§ § § -- March 17, 1996
All eyes went to the twister. It didn't seem to be moving at all, but Leslie thought it looked bigger than it had a moment or two before. She swiftly scanned the rain curtain at their right and realized that it had been gradually approaching their position, though the hail was fortunately too far north of them now to be a problem. She gave Joachim a look, and he squinted at the tornado, then nodded, looking vaguely alarmed.
"She's right," he yelled at Leslie. "We must find some kind of shelter."
"There isn't any!" Leslie shrieked at him, on the edge of panic. "Where are we supposed to go if we don't take the van and get out of here?"
"The ditch," Joachim said and turned to the others, repeating this at the top of his lungs and pointing at the drainage ditch near which they stood. Wayne looked stunned; Denise seemed just furious. The others were clearly quite scared, enough to take Joachim's advice and leap into the ditch without a second thought—except for Simon, who had moved into the middle of the road and was still happily videotaping the tornado. It seemed to have grown in size even as they were speaking, and Leslie finally understood that this meant the thing had changed direction and decided to aim directly for them.
Joachim pulled at her arm and she jumped into the drainage ditch after him. There was already a good six inches of standing water in the bottom, and everyone was soaked to the knees and spattered with mud. Denise joined them there, still looking as though she would have liked to reach out and try to choke the funnel cloud to death. Wayne, spying Simon in the road, went after him and grabbed his arm, trying to get him to hit the ditch with the others. Simon came along till he got a look inside, then balked. Wayne began yelling at him, but no one could hear due to the tornado.
"Is he insane?" Denise screamed into Leslie's ear.
"Probably," Leslie screamed back. Undoubtedly Simon was afraid he was going to ruin his clothes! She shielded her eyes from the first flying dust and actually caught Simon's gaze, upon which she took the opportunity to mouth the word Stupid! at him as clearly as she possibly could. She knew he got it because he glared at her before finally lowering himself into the ditch. Satisfied, she risked one last peek over the top and instantly ducked back down. The tornado couldn't have been more than five hundred yards down the road from them now. It wasn't overly wide, perhaps a thousand yards at the base, but it stretched so far into the sky from their viewpoint that it looked much bigger. The dust was thick in the air now, and from time to time one piece of debris or another sailed over their heads. Denise tapped Leslie's shoulder and demonstrated how to crouch down, tuck her head under and fold her hands across the back of her skull for as much protection as possible.
Once in this position, she turned her head just enough to ascertain that Joachim had followed their example and was snugged in next to her as close as possible. In fact, everyone had huddled together, more for reassurance than anything else; only Simon, still bent on capturing everything on film, had half risen and was aiming the camera lens toward the upper half of the long snaky cloud. There was no hope for him, Leslie decided, just before they heard a loud metallic bang and the faint tinkling crash of shattered glass. She hunkered down and waited, teeth gritted, eyes squeezed shut and stomach threatening to eject everything inside it.
Apparent ages passed before the storm's roaring diminished, and slowly the chase group poked their heads up over the edge of the ditch. The tornado, still going strong, was now receding toward the east. It began to rain as they pulled themselves to their feet; it hardly mattered; despite their raincoats, they were all soaked through from head to toe and covered with mud.
No one spoke as they struggled out of the ditch, slipping in the abundant mud and occasionally grunting with effort. They were concentrating so hard on this that it wasn't till they'd helped one another regain their footing on the rutted pavement that they realized the chase van had disappeared. "What the…" Wayne began, looking disoriented.
"Over there, chap," Simon said casually and pointed some distance down the road, in the direction they'd come from. The chase van lay on its side about a quarter of a mile down the lane, all its windows shattered. The radar dish that had been mounted atop it was gone altogether; the headlights had been broken as well and the bumper partially crumpled.
"How are we to get back to town?" asked Jiro Tamori, voicing everyone's thought.
"Walk, it seems," Simon said and grinned. "Shall we get started?"
"I have a better idea," Enzo DiSandro put in. "Wayne, perhaps it will still run. If we all work together to put the van upright once more, you can see if the engine is working."
"Thanks, Enzo," Wayne said gratefully. "Glad someone's thinking clearly around here. Let's try it…with nine of us, we might have a chance."
It was a motley-looking crew indeed who trudged down the muddy road in the heavy rain and paused beside the damaged van. After a few moments' rest and some assessment, everyone lined up alongside the roof of the van and began to push with their combined weight—even Simon, although he contributed only one hand, since the other still clutched the camcorder. After several long minutes of desperate effort, rocking the vehicle a bit to get a little leverage and pushing harder on each upswing, they at last got enough momentum to make the vehicle lift about halfway up. At the apex of its swing, they rammed themselves up against it and pushed, sustaining the upward movement; and the van continued on, landing on its driver's-side tires with a heavy thud and the assorted small crashes of loose objects inside. The group cheered and grinned at one another with relieved triumph.
"Well, that's half the battle," Wayne said. "Now let's see if it'll take us anywhere."
