I had an argument with my step-father. It started with the way he treated my mother and then spilled over to a lot of other things. He was a despicable pig of a man and I totally failed to see what my mother saw in him. Still, she seemed happy enough, not that that gave him the right to be so obnoxious.
The argument finished when he pointed out that it was his house, which it was, and if I wasn't willing to live by his rules, which I wasn't, I was free to leave. I just turned around and walked out. I was eighteen, had a job, and quite capable of finding my own accommodation. There was no way that I'd live under the thumb of a domestic dictator. He'd be off to work tomorrow and I'd drop by and grab my things just as soon as I lined up a place to live.
I was heading towards a friend's place, meaning to bunk there for the night. It was quite a walk and I wasn't even halfway there when the rain started. A little rain I could put up with, even if it was cold.
A few moments later there was this brilliant flash, an appalling clap of thunder, and someone let Niagara Falls loose. In about two seconds flat I was soaked to the skin and in danger of both drowning and freezing.
Fortunately I knew exactly where I was. The big old house across the road from me, the one standing in total darkness and looking like a traditional haunted house, was the old McKoskey place. Old McKoskey had died about six months ago and the place had been standing ever since. The executors of the estate were too lazy or too tight to attend to the gardens and the place was a veritable jungle.
What else it was was empty, with a broken window at the front, courtesy of a small fiend with a stone. The executors hadn't got around to fixing that window either. Fortunately, the prevailing winds came from behind the house, otherwise the current storm would have wreaked some nasty damage via that window.
I ran (swam?) over to the house and edged along between the house and the supposed garden until I reached the broken window. From there it was easy to reach inside, unlatch the window, slide it up, and slide over the sill and in out of the rain.
I was totally soaked and shivering. I groped my way over to the door and out into the hall. Now all I had to do was figure out which room was the bathroom (hopefully containing towels), get dried, and then find a room with a bed so I could catch some sleep. Hopefully the bed would include covers, as I was freezing.
There was another bright flash, which I immediately attributed to lightning. It took me a few moments to notice that the bright light was still on. Startled I looked around and noticed that the lights in the hall were on. I hadn't even realised that the power was still on.
I blame being wet and cold for not thinking about how the lights came on. I just head on down the hall, checking each door to see if it was a bathroom. That was until I came across a doorway with no door. Instead of a door I was looking at a very large man who might as well have been a door, he was so large.
"You seem to be looking for something," he said.
"A bathroom," I said, nodding. "I want to dry off a bit."
"You do seem a bit wet," he agreed. "From the blue tinge to your lips I'd say you were a bit cold as well."
"Well you're not wrong there," I admitted, "but my chances of finding hot water in the bathroom are pretty slim. Or any water for that matter. I think the executors turned off all the utilities. Except, apparently, for the electricity."
"Oh, you noticed that the power was on?"
I nodded. "Um, the bathroom?"
"Follow me," he said, leading me up some stairs.
At the top of the stairs he pointed to two doors.
"Linen cupboard," he said of the first door. "Bathroom." That was the second. "As soon as you're in there strip off and stand under the hottest shower that you can manage for as long as you can. I suspect you're suffering from a touch of hypothermia and you need to get your core temperature up a bit. I'm sorry to have to say that it'll probably hurt a bit but it is necessary."
I simply nodded and went into the bathroom, stripping off and getting under the shower. I'd worry about the towels after I warmed up. The shower was way too hot so I turned it down, making it a lot cooler. I was quite irritated when the man reached past me and turned the heat up again.
"Now stay there like that until I say you can get out," he told me firmly.