Okay, I made a bet with Jeanette (that rhymed!) that I had to write a chapter before she got out of the shower. Well, here we are! -------------------------------------------- Kim had been in the mall for about thirty minutes now. She wasn't the kind of girl that could just go in the store for one thing, she had to shop like crazy, even if she didn't have alot of money. Inside the mall it was hard to tell how outside was quickly worsening. It was only around five-thirty, and it was already getting so dark from storm clouds. A gentle rain had began, and a claps of thunder and strikes of lightning would come every minute or so. As of yet, it was absolutely nothing to worry about. Oklahoma was known to have thunderstorms frequently in the spring and summer, and, being May, it happened almost every week. The store Kim was in now had a television mounted to the ceiling. She glanced up to it as she held a long flowing skirt against her. A tornado had touched ground in another town that was around forty-five minutes away, and hadn't gone back up yet. Again, it was nothing to really worry about. Tornadoes stayed on the ground for a few minutes, if even that. She spent the next ten minutes in the same store, watching the TV and trying on clothes. That tornado was still on the ground, and at the direction it was going, which was northeast, it would be headed for Moore; her city. Kim finally decided it was time to leave, and left the mall in quite a hurry. "C'mon, start." she muttered as she turned the ignition in her mother's SUV. Rain pounded on the windshield. "Piece of junk car..start!" Nothing, again. Kim sighed. She wished there was a way to call home, but she didn't have a cell phone. She dug through her purse for money for a pay phone, and found sixteen cents worth. "You've got to be kidding." she said as she glanced up, looking up at the clouds. Only the fiercest of storms had that menacing of a sky. She tried to start the car again, and luckily, it actually started. "Thank God." Kim said quietly, and began the trip back home. She tapped her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. Traffic wasn't moving at all. She played with buttons on the radio and finally got it working. It announced what she had thought to begin with, traffic jams from people trying to get away from the storm. Kim was beginning to get nervous. She had the only car. Their house didn't have a basement, or any kind of storm shelter. If that tornado didn't stop..what would happen to her mother? No..she shouldn't be thinking like that. Tornadoes don't stay on the ground for almost an hour, it just doesn't happen. Back at their house, Elisabeth was growing very worried about her daughter. Knowing her, she might have still be in the mall. The thought that the malls had storm shelters eased her mind, but only very slightly. She looked outside the window. It had begun hailing. "Will you people MOVE?!" Kim shouted. Traffic had moved maybe five yards in the past ten minutes. It had started to inch forward, but at the rate, it wasn't fast enough. Police officers were on the scene now. They were starting to turn people the opposite direction. One of the men approached her car. She rolled down the window as he did. "Miss, if you're trying to get out of harm's way, you're going right into it." he said. "I'm not." Kim said, shaking her head. "My mother and I in Moore, we don't have a shelter and this is the only car, and she's there right now. Please, I need to go get her." "Alright. Move ahead." the officer told her as he went to another car. Kim tried to fight back the tears that had begun to form in her eyes. Her mother was basically the only person in the world she had. She didn't have any relatives on her mother's side, and her father's side cared for her as much as her father had. What would happen if she lost her? -------------------------------------------- Oh how I love cliffhangers. If this situation kind of sounds familiar in any way, I'm kinda taking it from my own experiences. The storm is based on the May 3rd 1999 tornadoes.