Racing to Their Deaths (ONC 2024)

🌪️ 8. Into the Storm

"He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster...." - Nietzsche

Lars Winter watched the uploaded storm chasing video with dismay. He gritted his teeth at the footage of James and Halle ascending the rubble of a collapsed house to rig a winch.

James, you foolhardy idiot!

The troublesome Storm Riders trio were an utter menace. On top of that, Zane had encouraged  his impressionable son to stop and play hero when there were plenty of rescue personnel responding to the tornado damage and helping victims. Even worse, Naseem Thapar was documenting the entire chase.

I'll have to bribe him not to use the footage of the attention-seeking hussy. Weather Warriors needs to get full credit for this probe deployment.

"Who uploaded that video?" Irwin Allen asked peering over his shoulder.

"That has-been, Charlie Munson."

Irwin Allen nodded. "I remember Charles. A pioneer in the storm chasing community. He took photographs and documented the first F3 tornado."

Lar's eyes narrowed at his colleague's admiration of Munson. "He's a senile old crackpot who's
going to get himself and other people killed out there. He belongs in a nursing home."

"Lars, Charlie's only ten years older than both of us," Allen gently reminded him.

"Well we didn't indulge in as many psychedelics during the sixties, did we? You know," Lars huffed, furiously grabbing tactical combat boots from the utility closet, "what this means."

Irwin raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

"I'll have to fix this."

"What?" Irwin threw up his hands. "There's nothing you can do except guide them over the radio. We're twenty miles from the site."

Lars grabbed his driving gloves and tactical boots. "I need to get James back on track. He's been emasculated by that brazen hussy."

"Hussy?" Who're you talking about?" Irwin grabbed his gear and rushed after him. "Wait, I'm coming with you."

———————

Approaching Quintin, they both saw the gathering supercell. Lars grabbed his phone and called the Emergency Weather Center. "This is Lars Winter. I'm on Trinity road five miles north of Charlottesville. There's a mesocyclone about to drop on the area." He gave them the coordinates. "You need to activate the sirens now."

They passed an overturned sedan on the side of the road. Irwin did a double take when he saw a woman haul herself out of the wreck. "Lars, stop! There's people in there. They need help."

Lars didn't slow the heavy duty vehicle as he called in the accident to 911. The woman was waving, frantically trying to flag them down.

"For God's sake, Lars! We have to stop."

"Ridiculous!" spat Lars. "We can't do both. Deploy the probe and be first responders. Stop worrying about other people." Irritated, the Weather Warrior founder focused on his storm tracker software. Physical proximity to his old flame was necessary, but he preferred to trouble shoot problems alone. With any luck, Allen would meet the same fate as the brazen girl. Sucked into a sub vortex and then slammed to death into the ground multiple times. The thought caused a pleased smile to play across his lips.

Patience, is a virtue.

An ambulance raced by them. "Those people will be fine. Check the doppler." For a full minute, his passenger stared out the window recollecting the past.

"Irwin? Did you hear me?"

But when Irwin rounded on him, it was clear he had heard every word. As wax in the hands of the young, crafty Lars, he had been malleable under the other's confident, charming charisma. A docile partner pleased to let his lover have his way. Now he was free of that trauma bond. "You're arrogant and disingenuous. Do you still deny your cowardly actions were the reason Harold's wife was killed?" The matter had perturbed his conscience deeply for years.

Lars stared at Irwin. Both the vehemence and the truth of his response stunned him. Before he could speak, Lars heard the near-defeating sound that set his heart racing with adrenaline. On the side of the road, telephone poles vibrated in the cyclonic wind and pitched over like a row of dominos.

Irwin winced as a string of electric-blue power flashes danced all the way down the line. A fiery explosion lit up the sky as a transformer blew in the distance and caught fire.

Lar's mind worked furiously. For the first time it occurred to him James might be hurt.

Or killed.

A power line collapsed on top of them and he slammed on his brakes. The SUV slid sideways and skidded off the road.

"Damn!" Irwin unbuckled his seat belt. "If only you'd stopped. Now we're stuck in a muddy ditch, trapped between electrocuting power lines and an oncoming mile wide mesocyclone."