A Dark and Stormy Night

By Suzanne McDonald

The sky was dark and stormy that night,
When we found ourselves without a light.
Sounds could be heard throughout the house,
Windows banging, the squeaks of a mouse.

Try as we might, though we looked high and low,
We couldn’t find a candle that the wind couldn’t blow.
The phones were all dead so we couldn’t call out,
The neighbors all lived too far for us to shout.

The radio was working on batteries so far,
As outside we heard the sound of a car.
The man on the radio said a madman was free,
And was heading this way on a crazy killing spree.

We fumbled in the dark and locked the front door,
Tripped over some boots that were left on the floor.
Suddenly we heard a crash in the back yard,
We ran to the window and stared very hard.

A shadow was moving in and out of the trees,
Blacker than black, we felt our blood freeze.
Because of the kids, we did not have a gun,
So we tried to find something with which we could stun.

The shadow slid silently through the trees in the back,
Then the window made a very loud crack!
A hand reached through to turn the doorknob,
As the pulse in our throats began to throb.

I grabbed a vase and brought it down on the hand,
I knew it was time to make our last stand.
We yanked on the arm and dragged it inside,
The shadow objected, a voice cried out in pain,
“What the heck are you doing, you stupid lamebrain?”

He flicked his lighter and we looked at his face,
We laughed as we saw it was our brother Case.
He went down and repaired the blown fuse,
We turned on the lights and told him the news.

He told us the killer had been shot down the road,
We breathed a sigh as if we were free of a load.
I went to my room, shut the closet door tight,
But it was a very long time till I shut out the light…