Sins in Twisters
Chapter 21: Torn
Some damn crazy weather we've been having in the last few weeks, right?
In the pounding rain that once more consumed the town like God was threatening to flood the Earth again, the sisters silently sat in the car, looking ahead in the direction they and hundreds of motorists on the highway had all watched the tornado enter and disappear into their town.
The three of them didn't know exactly what to do. What else could they do? Lisa knew there was no hope of catching up and warning the town or anyone they could contact. Communication across the area was barely operational, and the radio traffic being picked up was more of the scattered short-range networks the growing emergency service was utilizing. It's entirely doable to send a signal through this network to get a message out, but the receiver wouldn't be who they wanted to connect to.
Lynn had tried to call again, but the heavily cracked phone in the cup holder told the end of that story. Luna tried the radio, and the most received from the more powerful stations reporting updates on the storm. Lisa was still able to get updates on the storm itself. Using the nearest radar signal, though much messier in its detail, gave her enough data to see just what was happening.
The storm had veered northward, more or less performing a 'left turn' that is often the result of the direction motion of the storm and low-level winds pushing against it. It was like the storm was a semi-truck fighting to stay on the road against gale-force winds threatening to tip it over. The storm had remained on its eastern track for the better part of twenty-five minutes until it was shoved northward. It sometimes happened during the storm's life cycle when the rotation was concluding, becoming weaker and susceptible to other forces taking control.
In some context, it was good. The rotation became stretched and pulled apart. Unable to maintain its structure as the top and bottom of the storm pulled in separate directions, possibly killing off the twister faster than natural decay. But that was far from helpful in these times when that very force would redirect its power towards the very place it was hoped to miss. While constricting in size, those winds could quickly intensify into the regions where the entire path may only have moderate damage, but the ending stretch could have unimaginable destruction. Had the storm kept going east, it would have barely grazed the southeastern suburbs of Royal Woods.
The left turn had practically steered it towards the heart of town.
Any meteorologist watching it must have suddenly torn their hair out when they saw what the storm was doing and issued a new tornado emergency for the entire county and city. It was when Lisa saw where it was heading and how soon it would be there.
But the storm wasn't going to let them off that easily.
The core had gotten as far as East Hudson Avenue before it was steered slightly southeastward. A sudden 'right turn' that had the hook visibly decrease in size. As the tornado died, it rode around the edge of the mesocyclone. Being pulled and slingshot around.
Reports said that the tornado had become less of a wedge by reaching South Kenwood and more like an unstable, disorganized cone shape. The track started to move back more northeast once it crossed Highway 75 and straight through the middle of the Madison Heights area, turning due north before hooking sharply west. From eyewitness reports and lack of presence on radar reflectivity, it had finally dissipated.
From where they were sitting to where it possibly died, the twister had spent maybe five minutes on the ground in Royal Woods. Perhaps more if the right turn slowed it down, possibly less if its conclusion had caused a rapid acceleration. What remained in its wake was the unrelenting downpour the rear flank downdraft was pulling down from further in the storm. Small pea-sized chunks of hail pinged off the car like someone was flicking coins at them, but they were doing very little compared to the beating Lori's car had already suffered.
Moving closer to the driver-side window, she peered up towards the gray sky, seeing some flicks of what debris still floated in the air and rained down around the area.
"We need to get off this highway."
"And how do you propose we do that?" Luna snarked, not in the mood for some other kind of science jargon or list of facts and statistics. It was more part of her reasoning for all this.
Why the hell did she agree to do this? What was the point of driving out there in the hail to follow a tornado heading straight for their home regardless? Was it supposed to get them out of the way? Then why the hell didn't they take the others? They could have used nearly half an hour to get in the car or go and pick up the others and just drive away from the storm. Would their house still be standing? She didn't know or care; they had practically abandoned the others as food for a monster.
This whole day was a disaster before the actual disaster. It was like God was really messing with them, saying that if they thought this morning was bad, don't worry; it get worse. 'BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!' throw in the destruction of your home, and you get the daily three-piece meal of life.
Why… out of every day, did it feel like everything had to happen today? The coffee was good; they tended to business, the sun came out, and the world kept on spinning. Simple as that, right
Then, just like America in August of 1945, why drop only one bomb when you can drop a second? She wanted to be mad. Who in her family wouldn't after this morning? She wanted to smash a guitar to splinters, scream out her lungs, and close the blinds so the sunlight couldn't reach her like the vampires Lucy admired.
It felt all too much like this was a dream. One of those twisted nightmares you picture yourself in, either younger or older, doing things that you feel like you could run back and try to change the path until you come to what feels like a dead end. The story stops; you can only go back so far, but nothing can change. That the rain and wind of today were just another ordinary seasonal storm and not some herald of history that was the source.
Lynn, in a fit of somehow feeling what her sister felt, suddenly pounded the door, catching both of their attention. She tried the handle, jiggling it until a moment of rational thinking made her realize the lock was still engaged. Nearly ripping it out of the door panel, the door went flying open hard enough that it nearly came back, but a swift kick by the athlete sent it back again with enough force to make the hinges cry out from the sudden abuse. Stepping out into the rain, not caring how soaked she would be within minutes, Lynn looked up the highway ahead of them and then back—slamming the door before she started walking away behind them.
Confused, the others looked in the mirror or stood up in their seats to watch their sister walking away in the opposite direction, becoming harder to spot in the downpour until she was out of sight behind another vehicle. The question of whether they should go after she hung in the air like a mosquito trying to fly through a closed window but was swiftly squashed by the hand of the reason that right now, she needed to blow off some steam somehow.
Luna returned to having her arm resting against the door with her face in hand. Taking one more look at the road ahead that stayed still with very few cars trying to move about, she sighed, shaking her head. Wishing this dream, nightmare, hallucination, whatever the hell this was would be all over soon.
"Hey!" Luna jumped in her seat, nearly planting her head through the window as she looked back to the passenger door to see a drenched Lynn standing beside the car. Gesturing to roll down the window, Luna flicks the switch to drop it all the way as Lisa pulls herself up between the front seats.
