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How fast can wind blow?


I love storms. Plenty of people share that sentiment with me, I’ve noticed. Nothing beats sitting inside, wrapped up in a blanket with a flashlight in hand, and hearing the rain against the windows and the occasional familiar rumble of thunder. Feels like home. And lucky for me, where I live has no shortage, especially recently. Pair that with Fall, my favorite season, and you can bet that this is just about my favorite time of year.

Or at least it was.

I’m not sure if there was a clue that I missed somewhere. The forecast all week called for showers and potential thunderstorms. As we neared Friday the weathermen got more adamant about the size and scale of the storm but again, nothing new around here. All I did was make sure not to schedule anything else for the evening and silently anticipate a night alone, just me and the storm.

When I woke up in the morning, you wouldn’t have believed the weathermen for a second, and neither did I. For the first time all week there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. In fact, it was warm! Fancy that. ”Well.” I thought to myself as I got ready to go to work. ”Still not hanging out with anyone.” The social recluse in me won out again.

Just this once, I wish it hadn’t.

Work was fine that day, Panera isn’t exactly thrilling but it’s pleasant enough. Towards the middle of my shift, I made my way to the kitchen to handle something or another, when I heard my manager exclaim from the front, “Wo-ah!” Me and another curious employee made our way back up, to see him half leaning over the counter looking out the window. We both poked forward and directed our eyes to whatever he had been looking at.

Only then did I notice how dark it had gotten in the restaurant. The sky was almost blackened by rolling clouds. Staring at them revealed they were moving impressively fast, and would likely soon completely cover the town. I could swear that when I went to the back it was still clear out.

“What’s the ruckus for? Just some cloud-“ I jumped as my sentence was cut short by a deep boom, the kind that you could feel in your chest. Thunder.

“You shoulda’ seen the lightning. Whole place lit up. Wow.” Gawked my manager, eyes still trained on the approaching storm.

Customers quickly collected their food and left, not wanting to get caught in the storm. Somebody in the drive-thru (yes our Panera has one) actually left without their food, probably doing the same. With a now empty restaurant, the employees went to the back and turned on the news. We watched it intermittently, stopping to glance outside. A steady rain was coming down when all of our phones let out that monotone alarm. Flash flood warning. Even for us this storm was looking pretty bad.

“Alright, you know what, close up guys.” Our manager came off from the office phone. “You all don’t need to be here right now, I don’t want ya’ getting stuck in this storm. Lookin’ to be real bad.” He continued while working to get his heavy rain coat on. “Go on now, before it gets too slippery out there. Text me so I make sure ya’ll got home.” I won’t lie, I was actually a little bit giddy. Call me a freak, but there’s almost something festive about a weather event changing the usual lull of school or work. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a Midwestern thing.

I got home just fine, though my headlights barely lit anything up on the road. The rain wasn’t so bad but the sun had been totally swallowed by the clouds. The rain got heavier and harder as I began entering my house, almost like the storm was shooing me inside. Rude.

After drying off I flipped on the news only to be met with the unbearable buzzing of the public broadcast system. After promptly muting it, the warning appeared only as “SEVERE THUNDERSTORM”. Not a tornado, so it could be worse, right? Leaving the TV on for any other alerts, I got out my trusty storm gear and resolved to wait out the weather’s hostile takeover of TV with YouTube.

Whatever I was watching however wasn’t holding my attention all too well, because I found myself periodically glancing out the window. It had gotten brighter, but that didn’t mean the storm wasn’t in full swing. Lightning sporadically spiderwebbed through the sky and the rain stayed relentless. I found myself setting down my phone to watch the storm, like I normally do, but something was off. I’m not at all scared of bad weather, not since I was a kid, so what was the problem?

I felt the house shaking before I heard it. Another intense bout of thunder rattled my small house and reverberated through my body. I felt my ears ringing. This thunder wasn’t familiar. It didn’t feel like home.

Two flickers, then darkness. The only light in my house now came from the lightning outside. ” Must’ve knocked down a powerline. Nearly knocked down my house, after all.” I wasn’t panicking, not yet. Again, par for the course for my area. Soon as the storm settled down they’d have it back on in no time. But I couldn’t shake the feeling. Once again I turned my eyes to the outside, hoping to distract myself from the vibrations I felt I could still feel from the thunder in my chest.

The sky was exploding. It was more often lit up than it wasn’t. I could make out the vast features on the clouds as light cascaded across them. Only after staring for a few unbroken moments did I notice the spots. Little tiny black spots, peppered all over the storm above.

I squinted trying to make out what it was. ”Some kind of debris? I don’t think there’s a lot of wind out there. They look big? How fast can wind blow?” Then one flew by my window, inches from my face. It was there for less than a second, but I saw it clearly. It was a body. They were bodies. They were people.

As quickly as this clicked in my mind I heard something clang from across the house. I scrambled myself up and let out a yelp. Panic, I was panicking. I threw off the blanket and flicked the flashlight on, running to the kitchen I was sitting just out of. My hands shook as I grabbed a knife from the cutting board.

“What the fuck!?” I shouted aloud, to the empty kitchen, waving the flashlight through my darkened house. The rain pinging against the window filled my ears. Then something fell in the hallway to my right. I bolted to the stairs, pounding up them noisily. As I tripped on the first steps… I dropped the flashlight. The bottom didn’t have the cover on anymore. ”FUCK!” Exploded in my head as I heard the batteries scatter around. I continued off of memory, finding my room and slamming the door shut.

Locking it, my room being periodically lit up from the window next to my bed, I flew to the other side of the room and started dialing 911 on the phone that I hadn’t dropped like an idiot with the knife sitting uselessly next to me.

“Our lines our currently occupied, please wait and an operator will be with you as quickly as possible. Do not hang up.”

The lightning was getting less frequent. I choked back hot tears, eyes glued to the occasionally lit up door. “Please please please please please please.” I repeated into the hand covering my mouth.

In the lapse between flashes, it appeared.

Massive, gazing eyes bore into me. I let out a pathetic scream as I became a wash of terror. Lightning lit up the room. It was scrawny, it’s skin was black. It was naked. Another strike. It fumbled towards me, huge eyes cutting through the darkness, watching hungrily. Another strike. I could smell it. I tasted pennies, tears soaked my face. I felt bony fingers curl tightly around my wrist.I felt it before I heard it. A deep rumble shook through the house, violently knocking things down through my house. I felt myself tremble beneath the sound. Another strike.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

It was gone.

I can’t stay here. I don’t know what do to but I can’t stay here. Not another night in that house. Because when I turned on the news the following morning in hopes of reports on something similar in the neighborhood, or at least the people in the sky, they only had one thing to say about the storm.

There will be another one tonight.

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