Racing to Their Deaths (ONC 2024)

🌪️ 19. Sacrifice

When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.—Romeo and Juliette

Lars advanced Weather Warrior2 to the juncture. Agilely, he jumped out and slid open the vehicle's side door. The darkness on the horizon filled his entire field of vision. He grimaced as he grabbed the heavy probe and dragged it over to where the roads intersected. Despite dangerous, gale force winds  that sucked him towards the funnel, he took a moment to assess the probe's position under a sky that was an unearthly, lunar black. Streamers of sub vortexes howled as they swirled in his direction and completed their inexorable macabre dance around the inner core.

Damn, it's fast. The arc's wider than I thought. I
have to move the probe another fifty yards to the left.

He reached down and grabbed the device's metal handle.

———

"We're too late. He's at the Devil's Crossroad," Halle told James. "We can't reach him."

"We can't let him die. We have to do something." A blast of wind rocked The Interceptor. Before she could take evasive action, a smaller vortex hit their vehicle and spun it several times in three complete three-hundred and sixty degree circles.

When the spinning stopped, they both felt The Terminator being sucked inexorably backwards.

"Fuck!" James yelled.

Halle pressed the gas pedal. The powerful engine revved, but The Interceptor continued to slide backwards as if it was being dragged by giant, invisible claws.

"The automatic traction is preventing me from going over forty miles an hour. She punched the manual override button.

"We're going to die!" James shouted. He glanced at the rear window, but the vortex between them and the Weather Warriors utility vehicle created an impenetrable veil.

A blinking light pierced the wall of darkness. The Weather Warriors2 backup truck emerged from the blackness. It's headlights blazed as the truck slammed into the back of The Interceptor. Halle and Jame's heads snapped back in unison as The Interceptor leapt forward. They heard Lars' engine whine in protest as he pushed them forward until both cars reached a speed of sixty miles per an hour.

Halle sighed in relief as the automatic traction override disengaged and she was able to accelerate to eighty miles and hour. The funnel faded from sight.

"Fuck, that was close," Jame's checked the rear window and grinned . "My dad's right behind us. He deployed the probe and got out."

Halle smiled and wiped beads of sweat from her forehead. "You're right. He's going to make it."
Behind them, the headlights faltered and fell back a few feet.

"James." Her mouth went dry with fear. She held her breath as the headlights behind them kept appearing and disappearing.

James gripped the back of the seat as he watched the headlights of his father's vehicle disappear from sight one final time and then not reappear. "Where did he go?" His voice quavered.

"He must have turned off the road to escape the suction inflow," Halle said. She frowned as she glanced at the rear view mirror.

"Into the field?" James shook his head. "We both  know he wouldn't do that. He's too logical."

"We crossed the fields." A single tear slid down her cheek.

"The ground's sopping wet. He'll get stuck." James voice rose. "We have to go back for him.".

She didn't respond. Tears brimmed her eyes.

He grabbed the wheel and she gripped it to tighter to prevent him from turning it. "Halle," he croaked.

———

A quarter of a mile away, Naseem filmed the tornado. "There-look up at the corner!"

He pointed to a blinking light that rose up the massive column of torrential rain and hellish wind.

"It looks like a small plane got caught in the tornado."

"Amy frowned. No, not a plane. That's a spinning vehicle."

Naseem's hands shook. "Oh, my god. Is that The Terminator?"

Amy grabbed the mic. "Halle, James..come in." There was only silence. "Please, God, no," she whimpered. She punched the orange-haired troll doll glued to her dashboard and sobbed. "Shitty, thing. It's supposed to be lucky and protect chasers. Halle gave it to me."

"We are lucky. We survived," Zane said quietly. He hung his head and looked at his feet.

"Fuck that. What about Halle and James?" She stopped crying as dim headlights appeared in the distance. The lights grew brighter until a vehicle punched out of the torrential rain.

"Halle!" Amy cried.

"It's them," Zane said. "Thank god." His chest loosened ad he sighed with relief.

Amy flashed her lights at the other vehicle and returned to the planned escape route.

"Go faster, Amy!" Naseem cried. He zoomed his camera in on the blinking light that kept circling the funnel.

"I can't. The damned automatic traction overide is preventing me from going over forty miles per an hour.

"Do a manual override," Zane shouted.

"Why did you computerize a vintage car?" Nasseem yelled. It thinks it's helping, but it's going to kill us."

Amy didn't answer. Instead, she depressed the radio's mic button." Weather Warriors, come in. You had me worried there, Mama Bear. Over."

The radio crackled, but she couldn't make out the garbled response.

"Shit, I can't hear them. At least they're alright." She breathed a sigh of relief and patted the ugly troll doll's fluorescent hair.

Naseem frowned as the twinkling, spinning light reached the twister's zenith and then disappeared from sight. "Does anyone know where's Lars?"

Irwin's phone pinged as he received a notification on his phone. He gasped as a plethora of tornadic data populated his experimental software.

He checked the Weather Warrior2's gps location on the navigation software. The lime-green dot that signified his lover's position showed Lars was inside the funnel's core.