Chapter 8

"Ok, now Alli, remember, now that were in LA county, its not going to be a good idea to go on the freeways, so please, for the love of God, don't."

Daniel grinned, his good hand on the Doppler radar monitor, while Kevin frantically connected wires. Allison was at the driver's, white knuckles at the wheel, as they traveled back down Topanga. Kevin looked ahead and saw that they were near the school and the mall, and realized that Allison didn't know what happened at his and her alma mater. Though Kevin knew her almost as much as a brother knew his sister, being that Daniel was the only one who knew her more, Kevin still wasn't sure of how she'll act about it, and was about to find out.

"Wait, something is not right here," she said.

"What do you mean?" inquired Daniel.

Kevin looked up, and returned before muttering, "Oh shit."

Of course, Allison was the only one to hear him. "Kevin, where is our high school?"

Kevin looked at the rubble. "Everywhere."

"You mean it got hit already?"

"I'm sorry Alli."

"We should stop and see if anyone is okay."

Kevin just looked up from his work again. "You know just as well as I that there is no time. We have to get to LA."

Allison was shocked. The kind guy, the friends before life guy, said there was no time. She glared at him with hatred, and retorted. "So, what, I'm driving."

With that she ran the all-terrain vehicle up the curb of what was left of the front of the school, and jumped out.

"Alli, are you crazy? It's gone!"

"Don't say that!"

"Allison! Come back!"

Kevin turned to Daniel, and agreed to chase down. The school was literally in shambles, and of course Allison went for the most dangerous areas. The 400 building was like a stack of cards; flattened. The 600 and the 500, the first places hit, including the band room, were completely wiped out. Allison had already made it to the far side of the school, when Daniel and Kevin made it in, and chased after her. Kevin, however, stopped next to one of the trees; nothing left but a trunk, and stared at it for a second. He reached up and pulled out a baton, its tip buried in the tree, a few drops of a sticky, red substance on the base. Daniel had her held in his arms, keeping her from trying to brave the path to a hallway, its supports gone. As Daniel started to make his way to the jeep, Kevin walked up to them, holding the baton in front of him.

"Here, Allison, you see? It was hit, its gone, there is no more Canoga Park High School!"

"BULLSHIT! LET ME GO!"

Kevin and Daniel dragged her to the jeep, and leaned her against the door. Allison looked with anger at hate at the two males in her life, and dropped their eyes, setting on some object behind them. Daniel was trying to comfort her and talk to her, but without luck. Kevin started to pace, and glanced at the hood. He stopped, reached around the windshield, and went for the hood, pulling out a twisted piece of tubing. "Alli, my dear, this is the mouthpiece and bit to my old tuba. Now do you get it?"

Allison stood there, all anger gone. "Yes, Kevin, I do." She pointed at a piece of wood, with the letters A-R-M-E-R-S and then an O-F. It was part of the sign in her favorite room, her high school home. FFA, future farmers of America. Now she knew, her school, her high school, her home, was truly gone.

She reluctantly got back in the car, and they were again driving down the road. The next half and hour was spent in quiet, well, as quiet as it could get with dozens of tornadoes tearing up the city they grew up in. Kevin almost had the Doppler hooked up when his cell phone rang, honestly causing Allison to jump. Kevin once again stopped his work to answer it.

"Hello?"

He could barely hear what the other end was saying over the rumble, but he could tell who it was. His boss, Jeff Baffin, the head of the National Weather Service office in Los Angeles, which meant one thing. The city of Los Angeles has finally turned into Kansas City. "Kevin? Where the fuck in God's name are you?"

"Sir, I am right now passing Burbank Airport. Which, I might add, is undergoing a F3 disaster." An F3, the medium disaster tornado. He really couldn't believe that he was actually using twister terms for LA; this isn't what happens. He should be forecasting which degree of inferno LA would get on a given day, not report on any winds higher than the Santa Anna's. The world has definitely gone upside-down, and of course, no one had any clue why.

"Damn it Kevin, you're our best severe storms expert! We need you in the office, NOW! I don't care when you start; I need you in. This is a fucking disaster! How long till you get here?"

Kevin turned to Allison, who knew more than him when it came to LA. "How long till we're in the downtown area?"

"Downtown? I thought we were going-"

"Alli!"

"Uh, on surface streets maybe uh-SHIT!"

A billboard came down and rolled across the street. With a shout of "Brace yourselves!" Kevin grabbed Allison's head and pushed it down, as the jeep tore through the paper and wood sign. Kevin and Daniel raised their heads, but Allison remained down.

"Alli, drive!"

"Oh, sorry, 48 minutes!"

Kevin shouted the answer into the phone, the sound starting to get unbearable.

"What?" It should only take you 30 at the most!"

"Damn it Jeff, we're taking the surface roads, the freeways are in gridlock as usual!"

"Shit, fine, hurry the fuck up."

"Jeff, where are you?"

"I'm almost at Yucca and Vine, and yes, I'm chasing a twister, I'll be at the office in a few."

With that he hung up, leaving Kevin to do nothing but hang up. Allison turned to Kevin. "Who was it?"

"Jeff Baffin, my boss, we have to take a detour."

Daniel was the one who spoke up. "A detour, are you crazy? We got to get to, uh, where were you gonna take us, anyway?"

"My place."

Allison cocked her eyebrow. "What's so special about your place? There was nothing there to indicate that it is somehow safe from tornadoes."

