The Tempest by A.J. Scudiere (best books to read in your 20s .txt) 📕

This time, she watched as he squatted in the grass. Yep. Just a bathroom break.

But he was carefully picking his way through, avoiding the sharp edges and not putting everything into his mouth like a human toddler. He’d be okay.

Joule turned away. It would be easy enough to find him in the low grass, she thought as she began searching in earnest for anything helpful.

As the two of them wandered to the other side of the house, she saw shots of red in the grass. They turned out to be bottles of energy drinks. One was even intact.

“Toto. Look at this.” She held the heavy bottle up toward him. It wasn’t just water, but electrolytes. She’d drunk enough back at the stream that she didn’t need this right now, so she opened her pocket and shoved the bottle down in. It barely fit, but in two more minutes she realized the farmhouse was home to a fitness nut.

Energy bars, still in their wrappers, were strewn through the grass. Frosted Flakes lay individually like snow in between some of them.

Okay, so not everyone who lived here was a fitness freak.

But she put the bars in her pockets. She had a bottle. She had water. And she had food.

Next up, she had to find something for Toto. If only these people had a kitten. Fifteen minutes later, she had two pull-tab cans of tuna and she was reaching over to scoop up something that might be kitten-appropriate when she heard a voice.

“What are you doing?”

Joule looked up. Oh, hell no.

34

“You have got to be shitting me.” Deveron, usually quiet, was the only one to speak this time.

Cage, Sarah, and Deveron, still holding hands, stood at the end of the driveway silently scanning the damage.

“Maybe it's not as bad as it looks,” Cage offered, looking at the trash strewn across the lawn—trash that he could identify as Sarah’s sweater, the crackers that Joule liked, his books, Dev’s video game controller. Why had he said that? It was definitely as bad as it looked, and it looked awful for a building that was still standing. When was he ever the optimist?

The driveway was long and they were still a good way down from the house. This time, the gravel road remained intact. Though some of it clearly had blown this way or that, cotton was strewn and mixed in, as was some identifiable trash and a lot of unidentifiable trash.

As they got closer, Cage saw that his assessment from the end of the driveway had been correct. At least one corner of the house was missing. The edges were rough, as if the house were cake and a child had shoved his hand into it, pulling out a piece to eat.

Sarah turned to Cage, her disbelieving expression conveying everything even before she opened her mouth. “Trust me, it's worse than it looks.”

She’d been through this before.

Though his feet ached, and he was sure the others’ did too, Cage trudged the length of the gravel drive. This was worse than walking on the pavement. Everything wanted to roll under his feet, and somehow he was confident that he could feel the gravel poking through the soles of his heavy work boots. He was grateful they were laced up tight, preventing his ankles from turning.

Their house looked like a lot of the other houses they’d passed, with a gaping wound and some things inside seemingly untouched. The tornado appeared to have chunked out the bulk of the main room that served as both dining room and living area. Given what he could see was missing, Cage could now identify the curved piece of wood he saw as a leg of the dining room table. He stepped over it.

The next thing he stepped over was a small globe, papier-mache, smooth and shiny. It had sat in the wicker basket on the table along with several others and decorative wicker balls. Once purely ornamental, they were now purely trash.

It was a shame the four of them had taken all the skulls off the walls and dressers and hidden them in drawers or the backs of closets. They might have been able to claim that “decor” had blown away with the damage.

He was coming to terms with the fact that the house was unlivable. He might be able to salvage some of his things, but they couldn’t stay here tonight.

If Joule—or Izzy—did manage to come home, who would be here to meet them?

He wondered if he should stay anyway. Was the weather warm enough? Would he be okay? Or were there looters outside of Horton, Alabama?

There were no answers to any of these questions—not that he knew—but he picked up his pace to see what he could. Letting go of Sarah's hand, he left her and Dev to come up behind him. He needed to see the car.

The carport had been twisted and warped, its metal legs lifted out of the ground on one side and the whole top tilted. The surface was now facing him, and somewhere behind it was the car… maybe.

The way the ground naturally rolled with small hills and rises, he couldn't quite see underneath. So he began running. He needed that car.

As he got closer and more worried, the stinging of the soles of his feet was no longer a concern. He could now see tires, front and back, still inflated.

Good! The car was still there.

The question was, was it drivable? Had one of the posts of the now ripped and twisted carport been jammed through a window? Had the windows or doors been ripped off? Was there a rock sitting on the engine? It was hard to breathe. Because that car was why he'd come back. Not the house.

Though he’d wondered briefly, back at the community center, if Joule was waiting here for him at the house, he’d shoved the hope away. It came surging back to life now.

“Joule!” he yelled, “Joule!”

But only silence answered back.

Deveron and