Author's Note:
This is my submission to the
Halloween Story Contest 2023
. It includes brief excerpts of lyrics from "At Last," written by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren and popularized by Etta James' 1960 rendition. My sincere thanks to Demosthenes384bc for reading an earlier draft of this story. Content warning: contains brief scenes of violence.
*******
July 1994
Sarpy County, Nebraska
He remembered his father's hand, firm and heavy on his shoulder, shaking him into consciousness.
"Wake up, buddy. C'mon. We have to go."
His father was smiling, but Andy heard the urgency in his rushed words and spotted the fear flickering behind his eyes. Something was wrong.
"Go? Where? What time is—"
"Here we go. That-a-boy," his father said, throwing back his dinosaur comforter and pulling him to his feet.
Andy glanced at his digital clock, but its display was dark. A small circle of light darted and bounced across the carpet. He traced its source to his mother. She was holding a flashlight. Her hand was shaking.
"Dad? Where are we—"
"Storm shelter. C'mon."
"Now?"
"Yes. Right now."
That's when he heard it: a rushing sound, growing steadily louder.
They flew down the steps and burst through the front door. The sky was coal black. He could see nothing, not even the outline of the corn in the field or the trees on the horizon.
The sound was much louder outside. Andy wanted to run back upstairs, dive under the warm covers, and pull the pillow tightly over his ears to block out the noise. But his father dragged him onward, his fingers clamped like a vice around Andy's wrist.
Panic surged through him. For the first time in Andy's eight years on earth, he understood that he was going to die. Not when he was old. Not on some uncertain date in the future. Today. Right now.
The wind whipped through his hair and tried to peel his pajamas from his skin. He stumbled to his knees. His father's strong arm hoisted him off the ground and dragged him forward. His bare toes skipped and skimmed across the hard-packed dirt until he regained his footing.
Andy had seen videos of tornadoes, but they'd all been recorded during the day. At night, the monster was invisible, lurking somewhere in the darkness. Maybe right next to him. Andy pictured it emerging mere feet away, finally revealing its terrible form only when it was too late to escape.
He imagined his dad's hand being yanked from his own and his parents being pulled into oblivion while he watched, his hand stretched skyward, tears streaming down his face. He pictured himself standing alone at night in a quiet field, and somehow the thought scared him far more than the idea of the monster taking them all.
Impossibly, the sound grew louder.
"It's coming!" he screamed into the blackness, unable to make out the sound of his own voice. "It's coming for us!"
Wind laced with dirt stung his face. Their dash to the shelter—a quarter-inch-thick steel rectangle bolted to a concrete slab on the side of the farmhouse—was fewer than fifty feet. It felt like fifty miles.
His father swung the heavy handle into place, securing the door, then pulled Andy and his mother into a tight embrace. Andy clamped his eyes shut and buried his face in the soft fabric of his mother's nightgown.
They waited and listened. His mother prayed the rosary. The roar outside dulled, then eventually faded completely.
Andy didn't want to leave. He pleaded with his parents to stay in the shelter until morning, but his dad gently pried his hands from his mother's nightgown.
"It's okay, buddy. We're safe. It's gone."
"It'll come back. I know it. Please!"
His dad opened the door. The night was quiet. Their house was still standing. It was as if nothing had happened.
In the light of morning, they learned the tornado had passed just ninety yards west of the house, cut a swath through their cornfield for about a quarter mile, then vanished.
Andy walked the zigzagging path through the corn, shuddering at the randomness with which some stalks had been flattened or ripped from the ground, while others had been left completely untouched. The path ended abruptly in a large circle, a dark brown thumbprint in the middle of a sea of green. He stared at the matted leaves and tassels under his feet.
It had been right here. In this very spot. He was separated from it now only by a thin veneer of time.
His parents said it was a miracle. They'd been spared by the grace of God.
It didn't feel that way to Andy at all.
To Andy, it felt as though something horrible inside those winds had been searching for him, scouring the earth below where his feet now stood and swatting aside the corn in its frustration.
It had failed. This time.
But Andy knew something, felt it in his gut with a grim certainty that spread like ice through his veins: it would be back one day to finish the job.
*****
October 2018
Butler County, Pennsylvania
Andy sat on the porch swing watching the storm clouds approach. It wouldn't be long now. An hour. Maybe less.
He turned the old pocketknife in his hands, studying its sleek curves. The front door swung open. He cupped the knife in his left hand and pressed it flat against the arm of the swing.
Laura spotted him on the swing and sighed. "You been out here all night?"
He shook his head. "Just the past hour or so."
He knew Laura saw through the lie, but she didn't question it. She glanced at the swing.
"Mind if I sit?"
"Aren't you gonna be late?" He checked his watch. Her shift at the hospital started in forty minutes.
"I have time." She waved her hand. "Scoot."
He slid to his left. The swing dipped as the springs lengthened under her weight.
They watched together in silence as lightning flashed in the distance, followed by the rumble of thunder.
"You trying to scare off those clouds by staring?" she asked.
"Just like watching is all."
She reached for his right hand and laced her fingers through his.
"You don't always have to protect us, you know. That's not your job."
"It is. My most important job."
"This isn't tornado alley." Laura pointed toward the horizon. "Those clouds? They'll roll in. And then they'll roll out. Same as always."
He grunted.
"And we'll still be here when they're gone," she continued. "Same as always. Whether you stay up all night watching or not."
"You think I'm crazy. But I'm not."
"I don't think you're crazy. I think you suffered a trauma."
He shook his head.
"Yes, a childhood trauma," Laura continued. "And I think if you would just talk about it with someone, then maybe―"
