Without a second thought, Eli ran toward it.
IT WAS THE loudest thing she had ever heard, could imagine ever hearing. It was as if the entire world were being torn to atoms, ground to dust. The wind roared, and although she knew she was screaming—screaming so loud she could feel the pain in her throat and the burn in her lungs—she could not hear herself, could not hear the cries of the others, could hear nothing at all save the wind, so deafening as to make her vision shake with the force of it.
Still flattened against the floor, Carrie turned onto her side. Beth’s face stared back at her. She was yelling something, eyes wild with fear. Carrie looked away from her, from those terror-filled eyes, and toward the aisle. She saw the approaching wall of the cyclone and knew she would soon be dead.
People had stopped running and were now holding on to anything they could lay hands on – the ends of the pews, the altar, each other. There was the sense of an unveiling and Carrie looked up to see the roof of the church peel away like the lid of a soup can.
The sky above was demonic, the ceiling of hell itself. Black pulsing clouds shoved and jostled against each other, filled the dark green heavens. Hail and rain fell in a deluge through the open ceiling, soaking those inside within seconds. Carrie sat up, then tried to stand. She had to run, to escape. A hand gripped hers and tried to pull her back. She turned and saw her mother hiding under a pew, reaching for her, beckoning her to lie with her, to be with her at the end of everything.
The air inside the church – or what was left of it – was circulating like a blender at high speed. Pieces of wood and glass filled the air. As Carrie watched in a sort of senseless shock – distantly aware of the mosquito-bite pain of debris cutting her arms, legs and face – a red pickup truck crashed through the rear wall as if thrown like a child’s toy, decimating the twelve-foot cross that hung there and crunching grille-first into the large altar. The small cluster of people that had been clutching at the slab were crushed or thrown. A small old lady, stripped to her underwear, flew toward the missing east wall and never found the ground; she simply traveled higher and higher, spinning, white limbs flapping, through the air and into the sky until she vanished within the immense funnel, as if sucked into it through a giant straw.
More of the wedding guests were being lifted away, and Carrie could feel her dress – her long, beautiful bridal dress – being pulled toward the vortex. She hurriedly studied what was left of the church interior, hoping to see Eli one last time before it was over, to say she was sorry, perhaps to say she’d been wrong.
Instead she saw the man she was to marry, and with emotionless cool she watched as Parker and Brock threw people aside as they pushed their way toward the front of the sanctuary. Before they made it halfway, there was a blur of brown, and a honed splinter of wood the size of a baseball bat slammed into Brock’s chest, opening him like a red mouth, rib bones for teeth. Parker groped for him as he fell, then looked around in a panic, as if someone could help. As if anyone could be helped, or spared.
For a moment they made eye contact, but Carrie saw nothing in his eyes but fear. He thrust his arms up over his head, warding off the singeing splinters of wood and glass. She watched, with that same sensation of numbness, as her own nana grabbed him around the waist. To his credit, he embraced her as a flailing limb of the storm swept across the pews, snatched them from the earth and tore them away.
No longer able to watch, Carrie spun and dropped to her knees, wanting to hold her mother once more before it was too late.
She looked at the floor where Beth and her mother had been only moments ago, but the space underneath the pew was empty. They were gone. But how? she thought, and an icy cold shook her. She slumped and let go of her feelings, of her life. Felt it drain out of her like sand. Deep down, she hoped maybe they’d escaped. Found a way out. A miracle.
The cyclonic mass was here now, and it was time. The beast roared in triumph, bellowed with enough violent force that Carrie’s hearing became buried beneath a high-pitched whistle as the great god of destruction bore down on its final sacrifice. She felt herself sliding toward it. Her mind, her thoughts, her fears, were consumed completely by the mad howl of the monster. She put her hands over her eyes, closed them tight. She did not want to see the end of her life.
And then… from one heartbeat to the next… silence.
“Carrie.”
Hands landed lightly on her waist, just above her hips and bent knees. The thunderous roar of the storm had stopped. No… not stopped… muted. The ringing in her ears remained, but the pull of the wind had vanished. The sounds of death, of nature’s fury, were nothing but dim white noise.
“Carrie, look at me. Please.”
Is this God? she thought. Is this what happens when you die?