By some small miracle, the engine did indeed start; Wayne experimentally eased the van a few feet along, with the group pacing alongside. "Seems okay," he said finally. "If we take it slow and don't push this poor old beast, it might get us back to Cedar Heights."
"How far is that?" asked Sangeeta Madichetty.
"About thirty miles," Wayne said.
"A little less than fifty kilometers," Leslie added. Years before, Roarke had seen the global push toward metrics and had made sure all students on the island learned measurements in metric as well as American terms; so Leslie had learned to make quick basic conversions in school after arriving on Fantasy Island.
"Ah," came a murmured chorus from the tour members. Jiro Tamori gave the van a doubtful look and said in addition, "It seems rather far away for your van to go, Wayne. I think the tornado did some serious damage."
Wayne sighed. "At least it still runs. She's all we've got, folks, so unless you prefer to keep Lightwood-Wynton company on his walk, you might as well hop on in." Simon shot Wayne an annoyed look, but they all noticed that he clambered in along with the rest.
Since all the windows had been blown out, the cross breeze that flowed through the interior soon had them shivering in the much-cooler air post-tornado. By this time the twister, still visible toward the east, had reached its final stage of life and looked like a long thin line drifting through the sky. "It's roping out," Wayne explained, pointing at it. "It can still do plenty of damage even then, so the danger isn't over yet; but it'll probably dissipate in the next ten minutes or less."
"Shall I film it, then?" Simon inquired, already poking half his torso out the nearest glassless window and pointing the camera at the distant twister without waiting for an answer. No one bothered providing one; they took no interest in Simon's peculiar affinity for recording the events they'd just survived and settled down in an exhausted silence, each one hugging him- or herself in a feeble attempt to keep warm on the trip back to Cedar Heights. Only Simon's voice could be heard now, still providing commentary, until a bit less than ten minutes into the trip when the tornado finally dissolved into nothingness and he was forced to stop running the camcorder and retreat inside the van.
Much later, when they were a bit more than five miles northwest of town, they came across a pile of scattered wreckage that plainly had once been a house. Wayne slowed the van to a crawl and everyone stared at the pitiful sight. A lone human figure meandered along the edge of the junkpile, apparently in a daze; the person stopped when the van came along and stared at it.
"Stop," Denise snapped, startling them all. "We need to see if we can help."
Wayne obeyed and everyone piled out, hesitantly approaching the figure. Then Leslie gasped. "Holly?" she cried.
Sure enough, it was Holly Oberlein, whose face crumpled the moment Leslie spoke. She broke down into an unnerving, keening wail that made Simon curse out loud and the others wince and turn away. Leslie ran to her former classmate and hugged her hard. "I'm so glad you're okay," she said softly. "What happened?"
"I was in the cellar…" Holly began, her voice a thin, childlike bleat punctuated by soft cries of despair. "My parents were there…it picked them up…they're gone…"
Gently Leslie shushed her. "Come on, Holly, we're going back to town, and you're coming with us. We'll get word to Cedar Heights and they can send out a search party." Sobbing uncontrollably, Holly let Leslie lead her back to the van; after that no one said a word. The atmosphere was funereal all the way back to town.
Wayne and Denise, up front, were the first ones to see the figure in white, standing on the sidewalk where they had first arrived the previous day. Wayne stopped the vehicle, and Roarke approached it, taking in the bedraggled occupants. He focused on Holly Oberlein, sitting beside Leslie, still grieving audibly.
"Leslie?" he questioned.
She mustered up a wan smile for him and explained who Holly was. "Her house was destroyed in the storm and her parents are missing, so we need to get a search party out." She bit her lip. "As far as we could see, the Oberlein place was the only one the tornado hit. Could we do something for her, Father?"
Roarke smiled with understanding. "We'll notify the local police and fire department and they can handle the organization of a search party," he said. "Miss Oberlein?"
Surprised, Holly focused on him through her tears. "Mr. Roarke?"
"If you wish, we will remain here with you until you've had word about your mother and father," he suggested. She nodded and began to cry, this time in a more normal way, and Leslie reached over and wrapped an arm around her, squeezing.
The search for Holly's parents ended happily; they had landed in a field adjacent to their property and were both seriously injured but alive. Holly insisted on remaining with them; and Roarke, acceding to her adamant wishes and profuse thanks, shepherded Leslie and the tornado chasers to the hydrofoil launch back to Fantasy Island. He took in their exhaustion and misery, and merely made sure they were physically unhurt before taking a chair beside Leslie and examining her critically.
"You seem to have survived the experience," he remarked dryly.
Without moving, she lifted her gaze to him and drew in a long breath, then let it out in one heavy gust. "The next time I get one of these bright ideas of mine," she said wearily, "just tie me to a chair until I see the error of my ways and the light of your wisdom, okay?"
A bright sparkle instantly appeared in Roarke's dark eyes and he nodded with sham solemnity. "You have my word on that."
Leslie gave him a grouchy look. "Oh, quit holding back," she muttered. "I know you're dying to laugh, so go ahead." Obligingly Roarke released his quiet chuckles, patting her shoulder while she slouched grumpily in her seat.