Danger -- Flash Fiction

image from stormchase.net

Lightning blazed across the sky silhouetting a wedge, black against the night. Transformers exploded marking its advance along the highway.

Thunder rolled toward me. Wave after wave. Rising and falling, then rising again. Each wave higher than the last, crashed around me. Vibrating against the car.

Ozone filled my nostrils. The smell of electrical fires. The smell of lightning.

Could I outrun the storm?

"A car is the most dangerous place to be in a tornado. Get out of the car." The whispered advice came from someone calmer than I. Someone from my childhood. "Better to lie in a ditch."

Rain and wind were being sucked into the storm. Once outside the false harbor of my car, I could feel the storm's pull. It was too close.

A rock outcropping rose from the wheat stubble on my left. Boulders, the size of barns, struck white by lightning then disappearing into black rain. Better than a ditch.

Miracle of miracles. A black hole a little more than waist-high opened into the rock. I was safe.

Safe from the storm but greeted by a low growl. Eyes reflected the flashing light from outside. Eyes in a face hidden in the dark. Maybe six feet away. It was hard to tell, but farther than arms length.

I looked away, back toward the mouth of the cave. The storm was on us. Debris churned past the opening. Rain and red dirt from the field boiled into the cave and I huddled against the stone wall.

Whatever the animal was, it was quiet. Like me, subdued by the storm raging outside. There was no place for either of us to go.

The storm passed as quickly as it had come. All was dark and still inside the cave. An eerie light, almost green, spread across the world outside.

I and my fellow refugee stayed quiet listening to the receding storm, our breathing matching perfectly. Inhale. Exhale.

Should I leave first? Or would that cause the animal to attack? The catch instinct. Or would it consider me a threat? And if it did, was there enough room for it to escape past me? Would it feel the need to fight its way out?

We had been safe from the storm, but were we safe from each other?

I backed out of the cave. Something brushed past me. One last flash of lightning showed a furry black and white animal, its fluffy tail held high as it ambled away, leaving just a whiff of its scent in the rain-fresh air.

And I fully understood just how much danger I'd been in.