by Matt Ritter
When it was raining downvalley, Mary’s calculations were easy. She could smell the sulfur in the air and would have the children in at the right time, but on that day, she got no sense of rain elsewhere in the Valley. From her bench, she looked up at the thin blue sky and briefly entertained the idea of it fading to a black and clear night.
She had only seen such a night twice, both when she was a child. She remembered clearly how light came from beyond the darkness, from the countless connected stars unfurling in a brilliant swath across the Valley sky. The land was so black at its corners and the light so clear, their meeting at the Valley’s edge seemed to set the whole world in motion. On those two nights, the Valley sky swung open like a gigantic door, and the entire universe paraded by overhead. She wanted so badly to share that same experience with the children some night.
While Mary sat, the soldiers circled the school, their light blue helmets looking silver in the golden afternoon. She watched each soldier make a counterclockwise progression around the yard, looking out to the fields and hills beyond. Each soldier waited at his post for fifteen minutes, then after being relieved by a second light blue helmet would move onto the next post. What are they guarding us against? Mary wondered.
Four boys, mimicking the soldiers, circled the chain-link enclosure. The children held sticks like guns and joined each other at outside corners, moving from post to post. It’ll be real for them sooner than they think, Mary thought. Finally, one of them got up the courage to try the gate. He pulled on the latch but couldn’t get it open.
“Come away from there,” Mary yelled from her bench. The boy put his hands down and joined the others, pretending like he hadn’t heard her.
When the children had been outside for several hours and she was done with all her papers, Mary saw the first hints of the coming rain. The flowering pear in the schoolhouse yard had lost all its ephemeral blossoms in one of the previous week’s downpours. Mary had paused in the early morning light, marveling at the circular pattern of white blossoms carpeting the blacktop. Now the trees’ new leaves were fiberless, supple, and many barely held themselves horizontal on the branches. Some, in fact, did not, and those leaves hung downward, quaking like an aspen in the slightest breeze. It was these leaves that Mary noticed first. They started the slightest flutter, even before she could perceive any change in wind direction. She studied the Valley’s edge, looking for a second sign, and it wasn’t long before it came.
Mary rose and walked to the edge of the play yard where she could have a better vantage point of the downvalley distance. A darkness had accumulated there, and the strong delineation between earth and sky was disappearing. She knew the weather would be changing fast now. The late spring rains were unpredictable, but Mary now knew what was coming. Even though she couldn’t yet smell it, a strong upvalley wind was bringing serious showers within the hour.
She circled the yard, visually accounting for all the children. If she could see all of them, she could give them another fifteen minutes with no danger of exposure. The smell finally came to her, like someone roasting garlic, pleasant at first, but then quickly overwhelming. She watched the soldiers, still on their beat, and wondered if they knew what was coming.
“Ms. McElroy.” Mary turned to see Captain Wilson in full uniform, flack vest, and a holstered firearm on his side. He was coming from the gate of the fence enclosure.
“Yes?”
“Are all the children accounted for?”
“Yes.”
“How many?” the captain asked.
“How many what?”
“How many children are outside?”
“All of them. Twenty-three.”
Captain Wilson turned toward another soldier at the edge of the play yard and signaled to him. He raised his arm, held up two fingers, made a fist, then held up three fingers. The soldier nodded in the distance.
“Ms. McElroy, can I have a word with you inside?”
“Sure, but it’s time to get the children back inside. Can we speak after that?”
“No, there’ll be time to get the children in. I need to ask you some questions,” Captain Wilson said.
Mary’s confusion began to yield to fear as Captain Wilson took a step closer. She wanted to back away but didn’t move.
“Can’t we talk here?”
“Inside,” the Captain scolded, holding his arm out in the gym's direction.
“I have to start dinner soon,” Mary said, almost pleading, suddenly not wanting to leave the children.
“Now,” the Captain said, his arm still pointing to the gym.
Mary walked toward the gym, and Captain Wilson followed her without another word.
As they came through the open double doors of the gym, Mary began to turn around to look at him when she felt him grab her shoulders from behind. A wave of terror went through her when she felt how strong he was. She let out a scream as he pushed her down onto the wooden floor. He forcefully pulled her arms behind her back, and an internal pop and excruciating pain came to her right shoulder. She couldn’t breathe. With his knee on her back and both her wrists in one of his hands, he retrieved a black zip tie from his vest.
“Don’t fight me,” the captain yelled.
She continued to struggle against his weight as he slipped the zip tie over her wrists, and with a sound like something tearing, bound them together cruciform. Mary tried to roll under his weight, but he pushed down harder on her back. Panic was stalking her from all sides.
“Calm down,” he said, letting up on her a bit. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
She wiggled and tried to roll again, and he hit her hard on the back of the head so that her forehead and face slammed the gym floor. Mary saw white light and momentarily lost control of her limbs. Adrenaline surged through her. The captain gathered her legs and put a second zip tie around her ankles. He rose, reached down, and rolled her over onto her side.
