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A couple of Notes:

1. There are some episodes of physical abuse mentioned in the story. They were not committed by the main characters, but a word of warning going into the story for those that want to avoid it.

2. It’s been a few years since I’ve been back to Kansas, so my apologies if my geography is a little wonky.

Glenn – Late July

“Come on, you piece of shit, move!” Glenn pleaded as he had the pedal of his tractor to the floor. It wasn’t fair to his loyal farming implement, but he felt like he was barely moving faster than he was capable of at a dead sprint. His heart revved high enough that he feared he may pass out from the terror of the moment. Glenn was living out an all too familiar nightmare that had haunted him for the better part of two decades.

Giant shards of ice clinked off the cab as enormous hail dented every square inch of the blue sheet metal. Thank goodness for the thick glass. The rain was already hard enough to navigate through without a hail-spidered chunk of broken glass blocking his view. He tried to keep himself from paying too much attention to the ominous stove-pipe-shaped cloud bearing down on him from behind. If he did that, he’d lose himself to panic. Nothing I can do but drive!

A ditch might be a better idea than the high tractor, but they were overflowing with water and chunks of spiky ice. The skies were clear a half hour ago! It’s too late in the season for this bullshit! Tornado season for the region was typically from April through early June before things got hot and dry, but the funnel closing in on his farm evidently didn’t look at the calendar.

Glenn’s life flashed before his eyes as panic flooded his neurons. There was Grandpa and the farm, the loving countenance of his mother that he barely remembered, and the red-with-rage face of his father. The one memory that kept replaying in his mind was one of the worst of his life. Lisa had been his world and his everything, but Glenn had to shoo her away as if she were a pest. It was better for her. He lied to himself.

“One more intersection, and we’ll get to the barn.” Glenn regretted surveying the corn in the furthest field on the property and was doubly angry about taking the tractor out there instead of the much nimbler UTV in the barn. The work he thought he was going to get done this afternoon hadn’t been delivered yet. He’d been on the phone with the trucking company when he heard the first crack of thunder. By the time he got to his tractor, the sirens were wailing in warning.

There was no stop sign in Glenn’s direction, and he was driving an enormous, bright blue tractor, but the red Xterra that took the corner on two wheels hadn’t noticed. Glenn beeped his horn with heat. The vehicle looked familiar, but his brain couldn’t make connections while overwhelmed with terror.

“Maniac! It’s a dead end this way!” The vehicle was too old for the cadre of professional storm chasers that seemed to bloom like fungus whenever the weather turned foul. He didn’t mind the news stations that were trying to keep the public warned, but the amateurs all too often got themselves hurt or killed. Worse still was when something they did effected innocent people who were trying to take shelter from the storm.

People often ended up confusing his driveway for a road and had to turn around in his yard. It was bad enough that he usually had a brightly colored, reflective closed gate, but it was a hassle to shut behind him when he took the larger equipment out. There’d be no way for the car to quickly turn around as he followed it to the barn, but they wouldn’t be outrunning the tornado anyway.

As soon as he got the tractor over the dense concrete that spanned the ditch, Glenn set the brake, turned off the engine, and flew out of the cab. The tractor was massive but would be nothing but a plaything to the swirling cyclone bearing down on them. The hail had slacked a little, but he’d still likely have a couple of welts on his back.

“YOU’RE BLOCKING US IN!” A woman’s voice yelled from the cracked passenger door of the Xterra.

“There’s a shelter in the barn! Go!” Glenn yelled back. The ghostly wails of faraway sirens were barely audible over the clacking of hailstones on metal and wood.

You can’t outrun a twister. His Uncle Mack tried a decade ago. Or at least that was the best that the investigators could ascertain from cellphone records. He was driving down the highway when a powerful storm struck. His car ended up miles from the road, twisted into a shape resembling a pretzel. Glenn didn’t like to think what the man must have felt as his car flew several hundred feet off the ground, knowing that it wasn’t going to be good when his wheels hit the earth again.

“We can make it!” A second female voice joined the first, but they were getting out of the truck and moving.

“Go! That thing’s a beast. There’s no running!” Glenn looked back as death loomed toward them. In the minutes that he’d been driving, seeing the thin rope tornado inching over the escort bayan horizon like a grim reaper, it had morphed from rope to stove pipe; now it was a thick and sinister wedge of swirling black, brown, and green. Sparks of light issuing from its base came not from lightning but from power flashes as it destroyed powerlines. Chunks of black and green whirled around the condensate.

