Audacious August Author: Post 3!!!

Post 4!!!

After the initial shock was over and we needed a few more moments to regroup, Charles and I wandered around the flattened patio, picking up parts of objects that had been spit out by the tornado as it rolled along.  We found half of car tire, what looked like part of a Lazy Susan, a couple of pieces of straight lumber, rope, green glass from beer bottles, clear glass from windows, and a piece of a metal fender.

            “Do you know what this is?”  Charles called from across the grounds.  He was bent down, peering at the floor.

            I walked up to him and looked down at the debris Charles had found.  A misshapen, squishy piece of something, lay flat on the ground in front of us.  It was pale, slightly pink and pretty tiny.  The edges were lumpy, tints of red outlining the ends.

            “Food?”  I suggested.

            “Doesn’t look edible,”  Charles said and flipped it over.  It looked almost identical on the other side. 

            “What does it feel like?”  I asked, crouching down further to get a better look at it.

            “Like…like…”  Suddenly Charles’s face went hazy, his eyes glazed over a little, and his cheeks flushed white.  He looked sick.

            “Charles?”  I asked, helping him to stand up.  I put my hand on his back, looking at him closely. 

            “It felt like….skin,”  he said.  My hand dropped from his back and my stomach started to churn.  I glanced at the object again, but quickly looked away again.  I walked away.  I walked past the flesh and hurried towards the end of the patio, hoping I’d be able to navigate through the second mess of debris. 

            “Tammy!”  Charles’s shaky voice called after me.  “Where are you going?”

            “I have to see if my family is okay!”  I called back, not looking back.  I heard Charles’s feet running after me as I stepped over broken down and caved in walls, ceilings, and doors.  Parts of desks and particles of whiteboards caught my glance as I climbed through and out the shambles which was my school.  I could sense Charles on my heels.

            “I’ll come with you,”  Charles said, climbing over a block of fallen ceiling, avoiding a flickering light fixture.  I didn’t answer, but kept moving.  I knew I was heading in the right direction, towards the front of the school where I could head to my parent’s work and see if they were safe in the building’s cellar.

            Railings, gates, rocks, and trees were toppled over each other, some broken straight down the middle.  The front gate I saw had been tossed back to the first hall of classrooms, completely crushing my sixth grade science teacher’s room.  Close to the front, Charles still following, no thoughts on my mind, I heard the beginning of several footsteps.  The rest of the school had gotten out of the school cellar.  I could not be kept in school, I had to make sure Ma and Pa were all right.  I hoped Pa’s prediction of the tornado’s destiny had changed earlier than mine had, ensuring that him and Ma had gotten in the work cellar, safe and sound.

            Both Ma and Pa worked at a book publishing company, Ma as a secretary, Pa as an accountant.  They walked to work together, they walked home together.  They even worked on the same floor.  They were the Pen Pal Inc. couple.  I knew that Ma and Pa would be sure to meet up before going down to the cellar, making sure the other was okay.  So, I knew it had to be all or nothing.

   

Out of the school, past all the fallen in classrooms and random straights of lumber, Charles and I had another shock coming seeing the other part of the town.  Trees were making home on tireless cars, homes had gone from two story estates to a stair there, a window pane there, the roads were crumpled in, an uneven surface for no one to walk on.

            “Charles,”  I breathed, seeing the horror of my hometown reveal itself before my eyes.  Charles had his sick to his stomach look to him again.

            “My parents would be at our church today…”  Charles said, thinking to himself.

            “Should we meet up later after we go see our parents?”  I asked, my mouth twitching as I tried to think about something other than the catastrophe in front, behind, and all around me.

            “Okay,”  Charles barely replied and so we walked down Main Street where the Farmer’s Market usually was and then departed, me going right, Charles going left.  I hurried along once I left Charles, eager to see if my parents were okay.  I hopped over and around boulders of stuff, blockades of people’s furniture, belongings, and memories.  My shoes cracked a sorts of lumber as I sped along as fast I could.  The streets were deserted, so the crackling of wood echoed in the silence of Luck Mark City, a silence rarely heard.

            Past the center hub by Main Street, down Peppercorn Road, and to the right of the desolate intersection of Main Street and Mustard Avenue, I walked.  My parent’s work was farther from the center of Luck Mark City than most buildings, it was near my school.  Both my school and my parent’s work stood just outside the hub of Luck Mark City.

            Finally I approached Ma and Pa’s workplace, crumbled and crushed.  It was funny that I was able to get to what was left of Pen Pal Inc. with all the road signs gone, my good sense of direction that I had since I was little really came through for me then.

