False Prophet

003. Pajama Party

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　Three years prior, still the unfortunate town of Sapulpa.

　It had been a restless night for Beau, the kind where sleep was just an inch out of reach. The rain drummed steadily against the windows, relentless in not helping his case──his mind was unsettled, thoughts circling back to the responsibilities that never seemed to ease up. Nights like these, he found himself lying awake, staring at the ceiling, unable to shut it all off. These, which only seemed to come more often.

He sighed, turning over in bed, the creak of the old wooden frame familiar in the stillness. His house, not far from the farm itself, was his sanctuary. Simple, quiet. But tonight, even that quiet felt oppressive.

And then came the knocks.

At first, Beau thought he was imagining it. The soft raps at the door seemed out of place amidst the storm, too faint against the steady downpour. Beau has heard thousands of knocks in his lifetime, and he'd say they were a bit like handwriting: told you a lot about the person and the circumstances. These were confident, urgent──whoever they belonged to wanted to not have to knock on any other door that night──but hesitant at the same time. Considerate. Quiet enough that if he hadn't been awake already, he wouldn't have been woken up now either.

He sat up slowly, squinting toward the front door. Another knock followed, slightly louder this time, more insistent. He glanced at the clock──nearly two in the morning. Curiosity and wariness wrestled within him as he swung his legs out of bed, his bare feet meeting the cool floor. He didn't get visitors this late. Not out here. Not in weather like this.

Reluctantly, Beau padded toward the door, a frown creasing his brow. He had to, in a way. During a sleepless night, you do what you must to make the dawn arrive quicker.

When he pulled open the door, the sight that greeted him was about as unexpected as it got.

There, standing drenched and bedraggled on his front porch, was a small group of strangers──four, maybe five──but the man who had, presumably, been doing the knocking stood out immediately. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a mop of wet, wind-swept hair and an unmistakable air of ease even soaked to the bone. The man's grin was wide, irreverent, despite the downpour raging behind him.

"Well, hell, if I knew you dressed like that to answer the door, I'd have come sooner," the man said, his tone light and teasing. He looked Beau up and down with an amused glint in his eye.

Beau blinked, momentarily at a loss for words. He glanced down at himself──worn pajama pants, a plaid flannel, and no socks. Hardly something worth commenting on, but the stranger's boldness caught him off guard.

"That's... a little forward for someone knocking on a stranger's door in the middle of the night," he ended up muttering. He hoped the smidgen of exasperation didn't color his otherwise calm tone too glaringly. With his arms crossed, Beau lifted his eyebrows, waiting.

The man's grin only widened.

"Fair 'nough," he said, offering a slight shrug. "But desperate times call for desperate measures. Tyler, by the way. My crew and I were hopin' to catch a tornado 'round here and, well, let's just say we got a little too close to an actual storm. We need a place to crash. Saw your lights on."

Storm chasers? What has he done to deserve this, exactly?

Beau looked past Tyler to the group standing by the truck. A bunch of tired, wet people talking among themselves, equipment barely stashed in the truck bed. They didn't look like trouble, just like they'd had a rough night. One of them must've noticed the shift of Beau's focus, because they gave him a small, cocky salute.