The Storm That Showed Eddie

The summer I turned eight, we lived in a creaking old farmhouse in the Ohio River Valley, a place that had more layers of paint than sense. The house was built in the 1890s, and the realtor had a way of not mentioning that the last owner, a lonely widower named Silas, had been found swinging from the barn rafters. We learned that from the neighbor, old Mrs. Crandall, who whispered it over the fence like a secret, her eyes darting to our windows.

My brother Eddie was the one who saw things. He was five, with big dark eyes and a habit of staring at empty corners. He told me the house had a ‘quiet man’ who lived in the attic and only came out when it rained. I told him to knock it off, that he was just scared of storms. But I knew better. The house felt wrong, even in daylight. The floors sighed under our footsteps, and the air in the upstairs hallway hung thick and still, like it was holding its breath.

That night, a violent thunderstorm rolled in from the west. The sky split with electric white, and the rain beat against the windows like a frantic drummer. My parents were out at a neighbor’s dinner party, and we had Mrs. Crandall watching us. She was old and deaf in one ear, and she fell asleep in the rocking chair before the storm even hit. I was in the living room, trying to distract Eddie from the lightning by playing a board game. He kept flinching at every flash.

‘I don’t like it,’ Eddie said, his voice small. ‘He’s here.’

‘Who?’ I asked, annoyed.

‘The quiet man,’ he whispered. ‘He’s in the kitchen, standing by the fridge. He’s smiling.’

I rolled my eyes, but the hair on my arms stood up. I got up to get a glass of milk, mostly to prove to him I wasn’t scared. The kitchen was dark, lit only by the occasional strobe of lightning. I walked to the refrigerator, yanked the door open, and the pale fridge light spilled across the linoleum. I grabbed the carton, poured a glass, and turned around. The lightning flashed again, illuminating everything like a camera flash.

There, not five feet from me, stood a figure. It was tall, impossibly thin, with a faint shimmer like heat rising off asphalt. It had a face, if you could call it that: two gaping black sockets for eyes, and a mouth stretched impossibly wide, filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth that gleamed even in the dark. That smile was too wide, too perfect, a crescent moon of pain. It seemed to be wearing some kind of long, dark coat that hung loose, but I couldn’t be sure because my eyes were locked on that mouth. The smile was not friendly; it was a threat, a promise of being eaten alive. It stared at me with those empty eyes, and I felt a cold dread wash over me, like being submerged in ice water.

I tried to scream, but my throat was locked. The glass slipped from my hand and shattered on the floor, the shards catching the lightning. The sound of the glass breaking snapped me out of it, and I turned and fled, my legs barely carrying me. I ran back to Eddie, who was sitting on the couch, white as a sheet. ‘You saw him, didn’t you?’ he said. I just nodded, my heart hammering. I grabbed his hand, pulled him off the couch, and we both ran to Mrs. Crandall, shaking her awake.

‘There’s something in the kitchen!’ I yelled. She looked at us with her thick glasses, annoyed. ‘Boy, it’s just the storm,’ she said. She walked to the kitchen, muttering, and flipped on the light. There was nothing there. Just the shattered glass and milk spreading on the floor. She looked at me sharply. ‘You better clean that up. Your parents will be home soon.’ She shuffled back to her chair, and I knew she didn’t believe us.

I didn’t want to go back into that kitchen, but Eddie wouldn’t let go of my hand. We crept back together, avoiding the shards. I swept them up with a broom, Eddie clinging to my leg, watching the doorway. The rest of the night we stayed on the couch, huddled under a blanket, while the storm raged outside. Every flash of lightning made me flinch, expecting to see those black eyes and that terrible smile in the window. But nothing appeared.

When my parents came home, Mum saw the mess I’d made and I just said I was clumsy. But Eddie wouldn’t stop crying, and finally Mum got it out of him. ‘The quiet man smiled at us,’ he sobbed. My parents exchanged a look, the kind that said ‘kids and their imaginings.’ I tried to explain, but they hushed me and sent us to bed. I lay awake, listening to the storm fade, but the feeling of those empty eyes never left me.

The next day, while my parents were outside, I went up to the attic for the first time. The stairs were steep and dusty, and the air was stale. At the far end, under a pile of old trunks, I found a framed photograph, cracked and faded. It showed a man in his forties, with a stern face and a neat beard, standing beside a barn. On the back, in faded ink, was written: ‘Silas, 1898, the year the barn was raised.’ I turned the photo over and stared at his face. He had kind eyes. I couldn’t reconcile that with what I’d seen.

But then I noticed something on the floor, half hidden under a loose floorboard. It was a small journal, bound in leather, the pages brittle. I opened it, and the handwriting was shaky, but legible. The last entry was dated the week before Silas was found. It read: ‘The thunder brings him. He stands by the stove, always smiling. He wants me to come with him. I will. It’s the only way to end the dreams.’ The journal fell from my hands.

I never told my parents. I closed the journal, placed it back under the floorboard, and left the attic. We moved three months later, but I knew, even as we drove away, that the quiet man was still there, waiting for the next storm. And every time I hear thunder, I still see that smile, and I wonder if he followed us home.