Chapter Two:

 

Five minutes later, Dorothy was on the roof of the Quantico parking structure, inserting her key in the car door of her muscular Roush Mustang.

Tears of frustration were streaming down her face as she got into the familiar and comforting bucket seat on the driver's side. She consulted her own watch, determined she had fifteen minutes to spare before the twister would hit, and decided to allow herself a moment to vent her unhappiness in song.

She touched the seat position release and reclined behind the wheel, raising her eyes and voice to Heaven as she sang:

"Somewhere over the rainbow,
Way up high,
There's a place that I heard of -
Once in a lullaby -

Somewhere over the rainbow,
bad guys fry,
no one gets off with a walk,
or gets away with a lie!

Someday I'll wake above the tricks,
and tacky stuff and Bureau pricks,
Where sexist clods are far behind me,

Where sneaky creeps don't stab your back,
Even while they grab your ass,
That's where you'll find me -

Somewhere over the rainbow,
Starlings fly,
If birds fly over the rainbow,
Why then oh why can't I?

If happy little Starlings fly,
Away above the rainbow sky,
Why then oh why can't I?"

 

As the last sparkling note of her lament ended, she sat up suddenly, listening.

A familiar sound of screaming reached her from somewhere near the car. She leapt out of the vehicle and discovered Toto racing up the "down" ramp toward her, shrieking like a banshee as he came.  She felt a moment of relieved delight, coupled with a certain contradictory mild regret.

"Toto, you came back," she said, the expression in her voice hovering between elation and dismay. "You got away from that nasty old Elmira Gulch!"

She picked the vociferous lamb up and quickly put him in the car.  Once she herself was safely inside, she turned to the lamb and spoke as she petted his fuzzy head.

"I wish you could stop that screaming, Toto, I really do. We need to haul ass right now, you know it? Gulch'll be looking for us, that's certain. Come to think of it, there's a tornado due in about five minutes, I almost forgot. We better get in gear."

She suited her actions to her words, keyed her ignition, and put her car in drive, but before she could pull out of her reserved spot, an unthinkable crash of concentrated noise startled her hands off the wheel and drove the excitable Toto into convulsions of high decibel yowling.

The twister had come. A full five minutes earlier than Auntie Em had suggested it would.

The sky opened and dumped half a ton of cold rain on her car roof in a five minute interval. Gale force winds first gnawed at the exterior of the Mustang, then devoured it whole, lifting the heavy vehicle several feet in the air, and spinning it.

Inside, Dorothy struggled to get her seatbelt fastened while Toto howled an all-screaming rendition of the Brandenburg Concerto.

The muscle car ascended a twisting column of wind, and Dorothy, inside, saw the roof of the parking structure dwindle in size as she rose, spinning in concentric circles, far above it. A particularly vicious twist of wind caused the Mustang's hood to change places with its trunk in rapid succession, and Dorothy, still struggling with her seatbelt, was slammed head-first into the steering wheel.

Everything grew hazy for her. Toto's incessant screaming grew far and wee. She thought she saw, out her passenger window, Deputy Assistant Inspector General Gulch, riding the wind on a broomstick and making obscene finger gestures at her.

"That son of a . . . bitch . . ." she murmured, half dazed. Why would he be wearing a witch's hat, she wondered, absently. "Son of a bitch. Bitch . . .witch . . . witch . . ."

Dorothy's faint voice faded away, and she knew no more.