The Storm

   The night was cold and wet. The rain came down, mercilessly pounding the walls, the windows, the ground. Small animals scurried away to their nice warm homes, even the worms stayed hidden. Inside the house in the middle of nowhere the Baxter family stayed huddled together waiting for the final member of the family to arrive.

   "This is a great way to start off our family reunion." Laughed Joann, the youngest of the brood. Five boys and one girl made up the family. Meagan and Josh Baxter had been married thirty years previously and had been happy with their six children. Now they were all getting together to celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary.

   "It just makes for an interesting story." Meagan said, her smile identical to her daughter's. "Your father and I were stuck in a storm just like this one thirty years ago. Of course that was before we were married." Lighting flashed and thunder rumbled ten seconds later.

   "This seems like it could be an interesting story." Brenden, the eldest, said smiling. "I think the best time for it is now, seeing as dad's not here and he'd put an end to it." All six of the children, now adults, laughed.

   "If you tell your father I told you this story, I will be in trouble." Meagan said teasingly. "Well like I said it was on a night like this one. We were both coming around a corner, in separate vehicles and we swerved to avoid each other. As a result we ran ourselves off the road and into the mud. Your father got out of his car and came over to me, making sure I was alright. He looked worried and I thought an angel had come to rescue me. I had gotten lost when the storm hit and I just couldn't find my way to a town.

   "Well, being the hero he is he told me there was a town about a mile away. We could get shelter there until the storm passed and we could get our cars towed. We started out walking and never made it past his car. I fell in a hole and twisted my ankle. So-," Meagan was interrupted by her sons laughing at her.

   "You 'twisted your ankle' huh?" Trent asked laughing louder then the rest. "Oh help me kind sir! I twisted my ankle!" He cried in his falsetto voice. The rest of the family started laughing even harder. Meagan was turning red.

   "It wasn't like that! I-," Meagan's statement was lost when the door opened and Josh stepped through something large in his arms. He was soaking wet as was the bundle.

   "Clear off the couch quickly." Josh said urgently. It was then that everyone realized that the bundle was a person. He laid the person down and started pulling off the clothes and heavy jacket. "Get me some blankets."

   Joann jumped up and grabbed several blankets. When she brought them back, they had stripped the person, who turned out to be a beautiful woman, down to a tank top and long johns. The long johns suggested that the woman had been planning on being out where it was cold, but did she really expect to be caught in a storm like this? Her arms and shoulders were bruised and looked extremely painful. It looked like someone had beaten her. "Where did you find her?" Joann asked as she wrapped the woman in the warm blankets.

   "She was down by the entrance to the road. It looked like she had been trying to make it to the house and just couldn't go any further." Josh said examining the scratch on the woman's face. Someone had wiped the mud from her face to clear out the wound. "She's running from someone. Someone did this to her." Josh said with conviction.

   "You don't know that." David, the second oldest said. "She could have just been in a car accident or..." He trailed off. Sometimes the truth hurt, sometimes one didn't want to admit to the truth either. There was no denying the fact that someone had hurt this woman. The problem was who that was.

Author's Note

This is the first draft. Please tell me what I need to improve. I really need it. I don't need anyone telling me what is necessarily really good, I need to know what needs to be fixed to improve

Reviews

[Ashly Christen]

I like it, its captivated me right from the start, which is hard to do
you could be on to something good here

and I know this has nothing to do with the review, but I saw you have been gone for a while from the café, as have I, hope to see you around would love if you looked over a couple of my writings too, I am also trying to revamp

and great job with this ill be looking for more

[Ellen Hammond]

I like the story so far. However, I think the second sentence grabbed my attention much better than the first one. In fact, you could even leave the first sentence out entirely....just start with the second one.

The following seems a bit too repetitive:

" Laughed Joann, the youngest of the brood. Five boys and one girl made up the family. Meagan and Josh Baxter had been married thirty years previously and had been happy with their six children. Now they were all getting together to celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary."

Just a thought; perhaps you could combine some of the sentences to avoid redundancy and/or too much repetition. Something like:

Laughed Joann, the youngest and only girl of the happy brood. Meagan and Josh Baxter's six grown children were now gathered together to help them celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary.

One other little thing I noticed is a typo:

"Lighting flashed and thunder rumbled ten seconds later."

There is another "N" in lightning.

Not trying to be too critical just helpful. Looking forward to reading the rest of the story.

[Gathering_Stars]

The night was cold and wet doesn't really grab the reader, it kind of just gives a vague description and not a very interesting beginning. The plot line is pretty good so far, but you just need to develop it.