Page 90 of The Storm Boys Series Collection

He ran his other hand through his hair, looked around the room, bewildered. He went over to the power board and pulled it from the power socket. “Uh, yeah. I think so.”

I needed a drink. My tongue felt putrid. I guzzled half a bottle. It didn’t make it much better.

“You knew we were about to get hit,” Tully said, stating the obvious.

I shot him a look. “Yes. I can still taste it.”

He put his hand on my back. “Do you feel okay?”

“I’m fine. Physically. And you?”

He half shrugged, then grabbed my wrist and looked at my watch. “Heart rate’s up.”

“I bet yours is too.”

I nodded toward my gear on the table—no lights were flashing anymore. “We’ve lost power.”

“Video’s still recording,” he said, going over for a closer look. “The one that you run separately. Looks like the worst of the storm has passed us.”

It was still raining, and the wind was still toying with the trees and there was debris, branches and leaves, strewn across the clearing, but it was nowhere near as strong.

“We should check your Jeep,” I said, given it was our transport out.

“And your auto-station,” he said. “It’s probably wrapped around a tree.” Then he pointed to the ceiling. “I’ll need to check your booster. Maybe it got blown over.”

“Or fried.”

He grimaced, then let out a long sigh. “I can’t believe we got hit by lightning. That shit is scary as fuck.”

“Thank god whoever built this put lightning rods on the roof. Or you and I would both be dead, more than likely.”

His eyes met mine, solemn and grim with the confirmation of just how close we came, and he nodded.

“Okay, help me get the walls up.” He stopped before he touched the crank handle and pulled his arm back. “Uh, is this safe to touch?”

“Yes. Lightning rods have metal tracks to the ground that divert the power. Once it earths, it’s fine.”

He still wasn’t too keen to put his hand on it, so I took the water bottle and threw a spray of water against it. Nothing sizzled or sparked. “Phew,” he said, gingerly touching the handle with the back of his hand. “Okay, it’s fine.”

Once we got the walls up, the rain had eased to a gentle drizzle and the wind had died down too. We stepped outside and took stock of the damage.

The Jeep had a branch on it, but thankfully the windscreen and windows were intact. It was pretty much soaked, but otherwise unscathed. The water canister was at the tree line on the side of the clearing. Tully set off to collect it, and I headed to the far end to look for my automatic weather station.

It wasn’t in the clearing, so I headed to the tree line at the top end. I picked up some smaller branches that were strewn and tossed them into the trees so they wouldn’t become a missile in the next storm.

Then I trekked into the trees a little, and sure enough, noticed the tripod about twenty metres in. It was on its head, broken, and half wrapped around a tree. The screen was smashed, the anemometer arms and the sensors were broken.

Goddammit.

I inspected it, not hopeful it could be repaired. But the equipment box looked mostly undamaged. Hopefully I could salvage some data...

I headed back to the shed, only to find Tully climbing up onto the roof.

Because he hadn’t almost died enough times in the last twenty-four hours.

“Please be careful,” I yelled.

He waved and carefully trod across the ridgeline, where he stopped at what I could now see was the booster, which he’d MacGyvered for me on our first day. He picked it up—clearly it was no longer secured—and I could see why we’d lost our signal.

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