The Dry Rain

by Alex Westhaven

  The man had a point. An image of Bessie as a youngster, all spindly-legged and up on the porch looking for her bottle flashed through May’s mind, and a tear rolled down her cheek before she could catch it.

  “I suppose you’re right,” she said, brushing the tear away. “I just wish we could do right by her, poor thing. She doesn’t deserve this.”

  He got up and came to her, kneeling down beside her chair and taking her hands in his.

  “None of us deserves this, sweetheart. No one, and nothing. But this just…is, and there’s nothing any of us can do about it. We just have to try to survive as best we can.”

  May nodded, blinking hard and taking a deep breath. “Okay. You’re right. So where should we go?”

  Will stood, reaching down to help her up. “I think we’ve got enough gas to get us and Bessie to Evansville. We’ll see what we can come up with there. Why don’t you pack and I’ll load Bess in the trailer?”

  Nodding again, May squeezed his hand and went to their room. It took a few minutes to find a bag — neither of them had left the farm overnight in several years. She wasn’t sure how long they’d be gone, or who might stop by before they returned, so she packed as much as she could for them both, sitting on top of the soft-sided rectangle to zip it shut.

  She slid it to the floor, relieved that it had wheels and pulled it out to the front porch. Will had the trailer hooked up to the truck, and she was just in time to watch him lead Bess out of the barn and into the trailer. Poor girl was so skinny her ribs showed — probably not even healthy enough to butcher. The thought gave May some measure of comfort.

  Maybe they could find water in the city. Maybe the moths hadn’t done as much damage with all that steel and concrete taking up space.

  Will closed the trailer gate and secured it before he came to the porch and picked up the bag.

  “Ready then?”

  She wasn’t ready. She’d never be ready, and every fiber of her being wanted to answer with a resounding “no”.

  She reached back and pulled the door closed, testing the knob to make sure it was locked – something she hadn't done in years. Took a deep breath and nodded.

  “I’m ready.”

  May climbed up into the truck and took one last look at the house and land they loved as Will started to drive, her heart breaking with every rotation of the tires.

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll be back.” His hand was strong and warm on her leg, comforting.

  “I hope so.”

  Chapter 5

  Angie stood at the medicine cabinet and stared at the little orange bottles. There were plenty to choose from, but she wasn’t sure exactly what each of them did, and truth be told, it was harder than she’d thought it would be to actually go through with the decision to take her own life.

  Every little sound from the front of the brownstone had her craning her neck to look out the front window. Was someone out there? Trying to break in? Needing her help?

  Did she even have anything to contribute to society? Had she ever?

  She’d never worked — Ben made enough money before he got sick to take care of them, and then after he’d been diagnosed and kept losing jobs due to his status, they’d lived off unemployment and one large lawsuit settlement from a company that hadn’t bothered to hide the reason they were firing him.

  She’d been pregnant twice before Ben got sick, but neither baby had survived. And after Ben’s diagnosis…well, that was the end of that.

  The great irony of it all was that despite his condition, Ben had been expected to live a fairly normal life, though they both knew he’d probably die before she did. Most men died before women though, so that wasn’t really news.

  For all that optimistic outlook, he’d still ended up dying too young — just fifty-three. Killed, she assumed, by someone driven mad by nothing more than a bunch of flying insects.

  Now at the ripe old age of forty-eight, Angie was alone for the first time since she turned eighteen, and the only skills she had were cooking the perfect pot roast and folding a fitted sheet. She could knit, too, she supposed, though she didn’t really enjoy it. She’d only learned because when you’re expecting a child, you knit baby clothes. So said all the women she’d known at the time.

  All the women who’d had their own children and one-by-one drifted off into the world of play dates and constant paranoia, leaving Angie to watch on the fringe.

  She reached for the big bottle of painkillers — Ben had refused to take them after trying just one because it had knocked him out for nearly a whole day. They were prescribed after some procedure he’d had, and according to the label, they’d expired two years prior.

  If she took a few, they should still do the trick.

  The running water was down to a rusty trickle – the treatment plant had been gummed up by this last wave of larvae. She knew she’d never be able to dry-swallow the pills whole, so she got the last can of evaporated milk from the pantry and poured it into a tall glass. Pill bottle in one hand and milk in the other, she was nearly to her bedroom when she thought she heard a knock at the door.

  Frowning, she stood still and listened. She felt silly going to the door if there was no one there, but again, she thought she heard a soft knock — maybe on the glass this time.

  Putting the glass and bottle on the table, she went to peek around the curtain and through the heavy black bars.

  Two children looked up at her, an older boy and a younger girl, holding hands and looking about as bedraggled as she’d ever seen two kids look. Her hand went to the lock on instinct, the deadbolt nearly flipped open before she came to her senses and stopped.

  “Who are you?” she called out. “What do you want?”

  The boy held her gaze, his expression as serious as any banker she’d ever met.

  “It’s my sister, ma’am. I think she’s sick. Susan said we should come here. That you might be able to help us.”

  Angie tried to remember a Susan, but couldn’t. Maybe the woman had her mixed up with someone else?