"If I had to guess, you've done something that can be deemed significant?"
She pointed behind them, "Found a way out."
Looking back, both of them twisted around in their seats, watching numerous headlights turn away from behind them and turn around. While a barrier stopped anyone from crossing into the opposing lanes, it acted as the guide rail for some to try to perform the tightest possible three-point turns without hitting anyone like a game of 'don't bump the cars'.
"Where are they going?" Luna asked as Lynn got back into the car.
"They're all taking the on-ramp. Someone further back said the highway was pretty much shut down."
"The on-ramp…" Lisa muttered before returning to her computer as a plan began forming. "Yes… that can work. We can get on the main street and then take East Harrison. It'll take us to Mohawk Ave, and then we can turn right onto Franklin."
Getting a sense of the plan, Luna checked around them to ensure she had enough space. Turning hard over, she drove as much into the shoulder as possible. Bumper an inch away from the concrete wall, she spun it hard around the opposite way. Trying to avoid hitting was in front and now behind, she barely applied pressure on the pedal as they slowly started sliding down the wrong side of a major highway. For a moment, Luna has to think back that this was either why Lincoln hated highways during storms or if this was what it's like for an American to drive in Britain during an inconvenience.
It wasn't exactly a straight shot to floor it. So many cars were trying to do the same, posing the risk of either a head-on collision or side-swiping people's mirrors off. The moment the highway briefly became six lanes under a train bridge, it was becoming like a domino effect as those who couldn't get to the off-ramp further back were slowly feeding themselves into the flow.
Rolling up the hill, a police car sat near the center of the intersection on the median, with the officers themselves trying to direct traffic with flashlights. Some cars kept with the road and turned into the lane that was supposed to turn traffic around the opposite way, others risking it to get around the median and head towards downtown Royal Woods.
Luna tried to be one of the few not getting directed the opposite way. Slowing down to the results of several horns, the right side rode along the edge until they crossed the bridge.
"Well-" they all groaned when the car dropped off the edge, "that went literally perfect…"
Lynn slowly nodded, "Yeah. Now get us back home."
"Yeah.. How close are we, Lisa?"
"Two blocks. Best to transfer to the other lane." She added as Luna wedged herself into the other line.
"Wait," Lynn said, looking back and pulling some wet hairs off her face, "Why not take 10 Mile? It's literally a left turn from the house."
"And straight up Owana near the heart of the damage path." Lisa countered, only glancing up from the top edge of her glasses, "Our route is the shortest to bypass traffic, and most of the streets are blocked off by damage. If… if the storm had turned sooner than expected, then our approach from the west would be mostly unhindered. Turn right before the pharmacy."
Doing as told, Luna turned them down onto a practically desolate street that went on into the rain. Picking up speed, an uneasy feeling filled the car the closer they got. Rolling over a pair of train tracks, the storm's effects were starting to materialize around them. Houses having parts of their shingles ripped off added to shattered windows. Most of the damage they could see was to what was on their right side; Lisa even noted that anyone on the left of the street had been relatively untouched from the front, but what the backside looked like was another story.
The outer wind field had possibly reached this far, fitting for something half a mile to have a mile-wide zone; these places had gotten something closer to the 50s in terms of wind. Most of it was tree damage or anything not really weighed down.
"Lisa, where does this street end again?" Luna asked as Lisa felt them come to a stop.
"Mohawk Avenue." She repeated.
"No, it's not." Lynn countered like it was a hard fact.
Ceasing her typing, the 13-year-old scientist was fully prepared to ask her adult athletic sibling if she was the one who currently knew the state of the Royal Woods street network and the conditions of said roads after the storm. Looking up, ready to give her lecture, she noticed that they were still stopped. Looking over the edge of the dashboard, she could see the street continuing on into the distance. But ahead of them was a sign and a patch of grass where the street was supposed to continue through.
Confused, she looked back down to her computer map to see that the road was perfectly fine, but what was ahead told her otherwise.
"Damn city planners…" she grumbled, feeling that today was a day when technology and rational application of satellite updates would be the least of the problems.
"Is there a way around?" Luna asked, feeling her impatience growing.
Lisa rechecked her map from where they were but shook her head, "Not unless we backtracked to the main road."
"You know what… screw it. We're going through." She shifted the car into second gear and rolled forward. Feeling the front wheels suddenly hit the curb, making everyone jerk forward. The motor revved harder as the front wheels crawled up the edge into the grass, growing louder as Luna gave it more power to get the rear up.
The second she felt the car even out, she shifted out and floored it.
Grass, mud, and rainwater went flying from the back wheels in a display that would make Lana dance for joy to be in. Almost feeling the car had already started to sink, the former rockstar kept turning the wheel sharply to keep the car from digging straight through and keep the wheels mainly to the surface. A horrific display of landscaping that earned some cheers from Lynn and almost taking out the sign ahead, the car bounced back onto pavement and accelerated down Hudson proper, leaving a muddy trail in its wake.
"There, problem solved." She sighed, satisfied with her work.
"Yeah, 'Luna's Landscaping' can be the name of your business," Lynn remarked, looking at the disappearing mess in the rearview.
But the little amount of positivity was short-lived as they passed the first block. While what was behind was a mess, what lay ahead made them take a moment to remember they were coming upon the path of a twister. The damage became less of what you'd get from a seasonal wind storm to visible chunks of houses missing. Fallen trees strewn about yards and on top of parked cars. Street lamps and power lines bent over or snapped to be on the ground or barely held up by its accompanying poles.
Making it just past Longfellow Avenue between Mohawk, their path was blocked by a massive tree brought down across the road with part of it embedded into the front face of a house. On the other side, an enormous crater deep enough to swallow a car sat disheveled with roots jetting out. Some barely connected to the bottom of the tree twisted together, holding a clump of grass and dirt nearly as large as their own car.
