Gregg Hurwitz - The Rains

The house sat still now, with its proud blue-slate paint and white trim, its porch swing swaying gently in the night breeze. Everything just as it might be on another night, on any night.

“Maybe they’re still asleep,” I said. “Maybe they don’t know anything’s wrong.”

At my side Cassius and Princess whined uneasily, and I hushed them.

“Stay here,” Patrick said to the kids. Then to me, “Make the dogs stay with them.”

I gave the command, and they sat. I looked Zeus in his yellow-brown eyes. I always thought of him as my warrior, his face marred with scars from play-fighting with the others or driving coyotes off our property. Having fathered five litters in his seven years, he occupied the top of the hierarchy, the others falling in behind him whenever he gave a directed stare or showed his teeth.

“On guard,” I said, and his ears flattened back against his skull. Then I looked at Rocky. “You see anything, tell him to S-P-E-A-K, and he’ll bark like crazy. You guys are our lookouts. Got it?”

He nodded, but his face was pale with fear.

I followed Patrick across the open front yard. We took a turn around the house, peering in windows. Behind us an empty hammock squeaked at the swivels. Patrick went up on tiptoes to peer into Alex’s bedroom, and I saw his back stiffen.

“What?” I whispered.

He gestured for me to look. Her bed was empty, the sheets smeared to one side, half on the floor.

As if she’d been dragged off the mattress.

The rest of her room looked normal enough, her closet door ajar, a big leopard-print beanbag in the corner, a vintage steamer trunk pushed up against the footboard of the sleigh bed.

Behind us the hammock squeaked and squeaked.

Patrick stepped away from the window, shotgun in hand. My own hands cramped around the baling hooks. A sprinkler leaked at our feet, turning the flower bed to mush.

We eased across to the next window. Sheriff Blanton’s bed was empty, the duvet thrown to one side.

Two ghostly faces peered at us from the far wall. I lurched backward, the realization hitting only a moment later-it was our own reflections thrown back at us from a mirror.

I needed a moment to catch my breath, but Patrick was already moving to check the other windows. The house appeared to be empty. We hit the tall fence at the edge of the house and circled back in the direction we’d come. Patrick walked briskly, his body tense. I had to pause in front of Alex’s window to tug my boot out of the mud caused by that leaky sprinkler.

Through the pane I heard a faint rattle.

With mounting dread I turned my head and looked through the window.

Nothing.

Then the lid of the steamer trunk jumped, the latch jangling.

I started. It banged again, even louder, the metal loop rattling against the hasp.

My mouth had gone dry. I looked up, but Patrick had already vanished around the corner.

The next bang nearly sent me airborne. Patrick reappeared at the edge of the house, staring back at me. I could barely make out his face in the gloom. He mouthed What? and I gestured furiously for him to get back over here.

A moment later we stood shoulder to shoulder at the window. The steamer trunk lid lifted, an inch of black showing at the seam. A hand flashed into view, four fingers curling over the lip, pale in the shadows. Then they pulled back into darkness, the lid banging shut again.

Patrick was breathing hard. “The hell was that?” he whispered hoarsely.

I shook my head.

The trunk made a noise like a heartbeat. Thump-thump.

We were frozen, our breath fogging the glass. Then Patrick said what I was dreading he might: “We have to go in.”

He set his palms flat against the pane and shoved gently upward. The sash window rose, squeaking in its tracks. He swung one leg over the sill, then eased himself through.

I gleaned that this was something he’d done before.

Gathering what courage I could, I followed.

Side by side in Alex’s room, we stared at the steamer trunk.

Thump-thump .

We drew near. Patrick readied the shotgun in one hand, seating the butt firmly against his shoulder. With his other hand, he reached for the latch. His fingers trembled. I’d never seen them tremble before, not even after Mom and Dad died.

His fingertips reached the latch. Curled beneath it.

Then he flung it up over the metal loop, freeing the lid and skipping back with the shotgun raised.

A form exploded up out of the trunk, screaming, long hair fanning out. Two hands drew back and swiped the air, moving as one piece. Long nails whisked so close to my face that I felt the wind against my cheeks. Metal glinted around the wrists.

I waited for the boom of the shotgun, but Patrick wasn’t firing. The person lunged forward to attack again, her face falling into a band of moonlight from the window.

“Alex?” I said.

All the tension went out of her body. Her shoulders curled in, and her hands fell to her waist. Handcuffs cinched her wrists.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “Chance?” Her gaze immediately moved past me. She squinted into the darkness, and then her lips parted. “Patrick,” she said. She moved by me and hooked her arms up around his neck. He lowered the shotgun to his side and held her.

“What happened?” Patrick asked. “Who did this to you?”

“My dad.”

“Where is he now?”

A clicking sound rose, barely audible at first but growing louder.

It was coming from the closet.

From the darkness of the walk-in closet, two spots glowed a bluish white.

Eyes.

Or-I realized somewhere through the wave of panic crashing over me-eye holes.

The sound continued, a wet, irregular, throaty clicking.

I swallowed. We turned slowly to face the closet head-on.

The glow illuminated the interior, enough for us to see Sheriff Blanton standing stiffly between the racks of hanging clothes, his head tilted slightly back to face the ceiling.

The glow faded, and the clicking stopped. His chin dipped down, and then those empty tunnels stared at us. It was as though he’d been sleeping and we’d woken him up.

Sheriff Blanton leapt from the closet.

Patrick stumbled back, trying to raise the shotgun, but Alex’s cuffed hands were still tangled around his neck. The two of them fell down, clearing the way to me.

The sheriff jumped over their bodies, one hand grabbing a second set of cuffs from his belt, the other reaching for my throat.

There was barely time to react.

I dropped, and as his hands clenched the air where my head had been, I whipped the hook at him, the point sinking into the meat of his thigh.

It was a deep blow-I felt the shock tremor of the tip striking bone-and he froze, staring down as blood soaked out through his khaki uniform pants.

For a moment everything stopped.

Then the shotgun exploded. In the confined space of the room, the sound rattled my teeth.

Patrick had managed to untangle himself from Alex. Not wanting to injure me or her, he’d fired straight up into the ceiling.

Sheriff Blanton tore himself free, ripping his leg off the hook. Patrick was on his feet now, the gun leveled, but before he could fire, the sheriff bounded across the floor and sprang at the window. He balled up, going sideways through the panes, glass shattering all around his curled form.

He hit the ground, rolled through the mud, and popped up onto all fours like a wolf. We crowded around the window, watching with disbelief. Sheriff Blanton galloped for the high fence, somehow transitioning from all fours to his legs without slowing. Then he jumped.

His haunches pulled up as he rose, his heels skimming the top of the fence. For an instant he was in clear view, silhouetted against the moonlit sky.