“I don’t like the looks of this,” he says.

I point to a narrow gravel lane shrouded by trees. “Turn here.”

He hits the brakes and makes the turn—too fast—down the gravel lane and around the curve to the rear. I’m out of the vehicle before it comes to a complete stop. The first thing I notice are three Amish children playing with a big lumbering puppy in the side yard. The barn door is open, and I see the silhouette of Jonas Miller inside. I run toward the barn while Tomasetti turns the Tahoe around.

“Mr. Miller!” I’m breathless when I step into the doorway of the barn.

The Amish man drops the pitchfork he’d been using and runs out to meet me. “Was der schinner is letz?” What in the world is wrong?

“There’s a tornado on the way,” I tell him in Pennsylvania Dutch. “Get your family into the basement. Nau.” Now.

Lightning flashes overhead, so close both of us duck. The wind has picked up again, groaning as it whips around the eaves. Fat drops of rain splat against the gravel and the side of the barn.

“Danki.” He brings his hands together and calls out to the playing children. “Shtoahm! Die Zeit fer in haus is nau!” Storm! Time to go to the house now!

I run to the Tahoe, wrench open the door. “There’s another farm next door.”

“No time,” he says. “We have to get to the station.”

“Tomasetti, half the people in this town don’t know there’s a tornado on the way.”

“We’re not going to be any help to them if we’re dead.”

The tires spin and grab, and then we’re barreling down the lane. Too fast. Tires scrambling for traction in loose gravel. The trees on either side of us undulate like underwater plants caught in a white-water rapid. I glance to the west. A swirling black wall cloud lowers from the sky like a giant anvil about to crush everything in its path.

By the time we reach the end of the lane, the first hailstones smack hard against the windshield and bounce off the hood. Tomasetti hauls the wheel left. The Tahoe fishtails when he hits the accelerator, and then we’re flying down the road at double the speed limit.

I see his phone lying in the console and snatch it up. The tiny screen blinks on. He’s pulled up the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Web site with a live radar image of Painters Mill and vicinity. I see the flashing red of TORNADO WARNING at the bottom of the page and the magenta-colored mass of the storm moving across the map.

I set down the phone and look around. “It’s right on top of us.”

“Behind us. Close, though.”

I swivel, look through the back window, and I almost can’t believe my eyes. Rain slams down from a black sky, close but not yet upon us. It’s chasing us, I think. Beyond, I can just make out the outline of a darker cloud on the ground, impossibly wide, and a quiver of fear moves through me. I look at Tomasetti. “Our place okay?” I ask.