Chapter 70 tornado

The air was very humid and eerily quiet throughout the afternoon, with temperatures hovering in the mid-nineties.The older generation wiped the sweat from their brows, knowing that their troubles were coming. When it was dark, there was thunder and heavy rain, and a tornado came. One tornado tore away a car, killing five people; another destroyed homes in a railroad town between St. Louis and San Francisco; and a third toppled a moving sedan and fatally injured its owner. internal injury. At nine o'clock in the evening, a tall dark-haired woman walked from the kitchen into the living room of a remote farmhouse.She seemed to hear the sound of a car in the front yard, but she thought it might be her hallucination.A person in his right mind would not go out in such weather.

Someone kicked open the front door and rushed in. It was two men with guns. The taller and older of the two pointed a gun at the young woman's waist and shouted, "Don't move! Is there anyone else in the room?" She shook her head and said nothing. "Okay, you can sit down now, but slowly, with your hands at your sides." She sat down slowly. The only light in the room was a kerosene lamp.The electricity had already stopped.Music played from the transistor radio in the kitchen. The two men who broke in were hatless, with crew cuts and sodden blue denim uniforms.

"Close the door, Johnny," ordered the older one. "Then go and see if there is anyone else here, she might be lying." Johnny was a young man of twenty, short and very thin.He hesitated for a moment, staring at the young woman in front of him.She was average-looking but very well built, looking very muscular in her crop top and stylish shorts.Jonny slammed the door, propped it against a table, and began searching the house. The other man came up behind the woman, broad shoulders, flat stomach, strained eyes with dark halos around them, probably somewhere between thirty-five and fifty.

He put the gun against the woman's head and asked, "What's your name?" "Karen," she said, trying to calm her voice, instinctively telling her that any sign of panic would be bad for her. "Who lives here with you?" "I don't live here, it's where my parents live. They're out, though. I'm a teacher... I live in town. I'm here to clean up their house and I'm caught in a storm." "We lost our way. We were on the B highway toward the interstate and came across a flooded gap and had to turn onto the side road and ended up here. Where does this lead?"

"Here is also on Highway B, but it takes a few more minutes to walk from here." "Is there no bridge in between?" "No, there will be no more gaps in the flood." "Driving here, we're going up a hill. What's on the other side? Another farm?" "There is no home within three miles." "If you listen to the radio, you know who we are, and we're big news except for tornadoes." "Yes," she said, "I know. I don't remember your name—" "Garlock," he said easily. "You and your friends escaped yesterday, and half the police in the country are chasing you."

She is too lazy to say much.Garlock was in prison for murder, Jonny for rape. Since breaking out, they've shot a driver, stolen his car, and killed a witness at a roadside diner.The news called them "bloodthirsty murderers." Jonny came back to report, "No one else but I found this." He holds a faded photograph of Karen, a rather unattractive teenager, standing with a middle-aged couple.The man in the photo is wearing a police uniform. "Your dad is a cop?" Garlock asked. "Yes," she admitted. "But he is no longer a policeman. He was injured while chasing an overtaker and retired later."

"Where are your parents now?" "There's a little fair in Texas and they won't be back until next week." "What city?" "The little bazaar," she repeated, "is a place where anyone can go and buy and sell anything. My father's pension is barely enough, and they subsidize the family by buying and selling antiques, and you see..." Garlock surveyed the room carefully. Here, she was right, the drawing room and dining room looked less like a farmhouse than an antique shop.There were pictures in Victorian frames on the walls, china and glass on the shelves and in the china cabinet, and old tables and chairs piled on the floor.

"You're very calm," Garlock said. "I admire women who are sensible and don't bark like the one this morning. We had to shut her up..." He wasn't complimenting her, he was probing her . "There's no need to scream," Karen said as calmly as possible, "it's just the two of you." "Smart, do you have a basement here to hide in if the storm gets bigger?" "The door is on the kitchen floor." Johnny went into the kitchen, opened the basement door, looked at it with the kerosene lamp, and exclaimed, "It's not a luxury hotel in there, but you can get by if you have to."

"Is there a gun in the house?" Garrett continued. "If the old man used to be a policeman, he must have a gun." "Two shotguns, a shotgun, and two revolvers," she answered without hesitation, "are locked in a box upstairs. My father has the key. You can break it open if you want." .” "We'll take it with us when we leave." "You're so smart," Karen said, "to get out of the car and find a shelter. If there's a tornado coming, it's the most dangerous place in a car." She said this to make Gallo think about guns especially, because there was one she didn't mention, an old double-barreled shotgun, that hung on the dining-room mantelpiece.

From the looks of it, it was a useless antique, used for nothing but decoration. It hung so high that a chair had to be used to get it off. However, although it is an antique, it is not useless.Although it is old, it is loaded and performs well.His father once said the old gun was a life saver and he hoped never to use it.But a man who had been a policeman and now lives in the remote country, those who hold a grudge against him may come to revenge.So, use this gun just in case. However, the shotgun was of no use to Karen now.In this case, it is impossible to climb up to get the gun.Garlock took the gun off her head and stuck it in her waist.

