MLAnderson

Writer of poetry, short stories, and prose. Recently published in Lida Literary Magazine, and currently writing a memoir.

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Thunder Struck

This story has an R rating, so younger and gentler readers stop now! Go back before the rating police get you!

They were new to country living, being freshly graduated from the sorority and fraternity houses of Wake Forrest. Now they were setting up house on their own out beyond the Charlotte suburbs. Bob‘s job had fallen into his lap before graduation. A recruiter sought him out, stroked his ego, and then reeled him in by using the joys of corporate banking (money) as bait. A home with some land was appealing to a young couple both raised in suburbia despite the long commute, but then what bother is a commute when traversed in a Mercedes G-Class? For her part, Kristen had interviews set up, but was in no hurry to commit. She was looking for the right situation. She wanted more than a job. Kristen wanted to work in an office that was as tightly knit as a family, an office like the one in Greensboro where she had interned. Bob was doing well enough with his new work that she could take time to shop around. She realized , however, that she needed to get in somewhere fairly quickly if she was going to, as she was adjusting easily to stay-at-home life. She had no trouble staying busy. There was so much that needed doing in a new home! In fact, staying home would not be bad at all but for the emptiness of the big house, which led her to wonder what the pitter-patter of little feet might add to the place? That thought brought a smile to the face looking back at her from the mirror.

As always, Kristen asked Alexa for the weather forecast before dressing. Ninety-nine degrees. That made eleven straight days over ninety-five. That also made up her mind. She would not be venturing away from home today, not in this heat... screw the job hunting for now. The decision made, Kristen dropped her towel, slipped into a mid-thigh sundress, pushed her toes into some badly worn sandals, and added nothing else whatsoever to her ensemble. The thin fabric of the loose fitting dress was little more than nothing against her skin. In fact, the dress was so thin and light that there was propriety to consider. After all, she was a nice girl, if casually rebellious. The only thing she really needed to do outdoors today was to drop the mail, but still she frowned into the mirror for a good while before leaving the bedroom. No one else would be out in this heat though, so Kristen decided not to worry that her nipples were obvious through the cotton. She felt barely dressed though, and she looked that way too. There were few neighbors out here in the sticks. The ones they had met were mostly older, and ultra conservative. Perhaps she should at least slip on some panties, but it was so hot that even that thin silk seemed restrictive, and crack invasive. She decided not to put any on. She smiled once again, this time a little more devilishly. Bob would like her outfit as is. Who knew, they might even begin working on that family when he saw her without any. And besides, who was going to see her if she hurried to the mailbox and back.

Like everything else out here in the country, the mailbox seemed far away. The driveway was somewhat secluded, but very long, two hundred yards at least, with a meandering downhill grade that dead-ended at the rural, two lane road. She stood on the porch looking it over. Always before she had stopped her car on the way home to grab the mail, but she would not be going out today. Today would be her first time making the walk. She could see the neighbor’s house further up the hill, but it was a weekday, Don and Cheryl would both be working. Kristen realized that she had not yet left the shade of the porch and was already sweating. “Jesus!” She whispered to no one. “It is absolutely hellish out here!”

Away to the west a dark line squatted low on the horizon, which reminded Kristen of the rest of Alexa’s forecast, “with possible scattered thunderstorms throughout the day.” A thunderstorm would be a welcome thing in this heat. Outgoing mail in hand, and with a tingle of excitement at her semi-adventurous, semi-nude spirit, Kristen stepped out from the ”hellish heat” of the shaded porch and into Hell itself.

The concrete beneath her feet caught the sunlight, reflecting it upwards so that the stifling heat seemed to come at her from all directions. The air was thick with it, and so heavy that breathing was difficult. She was not yet twenty yards from the porch and was perspiring in earnest now, with droplets pasting her just washed hair to her face, and clasping the sundress tightly to her body. It was downhill going now, so Kristen picked up her pace, her sandals slapping briskly at the soles of her feet.

There was no one in sight. No one at all, not even an airplane overhead. Just as she began to relax, feeling comfortably alone, a bee buzzed her head, startling her, and slowing her to a stop. Kristen was trying hard to fit in, but she was not like the other women she had met out here. She was not as calloused, and certainly not “outdoorsy.“ She had an unreasonable fear of all crawly things, but particularly of crawly things that also flew, and stung. She waited while you could have counted a slow ten before continuing on with short, hesitant steps. Perhaps she should just go back? After all, she could always drive down later.

Shrugging off her worries as ridiculousness (what was she, a baby?), Kristen continued on until she noticed a mockingbird on a nearby fence post. It was looking at her, it’s head tilted curiously. The bird looked completely comfortable in the heat, happy even, as though it came from someplace hotter yet and was enjoying the local respite. She decided that she did not like any creature that could be comfortable in this furnace, nor did she like the way it stared at her with eyes flat across the top, angry looking eyes. What had she ever done to piss off a mockingbird, anyway?

She was halfway to the mailbox now. Kristen reached for the hem of her dress to pull the clingy fabric away from her sweating skin. When she did, a breath of breeze found its way inside. The breeze circled her bare thighs and buttocks, tickling their sensitive insides erotically, as the back of a finger lightly applied would. Her steps slowed once more. She closed her eyes and flapped the hem lightly with her hands, inviting the draft back in, but was only disappointed. The breeze had gone, apparently having found some other thing someplace else more interesting to play with.

When her eyes re-opened the black line of clouds was no longer a distant, thin line. They were directly before her now, right across the road there, towering upward like some fantastical sky castle. Like a chastened schoolgirl Kristen let go her dress hem, smoothed it down her thighs, and continued her walk. A small, green lizard with wide eyes clung to the next fence post, it’s sides heaving with effort. She curved away from it, giving the thing a wide birth, but even as she watched it the mockingbird landed atop the post, bent it’s head down, and gulped the lizard in, leaving only a small piece of tail protruding from its mouth like some grossly disfigured, waggling tongue. Kristen looked away, her nose curled with digust. She had no love for the lizard, but would not have wished that fate upon it. She hurried on then, wanting to complete her chore so that this walk could end.

