Storm Chaser
by Scott T. Hutchison
I’ve waited a fair number of years for opportunity: The National Weather Service has declared an emergency; reports show a Category Four barreling our way.
I’m giddy, smiling stupid. I race my Hummer down Main Street, and there, right on blessed time, Nunez is busting out of the front door of his daddy’s hardware store.
Braking hard at curbside next to him, I lift a zoom lens Nikon up from the passenger seat, call out the already open window at the startled bastard: “Storm chasing. I drive; you take pictures of us beneath the whirlwind. Climbing in, Puss-Puss?” I’ve long known his triggers.
He ignores his grabbing-begging father. Flashes a flicker of hatred, and he’s in. I hand him the camera and hit the gas.
Along the far horizon, wall clouds push our way, bringing with them a blackish-green sky. Soon, we’ll run into hail and heavy rain.
We cuss each other, grinning. He’d never let himself shame-miss this chance to drive right into a storm, not with someone like me prodding and witnessing.
I made a vow a long time ago—I’d get him back for back-seating my sister, parked beneath the old water tower down by the railroad tracks. She’s moved away to a trainless patch in Arizona—she’d still shiver if she were to hear the mournful howl of locomotive horns.
Rain begins to pound, golf-ball-sized hail dents my metal beast. He leans toward the drop in pressure, sways, and falls back, all fearful and frantic. I swat Nunez sideways, dent his left frontal lobe. Leaning across, I pop the door and push him out. I race around from my side, slamming the tug-of-door behind me. I swore—so rain-soak and ice-pelting don’t matter. I drag him off, cave his skull in, then wind-claw back into the Hummer, fight to pull the passenger door closed behind me. Hit the accelerator in full throttle flight.
I’m on the edge, a whoosh and whistling whirlwind on my ass. The bloodied railroad spike—kept beneath my seat for thirteen years—will soon find muddied bottom in our brown-rushing river if I can just get there. That should be the end of that offset tie-binder. My head is spinning. Eggshell fragments of homes swirl by. Clods of dirt. Pieces of straw.
The quake and rumble-roar surrounding me is a waterfall. A jet. A runaway train.
Scott T. Hutchison’s work has appeared in The Raven Review, Vestal Review, The Georgia Review, and The Southern Review. New work is forthcoming in Arkansas Review, Unwoven, The Fourth River, The Dolomite Review, County Lines, and Atlanta Review.