The next morning, the sky looked like someone had drop-kicked a blender full of gray paint across the horizon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mark, sipping lukewarm gas station coffee and staring up at the swirling cloud cover, muttered, \u201cThat\u2019s not ominous or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jonah climbed into the van with a breakfast burrito the size of his forearm and said, \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s eggs or glue, but I\u2019m committed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rico slid into the front seat, glancing at the radar on his phone. \u201cUh\u2026 guys? There\u2019s a big red blob headed our direction. Like, storm-chaser-big.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cassie leaned over. \u201cDefine \u2018big.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLike… biblical<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gabriel, already vibrating from his third can of Monster, grinned like it was Christmas morning. \u201cSweet. Let\u2019s race it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thane, who was trying to refold a road map with claws and mounting rage, growled, \u201cWe are not<\/em> racing a tornado, Gabriel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maya, buckling in behind them, smirked. \u201cThat\u2019s what cowards say.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The van rolled out of town just as the first fat drops of rain started to smack the windshield. The wind was howling before they even hit the state line. Lightning split the sky like angry punctuation. Thunder followed immediately after, rattling the dashboard and causing Jonah to choke on his burrito mid-bite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They hadn\u2019t even gone ten miles before a weather alert blasted through every phone in the van.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTORNADO WARNING. SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Cassie, deadpan: \u201cGreat. Anyone bring a storm cellar?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gabriel, nose practically on the glass: \u201cThat cloud is spinning! SPINNING!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thane: \u201cIf you open that window I will<\/em> rip the handle off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mark\u2019s voice came over the backseat comms: \u201cLeft side. Funnel cloud. Confirmed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A collective \u201cSHIT!\u201d rang out from every mouth in the van.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They found \u201cshelter\u201d in the loosest sense of the word: a crumbling roadside attraction called Big Pete\u2019s BBQ & Gift Barn<\/em>\u2014complete with a ten-foot fiberglass pig statue, a half-toppled billboard, and one terrified old man in a rocking chair on the front porch who just nodded solemnly as the band spilled out of the van and into his life like a caffeine-fueled tornado of their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inside, the decor looked like a pig exploded in a Cracker Barrel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cY\u2019all here to buy jerky or die in the storm?\u201d the old man asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thane snarled. \u201cCan\u2019t it be both?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lights flickered. The wind roared. Something slammed into the side of the building\u2014hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Everyone went still.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cassie stared at the windows. \u201c…Was that a cow?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah peeked through the blinds. \u201cNo. Worse. It was a porta-potty.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The building groaned. The roof shuddered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mark, deadpan: \u201cI\u2019m not dying next to a shelf of bacon-scented candles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gabriel, now huddled under a table with a bag of peanut brittle: \u201cAt least the WiFi works.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thane stood in the center of the store, arms folded, dripping wet, glaring at the sky through the warped glass like he was ready to fistfight the weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI swear,\u201d he muttered, \u201cif that funnel cloud touches our truss rig, I will hunt it.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The old man took a sip of iced tea and added helpfully, \u201cTornadoes don\u2019t like angry folks. They go where the vibes are bad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thane didn\u2019t blink. \u201cPerfect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thirty minutes later, the storm finally passed. The sky cracked open to blue like nothing had happened, as if the tornado had just been stopping by for a sandwich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The van was still intact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mostly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was a single lawn chair wedged into the front grille, and one of the side mirrors now hung by a cable like a sad earring. But it still ran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They all climbed back in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nobody spoke for five miles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then Jonah said, \u201c…I dropped my burrito.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gabriel replied, \u201cI dropped my soul.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The next morning, the sky looked like someone had drop-kicked a blender full of gray paint across the horizon. Mark, sipping lukewarm gas station coffee and staring up at the swirling cloud cover, muttered, \u201cThat\u2019s not ominous or anything.\u201d Jonah climbed into the van with a breakfast burrito the size of his forearm and said, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tour-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3247,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions\/3247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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