Kitt stared up into the night's sky with wonder. He had come to lie out on the flat roof that covered the porch below, seeking relief from his sweltering bedroom. He was fortunate that his parents hadn't thougth he would do anything so dangerous as to climb out his bedroom window. A lot they knew, Kitt didn't consider himself a baby anymore, but very capable of taking care of himself.
The ten year old boy, dressed in a Pokemon t-shirt with the cute Pikachua smiling brightly on the front and a pair of cut-off jeans he had outgrown in length, had quietly crawled out the window to go undetected by his parents. He could still hear their voices, quietly murmuring below, mixed with those of Uncle Paul's and Aunt Theresa's. The adults got together every Friday night to play bridge, a game he couldn't understand and thought was plain dumb. Why couldn't they get into playing a card game like Pokemon?
Now, there was an exciting game! A game that required you to think quick, not depending on a partner to help bail you out when faced against a Pokemon of considerable strength and abilities. You only had the Pokemon in your hands to team up to defeat a foe. A defeat that rewarded you with the capture of your opponent's card to add to your own deck.
But, now, the sweltering heat of the late June night pushed Kitt's mind into simplier ponderings. His sleepy blue eyes picked out the constellations he was familiar with from the velvetty black sky. Imagining them, not as a series of stars making a connect the dot picture, but as figures one may see on the pages of a book. Ursa Major as a big lumbering grizzly bear with the long tail he was soon to lose. Ursa Minor, a cub trailing after the former, in awe of it's superior role model. Orion was beheld holding aloft the bloodied pelt of a lion recently slain, a long bejeweled sword tucked within his belt.
His mind wandered into a more child-like frame of thinking. What if, those weren't stars? Not glowing masses or dead asteroids reflecting the sun, but pin prick holes in a soft, blue-black blanket covering a brightly shining enity as it slept?
Kitt's eyes grew heavy with sleep. He brushed sweat dampened blonde hair from his forehead, feeling sticky and uncomfortable. Taking care to be as silent as he had when he ventured out onto the roof, he got to his bare feet, the shingles rough on his soles, returning to the window. He had started to lift a foot to the windowsill, when there came a loud rumbling. It had broken through the rythmic chirring of crickets and the thrilling of tree frogs, rendering them silent.
Turning back around, one hand remaining on the sill, he peered curiously out into the night in the direction of the thunderous sound. A sudden gust of wind blew in his face, lifting his damp hair from his brow and causing him to squint against it. His t-shirt rippled around his thin chest, gooseflesh rising up on his arms and legs with the sudden chill.
The young maple tree, that grows in the front yard, bent towards the house on it's sapling trunk, threateningly close to snapping. A crash, squeals of surprised women, the thumping of feet and the slams of windows closing, travel up from below. The lawn chairs cartwheel across the lawn to slam into the side of the house. The big umbrella is pulled away from the lawn table like one of those paper parasols his Mom gets with her cocktails and sent soaring into the sky to disappear over the house. The table tips over, rolling on its side to join the chairs against the house in a raucous crash.
Kitt stands there, mouth agape, transfixed with the scene unfolding before his wide awake eyes from the ground level. He tears his eyes away to look up. In the the distance, a ominous black bank of clouds, interlaced with thin veins of lightening, rolls towards the lone house.
The Humphreys had moved out to this isolated area shortly after Kitt's third birthday, away from the bustling city of Dallas, not wanting the boy to be influenced with the down side of city living. Now, Kitt thinks that may not have been a good idea, as he watches the malevolent mass fast approaching. It was laying waste to everything in it's path. Trees were scattering like twigs, ground being churned up, leaving a rough hewn path. It was heading for the power lines that linked the Dallas-Fort Worth area. What ever this thing was, it was going to be more devasting than any tornado that has ever struck these parts.
His heart racing in his chest, he almost falls back in through the window. An unbelieveable sense of balance saves him from falling flat on his face on the wooden floor. He turns to close the window, the deep blue curtains furling around him. They wrap about his body, as if they were intentionally trying to keep him from closing the window. He puts all of his seventy three pounds into pulling it down. It finally gives with a begrudging bang. The curtains tame to lay limply in place.
The boy sprints across the room, taking a short cut across his bed, bouncing off it to land within a foot of the door. He throws it open, heading for the stairs to the right of his room. His folks' bedroom was further down to the end of the hall. The door to their room standing open is suddenly slammed shut by another gust of wind coming from the open bedroom window. The sound making him jump with the suddenness. Bounding down the stairs, taking them two at a time, he nearly runs into his mother who is coming up them to close her bedroom window.
