The Voice Rambles On - 5. Any Port in a Storm

Any Port in a Storm

Prompt # 334

Thunder crashed around the teens as they ran through the woods. The storm was getting vicious, and they knew if they didn't find shelter soon they would be soaked to the skin. They dashed between trees and scrub brush, branches and vines tearing at their legs, doing their very best to trip the young couple.

“Remind me again how much fun a walk in the woods would be?” Carmen asked for the tenth time.

“Save your breath and run! There is a house up ahead! I can see the roof.” Ryker pulled his boyfriend along by the hand, determined to find a place to hide out until the storm passed.

“Oh god, we are dead!” Carmen tried to hang back in the wood line, reluctant to cross the 200 yards of open space to the porch of the dilapidated old house. Lightning struck randomly and rapidly all around them. Ryker gave a solid yank on his arm and all but dragged him toward the relative safety of the rickety old building.

The place looked like it had been abandoned years ago. A key was hardly necessary to gain entry. The broken door swung wildly in the building wind. The boys now had to shout to be heard over the cacophony.

“Let’s get inside before one of those lightning bolts decides we look like a damn lightning rod!”

Carmen caught the door on its next swing and held it open for Ryker to dash through. Once inside he held it closed again till his boyfriend could drag an old table over to block it shut. The interior was surprisingly clean for an abandoned house. There was no dust, no debris, no cast off bottles from some drunken teenage binge.

“Do you smell something sweet?” Ryker looked around, wondering why it smelled like his mom’s kitchen when she was making sticky buns.

“Don’t be silly love. There is so much dirt on these windows, and the door being loose, no one could have been living here in a long time. What on earth could smell sweet?”

“I don’t know! I am just glad we got in here before THAT started!” Ryker gestured at the window, where the rain was running down the exterior in sheets. He sank into an old style wing chair. Running his finger over the arm, he looked up at his boyfriend.

“I am not so sure this place is abandoned! There is no dust anywhere. I don’t think the mice would be dusting, would they?”

Carmen drew in a deep breath and shouted as loudly as he could manage.

“Hello – Is there anyone here? We came in out of the storm. I hope you don’t mind.”

Both boys held their breath and listened for several minutes. They heard nothing that indicated the house was occupied by anything bigger than a mouse.

Once they caught their breath, the boys looked at each other with lost looks. Now what?

“Let’s look around. Maybe we can find the source of the sweet smell. If nothing else we can kill time until the storm lets up. Then we can follow the driveway down to the road, figure out where the hell we are, and maybe get home before dinner!”

“Ryker, what if someone is living here? They might not get too pissed finding us sitting in the living room, but if they catch us snooping around they are sure to!”

“Carmen, relax. Worst they can do is call a cop and have us busted right? They call our parents we explain, and we go home.”

“Uh, no – worst that can happen is we get found by some lunatic who thinks teenage boys are yummy. I told you about what happened to my cousin and his friends when they got lost in the desert. It was only dumb luck the cops decided to break into that old warehouse the tire tracks lead to, and not wait for a search warrant. Things could have gone very badly for Billy and his friends if Aunt Jacky hadn’t thought of activating the gps tracker in the car and having the police go out when she did.”

“We are not going to get abducted and abused by some weirdo! That was one of those freak once in a billion things and since we know someone it happened to, statistics say we are safe.”

Ryker won the argument and the boys began to wander around the ground floor. It really struck them as odd that there was no dust, no dirt anywhere. Even the best housekeeper would have left some sign of something that could use cleaning somewhere. When they entered the kitchen, the sweet smell got stronger. There were no appliances, only big gaps in the cabinetry where they should go. Carmen turned the faucet with no result. He wondered how anyone could keep a place this clean with no running water.

“Hey Carm! I found the source of that sweet smell. Look here – Honey!”

Sticking his head into the pantry, Carmen saw what his boyfriend was pointing at. Someone had replaced part of the wall with what looked like plexi glass, and the entire interior of the wall was filled with honey comb. Bees were industriously tending the hive. Watching through the plexi was fascinating.

“There are thousands of em! It looks like 5 or 6 stud cavities are completely full of comb!” Ryker grinned like a 6 year old. “Wanna figure out a way to get some of the honey?”

“Hmmm – wander around some beekeepers weird project house, maybe pissing him off. Try to remove honey from what looks like an extremely active hive and definitely pissing the bees off.” Carmen made weighing motions with his hands. “Think I will take my chances with the weird bee keeper.”

“The storm is starting to let up, but it is also getting dark. I am thinking maybe you are right, and we should make a break for it down the driveway as soon as the rain lets up a little more. It sounds like the heart of the storm has moved off.” The thunder had indeed quieted and no lightning could be seen before the distant low rolls washed over the house.

“What the hell is that horrible smell all of a sudden? It smells sort of like my dog did after he got skunked last summer and then dad tossed him in the lake trying to get rid of the smell. Wet skunked dog!”

A sudden bolt of lightning struck close to the house – so close there was not more than half a second between the flash and the crash of thunder. Silhouetted in the doorway by the flash was a huge misshapen man.

“That would be me. What are you boys doing in here?”

The entire situation became too much for Ryker and his boyfriend. They shrieked and ran out the door, bolting down the driveway at a dead run.

Bobby removed the protective screening from his head. He made a face at his own aroma.

“Guess that skunk got me worse than I thought. But wet dog? Now that was just insulting!”