Nights at the Pump - Chapter 3 After the Rain

Chapter 3

It rained for a week and not just a little. There was lightening and thunder; torrents of rain and that gloomy, damp feeling that left you with nothing but the hope of getting outside again. It was a time for reading.

I read The Hardy Boys in hopes of sharpening my investigative skills but all I could think of was that door with the broken pane that was unlocked. Or was it? Maybe it had been left unlocked by mistake and now it was locked again. I was tempted to go over and see but I wasn't allowed to go out in the rain.

Sometimes I would just sit at the front of the house and look at the big blue house in hopes of seeing something mysterious. Once I thought I saw a light go on inside but it went off so fast I couldn't be sure. One thing I knew for sure was we would find out what was really going on in that strange place. On Saturday the rain stopped.

It was only a week until Halloween. At the pump we were talking about our costumes for the biggest candy gathering operation of the year. Harold wanted to be a policeman.

We all thought that was pretty tame with all the possibilities available. He thought that he could talk his parents into renting a good costume so he could wear it before Halloween. Then, he could enter the Church of Spiritual Holiness and Mystic Missions without causing any concern. If he were caught he would say he found the door open and wanted to make sure nothing was stolen.

Arianne wanted to be Peter Pan. We told her she couldn't be Peter Pan, he was a boy that never grew up, not a girl. She said it didn't matter and she could be Peter Pan if she wanted. Barbara and Ginger wanted to be pixies. I wasn't sure what I wanted to be. I was thinking of being a boa constrictor but I couldn't figure out how to make the costume.

It was getting dark and we were about to check the door again when a black car drove up to the Church. The windows were darkened so we could not see inside. A man in a black suit jumped out of the car and ran to the door with the broken pane. He did something to the door and then ran back to the car. As soon as he was in the car it slowly pulled away.

It was then that we noticed the blue blinking light over the doorway. Did they know what we had planned, were they waiting for us?  Our entry into the house just got more complicated. Now what could we do?

I needed to get back to the Hardy Boys for some help. We were not giving up just because of a little blue light.

To be continued....

©Herb Ratliff, October 26, 2012, All Rights Reserved