The Spirit Survives (2 page)

One of the men screamed over the loud noise, “He saw us kill Veronika. Get him. Don’t let him get away

The other man yelled in reply, “What’s that damn noise?”

The noise was too loud for me to hear an answer. Regardless, the man with the ponytail ran after me, but the big guy remained where he was standing, still holding the gun.

I sprinted up the trail, keeping my balance with my hands in front of me. The sound of the freight train got louder. I quickly turned and looked. A twister!
 

Something grabbed my ankle. The guy with the ponytail was hanging on, and I fell on my face. I kicked his arm as hard as I could and his grip loosened. I kicked again and was free, but he cursed and kept coming.
 

I reached the top of the trail and looked around just long enough to see that he was about five feet behind me. I started to go back and give him a side pivot kick to the head, but the twister was closing fast.
What the hell is a tornado doing at Lookout Mountain in August?
I couldn’t believe that my choice of death was a tornado or a couple of guys with a Colt 45.

I ran again, not from the man, but from the tornado. I jogged around a curve in the trail, not knowing if the twister or the ponytailed man would get to me first.

Abandoning the trail, I just ran up the mountain. It was steep and the rocks cut me as I balanced myself with my hands. I thought about ditching my backpack, but there was no time to stop. Looking over my shoulder again, I saw that Ponytail was still behind me, but more importantly so was the twister. He was not running after me anymore, but was running to get out of the path of the tornado.
 

I heard a sharp crack. The noise coming from the tornado was deafening and the ground shook violently. Looking back again, I saw rocks and trees flying through the air.
 

I looked around wildly for some cover and kept running.
 

Between two boulders just to my right was what appeared to be a dark hole. As I approached the hole, it looked like some sort of cavern or a cave. Dirt and small rocks cut into my back, but the backpack shielded me a little from the ravages of the tornado. I made it to the hole, dived in, and crawled to the back of the cavity as rocks and earth flew through the air. Something must have hit me on the head because I blacked out.

Chapter 2

As Leah Hamilton was getting dressed for work, her thoughts drifted back to the wonderful times she and Ben had together when they were in Chicago. From the first day they met, she felt a connection to his spirit. His intelligence and sense of humor disarmed her. She smiled when she thought of his infectious laugher, closed her eyes and pictured his tall muscular frame, dark brown hair and twinkling light blue eyes. Leah’s favorite old movie was
Gone with the Wind
and in her eyes Ben looked like a young Clark Gable. He truly filled the vacant place in her heart.
 

Leah felt guilty about the sacrifice he made for her. She knew that Ben was depressed when he left for Lookout Mountain and that worried her. She also was aware that he had deep regrets about leaving the job he loved. At this moment she just wanted to hold him and tell him that she loved him. He had shown her how much he loved her by giving up his position of Executive Assistant Chief of the Investigative Operation Division of the Houston Police Department, to move with her to Green Bay Wisconsin.
 

 
Ben had been one of six Executive Chiefs in the Department who answered directly to the Chief of Police. He was the youngest man to have ever held that position. In February, 2005, Ben was put on loan to the Chicago Police Department to work on a major narcotics case involving Mexican cartels. This drug problem involved a cartel in Houston with connections in Chicago. The Attorney General in Washington had made a personal request of the police chief in Houston to work with the Chicago police in this case. To honor that request Ben was sent to Chicago to coordinative the efforts between the two police departments.

Leah met Ben through a mutual friend on the Chicago police force. There was an immediate connection between them. After a few weeks of dating, they were inseparable. She felt she had finally met her soul mate and knew Ben felt the same.

Leah had been working at a small private firm in Chicago as a corporate attorney when an executive search firm contacted her. The position they were searching was Lead Attorney for Shopko Stores, which was a large discount store chain headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin. She interviewed well and was given a job offer. The offer was simply too good to turn down. This was a major step forward in her profession. She really felt that her career had been stalled for the past three years. The only problem was that she loved Ben Harris, and he was very happy living in Houston and was looking forward to returning when his assignment in Chicago was finished.

After many heart-wrenching discussions, Ben had agreed to move to Green Bay with her. He said he simply could not stand the thought of not being with Leah every day. He reluctantly resigned from his position with the Houston police.
 

Their plan was for Ben to open his own security consultant firm. He would have his home office in Green Bay, but would travel anywhere in the USA, when necessary. They agreed to give this experiment two years. At that time, they would rethink all their circumstances and decide whether to stay in Green Bay or move to Houston.

On this morning, August 18, 2005, Leah continued to be worried about Ben as she finished dressing for work
.
He had left the evening of the seventeenth after they had celebrated his birthday with a lobster dinner. The move to Green Bay had not gone well. They found a house, but the moving company had delays in packing their things in Chicago and Houston. They were staying at the Resident Inn waiting for their furniture to arrive. Ben was also having difficulties getting all the licenses and approvals required to open his new business. He was very frustrated, so he decided to take a trip to the mountains for a few days to settle down.

Chapter 3

“Record Tornado Outbreak, August 18, 2005”

That was the Headline in the
Green Bay Press Gazette
on August 19, 2005. The Green Bay population and the people from the state of Wisconsin called it the “Day from Hell.”

 
It is usually nice to be in the record books; however, it was not an honor to hold the record for the largest number of tornados to ever hit a state in history. The state of Wisconsin still holds this horrible record.

