He sat up, smelled the air as if he could detect danger, and got to his feet. The wailing storm and the creaks of the wood blotted out his efforts to hear anything. Snow peppered glass in a harsh sprinkle as Ben turned his flashlight and shone a beam on the huge pane in his living room. His picture window faced the bay, but the blackness lurking beyond could just as easily have been deep space. He walked over, feeling the grind of his arthritic hips, and peered outside all the same, switching off his light to improve his visibility. Or so he thought. In reality, he couldn’t see squat with the tempest raging. Mother Nature was having her period tonight. But he couldn’t shake that feeling of having heard something. Hearing a scream, of all things, and not just the wind. He thumbed the switch on his flashlight and shone it around his living room, poorly kept since his wife Agatha’s passing, or so he thought. In reality, Ben did quite fine with the housekeeping, keeping the dust from settling, though no one could convince him of that.
