Homewrecker

03 - 𝓶𝓪𝓰𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓾𝓭𝓮

The tornado was only on the ground for fourteen minutes, but that was enough. Enough to tear through the asphalt on the streets as pick-up trucks started to slowly drive through the debris obstructing the road a few minutes after we emerged from inside the beer cooler, windows rolled down and the emergency alert system blaring from the speakers in the cab.

There were people slumped in the beds of the trucks that passed, faces bloodied and eyes distant, random things like shirts or dishtowels held against their skins with blood. Kingston flagged one of them down as he grasped my elbow, leading me to a rusted brown truck as it slowed in front of a downed tree branch.

"I have to go find my mom," I told him, pulling my elbow out from his hand as I searched my pockets for my phone. When I pulled it out from my back pocket, the screen was splintered, and I still didn't have service. "She was at the park. I have to make sure she's still there."

Kingston seemed to ignore this as he approached the truck, tilting his head up to look at the driver. "Are you heading to the hospital?" he asked, extending his hand out for me again. "She was hit in the head during the tornado, and I'm worried her brain might be bleeding inside or something."

"No, I wasn't—" I reached my fingertips to my hairline, feeling shards of jagged glass against my skin and wooden splinters grazing against my palm until I felt something wet, flattening my hair to my temple. My fingers were smeared red when I pulled them out of my hair, and I frowned down at them before shaking my head. "It's fine. I need to go check on my mom." I tried to turn around, but Kingston wrapped a hand around my waist again, pulling me back into his chest. I shoved him away, hard. "Kingston, stop! I need to go find my mom!"

"You're hurt—"

I took off running before he could finish what he was saying, his fingers brushing against my bare arms as he tried to reach out for me as I pulled away from him, the sound of my sneakers pounding against the torn asphalt and shards of shattered windshields and storefront windows. Kingston's voice calling out for me was a distant whisper as I ran through the ditch under the shoulder of the road, a silver car crumpled against the ground like a crushed soda can.

The longer patches of grass grazing against my legs were windblown as I approached the trailer park, almost completely flattened to the ground, and branches were hidden amongst it. Debris littered the entrance to the park when I found it, stumbling over a broken taillight as I slowed near the gravel pathway. There was an air conditioning unit against one of the pine trees that had been stripped bare of its needles and branches, even the bark, the wood now exposed. The blades on the air conditioner were bent and broken, clogged with leaves.

The wooden stairs to a porch were thrown against the sign that read Shiloh Home Park before, but now the paint was stripped from the sign and it was collapsed against the ground. The trailers near the entrance looked as if they had been literally ripped apart, the centers missing and the materials flattened to the ground, the ends sliding off the foundation and sideways against the ground.

Someone screamed beside me as I hesitated, feeling something uneven and bulky underneath my sneaker and crunching against the gravel. I lifted my shoe and saw a shattered fragment of one of my ceramic planters on the ground amongst the stones, the bright yellow paint somewhat chipped off the sides.

I reached down, grasping it in my fingers as the person a few feet away from me kept screaming, and I glanced over. It was an older woman, wearing a tie-dye hoodie that was soaked in rainwater, a pair of short shorts barely visible underneath, and she was covering her hands over her mouth as she stared at the wreckage of her trailer. A man stood beside her, swearing as he ran his hands over his head, knocking his baseball hat to the ground.