A surface low pressure system had located over extreme
southeast Minnesota
early in the afternoon on Thursday, August 18, 2005. A warm front extended east southeast from the low and had dew points pooling in the
lower 70s
along it. The surface low moved east into
east central Wisconsin
by 10 p.m. that evening. Favorable
wind shear
s associated with the warm front had combined with the strong
instability
supplied by the heat and humidity that resulted in a record outbreak of
27 tornadoes across Wisconsin
in the late afternoon and evening. The previous record of 24 tornadoes was set on May 8, 1988.
 

The
Storm Prediction Center
issued the
first tornado watch
at 2:51 p.m. for the counties of Marquette, Green Lake, Sauk, Columbia, Iowa, Dane, Lafayette, Green Bay and the Lookout Mountain area. A
second tornado watch
was issued at 5:51 p.m. for the remainder of South Central and Southeast Wisconsin. The first tornado touched down in the Lookout Mountain warning area at 2:58 p.m.
 

There were sixteen confirmed tornadoes in the Milwaukee/Sullivan County warning area, five confirmed tornadoes in the Green Bay
County warning area
and
six confirmed tornadoes
in the La Crosse
County warning area
.
 

It was the first tornado that touched down in the Lookout Mountain area which drove Ben into that cave.

Chapter 4

Leah was working on a legal matter for the Chairman of the Board at Shopko when Brenda, her assistant, came into her office and told her that she needed to watch what was happening on TV. They went to the employee lounge together. It was about 3 p.m. and the breaking news on CNN was reporting on extreme weather news in Wisconsin. A record number of tornados were forming around the state. The first one had already touched down in the Lookout Mountain area just north of Green Bay.

“My God, that’s where Ben is!” Leah exclaimed.

“You better call him now,” Brenda said. Leah rushed out of the employee lounge and ran to her office. She grabbed her cell phone from the desk and punched in Ben’s cell number. Brenda followed her into the office.

A recorded voice came on the line, “The party you are calling is out of the Sprint calling area. Please try your call later.”

Leah tried calling three more times, only to get the same response.

“How could this be happening?” Leah’s voice shook.

“I’m sure he’s okay. Don’t worry until you know something for sure,” Brenda reassured her.

Leah couldn’t continue her work until she knew that Ben was safe. He had given up so much of his life to move with her to Green Bay. She grabbed her briefcase and walked briskly out of her office. As she was leaving, she told Brenda to explain to management that she had to leave to try to find out if Ben was all right. Her first stop would be the Green Bay police department.

Leah hurried to her silver Infinity SUV and drove the short distance to the police department. She parked in the visitor’s lot and rushed inside.
 

A uniformed grey-haired man in his fifties at the desk to the right of the doorway noticed Leah’s panicked entrance and got up from the desk and approached her. “What’s the problem?”
 

“I heard on the news that a tornado touched down at Lookout Mountain. My finance is there and I need to know if you have any reports of injuries. His name is Ben Harris.”
 

“Please have a seat,” the officer replied. “We are aware that a tornado touched down at Lookout Mountain and a rescue team has been dispatched from the Tomahawk police department. We’re keeping track of all the tornados in the area and as of now there haven’t been any reports of injuries. It’s just too soon for detailed information to be available. If you give me your name and contact information I’ll call you with any news about Mr. Harris.”

 
Leah gave him the contact information and left the police department. She was far from satisfied. As soon as she got to her SUV, she picked up her cell phone and called information to get the number of the Tomahawk, Wisconsin police department. She wrote down the number and immediately dialed it.

“Tomahawk police department, Officer Terrell speaking,” a professional female voice answered.

Leah hurriedly told her the story that she had given to the Green Bay police. To her dismay, she received the same answer. A rescue team had been dispatched, but no information was available. Leah provided her contact information and hung up.

In her panicked mind, there was only one thing to do: go to Lookout Mountain herself. She entered Lookout Mountain into her navigation system. The map showed that it was about 132 miles from Green Bay. She proceeded to Highway 29. After about 90 miles, she merged into US 51 North. Three more turns and 40 miles later, she turned right on County Road B and made a slight left on Hillside Drive. On the left, she saw a sign that read Lookout Mountain.
 

She had arrived, but didn’t have a clue what to do next.

Chapter 5

My head felt as if it were splitting open. I was dizzy and, for a moment, unsure of my surroundings. Even in the dimness, I could see that my hand that had touched my hair was covered with blood. I forced myself to focus on my police and Navy Seal training. My life might depend on those recollections.

The last thing I recalled was diving into a cave to escape the tornado and a ponytailed man who was pursuing me. After seeing him and another man rape and kill a young girl, I was lucky they hadn’t killed me.
 

I looked around. The scant bit of light filtering through a four-foot-wide hole about twenty to thirty feet above me, showed that the entrance to the cave had vanished.
 

My thoughts were interrupted by what sounded like a groan. Looking toward the sound, I noticed a large object that resembled a body. When I tried to stand, sharp pain in my head forced me to a sitting position. Aware of the weight on my back, I realized my backpack was still strapped around my shoulders, so I slid it off.
 

I unzipped the top pocket and took out the first aid kit. Gritting my teeth, I applied alcohol-saturated gauze to my head. Despite almost passing out from the alcohol scorching my scalp, I managed to apply steady pressure to my wound. When the bleeding appeared to have stopped, I threw the bloody gauze aside, covered the wound with clean gauze, and stretched tape across the fresh pad and under my chin. After swallowing three aspirins, I began feeling somewhat better.