Luna tried to find a way around the debris, but with it so far across the road and the hole, there wasn't any space for her to even try off-roading again.
"Lisa?"
"We are a seven-minute walk from the house." Lisa answered as she unbuckled, "It is highly likely we won't go any further in our vehicle than this. We're at the edge of where the limits of the funnel reached; the damage ahead will become increasingly impassable."
As she stepped out of the car, bringing her hood up, the others soon followed. Both got a slight shiver from the blast of cold wind going through their coats. Holding her device up with one hand, Lisa checked the route before closing it. "This way." She moved towards the house with the crater. Their eyes and head were on a swivel, looking over every odd detail she could pick out of the damage.
Coming around the front of the home, the three of them nearly tripped over themselves as they felt their legs suddenly stop in their tracks.
"Oh my god…"
"Bloody hell…"
The scene before Lisa kept her silent as she scanned the neighborhood before them. All around, from the left to the right, and as far as the eye could see, was complete destruction. It was like the giant tree was the stage curtain waiting for them to brush it aside to see the extent of the after-show.
The houses to their immediate sides had suffered significant roof damage; the ones beside those had no roofs. A car was sitting halfway through the crossed wall of the second floor to the home on their right, and straight ahead, there were homes without roofs or even their second floors anymore. Every tree within sight was snapped in half or littered the streets and yards. What she could possibly guess was two-thirds of a two-car garage had been pulled between two houses and was half intact/half disintegrated with what remained to impale the house across the street with a portion of the door still left. What was left of that house couldn't even be deemed a house. At best, the front wall was still standing, with everything behind it going to the point Lisa had to guess it was a block behind it now.
It was a sight that, as she stepped further into the center of the intersection, noting that a manhole lid just some six feet away was laying upside down cracked in half, all the damage around her had something in common. It was all angled in the same direction.
The angle trees had fallen, how some homes only had half their structures exploded out and what stood had become loaded with trapped debris, if she had any guess how much behind them was affected by what was around her, ten minutes ago they would have been in the threshold of the main funnel. Without spending the rest of the afternoon doing a more thorough damage survey, she had several estimates and guesses as to what had hit this place. The most telling was the fact that they were so close to the path of the last tornado she almost guaranteed that those rebuilt homes had been hit again.
Going over the mental list of damage indicators they used for ranking, from a visible stance, this street has suffered moderate to strong EF3. From how far the damage reached, they were close to where it had done its right turn. The core and center of the stronger winds had to be further to their east but the chances that this storm was stronger or weaker was uncertain. Homes around these parts were older, built to stand at best against gale-force wind, not something above 150.
The prospect that this wasn't even close to the true damage done to their town made her worry grow. The difference of a quarter mile was all that stood from either being in the path of the core or where their house 'should' be. If this was closer to the western edge than the northern, then that meant the turn had occurred far closer to home.
It was becoming a nagging question that she really needed but didn't want to know truly.
Looking north, Franklin Avenue was within sight. Passing all the splintered 2x4s, tossed trash cans, and snapped trees littered with the belongings of dozens of people, she started her way forward. Pushing away the thoughts of what could be found in these homes, focusing on her higher priority.
But neither older sister thought of the same.
From the fact that they had witnessed a tornado in the first place, watching it tearing apart everything from a shady distance made it a bit hard to comprehend what it was really doing. Each power flash spoke of transformers exploding parts of the town flickering into darkness. So dark and far away that it was hard to tell it was a tornado.
But standing here felt like a dream had gone too far.
They remembered years before, hearing the wind in the bunker and then coming out to see how everywhere but the house in front of their own was decimated. Houses to either side were barely touched while their neighbor had literally lost it all. They saw some of the path driving through town during the clean-up, but that was spotted at best. It was like the whole block had an army of angry bulldozers with a grudge against the local government pass through with an infantry of chainsaw and sledgehammer-wielding psychos following right behind.
You see it so much on television and the internet, knowing that somewhere a force had just destroyed lives that spent years being built was gone, you feel sorry and send prayers to those who have the spirit to match on. Put that into something that looked like a war had taken place blocks from your own house, and that feeling of sorrow becomes twisted and tainted with a fear that the places you pass without thought, that the people you might only meet once or know regularly, was gone or could be dead buried under their very own homes.
Either from obligation or human instincts, they quickly ran to the closest house. It was one of the more intact ones, if you could call it, missing its roof with parts caved in.
"Hello!?" Luna yelled into a shattered front window. "Is anyone in there!?" Lynn raced up the front door and twisted the handle right as she brought her shoulder in to force it upon, but it didn't budge.
"Dammit… locked, or something's blocking it," she grunted, trying to leverage her body to apply more force.
"There's no point."
After hearing it so many times today, Luna felt like her blood was starting to boil, "And how do you know!?"
If she were any closer, she would have jabbed her finger into her chest to express her further frustration. A fact Lisa saw clear as day that those five words were her sister's accusation that she was willing to let some trapped possibly die while they stood a chance to help.
"Because I don't." she responded, cold enough that it could freeze the rain, "Because, in the last hour, I had no idea that this storm would produce a tornado and take it straight up to our home. The 'home' that we currently have no idea if our family is safe or not and can't communicate at all to. Who may or may not be trapped with us right now, probably the only ones close enough to help them. Emergency services will be mobilizing to assist in the rescue, but the time they reach our home is too unknown with how much there is. Every second we're here, the more time we're wasting."
Listening while still trying to get in, Lynn ceased her efforts in a huff, "She's right…" She said, stepping away from the house, "Family is important first. God knows what happened to Leni, Lucy, and Mom. We can come back when we know everyone is safe."
Lisa nodded in approval of Lynn's reasoning. They had already wasted time trying to circle around to this point; adding ten more steps in a five-step task would only slow them down. The sooner they got home, the sooner they could actually make a difference if they could.
Luna looked between both her sisters as Lynn joined Lisa's side, but any argument she would put out would be going against her rational thinking that there were people she knew that could be hurt.
