April Showers

It was here, and far earlier than it had come last year. There had been no warning despite the dozens of meteorologists and storm chasers that flocked to the ramshackle prairie town in order to study the extraordinarily vicious and long winded storms that plagued it. Last year, the storms had arrived in late May and had stayed swirling and rumbling until August, drenching the fields and annihilating any hope they’d had of having a harvest. Now, April had barely begun and the black clouds were already growling on the horizon. 

Ivy stood bare and alone in the empty field, fixated on the raging storm that bore down upon her, rocketing closer by the second. Its progress was marked by the violent cracks of lightning that threatened to cleave the sky in two. Fear and adrenaline shot through her when she realized how far she was from the nearest shelter. She had gone out to collect dandelion greens, desperate for anything but the canned preserves that the aid organizations had generously donated to her family and the few others that remained in their soggy huts, stubborn to the last.

“That storm won’t get the best of me!” they would shout, waving their arms angrily at the perpetually overcast sky. Ivy wasn’t so sure.

Her heart jumped as a magnificent crash exploded across the sky. Ice cold dread wormed its way into her bones at  the sheer unforgiving, uncaring nature of the angry black clouds that swallowed her view.

Maybe they would swallow her too.

Ivy began to run. The seconds flew by at a crawl, the thrumming electricity in the air nipped at the hairs on her neck and the increasing pressure squirmed inside her head and pressed against her eardrums. 

She had time. She had time. It only just got here, right? She had time.

No lightning had struck close yet and the thunder still rumbled a ways off. 

A threat. A promise. She had time.

Another second crawled past, and her time was up. 

The beast roared from directly above her, sounding its presence with a boom that rattled her skull. Every muscle in her body jolted, and her heart threatened to leap out of her chest and start running itself. The lightning which had seemed such a safe distance away now spit and crackled around her, blazing hot whips that lashed at the sparse trees on the edge of the field. In brilliant flashes of white light, she saw the wood splinter and go careening through the air, thrown by the wind that clawed at her, grasping for purchase on her clothes, her hair, her skin. It was ferocious and acted nothing like the storms she had grown up experiencing. 

She was terrified, and the storm knew it. It enjoyed her fear.

Then came the rain.

She was drenched as soon as it hit. It slithered under her clothes and flooded her eyes, her ears, even defying gravity to stream up her nose until she was battling the waves for breath. She was drowning standing up and her tears soon joined the endless torrent. It was bitter cold, but she still threw off her coat to keep running. It could only slow her down now. 

She saw headlights in the distance and whimpered in relief with what little breath she had to spare. A car couldn’t withstand the storm when it got up to speed, but it would at least get her back to town faster. Her desperate hope faltered when she realized who the vehicles belonged to.

The jeeps and trucks were outfitted with a variety of antennae and sensors to read the storms that the meteorologists chased so hungrily. She could just see the pale glow of a few of their faces within the still watertight cabins, crouching over their steering wheels to see in the worsening rain. 

A part of her knew it was pointless, but Ivy’s desperation won over and she began waving frantically with both arms trying to get one of them to stop. Maybe, just maybe they would take her back to town. Maybe, just maybe, they would listen to her before it was too late. 

A red SUV rolled to a stop beside her and she didn’t hesitate to throw herself into the back seat, despite the clutter that consumed it.

The driver, a dark haired man in his forties, tried to say something before Ivy cut him off.

“Take me back to town.”

The driver looked at her for a second before turning back around in his seat. 

“I’m sorry you got wet,” he said. “But it’s my job to record data on this storm. I can turn up the heat if you’re cold-”

“You’re not equipped to deal with this,” Ivy hissed. Her bitter tone had obviously startled the man, as he turned back around to look at her. He studied her for just a moment, trying to figure out whether or not she was serious. She was. He shook his head in disbelief.

“It’s just-”

“Just a storm?” she spat. “Like hell it is. If you drive in there like your buddies right now, you won’t be coming back. Either turn this car around, or I’m getting out and walking. I will not let you kill the both of us with your stupidity.”

The man shook his head again and gestured towards the door with a shrug. Ivy took her cue and exited the car, once again shivering in the bitter rain. It welcomed her back with sharpened teeth. 

Ivy refused to watch as the car’s tail lights disappeared into the gloom.

She couldn’t have been that much farther from town, so she used what little energy she had regained to start running once again. The wind toyed with her, blowing her legs so she would trip over herself and scrape her hands on hidden rocks beneath the grass. Even once her knees were bloody and bruised, she kept running. It wouldn’t be long until the hail arrived. 

She had only been running for a few minutes when she heard a car horn blaring. She turned around to see the red SUV rocketing towards her, skidding across the mud. It had barely stopped before she once more threw herself into the backseat, and they were off again, racing towards town.

The dark haired man was considerably paler than when she had left him. His knuckles were white around the steering wheel and he sat fixated straight ahead of him, despite the zero visibility.

Ivy looked at her hands. He’d had no reason to believe her, she couldn’t blame him for at least trying to do his job.

“What made you turn around?” she asked, barely loud enough to be heard over the pounding rain.

The man paled a bit further, but didn’t say anything. She had just begun to think he hadn’t heard her when he spoke.

“It threw Allan’s car at me.”

Ivy nodded grimly, but didn’t respond.

“It landed on the roof. I don’t… I don’t think he’s still alive,” he gulped, and his voice broke. “I could see him through the windshield before it… fell.”

Ivy shivered, knowing how close she had been to that fate being hers. It might still be, if they didn’t move fast enough.

“I tried to get to him,” he continued. “But before I could, the storm dragged him back into itself. I’ve never seen anything like it.” He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. 

“That’s when I turned around.”

Ivy mustered a small smile. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

They rode in silence until the first shadow of a house appeared. Ivy tapped the man on the shoulder and he nodded dully, parking the car in front of the door. 

She gestured for him to turn the car off and follow her. She grabbed his sleeve and led him into her house where her parents sat huddled in the living room with deathly stillness. When they saw her, they began to weep and hold her despite the mud and water that clung to her clothes. They didn’t say it, but it was clear they hadn’t expected her to return.

Ivy’s mother glanced at the man that stood unmoving in the doorway.

“What are you called, dear?”

“David,” he responded flatly. Her mother nodded and removed one hand from her daughter to rest on David’s shoulder.

“Thank you, David. Come, sit down. Let’s get you warmed.”

She guided him to the couch while Ivy wandered to her room to get changed. When she emerged, David was holding a steaming cup of coffee while another sat on the table waiting for her. 

Her parents did not ask questions. They didn’t need to. The four of them simply sat in the living room, sipping on black coffee and listening to the rain and thunder that rattled the glass in the window panes. The wind fiddled with the door knobs and pushed its way through the smallest of cracks into the house, teasing the curtains. Even so, the house stood defiantly against the storm that battered it. 

Eventually, the water finally found a hold and began to seep under the door. Nobody budged. Even after the coffee was finished, and the hail was crashing against the tin roof, and their socks were soaked with the growing pool of frigid water, none of them made a move. Not a word was spoken. They merely listened and waited in a grim silence, the silence of four people waiting to drown.