It was a dark and stormy night. Even though the air outside was calm and stars glittered in the tar black sky, a storm raged behind closed doors. A quarter mile from the nearest neighbor, a half mile from the next, only three people knew of the tempest trapped inside the high desert home.
Like a freak hurricane, the shirtless man burst from the bedroom closet. The couple stood dumbfounded in their living room, defenseless and afraid. Waving the handgun wildly back and forth from man to woman, he ranted, “I can’t go back! I WON’T go back to prison.”
It was a dark and stormy night. The emotional tornado enveloping the victims raged southward 200 miles. The gunman sat in the back seat of their Subaru, his putrid breath searing into their hearts as he forced them farther from their home.
It was a dark and stormy night. Dark until flashing blue lights, like lightning bolts, ripped the couple back to safety. Stormy until the fear inside the couple’s racing hearts laid claim to its next victim, the gunman. It would be a dark and stormy night from now on for the gunman. He was now back in prison.
Daphne Rice [Portland, OR] enjoys writing nonfiction and fiction alike. She has completed writing her first children's novel and is in search of an eager publisher.
© 2008 Daphne Rice. Original for CCF (Rice grants CCF first electronic rights for one month; CCF may archive the material indefinitely and include it in an eBook anthology).
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