Random Horror Stories - 500

The town was small, but its stories were big. The old man on the corner of the street used to tell them: stories about Thunder Man. How he wasn't really a man at all but something else. Something in between. People would laugh, dismissing the ramblings of an old drunk, but there were times, especially when the sky darkened and the air crackled, when even the most cynical would pause and look up.

Thunder Man was always a whisper. A crack of lightning in the distance. A presence that stretched out across the land, unseen but felt. He was known for his strange idea of right and wrong, but there were no clear lines, no black and white. Thunder Man only cared about what he saw as just, and sometimes that was not what most would agree on.

Most people feared him, even the ones who claimed to be good. And that was because nobody could be sure where they stood with him. The old man used to say Thunder Man didn't make distinctions between good and evil. He only saw what was true to him.

The rain started the night Sarah disappeared. The kind of rain that wrapped itself around everything like a wet cloth, thick and oppressive. People said they heard the thunder rolling in before it happened. Then came the storm. Not a regular storm. No, this one had something more. Something in the air that made your skin itch, something that made you look over your shoulder, wondering if the sky itself was alive.

The last time anyone saw Sarah was in the woods just outside the town. She'd been running, running hard, like she was escaping from something. Her face was pale, and her eyes—her eyes were wide with something worse than fear. She didn't scream, though. She couldn't. Nobody ever screamed around Thunder Man. The air choked your voice before you could even try.

Some believed she was still out there, lost in those woods, somewhere far beyond where the roads ended, in a place where Thunder Man walked. But nobody was brave enough to go looking for her. And after a while, nobody talked about her anymore, either.

Then, there was Mark.

Mark was just another face in the town, doing what everyone else did. He wasn't evil, not in the way people imagined evil to be, but he wasn't exactly good either. He liked to drink, and he liked to pick fights, sometimes with the wrong people. He was the type who didn't mind getting his hands dirty if it meant getting ahead. And maybe that's what made him different from Sarah. Because when Thunder Man came for Mark, there was no running, no pleading. There was just the storm.

Mark had been drinking that night, stumbling down the main road, his breath heavy, his thoughts even heavier. The wind had picked up in a way that didn't feel right. It wasn't the usual gusts of a coming rainstorm. No, this felt... deliberate. The kind of wind that seemed to move for a reason. His boots slapped against the wet asphalt as he made his way home, not really thinking about anything.

And then, as if on cue, the sky split open. Lightning flashed, not once, not twice, but again and again, each strike closer, louder. Mark froze in his tracks. The air tasted of metal, like a storm about to devour everything in its path. He turned, trying to see if anyone else was out there, but he was alone.

That was when he saw it. A figure, tall, twisted, and somehow impossible. It was not like anything Mark had seen. The thing didn't move. It stood still, the storm wrapping around it like a cloak. The thunder, the kind that made the ground shiver, didn't sound the same as before. Now, it felt like it was coming from inside him, like it was a part of him, rattling his bones. Mark's heart raced. He should've run, but his legs felt rooted to the spot, heavy, useless. His chest tightened, and his mind screamed for him to act, but his body stayed frozen.

The figure stepped forward. The first step was slow, measured. The next one came faster. The ground trembled under its feet. Mark couldn't breathe.

"Do you know what you are?" the thing asked, its voice like the crackling of thunder itself. Low. Deep. It wasn't asking for an answer. It was stating a fact.

Mark's breath came in shallow gasps, and he wanted to shout, to scream for help. But he couldn't. It wasn't the storm that choked his voice; it was something else. Something cold. He stumbled back, tripping on the wet ground, but before he could even get to his feet, the thing was right in front of him. It reached down, and Mark's body locked in terror.

"You've hurt people," the voice rumbled. "But there are lines that cannot be crossed. And you have crossed them."

Mark opened his mouth, trying to speak, but nothing came out. The thing's eyes—if they could be called eyes—were not eyes at all. They were pits of blackness, like thunderclouds. Lightning flickered within them, but there was no light. Only darkness.

"You are not good," the voice continued. "You have made your choices, and now, you will face them."

Mark tried to scream, but the storm swallowed him whole.

The next day, the town was quiet. People whispered about the storm, about the strange figure that had appeared in the middle of it. Nobody knew what happened to Mark, and no one dared to ask. Those who had heard the thunder said they had felt the ground shake, like something massive had risen from it. But none of them had seen the figure. None except for Mark.

The next few weeks went by in the usual quiet of small-town life. The storm had passed, and the rain had stopped. But there were stories now, strange ones, that circulated from person to person, like a disease no one could cure. Stories about the figure in the storm, about the man who had disappeared into it, never to be seen again.

Some said it was Thunder Man, that he had come for Mark and taken him. Others thought it was something worse, something darker. But no one knew for sure. And that was what scared them the most.

It was that uncertainty that kept everyone in check. No one dared to step out of line, not after what happened to Mark. They all kept to themselves, pretending everything was normal, pretending they didn't hear the thunder roll in at night, too close, too real.

And Sarah? Some said she'd been taken long ago, before the storm. Before Thunder Man had ever made himself known to the world. She hadn't been as lucky as Mark, though. No, she had been chosen long before he ever saw the thing in the storm. Her fate had been sealed when she crossed the wrong line. Maybe it was the same line Mark had crossed. But Sarah was different. She was the one who ran.

And maybe that was the real tragedy—she had run, but it wasn't enough.

The thunder came back, and it came hard. The next person to disappear wouldn't even have a chance.