From The Wreckage - Complete (23 page)

A blush creeps up her ivory skin and I’m transfixed. Without warning, my memories fly back to the seventh grade and a kiss with the girl I wanted to impress so badly that I manufactured our being picked for the age old game of Seven Minutes in Heaven. This is the girl Jeff was referring to only minutes ago as he laughed at me. The one my eyes always go to, the one who might have been mine once upon a time, if not for cancer. If not for Stuart Daniels. If not for my being a quitter. Jules Blacklin.

"Come on," begs Katie, tugging at Jules again as the lights around us flicker on and off once more. 

Irritated at my thoughts, I salute the girls with a chuckle. “See ya around, Buff,” I say as I slide down from the picnic table and force myself to step away. Or I would have stepped away if it weren’t for the shouts that delay me. 

Katie's angry interruption makes sense now as I look to where she came from. A fight has broken out in the parking and I shake my head, mumbling beneath my breath, “Stupid pricks.” I’m not able to identify the participants before their shouts are drowned out by a sound infinitely more terrifying. My pulse quickens as the piercing scream of the early warning storm sirens go off, making me and everyone around jump at the sound. I turn toward town as The Ice Shack goes silent and hold my breath as I take in the normally cheerful town of Tyler. It currently resembles a disco, the lights flashing on and off, and I know - we all know - something isn’t right.

This is a test of the emergency broadcast system… The robotic voice runs through my head as the scene around me morphs from frozen disbelief to pandemonium. A dust-filled gust whips my face causing my eyes to water as a transformer blows in the distance and the parking lot is thrown into darkness. 

"Come on! Let's go," Katie yells at Jules who remains standing in front of me. My eyes shift from her back to the waves of people, our peers, attempting to flee the area in their cars. They’ve created a traffic jam worthy of a Dallas highway in less than one minute. There’s no way anyone is getting out of the parking lot by vehicle. 

Safety. 

My brain screams the word at me and I listen. We need to find a shelter. Something underground. If this had been a real test… the robotic voice continues in my mind as all the years of weather drills and warnings return to me. 

A hole, a basement… we need a basement!

Without a second thought, I latch on to Jules’ arm before she can leave my sight with Katie. She turns to me, confusion written all over her face, and I raise my voice over the crowd, "No! We need to find a safe shelter. You can't outrun a tornado.” I tug at Jules in an attempt to force her to follow me. Her eyes are filled with fear as she shouts for Katie over her shoulder.

In the distance a rumbling vibration breaks through the thick Texas air. I’m done wasting time. "Come on," I order, pulling Jules’ arm again. This time she follows, dragging Katie with her. 

Katie’s frantic shouts for her - our - friends reach me as we jump over the low lying hedges separating The Shack’s property from the field next door. 

“Tanya! Jeff!” 

Their names float past me on the wind. I shake my head as I try not think of them. There’s no time. We need to run. I’m focused on the Grier house coming into view in front of us. The chipping white paint of the vacant farmhouse glows in the shadowed moonlight. A beacon, as all around us hell breaks loose.

There are explosions - more transformers? - and trees groaning. Shouts of terror mix with the persistent blaring of horns as metal and sparks fly across the street. Debris! My mind goes to the inevitable. If there’s debris reaching us, then there’s a tornado behind us somewhere. I don’t bother looking. I squeeze Jules’ hand in mine and I run. I run until my body is tugged backward and even then I barely stop as I yank hard on Jules’ arm when, out of the corner of my eye, I catch her appearing to collapse. I keep her on her feet and I keep going. Safety. Shelter. Run.

Those are my three objectives.

It’s nearly impossible to hear over the howl of the wind, but Jules’ voice reaches me and, as I turn to yell at her to keep running, I see that Katie is no longer with us. Jules’ head is swinging around wildly, searching as she yells for Katie. I shut off my emotions.

Safety. Shelter. Run.

