Don't Get It Twisted, page 6
“When do you have to be back in Boston?” Haley asked abruptly.
“I have a redeye back Tuesday night.”
“Wanna go to Nebraska?”
“Right now?”
“Well, Kansas tonight, Nebraska tomorrow. The SPC—the Storm Prediction Center—just released a new outlook and tomorrow could produce some monster tornadoes up there.”
“Let’s do it,” Claire said without considering that she hadn’t packed an overnight bag and that most of her belongings were back in her already-paid-for hotel room in Tulsa. None of that mattered if she got to spend another day with Haley. For the story, of course. Her curiosity was strictly professional.
***
Claire lay in a new unfamiliar motel room in a different middle of nowhere listening to thunder rumble outside. It was hard not to imagine the powerful twister she’d seen earlier, and she wondered if the sirens in Topeka would sound loud enough for her to hear all the way on the outskirts of town if another funnel descended from the sky. She checked her phone for a third time, making sure the volume was up in case any alerts came through.
The faint sound of voices and canned sitcom laughter traveled through the paper thin walls. Haley was still awake in the room next door, or maybe she had fallen asleep with the TV on. She’d been quiet on the drive into Kansas, declining to answer questions with the excuse that she needed to rest her voice for the stream tomorrow. Fortunately, she had been easily persuaded to stop at a Walmart so Claire could assemble a hasty new wardrobe and a few other essentials.
Claire was starting to realize Carl and Whitney couldn’t have been more wrong about Haley. She wasn’t some vapid influencer trying to make a quick buck off of other people’s suffering. She was just a woman passionate about the weather and compassionate for the people it impacted. Claire got the impression that even if there was no money involved, Haley would still be out chasing storms and gathering footage because Haley Hunter was a scientist, even if she couldn’t officially claim the title of meteorologist, and she was doing what she loved.
Which reminded Claire, she needed to follow up on Haley’s sudden career pivot before she went back to Boston. She felt like she had finally seen glimpses of the true Haley Hunter, but there was still too much that was left unsaid.
She pulled out her phone and typed Haley’s name into the search engine, skipping past the first pages of results full of direct links to her archived streams. A little deeper, she found a brief mention of Haley with some of her footage on a news channel’s page, forums praising her ability to sniff out tornadoes, and then finally, on the sixteenth page of search results, Claire found something that felt like she had pried too far.
Chapter Eight
Haley lay on the floor of the motel room, trying to focus on her yoga practice and not how weird the rough carpet smelled and how the forecast was shaping up for the day and especially not the confusing thoughts racing through her mind about the inquisitive journalist from Boston.
“It’s just because you spend too much time around guys,” she mumbled to herself, rolling to her stomach and pushing up into a plank. Besides, she knew Claire only seemed interested because she was paid to, not because she actually cared about getting to know Haley. But it still felt nice to connect with someone new beyond just posing for photos and signing bar napkins.
Raising her hips, she sank into downward facing dog, feeling the tightness in her legs loosen. Her lower back was stiff from so many hours of driving and she should have stretched better the night before, but she’d been physically and emotionally exhausted. Having Claire along meant she had to be twice as careful in both her words and her actions.
The gravity of what she’d agreed to with the interview weighed on her as she stepped to the top of her imaginary mat and she hung in forward fold for a moment, trying to clear her thoughts. It felt like it wasn’t just her reputation on the line, but that of the whole storm chaser community. It was a lot of pressure, and she still wasn’t fully convinced Claire was on her side. Especially after she had admitted that the first guy’s intention was to smear Haley. Fucking asshole.
Pounding sounded at her door. “Move it, sleepyhead, we’re going to get stuck in the traffic jam.”
“I’m up,” she called back, finally rising to her feet. “Give me two minutes.”