"Okay," he said slowly, "we haven't eaten from morning to night, and I've never eaten from a policeman's daughter before. You come into the kitchen and make us something, hurry up." While she prepared a quick meal, two men watched her every move over a beer, and while they ate, they made her sit across from the table—the shotgun was on the wall behind them. After they ate and Karen cleared the table and brought out some beer, the radio announcer reported that more tornadoes were coming. "I suppose," Karen said, sitting back in her chair, "neither of you have ever seen a tornado, have you?" "No, I haven't," Garlock said, "and I don't want to." Johnny asked, "Have you seen it?" "I've seen it." "how is it like?" She recalled the terrifying afternoon many years ago: "It was a dark, spinning hell, and I heard that the tornado was going as fast as a bullet, and it would drive a piece of wood into your skull, and a piece of glass. If you Go near a window and you'll be cut into strips." Jonny glanced uneasily at the large dining-room window: "It's dangerous to sit here, then. We should go to the basement, as the radio said. " "It's kind of dangerous," Karen admitted, "if the tornado came right here from the sky, we'd all be screwed. But if it's coming from the ground toward you, you'll probably know it, and there will be a warning. Even at night, you can't see the tornado, but you can hear it." "I've read about tornadoes," Jonny told her, "and they're loud." "Yes, it's like the sound of a train. When I heard the sound that time, it was in the open countryside. I looked up and saw a tornado coming towards me. There was a ditch nearby. I got an idea and got into the gutter. Still, it's a miracle I survived. Do you know what a tornado can do to a person? It lifts a person high up into the air, and by the time they come down, they're bad. Sometimes—" "Enough," Garlock said grumpily, apparently talking about tornadoes made him uneasy. "I've heard enough." He looked around the room again, more slowly and thoroughly this time.His eyes lingered for a moment on the old shotgun. "Is there any money here?" he asked. "I only have a few dollars in my purse, and my father never leaves money at home when he goes out." "Oh," Garlock said to Johnny, "go get it and search for any hidden money." Johnny took Karen's wallet and pulled out a few dollars. He said disgustedly, "Four, three, five cents." He stuffed the money into his pocket and began to search the house carefully.He threw down the shelves, pulled out all the drawers, and dumped their contents on the floor.It's part search, part destruction.She covered her mouth to keep herself from shouting as he destroyed her parents' painstaking collection of china, glass and other art.After Johnny searched the things downstairs, he went upstairs again.They could hear him walking around and throwing things. Garlock sang beer while spying on Karen with a humorless smile.The traces of alcohol in the beer seemed to affect his mood.Apparently, she was dealing with a psychopath who could go berserk at any moment. Johnny came down with only a few coins. "I told you," Karen said patiently, "my father didn't keep any money at home." "Yeah," Garlock said, looking at her strangely. "It's too bad. We could be friendlier if he kept the money. We need the money to go abroad." "Really sorry." "You only know regret now, but you will truly regret it before we kill you." He was tormenting her with words before he actually did it, and she had to stall for as long as possible. "Why do you want to hurt me?" she said as calmly as possible. "I haven't had any trouble with you. I have always done what you tell me." "Perhaps because you're the policeman's daughter. We've always hated policemen, and people associated with them. We don't really like teachers much, either. Do you, Johnny?" Jonny grinned stupidly at her. "You can't live anyway," Garlock continued. "The police think we are two hundred miles away. If you live, you will report it to the police immediately." "You can lock me in the basement and you'll have time to escape." "No, no risk," Garlock said after a moment's thought, "Okay, we'll lock you up in the basement, but we'll make it impossible for you to climb out. Some people will wonder why they haven't seen you lately, wait until they come in By then, it may be too late.” Although she was terrified inside, she tried to smile and said, "You're frightening me, ah, I'm frightened by you. Who wouldn't be frightened? But you know you don't have to kill me, Garlock, If you don't want to keep me, you can take me with you. I won't do it lightly. I will—" She paused—"Wait, did you hear that?" Garlock stood up: "Hear what?" "Shut up," Johnny interrupted, and the smile faded from his face. "I think I heard that too." Then they all heard it clearly, far away but approaching. It was the sound of an approaching train... Karen stood up and said, "I don't know about you guys, but I'm going into that basement while there's still time!" She took a step forward, but Jonny rushed out ahead of her.Garlock hesitated for a moment. The noise outside was getting louder, so he followed closely behind Johnny. As they sprang toward the kitchen floor door, Karen climbed onto a chair, took the shotgun from the shelf, stepped down, and leaned against the wall, holding the shotgun aloft and aiming it over her shoulder. When Garlock looked up and reached for his gun, she pulled the trigger, and then another shot. At dawn, Karen stood impassive at the living room window, watching Garlock's body be loaded into the ambulance.He was killed on the spot.Johnny was badly injured, but could not die. A policeman stood beside Karen and said: "I understand how you feel, killing people, no matter how just, is always terrible. But, you have no choice. If you don't kill them. For sure, they will kill you. " "I know, that's my only option." "At the end of the day, either you were very lucky or they were careless and let you get the gun." "Oh, that," she smiled faintly. "At that time, they were going into the basement to avoid the tornado. I told them that the tornado sounded like a fast-moving train." Her gaze fell to the side of the mountain. Side, which is the main railroad line between St. Louis and San Francisco. "So, when the train was passing at high speed at one o'clock before ten o'clock, as usual, I lied to them and said that a tornado was coming."