Is it ripping the topsoil out of the fields? Or maybe it’s asphalt. The most violent of tornadoes had been enough to tear through even roads. Any pothole or weakness could be exploited by the terrifying strength of the winds and pressure.

Glenn’s heart was pounding like a bass drum played in the cadence of a snare. He checked to ensure that the two ladies were following him as he sprinted for the barn. Two figures followed close behind, wrapped in colorful beach towels.

The shelter could more than withstand whatever Mother Nature had planned. His great-grandfather had designed it originally to withstand not the wrath of nature that was looming over them but man’s most terrible invention.

Some would have called his great-grandfather paranoid for spending so much effort on a fallout shelter smack dab in the middle of the country, but he’d known that it was an aviation manufacturing hub. In addition, there had been a SAC bomber wing with requisite nuclear weapons, and the farmland harbored more than a few minuteman missile silos.

It had long since mostly given way from its atomic area beginnings to become a well-stocked tornado shelter. Glenn grabbed the key from above the workbench, leaped down a flight of darkened stairs, and slid it into the lock even with his shaking hands. Grandpa had him practice getting into the shelter since he was a kid. It helped him deal with the anxiety that had plagued him since before he found out what happened to Uncle Mack. That incident had reinforced a deep-seated dread he’d always remembered.

The ground started to rumble as Glenn spun the device that reminded him of a door between bulkheads in submarine movies. It wasn’t the moving of the mechanics inside the portal causing the shaking but the encroaching behemoth. The tools on the wall started to flutter as the wind rushed through the barn.

“Go! The second door’s not locked, but I need to seal this one.” Glenn motioned for the two women to run.

There was no argument, only terror as the ladies rushed past him. Far louder than the wailing of tornado sirens was the roar of the coming beast. It was the monster that had haunted his nightmares for more than a decade. This is it. Glenn thought as he slammed the door shut behind him.

Glenn nearly fell as he slipped on the hard diamond-plate steel beneath his mud-caked boots. The two girls held the door for him as he sprinted through and slammed it with all his body weight. He’d lost a lot of mass since his offensive linemen days, but he’d gained muscle from time in the gym and working on the farm. Without asking, the ladies twisted the wheel to snug the door tight. Six thick steel shanks sank into reinforced concrete cubbies that were designed to take a nearby atomic blast.

When watching interviews of tornado survivors, Glenn was struck by their explanations of the sound when the tornado passed over them. There were numerous colorful descriptions, but the one that he heard over and over was that it sounded like a freight train. As a kid, he’d thought that included the whistle that they made before they crossed an intersection. His grandfather had to disabuse him of that notion with a laugh and then an honest conversation.

The commotion above them sounded not like a single diesel locomotive but a swarm of them. Metal twisted and groaned as dust deposits rained from the ceiling. Glenn cleaned and restocked the shelter every spring, following his grandfather’s example, but he hadn’t thought of tackling the decades of dust on the bowed metal ribs several feet overhead.

“Is this going to hold!?” One of the women yelled over the intense cacophony. Glenn could feel the scared girls huddled up against him as if the fallout shelter turned storm sanctuary wasn’t more extensive than the apartments he had in college.

“It’s designed to survive nukes!” Glenn’s attempt at reassurance wasn’t whole-hearted. He’d had nightmares for years that his life would end this way, and today felt like the reckoning.

When Glenn thought that the noise couldn’t get worse, the ground shook as it sounded like the entire barn collapsed atop the shelter. More metal groaned like a submerged vessel under the weight of the sea before there was an even louder thud that had Glenn praying that his predecessor’s hard work was to the required spec.

As eerie as the booms and groans of metal, nothing compared to the dead silence that descended after the last big boom. All three must have been holding their breath.

“You two okay?” Glenn finally asked to ghastly stillness.

“Y… yeah.” Gasped a meek but familiar voice.

“I’m all in one piece.” bursa eskort bayan The other woman didn’t have any commonality prickling in his mind.

“Can we get out?” asked the familiar voice.

“Probably.” Glenn dug his phone from his pocket. “Light switches are behind you.”

“Are they going to work?” The second woman questioned.

