They Came With the Rain

by Christopher Coleman

  He swung his legs to the floor gently and stood, putting as little weight as possible on the cold, hardwood planks, not wanting the groaning floorboards of the old house to mask the distant sound, fearing he would miss the noise when it returned.

  A flash of light outside followed by Boom!

  This time the noise crashed into Josh’s room like the cretaceous monster from his dream, and he lurched back onto his bed, scooting rearwards on his mattress until he slammed his back against the headboard, causing an even louder blast.

  Thunder—there was no mistaking it this time—and it was followed in a moment by the plopping twang of drops against his window.

  It was raining. Finally.

  Within moments, a door down the hallway opened and seconds later a ribbon of light appeared beneath Josh’s door. Excited whispers drifted into his room now and he stared with anticipation at the handle of his bedroom door as it turned clockwise.

  The door pushed open.

  “Josh!”

  Ray.

  “Hey, what’s going on in here, buddy? What was that thumping sound?”

  Josh shook his head in silence.

  Ray Bronigan walked into his stepson’s bedroom wearing the smile of a villain. He leaned in close to Josh and put his hand on the back of his head, pulling it forward gently, lightly grabbing a tuft of hair at the back. “It’s raining, buddy. Can you believe it?”

  Ray lingered at eye level for a moment longer, hoping to elicit the joy from the boy that he, Ray, was feeling. Not receiving it, he frowned and stood tall and then walked to the bedroom window, pushing aside the plain white drapes that shielded the beauty of the dark, clouded sky. He stood there with his arms crossed, unmoving, only inches from the glass, rapt by the approaching storm.

  Josh watched his stepfather curiously, with a dusting of fright, wanting both to join him at the window and for him to leave immediately.

  Ray turned back to Josh again and flickered his eyes. “Should we go outside?”

  Josh opened his mouth to speak, but his jaw hung lamely, unsure about how to reply.

  “It’s too late for all that.”

  The response came not from Josh but from his mother, Deedee, who stood leaning against her son’s doorframe, a tattered Sun Devils t-shirt hanging loosely down to her thighs, an unlit cigarette dangling from her lips. Her voice was groggy and annoyed, the words themselves dismissive as she attempted to ignite the flame of a bright pink plastic lighter.

  “And y’all’ll just get all wet anyway and make a mess in the hall. And guess who’ll have to clean that up? Just wait til morning. Makes no sense goin’ out there now.”

  Deedee Bronigan finally spun the metal wheel of her Bic with enough force to bring the lighter to life, and then she dipped the open end of the cigarette to the dancing flame, singeing the exposed tobacco of the Winston Light to orange before instantly inhaling and releasing a plume of smoke to the shadows. The relief in the sound of her breath was like that of a diver coming up for air.

  “Might not be raining in the morning, Dee,” Ray snapped back, now facing his wife of eight years, two of which—years five and six—had been spent divided by a thick layer of polycarbonate glass while Ray served his time for a class 2 felony theft conviction. “Ain’t rained since April last I recall, so I don’t expect we should put too much faith that this storm’s gonna be a two-day monsoon.”

  Deedee scoffed a cloud of smoke into Josh’s room, another trivialization of her husband’s notions. “Do whatever you want, but Josh has to go to camp tomorrow, so I don’t want him all tired in the morning. And he gets sick from being out in that rain, that camp’s gonna call me, which means I’m the one that’s gonna have to leave work.” Then, as an addendum, she added, “Lord knows you ain’t gonna wake up and go get him.”

  Josh thought the reply was a bit mean, unnecessary, searching for a fight. Ray had the reputation of a troubled past, but he’d kept straight for the past couple of years, and he’d been called back for a second interview at the Grieg, working on the maintenance crew, which would be the first real, sustained employment he’d had since getting out of the pen. Still, Deedee gave the man little slack, and she took the chance to expose Ray’s vulnerabilities at every opportunity.

  Of course, Ray wasn’t much softer with his criticisms of Deedee, though perhaps a little more reluctant to offer them as pointlessly. In any case, the battle usually began with a throwaway line similar to the one his mother had just offered, and once it was out, it landed like a grenade, precipitating at least an hour of verbal gunplay.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Why you gotta—”

  “I’ll go out with you if you want, Ray,” Josh interrupted, addressing his stepfather by name for what felt like the first time in his life. The word ‘Ray’ felt foreign in his mouth, even though he said it aloud all the time, talking to his mom or his friends at school or whatever.

