The remaining packages sat near the green door waiting for the next thief and all of them contained something messy and ugly. Our homeowner spied the woman’s face on his phone. Lovely. She likely won’t come back. Too bad she only took the small box. The biggest package contained the head of the last guy who tried to steal from him. A cold, wet, sticky, nasty, bloody head.
The basement was full of shadows and it took a second for my eyes to adjust. The diamond pattern in my new contacts flashed golden sparks in my eyes. Through the glitter, I could see Dan’s outline on the table where I had left him.
Sally took longer than she needed to pour the coffee. I’m sure glad everyone could gather at their usual breakfast spot as if nothing had happened. Assholes. In my present state, I felt like someone made me suck on an exhaust pipe all night long. And my brother Dan, the weatherman, was dead. Not that anyone around here seemed to care that he lay below them in the basement.
The lantern on her helmet started to flicker and went out. She now hung in the dark, the water dripping in a slow rhythm. She closed her eyes. The loud banging drum returned.
Preacher Ashton delivered the scripture from Isaiah in a hushed whisper and ended it with a thunder clap. Mom shook her head in agreement while I hung on every word. Aunt Margaret said the preacher was smooth as silk, but I just thought he spoke from the heart.
The sun slowly filled the room with light. He stretched, yawned, and viewed the yard through the window. On the street young moms hugged their children and then sent them up the bus ramp. The bus ramp! No, no, no! He fumbled around for his glasses and grabbed his watch. He laid back on the pillow and vented. Overslept again!
Through the night, we stayed huddled around Dan who alternated between sobbing and screaming. We kept him as comfortable as possible, changed his bandages, and tried to keep him from moving around with little success. At one point, he tried to sit and all he ended up doing was sliding across the pipe protruding from his stomach. He shouted in pain and promptly passed out. This was really for the best because if he moved…
He started whispering gibberish. Most of it I couldn’t make out except for a few pieces. He plainly said “a fob” and he kept mentioning “weapon protocol.” The second phrase scared me, but the fob piqued my curiosity. What if it could stop all of this craziness? He really didn’t look very good and I needed to figure this out. I grabbed two mugs, filled them with coffee, and found a corner booth to talk things over with Charlie.
As soon as he said it, a huge gust of wind ripped the roof off the clinic like it was a sardine can and the doctor, sheriff, and the deputy were sucked out in a violent cyclone. The wind tossed Dan into a corner and me under the table where I clung to the legs as the wind tried to pull me out. Then the wind stopped and an eerie silence took over.
“Dan?” I shouted. “Dan? Are you okay?”
I rushed to the corner where Dan lay on his side bleeding from a gash in his head.
“I’m not Dan, but I need your help,” he said. “The army wants to kill me because I invented a way to control the weather.”
A small place always needs a guy willing to do the stuff no one else will do, and well, I am that guy. My name is Jake Rutledge and I am a handyman.