Julie Trent and the Lightning Read online

  “Come inside until it passes!” she commanded.

  Roy didn’t move. His eyes were transfixed on the city. Julie looked round at Los Angeles again as a bolt of brilliant white light touched the ground somewhere inside the city and a ball of fire rose into the air. There was something disturbingly wrong about this. She had watched lightning before, but nothing like this.

  She pulled harder on Roy’s arm. He still didn’t move. She began to drag him towards the cave. The lightning grew more intense all the while. She could hear her dad calling out from a distance. She got Roy to the entrance of the cave at the very moment a blinding burst of white energy hit the ground just in front of them. The explosion from the strike lifted them off their feet and into the cave. They landed hard on the ground. Julie banged her head as she jumped to her feet. There was a ringing in her ears as she brought her hands to her head. She brought one hand down and saw with horror that there was blood on her fingers. Everything began to go black as the pressure inside her head grew. She collapsed on the ground with a peaceful sigh.

  Chapter Two—The Cave.

  Julie awoke to find that she was still in the cave. Roy was holding on tightly to her with both arms and he was sobbing loudly in her left ear. It took her a few moments to remember what had just taken place. She had hit her head! There had been blood. It had hurt a lot, but for some reason, she now felt fine. There was no pain whatsoever. She cautiously raised her hand up to her head and she rubbed her head gently before bringing her hand back down so that she could examine it. She looked at her fingers but there was no blood. More important than this was the fact that the heavy lightning appeared to be over.

  She took a few moments to collect her thoughts together and she listened with apprehension for any indicators of the lightning in the distance—all was quiet and she sighed with modest relief. Next her thoughts turned to what actions they had to take. She would take Roy back to their parents and everything would be okay, as simple as that. She began to move, freeing herself from Roy’s vice-like grip—he did not want to let her go, and in the end she had to forcefully push him away. She looked him straight in the eye, and even though the light in the cave was minimal she could see he was very upset. Roy’s distress alarmed her, and the anger in his eyes when she had pushed him away alarmed her even more. He was acting in a very unnatural and disturbing way.

  “It’s okay, Roy,” she began. “The lightning is over. We’ll get back to our folks and head on home.”

  She got to her feet, mindful of the limited headroom on this occasion, and then stretched out a hand for Roy to take. Roy was sitting on the floor of the cave. He had pulled his knees up to his chest. He looked at her with a curious glare as if to suggest she was crazy. Something had happened when she was unconscious and she got the feeling that something was not very good.

  “We have to go find the others,” she insisted, moving a little closer to him with her hand still outstretched.

  Roy shook his head, “no”, and remained where he was. Julie by this stage was getting a little impatient and a little more worried. She reached down and tried to drag Roy to his feet. He immediately recoiled, flinging his arms out as he retreated further into the cave.

  “Come on Roy! We have to go! There is nothing to be afraid of. We can’t just stay here in this cave. Your mom and dad will be worried. We have been gone for too long as it is.”

  Their parents would be worried but at that moment they could not have been anymore worried about her and Roy than Julie was about them. The lightning storm had been like nothing she had seen before and she really needed to know at that moment that her parents were safe. She could not reveal to Roy that she was every bit as frightened as he was. She really needed a big, reassuring hug from her dad more than at any other time in her life. She needed her dad to tell her that everything was going to be fine. The only thing that stood in the way of this reassurance was Roy. She struggled to get him to his feet for a few more moments before letting him go, stepping back a little, then folding her arms in the way she would when having a difference of opinion with her folks. There was a definite mom tone to her voice when she spoke to him—she meant business and he would listen to her and do what she said.

  “Roy, you have to get up and come with me. Now. If you don’t get up I’m going to walk out of this cave by myself.”

  Though she had said the words clearly enough she had in fact no intentions of walking out to search for their parents on her own. If the lightning came back she would need Roy, if only to give it something other than her to strike! Then again, lightning always strikes the tallest object and she was a good three inches bigger than Roy. Perhaps she would crouch down a little as they made their way back to the barbecue site?

  Roy simply looked at her and shook his head “no” one more time. She towered over him with a stern look on her face, which told of how she was very serious about leaving the cave. He simply looked at her; every bit as scared now as when she had first awoke five minutes earlier. Roy must really hate lightning, she reasoned. To reinforce that she was serious about the threat of leaving him on his own she began to slowly move towards the cave opening. She kept her eyes on Roy all the while, searching for signs of him cracking and giving in to her demands. There were none. In fact, the closer she got to the cave entrance the more agitated Roy became. He shook his head even more vigorously and rocked ever so slightly backwards, and further into the cave.

  “NO!” he screamed out, just as she got to the opening.

  Julie jumped as Roy’s piercing voice echoed round the cave like a Chinese firecracker.

  “What is it?” she asked, almost calmly, which was a pretty impressive accomplishment considering Roy had almost scared her to death when he screamed so loudly.

