The Seventh Survivor

My car turns down these roads as if it remembers them better than I. It has been two decades, yet I know every curve, every tree, that one leaning telephone pole, the old farmers pond where the cows take a sip in the hot Oklahoma summers. Time has forgotten to continue here, at least along these dusty roads.

I arrived at a place that time had not stopped for. The building looked so new, so fresh to me. Yet, I researched this place and learned that it was built fifteen years ago. The church has a nice steeple, pretty stained glass windows, and a cozy little playground out beside it.

My tires rumble and crunch across the gravel. The parking lot is almost empty, save those two cars in the back. I step out and am instantly brought back to my childhood by the scent of dried grass and dust. A glistening sweat beads up on my face as I squint in the afternoon sunlight. I haven’t lived in this kind of heat for a long time, but it’s still a comfort to feel it again.

They locked the church up tight today, but that’s to be expected in the middle of the week. I stroll around the outside of the building, admiring the new structure. Finally, I settle down on a swing seat, pinching my sides with the hot chains. I dangle there for a moment, removing myself back twenty years.

“Hey, you. What are you do’n here?” A sweat-soaked man in a tattered straw hat approaches me.

“Oh, sorry. I was just… reliving my childhood.”

“Yer childhood? You go here?”

“I did, once. I moved away after the disaster.”

The man swipes a dirty old rag across his forehead and leans up against the swing set leg. “You here when this place was hit?”

“Yup.”

“I heard it was one hell of a night.”

“Hell… yes, it was hell.”

“You sound like you were here when it happened?”

“I was in the building during the whole event.”

The man asks, “what was it like?”

Somehow, I wanted someone to ask about this. I spent a lot of years trying to forget this, but it proved impossible to let go of. “I was a high school kid back then. I worked as a helper with the little kids during VBS. We had a lot of kids from around town here for Bible School. A storm came over, real dark. No light came through the windows, just flashes of lightning. But, you get used to that kinda stuff living in Oklahoma.”

“Didja think to send the kids home?”

“Not really. By the time the storm hit, it was too late. I remember exactly what I was doing. I was sitting in the hall, helping a little boy recite his verses for the night. The lights flickered, and I heard something like a train. Some of the adults came in and told us to get the kids to the sanctuary, since it was the safest place. I just knew it was bad, but they didn’t tell us anything, not yet. I shuffled a lot of scared kids down the halls and into the sanctuary. Steve played some music for them. We got over four hundred kids into that sanctuary without one knowing exactly what was going on. The older ones were wising up, but the little kids were busy playing with each other or listening to Steve. Then the pastor’s wife comes in and yells, ‘a tornadoes coming.’ The kids went wild. I… I lost feeling in my heart. I didn’t know what to think. I have been through tornadoes before, but not with all these kids to keep safe.”

“I heard it threw a bus into the building.”

“No. It wasn’t a bus.”

“Really?”

“Trust me. I know. Once they got the kids to settle enough to keep them from trying to leave, the pastor came to me. He said we needed to go outside and make sure there aren’t any others trying to get to their cars instead of hunkering down. I wish… I wish I hadn’t gone outside sometimes.”

“What happened?”

“I stepped out just as the storm had moved far enough to let some of the sunlight show through. I stopped as I saw it, a monster’s shadow in front of the sun. The lightening above me was so powerful I could smell it burning the atmosphere. I held onto a light pole to keep from being blown away. The winds were ripping the distant trees apart and throwing tractors. I was in danger, but I simply couldn’t move. I was transfixed, watching this demon march toward me. I believed I was going to die. Then it hit. The cars in the parking lot were and thrown right over my head. I watched a sedan plow into the steeple. After that was an old station wagon that crashed through the left side of the building. Then something hit me. I don’t know what it was. I rolled across the ground and blacked out. All I can remember after that was this horrendous roar, an unholy screaming of gales. I woke up on the ground, soaked and bloody. The emergency people hadn’t even arrived yet. All I could think about was finding the kids and making sure they were safe. What I found… was a flattened church. Seven of us survived that night, seven.”

“Dear lord. You were one of those seven. I knew bout that night and that only a handful survived, but I ain’t met any, cept the pastor. What brought you back today?”

“Come with me.” I stood from the swing and looked back at a monument out front. It was a cross on a simple pedestal. I quietly led this old grounds keeper over to it. “See this cross.”

“Yeah. That’s from the first building.”

“This was on the steeple that the tornado shredded. I didn’t come back to town when they dedicated this ten years ago on the anniversary. I couldn’t face this place, those memories. But, I have to face reality. I have to accept that nothing I did was wrong that night, that powers beyond human control were at work. For a moment of time, I faced eternity and realized how powerless I was. It changed me and it has taken me two decades to recover from that. This is the last stop on a journey to let go of the past and live for tomorrow.”

“Pretty profound thoughts there.”

“Yeah, it took me a long time to learn them. Now I have to live with them. This place, this state, was where I was born and raised. I fled after I witnessed the tornado that night. Or, I thought I was fleeing the danger. I realized I fled, hoping to outrun my fear. It took me a long time to realize that fear is damn fast, it can’t be outrun, but it can be overcome.”