After the Tornado

Things just keep getting worse

I volunteered after several natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina. Horrible experiences all, but I didn’t know the half of it. Going back to the hotel or trailer or home after a long day of helping and working was difficult enough, but it’s something completely different when one has nowhere to go. People act very strangely.

Haley gulped her water down to the dregs, poured out the last bit, and dropped the bottle on the ground next to the stairs.

We sat on the back steps (the kid was at his mother’s) and watched the pines melt in the afternoon sun. Ninety-four degrees but feels like one-twelve, via the weather report on my phone. Humidity is a bitch. But even the sun’s glare was better than the claustrophobic interior of the house thanks to the power outage. It was out all over town. First a tornado, then the murders, and now a heat wave. We considered going somewhere but there was nowhere to go. One of the three hotels in town no longer existed (the sleezy hotel survived unscathed), and the other two lacked the same electric capabilities we did. Half the town was a post-apocalyptic disaster scene, and the other half was impossible to navigate thanks to the flood of emergency relief vehicles and rubberneckers clogging even the alleyways. Not to mention, we did not have the funds to leave town for a few days.

Just like the aforementioned sleezy hotel, our house was not damaged. A few branches down in the yard. Across the street, the neighbor lady’s tree had fallen and couldn’t get up but managed to miss everyone in the vicinity.

On cue, the wild boy next door started his hollering and banging on something. Haley and I sighed in unison. I am fairly certain she was thinking the same thing as I. The one house the tornado could have flattened and neither of us would have minded.

We sat as far apart as possible while still sharing the step and sipped warm bottled water. We were running low on the stuff and there was a boil notice going. There were plenty of stands around town to pick up cases of bottled water, but with the traffic to get there and long lines for pickup, I decided I’d rather take my chances with whatever floated through the pipes. I opened my mouth to make a juvenile comment on the subject–I’ll put some particulates in your water, something, something, something–but for one of the rare times in my life, I kept quiet. Stared at the trio of pine trees in our backyard. They were only about twenty-five feet away.

The sirens woke us around nine-thirty. I checked the weather on my phone while she got the kid out of bed. Together she and I wrestled both ferrets into a kitty carrier. According to the internet, shit was about to hit the fan, bounce off the walls, and hit it again. The doppler radar looked like a screensaver from ninety-five and the weather guy was praying live on air.

I stepped out back to see if I could see it and couldn’t see shit. The wind, rain, and blackness completely obscured that trio of pines in front of me. The raging storm smothered the sirens blaring so loudly seconds before.

Hurried back inside. Gathered wife, kid, and ferrets and huddled together in the closet off our bedroom. The hundred-year-old house shook, swayed, creaked, and barked. The tornado cut a hard right across the river and swallowed the other side of town. I sighed again and looked harder at those trees—so close, but that darkness wiped them completely off the map. I had seen tornadoes in the past, from a distance, and didn’t carry any significant fear of storms. But I had never seen anything like that darkness that seemed to envelope the universe outside of my back steps.

A car horn started up down the street, growing louder as it neared. Brakes squealed. The horn blared. And then a twisting metal sound culminating in a clanging thunk.

“What the bitch was that?” The seven-year-old boy next door shouted, pausing from breaking whatever he was banging against.

Haley and I shared a look, then rushed through the house and onto the front porch.

Across the street, in the neighbor lady’s yard, a black sedan lay on its side; the front of the car smashed into the downed tree. The passenger door squealed open, pointing at God, and out climbed a bedraggled figure. He appeared vaguely familiar. Stick thin, bushy white hair, split ends yellowed. He clamored down the trunk and leaned against the tree, taking great big breaths. Sirens started up, growing louder.

Halfway down the steps, Haley grabbed my arm, and I recognized the sonofabitch. I blanked on his name (Compton something, something, something), but it was the town murderer. Months earlier, he killed and raped his ninety-year-old mother over his inheritance, or lack thereof. Everyone in the county knew it but the police.

Haley pulled out her phone, dialing nine-one-one.

The sirens grew louder. Tires squealed across blacktop. At the end of the street an ambulance drove into view, hazard lights flashing to blind the devil, cutting a wobbly turn around the corner in front of the old museum. Speeding our way.

I waved both arms to make sure the driver knew we needed help here. Haley lowered her phone, shrugged. “Guess I’ll wait to see if he stops,” she said.

The driver ignored us, heading straight toward the overturned car. The murderer leaned forward. His eyes grew wide. Our eyes met, and I saw nothing but abject terror. I called out.

The ambulance slammed into the murderer, pinning him to the tree. His upper body, chest, head, arms leaned over the hood painted several shades brighter than the blood he vomited onto it.

I grabbed Haley and we retreated up the steps onto the porch. Black smoke roiled from the ambulance’s crumpled hood, obscuring the murderer. We could still hear his screams, loud at first as the ambulance driver turned the engine off but growing less audible by the second.

The ambulance door flew open and a man, I can’t remember what he looked like for reasons that will be obvious later, hustled out, a pistol midnight-black in his hand. At the front of the ambulance the gun barked twice. No more cries came from the smoke.

Haley gasped and this new murderer whirled. He gawked at us. Raised the pistol. I ducked to the left behind a pillar, and Haley went right to hide behind the next one.

“I got no problem with you. I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

“He had it coming,” he said.

Neither I nor Haley responded. The seconds rolled by like the smoke billowing from the hood of the ambulance.

“Did neither of y’all see nothing?” he said.

“No. We didn’t see anything.”

“We weren’t even home.”

“We didn’t like that dude anyway,” I said even though neither of us knew the murdered murderer personally. “He was an asshole.”

“Are you going to call the cops?”

“No. Definitely not.”

Haley, always smarter than I, said, “We don’t even have phones right now. They don’t work. The tornado broke them, and we haven’t been able to get replacements yet. So even if we wanted to, we couldn’t call anyone.” Behind the pillar, she tucked her phone into her back pocket.

I peeked around my own pillar. The new murderer still held the gun out, but he pursed his lips and nodded his head.

“OK. I’m going to go now.”

He turned and hot-footed it down the street. Haley and I met in the center of the porch, embraced.

Before he rounded the corner, the neighbor lady across the street opened the door, stepped outside, and screamed at seeing the fresh carnage accumulated on her lawn. Loud and shrill. Loud enough to call Jesus home for supper.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” The murderer halted, raised the pistol, and fired. The old lady dropped, gurgling. He glanced over his shoulder at us.

I raised both arms and shook my head. He continued.

After he vanished, Haley released a long sigh. “Oh my God. We need to leave.”

“I’ll start packing,” I said.

“Let’s drive up to Memphis for the weekend. I don’t know how we’ll pay for it, but I must get the hell away from here for a while.”

“We’ll put it on the credit card,” I said.

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