Like a Freight Train

56 Replies
barns-1-dawn-miller

PHOTO PROMPT © Dawn Miller

The rain sliced through my drenched clothing as if I were buck-naked.   Where was I?

I bit back my fear.

I knew every inch of this land like the back of my hand, didn’t I?  So what if I couldn’t see that hand if I stuck it out in front of me?

Look!

Was the rain lessening?

I began to see light.  The edge of the storm!

There was Wiken’s barn, standing proud and beautiful in the sunlight as if the storm didn’t exist.

I started to run, but then I heard it, like a freight train barreling towards me…

***

Word count = 100

Friday Fictioneers is hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.  This week’s prompt is here and uses a photo © Dawn Miller.  Read more or join in by following the InLinkz “linky“.

**

Tornadoes usually form at the trailing edge of the storm.  As a child growing up in Ohio I saw several tornadoes, but the closest I was to one, it was raining so hard I couldn’t see it…

56 thoughts on “Like a Freight Train”

  4. bearmkwa

    Best be hitting the nearest ditch and praying really hard that you don’t get swept up. Great story. Tornadoes are like that… totally. Was there entirely… well, been there more than once. Xenia…need I say more…. Great story!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓
    1. trentpmcd Post author

      I remember Xenia… Pretty awful. I grew up 40 miles west of Cleveland, a small town called Vermilion (I still have family there). The tornado that passed close to my car (that I couldn’t see) was about 20 miles inland from the Lake as I was taking country roads on my way to visit my brother at Kent State (I was still west, so flat)

      Like

      Reply ↓
    1. trentpmcd Post author

      With some exceptions, the damage from those big storms are much more widespread than from a tornado, so at least with most tornadoes there is that plus, the more limited effected area… as long as you are outside that pat5h of destruction…

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓
        1. trentpmcd Post author

          lol, nope, my protagonist is right in the bullseye. The term “duck and cover” can be applied here, not just nuclear war – as a kid we were always told to lie in a ditch if a tornado was coming towards us….

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply ↓
    1. trentpmcd Post author

      Tornadoes can be frighting, which is why I’m glad I’m on the east coast (said the man who had two tornadoes touch down within a mile of his house on Cape Cod last year…) Thanks.

      Like

      Reply ↓
  21. Rowena

    Hi Trent,
    Loved this. Didn’t realize you came from Ohio, which I really know very little about but is clearly very different to New Hampshire. Tornadoes almost don’t seem real to me over here. I’ve seen them dramatised in movies and I guess to me that’s where they belong. I’ve never had to face the horror of having a twister heading straight for me and am much relieved. I did get caught in a really nasty hail storm a few years ago and the car was in the carpark at the beach facing the full brunt of the storm and I felt like I was in my tin can and I have no idea why that windscreen didn’t smash. I crawled home and found the roof had been smashed and the office with the computer filling with water and the worst of it was my son wanting to get up on the roof and be the man when he was about 10 years old. I called the state emergency service and they had 3 trucks over very quickly and they put up a tarp. Storms now feel me with a kind of dread, particularly after another hail storm peppered holes in the roof again. We redesigned it after thatbut the rain got through 2 weeks ago and it leaked like a sieve. Our place is still a mess with stuff scattered everywhere. However, we’re thankful. W still have a place. We have power. We’re looking good.
    Best wishes,
    Rowena

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓
    1. trentpmcd Post author

      Ohio is very different than NH. It is not in “Tornado Ally”, but there are still tornadoes there every year. NH can get them, but they are rare.

      Last year two tornadoes touched down on Cape Cod very close to my place there. Besides that, there were two storms with winds over 100 mph/160 kph. And that didn’t count the near miss of a named Tropical Storm! Yeah, weather can do damage without that funnel cloud… Sorry you got hit again by nasty weather! At least the air isn’t still full of smoke (I hope)..

      Like

      Reply ↓

Express Yourself

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s