We have to go! Now!” I grabbed her arm and made her walk alongside me, and she only fought me a little bit.
“I’ll call Uncle Curt and tell him to go look for it.” Though I knew it was probably destroyed anyway.
I patted my pocket. “Shit,” I said. “My cell phone’s gone.”
Petty didn’t respond.
We trotted toward the road, me glancing over my shoulder at Uncle Curt’s house every few feet. To my heightened senses, everything appeared sharp and vivid, as if I were looking through a magnifying glass. The red of the tractor. The silver edges of the still--morphing black clouds. The green of the clumpy grass.
I reached into my shirt pocket for a smoke and pulled out the waterlogged and squashed pack. I kept my disappointment to myself, though, because Petty wouldn’t be sympathetic at all. I crushed the pack and threw it on the ground.
A silver pickup truck appeared beside us as if by magic. There was nowhere to hide. The driver’s side window rolled down.
“You okay? Are you all right?” The man’s voice was high and tight, no doubt goosed by adrenaline. “Good God, look at you two. Let’s get you to the hospital.”
“We’re okay,” I said. “Just a little shook up.”
“Can I give you a ride, then?”
Petty shook her head no, but I squeezed her arm. “Thank you, sir, that would be very helpful.”
I opened the passenger door then shoved Petty toward it. She resisted, and I hissed in her ear, “This is how we’re going to get out of here. Get in the fucking truck. And wipe your face off. You look like a goon.”