Vortex Read online

  “Forget your phone, idiot! Are you hurt?”

  “Uh, no? No, I guess not. There it goes.” He pointed to Blair’s left. Blair turned back around. Through the splintered front window, she saw the tornado moving away from them. Its outer edge must’ve just grazed them as it crossed the road.

  “Man, that was close.” Blair looked over at David—and almost screamed again. “Dave! Your arm!”

  Her older brother stared blankly at the blood running down his right arm. “Piece of glass must’ve hit me,” he said in a dull, distant voice.

  “You think?!” Stop that, Blair told herself firmly. You’re panicking. Focus. Remember your first aid training. “Let me see it.”

  “Let me just turn on the emergency lights—”

  “David! Let me see your arm!”

  The blood wasn’t spurting—good. That meant the glass hadn’t hit an artery. But the cut went deep, and the bleeding was steady. Must be a vein. “We need to put pressure on that. Where’s the first aid kit?”

  “Uh, somewhere in the trunk, I think.”

  “Okay, hold your arm above your head.” She grabbed it and lifted it for him, then took his other hand and clamped it on top of the wound. “Press down as hard as you can.” She reached across him and hit the button to pop the trunk. “I’ll be right back.”

  Blair didn’t stop to take a breath before she opened the car door. That was a mistake. The force of the wind and rain hit her full force now. The tornado might be gone, but the rest of the supercell thunderstorm still hovered overhead.

  Blair braced herself against the car as she staggered around to the back. The emergency lights blinked feebly onto the rain-soaked road behind her.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen another car. Were the O’Neills all alone out here? Was everyone else in South Dakota hiding underground?

  The hail started just as she raised the trunk’s lid.

  The first chunk hit her in the shoulder. Then three more, bam-bam-bam on her head and back. Then a shower. It felt like being pelted with golf balls. Blair instinctively held a hand over her head to shield herself, but that was pointless. She needed both hands to sort through the mess in the trunk.

  So much junk in there. Their overnight bags. Her bridesmaid’s dress, zipped up in its garment bag. A spare tire, a case of soda, spare blankets. A stuffed animal?

  The hail hurt. Globs of it landed in the trunk, as big as her fists. Where—was—the freaking—

  There. A little white box with a red cross over the lid. Blair grabbed it, heaved the trunk closed, and ran back to the front seat.

  Inside, David was doing a terrible job of applying pressure to his cut. His arm wobbled in the air. He looked close to passing out. Blair ripped open the first aid kit. “Logan, call 911,” she barked.

  “I don’t have my phone! It went out the window!”

  Blair pulled her own phone out of her pocket and tossed it back to him. Then she leaned toward David and pulled his arm toward her. Still a lot of blood. Technically, she should clean the wound first, but she didn’t see any obvious dirt. More important to stop the bleeding. They could do a thorough cleaning later.

  Blair slapped a gauze pad over the cut and pressed down hard. Behind her, Logan spoke into her phone.

  “Hi, I—I guess we need an ambulance? We almost got hit by a tornado and all the glass in our car shattered, and my brother got cut . . . Hold on. Blair! Where are we?”

  Blair glanced at the car’s GPS and told him their exact location, which he repeated into the phone.

  Hail bounced off the cracked windshield, pounded on the car’s roof, came through the glass-less windows. A few chunks of ice landed in Blair’s lap. She kept pressing down on David’s cut, still trying to keep the arm elevated.

  Ahead of them, off to the left, the tornado was thinning out. It narrowed to a ropey strand of air. Almost fragile-looking. More importantly: it kept moving away from them—heading northeast, toward the flat horizon. Keep going, Blair told it silently. Don’t come back this way.

  “We need to get out of here,” David said. But his voice sounded confused, almost hollow. Not like a guy who was holding in his real feelings. More like a guy whose feelings had short-circuited. He’s in shock, Blair thought. Maybe I’m in shock too. Do people in shock know they’re in shock?

  Her brother reached weakly for the steering wheel with his good hand. “You can’t drive like this, Dave,” she said sternly. “And the car’s not really drivable. But the tornado’s gone. We’ll wait for an ambulance to get here . . .”

