Gina's Storm

The letter said I would find her at the barn, 400 paces due north from the old wooden gate.

Using the crudely drawn map in the envelope, it took me almost three hours to find that gate.

I left the city at daybreak after a heated argument with my friends, telling them that I didn’t care what they thought. I would never give up looking for her and would chase down any lead, no matter how stupid that lead may seem.

She vanished close to three weeks ago, but I refused to believe what the police and my friends were suggesting. Even though Gina and I had met only a few weeks before she’d disappeared, I knew in my heart that she didn’t just walk away from me and everyone else in her life.

My friends and the lead detective tried to convince me that the letter wasn’t real; it was just some warped person trying to screw with me. But something in that envelope that I didn't show the police convinced me that it was real. The map described the route to an old run-down barn on an abandoned farm and warned me not to involve the police. Fearing for her life, I didn't show the map to anyone.

What the letter didn't say was that it was 400 paces as the crow flies, not as a man walking through dense bush in a thunderstorm.

When I arrived at the gate, there was no sign of an approaching storm. It was a little windy as I started, but I didn't get more than a few hundred feet before the downpour began. There was no warning, no rolling thunder in the distance, no lightning; nothing prepared me for the sudden explosion of sound followed by an onslaught of torrential rain.

Within a few minutes, and after falling twice, I was soaked and covered in mud. Cursing myself for not wearing my hiking boots, my shoes filled with water and forest debris as I struggled to my feet for the second time. It would be easier to turn around and go back to the car to wait out the storm, but I had to get to the barn before it was too late.

The letter said she would be there if the animals hadn’t gotten to her yet.

Those last few words haunted my thoughts as I pushed through the brush that fought against me and slowed my progress.

The storm seemed to be increasing in intensity with every step I took. The thunderclaps were coming every few seconds now, and the wind buffeted the trees like they were tall grass. The rain felt like sand on my face as it started coming sideways in the gale-force wind, limiting my vision to no more than a few feet.

Just as I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I was blinded by a sudden flash of light followed almost immediately by the loudest thunder boom I’ve ever heard. It must have been directly overhead as I felt the sound reverberate through my body and knock me to the ground.

As I got to my knees and rubbed my eyes, trying to clear my vision, I could smell smoke and hear crashing sounds in the forest. After a few seconds, my vision cleared enough for me to see that the smell was coming from a huge tree, not fifty feet from me, which was blown in half by the lighting strike. I could feel the electricity in the air as the hair on my arms stood up, and the taste of copper filled my mouth.

For the first time in my life, I felt fear caused by the power of nature.

Growing up with the North Atlantic as my backyard, I was no stranger to powerful storms and the damage they could inflict.

But I never feared them. I respected the uncontrollable power they released but what I felt wasn’t fear. I always felt excited and in awe of the majesty of a strong storm. It made me feel alive.

That is until I met Gina, and she made me feel more alive than I’d ever felt. She was my storm, the storm I couldn't live without, and I would do anything to bring her back to me.

The rain and wind slowed as I got to the edge of the forest, where I could see the old barn about a hundred paces from where I stood. It wasn’t a large barn and looked like it would fall down any minute. It seemed to be leaning to the left of the large doors and was missing several boards from the sides and roof. Scanning the area, I couldn't see any vehicles except for a small rusted-out tractor about halfway between me and the barn.

I hid behind a tree while his words filled my mind with fear and anger as the sky blackened with storm clouds gathering for another assault.

I don't know how he did it, but the envelope was sitting on the seat of my locked car when I left work yesterday.

I sat in the car and read that letter several times before I saw it. Before I saw the words that told me who he was and this was real. It wasn’t the words he used or the tone of his language that gave him away. It was something much more subtle.

If Gina hadn't told me about Michael, her Canadian cousin, who was infatuated with her, I would never have picked up on the slight differences in the spelling of some words. Words like behaviour, colour, or favourite, which all added the “U” or brunette with its double “T” and worshipped with its double “P.” I knew it had to be him and because of the stories Gina told me; felt she was in grave danger.

