Chapter 31

The November weather, which was normally pretty nice, had suddenly turned ugly. Low hanging storm clouds darkened the sky from horizon to horizon. The wind seemed to blow hard one minute, and then drop down to barely a stir the next.

Dan pulled into the strip mall to look at a vacant store. He parked in front of a dry cleaner’s and got out. It seemed to him that the parking lot was a little too small to support much traffic. He looked up at the sky with a sick feeling in his stomach. At best, it looked like they’d receive a hail storm. At worst, it would be a tornado. It was pretty late in the year for a tornadoes, but they weren’t unknown.

Feeling uneasy, he walked over to the vacant store, and looked through the window. The realtor was supposed to meet him there, but there was no sign of the man. He tried the door and found it was locked. A chill went down his spine when the light suddenly turned a sickly green color. With a sickening suddenness, the wind stopped.

Dan stepped to the edge of the sidewalk and looked up at the sky. He looked back at the half dozen stores in the strip mall. There was the empty store, the dry cleaner, a pharmacy, a card store, an eyeglass shop, and a convenience store. He watched a middle-aged woman park her car and go into the convenience store. He looked back up at the sky, and then at the horizon.

To no one in particular, he said, “This doesn’t look good.”

It was almost time for school to get out, and the streets were crowded with soccer moms in their SUVs. They were running last minute errands before going to pick up the kids from school. Dan spotted a sedan trying to make a left turn into the parking lot, and wondered if it was the realtor. He looked up above the car and spotted a the twister slowly dipping down to the ground. It was headed in his direction.

Dan stared at the tornado for a full five seconds, trying to comprehend what he was seeing. As it touched the ground, he ran to the door of the dry cleaner and opened it. He shouted, “A tornado is coming! Take cover!”

He ran down the length of the strip mall, stopping at the door of each business to shout a warning. He didn’t bother to wait to see if anyone responded or not. When he reached the convenience store, he ran inside shouting, “A tornado is coming. A tornado is coming.”

A woman screamed and ran for the door. He stopped her as a sound like that of a train passing filled the air. Grabbing her, he looked around and spotted the walk-in cooler. Not bothering to ask permission, he ran through the storeroom door pulling the woman along with him. He passed by a kid and grabbed him as well. The woman was screaming as if Dan was going to rape her. The kid was crying. The guy behind the counter shouted, “You can’t go in there!”

Releasing the woman, Dan opened the door to the cooler. He grabbed the woman before she could run away and pulled her and kid into the very cold room with him. Another customer had decided that Dan had the right idea, and followed him into the cooler. They had barely gotten inside when there was a horrible ripping sound. To be heard over the noise, Dan shouted, “Move away from the glass doors.”

As the four frightened people huddled together in the cold room, there was a sudden roaring crack and the room went dark as the lights in the main store went out. The woman’s screams hit their highest level, almost deafening Dan. The kid’s cries, the noise of the storm, and the woman’s screams combined to produce a cacophony of sound that Dan would never forget.

He hugged the kid and kept saying, “Everything is going to be okay.”

To Dan, it seemed as if time had slowed down and everything happened in slow motion. A couple of the glass doors shattered and the goods on the shelves scattered on the floor. A gallon of milk fell to the floor and he watched as the white liquid slowly spilled out. He couldn’t tell if one minute had passed or if it was closer to an hour before the roaring sound faded away. Dan looked around to make sure that no one was injured.

“I think it’s safe to go out, now,” he said.

The woman stopped screaming, a fact that seemed to slow the little kid’s crying. The guy who had followed them into the cooler tried to open the door. It only moved a couple of inches before something blocked it. Looking over at Dan, he said, “The door is blocked.”

“We’ll go out through the glass doors at the front. Help me move the shelves,” Dan said after taking stock of the situation. The metal shelves that held the diary products were on casters, and looked like they could to be moved fairly easily.

Together the two men cleared an exit from the cooler and stepped out into the store. The woman and kid followed them out. Part of the ceiling had collapsed and water was pouring in from the rain. The woman stood just outside the cooler looking around at the destruction in shock. It was only at that moment, that she realized that Dan had probably saved her life.

Dan and the other guy found the kid’s mother on the floor. She had been cut up by some flying glass, but nothing seemed life threatening. Most of the cuts were along her back since she had curled into a ball when the tornado hit. Although she was hurt, she was overjoyed that her son had come through it without a scratch. Dan left her while the boy was describing his adventure in the walk-in cooler.

The store clerk wasn’t as fortunate as the woman, and had taken a lot of glass around the face. There was blood everywhere and he complained that his arm was broken. Dan found some paper towels and disposable diapers and used them to clean off some of the blood. It didn’t look like there were any arteries or veins involved, but he didn’t know enough about first aid to say much more than that. Cursing the public school system, he said, “That’s another thing they didn’t teach us.”

The guy who had gone into the cooler with Dan was looking around the store in a state of shock. He said, “I was standing right where that ceiling came down. If I hadn’t followed you in there, I would have been killed.”

Shaking his head, Dan said, “I doubt you would have been killed, but you wouldn’t have liked your medical bills.”

The guy laughed out of nervousness and said, “That was a close call.”

Having taken care of everyone in the store, Dan walked over to the cooler and grabbed a plastic bottle of root beer. He opened it and took a long sip. The guy asked, “Are you going to pay for that?”

“I doubt the cash register works,” Dan said. He gestured to the rest of the store and said, “Besides, nothing in here is going to be sold.”

“Oh,” the guy said. He picked up a soft drink and opened it.

Dan smiled and said, “Of course, we could get arrested for looting.”

“Well, if we are going to share a cell we might as well exchange names. I’m Eric Williams.”

“I’m Dan Parker,” Dan said shaking Eric’s hand.

