[ WP ] Set in the American Dustbowl , You and your family are trapped in your house during a vicious dust-storm and you 're fairly certain there is something else lurking out there amidst the churning grey sand .

The storm flung towering pillars of sand against the walls of the cabin, rattling the windows in their flimsy frames and sending waves of dust through the gap beneath the door. We crouched in the far corner, hunkered down between the beds, and watched a barrage of leaves and debris plaster themselves against the glass. 
 
 No one spoke. We sat in spiritual silence, Pa's jaw grinding slowly back and forth on itself the way it did in church when the priest took too long with the homily. Ma held my sister, rocking her back and forth. I could tell it was as much to soothe Ma's fears as Jenny's. 
 
 The wind had a voice. It screamed at us to flee, to seek more substantial cover, but we had nowhere else to go. 
 
 Three years ago, I'd seen my first tornado, a black funnel the size of a city that fell out of the swirling sky in the east. Lightning cracked the air around it. 
 
 I'd never been able to shake the feeling that it was only a matter of time before the funnel returned and swallowed me up. 
 
 A blast of wind hit the cabin from the side and clattered the pots and pans that hung along the wall. Startled by the noise, I glanced in that direction and saw a dark shape flash past the window. 
 
 Suddenly it was very cold in the cabin. I clutched my knees to my chest, staring out the window, trying to glimpse something -- anything -- to help me attach a rational explanation to the shape. 
 
 It was no use. The billowing dust obscured everything more than a foot from the windows. We might as well have been the last people on a plague-ravaged Earth, sitting out the final storm. 
 
 I became aware of a sound along the wall behind me. Straining to hear it over the howling wind, I pressed an ear against the wood. 
 
 *Tap tap. Tap tap TAP TAP TAP* 
 
 My heart slammed a breakneck rhythm. I tugged Pa's sleeve and leaned to shout in his ear: 
 
 `` I think there's something out there!'' 
 
 He gave me a sharp look that softened almost immediately, the wrinkles around his eyes regaining their normal grooves of cheer. 
 
 `` There is something out there,'' he shouted back. `` It's called a dust storm!'' 