"You'll see when we get there, but first, I have to stop by the office. It figures that there are millions of people in this damn city and of course I'm the only real severe storm expert."

"I don't think there's ti-"

"No, Alli, there is no discussion about it. And don't even think of pulling a 'I'm the driver' bit, this is my duty, and you're in my car."

"Uh, Mr. Severe Storms Expert?" said Daniel, "How do you know if a tornado is about to come down from the sky?"

Without thinking Kevin answered. "Rotation from a mammatus cloud creates a wind tunnel coming down."

"What Kevin means," Allison said, "is that a bump under the storm starts to turn, and stretches down."

"Oh, I see."

Kevin turned around to see Daniel looking up. "Why'd ya ask?"

"Because I happen to see a few stretching over us."

Kevin looked, and sure enough, there were three spawning, much to close together than usual. Without warning, one shot down, and landed in a building a block away. The second shot into the street a bout a half-mile away, and started moving towards them. They were presently running parallel to the freeway, and of course, thee was already debris everywhere. "Allison, hit the damn gas!"

She did what she was told, and they started to speed up. Kevin looked down at his equipment, noticing just one wire left to go. "Alright," he said, finishing the task. "I'm done." He closed the casing up and placed everything where it needed to go. With that, he hit the switch, and hoped he did it right. With a hum, and a flash, he got a map, a Doppler radar, and the TV was back on. His entire area was in white, indicating complete instability, which meant tornadoes. Having his job complete, he changed the channel to his favorite station, Channel 7 Eyewitness News. Of course, there was breaking news, and it was all tornadoes, but the damage was still incredible. He looked up back at the road.

Suddenly, the third twister leaned down, and hit the road in front of them. Unless Allison did some quick thinking action, they were going right into a tube of likely death.

"ALLISON!"

"SHIT!"

"HONEY!"

With lightning quick speed, or so it seemed, she turned left. Kevin was about to sigh a relief when, no, she didn't.

"Allison, what did I say about freeways?"

With almost expert skill, she weaved through traffic; difficult considering that Angelinos finally decided that twisters were dangerous, and start to frantically get away, either by car or not. The twister, however, came up on the highway and started to munch up people and cars alike, snuffing out the small chance these people had of survival. Kevin tried to ignore the fact that there were deaths mounting there, and concentrated on landmarks. The Channel 7 studio could be seen in the distance, and that made Kevin remember about the news going on. He tried to relax, listening to the sound of the twisters, the reporter talking about Air 7, the sound of a helicopter. Oh shit! He forgot about LA choppers, always trying to cover anything for ratings. The wind speed and pressure imbalance took the only thing that kept chopper in control; in this type of conditions, a chopper would lose total control and become nothing but a metal object at the will of the twister. More lives, at the cost of a good story. He looked up at Air 7, aided by the highway footage on the news, where he could clearly see himself. He began to wave frantically, screaming for the chopper to get out of there. His only response was the anchors practically making fun of him, referring to him as a "panicking motorist, obviously unsure of anything due to the extreme weather."

Allison turned to him. "Kevin, you know they wont listen."

"I know." He said, slumping back into his seat. "But they're about to find out."

As the chopper moved closer to the twister, it was already shaking, and turning. Kevin watched the footage on the news, as it got worse.

"... I have never seen anything like this, this is-whoa-incredible. To-holy cow-all our viewers just joining us, what you are-whoa, shit-sorry about that folks-seeing are actual tornadoes in Los-son of a bitch!"

The chopper did a few flips before finally spinning out of control, and being sucked into the twister. He could hear the pilot screaming before his feed was cut on the program, and then watched as a shiny bullet plowed into the ground, the dorsal propeller shooting into a building. The news team stood in silence, a shock look on their face.

"Well, uh, to all our viewers, uh, we recommend you… what? What do you mean there one coming? Uh, I'm afraid we here at Channel 7 can't stay on, there-uh seems to be rumbling- I mean, a tornado, so from all of us-"

The camera started shaking violently, and the news team, weathered from earthquakes, was unsure what to do. But as they were getting out, an I-beam fell, and then another, till the background screen started to tear up, the team scrambling to the exit. One by one they were sucked up into the vortex, till the heavy camera, too, moved along with its buddies, till the picture went blank. Kevin looked up at the station as they passed it, a giant F4 tearing through it. Daniel was fixated on it, and the only thing keeping Allison from watching it was the weaving through traffic, slightly lightened due to a number of cars in the air of thrown off the road. Kevin switched it to FOX, and his cell phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Kevin, are you in LA yet?"

"No, we're passing what used to be Channel 7, Bob, is Jeff there yet?"

"No, he's, uh, he never made it. MTA on his car at Yucca and Vine."

"Oh my God."

"It gets better. We have lost half of LAX, but that can be kissed off pretty soon, the Hollywood sign, and Capital Records. And we have reports of the Pier at Santa Monica being sucked by a waterspout, and threats of Disneyland."

"So much for just a couple of dust devils, huh?"

"Look, Kevin, I'm sorry. If I hadn't been thinking with my, well, please hurry, I don't know what to do."

"It's alright Bob, just monitor the Doppler, the news, and this storm, keep all eyes on it, we'll be there soon."

"Sure thing… boss."

Kevin hung up his phone. Jeff was dead, and yes, he was now the head of NWS in Los Angeles. He always hoped to achieve that before moving to Washington, but not in that way. As Allison started up the pass to Los Angeles, Kevin looked back at the former San Fernando Valley, hoping that LA didn't look like this yet.