4 More Wicked Winds

Dunn: He wasn't breathing and so I rolled him over. And …Detective Shaw: Yes? And what?Dunn: Jesus, gods, you know what!Detective Shaw: What did you see when you rolled him over, Dr. Dunn?Dunn: I saw that he had no face. That it … that it had just spiraled in, like the hole in the boat. That there was a gaping funnel where his eyes and nose and upper lip should have been—mottled red and black, pink and gray—just twisted cartilage and brain tissue. And then his body spasmed, as though by a reflex, and the funnel seemed to burp, spitting up blood.Detective Shaw: Jesus.Dunn: After which, dear God, I can't say, because I was running away as fast as I could; past Bobby's shoes and toward the wind turbine (the one with the truck parked at its base), as well as past a few dozen new funnels in the ground—which grew in size as I approached from an inch or two across to ones the size of manhole covers. Until I came to the turbine and—and stopped dead in my tracks. Because there was Bobby kneeling prone in the dirt, like a Muslim, I suppose, or a Buddhist, but completely nude—bowing before the turbine, the hatch of which was open, seeming almost to pray.