“National Weather Service for this area. They use trained spotters to confirm the exact location of severe weather, so they can get out advanced warnings to the public.” She fell silent as she stared pensively up at the cloud the SUV seemed to be following.
About five minutes later she said, “We have hook echo.”
Tensing, his gaze flew outside the window. He’d lived in Kansas long enough to know a hook echo indicated possible rotation of a tornado on radar. Within minutes, rain pelted the windshield. Wind shook the SUV. Mac grabbed hold of the sides of his seat and clenched every muscle in his body.
“Turn left, stay behind the line,” she told Rick. A moment later, the rain stopped. “Funnel!” she shouted.
Mac glanced outside and sure enough a thick, whirling black mass extended from the cloud halfway down to the ground.
She quickly lifted the mic and identified herself. “I have visual of a funnel cloud moving northeast along—” A second later, she said, “Scratch that! Debris ball spotted. We have confirmed touchdown. Cone-shaped tornado is on the ground.” Then she repeated the info, which he quickly learned she did each time she spoke to the authorities.
Gayle clicked off the mic. “Take a right on this road and get next to it.”
Next to it? Mac’s heart walloped his chest. The increased blood flow went straight to his head and white dots danced before his eyes.
The roar…growing louder and louder as it churned closer. The rattling of the kitchenware. The impact. Glass shattering.
Closing his eyes, he slowly inhaled two calming breaths, then exhaled.
It will have control of you no more.
Once he felt the tension release, he opened them.
Fucking horrible mistake. Instead of staying in the distance, the monster in front of them was spinning closer and closer, growing larger and more menacing by the second. His grip on the seat tightened as his mind bellowed to scream at Gayle that she was a fucking lunatic. Grinding his teeth against the urge, the swirling beast held him paralyzed. It felt like he could literally reach his hand out the window and touch the damn thing. In reality, it was probably the length of a football field away. Which was too fucking close by a mile. Wind gusts shook the car like an angry mother.
“Tornado is shifting to an easterly route and gaining momentum,” she told the National Weather Service. The concern in her voice didn’t go unnoticed.
The debris ball was huge, littered with dust and occasionally something larger. Right now the tornado was in an open field, but he saw the shift in direction Gayle had mentioned. Instead of going off at an angle and keeping to flat land, the change kept it on a straight course—and that looked like a town up ahead sitting innocently in the tornado’s destructive path. Fuck. Memories of his own destroyed past threatened to overwhelm him again, but he forced himself to stay in the present. Pressing the heels of his palms to his forehead, he silently repeated, “Shift motherfucker, shift.”
“Trajectory continues easterly, headed for the populated area of Mint.”
As they took a right onto another road following behind the twister, the sound of sirens filled the car. A cluster of homes came into view and the town’s water tower stood proud in the distance.
The tension in the SUV thickened. Unable to look away, Mac knotted his fingers in his hair, transfixed on the beast and the defenseless town below it. His heart was pounding so hard he thought it might crack a rib.
“Tornado is shifting again. Toward the northeast.” Excitement laced every word.
About thirty seconds later, the tornado sideswiped a small farmhouse, taking off some siding and shattering the windows. Rick slowed the car. Mac swore. A barn and a fence took considerable damage, but that was it, then the tornado moved back into open fields. The town had been miraculously saved from a direct hit. A few minutes later the tornado started to shrink, until it was thin rope, and then it disappeared completely. Mac’s heartbeat started to slow in relief and he managed to peel his fingers from the edge of the seat. Holy fuck.
“Tornado has dissipated.”
She repeated, then hooked the mic back on the side of the radio and collapsed back against the seat with a heartfelt, “Thank God.”
Awe rose in him as he stared at her. “Gayle, with all this equipment, why the play-by-play?”
She turned her head. “We have made amazing progress with radar and such, but the one thing we do not have is something that tells us when there’s an actual touchdown. Still need human spotters for that.”
He blinked, and she turned back to the monitors. “Another tornadic storm brewing twenty miles east.”
Holy shit. The woman really did help people.