She reached the mailbox at the same moment as the dark line of clouds. The storm was racing in now, blowing a soft, cool wind before it that ruffled her dress, and her nerves. Before, she had welcomed a shower, but now that it seemed imminent she felt the need to hurry away from it, to run even. Across the road the woodline looked ominously dark beneath the roiling clouds, the trees resorted to waving the white under-bellies of their leaves at her in alarm. A loud, undulating chorus arose from the woods as she neared them, shrill whistled notes of varying pitch that were not intended to please the human ear, but to appease some other, inhuman ear instead. “How many insects could it possibly take to raise a noise that loud,” she wondered? “Millions? Billions? And how many of those crawly, alien eyes were watching her from that tree line... and what if they suddenly decided to come her way in a swarm? Kristen had no idea how those “thingies” thought, or behaved. She only knew that she wanted to be away from them.

Hanging below the mailbox, floundering in a gossamer web, was one of the icky creatures which generated the unnerving racket; a very large, very red beetle. She had heard of cicadas, but had never seen one, and she wished she still hadn’t. The beetle’s struggles against the web only wrapped it up tighter, but it would not give up the fight. A tiny spider eyed the beetle’s dilemma from afar, wondering what might be done with this giant creature it had caught. Careful to avoid both spider and cicada, Kristen swapped the outgoing mail for the incoming, raised the flag on the side of the box, and hurried away from the road before some truck or tractor ventured along it to make her feel even more uncomfortable than she already was.

The driveway’s grade seemed steeper on foot than it had while driving it. She was breathing hard now, and wishing for better shoes. The house looked far away atop the hill, disheartening her, but the cool wind preceding the rains pushed her along. She looked back to see the storm line right above her now, its line as sharp and straight as a blade cutting a clean swath through the blue. To her left the mockingbird was still perched upon the same fence post where it had swallowed the lizard, watching with it’s evil-looking eyes as she scurried past.

The wind was swirling now. Kristen pressed her dress down against her thighs, but still the wind found its way inside. It did not caress her like a lover this time, but swirled around her greedily, like octopus tentacles, each appendage wanting its turn to touch, or to lick. Despite herself her nipples grew firm with the sensations, and her loins filled with hot blood that only tickled her the more beneath the turbulent drafts. Confused, and struggling with the sudden loss of all control she dropped her mail and squatted, trying to get herself below the vortex, and away from its slippery probes. She pulled the hem of the dress tight below her hips, but the wind cared little, cutting right through the cloth instead, bypassing the opening altogether. She watched as her mail scattered across the concrete like autumn leaves, skittering wildly about in all directions. One piece lifted up, blown high into the air and away.

Kristen stood up then. She tried to run, but the wind pushed back, slamming her chest, holding her back so that she ran in a slow-motion like dream state. The wind lifted at her dress, exposing her nakedness while it roared past her ears like the amplified laughter blasted from a carnival fun house. Kristen lost one of her sandals then. She stumbled down, skinning her palms, and her knees. She stayed that way, kneeling on all fours, her dress blown up under her armpits, the wind racing across her skin, lingering on the sensitive spots like lusting hands while it had its way with her. She heard herself scream, and she began to cry in great heaving sobs that were quickly drowned as a streak of lighting ripped the air above her and shook it with thunder. No, she was not even to be allowed that.

And then came the rain, the final shameful affront, pelting her with hard, pellet sized drops that wrung her out like dirty bedding and left her in a wrinkled pile on the concrete. It was not a cleansing rain, but a controlling one, slapping at her face and shouting with a voice like Jack Nicholson’s into her ear, “You asked for this, didn’t you? Well, YOU GOT IT!”

She wanted to scream back that she hadn’t asked for any of this, but scream back at who?There was no one to scream at! Just as there was no one to resist, nor to beg mercy from.

Mustering herself, Kristen used her hands to cover her face from the pelting droplets. She struggled back to her feet. The porch was close now. She began to run toward it, her stride awkward in her lone remaining sandal, her saturated dress hiding nothing. She climbed the steps two at a time. Her hand ripped through the screen door in her haste to get inside. Not until she heard the door slam-to behind her did she know she was safe. She had made it! Unable to go further, she laid herself down on her new hardwoods to cry.

When Kristen awoke her dress was nearly dry, although stiff, and uncomfortable. Through the screen door she could see sunshine, and she could see the steam rising off of the heated concrete. Above the tree line at the bottom of the driveway a rainbow arched its peace making colors. The storm was gone, but she had not slept long. She pushed through the screen door and stepped to the edge of the porch. Her stray sandal laid where she lost it halfway down the drive, but there was no other indication that anything untoward had occurred.

Had something untoward happened? She certainly felt like it had, but was she being silly? Had she dreamed it all? Was it all in her mind? She could not have dreamed all of it, as her knees were scabbed over with blood, and the sole of her bare foot was tender from running on the rough concrete. Something had happened, but what? What had it been? What would she tell Bob when he got home? He would surely ask about her skinned knees, and hands. She would have to tell him something.

He would think her crazy if she told him the truth, and maybe she was. A woman could not possibly be raped by a storm, could she? And if it was not a storm that had molested her, then what had it been? Her imagination? Or something more ominous than either the storm or her fears? She did not like where that thought might lead, so she brushed it from her mind.

And how would she explain to Bob about her wish to sell their new house, and move into the city?

Or of her newly acquired and unreasonable fear of thunderstorms?