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October 1st - When the Lightning Strikes
The night sky split in two, bisected by brilliant light. The darkness parted, falling away like receding waves on an obsidian shore. Thunder, the sound of the waves crashing back together, returning the sky to the night. Drowning the fields and the woods beneath its crushing weight. Little Stuart Browning couldn’t sleep. He’d undone his own covers and rolled on to his belly to stare out his bedside window. Lightning struck once more, way beyond the germinating fields, somewhere beyond that gray horizon. Sleep didn’t come easy on stormy nights, not for Stuart. His mother said he took after her, but he didn’t. Her anxiety fueled her thunder-triggered insomnia, whereas Stuart felt drawn to the sights and sounds with an acute fascination. She had called it God’s wrath, but Stuart saw no anger in the clouds. Nothing more, perhaps, than a solemn regret. Eyes-wide, and with no want of sleep, Stuart watched. Each bolt, each lash, restored a life to the earth, to her skies. It uncovered the fields stretching for acres on the horizon, his own, empty backyard, and the creek that separated the two. There were the woods to his right, standing tall and imposingly over the young fields. A single playset, where a swing gently swayed, as if the wind pushed on an invisible jockey. The rainless storm persisted. A flash of light, and then a booming thunder. Flash of light, booming thunder. Flash of light. Flash of light. Flash of light. Stuart cautiously rose to his knees, edging himself closer to the window. His palm met the glass’s icy-face. He waited. Flash of light. Wrong. It was all wrong. The thunder had gone. He couldn’t hear anything anymore. Rubbing his eyes, scratching his ears. Nothing changed. Flash of light. Stuart wondered if he’d fallen asleep. No, he would know. If he was asleep, it wouldn’t feel right. Everything would be off, not just the lightning. He wouldn't feel the soft, cushioning of his bed beneath his knees, the sharp kiss of the chilly moisture on the window pane. If it were all a dream, he could wake up. He couldn’t wake up from this. Flash of light. questioning his own ears, he snapped, and he heard it. Crisp and sharp, his snap seemed to echo in the silence causing him to childishly recoil, as if somehow his snap would have awoken his parents in the middle of a thunderstorm. His ears worked fine, but it didn’t change a thing. There was still no thunder. It was like someone had put the storm on mute. He wondered, perhaps, if his window had somehow blocked the sound. Unlocking his window, Stuart pried it open, and listened. Whistling wind. Echoes of distant rain. Another flash of light, but still no thunder. But there was something else. Stuart had been listening, but now, now he was watching. In the next silent bolt, his eyes were caught by an invisible hook, and pulled straight to the fields. Darkness had taken over, covering his vision. He didn’t know what he had glimpsed, he couldn’t recall, but it had made his heart quiver. Slamming his window shut out of instinct, he waited for that next strike. It came, and he frantically searched for something, anything at all unusual. Looking for what he had seen before. His heart didn’t settle for he had seen nothing. So, he waited again. This time, this time he knew he had found it. The field should have been empty, freshly tilled, freshly planted. Nothing had as of yet sprouted. Nothing on that earthen plane should have stood taller than a few millimeters. But something did. In the briefest of seconds, Stuart saw something tall in the middle of the field. It was distant, but certainly hadn’t been there before. In that moment, he thought maybe it was a post. The farmers used scarecrows before, it would make sense. Except, it wouldn’t explain how it got there. A flash of light, and this time Stuart focused on that spot where he’d seen the tall thing before. It wasn’t there, not in that spot, but Stuart did find it. The tall thing had moved. It had moved closer. Stuart wasn’t sure of it, not until the next flash confirmed that the thing, the shape, was getting closer and closer with each flash of ominous lightning. Worse, Stuart no longer believed it was a post. No post moved on its own. Another flash. No post had two legs. Another flash. No post had two, flailing arms. Another flash. No post could ever run.

Someone was coming across the field, fast. Stuart gasped as the lightning showed him the figure in motion. Long legs carried the strange someone quickly across the rugged fields in leaping, almost predatory, motions. The arms, spindly and gaunt, were poised at the figure’s front, coiled like a praying mantis. Stuart gasped in the silence of the night. Another flash, the figure grew closer. Another flash, the figure bounded across the empty fields. Another flash, the figure had leapt across the border creek! In that leap, Stuart had seen what he hadn’t, couldn’t have, imagined. The thing wasn’t human. It was hunched forward, granting it a raptor-like posture. It wore no clothes, but had a pale, almost luminescent skin. Its legs were muscular, like a dog’s, with long toes and ragged hair. It propelled itself forward, making a mad dash directly for Stuart’s house. Worst of all, with the next flash, Stuart noticed the creature was staring upwards. Towards the house. Towards his bedroom window. Towards him. He saw no eyes. Where they should have been was the only place where the lightning couldn’t banish the dark. They were soulless patches of nothingness. Contrasting color shone from its nose, and around its neck. Sickeningly, Stuart realized the monster reminded him of a clown. Its pointed nose, and neck, which was inflated with accordion-like flaps of stretched skin seemed to bleed with a bright crimson. Its smile hung low on its tall face, and it stretched wide. Stuart was paralyzed. He didn’t scream when the darkness returned once again. That was the worst of it all. Each and every time the darkness fell, Stuart wanted to pretend that it didn’t exist. That it was impossible. But he knew better. He knew that in the darkness, it just kept coming. Lightning showed that it had reached his fence now, perching atop it with a hungry grin. It pounced from its perch just before the light relented and the returning night seemed to hit Stuart like a freight train. It was in his yard now. Slinking towards his house somewhere in the black. Towards his back door. He should have screamed, but it felt too wrong. Too out of place in the calm, eternal silence. How long would this next stretch of darkness last? Seconds? Minutes? All night? What if the storm had ended? How would he know where the creature had gone? Would the creature leave with the storm? He could only hope. He could only listen. Leaning forward, and with all the bravery he could muster, little Stuart pried open the window. The wind whispered. Everything was dark. Everything was dark, and then it wasn’t. With a shocking, bellowing thunder, lightning struck just once more, right in the Brownings’s backyard. It masked Stuart’s screams, as it shown brightly upon the torturous face right outside his open window.

Ryan Brennaman