The Weatherman's Nightmare

The cold has already come, yet the snow is on the midst of arriving. The temperatures were sub-zero this cold winter night. The snow on the ground was not the snow you picture in your winter wonderland fantasy where the whole family is gathered at grandma's house enjoying a turkey and watching the beautiful white flakes outside the window gracefully falling from the sky as if little white pieces of heaven were falling right out of the sky. Rather the snow is as if it had frozen the instant the white flakes landed on the cold icy ground. It was almost as if there were a darkness to this kind of snow. The kind of snow most people didn't know existed. Snow hasn't falling in a couple days here in Spokane, however, the storm was on the way. They say this could be the Storm of the century.

Even though all the roads were covered with this dark snow and ice combination, weatherman John Spenser must get to work. The storm of the century was on the way and John Spenser felt it was his duty to warn the people of Spokane what was about to hit them and what they should do to stay warm in case of a power outage.

As expected, however, this was no easy task for John. He first walked out of his door and saw that the sun had gone down earlier then expected. The first thing that came to mind was that his watch had broke and he was running late. As he entered his car, however, he saw that the digital clock on his Mercedes dash board read 4:55pm. He leaves at this time everyday. Why was it so dark? He wonders. Putting the confusion of why the sun would go down earlier on any given day aside he started his car and began his descent.

The roads were so icy he could barely go 15 MPH without nearly slipping off the road and ending his career and possibly his life. This really worried John. For the first time of his life he was afraid of being late to work. This was a big deal to John because he was very well known in the Spokane area. He has been nominated "Weatherman of the Year" for the Spokane area for the past 6 years and he hopes to retain lucky number 7 this year. He had everything perfect that year as well. His only competition Greg Brenberg from channel 5 had retired, he predicted every storm of the season accurately so far, and the temperature never went above or below the temperature of which John Spenser predicted. However, with his Mercedes only being aloud to reach 15 MPH John was getting nervous.

A half hour later John realized that he had only traveled 4 miles and still had a good 16 miles to go. He had to be to work to announce his prediction for this monster storm on the 6:00 news. He was becoming very negative until he saw a break from the ice on the road ahead. Here he could get up to 50 MPH. John was pleased to be making up ground for the time that he lost in the frozen streets before. Even though he was going to make it on time, at this rate, there was still this sense of fear inside of him.

The knock on the studio door pleased John Spenser boss. He thought that he was going to be late and the 6 o'clock broadcast wouldn't be prepared in enough time to air. John walked into this office as he was greeted by the Anchor and the traffic reporter. They all went over some notes and quickly made last minute descisons of what to talk about that night and what to leave out. John requested five extra minutes to talk about his storm that was only hours away. Then it was straight to the Meteorology department to get the last minute signal transmissions for his local radar station.

Just as John suspected there were accumulations of three feet of snow for the next twelve hours and the temperatures were only to reach -6 degrees by the day time the next day. The radar, however, was saying that the storm was closer then expected and in fact was only about thirty miles away. He calculated the travel time of the storm and predicts the storm should hit in less then ten minutes. The storm of the century was about to begin.

John ran out to the newsroom and yelled out the storm was coming and everybody should go home immediately before they get stuck in the station for a week. Since John had been so well known and respected everybody listened to John and left immediately. Everybody except for John and the Executive Producer. They rolled the camera and went on as an emergency alert. John told the people of Spokane to stop what they are doing and turn the heat up in their houses and stay inside and stay warm and not go anywhere. He told them he expects sub zero temperatures to last through the weekend and the snow will not melt for weeks. Then all of a sudden the power went out.

They both ran outside and saw that all the other lights in the city were still on. The storm hadn't arrived yet, however, they could see it arriving in the distance. This was weird that only the power in the studio went out yet everybody else in the city still had their power. It was almost as if somebody were trying to stop the weather alert from being broadcast. They both agreed to just go home and not worry about the rest of the emergency weather alert and that if they didn't get home within the next half hour they were going to be stranded.

John's producer Curt asked John if he would like a ride home. He figured since John's house was on the way to his house and he was driving a heavy duty truck and all John had was his Mercedes that he would ask John if he wanted to carpool with him home. John denied his offer however. He didn't feel safe leaving his car out in the storm he would rather get it home and park it in his garage. That is when Curt said goodbye and told him to call him if he knew anything about when the storm was going to end.

The drive home for John was surprisingly not as bad as he expected. He was traveling at a good 60 MPH until he got back to the part of the road where he had been going only 15 MPH earlier. There was a several mile long back up of cars. This was rediculas and John was starting to get mad. The snow began to fall. This was not the usual beginning of a storm where the snow would fall lightly then pick up as the storm went on. The snow began to fall hard. The cars in front of him were not moving. John got nervous again and was afraid he would get stuck in his car and freeze to death. This was when John noticed the cars in front of him were empty.