  “I don’t feel good,” the mousy little girl said, holding her stomach and looking up at the boy. Her hair was long and stringy, and her clothes were far too big on such a slender frame. “I wanna go home. I’m cold.”

  “We can’t go back there, remember?” He tugged her closer and put an arm around her shoulders. Looking back at Angie through the glass, he spoke louder. “The warehouse we were staying in burned down early this morning. We’ll be quiet, and we won’t take up much room. Just let us stay until she feels better? I promise we’ll leave you alone after that.”

  It could be a trap. People were desperate, and there could be adults waiting just out of sight for her to open the door so they could storm her place and take everything she had left.

  Which wasn’t much.

  If it was an ambush, the worst thing that could happen was that they would take all her supplies and leave her alive. If they killed her, the end result would be the same as if she’d taken the pills to begin with. Only more painful. Probably.

  She opened the door.

  “Come in. There’s a glass of milk on the counter you can share — that might help her stomach. I don’t have much food, but I’ll see what I can scrounge up for you to eat. You can stay as long as you like.”

  The boy led his sister into the house, and then quickly shut the door behind them. He couldn’t quite reach the deadbolt and was visibly upset by the fact. Angie flicked it shut and led them into the kitchen.

  She pushed the bottle of pills back to where little hands couldn’t reach, and then got another glass out of the cupboard, dividing the milk in half. Setting both glasses on the table, she motioned for the kids to sit down.

  “I’m Angie,” she said, though they already seemed to know that from whoever Susan was. “What are your names?”

  “I’m Micah, and my sister is Bailey. Thank you for letting us stay. Susan said you’d be nice.” He was a string-bean, all gangly arms and legs,
with jet-black hair that fell over one eye. Clearly not getting enough to eat, though no one was these days.

  Angie tried again to remember a Susan, but couldn’t. “Well, I like to think I wouldn’t turn away children.” It was true. She would like to think that, even if she had seriously considered that option. “You said something about a warehouse burning down?”

  Chapter 6

  Micah nodded, glancing at his sister to make sure she was drinking her milk before he answered the question.

  “We were just going to sleep around dawn — we go out at night for food and stuff, and sleep during the day. I heard someone coming and we hid behind some big wooden boxes. Two men were talking about insurance and throwing gasoline around. They lit a match and dropped it and the whole place started on fire. I barely had time to get Bailey out a window before stuff started exploding inside.”

  “Wow.” Angie looked at him carefully, and then at Bailey. “Are either of you hurt? Burned? Cut?”

  He shook his head. “No ma’am. We ran to the park and found Susan, but it isn’t safe for us there. She told us to come to this address. Said the people here would be nice.”

  “Did she say how she knew me? Or my husband?”

  Micah shook his head again. “No ma’am. Just that you’d be nice.” He was tired, and he rubbed his eyes, suddenly sleepy. He looked over at Bailey, who had laid her head on the table and looked like she was dozing off as well.

  “I think you two need to get some sleep,” the nice lady said. “I’ll carry your sister, and you follow me.”

  The woman was stronger than she looked, Micah thought as she picked Bailey up. She led the way down a hall to a room that had little in it other than a bed, a nightstand and a bookshelf. Her long, straight blond hair brushed the bed as she laid Bailey on one side. The bags under her eyes and the lines around her mouth made her look older than she probably was.

  “You’ll be okay here together, right?”

  He nodded as he climbed up onto the lacy white bedspread, a wide yawn escaping as he laid down next to his sister. The blanket smelled a little flowery and a little like medicine. Like his grandmother had the few times he'd seen her as a little boy.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he murmured as he closed his eyes and let the world drift away.

  When he woke up again, everything was dark, and he couldn’t figure out why he was laying on such a soft surface. It reminded him of home, and he sat up in a panic, feeling the other side of the bed where Bailey slept when she snuck out of her room at night, so he could protect her.

  She wasn’t there.

  Sliding off the bed he ran for the door and out into the hall, disoriented again when everything looked different. Cleaner. Less smoke-fogged. This wasn’t their hall, their house.

  The moths. The larvae. Angie.

  He moved down the hall, his heart slowing as the fear subsided, and found Bailey in the living room, curled up on the couch beside their hostess.

  They were reading a book.

  Angie looked up and smiled when he came into the room.

  “Feeling better?”

  He nodded, taking a seat beside his sister. “How’s the stomach, sis?”

  She grinned. “Angie gave me some tomatoes from a jar. We’re reading a story. Want to read with us?”

  Angie looked over Bailey’s head. “There are some left on the table if you want them — I don’t have much food left, but I’ll go see if I can find some more later today. You’re welcome to bring them out here and join us while you eat, if you want.”

  His stomach growled at that exact instant, and Bailey giggled.

  “Thanks.” He went to the kitchen and found the bowl and spoon Angie had left for him, joining them on the couch with his breakfast. He'd never had tomatoes for breakfast. They tasted weird. Too strong. He ate them anyway.

  “What are you reading?”

  “The Sly Little Fox,” Bailey said, happier than he’d heard her sound in a long while. “Read, Angie!”