Haley scanned the motel room to make sure she wasn’t leaving anything behind, then stepped outside where Claire and Noah were already waiting. Was it just Haley’s imagination, or was Claire giving her a funny look? Or maybe she had done her hair differently, with her bangs pushed out of her eyes. Whatever it was, once Haley locked eyes with her, it was becoming increasingly hard to look away. If Claire only knew how entrancing it was when she bit her lower lip, she could weaponize it until Haley had no secrets left to hide, because in the morning sunrise with dew evaporating into humidity around them in the sketchy motel parking lot, Haley was ready to bare her soul. Get your shit together, Haley, she scolded herself, shocked at the unfamiliar audacity of her own thoughts. You have a job to do.
“Have you heard from the twins yet?” She turned to Noah, breaking the spell.
“They drove all the way to Lincoln last night.”
“Then we’ve got some catching up to do.” Haley unlocked her car, and she and Claire climbed in. Noah hopped in his truck next to them, and, with a final wave, peeled out of the parking lot in a cloud of dust and screeching tires. Haley rolled her eyes at Claire. “Some guys make me think driving like an asshole is a requirement for owning a truck.” Checking behind her, she reversed carefully. “But anyways, you’ve got three hours to Lincoln, so I’ll let you get to it.”
“Haley, last night I…” Claire looked troubled again as she trailed off. “Do you want me to grab you a Red Bull?”
“In a bit.” Haley wasn’t going to let her change the subject that easily. She was about to say something, and Haley wanted to know what.
“I’m starting to understand why people love this so much,” Claire said.
Haley knew that wasn’t what she was originally going to ask, but she could play along. “Why’s that?”
“Well correct me if I’m wrong, but you get to see a lot of the country, you have the freedom to go wherever you want, meet all sorts of different people in towns most people have never heard of. There’s the thrill of seeing the storms and sharing that with everyone who watches your stream.”
“It does have its plus sides.”
“And the downsides?”
“It’s risky. People die. In storms, in car accidents... And there are too many people doing it. Just look.” Haley pointed out the window. “That guy with the big antenna? Probably a chaser.” They passed a few more cars before Haley spotted another one. “Social media stickers on the car? Storm chaser.” She pointed out three or four more. “Everyone is heading to Lincoln, and we’re still hours out.”
“So there’s a lot of competition?”
“Not even that, it just adds to the danger. Roads get crowded and it can be hard to escape a tornado that acts unpredictably. People take cars out into conditions they or the cars can’t handle and get stuck, sometimes pulling emergency resources away from tornado victims. Almost everyone agrees it’s a problem.”
“And what do you think the solution is?” Claire was scribbling furiously in her little notebook.
“I don’t know if there is one. You could require some sort of storm chaser license or certification, but everyone has a car and a camera these days. How can you prove someone is storm chasing and not just in the right place at the right time to get a good video on their phone?”
“Sorry,” Claire said, “I have to ask so please don’t take this the wrong way. Do you consider yourself part of the problem?”
“I’m not offended,” Haley assured her. “No one wants to think of themselves as part of the problem, but I probably am. Personally, I try to take my responsibility seriously and model good chaser behavior on my stream. I don’t speed or take unnecessary risks. I don’t park anywhere that might be blocking someone’s escape path. If there are too many chasers on a storm, I’ll leave it. I’m not a thrillseeker, just a nerd. People either love me or hate me for it.”
“I don’t see how anyone could hate you,” Claire said, then clapped her hand over her mouth like she regretted it.
“Even after my horrible first impression?” Haley laughed, but she felt her cheeks warm with the compliment. “Thanks. But anyone who puts any part of their life online eventually gets hate.”
“Oh, I know,” Claire laughed grimly. “There’s a guy who comments on every article I write that I should have my journalism degree taken away because I know nothing about anything.”
“Sounds like he’s projecting,” Haley said. “You seem pretty good at your job to me.”
Claire smiled, her cheeks turning the same shade of pink as Haley’s. That static crackle was in the air again, that electricity that Haley couldn’t solely blame on the weather.
“Jesus, you weren’t kidding about the number of storm chasers out here,” Claire said, looking away to stare out the window in awe. “How come it wasn’t like this yesterday?”