  Logan interrupted her. “I just lost the call! Blair, your phone’s not getting any service.”

  Blair took a deep breath. Stay calm. Do what David would normally do. “The storm could be messing with cell phone towers. But they know where we are. They’ll be here soon.”

  “Okay. Yeah.” Logan suddenly sounded much younger. “You guys are soaked.”

  Blair glanced back at him. “So are you. I should’ve grabbed those extra blankets from the trunk. Sorry.”

  “I’m fine,” said Logan. His voice wavered.

  Blair tried to smile at him. “Good job with the call.”

  She checked David’s cut. The bleeding seemed to have slowed. Gently, she moved David’s hand over the gauze to the spot she’d been pressing. “Hold that right there,” she said.

  Back to the first aid kit. Roll of gauze: check. She wrapped it tightly—but not too tightly—around David’s arm. Scissors: check. She cut the gauze strip. Adhesive tape: check. She secured the gauze in place. Done.

  “Okay.” Blair let out a long breath. “That should be fine till the paramedics get here. Just keep it up like that, to be safe.”

  “BLAIR!” Logan screamed. “There’s another one!”

  He was pointing out the back window.

  Blair expected to spot another slender funnel dropping out of the sky. Instead, she saw a much thicker swirling mass. Like a fat, black V jutting up from the ground.

  Up from the ground. It had already touched down.

  The dust cloud at its base held countless dark specks, floating like confetti. It took Blair a second to realize those specks were pieces of wood and metal—objects the tornado had picked up in its path.

  Blair’s mind was racing.

  They couldn’t wait for the ambulance. They couldn’t wait for anyone. They had to move—now.

  3

  “Dave, switch seats with me.” Blair jumped out of the car and ran around to the driver’s side. She barely felt the hail anymore.

  When she opened the driver’s door, David hadn’t moved.

  “David! Move over!” She unlatched his seatbelt and half-shoved, half-lifted him over the gearshift console and onto the passenger’s seat. Then she slammed the driver’s door behind her. “Logan, buckle up. This may not be a smooth ride.”

  Okay, you can do this. You know how to drive. Blair’s driving instructor had always told her to take her time, to run carefully through her mental checklist and make sure she was “in tune with the vehicle” before she drove off. Rushing could lead to accidents.

  Blair was pretty sure this advice didn’t apply to her right now. As fast as she could, she scooted her seat up so that she could reach the pedals. With a sweaty hand, she adjusted the rearview mirror. The side mirrors were both badly cracked, so she didn’t bother with them. Guess today’s not the day to practice merging onto the interstate.

  The parking brake was on. David must’ve done that by instinct. Blair took a deep breath, put the car in drive, and stepped on the gas. The tires crunched over a carpet of hail. With the hailstorm, the cracked windshield, and the mangled wipers, she could barely see. She leaned out the side window for a second, to check that she was in the right lane. Not that it mattered that much, since nobody else was driving on this road.

  Her first time driving her brother’s car. This wasn’t how she’d pictured it.

  “I think it’s moving this way!” shouted Logan, who
was watching through the back window. “Can you go faster?”

  Do not try to outrun a tornado. You can’t outrun a tornado.

  What other choice did they have? Blair put more pressure on the gas pedal. The car was right on the verge of skidding. Steady, steady . . . “Logan, look for buildings—farmhouses, anywhere we might be able to take cover. Ditches, even. Like you said before—low ground. You see something, you yell. Okay?”

  David had bought his car for its fuel efficiency, not for its off-roading capability. But she’d drive it through a wheat field if she had to.

  The wind was getting stronger. Blair fought to keep the car steady. She had to sacrifice speed for control.

  And they were almost out of gas.

  Logan’s voice edged up a notch. “It’s gaining on us!”

  We are so dead, thought Blair.

  Just then, up ahead, another vehicle came into view.

  The land was so flat that she could see the vehicle approaching from what seemed like miles away. As it got closer, she expected it to become recognizable as a minivan or a pickup truck or . . . anything that belonged on the road.

