Chasing Storm by Teagan Kade Read Free Book Online

the first thing I see. It sits on a hill above the town like a lumbering giant. Part of the roof has collapsed. Wooden beams hold up the rest.
    I pass a group of kids on my way through Millertown’s outer limits. They look at me with suspicion, sunken eyes full of despair.
    The town hasn’t fared much better. The main street is potholed and stark, every shop bordered up or broken.
    An old man steps in front of the car. I jam on the brakes. He doesn’t even flinch as my front bumper nudges his knees. He just continues to look ahead, lost.
    Houses soon past my windows. People live here, there is no doubting that, but if they do, it’s behind closed doors.
    I wind up my window as two youths run out to tap on the glass, yelling. Their cheeks are pulled tight, limbs little but bone – classic drug abusers.
    Suddenly, one of my quarter windows shatters. I scream as glass fragments shower over my lap and legs
    A rock sits in the passenger-side foot well. It could easily have hit me in the head.
    I scan the rear-view, but there’s no one there. The streets are bare again.
    I step on the gas and head back out of town just as the downpour starts.
    The window wipers struggle to keep up, rain coming straight through the area where the window was smashed beside me and turning my clothes wet. A crack of thunder shakes the roof lining. I turn the demister on. It does precious little, forcing me to squint into the windscreen while I try to follow the markers on the road.
    The rain increases and the car slips a little as I correct, fighting with the steering wheel to keep straight. Visibility is all but gone, all light seemingly sucked away by the storm.
    The questions come thick and fast into my head.
    Why did you go out in this weather? It’s storm season, you know.
    Why did you even go to Millertown?
    Why don’t you buy a better car?
    I turn the headlights on. As soon as I do there’s a defined wheeze from the engine. The car loses power. I press the accelerator again, but all I get back is a sputter. The engine dies and all I can do is steer the car to the shoulder as the rain continues to fall in great, gulping heaves.
    “Shit.”
    I look through the windscreen. Even through the blur it’s clear I’m in the middle of nowhere.
    I take out my cell and go to dial, but there’s no signal.
    “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
    It will be night soon and I can’t afford to be stuck out here. I could walk back to Millertown. It’s closer than Rosie, but I remember those guys that ran out, the look of desperation on their faces. I shiver to think what they might do me alone, cornered.
    I decide to wait five minutes to see if the rain will relent, but when it doesn’t, I make the decision. I’ll walk south, to Rosie, and hope to find someone on the way.
    I take the umbrella and step out into the rain. It hammers at the thin material above like liquid needles. Wind sweeps underneath and I have to use two hands to hold the umbrella in place, my shoes slipping in the dirt and gravel as I start my way down the road.
    An hour in and my legs are burning, my breath coming out in clouded gasps. The umbrella’s long gone, blown away by the wind. My blouse is soaked to translucency and my skirt hangs from my hips heavy with water.
    I shake, teeth chattering in the cold and regretting my decision not to stay with the car.
    At first I think it’s a trick of light, but as I round the bend it becomes clearer. There’s a light in the distance. A window.
    I head towards it and the window becomes a house, a shed, but more than that it becomes warmth. It becomes rescue.
    I cut across a field, losing a shoe in the process but forging ahead without it, sock soggy and damp.
    It’s a house alright, but the light’s coming from the shed to the side, a large, barn-like structure.
    I come around to the front, hugging myself in a vain attempt at warmth.
    I go to knock on the door of the barn, but it swings open before my hand makes contact. There’s light ahead.