creds; emilymcdemily
It's been pouring for almost a week.
It started last Saturday. The weatherman called for a summer storm with possible flooding but it was never supposed to last this long. People are calling it the end of the world even though the storm has been contained to our small town in rural Indiana. Every now and again it seems like it will stop but as soon as it clears a bolt of lightning illuminates the sky and down the rain comes again.
No one is able to watch TV or listen to the radio without it being interrupted every 15 minutes with the alarm of flash flood warnings. "Flooding imminent. Get to higher ground." Most of the roads are closed now. Nobody can get to work or school. It's almost like the whole town has shut down except for the fact that we still have power.
I'm one of the lucky ones this week. My apartment building is on top of a hill and I keep my car parked at the garage across the street. Some of the unlucky residents of this town have had to watch their cars float down the road and see their garages and basements flood.
The amount of property loss and damage isn't the worst part of this storm, though. People have been going missing left and right. It has to be up to 10 people already. No signs of bodies or foul play. Just regular people up and vanishing. The oldest being 68 and the youngest 7. Search parties have formed but with the storm still going strong, there hasn't been much luck.
This didn't really matter that much to me until I saw it.
One night I was up very late. The thunder had kept me from falling asleep and by 4 am I gave up on trying. I was sitting on the balcony of my apartment (that luckily had a roof) and was watching the rain come down. I must've been out there for an hour when I decided to go inside and make myself a cup of tea. As I stood up to go back in, I heard a huge crash. And not a thunder crash, but almost like and earth splitting noise. I jumped and turned back towards the street expecting to see a car bent around a tree but I didn't see a thing. I squinted out into the woods surrounding the parking garage to see if maybe a tree had spilt and fell. As my eyes darted around inspecting the foliage something shifted in between the trees. My eyes strained as I stared at that spot to see any other movement. And then it emerged.
It almost looked like an elderly person. Hunched over with gray skin that hung off its body, but it was too large to be human. It must've stood at 8 feet tall, if it wasn't for the weird hunch. It had matted black hair that was dripping from its head. As I watched it move around in the forest I could see it had some kind of deformities as it couldn't seem to walk straight. I was frozen to my spot on the balcony, my eyes fixed on this creature. I was quickly snapped out of my daze when I heard a door slam down the street.
The creature and I both turned to stare at the house in which it came from. I watched one of my neighbors coming down the stairs, hugging her rain coat to her body as she walked towards her garage. I looked back to the creature to see it was already bolting towards her. I went to scream but it was as if my throat had completely shut. I watched her eyes widen as she watched the creature lunge for her. I couldn't look away as it ripped her to shreds, blood and bits of flesh spread across her lawn. The creature was so fast I didn't have time to blink before my neighbor was gone. What was left of her was quickly being washed away by the rain and the creature sulked off back across the road towards the forest it had came from. But instead of sinking off into the trees again it slipped its way into the sewer drain in front of my apartment. It looked impossible but it fit its long limbs into the small space. Before it's head was out of view it locked it's rust colored eyes with mine. And this I will never forget: it smiled.
