Outside, the sky turned black, and the kitchen went as dark as if the sun were setting. She tuned in right in the middle of a National Weather Service bulletin; they were always so scratchy and full of static she had to concentrate to make out what the man was saying. Strong winds, damaging hail, severe thunderstorm. … Not even a “watch”; this one, as any fool could see, was already here. No talk of tornadoes, though—

She caught the sound of the television from the living room, and hurried in to find young Rod messing with it in the gloom of the living room. The only light came from the screen.

“You get away from that!” she snapped. “I have told you and told you, don’t use the TV in a thunderstorm!”

“I wanta see Doppler Six radar,” Rod whined, defiantly. “Chill out, Ma! Nothing’s gonna happen! You talk like some kind of hystric! And you act like you want me t’ grow up t’ be a fag!”

Now that—except that the word was “hysteric,” not “hystric”—was straight from his father’s mouth. Bad enough to hear it from Rod—but this was too much.

She saw red and was about to give him that spanking she had promised—but before she could move to give his fanny a real tanning, she saw something else instead.

The Indian.

It rose up from the shadows behind the television set, where it had either been lurking, or been doing something to the television set. Ryan came up behind her, and grabbed for her hand with a gasp.

This time the Indian did not disappear when she turned her full attention on it; she was looking straight at it, and although Rod didn’t seem to see it, Ryan beside her did, and shrank against her, whimpering.

It grinned at her, a nasty, snide grin. Like a wolverine, she thought, crazily. Like a bear trap. Like—like the Devil, just before he takes a soul!

And it vanished.

Rod was still messing with the television. “There!” he said in triumph, as the picture came in, the Channel Six weatherman standing in front of an image of a Doppler Radar scan. “I need to tune—”

His hand was on the dial, just as lightning hit the antenna above them.

The next half hour was hell on earth.

Toni found herself on the dining room floor, Ryan beside her, with no memory of how they had gotten there. She scrambled to her feet and dashed into the living room, vaguely aware that every hair on her head was standing on end, and feeling a kind of tingle in her hands and feet, as if they’d been asleep.

Young Rod was collapsed in a heap beside the television. The back of the set had blown out, and glass shards were embedded in the wall behind the set.

Rod’s outstretched hand was black and crisped. He wasn’t moving.