Mary took a deep breath, looked up, and saw Helen Taft sitting on her cot a few feet away, mouth ajar, aghast. The captain saw Helen at the same time. As he moved in her direction Helen let out an involuntary scream and darted off the cot away from him. Within a few steps, he grabbed her from behind and picked her up off the ground.
“Helen, run,” Mary screamed at her, but it was too late. He’d already grabbed her.
Helen shrieked and kicked into the air while he held her securely from behind.
“Let her go,” Mary screamed, her mouth was red with blood from where she’d hit the floor.
“Calm down,” the captain said, his voice icy, gritting his teeth, gripping Helen firmly.
With Helen still kicking and screaming, the captain carried her out of the gym.
Mary tried to catch her breath. She'd never been so scared. She could taste the metallic blood in her mouth. She tried rolling toward the gym doors but screamed when she rotated onto her dislocated shoulder. Flopping onto her back, she slid across the floor. At the threshold, she rolled on her good shoulder where she could see through the covered walkway to the play yard and fence enclosure beyond. The sound of her own rapid short breaths scared her even more.
All the golden light of the afternoon had left the day, replaced by something gloomy and dark. She watched Captain Wilson carry Helen toward another soldier, who was waiting at the fence enclosure gate. She was kicking and struggling the whole way. He set her down and shoved her into the cage. Like a confused wild animal, Helen ran to the distant corner and turned in a defensive position, eyes wide and terrified, her face frozen in horror.
Mary saw the other soldiers arrive with children, both small and large, pushing them into the cage. Most went in without a fight, puzzled by what was going on. Others were scared and screaming and had to be carried inside the fence. Mary lay on the floor of the gym, helplessly watching the scene. From somewhere out of her viewpoint she heard the loud crack of a gun being fired, then a second shot came.
“You’ll be okay. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay,” she
said under her breath to the children. She tried to muster the strength to scream, but only a breathy howl came forward, and none of the children heard her.
In the minutes that followed, as the sky darkened and the smell of sulfur descended on the school, the remaining children were brought to the cage. The largest boy, apparently unconscious, was drug by a soldier onto the grass into the center of the enclosure where he laid motionless. A small boy kneeled next to him and rubbed his head. One of the soldiers entered the cage, and with his gun waving, he yelled at the children to stop moving. Captain Wilson made a count. The soldiers exited the cage, and the captain strapped a lock around the gate, then the soldiers were gone from Mary’s view.
The children circled inside the cage looking up at the sky and into the distance for help. Some pulled on the chain-link with both hands, small fingers wrapped around the wires. Another boy sat in the corner with his knees pulled up to his chest, rocking back and forth. Helen Taft hovered over him, trying to comfort him. A dark-eyed girl kept yelling, “Help. Ms. McElroy. Help. Ms. McElroy? Ms. McElroy?”
From where she laid, Mary heard the echoes of footfalls outside, then the two doors in front of her were slammed shut. Stinking acidic air from the crack under the doors blew on her face. She heard more footsteps, then nothing. A dark line of scurrying ants crossed the gym floor just inside the door.
The silence was broken by the first barely-audible thuds of raindrops on the sidewalk outside the gym. Mary held her breath and listened carefully. Maybe it will hardly rain tonight, maybe they will survive, she thought, but as she thought it, she knew it was unrealistic. She screamed again as a wave of dread and terror came over her for what was about to happen to her children. She had to get to them somehow. She tried to roll against the door and screamed again as a lightning shot of pain ran through her shoulder.
Mary quieted the rasping sound of her panting to listen for the children. Her whole body trembled. No sound came from beyond the closed doors. The line of ants had grown thicker and was now crawling over her. She heard the occasional soft tick of a droplet from the toxic sky exploding on concrete outside the door. She couldn’t distinguish the sound from the subtle clicks of the gym’s floorboards settling and held out hope that the rain would miraculously not fall on that night.
Like a thousand slender sticks all being broken at once, the rain came down all around her. Her whole body shuddered, and she screamed, “No.”
The wind picked up, and the air from under the door whistled. Mary felt nauseous. The pain in her shoulder was unbearable, and she wanted nothing more than to be able to move her arms. She thought she heard a muffled scream, then the rain gathered into a steady hiss, like a river running over the school. Water was everywhere. Sickness consumed her. Mary rolled back and forth in utter horror, taking shallow panicky breaths, screaming the names of her children into the hollow silence of the gym.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
By the time the rain was falling steadily on the roof of the old shed, Will and Zach had pulled the two chairs and table to the driest corner of the room. They set their guns on the table and packs on the floor.
“Here it comes,” Zach said, his eyes rolled up to the ceiling.
They could hear the roar of water moving their way. The wind picked up, and the old shed creaked. Will held onto the table as if the whole building would be blown out from under them. Will’s eyes darted back and forth between the ceiling and the small window. Water ran in long streaks down the glass. Zach took a small candle from his bag, lit it, and put it on the table between them. The rain grew to a roar, and Will felt as if they were floating away in a river. The sickening air permeated the shed, and his throat burned unbearably.