"Kitt!" she cries out with surprise, holding her son out at arms length to inspect him with frightened eyes. They are the same light blue as her progeny's. "Go downstairs with your father. Help him gather all the candles and flashlights. Looks like we are in for one ripper of a storm!" she instructs him, gently guiding him around her as she resumes her ascent.
Kitt jumps down the five remaining stairs, grasping the end newel of the rail to make the turn around the stairs to head for the kitchen located in the back of the house. He casts a glance to the card table in the center of the front room. Bridge cards scattered across the top, one of the folding chairs laying turned over. His mother's favorite vase lays shattered on the floor. Apparently that was the crash he had heard. His father and uncle are outside, barring the storm shutters. His aunt is going through the house closing all the remaining open windows.
Once in the florescent drenched kitchen, he opens the door to the pantry, dropping down to his knees to pull several boxes of candles from the bottom shelf as well as two large boxes of wooden, strike anywhere matches. He takes this load to set on the white formica topped kitchen table. He returned to the pantry to grab a snake like flashlight (one he loved to use since it had a flexible body that you could wrap around things), two Mag Lites and a boxy shaped Halogen lantern. Once more, he conveyed these items to the table, checking each in turn that the batteries worked. Just to be sure, he returned to the pantry closet to grab a box of assorted batteries. Smiling contently that he had done his job, he decided to do one more thing beyond that.
He hurried to the center of the kitchen, opening the door that lies beneath the stairs leading to up, staring down into the dark abyss of the cellar. Cool air wafted up to caress his warm cheek, followed by the smell of dampness. Kitt reachs out a hand to grope for the light switch on the left wall, flicking it up. There is a flicker of light below, as two banks of florescent lights wash away the darkness, illuminating the stairs and the floor below in white light. He snatches a large basket hanging from a nail in a wall brace, turning back to the table to load it with the candles, matches, flashlights and batteries. Lifting the filled basket off the table, he lugs them over to the cellar, descending the stairs carefully. When he reaches the bottom, he goes pass the silent washer and dryer, pass the dull stainless steel sink into the room converted to a rec room.
A wide screen tv is arranged along the length of the room, filling a third of the paneled wall. Next to it is a cabinet holding his father's pride, a top of the line stereo unit, complete with a karioke machine, vcr and a electronic keyboard. Laying on the floor next to it, is Kitt's pride. The Sega Dreamcast that he had received for his birthday last week. The empty case for his Pokemon game next to it. It was awesome to play it on the huge television screen. The Pokemon characters bigger than life, battling in their indominatable ways.
They were ignored for now. He has to carry the laden basket with both hands over to the coffee table set between the large couch and the wide screen. He lowers it to the tables top, happy to set it down. He hears the adults voices from above, calling out for him. Kitt runs over to the foot of the stairs, cupping his hands around his mouth to help his voice carry above the din of noise that seems to surround the house.
"I'm down here in the cellar, Mom!" he shouts, hoping they hear him. He is greeted by the forms of his mother, Aunt Theresa and Uncle Paul. His father bringing up the rear to close the cellar door behind them. They clomp down the stairs to join the boy, his mother placing a protective arm about him, leading him back to the couch. Together, Kitt, his mom, aunt and uncle plop down on the couch, huddling close. His father drops into the La-Z-Boy recliner angled off the end of the couch. Robert Humphrey notices the basket sitting on the table, then looks proudly at his young son, "Good job, Kitt! We won't be without light if that storm front takes out the power," he says loudly over the din above them.
"Damnedest looking clouds I have ever seen," Uncle Paul says, to no one in particular, shaking his head in disbelief.
With unsuspected suddeness, there's a deep silence. The overhead florescent lights flicker, then go out, plunging them all into darkness.
"Shit," whispers Robert, in the deathly hush. The last words anyone hears before the storm engulfs the house.
In the morning, rescuers are astonished with the wreakage of the home of Robert and Victoria Humphrey and their young son, Kitt. The two storied house has been leveled to the ground. Fire Chief Volunteer, Matt Oxford, pulls debris from around the vicinity of the cellar door. Three other men in yellow slickers with the name Paxton Co. VFD on the back, help him. A small opening appears from beneath the remains of the battered cellar door. Matt calls out to his lifelong friend, Robert.
Matt will not being hearing his friend's voice. After all is said and done, no bodies will be recovered. It was as if the storm had taken them away as momentos of it's night of destruction.