Nobody's Nowhere

By: Tori McDougald

1. "If It Were Only Rain..."

The sun shines brightly but, through the clouds that blanket the sky, the light casts an eerie and unnatural glow over the landscape. The air hangs thick and heavy with the moisture of rain yet to fall and only the faintest whisper of a breeze dares to blow.  A young girl, no older than 13, sits perched on the edge of the room of a run down, long since abandoned house. The lone man made structure for miles around, the house rises like a tower from the flat farmland surrounding it.   From where she sits the girl stares coolly off towards the horizon while the sky above her grows ever darker.  

“S’too early for sunset...”She looks straight up at the unnaturally green tinted clouds and the way they have begun to swirl like thunderheads before a storm in the still and windless air and the corners of her mouth turn downward. “They’re getting smarter...damn it.” Without another thought she jumps to her feet, scrambling into the house through an open window. She snatches up a well-worn holster from the floor, slinging it quickly around her waist. As she hurries down the hall she takes a moment to yank an old but still razor sharp machete from the floorboards. She grabs onto the doorframe and swings herself around it and down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

“C’mon Blondie, rise and shine! Those things are on the move again and that means so are we. “ The red-tailed hawk, snoozing in a makeshift nest scrounged from scraps of old cloth and other bits and bobs found around the property, gets up in a startled ruffle of feathers, her head quickly snapping from side to side, her wings held up intimidatingly at the source of the rude awakening.  The girl rolls her eyes “Oh knock it off. It’s just me; save the tough guy act for later. You might just need it from the looks of things.” She nods to the bird as she shrugs on a threadbare denim jacket, keeping her head tilted to one side as she looks back at the bird, “Lets go! We won’t bet ‘em but we can at least get a good head start.”

With begrudging obedience the bird leaves its perch to alight on the girl’s shoulder, claws biting into the denim of her coat as it leans forward, peering skeptically out at the sky through another window. 

            “See what I mean?” But she only receives a questioning look from the creature and sighs exasperatedly, “Of course it’s them, just look at those clouds. If it isn’t…then I’d sure like to know how those are moving like that when there’s no wind.”  She moves over to lean against the windowsill, almost casually, for a moment. “It’s a good trick though… but I just don’t get why they’d need it...what could they be hiding from?” But, she doesn’t give herself long to think about it, shaking her head and reminding herself that she has more important things to deal with at the moment.  She picks her bag up from the floor and tosses it over her other shoulder, finally stepping outside the door and watching as her companion takes to the sky, freeing her to take off across the open pasture land. 

The dark clouds continue to spread like wild fire across the sky, and as the last of the sun and blue sky along the distant horizon disappears behind, everything seems to change in half the blink of an eye.  A roar of thunder rumbles through the air and dark, black clouds begin to swirl to life as if out of nowhere. As a sudden whipping wind sweeps over the fields, they quickly take over the sky, surging with an unearthly speed straight toward the old farmhouse, and, though it is faint at first, a sound like the flapping of hundreds – even thousands – of wings begins to grow steadily louder and louder until it is nearly as deafening as the thunder that continues to roll.  The sound makes her heart race in panic and she only manages to cover a few more yards before she follows her instincts and dives to the ground, into the tall grass, covering her head with her hands and allowing the blowing grass and weeds to act as a kind of hiding place in plain sight.  Quickly following suit, the hawk dives from the sky to land in the dirt beside her, one wing spread protectively over her. 

Less than a moment after turning their noses to the ground, the source of the cloud’s windless motion shows itself. As if from within the clouds themselves, a conspiracy of particularly brutish looking ravens swoops down toward the house, zipping silently inside through windows and even through the chimney. Even from inside, their eerie caws and calls can be heard like muffled echoes holding a discussion. At last everything falls silent once again, the only sound the whistling of the wind.  Though she knows any movement while the birds are present is a risk, she slowly lifts her head and eyes just in time to see the smallest of the conspiracy hopping out onto the roof through the very window she herself  had used, then dart quickly back up toward the clouds. She watches the lone bird intently, murmuring to her companion to keep an eye on the house. Seconds tick by before the little messenger returns, but it is what follows him that makes her heart drop and her blood run cold.

TBC...