Storm Taken: A Supernatural Thriller

by William Michael Davidson

  Three sources? That was Darrel, the financial investor. Prudent and thorough to the core.

  “What happened to the sunny California we were expecting?” my wife said.

  I remember looking around the park and noticing, just as I had noticed on our walk over there, that something just didn’t seem right. It was difficult to place my finger on it, and I was only minutes away from beginning to understand exactly what had been taking place on Naples Island since the storms started rolling in.

  Everywhere I looked in the park, people seemed disheveled, upset, unnerved, and if I didn’t know any better, I might have believed I was sitting on the lawn in some internment camp rather than what was supposed to be a holiday gathering.

  I was contemplating this when Owen bent down next to me.

  “Dad, can I go over to the fountain for a little bit?”

  The fountain was on the northern end of the park, and when I glanced over, swarming with teenagers. I guess that was the official hangout spot of the young at venues like this.

  “Candice there?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “In a few minutes. Didn’t you guys hang out last night? It won’t kill you to hang out with us for a few minutes.”

  “Alright,” he said and went on texting someone. The most likely text: OMG my dad is so lame.

  I stood up to greet Jesse, who had walked over to say hello. Like usual, he looked completely out of place amongst the sometimes swanky, yuppie-like residents of the island. Today’s wardrobe: blue Wrangler jeans, work boots, and a blue-and-black checkered flannel. We shook hands, and I reminded myself that, when I had a moment, I should properly introduce him to my wife and neighbors. Madison had never been to the Captain’s Room, and it didn’t seem like a place Darrel or Jenna would venture to.

  “You guys enjoying your day out here?” Jesse asked, returning a firm handshake. His voice, like usual, was the no-nonsense, deep, gravelly voice of a man who was fiercely independent.

  “Trying to,” I said. “Kind of had a weird morning to be honest with you.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Jesse said. “Remember that idiot biker guy, Klutch? I went to work this morning to get things going—Wilson’s holding down the fort right now because my son went off to a party—and I noticed my banner’s been torn down. Totally gone.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep,” he said. “It didn’t take me but a moment to figure out who did it either. It was Klutch.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so. It’s his way of getting back at me for taking his pocket knife. At least, the pocket knife he thinks I took. He wants to tangle with me, that’s for sure. Just ran into him on the way over here.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep, he’s down by the fountain. Sitting on his bike and eating a burger. I stayed clear of him, but he yelled something at me for taking his whole saddlebag off his bike last night. As if the knife wasn’t enough. The guy’s insane. Why would I take his knife and then come back for his saddlebag? He just wants to cause problems.”

  “What is he doing in Naples anyway?”

  “Good question,” Jesse said. “I overheard a little the first night I met him. He lives in North Carolina from what I heard. Inherited a nice home here from a sister and came out on a grand road trip to check out the home and get it ready to sell. Said something about quitting his job at a warehouse and spending the rest of his life on the road. Served in the military, too.”

  “Yeah, he was yelling something about that last night.”

  “I think it messed him up some,” Jesse said. “Not sure if he served in Iraq, but sounds like he was quite the leader wherever he was. Always blabbers on and on about how he never lost a guy in his command. Not sure what that means, but sounds to me like he might have come back to ‘normal society’ with a chip on his shoulder. He talked about his job in that warehouse like he was doing a prison sentence.”

  I nodded.

  “Just really angered me to see him take that sign.”

  “That is upsetting,” I said, and that was when the light bulb went on—perhaps flickered on is a more apt description. All of a sudden, everything sort of snapped into focus. I remembered the argument I’d heard on the way there that morning. The two guys fighting over the wallet. My wife’s missing lingerie. Her missing jewelry box. Our missing dog. Jenna Paisley’s missing wedding ring.

  Thunder crackled in the sky overhead. The clouds, which had seemed far away just a few minutes ago, were suddenly above us. Had they slid across the sky that quickly? Was it possible?