  Ray let his glare linger on Deedee, who seemed not to have the least bit of concern for the scar she’d left on her husband. Finally, he dipped his eyes to Josh and frowned and then took a deep breath as he closed his eyes, keeping them shut for several seconds as he cleared his mind. He then shook his head slowly, methodically. “Nah, your mom’s right. It’s late. Wouldn’t want you catching nothin.’ Probably be raining when you wake up anyway. Like she said.”

  Ray said nothing else as he walked toward Josh’s bedroom door and gently pushed past Deedee, who did a kind of ole as he passed. She turned back toward Josh, grinning and shaking her head.

  “Get some sleep, little man. There’s Eggo’s in the freezer for breakfast. Chocolate chip, I think. Mrs. Demartis’ll be here at seven—I’ll be long gone by then—so make sure you’re ready to go.”

  Josh nodded. “I will.”

  Deedee gave an obligatory wave of her hand to clear the smoke from her son’s room and then blew a kiss toward Josh as she closed the door.

  Josh waited for the door to latch and then leaned back on his mattress again, replaying the exchange that had just occurred between his mother and Ray as he studied the ceiling above him. It was going to get worse, he knew that, and at this point, as much as he understood the strain it would put on his mom for a few months, and perhaps longer, he just wanted them divorced.

  But in two more days he wouldn’t have to worry about that relationship anymore, at least for the rest of the summer. Dwayne Carter arrived from Amarillo on Sunday, and Josh would be going back to Texas with his dad until school started again.

  Josh had no memories of living with his father, he and his mother had divorced before Josh’s second birthday, and for all he knew, his parents’ relationship was no better than the one between his mom and Ray. But Josh felt more of connection with his dad than he ever did with his mom, and though he would never say it aloud—to either of his parents—he’d always wished his dad would have gotten custody of him.

  The thought of his father’s arrival suddenly instilled a new energy in Josh, and, having heard the door to his mother’s room close—with no ensuing argument between his mom and Ray carrying over from his room to theirs—he slipped out of his bed and walked to the window, standing in the spot where Ray had been only minutes earlier. He stared through the falling rain to the outline of the mountains in the distance, absently wondering if water was falling on the other side as well. His eyes then dropped a level closer, but still to an area several miles out, landing now on the huge dark radio telescope that rose like an alien spaceship from the earth. Despite its distance and the density of the rain, the outline of the massive disc was distinct, imposing, taller than any tree in the area and by far the most recognizable feature of the landscape.

  Josh scanned the surroundings closer to his own home now, bringing his gaze in gradually, his eyes slowly adjusting to the graphite outlines of barns and silos and windmills that peppered the vast acreage of the Tanner farm, the immense piece of land that shared a small border with his family’s humble property.

&nbs
p; Despite Josh’s wish to live with his father, and his anticipation to go back to Texas, Josh was mostly happy living in Garmella, even with the angst caused by his mother and Ray. It was a small town in terms of permanent population, but it saw a fair share of visitors and vacationers, and there were three kids in Josh’s class whom he could call a ‘real’ friend, as well as another handful with whom he got along fine. And there was even a girl, Rebecca Minor, whom he liked and she him, though at his age, he didn’t really know what that meant as far as next steps.

  But what he really wanted was to live in a new house, a different house, and there was little he could imagine that he wouldn’t have given to live in the house next door on the Tanner farm. Compared to his own residence, which was a drab, powder blue rambler that sat on an island of dirt at the end of a rubble driveway, the Tanner farm was a rolling vista of rocky green beauty, with a serpentine creek that seemed to meander everywhere on the property, and teams of horses and cows luxuriating in paradise, roaming and running and eating to their hearts’ delights. And the torture of it was, of course, that this was no setting on a television show or picture in a book; the farm was the backdrop to Josh’s life, the property line mocking him only thirty or so paces from Josh’s ground-level bedroom.

  So, every morning when he woke and scanned the beginning of his day through the back window, Josh’s eyes would land first on the dirt patches of his own backyard, taking in the rusted playground and broken gate that seemed to scorch his retina each time they met. But within seconds, as he lifted his gaze just six inches or so, the magic of the Tanner meadow came into full view. On breezy days, the tall reeds of lush grass would sway elegantly, watching magnanimously through the fence at the brown weeds sprouted randomly around josh’s yard.

