Gale
As a photographer, I was trained to notice minuscule details.
Zooming and focusing on a certain aspect of a landscape or subject was how I got the perfect shot.
I saw things others overlooked. The attention to nuance came in handy when assessing people and their moods.
Since I lived in a constant state of alertness and fear, I could typically avoid unpleasant situations.
Like squishing five people into a car.
My hyperawareness of details meant that the tightening around Jazz’s eyes stood out.
I registered the upward tug of his lip and how it turned his mouth into a vague snarl.
I saw the flaring of his nostrils. The shallow intake of air through gritted teeth.
I was fully fluent in reading aggressive body language, too, and his crossed arms and widespread thighs meant business.
I didn’t miss the way he leaned away from me, either, as though the sheer idea of us touching was vile.
Jazz didn’t like me and would have probably much rather let me stay home, except everyone else insisted my presence was required. Before I knew what was happening, I was forced into a car and given a laptop with orders to navigate. Worse yet, I was crammed in the back seat between Jazz and Maggie.
It was suffocating, and I hated my sister for allowing a situation that upset my equilibrium. Why couldn’t I have at least had the front seat?
The entire team seemed to be under the illusion that I could magically deposit them at the base of a tornado.
No amount of explaining swayed them otherwise—and I’d spent no less than an hour before leaving the house doing all I could to avoid this mess.
Never mind how many times I explain that markers of potential tornadic activity did not necessarily mean activity would happen.
You could have a recipe and all the ingredients, but it didn’t mean you’d end up with a cake.
Such was the unpredictability of Mother Nature.
Olivia knew all of this. Her team understood it, too.
They’d been chasing for years. I wasn’t telling them anything new, but for whatever reason, they were convinced that with me on board, they wouldn’t fail to beat Ozrik’s team to a prime location.
The storm would produce, and we would have the best seats in the house.
Maggie leaned over my shoulder, studying the weather map, while Olivia drove.
Roe sat shotgun since he was the team’s lead videographer.
Although his camera pointed at the angry horizon beyond the windshield, he’d turned more than once to face the backseat, recording our reactions and commentary.
When that happened, I tilted the laptop screen to ensure my face was hidden.
My sister had taken 283 north to Arnett before veering west. Eventually, she left the interstate in exchange for a county road that took us into Texas toward Lipscomb and the green-tinted tempest brewing in the distance.
It was like a wicked witch had taken a wooden spoon and stirred the poisonous sky.
The closer we got, the tighter my stomach coiled. I loved the outdoors. I loved photographic opportunities, and meteorological conditions mildly interested me, but I had no desire to risk my life for any of it.
Four years of school, studying weather patterns, climate change, the atmosphere, and learning all there was to know about this earth-generated natural force that annually wreaked havoc indiscriminately across the Midwest, and I had never once desired to stand in the middle of it.
The closer we got, the more I wanted to go home.
Jazz made several comments on my cowardice. Olivia gave him endless dirty looks. I suspected she feared that Roe’s camera would pick up the audio, and that CineVision would use that exact clip for viewers. It would shine a negative light on the team and compromise their position.
But seriously. How was this fun? The act of running headfirst into a violent storm was unnatural. When this type of weather hit Elk City, the protocol was to take shelter. We had a storm cellar for a reason.
Olivia’s and my differences had never been more glaring.
“You are certifiable,” I mumbled when she met my gaze in the rearview mirror. “They should lock you up and study you.”
It was an ongoing sibling joke, pointing out all the reasons why the other was not normal.
Olivia’s devious smile was one I recognized. She had always been fearless. “What’s wrong, Gale? Don’t you want to shake hands with a tornado?”
“No.”
“Well, I do, so guide me, oh great one. Drop me in her path.”
Roe swung the camera around, aiming it at my face as I was about to comment. I clamped my teeth and slid lower in the seat, but Roe rolled a hand, insisting I give him something.
Jazz elbowed my ribs and whispered, “Stop being a pussy.”
My cheeks burned. I wanted to shout, What am I supposed to say?
I glanced at the laptop and the Doppler radar. The cell had developed a prominent hook echo, and we were almost directly inside it. A horseshoe in the clouds guided us.
“Gale,” my sister prompted. “Say something.”
