The Storm

Staring out the large window in her living room, Jess briefly wondered if the torrential rain pelting the panes was trying to break into the 1920’s-circa farmhouse, as if it too was escaping from the storm clouds blanketing the land for miles in every direction. 

Jess had never seen a storm like this. 

There had been no watching the storm clouds rolling in from over the mountains over the course of several hours, no National Weather Service alerts or beloved local weatherman, Dan Patridgeson, with his sleeves rolled up outlining the area in the path of the tempest. As a former professional basketball player whose right ACL had been reconstructed ten years ago, the sobriquet for Jessi’s knee was “The Meteorologist” for the way it predicted the weather. 

Not even The Meteorologist had detected this storm. 

Three days ago she and her wife of four years, May, woke up with the sunshine, the blue sky above their 15-acre farmland spotless; by that afternoon they were shuttering windows, filling gas cans for the generator, and racing against a storm that somehow snuck up on them, their neighbors, and the rest of Pleasant Valley’s 307 residents.

The old farmhouse creaked and groaned from the force of the gale. Jessi wasn’t worried the home would hold – these boards and beams would outlive both she and May by several decades. She was more worried about the tenants inside: May was running out of rooms to stress-clean and books to read, and Jessi had nearly finished the “Honey-Do” list that had hitherto been growing for almost a year. Only the essentials were drawing from the generator’s supply, and Jessi was considering revisiting the argument that Wi-Fi should count as an essential when she heard a loud crash that shook the floorboards beneath her feet.

“May!” Jessi called out, frantic, dashing from her spot beside the living room couch to the hallway near the foot of the stairs.

“Jess!” she heard her wife’s muffled voice call back before she saw her appearing in the hallway outside the kitchen. The two women met in the middle of the hallway, embracing each other tightly out of relief.

“Any clue what that could have been?” May asked, her honey-brown eyes looking up at Jessi, who stood a head taller than the brunette.

“No idea, just that it sounded like something that I can’t ask you to pretend didn’t happen,” Jessi said with a slight smile.

“I have full faith in your handywoman prowess,” May said smiling as she let Jess go and began walking back towards the kitchen. “And as a reward, I’ve got something special for you as a treat,” she called back over her shoulder before winking and disappearing into the kitchen. 

A thorough search of both stories yielded no results. Before giving up and heading to the kitchen to hang out with May while she baked, Jessi decided to glance out the back door. Sure enough, through the sheets of rain, Jessi identified the culprit: a small tree had fallen on one of their sheds – the one with the generator inside it.

Jessi groaned.

The walkie-talkie that Margot, her best friend and neighbor about a quarter mile down the road, insisted she and May keep on the table in the hallway suddenly cackled.

“Blackbird to Falcon. Blackbird to Falcon. Come in, Falcon.”

Jessi rolled her eyes and sighed before picking up the device.

“Falcon here. What do you want, Blackbird?” 

“3pm check-in. How is the Cunningham household?”

Jessi updated Margot on the small crash, and Margot updated Jessi on the town gossip. 

“Make sure you keep your doors locked, J. I mean it. Some of the ladies in my HAM radio club were talking earlier. Jeanette lives across the street from the sheriff’s office, and she picks up chatter every now and then. Anyways, the Callahans – you know, the sweet old couple who always walk around Main St. in the evenings? – they were found murdered in their home.”

“Wait, what? Murdered?”  

Why would someone do something like that? Especially to the Callahans? Especially in this storm?

“Yup. Murdered. The cops can only do so much right now with the mini-apocalypse happening outside, but they’re going to make an announcement on the 5 o-clock news. ‘Keep your doors locked and your guns loaded’, yada, yada, yada.” 

Ten minutes after ending the conversation with Margot, Jessi ventured out into the storm wearing her tan Carhartt jacket, a poncho, knee-high rain boots, and of course, her waterproofed-cowboy hat.

Jessi felt uneasy as she stood on the wraparound porch surveying the land around her. The world was eerie like this – it was quieter outside than it had been in the house, a sort of preternatural stillness smothering the landscape as only the trees lining the back of the property moved in the wind. 

Steeling her nerves, Jessi walked to the shed to survey the damage. After five minutes of maneuvering, rearranging, covering, and securing, Jessi was confident the generator would be protected despite the small tree creating a partial collapse in the roof of the shed.

As Jessi turned around to head back inside, the back of her neck prickled, and her skin felt like ants were crawling underneath it.

Jessi was being watched. 

To her left, about twenty feet away, a figure stood motionless in the rain. Watching her. Saying nothing. Doing nothing. Instinctively, she reached for her gun on her right hip, only to realize that she hadn’t holstered it before coming outside. As discreetly as possible, her right hand felt behind her on the workbench and picked up the crowbar, thoughts of the Callahans swimming in her mind. 

“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” Jessi yelled out, the din of the storm picking back up and making it harder to hear.

A moment passed. Silence. Jessi took a step closer to the figure. Right as she was about to call back out, the figure moved a few feet towards her, enough that she could make out the face of the stranger. 

