Lightning illuminated the sky off in the distance, and thirteen-year-old Julia Cannon bolted upright in bed. Looking out her bedroom window, she saw that the wind was picking up, and a rumble of thunder confirmed her suspicion that it was about to storm. She hated storms, always had, but was particularly frightened of them since a tornado had ripped through their neighborhood when she was ten, and while her own home was hardly touched, seeing many of her friends left homeless, one of them motherless, had been enough to make her anxious every time the skies looked threatening.
Another boom, this one closer, made her jump. She looked at the time. It wasn’t quite one o’clock yet, which meant her mother probably wasn’t home. She worked as a nurse in Tulsa, which was at least twenty minutes away from their home in Catoosa on a good night, and now that it was raining, she probably wouldn’t be home for at least another half an hour. Another crack of lighting sliced across the sky, and Julia pulled the covers up to her neck, closing her eyes for a moment, hoping that would somehow calm her nerves; it didn’t, and the next peel of thunder sent her cowering beneath the sheets.
A billow of wind brought in the rain. Julia peered out from under the blanket just as a flash of lightning illuminated the sky, and she could see the deluge coming down in sheets now. A tree branch began to screech its way across the glass in her bedroom window, and though she could see the culprit each time the sky lit up, she couldn’t help but imagine, perhaps, it was something else; perhaps it was really the long sharp claw of a witch floating beneath that same scraggly old maple. The flashes began to illuminate the objects in her room as well, and as her eyes began to adjust from darkness to light, back into darkness again, she watched as the shadows in her room shifted and changed their forms. She blinked her eyes, holding them shut for a moment, assuring herself that her closet door was still firmly shut, that no one was sitting in her rocking chair across the room, that nothing had slithered beneath her bed.
Finally, when she could stand the ravages of her imagination no more, she slid her hand out from beneath the covers and picked up her cell phone. She quickly dialed her mother, and with each ring, her heartbeat increased. Eventually, her mother answered with a distracted, “Julia? What are you doing up?”
“Sorry, Mama,” she whispered sharply. “The storm woke me up. I was wondering if… if you were about home.”
The connection wasn’t good, the storm likely interfering with the signal. “I’m driving home now, honey,” her mom reassured her. “But it’s raining pretty hard. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Now, go back to sleep. Okay?”
“All right, Mama,” Julia agreed. “Be careful.”
“I will, sweetheart. See you in a bit. I love you,” her mother replied.
Before Julia could respond, her mother ended the call, and she found herself forced back into utter aloneness, the storm still shaking her house and her soul.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Julia assured herself aloud. “It’s just a storm. There’s no tornadoes, or my mom would have said. And there’s no witches… or ghosts… or vampires.”
With the last word, Julia heard a soft creaking sound from downstairs, followed by a shuffle, and then complete silence. Her heart stopped; was that her mother coming in the back door? Was it her imagination? Or was it… something else?
She listened with her whole being, waiting to see if she heard footsteps on the stairs. If it had been her mother, she would have said something, since she knew Julia was still awake. And, if she had been so close to home, wouldn’t she have said she was about to pull into the driveway? No, it couldn’t have been her mother. Perhaps, it had only been her imagination. She was scared--and jumpy. Just then, she thought she heard another small creak from the living room, as if the floorboards were shifting under the weight of someone--or something. If it were a murderer, surely, he would have made his way up the stairs by now. Her mind shot to the news she had heard today, about the Jogging Path Killer in Philadelphia. Maybe he had made his way here, to Oklahoma, to her house. Maybe he had decided to start murdering young girls in their beds instead of joggers. Maybe she would be his next victim.
She knew it all sounded ridiculous. Murderers didn’t just wait downstairs for you to come down so they could kill you. It was nothing; it had to be nothing. Still, she listened carefully for another sound. She heard nothing, except for the boom of the thunder outside. Maybe she couldn’t hear him climbing the stairs because of the storm.
“You’re being ridiculous,” she whispered. “Are you a little girl or a woman? You’re old enough to stay home by yourself. Surely, you can go downstairs and make sure the house is still locked up.”
She hesitated for a moment, wanting to hop out of bed and go alleviate her own fears, but she was still scared. Suddenly, there was a droning noise, and her ceiling fan turned off. It came back to life for a split second, but then it went off again. The power was out. Now, the terror began to well up inside of her again. Not only was she all alone, a storm raging outside, strange noises downstairs, she wouldn’t even be able to turn on the lights.
There was a flashlight downstairs; she knew exactly where her mother kept it, on top of the refrigerator. It was pretty powerful. If she could go get that, she might feel more at ease until her mom got home. Of course, getting there would be horrifying. She did have the flashlight on her phone, but it wasn’t very strong. She took a deep breath. Her mom always said she should have a flashlight when the power went out in case something happened and she needed to go outside or someone came to the door to see if she was safe. With another deep breath, she slid out from under the covers and put her feet in her slippers. She grabbed her robe, and hands shaking, slid it on, tying the belt tightly around her waist.
“All right, Julia,” she whispered. “Stop being a baby. You can do this.”
