The Crossroads

Boom! Another blast of thunder rocked the bedroom. Zipper whimpered.

“Hey, Zip—did you know that sound travels eleven thousand feet per second? And there are five thousand, two hundred and eighty feet per mile.”

Lightning flashed.

“One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five—”

Thunder exploded.

“Okay, see? That lightning was less than a mile away, ’cause for every four point seven seconds between—”

The sky flared white. Thunder roared instantaneously with the flash. Then Zack heard an explosion—like a wooden crate being blown to bits by a stack of dynamite.

The lightning must’ve hit something in the backyard!

Zack and Zipper raced to the window.

Wet oak leaves pressed against the glass and slid down like slow green hands.

The big oak near the highway was tearing itself apart. Lightning must’ve hit it. One half of the huge tree crashed down behind the house. Dead branches snapped off it like crisp icicles. The other half slammed across the highway, blocking the crossroads with a barricade of branches.

Zack and Zipper pressed their noses against the window.

“Wow. Awesome.”

Zack sensed movement. On the far side of the fallen tree.

He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw the shadow of a man walking through the woods. A man with a big swoop of combed-back hair.

“Zack?” his dad called from downstairs.

He turned to answer. “Yeah?”

“You guys okay?”

“Yeah. We’re fine.”

When he looked out the window again, the man was gone.