Page 1 of Out of the Storm

Prologue

Jeff

April 8, 1982

Driving southwest on the freeway, Jeff Russo reached up to wipe his brow with the back of his hand, smearing a trail of blood from his wrist to the knuckle of his right middle finger. He fought back a wince. After returning his hand to the steering wheel, Jeff’s eyes found the streak of red—confirmation that the warm wetness he’d been feeling hadn’t been some sort of phantom sensation. Strange that his cut still seemed to be bleeding intermittently, even though it’d been hours since—

Wind smacked into the side of the car, and Jeff clutched the wheel tighter, fighting to keep the car on a straight path. Within minutes, the occasional pre-storm gusts became loud enough to nearly block out the sound of his music entirely. Jeff heaved a sigh—weariness and irritation combined—and cranked up the volume, turning the knob until the only thing he could hear was Frank Sinatra belting out the lyrics of “It Had to Be You.”

Without the noise of the weather interrupting his thoughts, Jeff was free to let his mind wander, and so, he began to mentally calculate the expenses he’d have each month, now that he had no choice but to move out of Don’s place. Luckily, he’d had the foresight to save nearly every extra penny from his relatively meager salary at the Eastwood Mall. With what he had in the bank, Jeff would be able to furnish his own place, no problem. He’d have toswitch to full-time if he wanted to keep saving, though. Oh well. Cleaning up scraps in the food court for a few more hours each week would beat trying to stomach even one more night in that hellhole he had been calling home.

Clouds began to roll in, coloring the sky hazy and off-white, and the sight reminded Jeff of the forts he had built as a kid—the times he’d hung one end of a sheet off of the couch cushions and hooked the other over the coffee table. Without much effort, he could clearly remember the way the blurred yellow of the ceiling light had looked through the veil of fabric. Sometimes, little him had imagined that the light he was seeing was the sun.

And the sky, it looked that way now.

Frank Sinatra’s music stopped. Steadying the wheel with his left hand, Jeff flipped the tape to the other side. In those few seconds without music, he could hear the wind passing through the cracks between the car doors and the frame, and something told him thatwhat was coming was no typical spring shower.

Soon, black clouds began to hover on the horizon, and minutes later, they started to swirl. Hues of black and gray and maybe even purple amassed together, reaching toward the earth. Jeff’s breath caught from the sight. Had he ever seen something so terrifying and so beautiful? As Sinatra’s voice blared through the speakers of his Cadillac, Jeff pulled to the side of the road to watch. He continued to stare with wonder and curiosity as his heart started hammering in his chest, each beat sending a bolt of excitement through his veins.

When a cream-colored van pulled over to the side of the road in front of him, Jeff cut the engine and stepped out of the car, bracing himself as the wind fought to push him over. As he approached the passenger side, a man with shaggy brown hair rolled the window down.

“Better get back to your car,” the man yelled over another furious gust.

But Jeff stayed fixed to the spot. He looked back at the clouds.

“Tornado?” Jeff asked, nodding toward it.

“Yup. We came out to watch it.”

“I’ve never seen one before,” Jeff replied, hugging his arms to his chest.

The man chewed on his bottom lip, and Jeff looked back and forth between him and the swirling mass of clouds.

“Get in,” the man said, and Jeff hesitated for only a second before he complied, hurrying around to the back of the van and climbing in.

When Jeff shut the van door behind him, the stark change in atmosphere—immediate warmth coupled with a comparative silence—sent a shiver up his spine, causing him to shudder. Both the driver and the passenger turned to face him.

“Dave,” the passenger said, sticking out his hand.

After another brief moment of hesitation, Jeff took the man’s hand. “Jeff.”

The other man then stuck out his hand for a shake too. His sand-colored curls were so unruly, they nearly covered his eyes.

“Walt,” the man said.

Jeff shook his hand with a short nod.

Dave said, “We’re normally back in Oklahoma by now, but we had to come home for our mom’s surgery.”

“Bypass,” Walt added.

Dave continued, “Never thought we’d see a twister here in Ohio. We’ve seen a few back in Norman. Soon as we saw this one, we knew we had to chase it.”

Jeff cocked an eyebrow. “Do people in Oklahoma follow storms or something?”

“Not most, but there’s a professor who follows ’em,” Dave said. “Grad students too.”

Jeff’s eyes flitted back to the storm. His heart sank a little when he noticed that the beautiful fucking funnel that he’d been enamored with earlier had already started to recede.

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