April 14, 1935. Black Sunday. It began as a dark cloud on the western horizon, first visible at mid-afternoon; a black line separating earth from sky. Many remembered the birds chattering nervously at the sight of that growing shadow before soaring off to the east in winged panic. Temperatures plummeted and a grave stillness settled over the parched plains. This was the prelude to the largest dust storm in American history.

After the tempest Saturday night, many had thought the worst was over. It was the end of the stormy season, when farmers would once again attempt to raise crops from the barren sands under god’s blazing, tearless eye. Sunday morning, Kansas awoke to a gentle, caressing breeze and sweet azure heavens. People emerged from their homes to take advantage of the clearest weather in months. While some basked in the warm rays of the sun with picnics, others traveled to church to give thanks for god’s benevolence. It would be a short respite.

“God damned dust!” Chuck Frazier drunkenly swore aloud, blindly weaving north across the KS-25 in between bitter sips from his flask. He had been at church for service when the news of the approaching storm reached him. A few parishioners had immediately dropped to their knees and prayed for salvation. Chuck shook his head at the memory. Unlike the rest of the congregation, he had decided to brave the storm. He had cattle to look after, a home to secure. If anyone was going to protect his possessions it sure as hell wasn’t going to be the Heavenly Father. That bastard had done his best to take what little he had.

The storm overtook him shortly after he made it to the KS-25, chewing up the earth and spewing it down on his head. Blue skies grayed and darkened before that wave of black crashed down on top of him. Day turned to night as if a veil had been thrown over the sun. His headlights proved useless in the swirling muck. He couldn’t see five feet beyond his windshield, yet the truck kept rushing forward. It was like driving into the depths of hell itself.

Chuck’s foot slipped off the accelerator when he caught sight of a woman off to his left carrying an infant on the side of the road, the two clearly lost in the turmoil. She screamed mutely when he rolled past, disappearing in seconds. He hit the brakes and slammed to a stop, jerking around in his seat to stare out the back window. She never reappeared. It was as if she and her child had been swallowed by the storm. Chuck faced forward and thought of shifting to reverse and going back to find her, his eyes repeatedly glancing up to the rearview mirror for any sign of her or her kid. The wind rattled the truck’s windows and the air went ever darker with dust. He hit the horn hoping that the sound would guide the woman to him. After a series of honks, he looked back to the mirror. She did not appear. Chuck chewed on his bottom lip unsure what to do. He drained the last dregs from his flask hoping to ease the dread he felt. After a few minutes, he blinked away the tears in his eyes and readjusted the rearview mirror before continuing on. They’d find their way to safety, he told himself. Stupid woman should have known better anyway going out in a storm like this. He wasn’t responsible for what happened to her. He pushed the accelerator all the way to the floor to outrun the nagging guilt gnawing at him. He kept seeing her, baby in her arms, reaching for him.

Tearing down the road, mind elsewhere, Chuck didn’t see what emerged ahead until it was too late. A pale, naked man stumbled onto the highway, the truck rushing toward him. Chuck’s white knuckled grip tightened further on the steering wheel when he glimpsed the man and instinctively braced for impact. A flash forced him to shut his eyes just before the truck crashed into the ashen figure throwing Chuck through the windshield. His body struck the concrete, rolling limply for several feet until it came to rest face down.

As the flash faded, the pallid figure emerged from the light still standing and unscathed on the road. He gawked at the truck twisted around his body, the front end caved in. The figure put his hands on the warm hood, touching the vehicle to make sure it was real. Unnerved, he pushed himself free of the wreckage, visibly shaken by his apparent invulnerability. Soon his attention shifted to Chuck’s unconscious form. The pale figure plodded toward the injured man, feet slapping on the road, arms wrapped around himself.

Chuck was a gory mess. He had hit the asphalt head first suffering a cranial fracture. The left side of his face was shorn away with bone and muscle visible. His broken left arm lay awkwardly across his back while ragged breaths rasped from his mouth due to several cracked ribs surrounding a pair of collapsed lungs.

The figure knelt down beside Chuck, its head tilted in contemplation. He gently turned the man over, partially rearing back when he saw Chuck’s grievous injuries. But the figure did not abandon him. Reflexively he extended a hand, his fingers tracing over the rancher’s wounds. Soon they trailed down Chuck’s broken body until the figure’s palm hovered over Frazier’s chest. A soft glow emanated from the figure’s hand, quickly fading as he balled up his fist and pulled it away. The pale man looked at his fist with uncertainty, roughly rubbing his thumb against his curled index finger. His eyes returned to Chuck and his fist relaxed. The figure reached out once more, hesitated, and finally placed his fingers on Chuck’s forehead before bowing his own head. The figure’s form, already anemic, became chalky. His flesh took on a sheer glossiness as a luster started to shine just beneath his skin, the scintillating radiance seeming to pour out of his pores. Its supernal brilliance forced back the blackness and calmed the howling winds. Illuminated by the figure’s flaring aura, Chuck’s mortal wounds began to seal. The flesh and muscle drew itself together as his left arm snapped back into place, his bones knitting until all that was left was dried blood. Chuck’s ragged breathing deepened and evened out as the figure withdrew his hand.

Chuck stirred, his bleary eyes blinking open to stare in awe at the figure above him. He beheld a shining countenance both alien and divine that paralyzed his senses. The figure’s face was thin but not hungry, with high, prominent cheek bones and a thin, lipless mouth. Sizable black eyes stared down at him at whose centers were silver irises resembling starbursts. Chuck could see all eternity in those eyes, that immortal glance making him feel infinitesimal. He could only utter one unsure word at the sight of such a being. “God?”

