The Wedge

The sirens began their cycle at a quarter past midnight, the pitch climbing sharply before dropping into its low, pulsing wail. That modulation was unmistakable, the warning that something dangerous was moving in, and in the dead of night no less.

The room flashed white and muted yellow as lightning struck close by. The thunder followed less than a second later. Then came the pounding, a heavy and repeated thud that sounded like a sledgehammer slamming against the roof. Rain fell in sheets and turned everything beyond the slit in the curtains into a blurred smear of motion.

I glanced at the emergency weather radio and frowned. It hadn’t sounded at all. I climbed out of bed and leaned over to shake my wife. She stirred at the touch but didn’t wake.

“Get the kids,” I said as I hurried into my pants and shirt, the room lighting up again with another flash outside.

She groaned and buried her head in the pillow. I let out an exasperated sigh. “Lucy, the sirens are blaring. Get the kids.”

She mumbled something, but when the whine pitched up again, she sprang from the bed.

“Sirens!” she screeched, already halfway to the door.

I rolled my eyes and walked into the hall. I flipped the switch, but nothing happened, and I frowned. The power must have been out across town.

“Grab the flashlights in the drawer,” I said to her.

She turned back, pulled open the nightstand drawer, took one out, switched it on, and passed me the other.

“Grab Lucinda, and Mark, take’m to the shelter. Jonathan and I will check the barn.”

Within minutes, our flashlights cast thin silhouettes of light across the rooms as we moved through the house. It was an old home from the turn of the century, settled on hundreds of acres of farmland in Kansas, a mile north of Great Bend.

The wind worked in our favor tonight, and the sirens carried louder than they ever did on calm days.

Night storms, especially tornadic ones, were the worst. In the dark, you couldn’t see anything unless lightning gave you a split-second glimpse of what was coming. The signs were there, of course: the sudden, eerie stillness; the pressure drop; that distant freight-train roar that meant the storm was already far too close for comfort.

I threw on my jacket and hat and hauled ass across the open terrain with my son, Jonathan, heading for the barn to open the doors. We had to make sure the cows and horses got out. After the storm, we would round up them up.

“Any idea how far out?” Jonathan asked. He lifted his hand to shield his face as a sudden burst of wind hit us. The gust flung loose gravel and dirt, and the rain swept sideways. It was a bad one.

I glanced at him, then looked past him as my wife carried the two youngest toward the shelter near the house. My great-grandfather dug it back in the twenties, and my father updated it more recently with steel doors and proper locks. The old wooden door we had in the nineties nearly tore clean off during a close encounter with an F2 that crossed nearby.

“I have no idea,” I said as I turned back toward the barn. “The radio didn’t go off, and I have no service.”

As we neared the barn, I heard the horses stirring inside, their neighs cutting through the slits in the old wood. I frowned. The onslaught had them wound tight.

Lightning webbed across the sky in long, branching tendrils that lit the world for a single heartbeat. In that stark flash, I saw it and slowed my pace. The storm had shaped a monstrosity so wide it fused sky and earth into a single churning wall. I couldn’t see a beginning or an end—just miles of black, rolling toward us. I knew only that it stretched for miles, and the sight of it sent a cold wash of dread through me.

“Get to the shelter,” I shouted as I turned to look at Jonathan.

“But the animals…” He trailed off the moment he saw it.

“To the shelter. Now,” I repeated, pointing toward the open doors. “It’s a big one, and we don’t have time. Move.”

Jonathan stepped back once, then again. He stumbled, caught himself, and ran for the shelter.

I could feel how close it was. That bone-deep instinct every farmer develops, the one that says run now or die. I ignored it and pulled open the small side door and checked inside with the lantern in my hand.

I couldn't tell if the gates to the pens were open or closed. I moved to the main door and through off the beam and pulled the doors open. I looked back once more and let out a frustrated sigh and hurried down the rows and pulled at every lock. With each one, the animals hurried out. instinct would guide them to safety.

I then turned and made for the entrance. The moment I stepped outside, the scene shifted. The rain quit. The wind vanished. The world went unnaturally still, the kind of still that warns you something enormous is coming. A cold shiver crawled down my spine.

I threw the lantern aside and trusted the lightning to guide me as I sprinted across the field. The shelter sat a hundred yards away, and every step felt slower than the one before.

Jonathan stood in the doorway, shouting for me. One hand held the door; the other pointed at the sky. His face told me everything I needed to know.

I glanced up and froze for half a heartbeat. The Wedge was bearing down on the ranch. I was only halfway to the shelter. I ran harder.

The world behind me exploded. As the Wedge closed on the barn, it tore apart; shards of wood, metal, and shingle tore through the air like thrown knives. Something slammed into my legs, and I went down hard. The ground knocked the breath out of me. I was five yards from the door and watched the field twist sideways as the wind pulled at everything around me.

Get up. Move.

I forced myself to my feet and stumbled forward. The pull of the wind dragged at my clothes and tried to take my footing. Jonathan reached me, grabbed my arm, and hauled me through the opening.

We fought the doors with everything we had. The pressure outside sucked at the steel, tugging the entrance outward like it meant to peel the shelter open. My fingers slipped on the steel. Jonathan shouted something I could not hear. The roar outside drowned every sound.

We heaved. The doors gave an inch, then another. At the last possible moment they slammed shut, and we threw the locking mechanism into place as the tornado struck the shelter. The concrete shook as if it would crack apart, and the freight-train roar filled every inch of the room.

For a long moment, I did not breathe. We were alive only because we had made it by seconds.

Daylight finally came, and I pushed the shelter doors open. The barn was gone. Half the house had been torn away, and the oak tree that had stood for generations lay on its side, roots exposed to the morning light. Debris covered everything.

The old Ford F100 had vanished without a trace.

My wife leaned into me, and the full weight of the night settled on my chest—everything lost, but not everything gone.

At least we survived.