  Angie laughed and pointed to a word in the book. “You learned that word — what is it?”

  “Fox!” Bailey clapped her hands, and Angie smiled.

  Micah watched as Angie and Bailey worked their way through the thin book. Angie taught Bailey a word here and there, and what letters sounded like, and how to sound out words. His sister was learning to read, and he hadn’t ever even given a thought to what she did and didn’t know since they’d left home.

  Maybe Angie could keep Bailey, and teach her things. Just until the moths were gone, and things were back to normal.

  He glanced at the windows that faced the street. It was dark outside, so there was nothing to see save the bluish-white glow of a streetlight shining dimly through the curtains.

  And a small triangular shadow floating upwards in relief against the fabric, followed by another, and another, and another.

  Chapter 7

  The moth-wave was in a different part of the cycle here, William noted as they drove the quiet two-lane road towards Whiskey Creek. His farm had been covered in dead moth-leaf paper, the larvae still yet to emerge. A hundred miles out, the larvae were in a full-on feeding frenzy, the open fields a mass of wriggling cream that made May shift uncomfortably in her seat, and he could feel Bess moving around back in the trailer too.

  The road was still visible, but there were plenty of maggoty worms trying to answer the proverbial chicken-crossing-the-road question, which meant plenty of bug guts squishing beneath the tires and making the road slick, as if it were raining hard. Poor Bess bellowed her displeasure, and Will figured it was the smell bugging her as much as the trailer slipping back and forth despite the slow pace he was keeping.

  “I think maybe we should have stayed put,” May said, one hand clinging to the door while the other held tight to the edge of the seat. “This is almost as bad as that snowstorm we drove through last winter. Except visibility is better, as long as you don’t care about dividing lines and such.”

  Will tried to stay relaxed, though his neck and shoulders ached from keeping the rig on the road.

  “We’ll make it,” he said, adjusting his grip on the wheel and shooting her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Shouldn’t be too much further. Just gotta keep going straight and stay away from the shoulder.”

  “Look out!”

  Returning his gaze forward, Will saw the mass in the road too late to swerve.

  “Hold on!” Tightening his grip, he headed straight for it, knowing if he made too big of an adjustment in either direction, they’d go off the road, and probably tip over. The front grill rolled over the mass at a slight angle, and he tipped the wheel ever-so-gently to the left in hopes of correcting before the lower-riding trailer reached it.

  He held his breath, waiting for that thump that would send the trailer sliding sideways off the road, taking them with it. When he finally saw the mass reappear in his side mirror, the breath whooshed out of his lungs.

  Then time slowed way down as a jolt went through the hand on the steering wheel and up his shoulder, a strong force pushing his chest hard back into the seat as his head whipped backward on his neck. Stopped abruptly, he couldn’t keep from bouncing forward into a loud pop and cloud of white that hit his chest again and everything went dark.

  When he came to, the whole world was sideways and a cool breeze blew over his face. Something white fluttered just above him, and he tried to lift his head to look, crying out as intense pain registered in several parts of his body at once. He nearly blacked out again, but willed himself to stay awake. What the hell had happened?

  More importantly, where was May?

  “May!” He tried to yell, but all that came out was a strangled facsimile. “May!” He tried to move, ignoring the pain as much as possible while he twisted this way and that, finally reaching up and grabbing the jagged edge of the windshield frame where the glass had broken out and pulling himself forward inch-by-agonizing-inch.

  Half-way out, he realized he was on
the passenger side of the truck, and where there should have been hard metal beneath him, it was soft and squishy as he pulled himself across.

  “No,” he whispered, taking in as deep a breath as his chest would allow and pulling himself far enough out to fall head-first into a mixture of dirt and bugs that made an audible sucking sound as he landed in their midst, squishing many beneath his weight.

  “No, no, no,” he murmured as he scrambled to his feet, adrenaline kicking in hard as he took in the truck on it’s side, the trailer back a ways and on its side too, the occasional weak bleat from that direction, and the more hopeful sound of ragged breathing from the cab he’d just escaped.

  The truck had lodged not-quite-sideways against the thick trunk of a tree that would have been covered in green leaves and healthy bark just a few months back. Will bent over and saw May jammed up against the window, eyes closed and face bloody, but her chest was still moving in and out, thank God.

  He’d been laying right on top of her for who knows how long. The thought made him sick to his stomach. If the passenger window had broken or the door had opened, she’d have been thrown out for sure, sparing her the weight of his own mass.

  The door was heavily dented, and he thought they must have rolled down off the shoulder once the trailer had detached. Digging his key out of his pocket, he finally got it in the lock, shaky fingers notwithstanding. Thankful when it turned, he wasn’t quite sure whether to pull the handle and hope it opened, or try to brace it with something lest it opened too fast and May hit the ground hard.

  He wasn’t in any shape to brace it himself — it was taking all his strength just to stand upright. For a moment, he thought maybe he should just leave her in the truck while he went for help. But he couldn’t leave her. What if he couldn’t get back?

  Besides, he had to get underneath that passenger seat. The handgun he kept there would ensure poor Bess didn’t suffer any more than she already had.