Three objectives. Two goals. Save yourself, save Jules. 

I can’t stop to find Katie, a girl I’ve known all my life. My best friend’s girl. Stopping puts me at risk. It puts Jules at risk. Not happening. I keep running. I continue moving forward even as Jules wrenches back. Her fight forces me to hesitate. I peer over my shoulder, scanning the black field around me to look for the blonde bob I know belongs to the Katie. 

The racing silhouettes of my peers greet me instead. It’s surreal. We’re all running for our lives. A moment ago each person here had their own objective, their own goal for the night. Now we all have the same goal - survival.

One shadow of a person fills my view directly to my free side. It’s Big Ruben, a Hillsdale football player and one of my former teammates. He’s shouting, but his words get lost as his hand signals for us to continue running. In his wake he’s dragging Katie and I breathe a sigh of relief. Ruben’s mouth forms soundless words and I assume he’s reassuring Jules of Katie’s safety. Jules must not understand him because her grip on my hand loosens and I snap.

"Don't you dare let go, Buffy! We need to run!" I warn, hauling her into my side and wrapping my arm around her waist for a more secure grip.

"I can't leave Katie!" she argues as her hair whips me in the face.

"We're not leaving her. She's with Ruben. Now come on!" My eyes flick to Ruben and Katie once more, making sure they’re still with us. Katie’s hand reaches forward wildly looking for a connection with Jules. I slow up. It’s only a step or two, I tell myself as I do it. One step could be the difference between life or death for us, but I know I can reach Katie. I can’t not do it. I can’t leave her behind. I focus on her fingers and not my fear of what’s chasing us as I stretch back. My hand seizes her wrist, my fingers tightening their hold. I speed up again. I don’t look back. 

My heart is racing. My stomach protests, the fear and stress within me making me sick as we reach the house and turn toward the front porch. “This way!” 

We make our way up the steps, joining the small group of people who are already there. Fists and bodies beat at the boarded up windows and door of the house. I join in without thinking, kicking at the plywood-covered door with my motorcycle boots in an attempt to break in. 

"What are we doing?" Jules asks behind me, her voice unsure. 

Maybe this plan wasn’t the best one. My mind races through our options, but I come up blank. There are shadows, other people, running straight by us, by this house, as they seek their own safety. I want to call them fools. There’s nothing more in this field. This house is it. 

Jules spins around beside me, her tremors of terror flow through our connected hands as she does. I stop, worried she’ll freak out and bolt down the stairs with the others who are giving up on the house. I face her, touching her arm in an attempt to keep her focused. "There's a basement here,” I say, searching her face in the dark to be sure she heard me. “Stay by my side! Don’t leave!” I shout louder. She nods.

"How do you know there's a basement?" asks Katie who’s now hugging Jules with both arms.

All the parties we’ve had in this house over the last three years come to mind, but they aren’t important. “I just do,” I tell them as I punch Ruben in the arm and throw myself back at the door. “Ruben, help me!”

Pain surges through my shoulder as I repeatedly hurl my body against the boarded up house. Ruben and I take turns kicking, punching, and slamming into the plywood. Another shot of pain hits me and I curse, thinking of how handy my old football pads would be at this moment. 

"We're gonna die." 

The three words are barely a whisper in my ear when Jules says them, but they cause my stomach to drop. Gritting my teeth, I slam my shoulder into the boarded up door again. I refuse to let her comment become an option. 

And that’s when renewed hope comes from an unfamiliar voice. "Help me! I've got it loose!" 

Following the shout, Ruben and I push through the others to where someone has managed to pry a corner of the large piece of plywood covering a broken window back enough for us to get our fingers under it. Looking over the heads of the guys around me, I search for and spot Jules’ red hair before I focus on the board. We work together, a dozen pairs of hands finding their grip around the edges of the board and attempting to pull and break the wood or wrench the nails free from the window casing. 