  “What’s wrong?” Jesse asked. He must have seen the expression on my face. He looked up too at the sound of thunder and seemed just as surprised as me at the sudden arrival of cloud cover. The chance of rain had appeared hours away.

  “Your banner was taken, huh?”

  “Yeah, what about it? I told you it was Klutch.”

  “But you didn’t actually see him take it, did you?”

  “No.”

  “And there was money missing out of your register the other night, right?”

  “Yep.”

  I looked amongst the crowd of picnickers, and this time, I looked closely. I looked at the faces of every man, woman, and child in our near vicinity. It wasn’t that anything looked completely wrong; it was what was missing that got my attention. Where was the laughter? Where was the joy? Was it possible that everyone here was experiencing the same thing?

  It made no logical sense, and in that brief moment, I imagined some thief going through Naples Island and taking things: dogs, banners, wedding rings, knives, saddlebags. Maybe there were kleptomaniac bandits skulking through the streets at night, taking all these things, because the coincidence seemed too much to ignore.

  I had yet to realize the true power of the storm.

  “What is it?” Jesse asked. “What’s wrong?”

  I ignored him. Without thinking, I walked over to a young couple sitting on the grass beside us. They were lounging on a blanket and eating homemade sandwiches. They had a little curly-haired blonde girl with them, maybe two years old, who was flipping through a picture book and babbling on and on about it.

  I tapped the dad on the shoulder. He was a young guy, maybe thirty, and looked like a computer geek.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I hate to ask this. I know it’s going to sound weird, but you guys haven’t had anything stolen from your home recently, have you? Anything missing?”

  The husband and wife looked at each other. They seemed genuinely surprised and stunned by my question.

  “Again, I’m sorry,” I said. “I just think there may be some burglars on the island, and I was wondering if anything’s happened.”

  “Funny you should ask,” the computer geek said. “We just called the cops this morning because someone got into our back patio and took our bicycles. We think it’s a neighbor because she’s always telling us how much she wants to buy ones just like them, and who else knows they’re back there? Were your bikes stolen too?”

  “No, no bikes stolen,” I said, almost in a trance, and walked back to Jesse.

  He gave me a long, hard look. “What’s wrong there, bud? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I think I have,” I said, looking out at the crowd.

  Owen tapped me on the shoulder and asked, impatiently, if he’d spent enough “family time” and could go meet up with Candice. I could hear Toby also begging Madison to take him to one of the bounce houses. I was so consumed in my thought, I just nodded to Owen, and he began to make his way to the fountain. I think that was a strategy he’d learned several years before: wait until Mom or Dad was fully engrossed in something and then ask permission to do something. The odds greatly improved in those situations.

  “What do you mean? Is something wrong?” Jesse asked.

  “I mean, I don’t think you’re the only one who─”

  My voice trailed off.

  I saw Drake walking our way. As usual, he w
as dressed in black, and he had a backpack on. He slumped forward with his dark, greasy hair dangling toward the ground, and it was difficult to see his face. He was carrying something wrapped in a blanket. To many of the picnickers, it probably looked like he was toting around a beach umbrella. But I could tell it wasn’t an umbrella. Too short for that.

  A second epiphany struck me. I remembered the notebook and the crude map of the park. It suddenly made sense to me, and in that terrifying moment, I hoped it wasn’t too late.

  He unwrapped what police reports would later identify as an AK-47. I watched as if in slow motion. He was only thirty or so feet away from me, and it felt like all of my insides suddenly dropped out of me. I felt like a hollow shell of a human, standing there, paralyzed.

  “Oh no,” I said.

  One thought flashed through my head: This is going to be like Columbine. Get out of here! Get Toby, get Owen, get Madison, and get out of here!

  Drake yelled something about his father. A few people who were close saw what was going to happen, and in that moment, time warbled to a stop and everything froze. I saw the look on Drake’s pallid face, the visage of an insane man, and the looks of men, women, and children who realized their lives were going to be turned upside-down in a single instant of time.