The first drips started to come through the ceiling above the rotted floor. A few drips became a trickle, then water was running as if from a faucet. The stream of water fell through the room and splattered onto the floor and the dirt below it. Thin puddles formed with water dripping into them, raising small bubbles that skated across the surface and vanished at the edge.
Will’s eyes started to sting and tear, and he raised his hand to his throat. A drop of water came from the ceiling above them and landed on the table. Zach’s candle went out and the room was dark. Both rose quickly and pulled the table out of the way of the drip. Zach relit the candle. Will was blinking, trying to catch his breath.
“You okay?” Zach asked, watching Will closely.
“Yeah. My eyes are stinging. It’s hard to breathe.”
The rain intensified, and both men rose again from the table, listening. The shack reverberated under the frequency of the water, the tin a tight drumhead. Another trickle came through the ceiling boards nearer to where they stood, and water ran down the far wall and over the inside of the window.
As Will retreated to the opposite wall, more drips came through the ceiling, this time from all parts. Through watery eyes he looked at Zach, water was coming down on his shoulder, darkening his shirt.
Will felt lightheaded and leaned hard against the wall. At that moment it occurred to Will that he might die here. He looked at Zach in desperation.
“Get under the table,” Zach said, pushing the table closer to the wall.
The pain and swelling in Will’s throat grew, and his mouth and lungs burned. He sucked in short quick breaths. He kneeled under the table while Zach crossed the room and pulled the damp broken boards from the bunk beds and stacked them on the table.
Will’s vision began to blur and draw in from the edges. His legs felt heavy, and he laid on his side in the fetal position trying to draw breath. He felt the flame in his lungs entering his bloodstream. The tired old boards lining the wall behind him began to blacken and soak through.
“You’re alright. You’ll stay dry under there,” was the last thing Will heard Zach say.
Will’s nightmare lasted until the predawn hours when the clouds finally cleared. He couldn’t recollect if he was awake or asleep for the endless hours during the incessant rainfall. He had vague memories of dry heaving at some point and crying out for his daughter. Always the table was there above him. He stared at the underside, with its scratch marks and drips of hardened brown lacquer. Zach was also there, talking to him, occasionally silent, but always drying Will’s face with his shirt.
It was still dark when everything changed. The roar of water faded to a trickle, a gentle patter, then long before the sun came up, the rain stopped altogether, leaving nothing but blackness and silence, then both Zach and Will slept. Eventually orange light faded in over the black mass to the east, and clouds were pulled upward from the Valley floor. Orange and brown wisps of condensed water and disease glided away to the south and dissipated. While they slept, the Valley around them seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, and in a matter of moments, everything was less troubled.
Out across the dripping sugar beets and artichokes, the flood-stained trees on the banks of the Salinas held tight to the shifting sand. Their black limbs folded into the mud and were covered with brown water as it seethed downvalley. Neither insect nor beast crawled below, and all was still except for the water. The sulfuric stink left on a new wind.
The shack creaked loudly, waking Will, though he was still exhausted. The door was open to the outside, and Zach leaned against the doorjamb, shirtless, watching the sunrise. He was eating a piece of thick tortilla out of the paper bag from the prison. Light came from the nascent sun to the east, setting his white hair aglow. He turned to Will with bloodshot eyes.
“Morning.”
Will didn't answer. The table had been moved off him, and Zach had laid his shirt and coat over him. He looked in Zach’s direction, still disoriented.
“You don't look so good, my friend,” Zach continued with his mouth full. “You should eat something. Here, take this.”
Will looked out the window, then at Zach. He lifted a shaky hand to receive the tortilla.
“What happened?” Will asked.
“You barely made it th
rough the night. Kept most of the water off you, but you were sick.”
“How about you?”
“Me? Nothing. Same as always. Couldn’t get sick if I wanted to. I was awake most of the night. Tired now, but ready to go when you are.”
Will put the piece of tortilla into his mouth and chewed. He stretched his arms and rubbed his cheek, then pushed himself up from the floor. The dried bandage was half peeling off his wound.
“Here, have a drink.”
The sweet cactus juice washed away the pain and swelling in Will’s throat. They stood silently at the door and watched the sun come up.
“You saved my life,” Will finally said after collecting his thoughts. He put his hand on Zach’s bare shoulder.
Zach’s bright red eyes squinted at the corners as he smiled. “I just kept you dry.”
“Thank you.”
Will was filled with gratitude. The possibility, no the probability, of seeing his daughter in a few short hours hit him like a revelation. He’d survived the night and now was on the cusp of reuniting with her. He looked back at Zach with a wide grin.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The sun was just above the eastern horizon when Will and Zach got on their way. One hundred paces out, Will turned to look at the half-fallen shed that had nearly become his coffin.
“Zach,” Will yelled ahead to him. “Look.”
On the roof of the shack with its wings outstretched in the morning sun sat a red-tailed hawk.
“Wow. What is it?”
“A hawk,” Will whispered. Both men watched while the hawk’s head rotated like a nob on its shoulders, halting its swivel to stare at them.