She told me that she’d grown up three doors away from Michael’s family and that they'd played together as children. She realized at a young age, even though their fathers were brothers, their family homes couldn’t have been more different. Her home was a happy and loving place where Michael’s was more of a war zone than a home.

She was thirteen when he told her that his father liked to hit them. He would laugh and smile as he beat his wife and call her terrible names. She started taking Michael to her secret place in the forest when his father started drinking, trying to protect him.

The week before his father died was the first time he tried to kiss her. She'd just turned fourteen, and they were hiding in their secret place when he told her that he loved her and moved to kiss her. She'd pushed him away in shock and told him not to do that; they were cousins.

A few days later, he tried it again, but she pushed him away and screamed at him to stop before running home and leaving him alone in the hideout.

The next time she saw Michael was the day his father died. The look on his face as he stood watching the paramedics carry his father to the ambulance caused her nightmares for years after. His father had been doing repairs on the house's roof, with Michael's help, when he fell to his death.

For the next several months, he tried many times to get her to accept him as more than a cousin, but she refused his advances and tried to avoid him whenever possible.

Six months after the accident, Michael and his mother moved to an apartment in the city, and she didn't hear from him again for over three years.

She was eighteen and sharing an apartment close to her university when she found the flowers outside her door. They were from Michael, and the card attached professed his undying love for her. For the next few years, no matter where she moved or how many times she changed her phone and online presence, he would always find her.

The last package arrived the week before she graduated and was why she left the country and moved to Boston. The box contained twelve dead roses and a note from Michael telling her that she was his soul mate and he would never give up until she belonged to him.

I met her a little over a year after she came to Boston, and she said that she hadn't heard from Michael since she left Canada.

My thoughts were broken by a crash of thunder as the storm clouds released their anger again. The sky opened and dumped a lake of rain as I ran to the old tractor and dove to the ground. I was seconds away from running to the side of the barn when there was a loud boom, and a small piece of the tractor flew into the air. I knew it wasn't thunder but a gunshot as I lay flat on my stomach and looked under the tractor.

I could see Michael about ten feet from the barn and slowly walking towards me with a shotgun in his hands. There was nowhere to go as he advanced through the storm, and feeling I had no choice, I decided to run towards him as fast as I could. At least he would have to hit a moving target, and maybe I would get lucky.

I didn't get more than five feet when there was a flash of light and a loud crack before I was thrown on my back from the impact. The wind was knocked out of me, and I rubbed my chest, looking for blood as I got to my feet again. There was no blood, and as I looked towards Michael, I could see what happened. It wasn't a gunshot but a lightning strike that had knocked me down and thrown Michael up against the barn.

He was lying on the ground, unconscious or dead, with smoke coming from his clothes and his face badly burned. As I got to him, I could hear whimpering coming from the barn and rushed inside to see Gina tied to a chair and blindfolded. I ran to her side and tried to remove the blindfold as she started to scream, "No, No. Please.”

"It's ok, Gina. It's me, Eric, I got you. You're safe."

My heart broke for her when I removed the blindfold and saw the overwhelming fear in her eyes.

She stared at me for a few seconds as I removed her restraints before jumping into my arms, sobbing and saying my name over and over.

She told me that Michael wanted me there so he could kill me in front of her. I held her again, ensuring her that the nightmare was over and Michael was dead.

We realized the nightmare wasn't over when we walked outside to see the shotgun on the ground beside the door but no Michael. He was gone.

I walked towards the corner of the barn before Gina screamed, and I turned to see him running towards me with an old pitchfork pointed at my chest.

He got within a few feet of me before there was a loud crack and his chest exploded as he fell to the ground. He was covered in blood and obviously dead as I turned around to see Gina shaking uncontrollably with the smoking shotgun in her hands.

I rushed to her and took the gun away before pulling her tight to my chest as she sobbed in my arms.

We held each other like this for several minutes as the storm ended and, as if dawning a new beginning, the sun broke through the clouds.

With tears running down her face, Gina looked into my eyes and said, "I love you, Eric; I knew you would come for me."