| OCR Text |
Show Twisters . . . 51 minutes running. Remember those dreams where you're frantically trying to get away from someone and you can't move? In mine, it's always these great hulking linebackers in black jumpsuits who tackle me at the same time. They won't let go of my legs, so I have to keep dragging them along, I'm yelling and screaming the whole time, but nobody ever comes to save me. Finally I wake up in a sweat just as they're ready to bash my brains out. That night-rain-soaked, shaken by thunder which rolled across the sky like kettle drums-I kept telling myself this was only another nightmare. Pretty soon I'd wake up and laugh because none of it was true. But I knew I was feeding myself a lie. The truth was just too terrible, that's all. Everything on Sand Crane Drive was destroyed, and getting to Smiley's place fast was exactly like trying to escape in a bad dream. A l l structures-houses, garages, fences, telephone poles-had been leveled, the debris scattered helter skelter. The only buildings still standing were a line of apartments several blocks away which we could see when lightning flashed. The trees on Sand Crane were straight out of a nightmare, too. They looked as if some giant with a big, meaty hand had stripped the main branches and snapped off the rest. A few of the big ones had toppled clean over. Their shaggy root systems silhouetted against that electric sky looked like a landscape from a monster movie. There was no sign of Mom anywhere. Or her silver Chevy Citation. Cars and trucks had been tossed about like toys up and down Sand Crane, but hers wasn't one of them. We went a long time without stopping at first-stumbling, ducking |
