From: cheryl492@aol.com To: alt-ql-creative@cisco.com Subject: Twist in Time - Part 6 Date: Thu, 03 Jun 93 18:16:23 EDT Message-Id: <9306031816.tn11501@aol.com> Twist in Time Cheryl A. Bellucci Part 6 As if the time before lunch wasn't bad enough, Sam found himself glancing at his watch every minute or so once he got back to the dealership. Walt had given him a list of things to do to various cars on the lot, and Sam was grateful for the solitary work. He noticed the weather getting hotter as the day wore on, but the sky was still clear and sunny. He quickly rolled up his shirt sleeves, and as he went from car to car, he constantly had to wipe perspiration from his brow. Sam took a break about 3:30, and went inside to get a drink of water. "Hey Wayne, they just came over the radio and said that we're supposed to get some more of those severe thunderstorms this afternoon," Ted told him worridly. "You suppose everything is gonna be all right?" "Does your family know what to do if there's a tornado?" Sam didn't ask him where he lived. Wayne probably already knew that. "I don't know, we've never had a tornado around here before." "Does your house have a basement?" "We got a cellar." "Okay, that's where you should go if we have tornado warnings." "I'll go call my wife right now." Sam looked over to see Walt eyeing him suspiciously again from under the hood of a car. He shrugged his shoulders before turning and going back outside to finish work on the cars. ---------- He wasn't sure if it was because he was expecting it, but Sam was positive he could feel the barometric pressure start to drop around four o'clock. Although it was still sunny, Sam could see cloud cover building up in the southwest, but nothing that looked too threatening. "Where are you, Al?" he asked, barely above a whisper just in case Walt was watching him. "The stage is being set." With the hood up of the car he was working on, Sam could watch the weather without anyone from the garage noticing. The storm appeared to build slowly, the sunny skies ahead of it lending a false sense of safety. The rain started to fall about 4:20, although not too hard, and the strange, eerie lightening followed shortly after. The tremendous noise of the thunder and the swirling movements of the clouds didn't match the sparseness of the raindrops. The night before during the storm the rain had poured down, today it was only sprinkling. Sam had his hand on the hood of the car, ready to slam it down when Walt yelled at him from the garage. "Wayne, get in here." But Sam was watching the storm. In a matter of seconds, the sky had turned a gray-green, and although the sky was dark, objects and buildings on the ground seemed to be brightly illuminated from an unseen light source. Although he heard Walt, Sam didn't move, his eyes transfixed on the dark, spinning mass that was making its way toward the center of town. "Did you hear me, Wayne?" Walt's voice was closer, in fact he was right next to Sam. "You gotta get inside, the radio says there's a tornado." Sam didn't say anything, just pointed in the direction the storm had come from. "Holy shit." Walt took only a split second to watch the twister, then he grabbed Sam's arm. "Wayne, get your ass inside, now!" And with that the older man pulled Sam in the direction of the garage. Walt was still directing Sam's movements once they reached the safety of the garage. One of the managers had led the other workers and a couple of customers to an inside room without windows. Sam and Walt were the last to arrive, and as Sam took a place along the wall, Walt stood by the door and held it open a crack. The radio on the desk in the room was issuing orders. "If you are in Xenia right now, take cover. Get to an inside room, the basement, whatever. The National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning..." Sam's attention was drawn to the door where Walt was. Outside they could hear an incredible roar along with the sounds of breaking glass. Then the lights flickered a couple of times and went out, leaving the room in darkness. The radio fell silent also. "Don't anyone move," the man who had led the others to the room said. "Walt, what's it like out there?" Walt opened the door a little wider. "I don't know, it's kinda wierd." Sam noticed it, too. For all the noise they were hearing a few seconds earlier, it was strangely quiet. He thought of the term people would probably use to describe it: dead calm. "C'mon Wayne, let's go see." Walt motioned for Sam to join him as he opened the door, and Sam followed Walt to the front of the dealership the way Sam had left the night before. Broken glass and wet papers lay everywhere, but the building seemed to be okay. Sam looked outside, and realized the first of Al's predictions was true. The grocery store across the street had a corner missing, the bricks and debris layed scattered like a child's building blocks. "I'll go get the others," Walt said behind him. "Go home, Wayne. But be careful." Walt turned and went back to the room they had used for refuge. "Call Wayne's mother." Al's voice behind him startled Sam, who was still looking at the destruction in the street and hadn't noticed the imaging chamber door opening. "Al, the phones won't work." Sam turned and gestured toward the desk. "The electricity is out." "Try it. Here's the number." Al held up the handlink so Sam could read the display. Surprisingly, Sam could hear a dialtone when he picked up the receiver. He dialed Wayne's phone number and listened to the ring on the other end. "Hello?" a very nervous and upset Mrs. Garber asked. "Mom? Are you okay?" "Wayne, thank God. I'm okay, I went downstairs to Estelle's aparment when the warnings came out. Are you okay?" "Uh, yeah. How is everything?" Sam noticed that people were starting to come out of the different buildings and meet in the street. "The apartment is okay." "Okay, Mom, stay put. I'll be home in awhile, but I might stop to help some people on the way, alright?" "Wayne, be careful." "I will, Mom, 'bye." Sam put down the receiver just as Walt came back up front with a couple of the other mechanics. "What are you still doing here?" Walt asked. "I told you to go home." "I called my mother to let her know we were okay." Walt gave Sam the same suspicious look that Sam gave Al when he was told to phone Wayne's mother. Walt picked up the receiver and placed it to his ear. "Wayne, the phone is dead."