"You're right…. You're right." She said to herself more than anyone. Taking one last look at the house before slowly stepping away. "I'm sorry." She looked down at Lisa, feeling remorse at talking to her sister like that.
"It's fine."Lisa gave a small nod, patting Luna's back, "Today has been a stressful day for all of us in more ways than we want."
Lisa gave her a sincere smile, a rare event like today; she just never had that mindset. In times like these, she knew that a little gesture could make the most significant difference in what someone in a mental state of turmoil would do. It worked, as Luna gave her one in gratitude for her sister understanding her trouble.
"Hey guys!" Lynn called out, surprising the two by getting further down the street without them noticing.
She was at least three houses away from them, digging for something in someone's front yard, tossing debris and garbage away as she wretched up what looked like the remains of a street sign. Bent in half with its bottom portion completely snapped off and bathed in mud and crumbled, the still glimmering white on the green of 'Franklin Ave' and 'Etowah Ave' shone in the dim light as she looked back to her sisters.
"This thing was, like, buried halfway into the dirt."
Lisa and Luna bothered to turn to each other with the fear in their eyes practically flooding out. It didn't take either of them a moment to think where that specific sign had come from to serve as a sudden reminder of what had happened.
Putting some power into their step, the two dashed towards the intersection of Franklin Avenue.
Clambering over the sea of debris, the view that greeted them was no better than the street they were standing on. Unlike the street they were on, with it T-ing off, their street went on as far as they could see. But there lay the problem; they could see as far as their eyes could see.
No houses, if barely any, were still standing. Some were reduced to piles of rubble, others barely holding themselves together by their nails. Trees torn down and shredded, power lines across the street like spiderwebs, and the sound… there was just no sound. Distant echoes from emergency vehicles and a few of the still active tornado sirens, but the street just felt so empty. No birds, no sounds of cars traveling close by, or the sounds of people calling out for help or to announce where they were. No tools of rescuers trying to dig through tons of damage, not even the wind and rain blowing made much as a silent whistle past their ears.
It was like everything had become still. What life there was was no more now. Where there was a canvas of vibrant colors of autumn had been taken away and replaced by fallen grays and browns that were too jagged for what had been created over time. A glance behind them told them enough as to why they couldn't go any further with the car, a house, or at least the top half from somewhere, laid upside down on its crushed roof across the street with one home on the other looking like a meteor had crashed into it.
But what they were seeing didn't help at all. The street that they could recognize almost any time of year for over twenty years didn't look recognizable at all. Any house that they could point to and name who lived there would act like its own little landmark for them to gauge how close they were to home.
Lisa forced down a heavy gulp of nervousness as she took in the reality before her. Mentally checking off every comparable indicator to reports read with video and photos, she saw solid EF3 damage everywhere she looked. The fact some homes looked like they were torn in half and blown away from the rest spoke that the wind load that was in this area was close to entering the core itself. One house further up the street was entirely in the neighbor's with a trail of wood and scars in the grass showing where it was dragged.
As they walked one block closer, the damage became less identifiable as what was to be a complete mess. Every house was missing its roof, with most of its outer walls taken away to reveal what wasn't blown out from the inside. Cars in places they usually wouldn't be flipped over and mangled, windows missing with chunks ripped off or wood speared all the way through. One, probably what remained of a pickup truck, was half wrapped around a tree with its bed crushed in and the front ripped off to show the very guts of a shredded engine.
The damage was moving away from being wind-swept over a broad area, which made them be extra careful from getting too close to downed lines or stepping on something that could go through their shoes. While still scattered, it was more of what 'left' in still being here than what remained. As far as she could tell, they would have been well into the north face at the time of its left turn as the leading edge of the tornado. Without an aerial view, she didn't know how far north the vortex had reached before its right turn. If it was a gradual turn that it more naturally curved into, briefly looped on itself, or did an about-face, it was something that she would look into later.
It wasn't EF5, at least not for this part of the path. Too much was still left to say that the winds broke 200 plus here, but a lot was leaning closer to the higher reaches of the EF4 range. Trees uprooted, cars tossed, outer walls and some inner walls missing, it became more and more fitting the closer they got home.
Call it a freak of nature or some mumbo-jumbo of fate, but somewhere in the central control in her mind, a bunch of her thoughts were gathered together in a dimly lit room with loads of documents about curse. All in silence, trying to come up with why this had happened at all. Why this storm had dropped and practically steered its course specifically to hit their home. Why did it choose today, when it all seemed to be stable up until…
There had to be a connection.
Why did Lincoln choose today of all days to come here, and why did this storm choose its path? Someone dashed to a filing cabinet and pulled out everything she could account for. Her discovery of his location, him avoiding making contact? The papers that he gave their father, something so significant that the storm was meant to counteract? What those were, she needed to find out, but importantly, to find out what Lincoln had been doing since that time. If what happened here was a taste of what this outbreak was unleashing, then god knows what he's experiencing.
Too many things were popping up faster than she could keep track of. Within a day, they had made a discovery; within hours, they had missed a chance five years in the making…. Within thirty minutes, their home was…
Any momentum she had in her step was gone. Any activity in her mind ceased, like the world going silent at the moment those watching were to witness history. Her computer nearly slipped from her grasp, but her mouth dropped like she had all the air sucked from her lungs. She heard two more gasps beside her. She could feel her sisters standing there as motionless as resting stones.
Barely had anything short of some branches from the mighty specimen that had stood as the landmark to their front yard even before all this mess. Now it lay on its side, ripped from the ground, revealing its side that had been hidden from the world for decades. Stripped of its swing, chunks of bark and its highest branches ripped away like the claws of a beast.
Standing at the edge of where their sidewalk started, you used to stare directly at the house like it was a two-dimensional drawing. The front door is directly ahead, with windows to the sides and above. The steps leading up break the shade of the front porch.
