Home Alone

by Lisa Church

  “Mom!” she exclaimed. “Yes, it’s me! I’m here! Where are you?” Winnie was practically shouting, trying to make sure her mother heard her over the static.

  “We’re in town, honey. I’m calling to see how you two are in this storm. Had I known it was coming, Dad and I never would have left you and Alec alone. I’m so sorry, Winnie.”

  The trembling girl interrupted her mother’s apologies. She knew if she didn’t, her mom might go on and on. It was a part of her mother’s personality that usually didn’t bother Winnie. But today, well, she just wanted to get a little talking in herself.

  “We’re okay, Mom, but…” Winnie stopped mid-sentence. She would have to choose her words carefully. As unsettled as things were here with the storm, she had to be careful not to let on how scared they actually were. If her parents knew a rainstorm made them scared, well, there was a pretty good chance they wouldn’t be allowed to stay by themselves again for quite a while.

  “…But we were just wondering what you were bringing home for supper,” she continued, trying to sound very matter-of-fact with her comment. Alec tried to grab the phone out of her hand to talk, but Winnie somehow managed to wrench it back from him.

  “Wait!” she mouthed angrily to him, keeping the phone at a distance. She hoped she could get through to her brother before he actually got on the line and told his mom about seeing things down by the water.

  “Honey, are you still there?”

  Winnie could barely hear her mother over the pelting rain, the hissing static, and her brother’s whining. She clutched the receiver in her other hand and headed for the kitchen.

  “I’m still here, Mom. What do you need?” Winnie tried to keep her voice calm, pretending she hadn’t a care in the world.

  “Winnie, it is raining there, isn’t it?”

  She had done it! Winnie had her mother fooled with her casual attitude. Her next words could decide her future days of freedom and responsibility.

  “Oh, raining… yeah, sure Mom, it is raining here now that you mention it. Is it raining where you are?” Winnie was almost smiling, her performance worthy of an award.

  “Dear, we are having the worst storm I’ve ever seen. I know we haven’t been in Florida long, but I don’t think this is what storms here are usually like. People are acting pretty frantic. In fact, everyone seems to be running for cover and getting back to their houses. Are you sure everything is okay there?”

  Winnie recognized the hint of fear in her mother’s voice. Now she was more frightened than before. But still, she didn’t want to let her mom know. It wouldn’t do any good. Her mom was still in town. If she acted scared, it would just make her mother worry and feel worse about leaving them alone.

  “Everything is okay here, Mom,” Winnie said, trying to convince her mother. “But… when are you coming home?” She hoped her question wouldn’t cause her mother any alarm.

  “We’re finishing up our shopping now. This store is a mad house. People are running in and grabbing bread and milk like they used to do in Pennsylvania before a big snowstorm. Remember, honey? So, we’ll get out of here as soon as we can, and we’ll come straight home. I’d say forty-five minutes… an hour at the latest. It just depends on these long lines and the roads. Do you think you two will be okay?” The mildly concerned mother had taken to her rambling again, but Winnie was just enjoying the sound of her voice. There was still something soothing about hearing her mother talk whenever Winnie got a little scared.

  “We’ll be fine, Mom,” Winnie answered, saying a silent little prayer.

  “Great. Now I want to tell you one more thing. If it would start to rain really hard, and the winds would get very strong, remember, whatever you do…”

  The phone went dead.

  “Mom? Mom? Are you there?” Winnie was yelling into the phone. Everything was silent. Even the static was gone.

  “Hey, you said you would let me talk!” Alec moaned, obviously disappointed his mother was off the line.

  “We got cut off,” Winnie said, just as unhappy as her brother. She continued clicking on the receiver, hoping that the sweet sound of her mother’s voice would return. But the wishful thinking and urgent attempts to bring it back were worthless.

  “What are we supposed to do?” Alec asked, now very concerned about their situation. “When are Mom and Dad coming home?”

  Winnie felt the tears welling in her eyes. Up until now she had been nervous, but not really scared. Now, it seemed all she could remember was her mother’s descriptive words of how panicky everyone seemed to be acting. What if this was more than a rainstorm? What if this was… a hurricane?

  Her family had talked a little bit about hurricanes before they moved to Florida. Of course, living in Pennsylvania, they had only heard about the violent weather makers. But Winnie never actually thought she would find herself in one, especially not alone with her brother.

  “Turn that noise off!” She shouted to her brother as he scanned the channels of the TV.

  “I’m just trying to find a weather report!” he answered, not bothered by his sister’s abrupt comment.

  Winnie tried to remember he was younger and perhaps a little more nervous than she was, if that were possible. She watched as he went from one snowy channel to the next.

  “When the cable is out, nothing works,” she reminded him gently. “Why don’t you just shut it off and I’ll try to find the weather on the radio.”

  Her words must have sounded reasonable to her brother for he immediately took her advice, pushing OFF on the remote while heading for the kitchen radio.

  He turned it on before Winnie even had a chance to get there. As soon as Winnie heard the first few words of the broadcaster, she knew they were in for trouble.

