Storm

“Storm”
By W. P. Gerace

Startled by the heavy roar of thunder and brilliant flashes of lightning illuminating her bedroom Mindy sat up in her bed, sweat trickling down her face. Hammering in her chest, her heart resonated with a heavy thunderous clamor in her ears, a constant reminder that she was, in fact, alive and breathing. Just seconds ago, that dreadful night played before her like a terrible, scary movie left on replay in her anxious mind. The night was one like this late August evening. A terrible storm gripped the small Phoenix suburb of Hope Valley, and fierce monsoon winds swirled about her tiny maroon Chevrolet Spark as she drove home from her cashier job at Bobby's Grocery. Rain pelted her windows and made visibility next to impossible. Darting in front of her, a boy with wavy blonde hair and a bright yellow parka jacket on a small silver bike swirled right before her, giving her no time to stop. Pushing the brakes repeatedly, her wheels skid along the sleek surface of the highway. Mindy could still hear the boy's wailing cries as her tiny car crashed into his small body.

The next few moments of that awful night were still as vivid as they were that night nearly a year ago. Anxiety crippled her with the swiftness of a shark about to feast on its prey. Her chest suddenly closed as she could no longer breathe. A heavy deep pain spread across her upper body and around her back. A tingling, numb sensation spread up her left arm; the kind one gets when losing circulation. Mindy recalled thinking she was about to have a heart attack or, worse yet, a stroke at twenty-six. She would be one of those helpless people sitting in the hospital where these burly, masculine-looking nurses had to turn her over and change and feed her. Getting lost in her impending doom and future, she forgot about the distressed child until she heard his desperate pleas for help.

"Oh, my God! What have I done? "Frantically searching for her phone, suddenly her iPhone 14 Pro Max, one of the most expensive phones around, a gift from her dad last Christmas, died.

Mindy was in a state of panic and helplessness with no signal, nowhere to go, and unsure where the closest gas station was. The boy lay on the rain-slicked street, his yellow parka stained with blood as he shook violently. After what seemed an eternity, Mindy finally grabbed the courage to get out of her car. The howling wind pecked away at her sensitive skin, its prickly stings burning her flesh as if she were receiving a terrible sunburn. The boy was several feet away off the side of the road; apparently, the force of the car tossed his tiny little body off in the blades of grass as if he were nothing more than a twig. The last thing Mindy recalled seeing was the whites of that child's eyes. Not a breath was coming from his purple lips, just the steady stream of blood spewing out of him as if it were some faucets.

The crash of thunder in the distance outside her quaint apartment on Farmers Road brought Mindy back to her present state. Silver lightning flashed and illuminated her room as a small dark figure appeared at the edge of her bed. She could see the figure's petite hands, the bones protruding from his flesh sprinkled with droplets of blood. Another flash revealed the figure's contorted face; their mouth twisted to the side as if they had suffered a bad case of Bell's Palsy. The creature had no eyes, just red beams of light lighting up the room's darkness like some jack-o-lantern sitting on a dark porch on Halloween night. The figure floated above Mindy now, its yellow jacket, its luminous golden rays showering Mindy. She can see the figure's entire body now, its blonde hair tossed wildly around as it was that horrible night a year ago. It was the boy from the accident. The one she left for dead for fear of going to jail and losing her job. It was an accident, a bad one, but her anxiety was telling her she needed to leave or she would be sorry.

"Why did you leave me, lady? Why? My mom and dad wanted to know too. You could have taken me to the hospital but left me there? Why!! Why!!! "The little boy kept hollering; his yells turning into this sinister laugh that reminded Mindy of some devious Clown possessed by an evil spirit.

"Please go away! It was an accident! I did not mean it! I was scared! Please!!! "Mindy covered her ears, yelling, begging the child to stop praying for the nightmare to cease.

Tortured for nearly a year now, the memories of that dreadful August night playing over and over in her mind as if the details of that horrible night would never go away. She wanted peace and closure, but it seemed it would never happen this way. Begging for it to be over, the child just kept yelling and laughing at her. This continued until she felt his cold hands wrapped around her thin neck. Slowly she could feel her spirit give in as her last breaths trickled on. Darkness consumed her, remembering that August night.