He Came on the Lightning

He came on the lightning.

White cracks of light breaking the black night. Illuminating the pine trees, the lake, the lawn, and him. He started on the lawn, a silhouetted figure in the shape of a man stood on the beach head, facing the cabin directly. I only saw him in seconds, brief moments where the storm lit the world in holy-fashion. He was motionless, but not stationary. If lightning shone bright he’d remain completely still, nothing more than a lawn ornament. But in the moments of darkness, in the cover of night, he moved. Not much, but he moved. Whereas he started on the beach head he had now made his way up the 20 feet of pavement that connected the dock to the grass. However, his position was seemingly the only thing that changed. His hands remained at his side, his feet remained shoulder-width apart, he was close enough now where I noticed he was looking down at his feet. The man didn’t appear to be wearing clothes, but he wasn’t naked. The contours of his silhouette clung closely to the outline of your average 6-foot man, but when illuminated it became clear that his skin was black as tar. Could he be a diver? A poor soul who was below the sea before the storm hit and surfaced to chaos? It would have been the first time I would have seen or heard of a diver in this lake, and to be honest, the explanation just didn’t feel right. There was something about him that was off. Was it the way he stood? A slight lean to one side like he was weighed down. Was it his fingers? They seemed to extend several inches past his knee. The fact of the matter is, he didn’t feel human.

Another shot of lightning and in those seconds, I realized his gaze had gone from the ground to directly at me. I’d been noticed, my blood ran cold. His eyes were white as the moon, and were as wide and round to match. At this point he was still sixty feet from my back window. The cabin was built on a slope, which meant the lake-facing side was two stories. I was on the second floor, an elevated deck extended 15 feet out from the window I was looking out of, and it stood about 30-feet above the lawn. There was a stretch of lawn that laid between the lake and a glass door that lead into my basement. He could get in easily, if he wanted. Lightning came again and he was out of my view. Clearly in the blind spot the was coved by my back deck. I knew the sound of breaking glass would come next, the sinking fear that he would be in my house in a matter of seconds. But the sound of breaking glass never came. The lightning flashed again and he was on my back deck.

Being he was only 10 feet from my face, a couple of features became more clear. His fingers were even longer than they seemed, and would have been better defined as claws, as their long slender shaft ended in a sharp point. His eyes were as wide and round as I had observed earlier, but his face had no other features. No mouth, no nose, no hair; it was nothing, just those blinding eyes. I looked at him, and he looked back at me, gazes locked in what felt like an infinite stand-off. Once the sky was no longer illuminated, I came to my senses. I made a dash for my shotgun, fumbling my way down the dark hallway. I heard no noise but I felt his presence, it felt hostile and close. Tripping over unseen obstacles, shoes, and laundry; I finally made my way to my bedroom closet. I felt the cold metal of my pump-action shotgun and instinctively reached for the shells that sat on the top shelf of my closet. Adrenaline fueled shakes made loading the shells arduous and frustrating, but I was able to get one in. I racked the shell, the shotgun making it’s familiar chik-chik sound, spun around so my back was against the wall and aimed in-front of me. Then, I waited. I waited for that next flash of lightning, for him to be standing right in front of me, for me to pull the trigger and pray that whatever it was died or went away or something. But then, nothing. The rain began to soften, the thunder began to fade, and there was just darkness. So I just sat there and continued to wait.

He came on the lightning.

Did he leave on it?