Creepy Pasta

Dust

The last storm was already on the horizon when I woke that Sunday morning. It hung in the south, a solid black wall of dust, churning and seemingly motionless. I’d every intention of sleeping late into the morning, as had been my Sunday custom since Adele and the girls had left, but the distant rumbling and crackle of lightning drug me from the bed just after sunrise. I shuffled drowsily around the farm in the early morning, lashing the doors of the barn, rounding up the two stubborn hogs, and shuttering the windows; but soon I found myself rooted in place, captivated by the writhing shape in the sky. It stretched impossibly wide across the open sky, rolling across the border from Nebraska. The air had a dry, electric chill, and already the sickly yellow wheat swayed in anticipation.

I was in a trance, eyes locked on the distance when I saw a small light dust plume to the west, picked out in stark contrast with black beyond. The horse and rider at the base of the little dust devil approached the farm at a sharp trot, and my dust bleary eyes registered the silhouette. Carl Jordan had owned the farm next to mine for as along my family has been in the Dakotas, I grew up with his great booming laughter warming our home nearly every night. His usual broad, yellowing smile was absent beneath recently trimmed mustache and broad rimmed black hat; his dark suit was blotted with fine layer of grit that he brushed absently at.

“Eddie.” His voice was tired and small as he looked down at me. “No church today?”

I hadn’t been in months and he’d once admitted to envying me. I just didn’t see the need any longer, and I’ve relished the extra hours. I ignored the question.

“What’s troubling you, Carl? Mattie all right?” I asked.

He turned towards the south, to the storm and sucked loudly on his lower lip. After a few moments of thought he sighed deeply, with a phlegmy rumble.

“The Hattersons are dead. All of them, ‘cept Saul.” He said evenly, not returning his gaze to mine. I drank this in for a moment, feeling the insides my sinuses beginning to burn in the cold and arid breeze. I briefly dwelt upon the image of the youngest Hatterson, a tow headed toddler with the dim looking smile I’d seen at the general store with Saul and Molly a few days prior.

“How?” I asked finally. He grimaced slightly, still gazing south.

“Saul’s missing. No one seen him since last night. Molly and the kids are dead, and Saul’s gone. It don’t sound good.” Carl slumped forward a little, and I saw, not for the first time how, old he was. “The whole hornet’s nest is stirred up over in Pickton. He was gonna lose the farm they say.”

Fleetingly, it concerned me that I could easily see the connection between these facts.

“Mattie’s fine,” he said after another silent moment. “Just a little ill this morning, thanks for asking.” He broke from the black clouds, and fixed his eyes on me. He offered a pale imitation of his familiar smile, but his eyes remained squinted tight, haunted. He looked as if he had more to say, but at last, he just nodded and gathered the reins.

“Be safe, Eddie,” he said, a phrase worn smooth by repeated use, and turned towards his farm, trotting quickly, head still crooked towards the storm.

By noon, I could only watch as the it reached up and blotted out the sun.

* * *

The dust storm enveloped us, obscuring the sky like the hands of God. I did my best to ration the allotment of bourbon I’d poured off that morning, watching the black wind scour the earth through a broken shutter slat. During the storms of the years before, pale and weak compared to this tempest, Adele would huddle with the girls to read scripture, inevitably ending with the Revelations in hushed reverent tones. I’d tried not to scowl at her fear and awe before, but now I could feel a little tremor of doubt in me, as I looked out at the sackcloth sky.