            Shards and shards of glass from the big windows of Pen Pal Inc. spilled out in front of me, coating over rocks and iron wrought gating.  I knew where the cellar was, I had been to my parent’s work before where I explored and scoured the place of all it’s places thoroughly.  The cellar was to the left side of the building by the dumpster.  I had never been inside, but I expected it to be big, spacious, and stocked with safety items.  The big head boss, Joshua Marlinson, was all about safety, being prepared, and organizing his office so dust could not be found within the slightest nook or cranny. 

            I found the door leading to the cellar, it was firmly shut and still in tact.  I got down on my knees, pulled on the door, but couldn’t get it open.  The workers must have still been in there.  I pounded on the cellar door, calling out for Ma and Pa.  As I waited for anyone, I looked around me.  A green road sign bent itself around a toppled over trees, the sign twisted like a lollipop.

            Then I heard the trap door to the cellar unlatch from the inside and the door was thrown upward, very nearly missing my chin.  I stood up, stepped back, and brushed off my dirt-caked knees.  I peered inside the cellar to see Joshua Marlinson on the ladder leading up to the door looking right back at me.

            “Hi there, Tammy,”  Joshua said.  He looked and sounded tired, old and worn out.

            “Are my parents there, Joshua?  I’ve got to see them.  Are they down there?  Are they okay?”  I pressed for answers, trying to get a look of who was down there.  The cellar certainly was spacious and big, like I thought.  It was also packed with safety items.  I saw barrels of salted beans, packages of wool blankets, boxes of wide-tooth combs, piles of feather-spilling pillows, stacks of hard bound books, a basket of freshly picked oranges, apples, and limes, and lastly jugs of freshly stored water, all of which were lining the wood and steel walls.

            Heads poked up, trying to see who I was.  I recognized and personally knew each and every person down there that I could see:  Carly Court, the head editor, Mason Driver, the new intern to Carly, Sheila Setar, the secretary that worked with Ma, Hannah Wrolen, a supplement editor, Terri Toms, the head publisher without a secretary, Todd Childs, the janitor, and many more heads stuffed in the back of the cellar that I couldn’t quite make out.

            “Where’s Ma and Pa?”  I asked, when I didn’t see them right away and Joshua wasn’t answering my questions.

            “Tammy…”  Joshua started, his small eyes watching my forehead.

            “What is it Joshua?  Where’s my Ma and Pa?”  I continued, refusing to look at the intent Joshua.

            “They didn’t come into the cellar, Tammy,”  Joshua told me quietly.  My head felt kind of funny when he said that.  My heart started beating very quickly and I felt my cheeks grow red like when I had to speak in front of the class and said something dumb.

            “But, they’re here somewhere, right?”  I asked, knowing it was hopeless.  They had to be somewhere, right?  Alive, right?

            “We closed the door right after they went up, Tammy.  They weren’t close enough to be saved.”  I turned around and walked away from the cellar.  Joshua called after me, wanting to know where I was going.  I ignored him, hoping he wouldn’t hold it against me later.

            I kept walking past the lollipop sign, past the shredded windows, and went to find my Nana on Coriander Avenue.  I had to walk for a while from Pen Pal Inc. to get to Nana’s house, but I didn’t mind because I needed time to myself.

            Ma and Pa were gone.

            Gone up with tornado, the thing we had no fear of the evening before.  I couldn’t think of anything but what wasn’t there.  No Ma, no Pa.  They literally weren’t there.  There bodies weren’t there.  And I didn’t know where to look.  The tornado could have still been spinning them across town after town.  At light speed, they’d be hurled round and round, hit against parts of trees and buildings and houses.  Tires, planks, ovens, trunks, and fenders could be beating the dead horses.  I didn’t know where they were and I didn’t feel like caring.  It was too much of a thought.  It was an overwhelming, claustrophobic thought, crowding everything else in my brain out through my ears.  Maybe that was why my ears started to ache.

            I could feel tears swelling from the under part of my eyes.  My shoulders started to shake and that awful lumpy feeling in my throat started to push it’s way up.  Cold, cold tears wiggled down my cheeks, against the grooves of my nostrils, and finally dripped off my chin.  They were non stop, eternal, and freezing.  I had cold tears.  Didn’t everyone have hot ones?  Why were mine cold?

            As I walked to Nana’s, I thought of how without Ma, I wouldn’t get oil and vinegar brisket, no homemade scented laundry detergent, no late night snacks of popcorn and caramel.  Without Pa, I wouldn’t have anyone to laugh with over the weather, there would be no cradling with a nice, heavy book read to me, no long walks in the evening just before sun went down with conversations of Pa’s childhood on the farm.  I would be alone.  Would I be homeless?  Who would I live with? ….

Nana.

I would most likely live with Nana.  Unless Nana hadn’t gotten in her cellar in time.  Or unless, Ma and Pa’s will said otherwise.  Would I have to go down to Alabama or Georgia and live with my aunt or uncle, enthralling myself with a new school, a new neighborhood, and new friends?  Would I not see Charles again?  What about my vocal teacher, Marcia?  Would I not take singing lessons anymore?  Where was I headed?