“Eli Parker? Is that you?” She called out again, her grip around the crowbar tightening. Out the periphery of her eye she could see that May had stepped outside the back door after hearing Jessi’s yells.

“Eli! What the f- “

“Hallo!” The stranger Jess assumed was Eli called back, startling her at the loud boom of his voice. He sounded like Eli. He looked like Eli, but something about him didn’t feel like Eli.

“Eli, what are you doing?” Jess yelled, annoyance and suspicion swirling together. He took another step closer, and now Jess could see he was bleeding from the top of his head on the left. 

“I need help, Jessica,” Eli called out, just as loud as before despite only being about fifteen feet from Jess. Something about the way he spoke put her teeth on edge: the way he enunciated every word as if he was tasting something new, the way he used her full name despite knowing only her estranged mother and the government called her Jessica, his empty, dull eyes staring at her without blinking.

 The blood was bright and covering half his face at this point, mixing into an unpleasant watercolor as the rain pelted his naked, bald head. Eli stood there in his light blue polo and khaki shorts without a poncho, hat, umbrella, or anything to shield him from the rain that had been coming down in buckets for the better part of three days.

Jessi chanced a glance at May who was watching intently from the porch, this time noting that May had the pistol in her hand, holding it close to her side. 

God, I love that woman, Jess thought. The two women locked eyes and shared the kind of conversation only long-time partners do.

May nodded her head once before quickly turning her attention back to Eli. Jess took a deep breath before looking back at Eli. 

“Come in, Eli. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

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“Baby, I don’t like this,” Jessi said in a strained whisper. After May had cleaned Eli’s wound – a large gash he couldn’t remember getting – and Jess had brought him fresh clothes, Jessi and May left Eli to change in the upstairs guest bedroom as they reconvened in the living room downstairs.

“I don’t either, babe, but what can we do? Leave him out there in the rain? Hell, he’d likely drown with the way it is right now.”

“He’s not acting right, May. Something’s,” Jessi’s voice trailed off as she motioned with her hands helplessly, resuming her pacing. “Off. Something’s just off. He’s not acting like…”

“Like Eli? Like the Eli that we know?” 

“Yeah,” Jessi said finally, stopping to check for the third time that her loaded pistol was snugly secured in her holster.

“Could be the head wound?” May offered, brown eyes seeking out Jessi’s green. Jessi looked at her a moment before letting out a frustrated sigh and scrubbing her face with her hands.

“Yeah,” was all she could say back. “Should we call the cops?”

“I did, while you were getting the clothes. Eli insisted he was fine. Said he didn’t want them to look at him, not to make a big deal of it, etc. Given how bad the roads are right now, the operator said that unless Eli started showing symptoms of head trauma, they wouldn’t be able to come out.” 

Eli Parker has always been a kind, soft-spoken man for as long as Jess and May have known him since they had first moved to the property about seven years ago. He keeps mostly to himself, but has always been willing to lend a hand. Jessi would do odd repair jobs for him in exchange for eggs from his chickens, and May made him his favorite key-lime pie for his birthday each year. This Eli, head trauma or not, resembled their neighbor in appearance and voice only. 

“Listen, May,” Jessi said as she put her hands on May’s shoulders, “promise me you won’t be alone with him, okay? Just stay close to me,” Jessi said earnestly. May smiled softly at her wife and lifted up on her tiptoes to kiss her. The moment was far too short-lived for Jessi’s satisfaction, but she reveled in the feel of her wife pulling her close into a tight hug.

“I promise, Jess. I won’t let you out of my sight,” May whispered in her wife’s ear. Jessi smiled and pulled May even closer against her. 

“We’ll just do what my grandma always said: ‘Be kind, but don’t take no crap.”

“And keep a loaded gun on your hip,” Jessi joked back, both women laughing quietly together as they gently swayed in place. 

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“Jessi! Jessi! May-May! Help! Anybody!” 

Jessi, May, and “Eli” all ran to the walkie-talkie sitting on the hallway table. It was 6:54pm, still over an hour from the usual 8pm check-in, but Margot’s desperate cries had pierced the quiet house despite the wind howling outside.

“Margot! I’m here! What’s going on?” Jessi shouted into the device, the fear in her eyes mirrored in May’s. They were hovering over the walkie-talkie as Eli lingered awkwardly in the doorway of the kitchen, face as blank as it had been since he was found standing outside.

“May! Jess! Help me! They’re here!” Margot was sobbing, her voice a pitch Jessi didn’t know it could even reach.

“Who’s there, Margot? What’s going on?” Jessi called out again, her own voice rising. 

“They got in here, Jessi. I don’t know how! They’re not, they’re not, they look like, but they’re not – oh God, they’re coming for me! I can’t get out –“

“Margot! Listen to me, we’re coming over! We’ll call the police! Just hide somewhere and wait for us –“

Jessi and May could only hear muffled sounds of footsteps and heavy breathing, before hearing what sounded like a struggle.

Then, the line went completely silent.

