Storm Child

“It was a dark and stormy night. The walls of the cabin shook with each crash of thunder as the rain pelted the cracked windows. Water ran down the inside of the glass, leaving trails like tears. Wind whistled through holes between the logs, ruffling the blankets the campers were huddled in.” Ron was crouched by the fire, the light dancing across his face, while shadows flickered all around them, his eyes wide as he raised his hands. Leaning towards Dierdra, his little sister he lowered his voice to almost a whisper, “Then, they heard it, scratching on the door.” Dierdra huddles in her camp chair, wrapped in her blanket, unblinking eyes watching his every move, her open mouth letting her gasp instantly.

Reaching out slowly on the ground, he rakes the fingers of one hand through the scattered leaves and sticks, nails dragging in the dirt. “Scratch, scratch, scratch,” one knee touches the ground as he leans closer, his other hand inching towards his sister. “They knew it was coming for them, they knew they had something it wanted. They should never have taken it.

“A bright flash, a thunderous boom and the door burst open, letting the wind howl into the small cabin. It knocks over and extinguishes their only source of light, a small oil lamp. In the doorway, lit by the now almost constant flashes of lightning, crouches the most twisted mass of knotted fur they had ever seen. Two glowing red eyes were staring at them as it huddled there, pointing at them.” Dierdra squeaks and ducks under her blanket, Ron smiles and slides his balancing foot forward, both hands reaching towards her.

“That’s enough Ronald.”

“Awe mom!” he looks around behind him as Mom walks into the ring of light from the fire. “I was just getting to the good part.”

“You know it gives her nightmares to tell scary stories around the fire.” Twisting his limber body, and letting it flop into a cross legged position on the ground in front of his sister, he watches their mother as she arranges graham crackers, small chocolate bars and marshmallows on a tray next to her chair.

“It doesn’t give me nightmares.” Dierdra was peeking out of the blanket, watching Mom intently. “I know it’s just a story.”

“Besides it’s the same story you guys have told me for years.” Ron huffs and tosses a stick into the fire.

“Mm Hmm,” mom starts poking marshmallows onto sticks and passing them around. “Here you go princess, roast yours.” Dierdra accepts her roasting stick and arranges herself close enough to get the marshmallow barely in the heat.

“You know that is going to take forever.” Rolling his eyes, Ron takes his and watches as it catches fire, then turns it until it’s black and blows it out.

“I don’t like them burnt.”

“This isn’t burnt,” he smiles as he uses the graham crackers to hold the gooey mess and slide it off the stick. “This is perfect.” He chuckles as the molten sugary mess drips on his fingers.

“Perfectly burnt,” Dierdra turns her nose up at him and continues to patiently watch her fluffy white mass of sugar intently.

“What ever lil sis,” Ron snags a few more marshmallows from his mother and goes to his chair on the other side of the fire. He tosses a leg over one of the arms and leans into the corner of the chair, one arm stretched out to toast his dessert. “When is the power coming back on?”

“We don’t know yet.”

              “It’s been three days, and we still have no idea why it even went out in the first place.” He sighs as he blows out the flames surrounding his latest snack.

“Well, no, we don’t know what happened. The whole city is dark and even the news agencies are stumped.” Mom shrugs and watches as Dierdra completes her first s’more of the night.

“Dad says they don’t even know what happened down at the police station.”

“No, we don’t.” Their father appears from the dark, still in his uniform, hat under his arm. “Hello dear,” leaning down he kisses his wife and smiles at the kids. “Which is the weirdest thing ever,” taking his seat he holds his hat in his hands between his knees, fingers walking around the brim, turning it unconsciously as he watches the fire.

“Yea, why don’t you guys know what happened? Surely the power company has to have figured it out by now.”

“I don’t know son. I haven’t heard anything and we ask at the beginning of every shift if we have an update.” He shrugs and looks around. Their back yard is surrounded with an eight foot wooden fence, affording them some privacy from their neighbors.

