Gregg Hurwitz - The Rains

For an instant, everything looked perfect. Folks in motion, working together, hauling wheelbarrows, moving back and forth across the square.

Then it all came into horrific focus. It was like some elaborate windup toy, everything running according to a precise but mysterious order, driven by invisible cogs and wheels.

The adults of our town toiled down below, too many to take in with a sweep of the eye. The men were walking their squared-off spirals or loading guns into wheelbarrows. They’d rolled back the rear door of the Bob n’ Bit Hardware store to reveal the stoked-up blacksmith forge where Bob Bitley hammered out his old-timey mailboxes and weather vanes. They were feeding handguns and hunting rifles into the roaring flame, melting the weapons into useless metal.

The women restrained screaming children, binding their arms and legs. Some of the men paused in their tasks to help. In the middle of the road, Don Braaten had pinned Janie Woodrow, the girl who sat next to me in Dr. Chatterjee’s biology class, to the asphalt. Still wearing his splattered overalls from the slaughterhouse, he was on top of her, mashing her cheek to the dotted yellow line. His knee pressed into her back as he wound duct tape around her wrists. Beside him the Durant brothers worked a pair of jackhammers into the road, sparks flying around their muscular forearms. Another Host had scaled a telephone pole outside the two-story hospital and was going after the junction box with an electric saw.

Over on the lawn, a number of PTA moms were on their hands and knees, laying out various items-zip ties and belts, lengths of rope and neckties. The church buzzed like a hive, bound children being dragged inside. Six-year-old Sam Miller’s grandparents carried him like a sack up the broad stone steps, gripping him by his wrists and ankles. Other kids bucked and fought, but they stood no chance. The Hosts were everywhere, tunnels of light bored through their heads, toiling away like brainless slaves.

The Dusting hadn’t affected some of the adults.

It had gotten all of them.

We stood there on the roof of the general store with the woods to our backs, looking down at our town. Rocky lowered his head and cried hoarsely, doing his best to hold it in. The dogs whinnied like horses, brushing up against our legs.

The horizon glowed with the faintest tinge of dawn. On the one hand, I couldn’t believe it had taken us all night to reach town. But on the other, it felt like the night had lasted a lifetime. Fog shrouded the road running east, out to our place and the water tower. A bull of a man emerged from the wisps, leaning forward, shoulders straining beneath a red flannel shirt. It took a moment for me to recognize Afa Similai, a Tongan farmhand who sometimes helped McCafferty during harvests. His eyes were gone, and his thick black dreads swayed from side to side, making the light tunneling through his head flicker. He strained, his hands behind his back, pulling something.

As he trudged forward, the object he was hauling melted from the fog behind him. A bright yellow pallet jack.

Our bright yellow pallet jack. The very one I’d used earlier tonight to move the bales of hay in the barn.

As the pallet jack rolled forward, I saw that the back was loaded up with fifteen or so crates. Uncle Jim’s dog crates, the ones we used to kennel the ridgebacks.

My dry lips moved-I was about to ask what the hell they wanted dog crates for-but then I remembered that steamer trunk in Alex’s bedroom. The one she’d been locked inside.

They needed cages to hold the kids.

Afa continued across the square into the church. The front courtyard was littered with trunks and cages of many sizes, all of them big enough to hold a child.

Patrick’s and Alex’s expressions made it clear that they’d seen it, too. Instinctively, I reached out for JoJo’s hand, and she clutched my fingers, hard. Rocky grabbed the union of our hands as well. He’d been pretty tough all night, but he was still only ten.

I realized that I had a responsibility now to help protect them, just as Patrick had always protected me. Down below, the Hosts continued their busy-bee work, converting Creek’s Cause into a prison camp.

“I guess there’s our answer,” Patrick whispered, sweeping a hand to indicate the town. “The spores transform the adults, but kids aren’t affected.”

I couldn’t find my voice to respond. I kept hoping that I’d blink and it would all go back to normal.

The Host on the telephone pole descended, lumbered a quarter mile past the square, and began to walk those expanding spirals we were now familiar with. On the road the abandoned jackhammers rattled against the asphalt. It took a moment for me to pick up the Durant brothers at the farthest reach of town, spread out from each other, heads lowered, making their ninety-degree turns. It seemed that every time a man finished a task, he went to a new starting point to walk his pattern. I looked across the landscape, dotted with men as far as the eye could see, all of them moving in similar fashion. For all we knew, they continued beyond in the darkness, their bizarre footwork covering the whole county.

Patrick finally broke us out of our spell. “We better pull back,” he whispered. “Before any of them notice us.”

But I wasn’t watching him. My eyes were on Zeus, who was facing the other way, his big head oriented on the woods behind us. His upper lip wrinkled back from his fangs, his growl so low I could feel it in my bones. Cassius turned next, and then all seven dogs were focused on the tree line, heads lowered, teeth bared.

We watched, breathless. A faint sound carried to us, like the murmur of distant bees. It took a moment for me to place it.

Shallow panting.

A twig snapped. A branch bobbed, the pine needles rustling. And then a wall of Hosts became visible between the trunks, moving toward us.

Our schoolteachers.

Principal Delarusso, still dressed from the PTA meeting in her crisp skirt suit and string of pearls. Coach Hanson in her Adidas sweats, the ever-present whistle swaying on its lanyard. Mrs. Wolfgram from geometry honors, oversize glasses guarding the blank holes where her eyes used to be. And many more than my gaze could fix on.

They advanced.

I looked at the dogs. “Release,” I said.

Zeus lunged first, grabbing Coach’s arm and torquing her to the ground. Cassius barked as the others charged in.

“Give me your gun,” Patrick said. “The shotgun’s no good from here.”

I slapped Sheriff Blanton’s revolver into his hand. He fired it at Coach. The hammer clicked down dry. No bullets.

I’d been in such a hurry back at Alex’s house, I hadn’t thought to look.

Patrick stared at the revolver and then tossed it back at me. I holstered it and swept up JoJo. We backed up, the gravel popping beneath our shoes. The dogs contained the teachers for the moment, but more kept pouring through the tree line, outnumbering them. Many were dressed from the meeting. Others wore pajamas. Some had no clothes on at all.

We took another step back, but we were out of room, our heels at the lip of the roof. Wolfgram kicked Cassius, and he yelped, skidding into my shins, almost knocking me over the edge. He popped up onto his legs again, snarling.

The teachers were on the roof now, coming at us.

I spun, looking out across the town square. Every last Host below had halted, each one’s focus drawn to the commotion. Countless hollow stares fixed on the skirmish atop the general store. It is difficult to describe the terror I felt standing there exposed on the rooftop before the whole town, burning under the heat of all those empty gazes.

We turned back toward the advancing teachers. They lurched forward, tangling with the dogs. Zeus’s jaws locked on Principal Delarusso’s leg. He sawed his weight back and forth, head shaking, teeth shearing. Atticus and Tanner had gotten ahold of the school librarian, ripping his pajama bottoms right off. Patrick pumped the shotgun and raised it, but there was no point. There were too many of them. And any shotgun blast would kill at least some of our ridgies, too.