Now replaced by the decimated remains of what looked like their garage and the neighbor's house, smashed together above where the dining room and kitchen once were. Where the mighty now rested was where the window and roof above the porch and Lori and Leni's room became entangled with the framework. Two-thirds of the roof was gone; the top floor had parts of the upper walls missing or holding onto some of the roof structure.
The whole house was leaning backward, like a domino ready to fall to trigger the chain reaction. The walls of the first floor bulged forward, windows gone, and timber buckling outwards, threatening to lose their strength from the load being pulled. From what she could see, it was more twisted; the wall to the living room was blown forward while the roof to the porch bent downwards towards the dining room—leaning more into its back right corner where more of the wall had given out. Using its mass instead of strength to keep that part of the house standing.
Had it been from the fall of the tree or where their parent's room should be, now smashed against the other neighbor's home, that stopped it from going further or completely disintegrating? Lisa didn't have an idea. She took a tiny ounce of thought that all the fixes and upgrades Lana had achieved were a reason there was still a thing to call a 'house' and not a pile of rubble.
Like a wounded creature realizing there was someone there, a groan echoed from within like it was trying to muster the strength to move. Instead, the remains of the chimney, unsupported by what was left of the roof, fell through what was once probably the bathroom, crashing through the living room's ceiling. The fireplace crumbled like a superhero dropping to one knee, unable to stand straight anymore. The house shifted, pushed forward, and twisted back. The oak rolled to the right, falling deeper into the bedrooms as the supports for the porch gave out and collapsed with its roof.
The girls took a step back, fearing that the house would crumble further. They held their breath as the groaning ceased, and the sounds of breaking boards and glass faded.
It took the sudden stillness of the structure to make the trio remain on guard for any further movement, but the second it didn't, their minds found their voices.
"M-m-MOM!" Lynn screamed out, running for the house.
Luna was right behind, "Leni! Lucy!" She cried out.
Stepping over the spot where the steps used to be, Lynn ducked her head under the sagging roof. Trying the door first, while it was already busted and weak enough that she probably could break it down, she knew to avoid trying to smash anything else.
"Maybe here." Luna said as she knocked away some parts of the broken glass with the sleeve of her coat to clear away, "Mom!?" She yelled out again,"Leni!? Lucy, can you hear me?!"
"Lynn, Luna- wait!" Lisa cried out. Running towards them and making the jump up to the porch, she grabbed them by the arms before either could try to enter, "Don't! The entire structure is compromised! One wrong move, one step in the wrong place, and it can all go!"
As if to emphasize her point, something from upstairs sounded like it had crashed into the floor. Usually enough to make a loud bang, it was enough to make the entire house shake and twist just an inch more. The two adults quickly jumped away before the dust in the boards had time to settle in the air.
"Damn…" Lynn shook her head.
"There are only three logical places they could be." Lisa explained, "Either they had evacuated the house before the storm, made it to the bunker, or found shelter in the basement." With no real way to confirm the first option, the three slowly turned their attention to the pile of rubble that was their crushed garage, mangled with the remains of what used to be Mr. Grouse's house.
Lisa couldn't stop to look more into the damage and what had happened. Mr. Grouse's house was completely off its foundation like theirs but was a bit further from where theirs originally sat. With how the garage was still present, she estimated the angle of impact from the house was closer to it than their house. The wind would have forced it to smash into theirs and possibly demolish the neighbor's, yet with the garage taking the brunt and the tree out front keeping it from going any further, it was remarkable just how wind with mass could move something like buildings.
There was no visible way around the mess into the backyard itself. Placed in such a way, they had to navigate to the street on the other side to cross the neighbor's yard to see if the bunker wasn't obscured by debris.
But that posed their problem: a massive chunk of mass from a dislocated house, the weakened foundation from another, and most of the garage all accumulated in one spot; what was once the basement was filled like a sinkhole after swallowing part of the cabin. Stepping just to the threshold where the crawl space under the porch once was, now void of dust, Halloween decorations, and any secrets hidden away, giving them a view into the nearly ten-foot-deep pit.
"Mom!?" Luna called out, "Can you hear me?!"
They waited in silence for a few moments, but no answer.
Feeling like anxiety was working into her, Lynn looked around to anywhere she could see some way of seeing inside. Following the edge of the exposed brick outline, around the corner of where just a small corner of the dining room floor had remained, the part of the wall under it with a half-shattered window gave enough visual that she kicked in what remained. Praying that little action didn't just send sharp glass on to her family, she brushed away what was left with her shoe, and she got down to stick her head in.
It was equally a mess on the top side as it was on the floor. The entire chunk under the living room and bedroom was completely filled with debris that piled over to the staircase. It was hard to see what was left beside the bottom six steps before it caved in with the mass of the entire kitchen. Part of the garage roof that had fallen in went nearly to the floor itself, but with this little chunk and it acting as more of a barrier, there was a big gap towards the back corner that wasn't too filled in.
"Hello?" She called out, straining to see in the darkness. That moment of silence was broken by the sound of something metal moving? It's not like it fell or collapsed, but more like something was pushed by something else.
"They're down here." She stated, quickly shedding her coat and handing it to Lisa as she turned around to go feet-first through the window. "Help me down."
Not questioning her plan, the two sisters grabbed Lynn's arms as firmly as possible and braced themselves. Lynn struggled to get a grip on the walls with her wet shoes, but once the two were at the threshold of the window, they slowly let their grip loosen. Keeping a hand on the wall, Lynn dropped herself the last two feet with a splash. Looking down to see some ankle-deep water already consuming her shoes.
"It's flooding down here."
Hear this, Lisa ducked her head through the window to check for herself, "The house must have shattered our water main."
"Yeah, no kidding…" Lynn groaned, feeling how heavy her shoes had gotten during her first few steps.
"Be careful," Lisa stressed again. We don't know if any electrical line is close to making contact or when this whole mass can cave in on itself."
"Greet choice of words of encouragement, brain box…" Lynn retorted as she took slow steps through the water.