Since they hadn’t been camping for a few years their daughter decided the first night, they should camp out in their back yard. He remembered how fun it was putting up a tent in the dark, with only flashlights and a flickering fire to assist them as they struggled to make her happy.

Ron was another story, the teenager couldn’t understand why he had to suffer through not having his Xbox, cell phone, tablet and his playlists while they ‘played’ in the back yard. This is the main reason they had stopped going camping. He was so attached to his devices it was almost impossible for him to exist without them. After forty eight hours of de-tox he seems to be doing better. Maybe it was the fresh air, or being disconnected from the sensory overload. Either way, it was an improvement. He watched his son staring into the fire, the end of his s’mores stick in the fire, turning black. “We don’t have many more of those. If you burn that one up, you will have to use a stick from the tree.”

Ron looks up at the maple tree behind his father and smiles. “I have a knife, I think I can remember how to strip the bark from a stick to use as a roasting tool.”

“That’s my boy.” Dad smiles and stands, “Ok, I’m going to go change. Do I get a hot dog for dinner?”

Mom laughs and points to a skillet by the fire, lid on it. “No, we didn’t have hot dogs. We had stew. I saved you some.”

Eyes twinkling in the flickering light he looks down at the basket beside it. “Are their biscuits?”

“Would I make stew and not biscuits?”

“I hope not.” He leans down and places a kiss on Mom’s forehead then walks into the dark towards the house.

Staring up into the sky Ron settles into his chair, listening to the chirp of insects surrounding them. With no moon, the stars shine brightly tonight. A few clouds drift lazily along, occasionally obscuring his view. Mom clinks the long handled spoon against the pan as she stirs the stew, bringing his attention back to ‘camp.’ Dierdra has been assigned to reheat a couple biscuits in the long handled basket tongs. She was watching intently, making sure they don’t touch the fire as she rotates them. Even in the middle of suburbia it’s amazing how quiet things get when there is no electricity. Looking around, he can see light from the electric lamp in his parent’s room where Dad is getting changed and securing his gear. As he watches through the other windows he can follow his father’s movements down the short hall to the top of the stairs then the light descends, disappearing onto the first floor. The bottom of the stairs are at the front of the house, by the front door.

Dad must have turned the light off once he was at the bottom of the stairs, since Ron heard the screen door slam on the back of the house, but there was no light. His father’s footsteps were muted across the grass for the few seconds before he appeared in the ring of light from the fire. His uniform had been switched for jeans, flannel shirt and a jean jacket. He was rubbing his hands together smiling.

“Alright, what kind of scrumptious stew did you make tonight?” rummaging around in the cooler he finds a bottle of soda and sits in his chair next to Mom.

“Chicken, with some veggies.” She dishes up the stew and places the biscuits on top, then hands it over to him, and pulls the skillet back away from the fire, putting the lid back on it.

Dad takes a spoonful and smiles as he chews. “Delicious, even on an open fire you make the most lovely dinners.”

Silence envelopes them again as they watch the fire, sipping on drinks, munching on snacks or just watching the stars. The immediate neighbors had decided it was a good time for a spontaneous vacation and left for the duration, Ron had asked why they couldn’t do that. The answer was simple, their father is a policeman and with no power, they are working twelve hour shifts to keep the city as safe as possible.

“I think I’m going to sleep in my own bed tonight.” Ron stands and stretches his back cracking and popping with the effort.

“The windows have been open all day, so it should be fairly cool inside tonight.” Mom smiles up at him and nods towards Dierdra who is starting to fall asleep in her chair. “We might even sleep inside tonight.”

“Do we have to?” Dierdra fights to keep her eyes open as she snuggles deeper into her blanket.

“I would like to.” Dad gulps the rest of his soda, “I am discovering I am not as physically equipped for camping as I used to be.”

Mom laughs and shakes her head. “I can’t argue with that. C’mon, let’s go get into our own beds for the night.” Dierdra grumbles as she keeps the blanket wrapped around her and walks slowly towards the house. “You will sleep better in your own bed.”

“Dad.”

“Yes?”

“Do we really not know why the power is out?”

