Maggie was safe. No matter what happened, at least she was safe.

I hooded my eyes with one hand, searching for Ron and his wife. They’d been right behind us… I ran for what was left of the house. The walls stood like rows of shattered teeth… the roof was gone… the entire upstairs…

I found Margie yards away, injured but conscious, and picked her up in my arms. She had an ugly gash across her forehead and both knees were bleeding badly. “My husband,” she said, her eyelids flickering. “He was holding my hand… where’s my husband…?”

I ran with her for the shelter. Maggie was waiting and helped me to get her inside. Together, we laid her down on the cold stone floor. Her head lolled from side to side, as she called Ron’s name.

“Is he alive?” Maggie whispered. “Did you see him…?” She had the storm lantern in her hand and gave it to me.

I shook my head and pulled her roughly to me. I rested my cheek on her hair for a moment, working to catch my breath.

“I’ve got to go back out,” I said. “There’s not much time… I didn’t see him… He may already be gone. But I have to know for sure…”

Maggie pulled my face down to hers, and I kissed her with every ounce of strength left inside me. It lasted only a moment, but in the touch of her lips and the sweetness of her tongue, I felt the promise of the years that waited ahead of us. She was all I ever wanted… but now I had to go…

I crushed her against me and inhaled her warmth, her love… her strength. I looked through the shadowy darkness and saw the love shining in her eyes.

“When you were seven years old, you asked me to marry you,” I said. “And I said yes. Now I’m asking you, Maggie… the woman you’ve become… the love of my life…”

Her answer was stolen by the rush of the wind, but I felt it in her kiss, and deep in my heart.

* * *

I found him far from the shelter, even farther from the house. The area I’d searched was huge, all within the eye of the storm. The fucking twister had to be enormous…

“Walker!” I called out. I landed on my knees next to him, surveying the damage and trying to gauge how much time we had left. The south wall of the storm was closing in fast.

He groaned and tried to sit up, but his legs were tangled in a pile of rubble. I cleared the bulk of it away with my hands, and he screamed.

“Fuck… ah, fuck…” I put a hand on his shoulder and felt him heave with pain. “You’re pinned…” I tried to move the rusted metal shaft and he screamed again. I searched with my hands as the rain began to pour down again. The water ran red in the dim light of the lantern, and formed a pool under his leg. I reached under the shaft and found the cause. A thick barb of metal had pierced his thigh.

“Leave me,” he screamed. “There’s no time. Go!”

“Not without you…,” I yelled back. “But this is gonna fucking hurt…”

I took off my shirt and rolled it at tight as I could. He screamed out one last time, as I pulled the shaft off and tied the tourniquet as quickly as I could. By then, he was unconscious and it took everything I had left in me to haul him over my shoulder and run for the cavern.

My lungs were gasping for air, the muscles in my legs burning like fire. My heartbeat thundered like a drum against my ribs, drowned by the deafening roar around us. I stumbled and fell, heaving myself back up with Walker’s dead weight across my back. In the distance, I could barely see the arch of the shelter.

“Joe!” I heard Maggie call to me.

I didn’t know if her voice had been carried on the wind, or if I had only imagined it. But she called again and I followed the sound. I moved on blindly then, closing my eyes to the pummeling and gritty rain. I stumbled again, and still kept moving forward. I was close and I could feel her, as if she was pulling me towards her.

“Maggie!” I shouted.

“Joe… I’m here… Joe…!”

I felt her hands on my arm and I fell to my knees, letting Ron roll off my back and onto the soaking ground. I pushed and Maggie pulled… together we rolled him through the stone opening and into Margie’s waiting arms.

“I thought I’d lost you…,” Maggie mouthed words I couldn’t hear… but could see it in her eyes. She gripped my hand in hers, trying to pull me inside. We were close, so fucking close… I was almost in… almost beside her… a sudden flash of lightning lit the sky and I could see her face, her beautiful mouth and her wide, dark eyes.

Then the world went black, and I felt her hands slip away…

Nothing was left, but the picture of her face.