Gentle hands moved from her waist to her wrists, pulled her hands from her face.
“Open your eyes.”
Carrie did, and joy swelled in her heart.
Eli sat before her, his face bloody and already bruising, his beautiful smile slanted to one side and gapped by two missing teeth. She smiled back at him, briefly in relief and with a mad surge of love, wanting to hug him, to touch him… but she saw something else in his face beside the pain, that crooked smile.
He was shaking. And his hands, though gentle, were tight on her wrists with tension. Despite her shock – and her happiness at seeing him, at holding him – she could not resist turning to look behind her, madly hoping the storm was impossibly gone, hoping she would see only blue sky and a green harvest splitting the horizon.
But it was there, filling every inch of her vision. The great writhing face of the twister, ready to feed.
“Don’t look at it, Carrie. Look at me,” he said quietly, his voice soft and clear, as if they were lying side-by-side on a cool autumnal night, watching the stars. “Keep your eyes on me.”
She did, and looked upon him with wonder.
The cyclone that had consumed the church now completely surrounded them. They knelt, each facing the other, holding on almost peacefully before the approach of the swirling colossus. Carrie could not feel it, could not hear its frustrated wailing as they passed – somehow – into the funnel. The world went black as they slipped inside the great heart of the beast, and she was spared by deep shadow the sight of meat and metal flying furiously around them, bouncing off the surface of the protective bubble, vanishing into the folds of wind. An insane fury encapsulated them, and if she had looked up (she dared not!), Carrie would have seen a great green eye staring down at her from the heavens, glowing bright with cosmic hate, with its frustrated desire to consume.
“Close your eyes,” he said, his voice muffled, his breathing heavy. “And know that I love you.”
She obeyed, relishing the peace of her own darkness, the silence of his protection. He held her slim wrists tightly and they waited together, not speaking, as death passed them by. After a hundred rapid beats of her heart, after minutes that seemed without end, the world finally lightened from complete black to a shadowy gray. The edge of the tornado licked at their protective shield with its last deadly whips before moving past, off to find other victims, other worlds to rent and tear.
Carrie could stand it no longer. She wanted to grab Eli fiercely, pull him to her despite her fear of distracting his focus. She needed him to know what she felt for him. What part of her had always felt for him.
And so, she opened her eyes, and screamed.
Carrie screamed in fright, in horror, in absolute despair. Her body and soul emptied itself with her cries, gutting her. A sorrow she had never known, a maddening pain, tore at her heart.
Eli knelt before her still, but his pale skin sagged on his bones, as if the fat and muscle inside him had melted away. His eyes were gone, replaced by blue water, twinkling in his sockets like the surface of a creek. It poured down his cheeks in an impossible, constant flow.
“Eli, let go!” she yelled, and could already feel the pocket of air around them dissipating, the noise of the departing twister growing steadily louder.
He shook his head and she thought maybe he might have smiled one last time. He opened his mouth as if to say goodbye, but only dark sand poured from between his lips. The skin covering his hands grew hot, and she tenderly pulled her wrists free with a wince, saw the red bands around her arms, the charred lace of her dress where he’d held her. Parts of his flesh sparkled with yellow flame, and where it met water, steam rose in silky tethers.
“Eli, let go, let go! Please let go!” she screamed, for the world had returned and she could feel the rain once more, the playful push of now-harmless gusts of wind in her hair; heard the rumbling of the dying storm. “I love you, Eli! My blue eyes, oh no please no…”
She wept and pressed what remained of him to her chest, felt the heat of the flames eating his skin, smelled his flesh in the smoke. The water that poured from his eyes ran cool over her neck. His suit sagged in her arms, then collapsed in the growing pile of warm mud that had once been her only true friend.
She lifted her eyes from him only once, to watch the monster moving away, off into the distance, a black mountain of corn stalks rising through the air to feed it, to serve.
Carrie looked down through a distorted lens of tears at what remained, pushed her hands into the charred wet fabric of the suit. Sobbing, she laid her body flat to rest with him. She kissed the mud, let it stick to her face and hands, mingle with her blood and tears. She smelled the deep minerals of his lost body, the enchanted elements of earth mixed with his sacrifice, with the magic of first love, with love forever lost.
