Fiction Friday: Chapter Eight

In the dark of the yard, the man looked like a living strobe light. Blinding while snakes of electricity coiled around his body. It should have, but didn't, hurt Savannah. The light that charged up his arms stopped at his elbows. At first his whole body tightened up, even the hands on the girl's throat, then he became completely limp. He fell with a heavy thud on top of the toy Savannah had tripped over.

Savannah rolled away from him as quickly as she could. She got to her feet. The man didn't move. His dark clothes smoked a little. He looked like he might be a little burned, but it was hard to tell because the bright lighting left dots in her eyes. She smelled a strong ozone smell, light during a thunderstorm, and something a little like bacon.

The feather she thought, and her new power kicked in, streamers pointed into the shed where Sierra and Sarah were standing. The feather was on the floor, dropped in the midst of the action. Sarah's hands were outstretched, frozen in front of her. It looked like she was trying to push something away that wasn't there. In the palm of each had was a pulsing spark, a small ball of lightning. She had stopped the man. Sarah was one of them.

The man, the man's gun she thought. Again she could see right where it was, In the back of the shed, underneath an old bed frame, way in the back. She thought of getting it, but didn't want to leave fingerprints on it, when the police came, she would want them to be able to see the man had threatened them with it,

The back door of the house opened. It was the girls dad. He looked angry.

"What are you girls doing out here?" he yelled, "Get in this house, right now."

When they heard Dad yelling, Sienna and Shelby pretended to sleep.

Their Dad, and uncle in Sarah's case, never left the doorway, so he never saw the man laying in the grass. The girls, knowing better than to argue, marched into the house, but as soon as they got through the door, they told him everything. They couldn't help it. Even though, if Savannah was right, it would be dangerous for them to know, they couldn't help it. They didn't know what to do anymore. As they were talking, Shelby and Sienna came down the stairs, rubbing their eyes as if they had been sleeping.

Mom and Dad sat at the table. They couldn't believe what they were hearing. It was night, they had a story no one would believe unless they saw it, and of they saw it, they would take their daughter's away or make them media freaks. On top of that, they had a dead man in the backyard.

They talked it over and, while no one wanted to lie. They were afraid of telling the truth, so they would tell the police lightening had struck this strange man in their backyard. It was true enough, just missing some critical details, like he was hunting a super power giving feather.

Dad made the call. The dispatcher took the information calmly. I would be a half hour before the police would get there.

After he hung up the phone, he looked at the six of them, his wife and the five girls around the table. How was he supposed to protect them, he thought. He grabbed a flashlight from underneath the sink and went in the back yard to check on the man.

He found footprints burned into the grass. He could see the crushed toy the man had fallen on. The man, though, was gone.