“Hello?! Who’s there? Margot!” Jessi shouted again. Her eyes were wild as they looked up at May, her heart made human, and then over to Eli, who was standing as still as stone. Something about him had changed, however. Those empty, dull eyes were suddenly bright and intently staring at her.

No, not at her. Not at Jessi -  

At the gun on her hip. 

“Margot? Margot? Are you there?” May’s voice whispering furiously into the walkie-talkie broke Jessi and Eli’s stare-down.

Silence.

The only sound heard in the farmhouse was the ticking of the clock in the kitchen.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Jessi looked at May. May looked at Jessi. May and Jessi looked at Eli, who looked back at each of them. His eyes darted like a ping pong ball. First at Jessi. Then at May. Then at Jessi. Then at May. Then at Jessi’s gun. Then at Jessi. Then at May. 

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Nobody moved. 

Jessi swallowed around the lump in her throat. 

“Margot?” Jessi whispered once more into the walkie-talkie, licking her lips as she took a deep breath.

“Hello, Jessica.” 

Jessi felt cold. Then hot. Then cold again. The wooden floorboards rose up to meet her before falling back down. The walls were swaying, or was that Jessi swaying? May held onto her, easing her back against the stairs so she wouldn’t collapse. May gently coaxed the walkie-talkie from Jessi’s white knuckles.

“Hello, who is this?” May asked sweetly, her voice steady despite the shaking of her hands. 

“This is Margot, May. What’s wrong with Jessica?” 

The voice that responded sounded like a perfect replica of their best friend, but as May and Jessi slowly turned to look at Eli, the clenching and unclenching of his fists belying his nervous energy, May and Jessi knew one thing - 

The voice on the walkie-talkie was not Margot, and the man standing in their kitchen doorway was not Eli.

A fragment from her earlier conversation with Margot flashed through Jessi’s mind:

“And you want to know the most disturbing part of this whole thing?” Margot had asked.

“How much more disturbing can this get?”

“Lots. Apparently, the only reason the cops even found out about the Callahans in the first place was because their daughter, the one who lives in Vermont, called the cops freaking out and demanding they do a welfare check immediately, storm be damned.”

“What? Why?”

“She said she had been calling and calling, as it was her mom’s birthday two days ago and she always called to talk to her. Never got an answer. Not a peep. Until this morning, when her parents finally picked up the phone. Only the people she spoke with weren’t her parents.”

Snapping back to the present day, Jessi slowly grabbed the walkie-talkie back from May.

“Margot, we’re going to have to get back to you later.”

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“Eli,” Jessi said, eyes fixated on the man’s face as he stood directly in front of the back door, illuminated by the solar-powered floodlights streaming in through the window. 

“Jessic – Jes-Si,” Eli stuttered, grimacing as if the nickname burnt his lips. 

“Eli, I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to tell me the truth,” Jessi said, right hand inching towards the gun on her hip .

Eli said nothing as his eyes kept darting between Jessi’s face and the gun. 

Tick. Tick. Tick.

“Who are you?” 

“I- I am -,” Eli sputtered before his face contorted to show his first emotional expression - 

Rage. 

The sound of a shotgun cocking behind Jessi froze them both. 

“Not. Another. Step.” 

May’s voice felt like sunshine. 

Stepping back to put more space between herself and Eli, whose hands were now raised in surrender, Jessi unholstered her pistol before turning slightly to look at May.

Standing there, shotgun cocked and raised, May looked more beautiful in her dirty blue jeans and plain white tshirt than she did even on their wedding day. Jessi took her place by May’s side, and they both stepped towards the stranger together.

“Now, I don’t know what the hell is going on. I don’t know who you are or what happened to Eli, or why you look and sound exactly like him. I don’t know what happened to -, “ May swallowed thickly before steeling herself again, “to Margot. To the Callahans. I don’t know much about anything right now. But I know this,” May said, readjusting the shotgun and lowering her voice. 

“I know who I am. I know who my wife is. And I know that we took you in from the storm of the century because you were hurt. I know that even when we’re scared and don’t know what’s going on, we choose kindness. Always,” she took another step closer, eyes aflame.

“So if you want to stay dry, if you want to stay breathing, whoever you are will respect the people we are. Because there’s one other thing I know, Eli,” May said as she stared down the man with a look that would wither an oak tree.

“I was taught to ‘Kill ‘em with kindness’,” May said slowly as she lifted the grip of the gun to the side, so that Eli could see what was written on it: 

Engraved on the fore-end of the gun in simple cursive, a single word:

Kindness. 

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After locking and bolting the heavy wooden cellar door from the outside, with “Eli” hogtied and laying in the center of the emptied room, Jess slumped against the door. Jessi didn’t know what to think, what to do, what world would be waiting for them when the rain finally subsided and the sun shone again on Pleasant Valley. Feeling May’s arms slip around her from behind, Jessi took solace in the reality that as long as she had May, she would figure out the rest

“Be kind, but don’t take no crap,” May said softly, her cheek resting against Jessi’s shoulder.

Jess let herself smile before she replied, 

“And carry a gun on your hip.”