  “Gale force winds are upon us,” the man said in a worried tone. “This storm has all the makings of a hurricane. If you can hear my voice, then you better get ready for a big one.”

  Winnie shut her eyes, hoping to block out the words. But the announcer continued, describing the harsh rain and strong winds headed their way. When she finally felt brave enough to face her brother, she saw he was simply staring out the window, watching firsthand what the man described.

  “Are we going to be okay?” he asked, letting some of the fear punctuate his voice.

  “Sure we are,” Winnie said quickly, stepping toward him. “Mom and Dad are on their way. And look at us — we are safe inside. That rain can come down as hard as it wants. It can’t get us! And that wind — why we’ve been in snowstorms where shingles blew off our house! We can manage being here alone a little bit longer.”

  Winnie sounded so convincing she almost had herself reassured. And if it hadn’t been for that loud noise in the basement, she may very well have been calmed down.

  “What was that?” Alec whispered, grabbing his sister’s arm.

  “I don’t know,” she said. They both listened in silence, waiting for the noise to return. Within a few seconds, it did.

  “It sounds like someone is down in the basement,” Alec whispered, too afraid to move.

  Winnie shut her eyes again, trying to concentrate on what they had just heard. She knew that new houses had different sounds. If they were back home, she could recognize any sound in an instant. Here, however, she hadn’t been around the normal sounds of the house long enough to tell them apart.

  She heard it again. It wasn’t the clicking of a water heater or the sound of the big chest freezer they had recently bought. The sound was more like something, or someone, bumping against something else.

  Perhaps if she were a year or two older, she would consider going downstairs to see what it was. But at this point in her life, she had encountered very few real emergencies. She was totally clueless as to how to act.

  “Aren’t you going to go downstairs and see what it is?” Alec asked in a whisper.

  “No, aren’t you?” she snapped back, tired of being the one in charge.

  Alec responded with a shrug. “I
just thought since you were older and all…”

  “Since I’m older? That never convinced you of anything before! Why start now?” Winnie could feel herself tensing up. Her head was beginning to throb, and her breathing hadn’t been normal since those first pelts of rain hit against the sliding glass doors in the kitchen.

  “Maybe we should go together?” Alec breathed, taking his sister’s hand. Winnie looked in her brother’s eyes. For the first time she saw trust and a pure willingness to get along. She might be crazy, but she decided to make the most of the opportunity.

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  Alec nodded his head and squeezed his sister’s hand. They each took a deep breath and headed for the basement door.

  Chapter Four

  “This wasn’t such a good idea,” Alec whispered as they tiptoed to the door that led to the lower floor. “Isn’t this how the people on TV always end up getting into trouble, by going to check out noises? Usually that’s where the monster is, and then they get chased and…”

  “Alec!” Winnie shouted, unnerved by what her brother was saying. She stopped to look at him. He looked almost as scared as she did.

  “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.” Winnie let go of her brother’s hand and simply stared at the door.

  “What if we just piled stuff in front of the door so the monster can’t get up here?” Alec said excitedly.

  Winnie didn’t know how much sense that made, and she wished her brother would stop referring to the noise in the basement as ‘the monster.’ But she did like the idea of not going down into that dark cellar. She rarely went into their basement in Pennsylvania, and she had only been down in this one once or twice before. Cellars were for dads, she had always thought.

  “Alright,” she said, sliding a kitchen chair over to the door. “But when we hear Mom and Dad pull in, we have to hurry up and move this stuff. We don’t want them to think we were afraid.”

  “Why not?” Alec asked, a good question for an eight-year-old. “We are afraid. Even Dad would be afraid if he were here.”

  Winnie smiled, trying to picture her dad piling stuff in front of the basement door. “I don’t think so,” she said, pulling a chair from Alec’s hands. “I think this is enough stuff. No one is going to be able to open that door with all this junk piled here.”

  Alec had placed two sofa cushions, a loaf of bread, and an umbrella stand in front of the door. Winnie laughed when she saw the bread. “Is this for when the monster gets hungry?”

  Alec only scowled back at her. “Every little bit helps,” he growled at her teasing.

  They went back to the kitchen and stared out the window. The next bump from the basement sent them closer together. Winnie wished whatever it was would simply disappear. Although the noise was probably nothing, the sound made her more nervous with every bang.

  The man on the radio was fading in and out. Winnie grabbed the silver box and tried to find a different channel. She wished for music — anything to take her mind off the storm, but every station she found was a crackly voice warning listeners of the weather.

  “Hey, what was that?” Alec yelled, still glued to the window. “Something just flew by.”

  “You mean like a bird?” Winnie asked, joining her brother at the sliding glass doors.

  “No, a big white thing. It almost looked like a ghost.”

  Winnie frowned. “Alec, first you hear monsters, now you see a ghost. I’m beginning to think you watch way too much TV.” The words were hardly out of her mouth before another thing flew past them.

  “See!” Alec yelled, grabbing his sister and pointing to the swirling objects outside.

  “I saw it, too,” she said, wondering what the large white blob was flying inches from the glass.

  “Maybe we should stay back from the window,” Winnie said, taking her brother’s hand for the second time that afternoon.

