Ten years ago, I’d have thrown the camera in the van and hit the road—gotten ahead of the thing and seen if that spin of warm air had more fight in it up the coast. He’d watch his laptop radar for that trailing hook—like a bullseye—storm chase treasure.

But this camera wasn’t his. Neither was the van.

If you blew up the old footage, you could tell which speck was his van. Watch it arc off the ground, up and around, bright in the light angling in from beyond the angry system.

An unexpected shift in the wind.

The studio van rocked over wind-whipped sand dunes back toward the road. His hearing hadn’t recovered from the roar of the storm. He turned up the radio—his competitor’s station.

“Maybe if Radar spent more time at his station and less time playing at the beach, he’d have seen this one coming,” their weatherman said. The blonde anchor laughed—he could tell it was the blonde one, recognized the laugh.

Jacob punched the button, silenced the station. His team wasn’t broadcasting now. Wouldn’t be for another two hours. They shared the airwave with the local church and school district. If he tuned in now, all he’d get is a sermon. Maybe a song—if he was lucky, Becky Merriweather at the mic. She always joked that if they married, he’d have to take her name. She was nearly old enough to be his mother. Didn’t know he’d been married before. Thought a nice young man like him ought to be.

Back home, he flicked the TV on, saw his own face—or what he could of it, cinched inside his hood, behind a pair of ski goggles that kept the rain and sand out of his eyes. His lips moved, words unintelligible, but it looked impressive. Torn awnings whipped around the boardwalk behind him, birds flapping like mad, unmoving in the sky. But no vans. No wives.

People would be watching, more interested in the storm than the goons on four making fun of him.

He left the TV on through the night.

***

At the station in the morning, faces were grim. He returned his camera to Phil—he wouldn’t need it today. No one tunes in for blue skies. Phil poured sand from the case, popped the disc, handed it to him wordlessly, and side-eyed him as he packed the gear away.

Jacob returned the look in kind as he stepped through the glass door into the open, shared office.

The grating voice—the wide, ugly face of the anchor from four took up the whole screen wall.

“ . . . could have been a local disaster not unlike the storm from years ago that took a life here in Miranda County . . . ”

“The fuck is this?” Jacob said, waving at the screen. The sound cut, the anchor’s lips still flapping.