“We really don’t know.” He looks up at his son and tilts his head. “We haven’t had word from the power company, or any of the government branches. It’s just like someone walked into the power plant and disconnected it. But they can’t figure it out, and they can’t even produce power, let alone get it sent out to the city. It reminds me of the last time your mother and I went camping by ourselves. We left you with Grandma Bleakly for a few days." Shrugging he looks towards the house, "Hopefully we know more tomorrow, get to bed young man."

With that information rattling around in his mind Ron leaves his dad to douse the fire. As he climbs the stairs to his room, next to Dierdra’s, he can hear her snoring already through her partially open door. Shaking his head he chuckles and closes his door behind him. A small headlamp in his hand gives him enough light to make it to his bed, beside which, he kicks off his shoes, leaving his clothes on, he collapses on the bed and stretches out. Switching the light off he drops it to the floor and rolls over to face the wall pulling his blanket up, closing his eyes and settling into the quiet comfort of his room.

What felt like only minutes later, he was awakened by a blinding flash of lightning and a deafening crash of thunder. Flipping over, tangling his legs in the blanket, he tumbles to the floor with a thud landing in a cold puddle. Rain pelts him as he struggles to sit up and look around his room. A storm has blown in, driving rain through the screen of his open window. Mumbled curses roll from his lips as he wiggles out of his blanket, flashes of lightning illuminate his room while the wind blows his homework papers in circles.

Between the crashes of thunder he hears scratching on his bedroom door. Turning to face the door, lightning flashes again, the door knob rattles. His room shakes with the force of thunder, causing him to fall onto his bed, where he presses his back against the wall, watching his door. More scratching, the lightning is now almost nonstop keeping the thunder rumbling along, vibrating his bed. With a popping crack, a bolt of lightning strikes so close he throws his arm in front of his face to shield his eyes, the smell of ozone hangs in the air from the strike, his ears ringing from the thunder. When his eyes readjust, his door is open. Crouching in the doorway, with red glowing eyes is a twisted creature he never thought was real, let alone he would ever see.

The flashing lightning shows its stringy hair dangling in front of its face as it nimbly crawls into his room and squats in the puddle in front of the window. Slowly it raises its arm, a long jagged taloned finger points at him. Its voice is like a rasping babbling brook, “They took it.”

“Who?” he glanced out the door, hoping Dad would hear and come check on him.

“They took it!” it screeches and leans forward, using the talons of it's out stretched hand, it scratches the wooden floor.

“What did they take?” his voice cracks as he starts shaking.

“It did not belong to them.” It places a knee on the floor, leaning forward, the other arm outstretched, pointing at him again.

He clears his throat and asks again, “What did they take?”

Lightning strikes in the back yard, just as the creature lunges to his bed, hands on the edge of the mattress, its face barely a foot from his, its screeching voice shouting above the thunder, “ME!”

A terrified squeak escapes his mouth before he can clamp a hand over it. His heart beating in his throat he looks closely at the thing leaning towards him. “Dierdra?” he looks through the stringy hair, takes in the remnants of the nightgown clinging to its body.

“They shouldn’t have taken me.” It moves back, crouching in the puddle on the floor again. “I did not belong to them.” She starts to sway back and forth.

“I don’t understand.” Ron slides to the edge of his bed, watching his sister.

“Stole me, kept me, tried to change me,” she holds the torn night dress away from her body. “Told you how they stole me,” she tilts her head, her glowing red eyes haunting him.

Realization dawn on him, “The camp story,” he whispers.

She looks out the window, watching the storm. “Home.”

“You want to go home?”

“Going home,” slowly she crawls to the window, uses her talons to slash the screen and climbs up, balancing on the ledge. Ron feels the hair on his arms and back of his neck stand up moments before the popping crash of the lightning as the bolt strikes the window. He tumbles off the end of his bed, head spinning, ears ringing with thunder, but under it, an excited cackling laugh fills his thoughts as he stares at the blackened window ledge, illuminated by the burning maple tree in the back yard.