“What now?”

Dan said, “I guess we ought to go outside, and see what is going on out there.”

After asking the woman he had dragged into the cooler to watch over the injured people in the building, the pair of men headed out the front door. It was still raining, but it wasn’t a deluge any longer.

From where Dan stood it was easy to see that the damage was wide spread. A number of buildings across the street from the strip mall had been flattened. A power line was down, but he didn’t see any sparks from it. Cars were strewn around the road almost randomly. Dan looked over at where he had parked his car. The sign from the dry cleaner’s had flattened it.

Shaking his head, he said, “The universe doesn’t care.”

“What was that?” Eric asked turning away from the scene of destruction to look at Dan.

“I said that the universe doesn’t care. Things like this happen. However we may feel about it, the universe doesn’t care. There’s no apology for the damage done, or the inconvenience to our lives. The universe just goes on as if nothing happened,” Dan said.

“That’s deep,” Eric said.

“It’s a Fact of Life,” Dan said. It was the first up-close and personal experience he had with that fact. He shook his head and said, “It’s also a fact that my car is totaled. Let’s see if there is anyone who needs our help.”

Dan and Eric went through the stores finding that everyone was doing okay. There were some broken windows, but the people appeared to have acted on his warning. Deciding that he couldn’t postpone getting soaked any longer, Dan headed out to the street to check out the cars. Eric followed him without complaining about the rain. Much to their surprise, the majority of people appeared unharmed other than symptoms of shock.

A handful of people were seriously injured. Upon encountering the first of the worst cases, Dan felt helpless. There was a man with his head at a weird angle. Dan and Eric had to leave him alone out of fear of causing greater damage. As he visited other cars with seriously injured people, Dan felt even more helpless. He had no clue as to what to do to help them.

When a police car finally made it to where they were standing, Dan went up to it to tell the officer inside what he had found.

The policeman looked at him and asked, “Are you with the CERT team?”

“No,” Dan answered wondering what a SERT team was. “We’ve found a bunch of people in trouble.”

“What did you find?” the policeman asked.

“There’s a man in that car with a bad neck. It looks like it’s broken. There’s a woman over in that car over there who says that she can’t feel her legs. The guy in the convenience store has a broken arm and is cut up with glass. There’s a woman in there that is bleeding from cuts,” Dan said. He turned to Eric and asked, “Did I miss anyone?”

“There is the guy in that van with a broken arm,” Eric said.

The policeman said, “Okay. I’ll call it in.”

Dan looked around and noticed the car that had been turning into the parking lot. It had been smashed flat by the sign for the strip mall. He said, “I don’t know, but there may be someone inside that car under the sign. I was supposed to meet a realtor here, and I just realized that I haven’t seen him.”

The policeman looked at the car and shook his head. He’d have to go over there and check it out. “Thanks.”

“I wanted to help those people, but I didn’t know what to do,” Dan said trying to explain why he hadn’t helped them. He stared over at the car hoping that the man hadn’t been inside it.

“Take a first aid course, or join a CERT team,” the policeman said while getting out of his car. Shaking his head, he said, “Just stay out of the way. You’ll get hurt if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Thanks,” Dan said feeling pretty stupid.

He went over to the curb and sat down, noticing only at that moment that the rain had stopped. Eric joined him. Reaching between his legs, Dan picked up some pebbles while he thought about the realtor. It was strange to think that he had talked to the man less than an hour earlier, and now it appeared that he was dead. He didn’t even know what the man looked like.

He tossed the pebbles into the street one at a time while thinking about his actions of the past hour. He didn’t want to go over to the car to check on the driver. He was afraid of what he’d find. He knew that he wouldn’t even know what to do while over there. That was the really unfair thing. He didn’t know what to do to help anyone.

Watching other people walking around in a daze, Eric said, “I feel stupid.”

“Same here,” Dan said.

“I don’t know why you feel stupid. At least you did something. I stood around with my thumb up my ass,” Eric said in disgust.

“That’s odd. Every time I looked around, you were right there with me,” Dan said. He watched a couple of guys get out of a pickup truck. They were wearing green hardhats, green vests, and carrying what looked like gym bags.

“I guess those guys with the green hardhats and shirts are the MURT folks,” Eric said watching more people arriving on the scene. The policeman was directing them to the cars they had told him about.

“I think he called them SERT,” Dan said watching the people start to render first aid.

“Oh, yeah,” Eric said. He looked around and asked, “What do we do now?”

“I guess we do what the policeman said, and stay out of the way. I’ll try to call my parents and let them know that I’m okay,” Dan said. He pulled out his cell phone and opened it. There weren’t any bars showing. Shaking his head, he said, “No cell signal.”

Eric looked around at the debris scattered around the parking lot. His car had come through unscathed, but it was blocked by a wrecked car. He was pleased that his car was okay. He loved his car a lot. He said, “I’d give you a ride, but there’s no way I’m getting my car out of here until they clear things up a bit.”

“Let’s see if we can find a phone that works,” Dan said.

It took Dan four hours to get home. He was exhausted. His exhaustion was nothing compared to the beating that his spirit had taken. One of his goals was to make a positive difference in his community. That disaster had been a perfect opportunity, but he had accomplished nothing. He wondered how he could graduate high school and not know how to treat basic injuries.

The insurance company didn’t pay much on his car. It was an older model and the book value was a thousand dollars. Of course, it was impossible to find a car for a thousand dollars. He definitely needed a car. Without a car, he couldn’t search for a location for his pizzeria.

Dan went to his account records and considered his financial situation. He had thirty three thousand dollars in savings. The insurance company was giving him eight hundred dollars. He was worried about his credit. He didn’t know if getting a loan for a car would impact his ability to get a loan for his business.