Ducking under one of the several supports that barely kept the garage from falling in any further, with how much they were half bent and snapped, just ducking under one made her freeze when a cracking sound directly above made her move to avoid being under it a second longer. She shivered at the unneeded thoughts of what could have happened a second before and after, but she shook her head, banishing those thoughts to focus on her mission.
Glancing up to see the chunk of the roof with shingles at eye level, she stood crouched, trying to step over a box of something half submerged. Kicking something that brushed against her pant leg, for a moment, she thought she felt something moving in the water but pressed on. Below what she was sure was the kitchen, she saw just how much the basement stairs had caved in, with the refrigerator sitting where the top half would be.
But something didn't feel right. Something didn't look right at all. Something was moving down here, trying to lift up all the weight from below and struggling to keep it up.
Grabbing the side of what looked like it was part of the garage door, giving it a little wiggle to see if it was stuck in place or just sitting there, she carefully pushed it aside to see a wall of seafoam green, blonde, and red facing her.
"Leni!" Lynn cried out, practically throwing the debris to the side as she ducked under a piece of the stairs.
"...Lynn…?" She heard her sister moan out. Pushing away more to make a little clear spot, the moment she had a good look made her blood pause.
Leni stood there, arms held high, with the part of the staircase resting on her back. What she could only guess was the entire garage baring down on her. Her clothes had a few tears, and her hair frizzled, but the most worrying was the streaks of blood coming down the sides of her neck.
"Oh my god! Are you okay?!" She cupped her face in her hands.
Leni slowly tried looking up to her little sister but didn't answer. Looking through fallen strains of hair as she tried standing up just a bit straighter. But Lynn could see in her eyes the utter exhaustion and pain that she was trying to fight back against the load literally on her shoulders. She tried to adjust her footing, but it only made her nearly fall and caused the entire place to shake. Lynn stepped back, waiting for the place to go any second. But the groans and creaks eased away as Leni slowly tried standing back up.
"H-hang on, Leni!" Lynn frantically looked around for anything large and sturdy enough that she could use as a brace. God knows how long Leni had been able to use her supernatural gorilla strength to keep all that from crushing her.
In the tight space, she had to move; she didn't have much to work with. What wasn't splinters and scrap metal was too short or frail to be of any use. She dashed back the way she came, looking for anything until her thoughts made her stop and look back at the door that she had shoved away. It was missing parts, but it was just a bit taller than the highest spot the stairs were at now. If it could hold, she had no idea but to try and find out.
"Leni! Can you lift that just a bit higher?" She knew it was asking a lot from her sister, but if her plan and hopes worked, the payout would be all the more worth it.
Leni grunted, "I'll try…" Spreading her feet out just a bit and with gritted teeth and muscles screaming, she slowly started to lift again.
Lynn wasted no time ripping the door out from where it was and quickly shoving it into roughly the best place. At an angle, it would give space but wouldn't just fold over from the weight. If it could take the weight, she prayed it did for just long enough.
Leni, however, could feel her back and arms starting to scream like a fiery hell at her. Begging just to let go. But her brain ordered her body like a general to an army to stand firm, and she got it just high enough for Lynn to force the door into place.
But as she moved it, the whole place started to groan violently. Things were shifting, crashing from insecure places and smashing. Lynn quickly ducked beside Leni, gripping the stairs to lend her strength to force it just a bit higher. Leni gasped when she felt the weight suddenly lighten and put all she had into getting it just that inch higher.
When the wood 'thunk' against the board and dropped, the groaning sounded like a mine shaft was ready to cave in. Lynn dared not let go in the fear that if the weight did give, she'd have to be fast to snatch her sister away. The groaning let on for a lifetime, but slowly, it began to fade like a disturbed animal returning to sleep. With a sigh of relief, Lynn slowly let her grip g,o praying that it held long enough. Yet, in that brief second, she saw her sister practically collapse. Watching Leni nearly face plant into more damage made her quickly get around to catch her before any more harm was done.
It was in the moment she held the fashionista in her arms that she saw what damage was already done. A nasty gas went across the back of her neck to her left shoulder. The entire area looked like what would happen if you put your knee to concrete but went further in getting an edge that cut deeper.
"Easy, Leni. I gotch you." Twisting her around a bit, she looked for any spot that she could set her down to get a more thorough look over.
Leni lifted her head like it was connected to stones, "...mom… Lucy…" She looked over to their left. A spike of confusion gave way to renewed fear. Following her gaze, the dots suddenly all connected to her question of why she had been holding up the stairs.
In the space that was left by the last few steps that hadn't collapsed, a single flashlight gave barely any light to the mound of scattered blanks that covered unmoving bodies.
Frustrated by her sister's choice of dark clothing blending into the darkness itself, she could see Lucy lying against the stairs slumped over. The motion of the blankets moving directly on top of her was a good sign she was still alive and breathing, but even with all this noise, she barely moved at all.
Rita looked horrible. Worse than ever, she had been sick, exhausted, or stressed. Her face was paler than Lucy's; almost all color was drained from her in the light from the torch. Lynn almost felt like she was looking at a corpse when she touched her shoulder.
"Mom?"
Rita squinted at the voice so close, her eyes slowly opening, trying to adjust to the darkness, "Lynn…" she groaned. Unsure if she was asking who was there or if she knew. In what little light there was, her buzzy vision lifted away to the sight of her daughter's dark brown eyes. Relief washed over her like a tidal wave at the sight of another one of her daughters, but the second she tried to adjust herself, her eyes shot open and let loose an agonizing scream. She was immediately clutching her right leg that disappeared under the blankets and some debris.
Quickly, Lynn tore away everything that was lying where her mother was, regardless of what was there. The second she got what looked like a floorboard on the blankets, her mother's hands rocketed up to grab her wrist.
"NO!" She cried out. Shaking as a shock wave surged through her, making her release and leaning back, "Not…not that…" she said like that had taken every ounce of energy she had left.
