Thunder and Lightning

The House on the hill waits for no man in the window.

the maniacal screams that echo from the basement 

chills a daughter to the bone marrow.

a son with lightning prepared to bend

to the will of a man 

she sits at the window of the House on the hill.

"Mother? Father?"

"What's wrong with them?" 

a daughter watches the lightning crack

whisper

dart across the sky

the clouds on their steady roll towards

the House on the hill.

"I don't like the thunder, mother."

"Don't worry. Look, watch it with me."

she looks at her mother, cold with rot leaking out of her eyes

the graying skin of a corpse looks strange

in comparison to the daughter’s

they looked alike once

in the House on the hill.

"I will save them, Mary. I will bring them back."

"Do not play God, Percy. You won't come back."

her mother’s face flashes

in the bright light

the loud boom that follows

shaking the old foundations

of the House on the hill.

"Stay upstairs if you aren't going to help."

"Tampering with Life and Death isn't my forte."

a son cackles at it

the sound and the light

getting closer with

every moment

to the House on the hill.

"Promise you will care for Mary?"

"Promise."

he looks down at the bloodied fingers 

securing the metal to his

father's lifeless hands,

the father who once loved

the House on the hill.

"Don't play with fire, son."

"Fire was meant to be controlled, father."

a daughter takes her mother's hand

holds her doll to her chest

watching the clouds finally

push overhead of 

the House on the hill.

"Mother, when are you coming home?"

"Soon, darling. Let Percy work."

a son wraps his hand around the handle

of a switch

the storm bringing power

and his parents

back to the House on the hill.

"Don't play with things you can't control."

"Does that include people?"

Percy pulls the switch.

"Wait."

Mary holds her mother tight. Her mother holds back.

"No. Mary, Mary let go, we have to get out. We have to go now!"

"..."

"Mary?"

The House on the hill waits for no man in the window.

Percy never thought it wouldn't wait for a daughter.

"...said to have burned down his own house. The bodies of his family were recovered, those of his parents' showing signs of rot. The police department states that he had kept the corpses for weeks in their House on the hill. The sister..."