Chapter 7
The silence after the roar of the storm was so abrupt that it was startling.
It felt like they’d been waiting forever, when it was only minutes inside the shelter.
The rumble of thunder was now a distant echo of what it had been.
Rain was still falling, but the wind was gone, still wrapped up in the swift-moving storm.
Briar flashed the light at Tate. He’d quit talking a few minutes ago and she needed to get help.
She kept checking for a pulse, knowing if he died, it would break her in a thousand pieces.
He had a pulse. That’s all she needed to know as she shoved the lever up to unlock the door, and bolted out into the utility room, only to realize her cell phone had no service.
She was about to go for help when she thought about their landline and ran to the kitchen. She caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror as she picked up the phone, only then remembering she’d given up half of her clothing to keep Tate from bleeding out.
A few blocks down, the sheriff’s department was in shambles, but they still had a roof on the building, and everybody on duty was scrambling to answer the frantic calls for help.
And then Briar’s call went through.
“911. What is your emergency?”
“This is Briar Lowe. I need an ambulance ASAP at 440 Anderson Road. Tate Bandy was injured in the storm. He has a huge shard of glass stuck in the back of his leg, and another shard in his shoulder. I put a tourniquet on his leg during the storm, but he’s lost a lot of blood.
Please hurry. The front door is unlocked.
We’re in the aboveground storm shelter in their utility room. ”
“I’m dispatching them now,” the dispatcher said.
“I have to go,” Briar said, and hung up.
As she was running back through the house, she saw one of his T-shirts hanging on a doorknob, grabbed it, and put it on as she dashed back into the shelter and dropped back beside him.
“Tate, sweetheart…help is on the way.”
In the few moments when he didn’t answer, she forgot to breathe, and frantically felt for a pulse. It was still there. She rocked back on her heels, trying not to cry. A cool head was needed. She could cry later.
Tate roused just enough to whisper, “Don’t leave me.”
“Never,” she promised, and then grabbed hold of the screwdriver in the tourniquet to keep it from slipping. It was only then she realized that she was kneeling in his blood.
* * *
The blessing of a small town was that it didn’t take long to get anywhere within the city limits.
Within a couple of minutes, the siren on the ambulance alerted her they were en route.
She heard it pulling up in the front yard, followed by running footsteps on the porch, and when she heard the sounds of men shouting as they came into the house, she knew they’d been saved.
“In here!” she called. “We’re in here!”
Seconds later, she was ejected from the shelter to give the emergency crew room to work.
She stood as close to the open door as she could get to hear what they were saying, watching intently as they worked to get an IV established then started a drip.
After that, they loaded him facedown on a stretcher, moved him out of the shelter, then took off through the house.
“Can I ride with him?” she asked.
“Sorry, Miss Briar, but it’s against the rules,” an EMT said. “The south side sidewalk is clear enough of debris. You can’t drive there, but there are no downed power lines in that area. You can see him after we get him in ER.”
“Yes, okay,” she said, and watched them carrying him to the ambulance, then driving away in the rain.
Her cell phone was in her pocket, and Tate’s had gone with him. But they were both useless, and both of their parents needed to know what had happened.
She ran back into the kitchen to the landline and, after rifling through a couple of drawers, found a little notebook with Abel Bandy’s cell phone number. Her hands were shaking from the adrenaline rush as she lifted the receiver, punched in the numbers, and waited as the call began to ring.
It rang and rang without being picked up. She was desperate to get to Tate, but his parents had to know. Then, finally, she heard Abel Bandy’s voice.
“Hey, son, what’s going on?” Abel asked.
Briar was trying desperately not to cry, but he sounded so much like Tate over the phone that it was hard to focus.
“Mr. Bandy, it’s me, Briar. The town was just hit by a tornado.
It’s a mess all over. Tate got hit in the back and the leg by some flying glass, but he’s finally on his way to ER.
I think he’s going to be okay, but because we were stuck in the storm shelter until the storm passed, he lost a lot of blood. ”
“Dear God, child. Are you okay too?”
“Yes, but only thanks to Tate.” She drew a shaky breath, determined not to cry and scare them worse.
