A Dark and Stormy Night

I wrote the original version of this story for a writing group assignment a short while ago.  The criteria were that it contain no more than 150 words and start with the cliched phrase, "It was a dark and stormy night..."

A Dark and Stormy Night

It was a dark and stormy night when I heard someone pound on the front door. I put down my book and went to answer it.

It was my friend Ethan and he was a sodden mess.

"What the hell happened to you?"

Ethan tottered through the doorway like a ninety-year-old man with terminal arthritis, although he was only seventeen.

"I was on my way home from late basketball practice and as I walked by the Old North Cemetery this truck came out of nowhere with its headlights right in my eyes and I thought it was going to hit me so I jumped for the ditch and somehow got away. Whew! May I sit down?"

Just then I felt someone shake my shoulder and heard my mom's voice.

“Tom, Tom. Wake up! Terrible news. Your friend Ethan was hit and killed by a truck last night during the storm...”