Word: fulgurant

 

fulgurant

\ FUHL-gyer-uhnt \  , adjective;

1. Flashing like lightning.

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               The air around the young couple was cold, crisp, and damp with the low hanging mist.  It was almost too dark to see, but the occasional flashes of lightning granted them momentary views of their surroundings.  Enough not to run into any of the gravestones at least.  The sounds of their footsteps echoed around them, adding to the sounds of the hollow wind and thunderclaps.  A lone crow called out from somewhere around them, apparently indifferent to the thunder and lightning. 

                The small, thin girl let out a small yelp of surprise as she ran into a thin spider web hanging from a scraggly tree branch she had passed under.  She scrambled against the thin white material, trying to pull it out of her hair.  Her boyfriend simply laughed at her antics, but did eventually move to help her pull it out. 

                “You were laughing at me.”  She said, teary eyed once she had been detangled.

                “Sorry, sorry.  You have to admit though, it was kinda funny.”  He said.

                “It was not!”  She said, her voice rising in pitch ever so slightly.

                “Come on Lucy, you got caught in a fake spider web.  Even you have to admit that was funny.”  He said, still trying not to start laughing again.  Lucy huffed and started walking down the path outlined by the fake gravestones, pouting as she did.  Then came another flash of the strobe light ‘lightning’ and recorded ‘thunder’.  She was back on his arm almost immediately.  This time he couldn’t keep from laughing.  All he could do was keep it at a quiet chuckle and avoid her pouting glairs. 

                “Tom, you’re laughing again.”  Lucy said, not moving away from him for an instant.

                “Yeah.”  He said through his chuckles.  The look she gave him just made him laugh louder.  When her eyes started tearing up he did his best to stop though.

                “I don’t know how you convinced me to come here.”  She muttered, more to his sleeve than to his face.  Tom had convinced her to come to a local haunted house for Halloween.  He did it for her sake really.  Lucy was not someone who went out very often, and he had to work to get her to do anything which could be considered fun.  He would probably pay for it later on though, since Lucy could find some very creative ways to get back at people for things like this. 

                “You know, like I do everything.  Butter you up with cake and ask when your mouth is full so you can’t say no.”  He said, a wide smile glued to his face as he looked down at her clinging to him.  Lucy didn’t say anything, since she knew he was pretty much right.  He had even managed to get them to wear themed costumes using this method. 

Of course the genre he had chosen had been fighters of some kind.  For Lucy, this meant ‘borrowing’ her older brother’s old karate uniform.  It was an interesting sight to say the least.  The white cloth hung off her small, slender body so much that she had to use white strings to keep the thing from falling off.  Combined with her shy looking face, big, circular glasses, and brown hair done in a simple braid, she seemed more like some kind of character in a cartoon than anything else. 

                Tom’s costume seemed to fit him better, if only just.  He had used the opportunity to dress up as a ninja warrior.  For him, this meant wearing a black sweat suit, sneakers, gloves, a black t-shirt wrapped around his head, and a set toy ninja weapons from the dollar store.  It was only the fact that he was of Japanese decent that let him pull it off only a little more than Lucy did hers.

                Lucy began pulling on his arm as they walked down the room, shivering from more than the air conditioning that had been turned up to full blast for the event.  She was eager to get out of there as quickly as they could, go home and probably eat some candy.  It was a wonder she didn’t get fat from all the sweets she ate.  Tom for his part, was enjoying the moment. 

He had to admit, the group that did the annual haunted house had really gone all out this year.  Usually they just painted everything black, stuck a few cob webs around with plywood partitions, and had people in masks jump out.  This year they had really put a lot more into it.  Each room in the building they used had a different theme to it, and each was very well done.  The current room was a poorly maintained graveyard.  So far nobody had jumped out at them, but it was only a matter of time really.

Sure enough, just as a simulated lightning bolt flashed, a man dressed, very convincingly, as a zombie right in front of the couple.  As he made to grab at them, Lucy shrieked and lashed out with her fist in a wide arcing punch.  Her blow struck the man just above his jaw.  He staggered back a bit, and a slew of curses and swears that would make a sailor proud issued forth from behind the zombie mask. 

“What the hell!?”  He asked quickly removing the mask.  Lucy had retreated behind Tom’s back, cowering behind him like a five year old clinging to her mother on the first day of school.  “What was that for?”  He asked, rubbing the place he had been hit.  Tom raced to think of something to say.

“I guess you just did your job really well?”  He said, hoping the cloth in front of his face would hide his panic.  “See, she’s kinda skittish, and well, that is a really good mask you have.”  The man didn’t seem convinced.  Tom turned to face Lucy, who was hiding behind him as best she could, rubbing the hand she had used.

“I hurt my hand.”  She said weakly.

“You hurt my face!”  The guy said over another round of recorded crow caws and thunder claps. 

“Ok Lucy, we’ll deal with your hand later.”  He said, ushering her around in front of him.  “Let’s deal with this now.”  He said quietly.  Lucy couldn’t bring herself to look the man in the eye.  Instead she cast her gaze down at her own feet, wringing her hands nervously.  Her eyes were tearing up again and Tom could swear her heard her whimpering slightly. 

“S-sorry.”  She said, like a child who had got caught with a hand in the cookie jar.  It was really hard to think that she was in her mid twenties acting—and dressed—as she was.  Yet, it was this very quality that seemed to work to calm the man down a bit.  Still, he wasn’t exactly please with them.

“Yeah, yeah.”  He said, “I think it would be best if you guys left now.”  He said, obviously trying to keep himself angry despite the display Lucy was putting on. 

“Right.”  Tom said, placing his hands on her shoulders and leading her away.  “Come on Karate girl, let’s go home.”  Lucy nodded silently.  The two walked side by side, Lucy still hanging her head and rubbing her hand.  Another flash of strobe lit lighting and recorded though, and she was once again clinging to Tom’s arm.  He sighed, smiled at her and led them out, into the more natural cool October air.

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I can be so mean to my characters sometimes, can't I?  Well, when the story calls for it any way.  

Oh, and just remember, Halloween is now exactly two weeks away (no really, it's two weeks to the day at the time of this posting).  You know what your going as yet?  'Cause I sure don't.  Although...I do have some ideas that I can pull off on short notice if I need to...