Mac wasn’t sure if it was the presence of a storm chaser vehicle or the crazy woman yelling at them, but folks started moving. People already driving on the roads started taking side streets to get out. As the SUV reached a less commercialized area, Gayle slipped back inside. “Get us out of here, Rick.”
He floored the gas and flew through town just as the tornado made impact on the other side. Rain pelted the windshield, quickly followed by golf ball sized hail and wind so strong it made visibility zero. Thunder boomed as crazy-intense lightning struck the ground.
“We’re in the core. Get us out!” Gayle whipped around to look out the back.
It was the fear in her eyes and her voice that terrified Mac the most.
“Put your seatbelt on,” he ordered. When she didn’t move, he yelled, “Now, goddamn it!”
As she fumbled with the belt, the glass in front of her went crack and shattered into a spider web of cubes as debris slammed into it. Screaming, she flinched away, flinging her arms up to protect her head. In one swift motion, he released his belt and lunged forward, covering her. Something else bounced off the broken windshield, and a deluge of water and hail assaulted his shoulders and back. He curled himself tighter around her.
Seconds later, the torrent ended abruptly.
Mac eased back, shaking off the sluicing water. Gayle lifted up.
Rick exhaled, his fingers white around the steering wheel. “We’re out.”
Mac sat in his seat, the quaking in his hand making it difficult to snap his seatbelt back on. The image of Gayle screaming and protecting her head was seared in his mind.
“Are you okay?” Gayle asked. “That hail was the size of canned hams.”
“Nothing worse than I’ve taken in the cage.” He tried for a smile at her joke, but by the doubtful once-over she gave him he knew he’d failed. In truth, his shoulders and back stung like hell. And if he hadn’t put himself in between Gayle and Mother Nature, it would’ve been her sweet curves taking the beating instead of his hard fighter’s body.
As Rick circled around, Mac was transfixed by the black swirling mass maybe half a mile away that slowly churned through the heart of Makersville. Slim fingers brushed against his. He glanced down to find Gayle’s hand reaching through the seats and he latched on to it. As she held up the video camera to document the destruction, he saw tears rimming her eyes as her lips moved around words he couldn’t hear.
She was praying.
Rick crept the SUV along. Every once in a while a brilliant flash of blue light lit the air or the inside of the tornado, which was eerily stunning. Flying out from the massive debris ball surrounding the vortex, paper and other light objects swirled around their vehicle. Memories assaulted him of being trapped, helpless, in pitch black darkness. The deafening roar of the fierce winds. Shattering glass, loud crashes, and booms as walls toppled and the roof tore away. The violent sounds becoming muted from the air pressure clogging his ears. The overwhelming smell of natural gas and fresh cut wood. Airborne dirt and debris pelting his skin. Terror-filled screams of the patrons in the freezer, certain death was imminent. He heard it. Felt it. All over again. Like he never had before.
People were going through that right now, right in front of him. He turned to the woman beside him still mumbling a prayer. Her actions had no doubt saved lives today. And could have cost her hers, too.
It took the twister ten full minutes to eat a path through the town. Ten minutes of terror for the people trapped under the destruction left behind by the swirling demon. Ten minutes of terror for those hiding, waiting, and praying for mercy as it crept closer. Mac rubbed his face. Ten minutes of abject horror for him to live through, as well. Helpless. Stricken. Flooded by terrible memories.
As the monster neared the edge of town, the momentum keeping it together slowly unraveled, and it started to lose strength. By the time it moved back out onto flat land, it was less than half its original size. A few minutes later it was gone—as though it hadn’t just destroyed an entire small town.
“Go,” Gayle whispered to Rick. “We can’t leave. We have to help.”
A sumo wrestler might as well have sat down on Mac’s chest from the heaviness suddenly compressing his lungs, threatening to suffocate him. Search and rescue. As the SUV turned back into town, the path of destruction left behind took Mac’s breath away.
“Oh God.” Gayle pressed her hand to her mouth.
The town was simply gone. Asphalt had been ripped up. Stores completely leveled. Vehicles looked as if they had been picked up and crushed in a giant’s hand. All that was left of trees were denuded stumps, the tops completely torn away. Timbers were speared into windshields. A piece of fence was impaled deep into the side of a standing cement wall.
It was Emerald Springs all over again.