Gregg Hurwitz - The Rains

I reached out and touched the bump of Sue-Anne’s foot. My chest gave a little, and I bit my lip, hard. Patrick lifted Uncle Jim’s cowboy hat from the bedpost and rested it over the pillowcase-covered head, cocking the brim the way Uncle Jim always did. We turned off the lights and closed the door behind us, not knowing when we’d come back.

Standing in the hall, we could hear the TV playing downstairs. I said, “We’ve been breathing the same spores as Mrs. McCafferty and the Franklins and Jim and Sue-Anne. So some people must be more susceptible to them. Or maybe adults turn quicker and it takes longer for kids to change.”

We looked at each other, and I knew we were thinking the same thing. Either of us could transform at any minute. I was watching my brother for that telltale full-body shudder, and he was watching me for the same.

Patrick broke off the mini-staredown, reaching past me for the phone in the tiny alcove off the hall. He dialed and waited. I could hear the ringing, though the sound was muffled against his cheek, and then I heard Alex’s message.

You’ve reached me, Alex, and my dad, Sheriff Blanton. Dad, say hi.

Hi.

Real personable, Dad. Way to intimidate your constituency. Anyways, leave a message here for us. If it’s an emergency, then you wouldn’t be calling here, would you? You’d be calling Dad at the office. So we’ll just pretend this whole thing never happened.

Alex.

Okay, okay.

Beep.

Patrick hung up and redialed. With the phone wedged between his shoulder and cheek, he drummed his fingers against the wall, his impatience starting to show. His other hand fished his pendant necklace out of his shirt.

It was a sterling silver jigsaw-puzzle piece strung on ball chain like a dog tag. The puzzle piece fit together with the one around Alex’s neck, though hers was on a fancier necklace. She’d bought the set at the mall in Stark Peak. I remember the day she gave Patrick’s to him. I was inside reading Beowulf at my desk. I happened to look up and see them through the window. They were having a picnic outside. She opened the little jewelry box, presenting the fitting pieces to him like an engagement ring. They cracked up a bit about the whole fake proposal, and then she cocked her head like she did.

I could hear her voice through my open window.

“So, Big Rain,” she’d said, “what would you do to prove your love for me?”

Their old game. I’d seen them play it more times than I could count.

Patrick’s cowboy hat shadowed him across the eyes, but I could see his smile at the nickname.

She sidled up close to him, pendant in hand. “Would you cross raging rivers?”

“I would.”

She kept on, joking and dead serious at the same time. “Would you climb mountains?”

The Stetson dipped in a nod. His lips pursed, amused. “If they were between me and you, those mountains I would climb.”

Her face was flushed, and she was looking at his mouth. “Would you crawl through mud for me?”

“If mud needed crawling through to get to you, I would.”

Finally she reached up and hooked his pendant around his neck. Before she was done, they started kissing.

I closed the blinds. I was embarrassed and guilty to be spying on this private moment between them.

Or maybe it was something else.

Now in the alcove upstairs, waiting for someone to pick up, Patrick pressed the shiny puzzle piece to his lips. I don’t think he even realized he was doing it.

When Alex’s recorded voice came on again, he hung up and called the sheriff’s office. No answer there either. Patrick set down the phone a little harder than necessary.

“Pack a bag with some stuff,” he said. “We’re going to get Alex.”

Alex’s house was in town, a ten-minute drive.

“Why do I need to pack up?” I asked.

“Just in case,” Patrick said.

A few minutes later, with a change of clothes stuffed into my backpack, I met Patrick in the kitchen. He was stuffing cans of food into his heavy-duty hiking pack.

I set my own bag on the counter next to his and loaded in some dog food. He looked across at me, then said, “Good idea.”

“There’s gotta be some… what’s it called?” I reached for the term and finally retrieved it. “ Infection radius for the Dusting. Town’s so much farther from the water tower. The spores probably haven’t reached there yet. Sheriff Blanton’s gotta be fine. We’ll round up a bunch of adults who aren’t affected, and they’ll help us.”

I wasn’t sure if I was trying to convince Patrick or myself.

We pulled Rocky and JoJo from the television and stepped outside again. I tried not to notice the smears on the porch from when we’d dragged Uncle Jim and Sue-Anne inside.

One of the goats tilted his head toward me, a tuft of yellow weed hanging from his mouth. His rectangular pupils stared up at me, asking questions I couldn’t answer. We breezed past him.

The ridgebacks smelled us coming and paced in their big metal crates, rattling the sides. I flipped the latches, and all seven of them poured out, surrounding us with snouts and fur, nuzzling into us and wagging their tails so hard that their rear ends shook. The kids let Cassius and his father, Zeus, lick their palms. With a snap of my fingers, I put the dogs on a sit-stay. Cassius was still a pup, but a big one-seventy pounds at just five months. He was what they called a “black mask” ridgie, with dark coloring across his nose and the band of his eyes. His forehead stayed wrinkled up with concern, and I stroked his head until he relaxed.

I looked to Patrick and said, “We’ll need to take the flatbed to fit the dogs.”

“No,” Patrick said. “We want to head into town quietly.” He distributed shotgun shells into the various pockets of his jacket. “We have no idea what’s waiting for us.”

We made uneven time, slowing for the kids. After twenty minutes Patrick took my backpack so I could piggyback JoJo. Rocky matched our pace and didn’t complain. I followed Patrick’s lead just like always. He kept us off the main road, cutting through fields and forests, splashing across Hogan’s Creek on the set of boulders behind the Widow Latrell’s. The dogs kept close. Zeus, my biggest boy, forged ahead of us, 110 pounds of muscle on alert.

I noticed that Patrick was steering us around houses as well as roads. In the distance, the lit windows of the Latrell farmhouse flickered into view through the dense pine trunks as we passed.

I wondered about what was happening behind those lit windows and what state Mrs. Latrell was in. I pictured Mrs. McCafferty inside the grain silo, turning slowly to give us her profile over one shoulder, shallow breaths clouding the cold air. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t scrape that image out of my mind.

We continued on for what seemed like forever, keeping to the forest and fields. The Blantons’ house waited at the edge of town. It was nicely kept, with its white picket fence, wraparound porch, and Cape Cod shutters. We drew up to the property, peering around the detached garage. No lights on in the house.

There was something so much cleaner about the houses in town, owned by folks whose jobs didn’t require them to toil in fields or slop hogs. Blanton came from money, or so everyone said. That seemed to be another thing he didn’t like so much about Patrick and me: We didn’t.

He’d never thought Patrick was good enough for his daughter. He wanted a bigger, better future for her. Not with some orphaned kid who worked a ranch and probably would for the rest of his life. More than once we’d overheard him telling Alex, “Rain only goes one direction: down .” But that didn’t discourage her. No, it just gave a Romeo and Juliet gleam to their relationship, like those wedding pictures at the mall they shoot through some kind of filter so the couple looks all dreamy and out of focus.