  “YOU CAN’T!” he called, not quite as loud as before, but loud enough to make the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, sending an arresting chill the length of her spine.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the cave entrance but all that she could see was the bright Californian sunshine. She was about to leave through the opening to have a closer look when she paused. A terrible thought occurred to her. What if Roy had already been outside? What if there was something out there that was so horrific that it had turned Roy into this blubbering baby? And what if it would do the very same thing to her?

  The sense of urgency that had been driving her towards getting Roy to his feet and outside the cave, left her. A dozen terrifying thoughts entered her mind as to why Roy was so adamant that they stay in that cold, damp and dark place. The most terrifying of all was the prospect that something had happened to her mom and dad. After all, if they were fine, why hadn’t they come looking for Roy and her? She needed to know the answers to these questions before she stepped outside to face the truth. She moved towards Roy and knelt down beside him. The harsh edge to her voice had gone as she spoke to him in a gentle tone. There was the trembling tinge of fear in her voice.

  “Roy,” she began. “You have to tell me what has happened. I need to know. Are my parents okay? Are your parents okay? If something bad has happened I need to know about it before I go out there. Please Roy, tell me what is going on. Please tell me.”

  Roy looked her straight in the eye and he then began to sob even more loudly than before. Suddenly he reached out and grabbed her by both arms, pulling her towards him into that same tight bear hug she had found herself in when she had regained consciousness.

  “It’s okay,” she said, reassuringly. “Everything will be okay. Now please, Roy, tell me what’s out there.”

  She gave him a few moments and eventually the sobbing died away and the hold he had on her grew weaker. He moved back slightly, removed his glasses, and wiped the tears from his eyes with the sleeve of his jumper. He looked up at her, cleared his throat, as if he was about to make a speech to a large crowd at a wedding. Then he began the story. For someone so traumatized he was remarkably brave and coherent. His calm delivery of the explanation made her fee
l slightly better about the situation, but only a little better.

  “When you banged your head I tried to wake you up, but you didn’t move. The lightning was really bad and I couldn’t go outside to get help. I screamed at the top of my voice for ages and ages, but no one came. I screamed so much that I almost lost my voice.”

  His tone lowered to a distant whisper as a shade of sadness came to his voice. He forcefully cleared his throat again, wiped his eyes once more, and then he continued with uncertain resolve.

  “After a good long while the lightning storm began to ease off. It took almost an hour for it to stop completely. I went to the cave entrance and waited until it was completely over. I could only hear it every now and again, in the distance. When it stopped I went outside and headed towards where our parents had been. When I got there, they had gone. The cars had gone. The barbecues had gone. Everything. All gone. I started calling out and looking around just in case I had gone to the wrong spot, but there was no one there. There was nothing there.”

  He paused for a few moments before continuing, his voice perhaps a little more excited this time, but not in a good way. He was still very distressed as he searched desperately for the words.

  “I had gone straight to where we had left them, so I hadn’t noticed the city, not at first. I went down to that spot where we had been sitting before we started to play hide and seek to see if I could see anyone. You know, rescuers or police or something. It had gone.”

  “The spot had gone?” Julie asked, confused as to how a piece of ground could just disappear.

  “Not the place we’d been sitting!” snapped Roy. “The city had gone. The city had gone!”

  Julie looked him, her eyes wide with disbelief.

  “What do you mean, the city had gone?” she asked.

  Roy got to his feet and spun expertly on his heal to face Julie. The excitement in his voice reached a new intensity as he drove home the fact that he knew exactly what he was saying and that it should have been simple enough for her to understand and believe.

  “IT’S GONE. The whole city has gone. No skyscrapers, no houses, no schools. Nothing. It’s all gone!”

  Julie looked at him for a few tense moments as she decided on what to do next. There was only one thing she could do.

  “I’m going to have a look for myself,” she said, before getting to her feet and heading towards the light-filled opening

  “Julie wait!” cried Roy. “You can’t go out there.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “When I was looking down at where the city had been I noticed some very strange things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “There was smoke and some fires, but there were things moving about. There were things in the sky too!” he hissed. “The things on the ground… There were millions of them. From where I was standing they looked like ants. The things in the sky were flying about all over the place. One came real close to me and I had a good look at it.”

  He paused.

  “So, what did it look like?” Julie asked, impatiently.

  “It wasn’t like a plane or anything. It was more like a big van; you know, the kind Mr. Hon down the street drives? It didn’t have any wings or nothing, but it was flying!”

  Julie stared at Roy not sure as to how she should react to him. She was only certain of one thing—Roy had lost his mind!

  “I stood there for ages, trying to make sense of it and then I saw one of them up-close.”

  “One of them?” Julie probed.

  “Down the side of the mountain the bushes started to move. There was something in them and it was moving towards me. Then it stopped. I was frozen. I wanted to call out for my mom, but I couldn’t. I waited a while longer. There was nothing. I should have run. I know I should. But I didn’t. I was so scared that I was frozen to the spot.”

