clear, “seek shelter in the innermost room on the lowest level of a sturdy, well-built structure. Protect yourself as best you can. Hang on. Hunker down. Pray.”
“Where are you going?”
Barreling outside, Clint stared mesmerized at the northern sky filled with twisting, writhing masses of sooty colored clouds. The very air around him looked funny. Instead of bright sunshine, the atmosphere was tinged an unearthly greenish gray.
Beside him, Rowan looked on in awe. “Wow.”
Both boys watched in fascination as a slender rope dipped down from the clouds, slithering earthward.
“We need to get the family together, crowd together in the bathroom.”
Rowan turned to go in, but Clint grabbed his arm. In those few seconds, the fiercely spinning tornado began to change. Ragged strands of clouds came together, and the entire black sky appeared to reach down to tear at the earth. The vortex pulsed and breathed, growing larger by the second as it seemingly set a path straight to their door. In the distance they could see huge oaks swaying, then bending and jerking under the tremendous pressure. “No. We need to go somewhere else. This storm is too big.” Pushing his brother by the shoulder, he screamed. “Go. Run. Let’s get Mama and the others.”
“Where will we go?” Rowan screamed as he ran.
Clint knew of only one place. “The quarry. Let’s get everyone to the quarry.”
As they burst through the door, Gillian was standing nearby, holding Kyd and Bethany in her arms. “Where have you been? There’s a storm coming.”
“We know.” Clint took her by the arm. “We need to get out of the house and go to the quarry.”
“The quarry?” Gillian asked, her voice shrill with emotion. “No. We’ll be safer here. In our home.”
“No.” Clint was adamant. “This storm’s too big. We’ve got to go now!”
Rowan was ahead of him. He’d sprinted up the stairs and came down holding Cassidy in his arms, Colleen at his side. “Okay, let’s go.”
Gillian didn’t argue as her two oldest led them out of the house and across the field. “Hurry. Hurry,” Clint urged. Behind them the dull drone of the tornado began to roar louder, deeper. When he dared take the time to look back, the storm had grown from a distant cloud to an ominous monster that devoured the whole horizon. “Let’s run.”
Together, hand in hand, they made a human chain as they fled over the fields from the Double Tree Estate to the nearby quarry. The distance was only half a mile, but it seemed like an eternity passed as they raced away from the howling storm. Hail began to fall, and Gillian and Rowan covered the children’s heads as best they could. “Put your arms over your head,” Clint directed Kyd and Colleen who were toddling along as fast as their baby legs would carry them.
Glancing over his shoulder, Clint’s heart rose into his throat. Behind them, the tornado loomed like a mountain that reached to the sky. He couldn’t tell in which direction it was headed. It was so big; he wasn’t sure the exact path mattered. The winds were blowing so hard, he could feel Colleen’s hand almost slipping from his grasp. Immediately, he tightened his grip. “Hurry!” he urged. They were almost there. Just a few more yards.
When they reached the quarry, Rowan led them to the nearest hole, a depression in the ground about four feet deep. There were large rocks in the hole and Gillian directed the children to kneel between the boulders, using them as shields. “Hold on to the rocks!” She draped her body over Bethany and Cassidy as Clint and Rowan did the same with Colleen and Kyd. Huddled together, they listened as the gargantuan tornado roared by.
Clint couldn’t help but glance up and what he saw would be with him for the rest of his days. The black clouds looked like they were in a blender, a deafening tumult of wind and debris. Timbers, aluminum, insulation, and a thousand other unrecognizable remnants of homes, cars, and God knows what else churned in the vortex overhead. He could feel the pull against his body and for a moment, Clint was afraid they’d all be plucked from their hiding place and sucked up into the belly of the beast.
For what seemed like an eternity, they clung to the rocks. When Clint realized he could hear his mother praying and the children crying, he knew the worst was over. The rushing sound of a thousand freight trains was dissipating. The tornado had passed