Storms and Lullabies

The car rocked with every crash of thunder. The fierceness of the thunderstorm would be unnerving to some but to me, it was just like a lullaby. The howling wind was like gentle music to my ears and each bolt of lightning flew through the sky giving the leafless trees the look of bad high school dancers as they jumped and gyrated under the spinning disco light while the black one flashed its seizure-inducing rhythm.

I decided to drive the back roads; no point hitting the highway yet. According to the local radio station, which was currently spewing plenty of static, the search hadn’t begun yet. Not that it would for a while. The guard, somewhat unwilling to share his uniform wouldn’t be found for a few days, perhaps weeks, and considering I used his key-scan card to leave the building and haul myself into an official prison vehicle probably wouldn’t even be given a second thought until it occurred to some of the bright sparks that worked there that the van never did return.

The theory is that when someone decides to depart the “Big House” by methods other than legal ones, they tend to leave the area for parts far away and unknown. With any luck, I could use the identification, passport and credit cards that were quite conveniently supplied in the reluctantly borrowed uniform and head to some remote island in the sun before the law got wind of my escape.

A blinding shot of lightning flashed as the tree fell, and unable to stop in time, I hit it. As I turned my neck to relieve the sudden tension I saw the sign for the Heartbreak Hotel Bed and Breakfast, just to my right. I smiled and thought, who says angels only watch over good people?