“The bottom line is he got hurt saving me. I was kind of trapped in my house, trying to find a place to shelter, when part of a tree came through the sliding doors into our kitchen, only feet from where I was standing. Tate had already had one of his visions and was driving into the storm to come get me. I didn’t know any of this, but he was almost at my house when the tree thing happened.
Seconds later, he called me, telling me to get to the front porch.
He came to save me, and that’s how he got hurt. ”
Abel had the phone on speaker, holding Lilith close as they listened in horror to the unfolding story. “You can’t blame yourself for Tate’s choice. That’s who he is, sweetheart. And that’s what men do when the people they love are in danger, okay? We would have expected nothing less,” Lilith said.
She sighed. “Yes, okay…I get that. He’s been showing us all his life what he was meant to do, and who he is meant to be.
He did get us to your house and into your storm shelter, and only then told me he thought he was bleeding and to look for the flashlight.
I found it and saw the wounds. I made him lie facedown on a blanket on the floor because the glass was protruding and clearly visible.
We couldn’t remove it because he would have bled even more.
I used my T-shirt for a tourniquet to tie off the bleeding on his leg.
But I couldn’t do anything about his shoulder. ”
“What a nightmare for the both of you, and I’m so sorry we weren’t there to help. Where were your parents?” Abel asked.
“Mom has been in Savannah nearly a week. She and Dad have been fighting. It’s all they do. She’s been staying with her parents. Dad left early this morning to go talk to her.”
“How is Tate now?” Abel asked.
“I have to get to the hospital for an update, so I don’t know, but as time passed, he kind of kept going in and out of consciousness.
I think he was going into shock from the blood loss, but it did slow down a lot after I applied the tourniquet.
We had no other option but to wait until the storm passed.
Your house and truck are basically okay, I think.
Power is out in town and so is cell service.
Like I said, the ambulance just came and took him to the hospital.
I’m going there now, and I will be with him. I won’t leave him alone.”
Lilith took the phone. “Don’t worry, honey. We’ll pack up right now and head that way.”
“Yes, ma’am. Tate will likely rest easier once you two are back. I don’t know how much damage happened in the area. You should maybe make sure the roads are passable before you start home,” she said.
“Yes, you’re right. I will, but either way, we’ll go as far as we can and then, if we have to, come the rest of the way home in daylight tomorrow,” Abel said.
“I’m so sorry to mess up your anniversary. Had it not been for Tate, I don’t think I would have survived.”
“Just take a breath, honey,” Lilith said. “You’re alive, and thanks to you, Tate will be okay. We’ll get there as soon as possible, and thank you for the call.”
“Safe travels,” Briar said, and hung up, then dialed yet another number and waited for it to be answered.
* * *
Roger was at the halfway point on his trip and had just stopped in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to refuel and get some snacks for the road when his phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number, but answered anyway. “Hello?”
“Daddy, it’s me. I’m calling from the landline in Tate’s house.
The town just got hit by a tornado and cell service and power is out.
Our house has considerable damage. We all had enough warning time to get to shelters, but I couldn’t get into our basement because somebody locked the door, and the extra set of keys that hangs on the hook in the kitchen wasn’t there either.
Before I could think what to do next, a huge tree limb came through the sliding doors.
I hit the floor behind the island and wound up having to crawl out from under limbs across a floor covered in broken glass, while the rain, wind, and hail kept blasting inside.
It’s a miracle I wasn’t cut to shreds. Did you lock that door? ”
Roger was aghast at what she was telling him and horrified by the cold accusation in her voice. “No, I didn’t lock it. It’s never locked. Darling, I am so sorry you were alone when this happened. Are you okay?”
“Yes, thanks to Tate. He had a vision of what was happening to me and was already coming up our street when the tree landed in the kitchen. He called me and told me to get to the front porch. He was already turning up the driveway by then, and jumped out of the truck running. He pulled me off the porch, and as we were running to the truck, he was hit in the back by flying debris. He got a huge shard of glass in the back of his leg and another one in his shoulder, and never said a word about it until he got us back to his house and into their aboveground shelter. Only then did he tell me that he thought he was bleeding.”
Roger groaned. “Dear lord! That’s terrible. I’m so sorry that happened. Where is he now?”