James Turnbow

I clotted him until warm blood pooled around me.

When I was certain he was dead, I screamed, primal and feral, before stabbing the knife a final time into the soup of a man spilled across the ground.

And with that, I turned and left, doing my best to ignore the sticky floor.

My childhood died along with the bastard, but that was okay.

I was alive.

The steps were my final obstacle, and then I pulled the door latch open.

It groaned, and the humid air outside greeted me.

I stood in the rain and took a deep breath.

Everything I had ever known was gone.

The old tool shed was a pile of twisted metal.

Trees I had climbed as a kid littered the ground.

Some of them reduced to splinters.

Even the roof on our home was curled up at the edges.

I let the rain fall over my arms and down my hands, but no matter how long I stood there, I couldn't wash the memory away.

It was a sour stench that would linger with me for the rest of my life.

Thunder rolled somewhere far off, quieter now, like it had lost interest in me.

The storm moved on.

I knew I had to do the same.

Thanks for tuning in.

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