"Like hell! That's a tornado siren, mister!" He grabbed the microphone from me and started giving orders. "Everybody, down to the crawlspace! We've got the time, but drop your stuff and get down to the crawlspace!" He kept exhorting people to move their butts, while the school principal and a few members of the basketball team started directing people.
One of the campaign guys yelled in my ear, "We should be leaving now!"
Just that moment I heard a big crash outside, probably from the wind picking something up and throwing it around. I grabbed my girls and yelled back, "Like hell! We're going to the crawlspace!" Maybe the twit could go outside and check, and he could beat us to Nebraska, air express, so to speak. I pushed the girls in front of me towards the crowd heading down a flight of stairs. Suddenly the lights went out, but emergency lighting kicked in, and we found ourselves in a large and filthy concrete basement. The noise from outside the building reminded me of a freight train, and the ceiling above us was shaking and dust was raining down. I pushed the girls to the floor in a corner and lay on top of them. Then I felt somebody land on top of me, and I looked around to find the terrified face of Jerry McGuire, one of my traveling security guys. I was protecting the girls, but he was protecting me.
The freight train kept getting louder and louder, and there was a sound of screeching torn metal, and dirt was falling around us, probably decades' old dust off the ceiling of the crawlspace. I should have been terrified, but I was too scared for that. I had my eyes closed to keep the dust from blinding me, and around me I could hear people crying and screaming. I don't think I was one of them, but I know my daughters were. Eventually the freight train left, just vanished suddenly, and all we could hear were some sirens, regular sirens. The tornado siren was quiet, mercifully.
People started climbing to their feet, and helping others up. Somebody opened the door to the school, and light came in, and people began moving out of the crawlspace. Everybody was gawping at the sight. The roof was missing over part of the school, and that's where the light was coming from. We kept moving out. All of us who had been in the crawlspace were filthy, and the twins had runnels of tears going down their faces. They had their arms around me. "It's okay, it's over.", I told them. "Let's keep moving."
The surprising part to me was that after the storm blew through, the weather outside was bright and sunny. The general direction of traffic was towards the outside, so we moved in that direction. For once the reporters were ignoring me. They had a real life calamity to play with! Outside it became really obvious that Springboro had been well and truly trashed! The tornado siren over the school had been toppled over and had crashed through the front end of the campaign bus. We were stuck in Springboro for the foreseeable future. Around us, the remains of several houses were laid flat. Off to one side a sudden fireball lit the sky, and a bunch of people began running that way, including the reporters.
Organization began to grow, however. The school gym and lunchroom were still viable and safe, and they would be a makeshift shelter. A volunteer fireman and the mayor were on a walkie-talkie sorting things out. Another local big shot called for volunteers to search some of the nearby homes. I turned the twins to face me. "You two need to stay here. I want you to go down to the gym and volunteer. People need help."
Molly started crying. "NO! You have to stay here!"
"Molly! Molly! I have to go help! You two are safe here. You help out here, so I can help out there."
"Daddy!"
"You have to help!"
I pushed them into the arms of their security guard, a young woman in her late twenties named Amanda Baines. She and Jerry were listed in the entourage as campaign staffers, not security. She hugged the girls and herded them towards the building. "Come on, let's get cleaned up and help out."
As soon as they were out of my hair, I turned to Jerry and said, "Come on, let's go." I ran up to the fireman, and asked, "Where do you need us?"
I don't think he recognized me, and he just pointed at the next street over, which didn't look as badly hit. "Check those places and see if anybody is trapped inside." He turned away from me when somebody yelled that nobody was under one pile of rubble and they moved on to the next. I shrugged at Jerry and we went in the opposite direction. We went over a block and looked around. Looking down the street, it seemed that these houses ranged from just some loose siding and shutters to imminent collapse.
"Maybe we'll get lucky and everybody was at the campaign rally.", I told Jerry. That had been the reason that the destroyed house had been abandoned a moment ago; people knew everybody in the small town of Springboro and the family was at the rally.
"Let's hope so.", he replied.
People were coming out of their homes around us, and staring in amazement. At the house we were in front of, however, nobody was coming out. We wandered around to the back yard and yelled out, "ANYBODY HOME!", as loud as we could.
We were on the verge of leaving when Jerry said, "Did you hear that?"
"What?"
"From over there!" He led the way around the corner and there was some crying from what looked like a basement door, one of those things on a slant with some doors on top. Now I could hear the sounds, but no way were we going down to the basement. Part of the garage had collapsed onto it, and we weren't going in that way without a chainsaw and a crane. "ANYBODY DOWN THERE?"
"SAVE MY CHILDREN!", came out weakly.
I looked at the house and then at Jerry. "Oh, shit!"
"Mister Buckman, this place is going to come down any moment!"
"Then we'd better move quick." The place looked like a fairly traditional center hall colonial two story. I ran back around to the back and scrambled up onto the remains of the back porch. It didn't collapse under my weight, so Jerry joined me and we managed to pry the back door open. Inside it was dark, and everything looked like it had been knocked off every shelf and out of every closet. I ducked my head and slowly went inside, stepping softly.
"Oh, this is a bad idea!", I heard behind me. Then there was a loud creak as Jerry put his weight on the floor.
I turned and said, "Hold it!" I heard some voices ahead of me and to one side. "Wait for me. Give me a moment." I kept moving forward through the kitchen, as the building creaked around me, and got closer to the voices. They were from a door to the cellar, just off the hallway, which looked sprung. I got down on my belly and stuck my head through the opening. "Anybody down there!"
"HELP! WE'RE TRAPPED! YOU HAVE TO GET MY BABIES!"
"Oh, shit!", I muttered to myself. "WE'RE COMING!", I yelled down the stairs. I began tugging on the door, and opened it enough to be able to slide through. I turned back to Jerry. "I'm going down into the basement. You can probably make it over to here."
"I'm coming with you!"
"No way! I'll send the family up. You have to get them outside!" I wriggled my way through the cellar door, and wedged my back against it, pushing it even further open. The door shrieked at the abuse, but I got it to the point somebody could come back up. "I'm going down now!"
There were a couple of windows in the basement, so I had some light. It looked to be about eight foot deep. I was halfway down the stairs when there was a loud crash and I went tumbling into the basement. When I climbed to my feet, the stairs had detached from the wall and collapsed under me. Jerry's head was at the top, at the door. "You all right!?"