“Watch the nails!” the guy next to me shouts as we form a human crowbar. We pry and pull until we hear the blessed sound of nails squealing and loosening, and we create a hole large enough for a small body to crawl through. Jules, I think to myself and as though Ruben read my mind, his deep voice shouts.  

“Katie! Jules! Get in there. Any other girls?”

The howling of the storm picks up and the energy within the crowd heightens as panic grows.

“Hurry up!” someone demands as Jules shoves a girl up to the window. There are three of them. Three girls standing there. Jules, Katie, and this unknown one. Where is everyone else? 

“… There's a basement somewhere. You need to find it and go downstairs,” Jules is telling this new girl, and I chime in. 

“It's in the back, in the kitchen. There's a door; you won't miss it,” I tell her, and she nods before easily climbing through the window and into the house. I turn to Jules, “Your turn.” I want her in that house and downstairs so badly that I can barely think.

“No,” she argues and pushes a crying Katie my way. “Katie, you go!”

Katie seems paralyzed and I want to pitch her through the hole myself as Jules yells at her. “Go! Help Lola.”

“Jules!” Jeff’s shout reaches my ears as he works his way through the small crowd around us. Our eyes meet and he nods with a slight shake of his head. I feel the same fearful relief I see in his face. Relief at knowing my oldest and closest friend is here and fear because we’re still not through the storm. My reaction is nothing compared to Katie’s when she hears his voice, her body halfway inside the house. 

“Jeff! Jeff!” she screams. She attempts to climb back out of the house before Jeff pushes into her line of sight.

“I'm here, K. Get in there. Go to the basement,” he orders. 

The scene is too much for Jules whose face crumbles before me. 

“Let me go in and I'll punch at the boards from the other side. We can't all fit through this hole,” a guy offers and others join in. Bodies jostle for position.

“Hey!” Jules shouts as she slams into my side and my hands slip from the wood as the crowd crushes forward. Ruben’s hands slip as well and the board slaps closed, the hole we’d created no longer there. Inside the house Katie screams and pounds against the plywood. What little order we had lost as mass chaos explodes in the sound of thousands of branches cracking and splintering apart. From my vantage point I can’t see what caused the noise, but the way Jules clutches my shirt with her mouth hanging open speaks for itself. 

“Oh. My…” I hear her small voice release the two words before the other’s shouts of panic overtake hers. 

“It's here!” 

“Open the windows!”  

Fists, bodies, and feet pound and work on the windows and door again. Next to me Ruben leans his back against the house, lifts his arms above his head, and works to push the plywood away from the window again. I position myself on the opposite side, pulling as I shout for Jules to go in. Taking the cue, Jeff immediately jerks Jules away from my side and forces her to go under Ruben’s arms and through the broken window, whispering something into her ear.

Our eyes meet and hold before she climbs through. A heavy weight lands on my chest as she disappears. What the hell is this? Where did this concern for Jules Blacklin come from? Sure, I’ve harbored a crush - or perhaps it was something more akin to lust nowadays - for her for years, but I hadn’t had any intention of acting on it. Ever. She was the girl who got away. The girl who wouldn't ever be mine because the boy she would have wanted, the one she'd kissed at a party, died with his mother a few weeks later.

A line forms behind us now that the girls are inside, and one by one, people I know, and some I don’t, climb through the window in their haste to get to safety. 

“Next,” they shout as each one makes it. When several have gone in they pound on the board from the inside. I catch the glow of a dim light in the dark house as I stand there. Someone yells Jules’ name. I hear arguing from within the house and I pull the board harder. Nails pop and the board loosens more. What is she doing? Sweat drips into my eyes and my biceps burn from the task of holding the plywood. I want to scream, to power through this like The Rock and break this shit right off the wall so I can get to her. The adrenaline surges through my body and, with a final growl as Ruben and I look at each other and the guys inside the house count to three, we all push and pull with every ounce of strength we possess.