Living In Victory

community.

Chapter 1– April 2005

It's getting closer, the blonde said, leaning across the editor's desk, letting her hair almost touch the wooden desktop.

The crackling of static could be heard beneath the top 40 song playing on the clock radio on the editor's desk.

Yeah, that's the local station, the editor replied. The storm has to be strong and close to overcome the local radio station's signal like that.

Ed Pyle adjusted the volume and listened for any news about the threatening weather that all the media said was coming in from Illinois.

It was Sunday morning and the newspaper building was empty except for the editor, the reporter and a photographer.

The weather had been the lead story on the TV news from Indianapolis all weekend.

Even Paul Harvey had told his nationwide audience about the big storms that had rattled through Missouri on their way to Illinois and, ultimately, into Indiana and the Ohio River valley.

This Sunday morning morning had started out sultry. At breakfast, Pyle heard someone joking about not needing a glass of water; they could drink the air.

There was an alarmingly loud crack of static followed by silence as the radio station was knocked off the air.

The telephone jangled at Pyle's elbow. Even as he reached for it, Vicki Williams, the reporter, was on her way to her desk. The photographer came out of the darkroom, wiping photo chemicals off his hands using brown paper towel.

Pyle listened to the hysteric voice on the other end. He was patient as they complained about the radio station going off the air and then told him what he had been waiting to hear.

Victory, he said tersely. South of Waynetown on State Road 25.

Williams and the photographer were already headed for the exit at the far end of the newsroom when he spoke the last words.

He didn't tell them the rest of the message. The caller said the town was gone.

Be careful, Pyle said, though they were too far from his office to hear him.

Although he could hear very little thunder overhead, he knew the weather outside was probably fierce.

The newsroom was located in an old National Guard armory and the newsroom was in the gymnasium in the center of the building, isolated from the world.

Chapter 2 – 2005

Williams was impatient. Gary George, the photographer, was driving his car and she was holding on to the door with one hand and her seat belt with the other.

The pair had made good time driving down State Road 32 but when they turned left onto the county road just south of where Indiana 25 ended, the road was littered with tree branches and up ahead they could see a monstrous TV trucks lumbering down the narrow paved road as fast as humanly possible and faster than was prudent.

They must have been called, too, George said with a strained voice, trying to cut the tension in the auto.

Yeah, well let's see what we can get for this story that the TV people can't, Williams said, taking a firmer grip on the plastic door handle.

In the TV station truck, Marco Vincente bounced in his seat while the driver of the RV-sized TV truck sped down the country road.

Hey, watch the head, Vincente said, louder than needed.

Even though the equipment and truck would cost tens of thousands of dollars to replace, the driver had raced down the narrow, winding back roads of rural Montgomery County, trying to be first on the scene with live coverage of the disaster from the ground.

The roads, though paved, were narrow and curves often sloped the wrong way, causing the top-heavy remote truck to careen and nearly flip over more than once.

Eventually, the TV truck quit breaking twigs out of the trees that hung over the road and the driver saw a sign that said, Victory.

Below it was a smaller sign that said, Population 54.

I'll bet that's no longer true, Vicnente said and then grimaced at his own bad joke.

The driver attempted to find a level spot near the mess that had been the town 60 minutes earlier.

The newsroom back in Indianapolis had learned about the disaster scarcely an hour earlier.

Forget the cost of the equipment, Marco thought. Let’s just be the first on the air.

He wondered how print reporters would find the words to describe the scene. He was glad his station could show television viewers the mess, something TV excelled in doing.

We’re here, he said.

Splintered wood, crumbled concrete and broken glass littered the space that had been a little village a few hours earlier.

Marco’s crew was first on the scene, though he knew Channel 13 and a crew from WISH-TV wouldn’t be far behind. Later, trucks from Chicago would show up as well.

Marco’s station had already made arrangements to feed live video to their own network and to CNN as well.

Marco tore his eyes from the carnage that lay before him and turned to look at Sherry Reynolds, the reporter who would be doing the stand-up narration for the station. She was dabbing make-up on her face and smoothing her hair.

Setting up the dish, he said as he made arrangements to link the signal from the RV-sized mobile broadcasting studio to the station in Indianapolis.

Overhead, he could hear news helicopters circling like hawks over the small area that had been Victory. One of the choppers, emblazoned with their station's channel number and call letters, was probably shooting pictures of them at the moment.

Why are they up there? Sherry asked, obviously annoyed by the possibility someone else from the station could be stealing her story.

If our sky shot doesn’t make the TV, it will be used for news promos, Marco muttered to no one in particular.

A cameraman was already out of the truck and was testing his wireless link. Then he began shooting pictures of the devastation, unable to hear anything but the beating of the helicopter rotors overhead

Five minutes later, Reynolds went on the air, describing the location and how the twin tornadoes miraculously combined forces to wipe out the small town.

We can only wonder what life was like before disaster struck, she said.

Chapter 3 – Summer 1955

Sam Zellers straightened up, easing the tension that caused his back to ache and spasm.

He had an audience.

Zack Cain and Charlie Wilson sat in chairs just inside the garage of the service station across the street from the general store. A radio with grease smudging its plastic finish was playing country music.

How long has he had the store? Wilson asked.

Cain knew he was talking about Sam; they had the same conversation on various occasions. Wilson had a short memory.

I think they moved in the fall of '47, Cain said. It wasn't too long after people saw those flying saucers up north and out west.

Yeah, that's right, Wilson said, pretending he had just asked the question to see if Cain remembered the answer. He had a nice family.

Oh, yes, Cain said. My wife and Emmy used to go shopping together and set together in church

How long Emmy and the kids been gone?

Cain thought for a moment.

It was about nine months after they moved in, he said.

He got up from his chair as he saw a familiar black Cadillac pull up to a gas pump.

Chapter 4 – Autumn 1947

Sam was familiar with manual labor. He had farmed, he had run a business for other people and then he moved his family to the little town of Victory.

I like that name, he told his wife. ’Victory.’ It has a nice ring to it.

He had been an optimist and a dreamer back then. The couple bought the town's general store and moved into the building's second floor.

Six months later, his family was dead and buried in the cemetery that lay on the town’s east side.

The sickness had taken the community by storm. Many had become ill and died quickly.

As he watched the sickness hit his friends and neighbors, Sam had entertained the idea his family was the lucky ones who would be passed over, like the death angel had passed over the firstborn of the children of Israel in Egypt. But the luck was not to continue. The illness hit his family and he was left alone. Lucky, but alone. He did not get sick.

But life finds a way to go on. Many people had lost their spouses, as attested to by the large expansion of the town’s cemetery. He was not alone in his trouble.

Sam went to bed every night, said his prayers and read the Bible his wife kept in the night stand on her side of the bed.

Now, Sam slept on either her side of the bed or in the middle. He could not bear to think of her side of the bed being empty and cold, reminding him of her absence.

She had been the Bible student in this house. She had insisted her family get involved in the little white frame church on the corner. She could see the church from the couple’s bedroom window on the store’s second floor.

Seth, the youngest of their three children, liked to look at the church on Sunday mornings. He would get excited and jump up and down on the bed even before he could speak clearly.

Sam thought about Seth and the rest of the family. Instead of making him sad, his memories made him smile, even