Reading over to take the flashlight and tucking it between her head and shoulder, Lynn, as gingerly as possible, started tearing away the fabric. Casting it aside, the further she got, the darker and darker a growing red stain until, peeling off a layer soaked enough, it was sticking, Rita clenched fistfuls of blankets, trying not to scream, and Leni looked away with her eyes closed tight.
Lynn cringed at the disgusting sound as she saw what the damage was. Straight through her mother's pant leg, like a sword plunged through stone, with a bloody pool seeping around and falling into the water.
Lynn nearly dropped the light when she looked towards Lucy for a split second. Memories of the utter 'mess' that had given them all nightmares for days flashed before her eyes before she refocused. Looking back at Leni, ready to fade, and Lucy already there, she looked back to their makeshift support beam.
Looking back at what was above, she knew they couldn't stay here any longer.
"We gotta get out of here."
Looking back to the wound, Lynn built up some semblance of a plan. Taking some of the blankets and tearing off long pieces, she wrapped one strip around Rita's thigh as tight as she could. Raising her leg just enough to keep it out of the water, she didn't know if it was good or not that it didn't go all the way through. In the thought that meant only one side she had to deal with, she tied two more around the wound.
Care was in a war against time for her. They all needed to get to a hospital soon, but rushing it meant having to try not to stop or look when your own mother gasped or jolted every time you so much as grazed the board. With another, she wiped away as much of the blood as she could, but it still flowed from the edges.
"Mom." Rita looked up to Lynn, ready to pass out. "I'm going to get Lucy and Leni out. I'll come back with Luna, and we'll get you out."
She slowly nodded, "Go... Get them out of here…"
Lynn grabbed her shoulder, and through the darkness, Rita could see the light of a determined fire in her eyes. "I'm coming back." Rita simply nodded again. Accepting the fact she wasn't going anywhere at the moment to try and focus off the pain.
"Leni, can you walk?" The blonde perked up from her name and, with a wobble, slowly stood back up.
"I… I can make it."
Lynn nodded, but her eyes lingered for a moment on the cut as it disappeared behind her hair when she tried to fix it. Turning her focus to the unconscious goth, Lynn carefully stepped over her mother to be in front of Lucy. Pulling away the blankets, she looked relatively fine from a quick look over.
"Lucy?" she shook her shoulder, "Lucy, you still with us?"
"When…" Rita spoke up, looking over at them, "The stairs came down, we tried moving… She hit her head on something..."
So she was completely out cold… There was a bit of a negative in trying to get her out by walking back, but she didn't see much of a positive either.
Reaching down, she grabbed onto her arm and pulled her up. Taking a second to make sure she didn't get hit again, knowing herself what even a tiny concussion could do, Lynn pulled her little 18-year-old sister close to her. Feeling her breath tickle her skin, Lynn signed in relief that she was still alive.
"Alright, spooky. We ain't losing you that easily." She reached around, scooping her legs to cradle her, "So let's get you out." With no answer, Lynn signaled to Leni to follow.
Taking the lead, she ran into her first problem: trying to carry so much awkward weight over mounds that she needed both hands to keep her step from slipping. Having to lean so much to stay balanced with wet shoes didn't help, with Leni reaching out behind to help give her something to grip onto did wonders.
"Guys!" She yelled as she got to the window.
Hearing Lynn's voice, Luna appeared in the window. Looking over her disheveled siblings, "Where's mom?"
"She's… okay, but she has a chunk of wood through her leg and is bleeding badly. We're going to have to carry her out." She answered. Turning Lucy around and hoisting her up towards the window, Luna stuck her arms through and hooked around hers. "Careful, she hit her head and is out cold."
As carefully as they could at this angle, the rocker slowly pulled the goth through and out as Lynn steadied her legs. Once she completely vanished, she looked over to Leni and put herself up against the wall. Holding her hands out, Leni stepped up as Lynn pushed. Putting her eye level with the window as she grabbed the edges to pull herself up. Luna and Lisa both grabbed onto each of her arms to help.
Once she was free but in the rain. Luna quickly stripped off her coat and wrapped it around her as Lisa did the same to Lucy with Lynn's. Going over a checklist of everything she could do to diagnose her sibling, she looked up to see Luna brush Leni's hair away enough that she saw red.
Leaping from one sister to another, Luna was nearly shoved back when Lisa yanked the coat away to see the damage for herself.
Feeling that both her sisters were staring and feeling Lisa barely brush the top of her skin by the outer edge, Leni held back from flinching away.
"It's… not as bad…" she mumbled.
"I strongly disagree. You have a type two laceration nearly five inches long across your left levator scapulae. How you can still move your arm is a miracle."
Leni merely shrugged at Lisa's words. Unsure if it went straight through or she just ignored it, it was replaced by a sudden sting from something wet draping over the cut like an ice pack. She reached up to see what it was, and she felt Lisa bat away her hand.
"No touching. That's the closest we gave to a bandage wrap until we find proper medical supplies." Though Lisa knew precisely where to get such a supply that would ultimately render a hospital invalid, she glanced up to where her former bedroom window was, knowing that it was so close but out of reach.
Luna, however, was busy trying to squeeze herself through the basement window. Remembering in the moments before it took three of them to pull Leni through, trying to do it the opposite way was proving a bit troublesome when she got her legs through, but years of snacking made its presence known.
"Ah, great…" She tried wiggling, making some progress, "Lynn, a little help here?"
She heard a splash, and something grabbed her legs,"Geez, and here I thought Lori was the fatass."
"Oh, shut up and pull," Luna said as she dug her hands into the grass and pushed. Trying to wiggle more and not tear up her clothes, she didn't realize with how much pull Lynn was doing that the second she got through the threshold of the frame, she nearly launched into the basement.
"WOAH!"
"Hang on!" Lynn quickly readjusted, "Alright, drop."
Holding onto the window frame, the rocker slowly let herself drop. Trying to get a grip on the wall with her shoes, her head got through right before she let go. Plopping down with a big cold splash.
"Dude…" She groaned, feeling her shoes instantly become waterlogged.
