Killer Storm

• Shannon Smith, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2007

The silence was deafening. You could have heard a pin drop. I was standing on top of the stage, with my hands resting on the edges of the podium in front of me. Everyone was waiting for me to start my speech. My eyes glided over to the empty seats. We had all been so excited about graduation day and leaving this idiotic high school. But little did the six of us know that not all of us would live to see the day. This day.
It was a sunny, summer afternoon. We were all at the beach, the six of us. Emma and I were tanning when Pete and Michael came over to us, “Hey you guys going for a swim?” Pete asked us, actually it was starting to feel kind of hot, I started getting up but Emma hesitated, “Come on Emma, we don’t need any more time on the sun, besides it’s starting to get hot.” She smiled and nodded, “Ok Kay’ but you got to help me up.” I laughed and pulled her up from the towel. “I’ll go and tell Patty and Tia that we’re going for a swim. Ok?”
“Ok Kaylie” Pete yelled back at me.
I went over to the rock where we’d last seen Pat and Tia. But as I grew closer I realised that they weren’t there. “Pat! Tia! Where are you?” I looked around but they where no where to be seen. At first I began to think that I was just my imagination and that they were fine and I was over reacting but when Michael yelled out to me and pointed towards the sea, I knew that something was wrong. I followed his finger and looked at where he was pointing and realised that that there was trouble. I looked back to Michael but he wasn’t there. He was running towards the sea with Pete a metre or so behind him. I ran over to Emma, “What are they doing? And where’s Patty and Tia?” she looked at me with a worried look on her face, “That’s just it. They got dragged out to sea, but I don’t know how that could have been. There’s no one here besides us and why would anyone want to hurt them? I just hope that Pete and Mike get to them before the storm does,” I looked over to her and noticed that she was crying, “I’m sure they’ll be…… wait, what storm?” She pointed up towards the sky and just as I looked up pebble sized rain drops came pouring down from the pitch black clouds way above our heads.
I was about to yell for Mike and Pete to come back but, they where already on there way. “I’ll go and call for help. When they get here tell them to leave everything and come to the car. It’ll be warmer in there.”
The rain stopped a minute or so before the police and ambulance arrived. It had been a thunder storm for only a few minutes and it seemed weird. As we got out of the car the coast guards came up to us and said that Patty and Tia must have been drunk and drowned while they were underwater. But I wasn’t so sure that that was how it had happened.
*Note, not all high schools are bad but the one they went to was BAD!