LJ Idol Three Strikes: Prompt 21 — "Black Swan Event"

[flipflop_diva]

The rain began on a Tuesday night, just as the sun was starting to set, the sky above the small town of Plainsview glowing a beautiful combination of oranges and pinks and yellows.

It started off slow, a few sprinkles here and there, barely enough to get anyone really wet but more than enough to cause Christy Christofferson’s orange tabby cat to race up her favorite tree and General Stevens’ dog to start barking non-stop and the kids still playing outside to hike the collars of their jackets up just that much higher, but only one little girl actually thought there was anything interesting about it.

“Mama! Mama!” Little Molly McPherson called out as her mother struggled to get dinner on the table. “The rain is pink! It’s pink, Mama!”

“That’s nice, Molly,” her mother answered automatically, concentrating on mashing the potatoes just so and not so much on her daughter’s very overactive imagination.

Even Fortuna Van Wrinkle — not her real name, of course, but she had been calling herself that for so long there was nary anyone alive who even remembered, or knew, what her real name had been — didn’t think much of it, and as everyone who lived in Plainsview knew, when it came to important happenings, Fortuna knew everything. She knew who was going to get sick and when. She knew when the wind storms that blew the shingles off roofs were coming. She knew the birth dates of babies still in the womb and the final dates of those nearing the end.

But when the rain began that Tuesday night, Fortuna, sitting in the only pub that the small town had to offer, just shrugged and said, “It will be gone by morning,” and no one had any reason to doubt her.

That night, long after the sun had fully set and most of the residents of Plainsview were tucked into their warm and cozy beds, the sprinkles the fell over the town gave way to downpours. Torrents of water crashed from the sky on to houses and lawns and cars and animals unlucky enough to be outside. At the same time, the thunder roared and lightning crashed, but most Plainsview residents slept on, burying their heads a little more in their pillows or pulling up the comforters just a bit higher.

But over in the McPherson household, little Molly couldn’t sleep. She sat up her bed, watching as flashes of colors — red the color of blood and blues and purples — lit up the sky and the rain thrashed at her window like it was trying to get in.

“Mama! Mama!” Molly said, shaking her exhausted single mother awake. “There’s something happening outside!”

But Mrs. McPherson didn’t have the energy or the willpower to do more than scoop her daughter up and place her beside her in the big bed and whisper to her wide-awake child. “Just go back to sleep, Molly. Everything will be fine.”

And Mrs. McPherson, like all the other Plainsview residents that night, really and fully believed that.

But as they slept, the rain continued, and then something odd — or something odder — happened.

Morning came, but the light did not. Instead, the darkness of the night stayed firmly in place, everything black, not even the white glint of a cloud or the moon or a peek of the sun in view.

Most residents of Plainsville when they awoke — if they awoke — thought there was something wrong with their clocks and went back to sleep, safe in the knowledge that it still must be the middle of the night. But over in the McPherson house, little Molly was awake again, shaking her mother, and this time, when Mrs. McPherson opened her eyes, she began to grow uneasy, her nerves starting to fire off warning signs to her brain.

She and Molly crept into the little girl’s bedroom with its windows facing Plainsville’s downtown. They lifted the windows blinds and squinted out into the dark, listening to the rush of water in the distance.

“But Mama,” Molly said in a whisper, like she knew better than to speak loudly at this moment. “Why do we hear water when there is no rain?”

And Mrs. McPherson realized then her daughter was right, and fear gripped her entire being, causing her to wish — as she often did — that Molly’s father had survived that horrible accident down in the caves when Molly was small.

“I don’t know, Molly,” she answered her daughter. “But don’t worry. Everything is going to be okay.”

Mrs. McPherson didn’t really believe that, but she knew it was what good mothers were supposed to say, so she did, but yet she and Molly continued to sit in Molly’s bedroom, staring out into the black world.

And they were still staring when the green glow came, the one that lit up the sky, illuminating for a moment where downtown Plainsville had once stood, but now there was only a giant lake dotted with the shapes of what might be men but what might be something else.

A scream froze in Mrs. McPherson’s throat at the sight, her brain automatically understanding that she shouldn’t make a noise. Beside her, Molly’s mouth opened, and Mrs. McPherson clapped a hand over her small face.

“Don’t make a sound,” she whispered. “We need to leave. Now.”

She thought Molly might protest, but the little girl merely nodded, her eyes wide.

“Can I take Teddy?” she mouthed to her mom, and Mrs. McPherson’s heart melted, even as fear roared through her veins.

They slipped out into the night then, Mrs. McPherson and Molly and Teddy, disappearing into the forests that surrounded Plainsview, the ones that Mrs. McPherson had spent her childhood exploring. Part of her wondered if she shouldn’t stay. Warn her friends, her neighbors, the people she had grown up with, the kids Molly was growing up with. Or maybe she should pinch herself, make sure she was truly awake. Or maybe she should check herself into a hospital for hallucinations or call up Dr. Morris and ask him what was wrong with her.

But she did none of those things. Instead, she carried Molly and Teddy as far away from Plainsview as she could, trying to outrun whatever was happening.

They didn’t look back as they ran, not even once. They didn’t see the lake that had once been downtown grow deeper and larger and darker. They didn’t see the green glow light the sky behind them once more as something ascended above the town, lights swirling around it.

But they did hear it. The sound that came loud and suddenly, like a microphone coming to life in the sky, and they did hear the voice that was so familiar yet suddenly so foreign.

“Awaken, Plainsville!” Called the voice. “For you are now mine!”

And suddenly Mrs. McPherson understood. Why Fortuna knew of every death and every tragedy and every event in their small town lives. And she knew it had never been a gift, but something much more sinister.

“Mama! Mama!” Molly turned her head, trying to peer up into her mother’s face as Mrs. McPherson carried them all away from the only home any of them had ever known. “We have to save them!”

And with that sentence, Mrs. McPherson understood something she never would have thought possible.

“We will, Molly,” she said to her daughter as they stole through the night, a new plan forming in her mind. “And she will never see it coming.”





Fiction.



This was written for therealljidol Three Strikes Mini Season. If you liked my entry, please consider voting for me! You should also go read all the other amazing entries. You can find them all here. Voting should be up Tuesday night!

Comments

[banana_galaxy]

Oh wow. This is terrifying and also I want to read more!

[roina_arwen]

Oooh… a sinister plot is afoot! Alien invasion? Very cool!

[erulissedances]

Oh, I love this intro. Now for the full story! - please???

- Erulisse (one L)

[ofearthandstars]

Such a colorful tale! It leaves me with a lot of questions - the people of Plainsview seem quite oblivious, except Fortuna and Molly, and I almost wondered if the residents were under mind control, or in a simulation, or what!

[dadi]

Riveting...and it leaves me wanting to know how it goes on!