This is the first few pages of a short story. The full story will be available upon publication. If you like it, please click here to send an email to duke@dukepennell.com and let him know! The Winds of Change by Duke Pennell Damn it! Something's got to give or the Old Man is going to get us all killed! The wind blasted into us. Wrenching the steering wheel to the right, I fought to keep the Storm Chase van from sliding sideways off the rain-slick blacktop road and into the ditch. Near-constant lightning flashes split the darkness like a strobe light, turning the Texas back country into a weird stop-motion movie. "Jesus, Doctor John!" Susie yelped behind me in a high-pitched squeak. "Jesus!" The van shimmied from side to side, then straightened out. My hands were white-knuckled knots on the wheel. A glance in the mirror showed the other two members of my team, Susie and Bruce, holding onto each other, wide-eyed and pale. "Sorry, guys." My apology was only half-hearted-I was still fighting the wind. "We're going to have to slow down some." "Can we still make it to Wichita Falls for the twister?" Bruce asked. "Don't see how." The van had slowed enough for me to feel safe again, even though gusts still rocked us. "We were pushing awful hard, as it was." "The Old Man's not going to like that," Susie said. The Old Man-Dr. Franklin Smythe, Department Head of the Oklahoma State University Severe Weather Unit. I always get a kick out of his nickname, if not him. I think he sees himself as some kind of World War II squadron leader--a Pappy Boyington--and we're the Black Sheep, ready to give our all for him. At forty-nine, he's six years younger than me, but acts more like a prissy ninety-year-old spinster. Yeah, he's all for exciting work, as long as it's someone else's ass on the line. He sent us driving into the fangs of the storm when he knew the only safe way was for us to be in position before it arrived. We hadn't found a tornado, but trying to drive through the thunderstorm was exciting enough for me, thank you very much. "Bruce, get on the horn to the Dallas office. Might as well find out where the Old Man wants us now. Don't worry, Texas has more storms coming besides that one in Wichita Falls." I pulled over and stopped on the side of the road. If we were lucky, the new long range Doppler radar over in Jack County might have picked up another front forming not too far from us. One we had time to get in front of, instead of slamming into its middle. "This is Storm Chaser calling SWU HQ Dallas. SWU HQ, do you read?" He was all business, now. Always look good for the boss, that was Bruce's motto. Susie slumped into the empty captain's chair next to me. "The Old Man's going to be pissed we didn't get any pictures. He said he might cancel my assistantship if we missed again. What'll I do then?" "Don't worry, kiddo. If he tries to cut you out of the program, I'll threaten to go with you." I grinned at her. "He hasn't got the guts to risk losing both a grad student and a professor. Might make him look bad." She grinned back at me. "I hope you're right." "We've got another one!" Bruce yelled. "Over in Jack County! Just get back on Highway 281 then drop down to Jacksboro. The radar integration program puts the new front developing a few miles northeast of there." I pulled the van into a U-turn and headed for the highway. The rain and wind had let up as the storm passed us, leaving behind a late afternoon gray sky filled with dark clouds. Bruce tried to get Susie to join him in the back, but she wasn't having any. I smiled to myself. Ah, to be young again, with hormones raging full-speed ahead. Not! He pouted for a while, until I told him to set up the satellite download system. "Why do that?" He whined and gave me an exasperated look. "You know we can't get a satellite lock while we're on the road. And it only takes a few minutes when we get stopped. And--" "Look at the way the cloud wall is building. I'm starting to feel as nervous as the only cat at a dog show." I glanced over at Susie. "Would you help him? I want to be ready as soon as we get stopped." "Sure thing." She smiled and climbed into the back of the van. A few minutes later, Susie got back into the right-hand captain's chair and pointed to the west. "What's that dome?" she asked. "That's the new Doppler radar site." I recognized the logo on the side of the concrete block structure. "That's one industrial-strength building!" Bruce said. "I heard the last couple of installations they built were damaged by storms," I said. "I guess they're tired of replacing broken equipment." A few miles farther, I turned off onto a ranch road and stopped. "We're close enough. Let's get online and see what's up." Susie and I piled out. I opened the side door, leaned in and looked over Bruce's shoulder. I could see he was linking in with the National Weather Service satellite. Susie yelled, "Oh, wow, look at that!" She was pointing to the northwest at a funnel cloud. It was a small one, a couple of miles away and moving southeast. "We found one! We found one!" she whooped, jumping up and down, her eyes sparkling. Bruce tumbled out and stared at the tornado. Scanning the western horizon from north to south, I spotted a second twister to the southwest. This one was a little bigger than the first, but it was a good mile-and-a-half away, heading southeast too. A closer look at the wall cloud to the west, bracketed by the two small tornados, made a chill run down my spine. "Holy shit!" I muttered and grabbed Bruce by the arm. "Are we online? "Sure. First thing I did when we got stopped," he huffed. "Get in there and find a line of trees as close to us as possible. We need a creek or stream bed." Bruce snorted. "I thought you wanted to take pictures. What's the deal?" I pointed to the towering darkness to the west. "You see that? That's not a cloud wall, it's a tornado, and it's coming this way. We need shelter and we need it now!" "My God, it's huge! But can't we outrun it?" Susie asked. "Too big. It's a good two miles wide and throwing off baby twisters farther than that. We don't have time to get clear. Get in!" "Got something!" Bruce yelled. "There's a line of trees about half a mile down this road!" I jumped for the driver's seat and started the engine. Susie and Bruce fumbled around for their seat belts but I didn't wait for them, throwing the transmission into drive and flooring the gas pedal. Yelling "Hang on!" I tore down the dirt road.