“Um… so, u-using Mesoscale Detection Algorithms, we can analyze supercells and measure rotation patterns. When a rotation pattern meets specific requirements for size, strength, vertical depth, and—”
“Oh my god, save us the scientific lecture and tell us where to go, for fuck’s sake,” Jazz snapped.
“We’re amid a mesocyclone, but the hook is miles wide, and a tornado could produce anywhere within it.
Your best bet is to be within it. Even with a Tornado Vortex Signature, I could only speculate.
Read the sky. Watch the clouds. That’s the best you can do.
If we could predict tornado touchdowns with the kind of accuracy you’re asking for, don’t you think we would? It would save lives.”
The chilling look in Jazz’s eyes made me squirm.
Olivia wasn’t happy. “Then look at the sky and give us the best you can. Come on, Gale. This is your thing. We have to land closer than Ozrik and his crew. You know they’re going to be out here.”
Maggie nudged my arm. I passed her the laptop and shuffled forward to see better out the windshield.
The horizon bellowed its anger. The sky heaved and churned.
I studied the clouds and their movement.
Trees in the distance bent under the assault of the wind.
I’d watched hundreds of videos in school, studied mountains of textbooks, but this was a phenomenon of unbound proportions.
This was real, and we were within it.
“I’m going to die,” I whispered. Thank goodness no one seemed to hear.
Roe faced forward again, filming the daunting sky looming ahead.
Goose bumps tickled the hairs on the back of my neck, radiating over my scalp. I shivered as a release of adrenaline flooded my system, warning me to run screaming in the opposite direction. It wasn’t a good feeling. It didn’t fill me with excitement like I imagined it did everyone else.
Jazz seemed to have forgotten his anger in exchange for the view. He sat forward, arms wrapped around Roe’s headrest as he peered out the window. “Fucking brutal. Take the next road west. You see that. There. That’s a definite wall cloud.” He pointed.
We were amid a strong mesocyclone in what seemed to be the early stages of tornadogenesis.
“Gale?” my sister hollered. The Subaru jolted and bounced over the uneven dirt road. “Give me your input. You’re the expert.”
“He doesn’t have a clue. We should have left him at the house,” Jazz said. “Go west at the next turn. Trust me.”
“Shut up, Jazz,” Roe said.
Shame mixed with nerves, creating a nauseating concoction. Jazz was right. I was a fraud. “Go west,” I confirmed.
Olivia took the next left. All eyes were focused on the churning sky. We were within the hook echo.
“You’re looking at a beautiful wall cloud, ladies and gents,” Roe narrated for the future viewers. “Everybody, cross your fingers and pray she produces.”
The road ahead was empty. We were deep in scarcely populated countryside.
A few farmhouses were situated a distance from the road and separated from their neighbors by several acres of crops.
The people living in those houses had likely taken shelter.
I couldn’t hear the air raid sirens, but the wind battering the Subaru mixed with the jackhammering of my heart likely drowned them out.
Again, I wondered at the absurdity of what we were doing, taking on the elements like we were any match for Mother Nature. We were all certifiable if we were willing to go head-to-head with one of God’s most vicious environmental hazards.
The bright afternoon had been replaced by a shadowy illusion of dusk.
A sense of ominous doom hung over Lipscomb County.
It was alive and angry. The air itself was thick with anticipation, and fine dust particles swirled and danced on the blowing currents.
I scanned the horizon, picking out signs of flying debris farther away. Tree branches and garbage among them.
We were driving directly toward the wall cloud Roe had mentioned a second ago. It was humbling. Terrifying. I absorbed every detail with awe and wonder and a mountain of trepidation.
Motion caught my eye, and I squinted at a particular part of the sky that stirred and roiled. I smacked the back of Olivia’s seat. “Stop. Pull over. Stop, stop, stop.”
“Okay, okay.” Olivia slammed the brakes.
Maggie vocalized what I’d seen. “We’ve got upward motion with that wall cloud. Do you see it?”
“Roe, are you getting this?” Olivia shouted as she threw the car into park.
“Yes. It’s low to the ground. Rapid rotation. That fucker wants to produce.” Roe laughed. “We are so fucking close.”
“Everyone get out,” Olivia shouted.
Get out? “Shouldn’t we turn around or at least get back a bit?” I stared at the perilous sky like it might open its gaping maw and swallow us whole.
“Are you crazy?” Jazz rolled from the car the second it came to a stop. “We’ve never been this close.”