Storms

It’s one of those oddities of nature. A moment of impossible coexistence. At night, during a storm, when lightning strikes and the night turns into perfectly illuminated day. Midnight is just as bright as midday for that moment in time. Keller stood in his back yard, in late august, on the gulf coast, enjoying the cool breezes and almost total absence of humidity. He smiled when the latest breeze gave him a shiver. This is impossible weather. Bright day at midnight. Brief, but impossible weather. A storm was coming.

He opened his eyes to give the yard another look over. Everything that could be turned into a projectile was secured or put away. The dogs were inside. There was a second thought on bringing the gas can inside but he had lost the cap and after the power went out, after the air conditioning went out, the repugnant idea of gas fumes filling the house had the final say. It stayed in the garage. With the saw horses he bought and never used, the broken edger, and countless tools he inherited from his father in law. The stuff he couldn’t give away were priceless artifacts to his wife and she was sure that there is a gang of thieves that continually circle the block looking for a chance to steal them. It’s the reason he gets screamed at if he doesn’t put the lock on garage. The same group of thieves obviously aren’t sly enough to get around the thirty year old device. Have to keep the house safe.

Inside nothing has changed. Sara, his wife, is on the phone getting updates from her mother on the position of the storm. The same updates Sara gets from the TV thirty minutes prior. Sara is from Kansas City, the Kansas side. They have storms there too, but not like the slow building type. The projected path tightens by the day. A few days ago any where from Miami to Houston was fair game. Now it’s narrowed from Pensacola to New Orleans. Keller changes the channel and drinks a cold beer while he still has refrigeration. Things changed that night.

He woke up in a bad way. He had a nightmare. Really couldn’t remember it. Just feelings of dread. A gnawing pit in his stomach. After a night of bad sleep he new the storm was going to land on his house. He walked into the back yard and stared at the sky. He didn’t enjoy the weather. Never noticed. He was too busy in the sky. The clouds were a dark grey on a lighter grey background. They swirled in a queer manner and made strange symbols. The panic worsened. There was a message in the clouds but the needed a druid or a shaman to decode them. How did ancient civilizations survive storms without radar and &%(#)) weathermen?!!?! There was a lost knowledge and he was sure of it. They would know how to keep his house safe. They obviously knew something. He saw Julius Caesar grab the world’s last druid by the back of his hair and slit his throat. He looked back at the house and saw his daughter staring out the window at him.

Inside, he asked his wife to look up druids in the phonebook. She gave him a look like she misheard him. He laughed, weakly, and told her never mind. His daughter had her dolls sitting on the couch, shortest to tallest. She took each one in turn and whispered something into its ear. She then gave the doll a hug and put it back in line. He began to think about what would happen if the storm landed on their house. Were would they go? Did he have enough supplies? The storm could land anywhere. One in a million it landed on his house, but he knew, if the weathermen were being honest, they would draw the tracking predictor right on his house.

“I have to go to the store.” His wife was aghast. “Why?’ “We don’t have enough supplies.” “It’s coming for the house.” he wanted to add. He grabbed his keys at headed for National Mart. They guy who owned it would stay open on Christmas, Thanksgiving, his mother’s funeral, you name it. It was only a couple of miles away.

Every store was closed. Most houses had boarded windows. There was a guy one a bike. Keller wondered if he was homeless. He arrived in the parking lot as people were entering and exiting the store. He stepped outside the truck and turned around to grab his wallet out of the glove compartment. He froze. It sounded like a train that had gotten possessed, fell off the tracks and was falling down a tunnel, the whole time wailing. He never saw the whole storm. He got a look at the two feet that landed on the store before the debris cloud knocked him off his feet. Two sickly, green, reptilian feet the size of school buses landed on the store. A brick from the smashed store went whizzing by him and deeply scalped a lady three parking spots over. He knew his house was hit.