  “Wait!” he yelled, tugging his hand from his sister’s hold. “I want to see if that thing is still down by the water.”

  Alec strained his neck and stood on his tiptoes. He bobbed his head up and down, trying to see what he had noticed before. “It’s gone,” he said, rather disappointed.

  “That’s fine with me,” Winnie said, noticing the storm sounded and looked as if it were getting worse. She turned and faced the middle of the room. She hadn’t noticed how dark it had become over the last several minutes. She glanced at her watch. 6:30. If it had been a regular trip to the store her parents probably would have been home by now. But as she peeked back out at the driving rain and darkness, she began to wonder how they were going to get home at all. For the first time that day, she was feeling real fear.

  She looked over at her brother. He was still feeling the excitement of it all. Part of her wanted to shake him and tell him to start worrying about what they were going to do. The other part, the responsible one, knew better. If he got scared, too, then she could have a real problem on her hands.

  “Hey, Winnie, come here!” he said, still gawking at the storm raging outdoors.

  “What now?” she asked, taking her place by his side.

  “I think I see someone.”

  Winnie could feel her heart begin to race.

  “Where?” she asked, finding this whole situation very hard to believe.

  “Over there. Right past the shed.”

  Winnie followed her brother’s finger. It led past the swing set and down to the water. When she finally figured out where he was pointing, she gasped.

  Her hand covered her mouth to hold in the words of fright that dangled on her tongue.

  “Do you see him?” Alec asked, wanting his sister to believe him.

  Winnie could only nod. She was afraid to take her eyes off the figure… afraid that it might disappear or, worse yet, come toward the house.

  “Who do you think it is?” Alec asked, trying to squirm his way back into position at the window to see.

  Winnie finally found her voice. “I don’t know,” she whispered. Their house was very secluded, and she had never seen anyone around before. And now with this storm going on, she couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to be out in this weather unless they were… were what?

  “Is that door locked?” Winnie asked, wanting to be ready if the figure scurried up this way.

  Alec checked the lock on the door. He nodded his head and gave the door a pull. “No one getting in this way. We better check the other doors though.”

  “Good idea,” Winnie answered, heading for the front door. “You check the garage entrance, and I’ll check out front.”

  As both of the children reached their checkpoints a blast of thunder shook the house. Winnie trembled in her shoes unsure of whether she was simply that scared or whether the ground was actually quaking beneath her.

  “Winnie!”

  The girl knew her brother had to be scared to death. As tough as he pretended to be, she knew thunder was the one thing that sent him for Mom.

  “I’m here!” she called out, running toward the garage entrance.

  By the time she got to Alec, he was petrified. “It’s okay, Alec. It’s just some thunder.”

  “Just some thunder?” he practically screamed. “That sounded like a rocket blast! Winnie, when are Mom and Dad going to be home?”

  Winnie gave her brother a pat on the back and moved around him to turn on the hall light. It was getting too dark in the house to see well. The added light may make her brother feel a little less scared.

  “I imagine they’ll be a little bit longer,” she answered, debating whether to tell the truth or lie for the sake of her brother’s feelings. “I think driving has to be pretty nasty right now. They might just sit and wait out the storm at the grocery store.”

  “But why don’t they call if they are doing that?” he asked, his voice still shaky from the clapping of thunder.

  “Well…” Winnie moved toward the phone. She, too, was hoping her mother would have called back by now. She picked up the receiver
and held it to her ear. The look on her face said it all.

  “The phone is dead, isn’t it?” Alec asked, almost in tears.

  Winnie nodded her head, holding back tears of her own. Why wouldn’t cell phones work here? If only her parents hadn’t picked a home so far back into the woods! And why did her mom pick this day, of all days, to leave them alone for the first time? Winnie took a deep breath and tried to think. What would her mother say if she were here?

  “I’m sure the telephone repairmen are working on it right now,” Winnie said as calmly as she could. “Come on. Let’s turn on the rest of the lights. It’s getting dark early.”

  She and Alec moved through the house together, turning more lights on than they ordinarily would dare. Their dad was a stickler for saving energy, so they usually limited their lighting. Winnie joked about how their dad would probably faint when he pulled in the driveway and saw all the lights on. Alec laughed, adding to the image with his own silly comments. The combination of their laughter and bright lights now shining through the house, probably would have been enough to ease the tension of the two if it hadn’t been for what happened next. For with the next clap of thunder, the very next flash of lightning, every light in the house went out, leaving the children standing alone in the darkness, wondering if this terrible day could get any worse.

  Chapter Five

  Alec was hanging onto Winnie so tightly she was sure there must be grooves in her skin from his fingernails. And yet, somehow just the closeness of her brother was too comforting to ask him to let go.

  “Winnie, I’m scared,” Alec stammered, hardly able to say the words. “What happened to the lights?”

  Winnie was standing perfectly still, trying to decide how to handle the situation. “The wind must have knocked out the lines somewhere,” she said.

  “What are we going to do?” Alec asked, the fear coming through in his voice. “I can’t see a thing!”

  “Let’s think,” she said, trying to sound like a person in charge. “Where do we have flashlights?”