Thunder With No Rain
The storm arrives at midnight, and it is wrong in every way a storm can be wrong.
There is thunder — huge, rolling booms that rattle the window glass — but no rain. There is lightning, but it isn't white. It flashes violet, plum-purple, staining your bedroom walls the color of grape juice with every strike.
You're kneeling on your bed with your nose to the window when you hear it, in the gap between two thunderclaps: a cry. High and frightened and silvery, coming from the barn.
It sounds almost like a horse. But no horse you've ever heard sounds like bells.
The barn door, which Aunt Bee latched at sundown, is standing open, banging in the wind. Something in there is hurt. You can feel it the way you feel a splinter — small and sharp and impossible to ignore.