Spiritless gray clouds poisoned the sky to the extent one could be forgiven for believing the heavens had been congested with ash. The rain pounded down upon the earth like steel hammers. One such estate afflicted by the storm was that of the old man. The old man never really left his home even before the storm rolled in, a little over a month ago. He lived in a rather stately home that stood alone, with the nearest town of Wallace Valley being about a half-hour away by horse. The residents knew of him from visits he made for supplies, but any attempts to know him any better than that fell on deaf ears. He became the item of many a rumor.
A widower who couldn’t bear to go through the motions of life without his beloved, an outlaw who had been laying low for decades, maybe just a recluse with visceral hate for the world around him. For all they knew, he may not have been human. The townspeople wondered about him now more than ever. You could just barely see the lone estate from the town. Just enough to make out the light in the upper window that never seemed to go out.
All this meant very little to Lucille Fairlie, who was coming by carriage to visit her parents. She was a free soul who ran from home at the age of fourteen with a man who treated her cruelly. She had since left him as well and spent her days drifting from town to town. She had recently started writing to her estranged parents and was delighted to talk to them again all these years later and decided to visit on impulse without telling them, thinking it would be a wonderful surprise.
The carriage went through the muddy roads with relative ease. She was close to the town, enough to see the light in the old man’s estate. “This storm is nothing,” she thought, “God knows I’ve seen worse than this.” At that very instant a bolt of lightning struck just a few feet in front of the carriage. The horses, startled by the lightning, began to run off course. Lucille attempted to correct the course but before she got proper hold of the lead, the carriage violently tumbled over down a steep hill. Completely out of control, Lucille fell off and found herself lying midway up the hill, her leg in unbearable pain, adorned with a gaping hole. She looked down at the carriage which had crushed the horses who cried out, suffering. She picked herself up and began to trudge her way back onto the road and limped toward the home in as steady of a pace as she could muster. She clung to the waist-high wooden gate just outside the home and began to scream, begging for help. The door opened and there stood a very tall and very stout silhouette.
“Why have you come here?” bellowed the old man. “Please… let me in.” Lucille whimpered. “Leave this place. You’re not welcome here,” he demanded. “ My carriage… gone… help me…” she cried, barely able to string together the most basic of sentences. She could just barely make out his eyes darting back and forth, ostensibly unsure of what to do. “That’s… That’s none of my concern,” he said, hesitantly coming to his final sentiment on the situation and slamming the door.
Ten minutes passed and a tinge of guilt still prodded at his mind till it was all he could think about. He opened the door dead set on taking his carriage down the road to find the young woman walking through the storm and offer her a ride into town. Only to find that she had collapsed and died bleeding out in the mud. Her damp corpse became more and more sodden with each passing moment. He only allowed himself a moment to give in to the shock and dread that were the consequences of his actions. Sure, she may have died even if he brought her in, but she could have lived her last moments in decency instead of dying like a wild animal. He looked towards the murky sky, “Her blood stains your hands,” he muttered. But he realized quickly her awful end was not his to meditate on. With a heavy heart, he picked her up, holding her limp lifeless body like a babe, and laid her in his cart and began to ride into town.
He was lucky in his ride. That being said, calling the trip comfortable would be an embellishment beyond belief. Near skid after near skid, rain soaking through the roof of the carriage, a horrible swaying as the wind seized the cart that would send less rigid stomachs to re-emerge earlier suppers. Though even if he wasn’t as lucky, he was more than willing to carry her corpse the whole way. It was the least he could do after his abominableness. The old man made his way through the town gaining audience with each window he passed.
He could see the Fairlie household at the end of the road. Strangely enough, for as much a mystery as the old man was to the townspeople, he knew plenty about them. He halted the carriage and hoisted Lucille. The rain nearly caused him to falter as he walked to the Fairlie’s home to deliver the body of their daughter. He set it down on the porch when they answered the door.