The possibility of all of these cars being evacuated without John seeing them was slim to none. John suspected something else was going on. Something suspicious was going on in Spokane that night and John was soon about to find out. He tried to make a new path way around these cars and between them and the ditch so he could safely go around them. The snow as coming down so hard though he couldn't see the lines and where the ditch was. He tried to edge around the last car and he slipped into the ditch. His Mercedes air bags deployed and he figures that his car is now totaled.

The fear was still growing in John and he began to think more and more that something suspicious was going and he became scared. John had to really make a decision now, however. He had to decide to either stay in the car and freeze to death or go out in the storm and try to make it to the next house and hope to be let in for the night. John thought about it long and hard and realized without wasting anymore time that he had to find a warm place to stay for night.

He dug himself out of his car because the snow had already fell about a foot. That worried John as well. The snow as only supposed to be about a couple inches by this time according to John's predictions so that made him worry that he underestimated the storm. With this in mind either way John had to get to a warm place to stay. He walked along the road until he saw a housing development ahead. It was still about a mile ahead so John started to hurry.

The snow was falling harder and harder as he went on. He was knee deep in snow and that made it harder and harder to keep walking. He had to keep going though if he were to give up he would die. He was now about half way there. To keep himself going he was singing and trying to breathe as much as possible for he could give up and freeze at any moment. He had to stay strong. The snow was getting deeper and deeper and it seemed to be getting cold her and colder. The snow at this point was snow frozen that it began to harden. The snow that fell from the sky that night was now more in the form of hail, however, when it hit you it felt like a razer blade was being thrown at your face. John was trying to keep his face covered with his scarf to keep the sharp snow from cutting his face. This was no use. The snow was so sharp and hard and coming down too fast to prevent it from touching anything. This snow was cutting right through his scarf and hit his face.

This was when John gave up and fell to the ground. He was holding his face in pain and couldn't believe what was happening to him. He tried to bury himself in the snow to stay warm and he laid on his stomach inside of this snow fort. The snow struck his back side now harder and harder. He was beginning to actually get cut and draw blood from this happening. John was without a doubt dying of hypothermia as well. He could hear nothing but what sounded to be fire crackers exploding. This was not fireworks, however but what John believed was the razor sharp snow slashing at him and killing him slowly. The last thing John heard before he died was the words
"At last"

This sound that he heard was very spooky and all of a sudden the moment John died the weather became less and less painful and more delightful. The snow began to fall as if it were only to accumulate another inch or so before the storm would subside. People began to go back outside and return to there cars where they would attempt to get them home and shovel their driveways. The executive producer Curt saw this clearing in the weather as a chance to go back to the studio and see if any others that worked there had done the same. In fact as Curt arrived at the station he had seen everybody there except for John which worried him because he figured John Spenser the best weatherman of the area and weatherman of the year for six years straight would have been the first person back to the station.

Curt and the station went to go look for him. As they were driving down the road where they thought he could have got stuck the sun all of a sudden came out and it was as if a weather machine had made the weather become sunny and all the snow to slowly being to start melting. The news team was recording this search on the air live. They wanted the city to see how dedicated they are to finding their weatherman in case something bad did happen to him.

The team arrived to a block in the road. There were ambulances and police men all over the street and it seemed that if a huge pile of snow was blocking the whole road. What could be under the snow? The team wondered. Curt suggested that the snow was probably blown from the wind to form this pile. Another team member joked that if John were there he would know how the snow could accumulate like that. They all laughed and then realized that they were still looking for John and probably shouldn't be joking around.

As they were sitting in their car still reporting this search and rescue attempt they were trying to come up with things to say to keep the audience at home entertained so they started to joke about what could be under this pile of snow and how it was a monster under the snow who only comes out when it is below zero and made all the audiences at home laugh. They figured since the sun was out and the snow was obviously melting that they were to find out what was under this pile of snow soon. That is when a police officer went up to their car and said;
" You may not want to see this".

This had everybody confused and frightened including the audience watching this broadcast from their TV screens in their warmed living rooms. The team got out of the car and went toward the pile of melting snow. Before they were just joking around about how the snow could accumulate like that however they started to think that maybe the snow was burying something. As they got closer they saw a darkness in the snow. Something was indeed under the pile of snow and it looked to be a large animal or a human. The team started to freak out. As the team got to the opening in the pile of snow they saw it was their weatherman John Spenser dead under the snow. They accidentally showed the dead body on the air that is when they realized they needed to just turn off the cameras try to figure out what had happen.

This was when Greg Brenberg thanked God for his "retirement gift" and glanced at some sort of machine that was in his lap and said; "Perfect".