Janey and Dave bolted along Memorial Drive, heads lowered against the downpour. They crossed the bridge at Braithwaite Canal (overflowing its banks already) and sprinted along the sidewalk, all but swept away in the tempest. Stumbling to the corner of Threadmont Avenue, David paused long enough to get his bearings, then grabbed Janey by the right hand, pointing towards a dim gray shape in the distance.

"Over there!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, "the BUS shelter!" The girl nodded in reply, although she could barely hear him over the wind. They scrambled down the footpath in a welter of knees and elbows, feet slipping on the wet concrete. Janey held a forearm over her face; the rain was hammering down hard enough to leave marks on her pale flesh. They'd never seen a storm like this, none they could remember anyway.

Reaching the bus shelter, they hunched off their backpacks and began shaking the chill out of their bones.

"I knew we shouldn't have stayed at the park so long," Dave said, looking out into the deluge. He was a lanky young galoot with a shock of curly red hair framing his face. Looked about as Irish as you got this far west of Lower Manhattan. He eyed the heavens apprehensively, hearing that odd wailing in the wind again. What the hell was it?

Janey picked up the hem of her red gingham dress and started wringing the water out of it. She was an unusually pretty child with melting blue eyes and soft, girlish features - although she wasn't precisely a girl, contrary to all appearances. Like many children in born in Ridgewick over the past fifteen years, Janey Watson was somewhat…unique.

"You said it was going to rain this morning," she commented, her voice high and faint against the squall. Her frock was pasted against her body and she was shivering with the cold. Fall had come early; there was a threat of snow in the wind. "How did you know that?"

Dave shrugged. He got that question a lot, and he was never sure how to answer it.

"I dunno. You can smell it in the air sometimes." It was true: storms often carried an acrid, mineral scent. Strange that no else ever noticed it. "Rain has a kind of metallic smell, you know that?"

"No," Janey shook her head, spraying droplets everywhere. She dropped her hemline and hugged herself against the wind, teeth chattering. "How we gonna get home?"

"Wait for the bus, I guess," Dave answered, adjusting his hood and wishing he'd never left home this morning. He had no desire to stand around in this maelstrom, but didn't see what other choice they had.

"How long'll that be?" Janey demanded.
"About half an hour."
"I'm freezing!"

Lightning flickered to the south, remote and distant. A rail of thunder followed a few seconds later, just loud enough to set their hearts racing. Janey gnawed a lip, watching the horizon fearfully. The thunder was closing in, she could tell that much at least. Damn that Katie Prescott and her One Last Game of tag. If they'd left when Dave said, they would've been home by now.

"We can't wait for the bus," she said uneasily, "we might get hit by lightning or something."

"Aw, don't worry, this'll blow over in a while," Dave replied offhand, although he didn't feel as confident as he was trying to sound. The storm had him spooked so bad he was ready to run like a split streak. The skies were darkening almost by the minute, and that peculiar waling was getting closer. Whatever it was, Dave didn't care to be here when it arrived. All the same, he didn't want to worry Janey with his fears, she looked scared enough as it was.

"We'll be safe here," he reassured her, waving a dismissive hand about in the air, "that lightning's about a zillion miles away. I mean, if you count the seconds between – "

His words were drowned out by a deafening concussion directly overhead. The entire sky flashed white for a fraction of an instant, and the ground literally shook beneath their feet. Janey tensed against him like a child afraid of the dark, he could feel her clenching her teeth to keep from screaming. No - that wasn't her: it was him. Any louder and he would have run shrieking into the downpour. He stared off down Memorial Drive, cringing in the bitter gale, feeling his knee-joints buckle and weaken.

Janey didn't look much better: she was trembling from crown to heel, her body a collection of tight little knots. It was mainly the cold, but Dave knew she was frightened, too - terrified in fact. Nor could he blame her. A sense of urgency was slinking into his mind, a foreboding of impending disaster. They had to get out of this cyclone, right now, this minute, and they couldn't waste any more time waiting for some bus that may never come. Something bad was approaching, he was certain of that now. Something worse than the thunder, worse than the lightening, worse than anything he could imagine in his worst nightmares.

"Listen, my place is only two blocks over," Dave yelped, pointing across the road, "we can cut through Old Man McGinty's field, it'll take us around two minutes."

"Doesn't McGinty have a dog?"

David hesitated several seconds, startled by her choice of words.

"No," he answered finally, "I been through there thousands of times."

"Okay."

Shouldering their backpacks, they held their breath and plunged out into the rain. The storm engulfed them in a solid gray curtain, effectively limiting their vision to zero (but that didn't matter; they were kids, they were twelve and they frequently ran on instinct alone). Hauling themselves across Memorial Drive, they darted through to McGinty's Field, half-expecting the Hound of The Baskervilles to come slavering out of the chaos. No dogs were in evidence however (not even McGinty's fabled mongrel), although the clashing of the heavens added enthusiasm to their departure.

Somewhere along the line, Janey's fingers found his hand, and they ran the entire distance joined at the wrist.