Traffic had slowed to a crawl west of Lincoln, and cars were already lining the sides of the road. Storm chasers stood on the shoulder, assembling their tripods and aiming camera lenses at the looming mesocyclone on the horizon.
“Yesterday there were more discrete cells,” Haley answered. “Everything was spread out and no one knew which ones were going to hit. Today, there’s basically one shot.” She gripped the wheel tightly, trying not to lose her cool in front of Claire as another chaser slammed on his brakes in front of her with no warning. “Motherfucker,” she muttered quietly. She needed to start her stream, but she didn’t want to do it in a gridlock.
Finally the traffic began to thin out as more and more chasers pulled off to the side to set up their equipment. Haley kept driving another mile down the road, then turned her camera on.
“Hi everybody, welcome to today’s chase,” she said, the words she had spoken a hundred times before flowing smoothly without her even having to think about them. “We had a bit of a late start today due to some traffic, but we’re right in position on this mesocyclone forming about twenty miles due west of Lincoln, Nebraska. There’s some strong vertical wind shear going on here, so if I’m not mistaken, we should start seeing some rotation on the radar here shortly.” Haley turned down a dirt road, the wheels of the Subaru crunching through gravel as a cloud of dust rose up behind them.
Claire was leaning forward next to her, eyes wide as she took in the monstrous storm. “It’s blue,” she whispered in awe. “I’ve never seen a color like that before except in the ocean.”
“That’s hail,” Haley said, then explained further for the eighteen thousand people that were watching. “The blue-green color you see up in the clouds is caused by light reflecting off of ice in the clouds. There are probably some golf-ball or larger sized hail stones up there, but we’re going to try to keep our windows intact, today.” A blown out windshield was not exactly the storm chasing experience Haley wanted to show Claire.
Haley found another crossroad running parallel to the one she’d been on before, so she turned down it. There was one car behind her, a towering truck that she recognized. She muted her microphone and turned to Claire. “Hey, pull up Noah’s stream on your phone if you have enough service. Search NoahWX.” She unmuted. “Hey chat? Everyone do me a favor and go tell Noah to sing the Tornado Song while we wait for this to start rotating.”
Claire pulled up the stream and held out her phone so Haley could see it. His chat lit up with messages almost instantly.
“What the fuck?” Noah’s confused voice came through the phone speaker. “Tornado Song? I don’t even know what that is… Oh, Haley told you to? Go tell Haley she’s not funny.”
Haley’s own chat started scrolling with messages as she dissolved into giggles.
He said you’re not funny
Lololol
You’re not funny Haley
Noah says you’re not funny
My favorite internet couple
Lmao too cute
She glanced in her rearview mirror and could see him laughing. She muted the mic again. “Payback for him raiding my stream last night.”
“So your chat just does… whatever you tell them to?”
“Uh-uh,” Haley said, wagging a finger. “No interview questions while I’m streaming.” Claire looked mortified, so Haley quickly added, “It’s cool, I was muted. And yes, I probably have too much sway over them. But don’t let them hear you say that.”
Claire almost jumped out of her seat as the tornado warning sounded, her sudden movement startling Haley as well, even though she was used to the piercing alert. The storm was a classic supercell; a beautiful monster much larger than the cells they’d chased the day before. It blocked out the horizon and towered high into the atmosphere with angry, roiling clouds spilling over the top. Haley glanced at the radar and her gut clenched.
“I have a bad feeling about this one,” she said grimly to her chat. “This type of storm can easily produce violent, long-track tornadoes. If you’re in the warned area, you need to be getting to your safe places. This is starting to look like it could drop just outside of Biltford. If you’re in Biltford, you need to be underground or in the most interior room of a structure.”
Haley checked her GPS, assessing her escape routes, then determined it was safe enough to creep towards the lowering storm. “We should be in a good position here, tornadoes in North America usually track north-east, so we can follow it for a while.” And if it did turn, she had a paved road out, somewhat of a rarity in rural America. The big pack of chasers was more than a mile south, so the risk of getting Claire caught in a dangerous situation was low. The rotating bowl in the clouds dropped further. “And it’s down,” she said, goosebumps rising on her forearms as the rotating clouds condensed into a funnel.