            By the time I had successfully strangled my brain with the tormenting thoughts of no family, no friends, and no home, I had reached Coriander Avenue.  The block was barely beat up, a few cracked windows, tossed to the side cars.  The tornado had been fast, but narrow.  On Nana and my house’s side of town, the tornado barely brushed us, blowing up a few things here and there.  Even my school didn’t get the worst of it.  Charles and I were lucky no to be swallowed up, seeing that we weren’t even underground.  Pen Pal Inc. was probably one of the few buildings in Luck Mark City that got a good, hard beating from it.

            Coming up to Nana’s ugly blue and modest house, I went around back, forcing my through the rigged chain link fence to find the cellar.  The underground cellar was in the backyard on the side of the house.  When I got there, the white cellar doors were shut firmly, the latch not moving a centimeter.  Just like most of the workers of Pen Pal Inc., Nana was safe and sound in her cellar.

            I bent down to pound on another cellar.  Then, did I realize I was still crying.  I saw the drips rain down on the dirty cellar doors.  It was funny to cry when you didn’t know it, funny to cry without a thought in your mind.  But, if I didn’t have any thoughts, why was I crying?

            “Is it gone?!”  a shrill voice shrieked from underneath the cellar doors.  The voice bounced around the neighborhood, the only tone being out.  Every other citizen of Luck Mark City was too afraid to come out just yet, the usual bustling town was desolate, quiet, eerie.

            “Nana!”  I yelled, my voice trembling.  “It’s me!  It’s gone!  Ma and Pa aren’t here!  They’re dead!”  It didn’t take long for the cellar doors to open up fiercely.  Nana’s big head come up through the opening, already soaked with tears.

            “What the hell do you mean?”  she barked, glaring at me.  Her tears looked warmer than mine, gray instead of clear.

            “Joshua from Pen Pal Inc. said they didn’t come into the cellar,”  I tried to explain, but my voice couldn’t keep steady.

            “Speak, Tammy!”  Nana snapped at me, heaving as she climbed out of the cellar from her breaking wooden ladder.

            “They’re dead, Nana.  They didn’t get in the cellar, they got sucked up,”  I repeated, choking on some of the tears that fell into my mouth.

            “You have dirt on you and you’re neck is bleeding,”  Nana said, pressing her rough thumb to my throat.  “You got into the cellar, didn’t you?”

            “Well, no….Charles and I didn’t get a chance to.  We went into the basement instead,”  I replied, wishing Nana would stop fingering my neck.  Her fingers were chaffing and hard against my whipped neck.

            “You didn’t?”  Nana questioned, not seeming to want an answer.  Her hands dropped from my neck and she let out a sigh.

            “Nana?”

            “Are you sure they aren’t anywhere?”  Nana asked me, kicking shut her cellar doors.

            “Joshua saw them go up,”  I said, suddenly getting an overwhelmed feeling of grief.  Nana remained quiet, she seemed speechless, even at a loss for thought.  She walked toward her house, hurling a broken potted plant with her foot.  Following her, I felt my knees grow weak, tired, and hopeless.  Why didn’t Nana say anything?

            “My house looks fine,”  Nana commented, trudging up the cement block steps to her back door.  “I suppose your is, too.”

            “I haven’t…I haven’t….”  I couldn’t speak.

            “Get inside,”  Nana growled, opening the sliding screen door.

            “Nana, aren’t you sad?”  I dared to inquire as I stepped inside the house.

            “I don’t want to talk about this, Tammy.  Go to your room,”  Nana ordered, slamming the door shut.

            “My room?”  I asked, confused.  I didn’t live with Nana…yet.

            “Did you have trouble hearing?”  Nana barked.  “Your room.”  When she saw my continued blank face, her lips crinkled and her eyebrows narrowed.

            “The guest room is now you room,”  Nana snapped pointing past the messy living room and down the hallway.

            “Nana…don’t you think we should try looking for—“     

            “Tammy!”  Nana belted.  “Your Ma and Pa are gone!  You said so yourself, sucked up, swallowed down, taken away!  They aren’t coming back, they’re dead!  This town has been hit hard and fast.  Luck Mark City is ruined!”  Nana fell down on her newspaper covered sofa and leaned back against a few throw pillows.  Nana’s tears fell fast then, her shoulders shaking like an earthquake.  She hid her face in her weak hands, her elbows resting on her knees.

            Nana was right, though.  Ma and Pa were gone, and even though Nana’s house hadn’t been hit too hard, Luck Mark City just wasn’t the same.  A tornado like the one that had just came hadn’t been seen in Luck Mark City for years.

            I sat next to Nana and put my fingers to my quivering lips.  They trembled, catching my tears as they shivered.

Thanks for reading!

ABC 123,

               Maddie :)