  “What in the world . . .” Blair’s voice trailed off. The vehicle was about the size of a van, but it looked like an alien spaceship. It had a streamlined body covered in what looked like metal plating. There was a hump on top that looked sort of like a tank’s gun turret. Several weirdly-shaped antennae jutted out from the roof.

  It zoomed past them before Blair could figure out what it was.

  But one thing was clear: that vehicle was heading toward the tornado.

  Blair slammed on the brakes and threw the car into reverse. Time for the fastest, sloppiest three-point turn in history.

  “Blair, what are you doing?” demanded Logan.

  “I’m following that thing.”

  “What?! Why?”

  “Because it looks like it might actually survive a tornado.”

  Driving toward the funnel was nerve-racking for several reasons. One: the thing was massive. Blair felt as if she was heading into the mouth of a monster. Two: the wind got even stronger. Three: the hail was still coming down. And four: she was going way too fast. But she had no choice if she was going to catch up to that . . . thing on wheels.

  Through the cracks in the windshield, she could tell she was gaining on the vehicle. The hail started to let up, but the wind didn’t. Blair saw more tree branches whirl past. Big slabs of wood. Pieces of pipe. A car door crashed into the road right in front of them. Blair swerved around it. The wind tried to keep her from straightening out. Any second now she might slide right off the road.

  She fought the wind. Gripped the steering wheel as if she was choking it. Managed to stay on the pavement.

  Accelerating against the wind was almost impossible. Almost.

  A few seconds later, she was right on the mystery vehicle’s tail. Across the smooth, metal-plated back bumper, someone had spray-painted THE BOSS in bright red bubble letters.

  Blair started honking.

  “Do SOS!” said Logan. “Three short, three long, three short.”

  “Brilliant!” Blair said. She banged out three short blasts of the horn, three longer ones, then three shorter ones.

  The other vehicle sped up.

  “I don’t think they’re gonna stop,” said Logan.

  “They have to.” Because if they don’t, I’ve just driven us straight into the path of a tornado. And used up the last of our gas.

  She veered into the left lane. Pulled forward, alongside the vehicle. Still honking. “Wave to the driver, Logan! Try to get the driver’s attention!”

  She sensed Logan flapping his arm frantically from the backseat. “Hey!” he shouted out his glass-less window. “HEY!”

  Blair pulled ahead of the vehicle. It still wasn’t responding to her horn.

  She swerved into the right lane, angling the car sideways, like a police cruiser blocking an intersection. She knew she wasn’t leaving the oncoming vehicle much time to brake. If the driver didn’t react fast enough, it would slam right into the passenger side of David’s car. Please don’t hit me, please don’t hit me, please don’t kill my brothers . . .

  The monster van screeched to a stop with inches to spare.

  Blair engaged the parking brake—the car would need it in this wind. Then she unbuckled her seatbelt and leaped out of the car.

  She’d thought she was prepared for the wind this time. She was wrong.

  It was way stronger than it had been a few minutes ago. Blair remembered the torn-off car door she’d had to steer around. She dragged herself around the front of her brother’s car. Her nose filled with the sharp smell of dirt.

  The tornado was right there, looming over her—a black whirlwind blotting out the sky. She had no idea how far away it actually was. Hundreds of yards, maybe a mile?

  A door of the mystery van opened—not the way a normal car door opened. It flipped up, like the lid of a trunk. Someone jumped out. A short, young-ish guy with dark hair and a goatee, maybe in his early thirties. Not happy.

  “You idiot! What are you doing?”

  “I’m sorry!” Blair said quickly. “But can we get in your vehicle?”

  “What?”

  Blair couldn’t tell if he hadn’t heard her or if he didn’t get it. She raised her voice, shouting above the wind. “Can we get in? Please! There’s nowhere to take shelter! And our car’s in bad shape. I don’t think it can take another hit. Please!”

  The guy’s expression flickered. Now he looked almost . . . amused. “You chased us down so you can hitch a ride with us?”

  “I chased you down because your van looks like the sturdiest thing around.” I don’t want a ride, you idiot. I want shelter.