Wow
Tornado Whisperer!!!
Haley is the GOAT, you can barely see it on Trent’s stream
That thing looks nasty
Incredible view
“Strong tornado on the ground,” Haley emphasized, fear for the people in the path of the monster gnawing at her stomach. She fought to keep her voice calm and steady. “A mile outside town. Biltford, Nebraska, get to shelter. Now.”
The funnel was intensifying as it ripped through rows of young corn, flinging mud and stalks into the air. It chewed through a line of trees and widened as branches thudded onto the road a few hundred yards ahead of their car. Haley glanced in her rearview mirror just in time to see Noah pull off on a crossroad to the left, chasing the storm from a different angle. She and Claire were on their own.
Haley wove expertly through the thickening debris that cluttered the road, her heart racing. Claire gasped as the tornado ripped the roof off a silo, hurling tin panels through the air that clattered to the ground fifty yards away.
“Strong rear flank downdraft,” Haley narrated when the car was rocked by a gust of wind. She slowed down a little as the tornado continued to widen and blend in with the dark wall of rain. The last thing she wanted to do was drive into it. “Shit,” she swore, a rarity for her on stream. She knew she had young viewers watching. “This is a massive storm, and it’s going to be rain-wrapped in a second.”
Trying to get a better angle would be too dangerous, especially with Claire in the car, requiring an almost impossible maneuver that would take them perilously close to the invisible monster. She was going to have to let it go, and focus on warning the town that lay right in its angry path. Driving past the first debris slowly, she started to narrate the damage. “The silo took a direct hit, but the farmhouse looks alright. A few shingles missing from the roof. Boy, did those people get lucky. Let’s hope it’s the same for the rest of Biltford.” The tornado had fully disappeared ahead of them, a colossus cloaked in rain that crept across the cornfields. “This is a very dangerous situation. If you’re in Biltford, take cover now. You will not see this thing coming.”
Haley pulled off the road next to a farm road blocked by a rusted metal gate that clanked ominously in the wind, angling her car for a quick exit. It seemed like the storm was behaving like it should, but she could never be too careful. Opening her stream controls, she shrunk the view of the storm to the inset window and enlarged the radar to full screen. It had become the best and safest way for all of them to continue watching the tornado together.
“Textbook hook echo on this cell,” she explained, circling the southern protruding arm of the storm. “The tornado is in here.” She switched the view to the velocity radar. “You can see there’s strong rotation on the velocity scan. The green pixels are where the wind is coming toward the radar, and the red is where it is moving away. Take cover, Biltford, this is over Watkin’s Cemetery right outside town and moving up Prairie Lane. There is a large, damaging tornado moving directly towards you. Please get to shelter now,” she pleaded, hoping anyone in the path was listening. She clicked to view the reflectivity right as the newest scan came in and felt her blood run cold.
Chapter Nine
Claire saw the blood drain from Haley’s face as a new screen loaded. During the chase the day before, Haley had been jubilant, almost glowing, but watching the new tornado develop, her expression had become grim. Haley’s simple explanations helped Claire understand what the weather was doing, but her body language and tone revealed the full gravity of the situation. Claire felt helpless—torn between wanting to panic for the small rural town in the path of destruction and wanting to reach out to comfort Haley, who was obviously distressed at what was unfolding. Neither was the right option, so she did nothing except stare into the screen she didn’t know how to read and hope that everything turned out alright.
“Big debris ball on reflectivity,” Haley said. Her voice was still steady, but Claire could hear the desperation creeping in. Haley zoomed in on the map. “This just crossed the cemetery. If you’re in Biltford near Prairie Lane and the Maple View apartment complex, take shelter. Chat, please, if you know anyone in Biltford, call them, warn them, let them know. This is a large, damaging tornado on the ground and moving through town.”