  He paused again as if checking the story over in his mind before he relayed it to Julie.

  “I moved closer to the edge. And… And… And it jumped out at me. Right in my face,” he said, with fear returning to his voice.

  “What was it?” she asked.

  “A thing. It was a brown thing. It…”

  Roy stopped mid sentence and looked round.

  “Did you hear something?” he asked, in a cautious whisper.

  Julie listened to the silent cave for a few moments. There was nothing, not even the birdsong she had heard earlier that day from outside.

  “I don’t hear anything,” she said, calmly. “It was brown? But what exactly did it look like?”

  Roy said nothing. He simply stared at her. A funny kind of look had settled on his face. She moved in closer. It was then that she noticed that Roy wasn’t looking at her so much as he was looking past her.

  “It looked like that!” He said, in a quiet, matter-of-fact, kind of way.

  Roy pointed behind Julie and she slowly looked round to face where he was indicating.

  Chapter Three — The Escape.

  Julie’s eyes widened with horror and amazement and she stepped backwards quickly, bumping into Roy who stumbled but didn’t quite fall. Roy regained an upright position and grabbed hold of Julie round the waist. Roy was trembling uncontrollably but this helped to hide the fact that Julie was trembling also. He peered round Julie at the creature.

  It was hard to perceive the features of the thing before them; the darkness in which it lurked did not permit that. Then slowly it moved into a more illuminated part of the cave. Julie gasped and Roy let loose a frightened moan as the creature came into full view. This could not be happening!

  The creature was quite unlike anything Julie had seen before, not even on television or at the movies, and she had seen some strange stuff in her time. The most striking feature was its head—large and round, flat at the front and ears like saucers that stuck out of the side of its head at an almost perpendicular angle. Its eyes were large and black and its nose was all flat and squashed with two tiny nostrils. The creature’s mouth was much wider than the mouth of any person she had met, and she knew many people with extremely big mouths! From where she stood it looked as if it didn’t have any hair on its head and its skin was chocolate brown and heavily wrinkled like the hide of a rhinoceros. As all three tentatively observed each other the creature opened its mouth ever so slightly to reveal a full compliment of tiny, sharpened teeth. Its arms hung limply by its side. They were somehow too long, like the arms of an orangutan. From what she could tell the creature was not very tall. It couldn’t have been much taller than Julie.

  For a long time none of the group made any significant movement, they simply tried to learn more about each other through quiet inspection. The terrible looking creature rocked backwards and forwards as it sniffed the air and it tilted its head at curious angles, never once taking its eyes off Julie and Roy as they stood trembling in a corner of the cave. From this time of scrutiny Julie had reached a few conclusions—this creature was bad, it had a lot to do with what was going on outside, as Roy had described, and that Roy and herself had to find some way of getting out of the cave and away to safety. There was one big problem with this plan. As they watched each other it had moved only a little, but it was enough to block their exit from the cave. And even if they got the chance to escape she would have to convince Roy that he needed to run when she said so, and run fast at that, and if he acted in the same way he had done earlier, then they would never get away. She had to try, in spite of the difficulties.

  “Roy,” she whispered.

  The creature looked more intently at them when she spoke. She waited a few moments before continuing.

  “Roy. When I say so, we are both going to run as fast as we can towards the entrance of the cave.”

  “But…”

  “But nothing!” she hissed. “When I say, we are going to run as fast as we can and we are going to get past that thing. Our parents are out there somewhere and we have to find them. We have to find out what’s going on and what we need to do
to be safe. Okay?”

  Roy didn’t protest this time, but he did squeeze her more tightly as if to say that he wanted to stay where he was and wait until someone came along to rescue them. If only she had someone to hold on to and draw strength and comfort from in the way Roy drew comfort from her.

  The thing continued to rock back and forth. It looked at them. It looked at the cave and it looked at the entrance. It was almost as if it knew what Julie and Roy were planning. It moved even closer to the entrance of the cave and made their chance to escape even more difficult. And so they stood there. Waiting for each other to make the first move. Eventually Julie came to a decision, but she knew Roy wouldn’t like it, not one little bit.

  “Roy,” she whispered. “We have to get out of here.”

  “But how will we get past it?”

  “I’m going to run for the entrance. When it tries to catch me you can run out past it and go for help.”

  “But, what if it catches you? What if it hurts you? What if it KILLS you?”

  Roy was very concerned by her plan and how it could all go wrong. Julie was very concerned with her plan and how it could all go wrong, but she knew that the longer she waited and the more thought she put into it then the more chance there was that she wouldn’t be able to go through with it—it was a bit like waiting to go on a scary roller coaster ride—the more thought she devoted to the prospect the less likely it was that she would summon enough bravery to join the line of excited people as they waited for their turn to be scared to death as the cars twisted and turned on the head-jerking track.

  “It will work, Roy,” she insisted. “It has to work. We can’t just wait here until that thing decides to do, whatever.”

  “But…” Roy began.