"You'll get used to it," Lynn waved off. Barely visible in the light that came through. "Come on. And watch your step."
Moving slowly so her sister could stay close and follow her lead, the two trekked through what Lynn had made their designated path. Passing the makeshift support, Lynn tried not to look, thinking it would jinx their luck, but Luna, ducking down a bit to fit through, didn't feel they should even be this far in with how everything looked so loose yet under pressure.
With the bit of clearing illuminated by the flashlight, the two were about to get a complete look at their mother. Luna's eyes instantly went to the bloody mess.
"Dude…"
Lynn nodded grimly, "I know. Grab a hold." She said, stepping over to the side where Lucy was. "Alright, up we go." She looped an arm around Rita's back.
Feeling the disturbance, Rita opened her eyes enough to see a figure dressed in purple beside her. In the faint light, she could see the face of another of her children. "Luna…" she said with a tired smile. But that quickly went away as they both started pulling her up.
Luna quickly went to her other side and joined, "What's the plan?"
"We gotta keep her off that leg and try not to-"
*CRACK*
Wood went flying around them as something from behind sent splinters and dust flying everywhere.
Dropping down as far as they could go, the sudden action without time to adjust made them try to get as low as possible. Nearly dunking their knees into the water, but in doing so, brought their mother down with them. Bending her injured leg at a bad angle, she let out a curdling scream, eyes closed tight as tears that couldn't be held back flowed.
The sisters huddled closely, reaching over to shield their heads and mother as pieces began to rain down from above. A rocky crunch from somewhere was the only signal they got when, a second later, the roof of the garage collapsed in. A mighty crash and more boards started snapping, sending the contents of what was stuck underneath to fall through and pile on top of the growing mess around them.
Lynn looked up, seeing just how close the edge of the roof was now. Hearing more groaning from further away towards where the house was, she didn't need anyone to tell her that this was a bad place to be right now.
"Go! Go! Go! The place is coming down!" she shouted, quickly getting to her feet.
Her mother and sister spun around, ducking under the crumbling stairs where the support had buckled and was ready to fold into itself. Having to turn around to walk their mother back to avoid crouching too much for her to bend her knees, it was forming a human chain bridge across the flattened wreckage of the kitchen now in the basement, with the stove acting as a decent bridge to cross. Though slippery, the two hoisted their mother over like parents lifting a child over a log, and from Lynn to Luna, Rita made a single step to cross over.
At the window, they saw the worried look of Lisa stick her head in, "We got to hurry! The stability of this entire mass is getting weaker by the second!"
"Luna, you first! Get ready to pull her!" Lynn ordered as she took all of the weight. Luna quickly pulled herself up to the window, with Lisa aiding in pulling her through a little easier than the first time. Sticking her arms through, Rita was confused by what they had in mind until Lynn crouched down and grabbed her around the waist.
"Hang on tight, mom. This is going to be a bit sketchy."
Lynn gave no warning when she pushed Rita up as far as her leverage would go. Reaching up, Rita grabbed Luna's hands as soon as she felt their fingers graze each other. It was at this moment that they knew they had to be extra careful, but time was not giving them the benefit of pacing. Trying to get Leni or Luna through was its own problem; trying to get their mother through was a step up from the problem of trying not to cause more injury on top of not smacking the board loose.
As she tried to keep her stable, holding her good leg, Luna, Lisa, and Leni all grabbed around their mother's arms and torso as more came through the window. Laying her flat belly down on the mud, Luna reached in, carefully grabbing the bad leg as the others used the wet grass to drag her the rest of the way.
The second Rita's shoes disappeared, Lynn quickly took a step back and jumped up. She pulled herself up the wall to grab onto the window and asked Lisa to grab an arm to pull her the rest of the way through.
"Everyone, get clear!" Lisa screamed, making a dash for the street.
Lynn swiftly got beside Rita back on her feet and wrapped her over her shoulders again. Almost reaching over to outright carry her bridal style, Luna grabbed Lucy in the same way. The sound of snapping timber and shattering glass made the six not stop until they were as far as the sidewalk.
They didn't look back until they heard a massive crash, and reaching the safety of the road, they saw half of the house sheared off, with most of the front crushing what remained of the garage. Crumbing into the basement as the giant oak couldn't be supported any longer and literally cut through what was left standing. Spilling out into the backyard and even breaking through the walls of the neighbor's home until the tree made a mighty thunk to the ground.
(Note: These AN notes are written before, during, and afterhand to convey my thinking. Not based on what's changed, reviews, etc., and is borderline me ranting out loud my way of thinking.)
As explained in Chapter 20, that chapter was the entire cut section that made up the first three original sections. When I decided to cut the chapter, those sections had a word count of over 11k, and there were at least another three to four sections to continue after the house rescue. I had just finished Chapter 20 (at almost 3 am on March 8th) and was in a pickle of whether or not to directly continue writing what has essentially become a 3-Parter chapter or actually to get to work on Lincoln's section. This was an odd choice in I didn't know which would be Chapter 21 or 22.
Eventually, as this note was being typed, I decided not to write the rest of Chapter 20 in this and to make it its own chapter. As it would give a bit of mental support in that I can tell myself 'this is done, why add more?' and actually feel progressive in the work and not feel bogged down from writing the same part for so long. Though as I write this, I am in debate on how large Lincoln's section will become and if it too would be split between the initial beginning and pause before picking up the next section or not.
But in some retrospect, this actually does break a few milestones for me in writing as in the time it took to make the original three chapters to start the story, I had just under 30k words. Between Chapter 18 to this, that had become five chapters with almost 70k words. How much I would be able to do it within the time limit I set (as at this time, I have 23 days to write Chapter 21), I feel this will be a productive year. Though this might be the point where I will start trying to maintain smaller chapters (about a 11-13k average)
(Note: These AN notes are written before, during, and afterhand to convey my thinking. Not based on what's changed, reviews, etc., and is borderline me ranting out loud my way of thinking.)