A frightened old man hid inside his house while a little boy died outside in the rain. The child’s ungodsly screams scared one of the old man’s most painful memories out of the deep, dark place he had been fighting to hide it in for over fifty sumyrs. The memory was of that terrible day he had frantically searched through high, dry grass for his screaming daughter, until her screams suddenly stopped at some terrifying point in time that was forever etched into his aged soul.
When he had finally found where his little girl was the snatchersnake had already swallowed her whole head. A snatchersnake’s scaly skin is always a watery reflection of its surroundings, so she probably never even saw it before it struck. For her sake, he hoped that was true. He could still hear that grass rustling in the wind as he slid his firstborn’s flattened skull out of the mouth of that awful animal. It was like that grass was whispering about what had just happened. It was whispering. It was accusing him of being a failure of a father. And he had agreed with the grass. Still did sometimes. Ever since then, whether the wind was blowing or not, he always put his fingers in his ears when he was forced to walk across that accursed field.
The rain became a downpour and he heard more ungodsly screams.
He pulled his wet eyes away from the smoldering bones of the little boy and looked over at the crowd of panicked people that were huddled together on the front porch of the house that was right across the muddy road. The house belonged to Asha and Roth Cust, the dead boy’s mom and dad. The people had been strolling by on their way to the festival when they witnessed what happened to the child.
In the beginning, the rain had only fallen on the little boy, in that one small spot where he was standing beside the weeper tree, but currents of collective dread immediately spread through the people like electricity. To protect themselves, they herded beneath the Cust’s covered porch only moments before the rest of the rain was unleashed on the rest of the village.
Some of those people were screaming and dying now as the wind drove the rain right into the last row of them that had squeezed onto the outer edge of the porch. The next row of people perished when a stronger wind blew more rain their way. The ones who lived through that were pounding on the thick front door. They were crying out to the Custs to open it.
The old man could see directly into the house because all the shutters were still open. And why wouldn’t they be? The sun had been shining bright in the beautiful blue sky only moments ago, but the sun was completely gone now, and the sky was replaced by massive green waves that were tossing and turning so much he had to stop looking at them so he wouldn’t get sick.
Roth was shouting over his shoulder with his back braced against the inside of the door. He was holding a sharp axe in his hands. It was an axe he was supposed to chop wood with, not people. Asha seemed like she was imploring her husband to let the people in. Then a strange expression fell upon her face, and she tore herself away from his side and rushed up the ladder that led to where her son slept in the loft.
The wind picked up again and the shrieking people on the porch surged against the house like a living wave. This forced the strong front door to finally give way. Roth was knocked forward, yet he somehow managed to stay on his feet and spun around swinging the axe. He struck someone somewhere, but the others swarmed over him and started beating him savagely. They kept beating him until somebody picked up the axe and chopped Roth to pieces with it.
The old man groaned and shut his eyes tight. When he summoned up the courage to open them again, he saw Roth’s murderers, his neighbors, just standing there. They seemed too shocked by what they had done to say anything or move too much. He knew every one of these people, but he never intended to refer to any of them by their given names again.
Roth was dead wrong for refusing to shelter them from the fatal rain though.
Suddenly, Asha fell from the loft. Maybe she fainted and fell. He couldn’t tell. Everyone looked at where she landed, yet no one made any attempt to help her. When she finally managed to stand up, her shattered nose was leaking all over her, and one hand was so badly broken it looked more like a twisted claw that belonged to some creature. As she limped over to where her front door had been, her bare feet kept slipping on her husband’s blood.
Two people made halfhearted attempts to stop her as she made her way through the open doorway, but Asha pushed through them and staggered outside shouting her son’s name. The undiluted anguish in her voice told the old man she already knew her last little boy was gone for good. Then Asha looked right at him and he felt strange and ashamed, like a child who had just gotten caught doing a naughty thing.
The downpour was so dense between them it was as if they were staring at each other through a thin waterfall. This did not stop him from being able to see the godsawful mixture of absolute sorrow and surrender in Asha’s eyes. Those suffering eyes of hers instantly spoke to him in a silent language that shouted out what she was about to do next. Just as he started to yell, “DON’T–” she stepped off the porch and started screaming and smoldering, just like her young son had done.
Rose awoke with a start.
Her heart was racing, and she had sweated through most of her clothes. She remembered almost nothing about her nightmare, except it was scary. The near quiet inside her dark house was comforting. The only things she could hear were the rhythmic, but slightly out-of-step breaths of her sleeping brother and sister.
Outside her little window, the stars were shining bright in the clear night sky. She started counting them slowly, one by one, hoping they would help her slip off into a peaceful, dreamless sleep. Unfortunately, the lingering fear from her bad dream kept her anxious and wide awake for the entire night until the first dim light of dawn finally arrived, silently announcing the birth of another new day she wasn’t looking forward to.
