I covered my head, clenched my teeth and prayed the tornado would pass without killing me. I had survived tornadoes before growing up in Oklahoma, but had never been this close to one and was sure I was going to die in the rickety church surrounded by abandoned Bibles and the guilt of leaving Mandy behind.

Looking back now, the time I spent beneath the pew was probably only about two minutes, but the time crawled when I was there, curled up, fighting against the wind felt more like two hours.

I at first thought I was going to be able to ride out the storm in the church, but then I felt my body lift up into the air the way it would have if I jumped off of a giant trampoline. I felt myself soar through the air for a handful of seconds with my eyes shut tight before I crashed hard into the ground and opened my eyes.

I was in the yard of the church facing where the church once stood. The faded white building had been reduced to a few scraps of wood which still stood and some pews which were flipped over on their side.

The siren still rung out at ear-splitting volume, but I heard what is the most-disgusting sound I have ever heard in my life. It sounded like someone coughing, sneezing and barfing at the same time.

I turned around to locate the noise and saw Mandy stumbling around the grass behind me, covered in blood which poured out of deep gashes on her forehead and neck. My heart stopped. I had seen this image before, but instead in the dark of my parents’ house, inside my closet when I opened it up to confront the monsters. The last images I had of my sister, stumbling around covered in blood from the tornado, trying not to die was the image of the monster.

The bleeding woman who haunted my childhood was Mandy.

I tried to scream out to Mandy over the roar of the siren, the blasts of the wind and through my froggy throat, but I couldn’t even hear myself scream, I just yelled in vain until a coat of red blood washed over my eyes and I eventually passed out.