  He began to fire. The fusillade tore through several people. An elderly couple crumpled to the ground before him, their chests torn apart and bloodied, and Drake slowly came our way while cutting through the crowd. The sound was nearly deafening. People ran in all directions like a swarm of startled insects, but Drake moved on, calmly directing the aim of his weapon toward helpless victims who hardly had a chance to comprehend what was taking place. I saw a few others fall to the ground as he continued on his murderous path. One of them was a bicycle cop I had seen riding by earlier.

  I found Toby and scooped him off the ground. He held on tightly but didn’t cry; he was still in shock like the rest of us. Madison and the Paisleys were on their feet as well. Everyone knew to run.

  But I had to get Owen. My son was en route to the fountain and wasn’t far away, and it looked like Drake was heading right toward him.

  Amongst the chaos, with Toby in my arms, I screamed, “Owen!”

  He was there, running back toward me in the madness. Like others, he ducked low as he ran—as if that would help. The AK-47 was firing in bursts. I didn’t look, but it seemed as if Drake was still slowly walking and shooting where it proved the most deadly.

  Owen stopped running and looked over at something or someone. I saw hesitation on his face.

  “Get over here!” I screamed.

  He looked at me doubtfully, blinking. My wife was pulling on me and calling for Owen as well.

  Owen didn’t listen to me but ran toward the gunman. I wouldn’t have thought it possible to be more terrified before that moment. Why was he going toward the source of violence and not away from it? What was wrong with him? What was he thinking?

  “Get down, people!” Jesse ordered, aiming a handgun toward the madman. I had no idea where the weapon came from, and I didn’t know if it was a good thing. It would make Jesse a target, and I was standing next to him.

  Over the screaming and fleeing of people, I don’t think anybody heard him.

  I discovered what Owen was running toward. The little curly-haired blonde girl I had seen just moments before was sitting helplessly between the bodies of her dead parents. Owen ran up to the little girl, scooped her into his arms, and bolted toward me. I watched him cover her with his body as he ran.

  “Get down, people!” Jesse yelled again, and this time he fired.

  He missed his target, but Drake noted the threat. Jesse started to move away because I think he realized he would draw fire and wanted to be away from people. Drake fired back.

  Owen reached us, the little girl in his arms, and all of us started to run away. My wife was there too. I heard bullets whiz past us. How close, I don’t know, but it felt like millimeters.

  We didn’t get far before I saw Jenna Paisley fall to the ground. Her head was blown apart, and her hair was a coagulated mat of blood and brain matter. Darrel fell to the ground beside her, howling in terror, and clutched onto her. I tried to pull him with me, because there was no use in staying. One more spray of automatic gunfire in our direction, and we’d all be joining her.

  “Come on!” I yelled at him, but he remained beside the body, howling.

  Jesse fired again and missed, and Drake threw down his AK 47. I think he was out of ammunition. He pulled a handgun from under his belt and fired back, and the bullet whizzed past us.

  Backing away, Drake grabbed hold of a boy who had been lying on the ground, crying. He picked him up, put his arm around his neck, and held him close, as a body shield, as he backed away while waving his gun all over the place.

  I recognized the kid. It was Hot-rodder. I saw his bike lying on the grass where he had been lying. At least fifteen bodies, bloodied and crumpled, lay around the bike.

  “My father’s gonna get his payback for all of you leeches, you hear that!” Drake shouted.

  The sky crackled with thunder and flashed with lightning, and the wind picked up.

  “You’re all gonna pay!”

  Now it was a standoff. Jesse held his ground, his gun out before him, and even though most people had run away from the epicenter of the madness, I saw a few men coming forward. A couple of them were carrying handguns. I suppose in a crowd like that, there’s bound to be at least a few off-duty officers, and these were probably them. Later, I came to realize that off-duty officers really don’t see themselves as “off-duty” in times of crisis.

  Drake, with Hot-rodder in his grip, slowly backed away.

