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The shampoo lathered up in my hair, forming a helmet on my head when I added another pump after rinsing the first time. “He’s ready with that overtime. Don’t you dare me to draw the line!” I sang, not entirely sure I had the words right. “I—I….can go for that!”
I stopped when I thought I heard the sound of my phone ringing or something. But when I didn’t hear it again, I went back to rocking my hips as I massaged the shampoo in again. “No can do!”
I mumbled along with the song, skipping over the parts that I really didn’t know, which was most of the song. Shampoo dripped down my face, right into my eyes, stinging like a bitch. “Shit!” I spun, slipping on the tub floor and falling into the shower curtain, pulling it from the hooks as I fell to the ground.
With a scream, I landed on my side, slamming my elbow into the floor. More shampoo slid into my eyes, nearly blinding me in my attempt to rub it away with my suds-covered fingers. Water spray fromthe shower sprinkled on me, making a mess of the floor. Crawling over to the faucet, I shut off the water and that’s when I heard it.
My head jerked up like a meerkat as I listened to the wail coming from outside. Grabbing the cloth part of my shower curtain, I pulled it around me as I ran to the window and wiped the fog from the pane, staring in horror at the tornado ripping through the houses on my road.
With wide eyes, I jerked the bathroom door open, screaming at the top of my lungs as I ran for the stairs. “Lee! Tornado!” I hit the top step and then my feet slid from under me, sending me toppling down the stairs, feet over head as my shower curtain wrapped around me. I landed with a thud at the bottom of the stairs, thankfully with little damage besides my bruised ego.
Lee appeared at the top of the stairs, looking down at me with her usual blank expression. “You know, that’s not a good look on you.”
I jumped to my feet, pulling the shower curtain tighter. “There’s a tornado outside!”
“Oh good,” she answered blankly, descending the stairs. “Another opportunity for Mother Nature to snatch our lives with little regard to anyone around us. It’s a shame it won’t succeed in ending our pitiful existence.”
I ignored her and ran for the basement, yanking open the door just as something crashed through the window. Screaming, I ran down the wooden steps, ignoring the crap that could possibly kill us in the basement. Before we rented the house from Edith, husband number three moved in all his tools. They were still down here, scattered around the basement, presenting more of a hazard to us than providing any shelter.
I crawled under the pool table that was covered in cobwebs and tucked myself in as tight as possible. A Daddy Long Legs scurried into the corner, getting as far away from me, tucking himself into the pocket. If I wasn’t so terrified about the storm raging outside, I might indulge my fear of spiders just a tad more.
Casually, Lee strolled over, ducking under the table with me. “I don’t know why we’re bothering to hide,” she sighed, crossing herankles. Her combat boots were untied, showing off the knife she had tucked into her boot at all times. “This is so typical.”
“What’s so typical?” I asked, blowing the shampoo suds out of my face as they creeped down my cheek.
“This! I thought for sure I’d go in a much cooler way than death by tornado. You know, when you make it in the paper for dying from a tornado, nobody cares. I need something gruesome, a good murder that will make me go down in history as one of the victims of the most deadly serial killers of all time.”
“I’m surprised you don’t think you’d be the serial killer,” I muttered under my breath.
The glass on the windows shattered, eliciting the girliest scream I could muster. A branch crashed through, landing just a foot from my face, shoving the table across the room in the process. With nothing more to protect my head, I was left to huddle under the branch that was now the only thing protecting me from certain death.
It sounded like a freight train was right over me. My heart beat wildly in my chest as the house shook around us. I could feel the bones of it shaking, knowing this was the end.
“I’m going to die in a shower curtain!” I screamed, covering my ears as the house started to crumble.
“At least you have a good body,” Lee stated, still sitting in the same spot, completely unaffected by anything happening around us.
The first crack had me straightening, listening for anything that followed. But it was the second crack that had me slowly looking up at the ceiling above us. Dust floated from the ceiling as the house started to give.
Lee grabbed my arm and dragged me across the room to the pool table just as the house broke apart, sending the first floor into the basement. The noise was deafening, drowning out my screams as my couch collapsed right where I was just sitting, followed by the TV landing just on top of it.
Slowly, the deafening roar quieted until I could only hear the sound of my own gasping breaths as I continued to hold my hands over my ears. “Is it over?”
“You don’t have to yell at me,” Lee said, yanking my hand from myear. “Gross. What’s on your hand?” She shook it out, then wiped it on my shower curtain in disgust.
“It’s shampoo. In case you didn’t notice, I was in the shower when the tornado hit.”
She snorted in amusement, one of the few times I’d seen something other than morose discontent on her face. “Well, this should be interesting. Should we head upstairs?”
“Do you think it’s safe?” I peeked out from under the pool table, looking at the gigantic hole in my ceiling.
“Laura, a tornado came through and put a tree through the house. If we’re lucky, the house will collapse on top of us, thus sending us catapulting into infamy throughout the town as the girls who died tragically in the basement, crushed beneath the structure of corporate America.”
Frowning, I shook my head. “What does corporate America have to do with our house collapsing?”
She sighed heavily. “If I have to explain it to you…” She climbed out from under the table, making her way through the rubble scattered around the basement.
I wasn’t as bold as her, sure that the house would fall on top of me the moment I left the cocoon under the table. But she was right. If the house collapsed the rest of the way, being at the bottom of the heap didn’t seem like the best place to be.