R. Stine - Red Rain

But Martha held her by the shoulders. “It isn’t over. It just started.”

Just started?

A shudder ran down Lea’s body. Her legs suddenly felt rubbery, weak. She forced herself to watch. The six men bleated and choked. They grabbed their throats. Their eyes bulged in panic. Their faces darkened from red to purple to a sick blue.

She cried out as the men collapsed to the ground. One by one, they folded up, coiling into themselves. Uttering strangled sighs, they dropped facedown into their own vomit. They sprawled awkwardly on the ground, eyes bulging, gazing blankly. Their arms and legs twitched, as if they were getting electrical shocks; twitched like grotesque puppets that had lost their strings. Then stopped.

No one moved.

Swaying in the gusting wind, the feathery palm trees slapped and applauded. The birds had stopped their shrill symphony.

The red-robed priest knelt beside one of the fallen men. The star tattoo on his scalp appeared to wriggle, alive, like a blue octopus. He placed two fingers on the man’s throat. Minutes went by.

“Il est mort.” Announced in a whisper.

“Oh my God,” Lea murmured. She suddenly realized she had been hugging herself tightly for some time. Down by the tight circle of onlookers, she heard the startled cries of the four tourists. No one else made a sound.

The priest moved to the next victim sprawled facedown on the sand, a young man with short red hair and a boyish, freckled face. He rolled the man onto his back. After a brief examination, the priest repeated the words. “Il est mort.” Flat. No emotion at all.

Lea turned and saw the two men tourists snapping photos with their phones. The women had their hands over their faces, blocking out the death scene.

“Is this for real?” the man in the Budweiser shirt boomed. “Hey-are they really dead?”

No one replied. All eyes were on the tall, bald priest until he knelt over the last of the six victims.

“Tous sont morts.”

Lea forced herself to breathe. She suddenly felt dizzy, the blood pulsing at her temples. She had hoped to write about travel adventures people would find exciting. But no way she wanted to watch six men drink poison and vomit themselves to death.

Squinting into the graying light, she could see clearly that the six men weren’t breathing. Their chests showed no movement. No rise and fall. No movement at all. Their eyes bulged, gazing blankly like glass doll eyes. Their mouths hung open, frozen in their final gasps for breath.

Still, no one on the island moved or made a sound. She glimpsed Jean-Carl across from her in the circle. He had his head down, hands jammed into the pockets of his cargo shorts.

The tourists had stopped their picture-taking. One of the women was crying. Budweiser Man wrapped her in an awkward hug.

The priest, still expressionless, turned to face the crowd. His blond caterpillar eyebrows had gone stiff and still.

He clasped both hands in front of him. Lea noticed for the first time that his fingernails were painted black. He began to chant: “Revenir. . Revenir. . Revenir. .” Softly at first, then louder, urging the audience to join in.

“Revenir. . Revenir. . Revenir. .”

The chanting voices echoed off the trees of the rain forest. The chant continued for two minutes. . three. .

Lea screamed when she saw a hand move. On the ground. Fingers twitched.

“Revenir. . Revenir. . Revenir. .”

The chant continued, no longer a word, just a low, breathy sound.

Another dead man blinked his eyes. Another raised his head an inch off the ground. A short groan escaped his throat. More hands twitched. Like crabs testing the sand.

“Revenir. . Revenir. . Revenir. .”

As Lea stared in disbelief, the six dead men sat up. They blinked rapidly and shook their heads, tested their jaws, squinted at the chanting crowd.

The chant ended suddenly. People rushed forward to help the men to their feet. In seconds, they were all standing, taking small steps, still looking dazed, wiping chunks of vomit off their shirts and shorts and robes.

The priest raised his hands high above his tattooed head. “Les hommes sont revenus,” he announced. “The men have returned.”

The six men were walking steadily now, making their way to the path. The circle of onlookers broke up, people heading in all directions. Lea listened to the excited conversations. Some people were laughing. The ceremony was over.

Lea shut her eyes. Again she pictured those men bent over, their streams of vomit splashing onto the grass. Their gasping, terrified faces. Their bodies coiled lifelessly on the ground in front of her.

And as rain began to patter down, she thought of the 1935 hurricane and the story of the dead returning to life to repair the devastating damage. The living sharing their space with the unliving.

Huge raindrops rattled on the palm leaves, like assault rifles. Loud as thunder. The wind swirled around Lea, pushed her right, then left. She planted her feet, determined not to be blown over. A suffocating wind rushed over her face, made her gasp for breath.

It came on so suddenly. I thought we had time.

Hugging herself again, she ducked her head and searched for Jean-Carl. Nowhere in sight. Perhaps he had run to the jeep.

A strong blast of wind bent the palm trees till they were nearly horizontal. Lea’s shoes sank into the mud as she stepped onto the path.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. Gasping in surprise, she spun around. “Martha?”

Martha had a canvas tennis hat pulled down tight over her hair. Her sweater was already soaked through, matted to her body. “Better come home with me.” She had to scream over the roar of the wind.

Lea blinked through the sheets of rain that swept over her. “No. My stuff-”

“Better come with me, Lea. This is going to be bad. It’s going to be real bad.”

As Hurricane Ernesto slowly made its way north, Mark Sutter was ending his book tour close to home at HamptonBooks in Easthampton, Long Island.

The store occupied a gray shingle building near one end of the long row of shops on Main Street, a few doors down from the Ralph Lauren store, a country antiques store, an old-fashioned toy store, and the Hamptons’ branch of Tiffany’s, all closed and deserted on this rain-tossed April night, before the summer people had arrived.

Mark arrived early, shaking out his umbrella and squirming out of the Burberry trench coat that no longer seemed to be waterproof. He liked to watch his audience come in, liked to size up the crowd before he spoke to them.

Crowd. Would there be a crowd on a night like this? He saw a few rain-bedraggled people in one of the long, narrow store aisles. A good sign.

A smiling, middle-aged woman hurried out from behind the front counter to greet him. “Hi, Mr. Sutter. I’m Jo-Ann, the manager. Welcome. You’re early.”

She was a mouse of a woman, small and gray, with lips the same color as her skin. She was probably forty, but she looked ten years older. She wore a loose-fitting gray turtleneck over black corduroy slacks.

“I like to come early and hang out a bit,” Mark said. “You know. Chat with people. Kind of size up the crowd.”

“Well, make yourself at home. We’ve already sold several books, and we got a lot of phone calls. I think there’ll be a crowd.” She squinted at him. “How does it feel to be controversial?”

Mark laughed. “I’m enjoying it, actually.”

She nodded solemnly. “Of course you are.”

Mark wondered exactly what she meant.

“Sometimes it’s good to stir people up,” she said. And then quickly changed gears: “Can I get you a bottle of water?”