“I’m sorry.” said the old man somberly, staring at the ground, unable to bring himself to look at them. Mrs. Fairlie buried her head in Mr. Fairlie’s shoulder as she began to weep. “What… What happened?” dolefully whispered Mr. Fairlie. “Her carriage succumbed to the storm and left her mortally injured.” the old man said, “She begged for me to give her shelter and I refused. It wasn’t more than a few minutes when I came back to find her there dead in the mud.” he lifted his guilt-ridden eyes directly at Mr. Fairlie. “My selfishness condemned her to the mercy of the storm.”
Grief grew to anger within Mr. Fairlie as he struck the old man sending him to his back. Mrs. Fairlie restrained him from any further violence, fixated on the rifle the old man kept holstered. “You have more than a right to feel as you do.” said the old man bringing himself to his feet. “But hear this: she will be the last to fall to this storm, I assure you of that.” Fury blended with confusion displayed by the face of Mr. Fairlie. “What the hell are you talking about?” grunted Mr Fairlie. The old man took a quick deep breath as he said with cold sincerity, “I am going to kill this storm.” He turned his back to the Fairlies and began his trek into the eye of the storm on the outskirts of town, opposite the direction of the old man’s estate. He trudged through the roads of dead grass and muck like a natural force all its own. The whistle of the wild wind beckoned him further.
The voyeurs in the windows could not take their eyes off the old man. They may not have known his vengeful intentions, but an old man walking out in the great storm meant certain death. He did not let their eyes bother him for even a moment. He was to kill this storm and deliver the town from any further suffering. He soon had company when Mrs. Fairlie ran to his side and grabbed his shoulder. “Come inside you old fool, you cannot slay a storm. Your… your mind has gone in your years,” she begged, grabbing his shoulder. the old man did not break stride or even dart his eyes away. “My business lies with the storm. Now leave me, woman.” He commanded as he shook her off. She stood there helplessly as he walked on. Mr. Fairlie ran out and began to walk her back home, both of them looking back every few steps at the old man going to his certain doom.
He made his way to the eye of the storm where he then paused.
He raised his head to the clouds. “Your time has come to an end, Tempest.” the old man shouted. And then there was silence as if he awaited an answer. The eyes from the windows watched with bated breath as this old man was about to meet his doom. It was at that moment that a bolt of lightning came down right where the old man stood. Then the smoke had cleared and there still stood the old man.
His tattered continental clothes were smoking and burnt to a crisp, but the man underneath was unharmed as a newborn. He furrowed his brow. “You’ll have to do better than that, Tempest.” he taunted. A furious roar came from on high. Then a giant hideous creature descended, climbing down from the clouds. It bordered on formless, perpetually shifting in and out of shape like smoke. From what could be made out, it stood tall and specter thin. The old man in a single motion, unfastened his rifle and shot the creature in the leg. It let out a shrieking cry and The rose its foundational appendage into the air and plunged back into the ground like squashing a bug.
The old man just narrowly evaded the blow, which left a deep basin in the ground. Before he could fire off another shot, he found himself within the grasp of the creature. It brought him to its horrid face glaring at the old man with its smoldering crimson eyes. Despite the creature’s efforts to intimidate the old man, he was as stone-faced as ever. The creature unfastened the middle of its face gaping like a rattlesnake. Its grip loosened as it brought the old man to its hellish mouth which glowed redder than its eyes. The old man writhed his arms free and brought up the rifle and aimed right into the creature's mouth.
“You will burden this village no longer, Tempest.” proclaimed the old man as fired into the Tempest’s gnarled face with a deafening boom. Its red eyes narrowed in hue to black and the creature fell, dropping the old man. The fall seized the earth and, for a moment, visceral shook the town. After the creature’s last bout of cruelty, a shift began to brew in the sky. The spiritless gray clouds of congest ash parted and for the first in a long while, the town was graced with a blue sky.