He followed Tom outside.
Tom was standing by his bicycle, shivering. Nick was momentarily bemused by the freaky choosiness of the tornado, which had taken most of the barn but had disdained their bikes, when he saw that Tom was weeping. Nick went over to him and put an arm about his shoulders. Tom was staring, wide-eyed, at the sagging double doors of the barn. Nick made a thumb-and-forefinger circle. Tom's eyes dropped to this briefly, but the smile Nick had hoped for did not surface on Tom's face. He simply went back to staring at the barn. His eyes had a vacant, fixated cast Nick didn't like at all.
"Someone was in there," Tom said abruptly.
Nick smiled, but the smile felt cold on his lips. He had no idea how good the imitation looked, but it felt crappy. He pointed to Tom, to himself, and then made a sharp cutting gesture through the air with the side of his hand.
"No," Tom said. "Not just us. Someone else. Someone who came out of the twister."
Nick shrugged.
"Can we go now? Please?"
Nick nodded.
They trundled their bicycles back to the highway, using the path of uprooted grass and torn soil that the tornado had made. It had touched down on the west side of Rosston, had cut across US 283 on a west-to-east course, throwing guardrails and connecting cable into the air like piano wire, had skirted the barn to their left and ploughed directly through the house which stood - had stood - in front of it. Four hundred yards farther along, its track through the field abruptly ceased. Now the clouds had begun to break up (although it was still showering, lightly and refreshingly) and birds were singing unconcernedly.
Nick watched the hefty muscles under Tom's shirt work as he lifted his bike over the jumble of guardrail cable on the verge of the highway. That guy saved my life, he thought. I never saw a twister in my life before today. If I'd left him behind back there in May like I thought about doing, I'd be as dead as a doornail right about now.
He lifted his bike over the frayed cables and clapped Tom on the back and smiled at him.
We've got to find somebody else, Nick thought. We've got to, just so I can tell him thanks. And my name. He doesn't even know my name, because he can't read.
He stood there for a moment, bemused by this, and then they mounted their bikes and rode away.
They camped that night in left field of the Rosston Jaycees' Little League ballfield. The evening was cloudless and starry. Nick's sleep came quickly and was dreamless. He woke up at dawn the next morning, thinking how good it was to be with someone again, what a difference it made.