The ambience of the figure faded as it withdrew in shock, gaping at its healing hand in horror. The figure scrambled clumsily to his feet and fled into the storm.

***

Monday afternoon, Sheriff Mark Brady cruised down the KS-25 surveying the damage wrought by Sunday’s dust storm. He’d been combing Grant County since dawn checking on the welfare of the townspeople and helping out where he could. So far there hadn’t been any casualties, though there were numerous odd sights. Mark had found over thirteen people huddled in the ruins of a two-room adobe hut, the occupants too afraid to venture out lest they be smothered by the maelstrom they were sure still raged outside. A far more morbid scene was a field full of dead cattle he had passed five miles back; over two dozen head keeled over and covered with dust, their gaping mouths full of dirt.

Mark slowed down when he saw Chris’ dilapidated Model-T up ahead. He pulled behind the beat-up vehicle and climbed out. “Chris?” he called, walking to the driver’s side door. He wiped the grime off the glass to get a look through the window. Empty. He opened the door and searched inside. There were no keys in the ignition. He walked around to the front, laying his hand on the hood. It was cool. Car had been here a while. Mark glanced around. “Chris?” Not a sign of the man to be seen. Dumb bastard probably got caught in the storm and tried to make it home on foot.

The sheriff returned to his car and continued south. He made a mental note to stop off at Chris’ farm to make sure the man was alright. After seeing those cattle, Mark couldn’t help but worry about his friend, shuddering when he pictured Chris face down in the fields covered in dust. His eyes darted left and right as he drove searching for any hint of his friend.

“Christ,” he whispered when he happened upon it. The wreckage of Frazier’s truck was strewn across the highway, the front end resting askew on a broken axle crowned at either side with blown tires. Mark came to a stop and jumped out. He hustled toward the wreckage, his boots crunching on broken glass. “What the hell did he hit?” Mark asked himself as he reached the front end. The truck looked like a giant had punched it in, the fender collapsed inward. Bastard must have been speeding to beat the storm. There wasn’t any sign of the victim. Maybe a cow wandered onto the road. Storm could have knocked down a fence and the stupid creature would have lost its way. A quick check proved the barbed wire fencing was still up on both the eastern and western sides of the highway and there was no bovine corpse to be seen.

The windshield drew his attention next. Judging by the gaping hole, something or someone got thrown out by the impact. But where was the driver? He should have passed him on the road. The lack of either victim was maddening. Did everyone simply get up, dust themselves off, exchange apologies, and go home? His eyes came back to that gaping black hole in the windshield. “No man walked away from that,” Mark confirmed to himself. Anything strong enough to throw a man was likely to kill him. Maybe one or both of the saps ended up in an adjacent field and was covered over by the storm just waiting to give a farmer a spring surprise.

Mark sauntered around the shattered vehicle, picking his way over debris as he made his way to the driver’s side. “Hello?” He grabbed the door handle and pulled. It was jammed. Mark jerked on the handle a few more times struggling to unstick it when Chuck’s disheveled head popped up causing the sheriff to jump back startled. “Damnit, Chuck,” he cursed when he saw who it was.

Chuck rolled down the window. “Sorry sheriff.”

“Are you alright? Looks like you hit something pretty good.” Chuck didn’t answer, instead his red rimmed eyes going wide as he fidgeted and hissed something under his breath. “How long you been out here?” Chuck continued to babble incoherently. Mark reached through the window and put a hand on Chuck to calm him. The contact helped to soothe Frazier’s anxiety, Mark feeling the man’s rigid forearm slacken. “How long you been out here?”

“Since yesterday. Got in the truck to keep out of the storm. Strange things out in the storm.” Chuck shifted in his seat.

“Something wrong?”

Chuck wouldn’t meet Mark’s gaze. “You’re gonna think I’m crazy.”

“Why would I think that?”

“Because I think it’s crazy,” Chuck bluntly replied.

“Just tell me what happened.”

Chuck ran a hand through his wild hair, remembering the events of yesterday. “I…I hit something.”

“Yeah, I can see that. What did you hit?”

“I…I think it was a man.”

Mark’s eyes jerked back to the front of the truck as he released Chuck and backed up. “Did you see who it was?”

“He stumbled into the road. I didn’t get that good a look. He came out of the storm.”

The image of Chris’ Model-T flashed in Mark’s mind. “No. Oh Christ, no.”

“It all happened so fast-”

“Did you see who it was?”

Chuck shivered. “Oh, I saw his face.” He broke down at the memory of the figure, crying hysterically.

The sheriff attempted to console Frazier when he noticed the empty flask next to Chuck. Mark’s kind nature soured as his stare bored into Frazier. “You goddamn drunken bastard, did you hit Chris Donner?”

Chuck shook his head. “I don’t know,” he blubbered. “I don’t know what I hit.”

“What are you talkin’ about? You said you saw his face,” Mark sternly reminded him. “You better tell me what happened if you don’t want me to haul your ass in.”

Chuck began babbling again, only the words ‘god’ and ‘healed’ being remotely understandable.

Mark was fast losing his patience with the drunk. “Chris’ car is about half a mile up the road. I need to know if you hit him.”

“I…”

Mark abandoned Chuck to frantically search the road looking for any sign of his friend. There was no body. No tracks. No sign of him anywhere. “Where is he?” he demanded over his shoulder.

“What?”

Mark marched up to the driver’s side door and reached through the window to grab Chuck by the shirt, shaking him. “Where the hell is the man you hit? Where is my friend?”

“He went that way.” Chuck motioned south.

Mark released him and bolted for his car. He gunned the engine and rushed down the highway, the pit in his stomach getting larger.

Next Chapter: Chapter 6