Gregg Hurwitz - The Rains

JoJo’s wails tailed off into silence.

From inside the house came a creak. Then another. Someone descending the stairs?

The footsteps continued, maddeningly slow, growing nearer.

Then we sensed a dark form behind the mesh of the screen. Just standing there. Staring ahead. We couldn’t make out anything more than a silhouette of shoulders and a head, shadow against darkness.

Breaths clouded through the screen, quick puffs of mist in the cold night air. A sound carried out to us-shallow pants, as if from someone who had just learned to breathe.

Patrick jacked the pump of the Winchester, the shuck-shuck loud enough to make my scalp crawl.

The breaths continued. The wind blew cold and steady.

It went down so fast we could barely register it.

The screen banged open. A woman in a nightgown flew out, a clawed hand jerking up to shatter the porch light, the front of the house falling into darkness. Bare feet hammered across the boards, and then the form leapt over the railing, moonlit, limbs spread like a cat’s. She landed on all fours, bounded up onto her feet, and scampered toward the grain silo.

A hatch opened on rusty hinges, then banged shut.

Patrick and I stood there in the night for a moment, breathing. My undershirt clung to me, and I realized I’d sweated right through it. Slowly, Patrick lowered his shoulders.

“What… was that thing?” I said.

“A woman, I expect. We better check it out.”

My heart did something weird in my chest. “Shouldn’t we check on JoJo and Rocky instead?”

“And let her escape?” Patrick said. “We got her cornered in the silo. What if she gets out and circles behind us? Or heads back for Jim and Sue-Anne?”

He started walking through the gloom toward the grain silo. He was my brother. I had to follow.

Plus, being alone with that thing out here didn’t sound much better.

The side hatch was loose, swaying in the wind. The latches clicked against the metal wall.

Patrick readied the shotgun with one hand as he reached for the handle. His fingers might have been steady, but my whole body was shaking.

The hatch creaked open, and Patrick stepped back, pointing the shotgun barrel at the black square. We waited for something to fly out at us.

But nothing came.

We blinked, let our eyes acclimate to the darkness.

Uneven mounds of barley rose head-high.

The woman stood at the far side of the silo behind one of the mounds, facing away so we could make out only a shoulder and the back of a head.

She half turned, and we caught a silhouette. Her skin looked pale, and her nightgown was torn and ragged at the shoulder, as if chewed.

Patrick lowered the shotgun. “Mrs. McCafferty?” he said. “Are you all right?”

She twitched a few times, her head jerking to the side. Moonlight from the open hatch cast her in an otherworldly glow.

“Did someone hurt you?” Patrick asked. “Is something in there with you?”

He lifted one leg and started to step into the hatch, ducking down to get the Stetson through. I grabbed his shoulder. “Patrick,” I said. “No.”

“I have to make sure she’s okay,” he said, shaking me off.

He entered, stepping over the arm of the sweep auger. It was like a giant clock hand that rotated around the floor, sweeping the barley toward a center vertical auger that carried the grain up through the roof and into a chute for loading trucks. It wasn’t moving now, shut down for the day.

I armed sweat from my forehead and watched my brother approach Mrs. McCafferty. I could see directly over his shoulder. She remained partly turned toward us, twitching and slightly hunched. Her rhythmic breathing continued, bellows without the wheeze.

“Mrs. McCafferty?” Patrick said. “Whatever happened to you, it’s over now. You’re okay.”

She turned and looked at us.

For a moment I didn’t believe what I was seeing.

In place of eyes, two tunnels ran straight through her skull. The beam of illumination from the flashlight cast twin glowing dots on the silo wall behind her. There was no blood at all on her face.

Those cored-out holes seemed to look right at us.

And then she lunged.

Patrick stumbled back, his ankle catching on the thick metal auger arm, and he went down, his hat tumbling off. She scrambled over the mound, her bare feet fighting for traction, rivulets of grain spilling beneath her heels. Her face was blank, devoid of any emotion, even as she reached the top of the mound and leapt for Patrick, limbs spread as they’d been when she’d sprung over the porch railing.

The sound of the shotgun inside the silo was deafening. The blast hit her in the stomach, knocking her back onto the mound of grain and embedding her in the side like a snow angel, arms thrown wide. The echo kept on, cycling in the metal walls and in my own head, crashing like cymbals.

Patrick pulled himself up, his face bloodless. He staggered over to the open hatch.

My mouth was working but could find no words. Although I couldn’t hear anything yet, I saw his lips moving.

And then the percussive crash lessened and his words came clear. “Chance. Chance. We gotta get help. We gotta get the sheriff.”

I tried to nod.

Behind him, I sensed movement.

Mrs. McCafferty, pulling herself stiffly up out of the mound of barley. Her torso and head rose as one. A few strands of hair swept across the back of her head, making the light through her eyeholes flicker. And then she tilted forward onto her feet, grain showering off her like sand.

She was right there, visible over Patrick’s shoulder.

I didn’t have time to yell, so I grabbed him to yank him through the hatch. I caught both his arms, the shotgun flying to land on the ground beyond me. I tugged his head through when she grabbed him from behind and ripped him into the silo with enough force to throw me off my feet. My forehead banged the hatch, and I fell into the soft mud outside the silo.

Somewhere Patrick was yelling, his shouts amplified inside the giant metal drum.

I willed myself not to black out. Grabbing the sill of the hatch, I pulled myself to my feet and forced myself to look.

Bleeding freely from her gut, Mrs. McCafferty had pinned Patrick to the floor on his stomach. He looked stunned and semiconscious; he must have struck the floor hard, or he would have overpowered her. She was crouched on his back like some feral animal, one knee between his shoulder blades. She ripped out a hank of her own long hair, and it came free with a plug of skin riding the end. Using her hair as rope, she started to bind Patrick’s wrists at the small of his back.

Drooling blood, my brother blinked at me languidly.

I started to climb in after him, but he was yelling for me to stay out.

“No!” I yelled. “I’m not leaving you!”

Terrified, I swung one leg through the hatch, straddling the metal lip.

That’s when his words finally registered: “Turn on the sweep auger!”

Mrs. McCafferty’s clawlike hands secured the hair in a knot, Patrick’s wrists cinched tight.

Then her head snapped up, those eyeless eyes pinning me to my spot.

I jerked back out of the hatch, stumbling to keep my feet beneath me. Mrs. McCafferty popped upright so quickly it seemed like she’d been jerked by a string. Then she flew toward me.

Panicked, I reached for the mounted box next to me, flipped open the guard lid, and hammered the big red button that turned it on.

The sweep auger roared to life inside the silo.

Mrs. McCafferty stopped midway between Patrick and me, her head cocked at the sudden commotion.

The auger began its rotation around the floor, the drive hooks raking through the mounds of barley, then skittering across the bare spots that provided no friction. Husk particles whirled up, filling the space inside.