Tornado Fever Excerpt

Just to whet your appetites, here's an excerpt from the beginning of the soon to be released Tornado Fever...

Call me the kid with a vivid imagination. The midnight flyboy. The dreamer. Luke comes from the Latin word for light. The world in which I traveled in was nothing but dark. It was all quiet when I said goodnight and fell asleep. Then… listen! Winds howl. Storms rage. My ears awaken me as if I’m in the middle of the Glenview Naval Air Base runway. A whole flight of jet engines crank up to full volume… It was the summer of 1949 and I was about to turn ten. My bed and the whole house shook in terror.

I crawled down to the end of my bed and put my trembling hands on the windowsill. I pressed my face against the cool windowpane; turning my eyes into saucers blanched white and etched with blinking images of destruction that crossed my irises left and right as they traveled at the speed of light. Looking out, I couldn’t see the familiar mulberry branches, splayed out in front of me, that hid the beloved view of our green side yard, the grass always ready for games of baseball or croquet. No, I was looking into a different world in a different time and space… Where was I?

First thing I see is cars pushed off roads, trees uprooted or snapped off, windows broken, some trailer houses toppled.

With every passing minute, more damage… roofs torn off, boxcars pushed over, and entire trains derailed… instant carnage. Through lightning flashes, I see rural buildings demolished, whole frame houses demolished, cars lifted off the ground, trees in a nearby forest uprooted, snapped, leveled, or debarked by flying debris. Screams stuck in my throat. Fear paralyzed me. I couldn’t move and I couldn’t yell for help.