“Yeah, it should. I checked the generator last week.” There was a thock as he flipped the switch, but no light. “Give it a second to kick in.” Glenn counted down the expected time for the old Cummins engine to kick on after a loss of power. He didn’t need it kicking on during power flashes, only real blackouts. It was set on a thick concrete slab with its motor mounts welded directly to a chunk of steel protruding from the slab.

“Are you sure?”

“Five seconds,” Glenn responded. He checked the generator weekly and had it serviced once a quarter. It was a routine that comforted Glenn’s phobia of tornadoes. If its concrete and steel pedestal hadn’t survived the storm, then he could run off a battery bank for a while, but it wouldn’t be enough to run the A/C, refrigerator, and freezer. He doubted that the solar panels that fed the batteries had any chance of surviving a direct hit. There was a distant roar, and the lights blinked on. “And there we go.”

The space was long and narrow with a galley-style kitchen, racks of storage filled with bottled water and non-perishable foods, and a pair of cots that worked well enough for a bed. The inflatable queen-sized would be more comfortable, but he kept the cots he used to sleep on out of nostalgia. After what happened to Uncle Mack, Glenn used to sleep down in the shelter whenever there was thunder at night. Even though his siblings made fun of Glenn on the rare occasions that they were in town, Grandpa indulged him.

On the far side of the shelter was a shower space that Glenn realized he’d forgotten to replace the curtain. The PVC had fallen apart after a couple decades, and it was on his shopping list but had been forgotten. He thought that storm season was over for the year, so it was never at the top of his mind when he went into town. What looked like a closet door at the far end of the space was an enclosed commode.

It had five distinct rooms that were open throughout the space. The entry was small but had a doormat where Glenn worked the mud off the soles of his boots. Next was a bedroom space where the cots sat and enough room to lay the inflatable mattress. The galley-style kitchen had a pair of peninsulas of Formica-topped cabinets that divided it from the bedroom and the living room beyond.

An old CRT television was across the alley from an old avocado green loveseat that had been a nightmare to move into the space. His mother’s library of retro games used to entertain his group of high school friends when the shelter became a hangout location. A half wall divided one side from the tub and vanity of the bathroom.

His grandfather had plumbed in running water when he realized the genuine threat wasn’t the Reds deciding to drop the bomb but a storm. There was a week’s worth of bottled water, but that would only be needed if something happened to the buried water main. It was far less likely to go out than the power. There was a layer of dust like fresh fallen grey snow, caking everything from the shaking.

“Even if we can’t get out for a bit, we have water and power.” Glenn turned around with a proud smile. “L… Lisa? What are you doing here?” His smile was obliterated by shock.

Lisa – Several hours earlier

“You promised me the beach, and we’re in the middle of nowhere in Kansas!” Kiandra, Lisa’s best friend and non-romantic life partner, huffed.

“I know, I know, sorry. My boss got sick, so I have to be close enough to respond if anything goes down. I can’t use the VPN to do physical things like plugging in cables.” They were supposed to be driving down to South Padre for the next week, but that wasn’t going to happen now. Lisa still had a week off but needed to make it a staycation. “Besides, I don’t know that I trust Red to get us there.”

“She’s almost twenty-five, but I have faith in her mechanic.”

“Okay, so it’s not technical fitness, but she’s a bit noisy. You’re the one that didn’t bring Daisy!” Kiandra had named both the vehicles. Daisy was a far newer crossover she’d bought since starting her career. It was an extra debt to take on while they were going back to get their master’s degrees, but when her old Blazer threw a rod, she was left with little choice.

“Sorry, Marissa’s car crapped out, and she has an interview in Boston,” Kiandra explained.

Boston? I wonder if Glenn’s still up there. A name she tried not to think about often blared in her brain like a foghorn.

“Stupid having to be a good sister!” Lisa shook her fist in mock outrage. “I can’t believe you took the train from Chicago.”

“Then a shuttle from Newton and an Uber to this Podunk suburb. I’ll do a lot to get escort bursa in my time with my bestie,” Kiandra said.

“We’ll be back at school in a few weeks.”

“Yeah, and back to having no free time. Classes at night and work from the tiny dorm room all day.” Kiandra had a point, but there was only one more year before a significant pay raise.