  The wind ripped at Blair’s clothes. She felt like she was getting blasted in the face by a hair dryer. David’s car was starting to rock back and forth. Enough of this, Blair thought. Forget asking for permission. They were getting in this monster van.

  Blair opened David’s front passenger door. David looked like he was trying to follow the plot of a very confusing movie. She took her older brother by the arm and pulled him out of the car. “Logan, come on!” she called.

  Logan jumped out, and Blair herded both of her brothers toward the monster van. Up close, it looked even weirder. Several thin, white tubes were strapped to the side, toward the back. Attached to each corner was a long pole with a spear-like point at the bottom.

  The guy hadn’t moved. “Please,” Blair said again. “There’s only three of us. If you can just fit us in for a few minutes, until—”

  Something hit her between her shoulders. She had no idea what. A burst of pain shot through her back. But she gritted her teeth and kept moving toward the yawning door of the monster van.

  The driver’s window of the monster van rolled down. A young woman with curly purple hair stuck her head out. “Seriously, Sam? I told you their horn was beeping SOS. Get these people in here!”

  “Right.” The guy—Sam—flashed Blair a wry grin. He gestured toward his van’s side door. “Welcome to our humble Tornado Intercept Vehicle.”

  Blair shoved her brothers in ahead of her. “Thank you,” she said to the guy. But the wind was so loud now that he probably didn’t hear.

  “Come on, come on!” shouted the purple-haired driver. “Move it, Sam!”

  Sam climbed into the car behind Blair, pulling the door down. And Blair found herself inside something called a Tornado Intercept Vehicle—seconds before a tornado hit it.

  4

  They were scrunched into the back of the van. Sam brushed past them to claim the only seat, which swiveled as he slid into it. There was just enough room for Blair and her brothers to crouch on the floor.

  The vehicle’s walls were covered with gadgets. Blair saw several screens of various sizes. Panels covered in buttons and dials. Cords and wires snaking everywhere. Next to the chair stood a contraption that looked like a beaten-up robot. Its metal body exte
nded up into the bubble-shaped skylight overhead—the hump on the roof.

  The wind was howling at a pitch Blair had never heard.

  “I’m dropping it down!” called the purple-haired driver.

  “Right here?” said Sam.

  “I don’t think we have time to get a better spot. If we don’t drop now we’re gonna get rolled.”

  “Okay, go ahead!”

  Blair felt something shift along the sides of the vehicle. “What’s going on?”

  The driver glanced back at her. “Hydraulic panels. They can extend down to the ground. Blocks the wind. If wind can’t get under the vehicle, we’re less likely to flip over.”

  “Oh. Sounds good to me.” Be calm. Be cool. Be like David.

  Like David usually is.

  “Show time,” said Sam, grinning again. He grabbed the robot-device under the skylight. As he pressed his face against the gadget, Blair realized it was some sort of camera. “Here we go! Yeah, baby, come to papa! This is gonna be a good one, J.J.!”

  “Should I launch a probe?”

  “Yeah, launch it now! Right now!”

  Blair couldn’t see anything out the windows. Or at least, she couldn’t make sense of what she saw. It was all just whirling darkness. But she could feel the wind blasting against the side of the vehicle. She could hear the bangs and pops of random objects hitting the armor.

  Logan grabbed Blair’s arm, and Blair pulled him against her. At the same time, she leaned into David. It finally sank in that they were all wet and shivering. Not shivering from cold. Not on a day as hot as this.

  “We’re in it!” shouted Sam, sounding like a kid on a rollercoaster. “Fantastic!” He swiveled in his chair, and the robot-camera-thing swiveled with him.

  Blair’s ears popped again. She didn’t even remember them un-popping after the first time. The whole vehicle seemed to rattle, but it didn’t lift off the ground. Those panel things must really work.

  Then suddenly everything went still. Blair hadn’t registered how loud the wind was until she heard it quiet down.

  Logan opened his eyes, which made Blair realize she hadn’t closed hers. It hadn’t even occurred to her. She’d wanted to see what was happening.