  A massive bolt of lightning ignited the sky above us, and the thunder that followed just a moment after was so loud and monstrous, I could literally feel it in the ground. The rain started to pour. I still didn’t understand how the clouds had gotten there so quickly, how the storm had virtually materialized out of nowhere.

  There were more flashes of lightning, unnatural flashes that happened in such rapid succession it appeared as if a great strobe light had been placed in the dark clouds overhead. All around us, lightning bolts showered down. This was no normal storm.

  A thought even flashed through my head: Maybe it’s not lightning. This is terrorism. A bomb of some kind.

  Still carrying Hot-rodder, Drake turned around and ran back into the neighborhood toward his house. Jesse kept his gun locked on him but didn’t fire. Neither did any of the other men coming toward us. Too risky with a child in the madman’s arms.

  I cried out toward Hot-rodder when I saw that he was being taken away, and much later, my wife told me it was really my brother I was reaching for. Hot-rodder, even in that frenzied moment, was a metaphor for a much deeper loss I had yet to fully come to terms with. My wife has a way of doing that with me; she always has.

  We were safe for the moment. I remember that thought: we were safe.

  Shaking all over, undoubtedly from shock, I took inventory. I looked my body up and down. Was I shot? Was I bleeding? I didn’t think so. My wife has always told me that I’m quite calm in moments of crisis, and I hoped that had proved true.

  I checked my wife, who by now was crying hysterically next to me and on the verge of what looked like an epileptic seizure. I turned her around and checked her body, and when she tried to talk, she couldn’t. I told her to just be quiet, don’t say anything. Fragments of incomprehensible words dribbled out of her mouth, and I assured her that everything was going to be okay. Toby was still in my arms, and I quickly examined him. No blood. No blood at all. I held onto him as he bleated like a terrified lamb into my ear.

  “You’re okay, you’re okay, we’re okay,” I said.

  I looked over at Darrel Paisley, who was on his knees in front of his wife’s body. He slouched forward, weeping. Drool dripped off his chin, and he had his wife’s head cradled in his bloody hands. There were others around
us doing the same. A tormented choir of the wounded and the groans of loved ones rose toward the supernatural display of lightning above our heads.

  “I’m okay, Dad.” Owen walked toward me, the little blonde girl in his hands. Amazingly, she wasn’t crying. Her bright blue eyes looked up toward the lightning in sheer wonder.

  I looked hard at Owen. I wanted to be angry at him for running away from me when I had explicitly called him to me, but I couldn’t.

  I learned something about Owen that day. There was more to this pimply-faced, overly hormonal teenager than I had ever realized.

  My son was brave. Braver than his father, even.

  I put my arm around him and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Well done, son,” I said, and he looked at me with understanding. He nodded, and he knew exactly what I meant by it. “Well done.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The supernatural storm—whatever it was—intensified. There was lightning everywhere in the sky; small tongues of lightning, massive bolts, and everything in between showered down from the dark clouds above us. When I looked overhead, I noticed something else too: the clouds directly above us swirled in a circle, a great, dark vortex. The wind had picked up, but the clouds swirled much faster than the wind should have allowed them to. It was disorientating to look at them.

  A massive bolt of lightning struck the fountain on the other end of the park; it was an incredible thing to witness. The lightning, shimmering and blinding, had made a direct route for the fountain, as if it had been hurled at it for that explicit purpose. The fountain exploded into pieces. Bits of granite flew apart as if a great piñata had burst open, and it was followed by terrible screams as chunks of stone rained down from the explosion.

  “What is this?” Jesse asked and aimed his gun toward the explosion in pure reflex.

  I waited for sirens, but there were none yet. I assumed the police would be there in a matter of seconds, but I took my phone out of my pocket to call 911 just in case; maybe nobody had called it in yet. I had no idea. There were bodies lying in the grass. Based on the wailing I heard near the fountain, I wondered if that explosion had taken more lives along with the ones Drake had already taken.