“Hopefully, they won’t need me all week, and we can have some fun.” Lisa sighed. At least she was getting paid to stay in communication for the week, even if she wasn’t scheduled to be in the office.

“But no wine if you’re on call all week!”

“We have today and tomorrow. The office is closed all weekend. It’s just not enough time to drive to Padre and back.”

“Don’t suppose you have any beaches in the area.”

“They won’t compare to the ocean, but I know some lakes and ponds we can hang out at.”

“At least I can work on my tan.” Kiandra smiled.

“You tan?” Lisa asked with a mock shock on her face. Back when they were freshman in college, it had been an honest question Lisa had for her African American bestie. The farm community turned suburb that she grew up in didn’t have a lot of diversity outside a Hispanic population and a contingent of Vietnamese, Hmong, and Korean families. There was a contingent of black students at her large high school, but none that she was close enough to ask questions like that from.

Lisa’s mother was from Korea, and her father was an airman stationed in South Korea for long enough to meet and fall in love with her. They’d moved around a lot when Lisa was little, but when her dad retired from active duty, they set down roots in Kansas. Lisa was happy not to move once she got into middle school. Finding new friends every year or two had been a hassle.

“Of course, you goober.” Kiandra grinned. It was much nicer than her response seven years ago when they were freshmen.

“You want somewhere with lots of families and people or somewhere private?” Lisa’s eyebrows bounced with hopeful energy.

“How private are we talking about? My bikini might not be one for families.”

“Private enough that you wouldn’t have to wear it.”

“Oh? Oh!” Kiandra’s eyes lit up with mischief. “I do hate tan lines.”

“Only bad part is it’s a bit of a hike, and we need plenty of bug spray.”

“Private enough to bring your toybox with us?”

“Kiandra!” Lisa tried to sound scandalized, but it was going to be a question before they left.

“What? Come on, you know you wanna, and I could only pack so much.” Kiandra shrugged with a giggle.

“You know where it is; pack what you want in my backpack,” Lisa said. Kiandra and her may not have had any romantic intentions together, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have fun with one another. “I’m going to go grab some sunscreen and repellent. Need anything from the store?”

“Snacks?”

“And some hard seltzers?”

“Yeah, that sounds good! Some soft seltzers, too! Nothing too crazy; it’s Saturday night, and you’ve got to know some gay clubs around here.”

“Soft seltzers? Don’t think that’s the term, but I get your intent.” Lisa shook her head. “Maybe if we find you a wifey in Kansas, I’d get to hang out with you more!” She opined; though the gay clubs weren’t typically where Lisa went out on her weekends, they were the best place to go dancing without getting hit on by random guys. Gals seemed way better at accepting the first no and not pressing.

“Have to be some woman to make me move out to the middle of nowhere!” Kiandra chuckled. She was a catch, tall, beautiful, and strong. A pair of deep brown eyes reminded Lisa of a bright root beer instead of the dried apricots that Lisa’s own appeared to others. Not the orange variety that was popular at stores, but the naturally dehydrated type. Ki’s hair was buzzed short. Sometimes, she wore a wig out, but other times, she proudly rocked her natural tight curls.

Kiandra had light pink lip gloss on today that highlighted her full lips and bright smile. Her left nostril had a gold ring looping out to the side. Lisa was a huge fan when her bestie matched the gem with her striking choice lip color, but the gold was an incredible contrast to her dark walnut skin tone. Wonder if she has her matching piercings today. Lisa pondered.

“A. It’s the largest city in Kansas, and B. She’d have to be some woman to hook Kiandra Lawerence!” Lisa grinned. “I’ll be back in a half-hour. Feel free to make yourself comfortable.”

“Oh, I plan on it.”

Lisa and Kiandra liked to play together, even if there was never anything romantic. They were both bisexual but wanted something different in their perspective, future spouses. Lisa liked sex with women, but when she dated, it was always men. For Kiandra, the roles were mostly reversed, though she made an exception for Lisa.

It only took an hour from making a crazy plan to taking Kiandra to a hidden pond on farmer Smithson’s property. Glenn’s grandfather had long ago given her lifelong permission to use the pond whenever she wanted. She felt a little bad about pushing the boundaries about what would be acceptable out at the old swimming hole, but Lisa saw the man’s old truck by the farmhouse, and the flag wasn’t flying on the post where the path led to a hidden slice of paradise.

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