  Thoughts of the crisp farmland suddenly overwhelmed Josh, and, almost in a panic, as if compelled by some spiritual force of nature, he gripped the base of his window and lifted it to its full width, immediately relishing the fresh, foreign smell of the rain that rushed into his room like a ruptured dam of moist oxygen.

  The sensory experience nearly brought Josh to tears; he hadn’t realized until that moment how much he missed the element of rain. Ray had been right—Josh had known it in the moment—they should have gone out together in it. They should have spent the rest of the night splashing and laughing and soaking up as much water as they could. What that would have felt like!

  Josh closed his eyes and listened now to the sound of the pattering drops. There was simply nothing like it. Not just the slap of water on the concrete patio or the clatter upon the siding, but the vibration of the droplets in the air, the shush! through the sky. It was indescribable, really, truly magnificent.

  Josh put his nose against the screen now, wishing he could stick his face through the opening and feel the water fall directly on his head and face. With his eyes still closed, he allowed his neck to go limp and his forehead to drop forward, pressing now in a relaxed state against the screen. And, as if his wish to feel rain had been spoken to a genie, the mesh partition, already torn and weak at every corner, popped forward, dropping limply to the backyard, landing on the muddy ground without a sound. The barrier between his room and the world was broken, and the crisp wet air of nature quickly replaced the hazy staleness of Winston smoke.

  Josh lurched backward and instinctively looked to his door, waiting silently for the sound of his mom or Ray to open their own door again and then make their way back down the hall. There would be less enthusiasm this time—Josh had no illusions about that—and the promise of a whipping would surely accompany the scolding, though the threat would never come to pass.

  He gave it a few more seconds, praying the silence would continue. If they weren’t arguing, they were either sleeping or doing adult things, both of which meant whatever he did for the rest of the night was of little concern to them.

  Josh put his head out the window now, instinctively sticking out his tongue like a snake. But the eave above him extended too far from the roof, and any potential relief was caught in the cluttered gutter and was directed toward the mangled downspouts.

  He grumbled and then stuck his hand out now, extending his torso through the opening so that his belly was now on the sill. Still, he could barely reach the place in the void where the sheets of water began, so he took once last peek toward the bedroom door and then lifted his leg to the sill and put his foot out the window, and then he quickly brought the other over and climbed through the opening until he was standing on the ground in his backyard.

  He was still under the eave as he lifted his face to the sky, watching the huge drops come down at him in slow motion, emerging from the darkness like tiny, oval invaders the moment they reached the halo of the dim security light that came from the Martinez’ house, their neighbors to the right.

  Josh looked off to the Tanner Farm now, and as he prepared to take his first steps toward the barrier fence, to climb into the farm where he would enjoy the storm from the setting of his dreams, an object above the shed in the Martinez yard seized his attention.

  Josh squinted and craned his neck forward, intrigued by the strange figure, which was thick and hazy, wavering slightly in the night.

  “The heck?”

  The Martinez house was slightly smaller than Josh’s, but unlike his own family, the Martinez’ took pride in their abode, keeping it up as nicely as anyone in the neighborhood, and one of the few families on the block that kept any semblance of a lawn. Such an achievement in Garmella required a good deal of work from Mr. Martinez, which meant working in the yard most weekends, as well as owning an inventory of garden tools and mowing supplies which he kept neatly in his shed.

  And it was the shed that was now the source of Josh’s attention. Atop the shelter, at the far end from where Josh stood in his yard, there seemed to be a dark cylinder rising from the roof, sticking up from the shed like a stove pipe chimney, even smoking slightly.

  Except it’s a shed, Josh thought. Sheds don’t have chimneys. And besides, Josh had been looking at that shed for years, and he knew there was nothing on top that fit the description of what he was looking at currently.

  Except there was tonight.

  A bird?

  Not likely. Not only did it make no sense for a crow or raven or some other black bird to be perched there at that time of night, the shape of the figure didn’t fit either. It was too straight. Too thin. Certainly not an owl. And if it were a bird, its feathers were disintegrating slowly into the air.

  Josh looked back to the farm and the dark wet fields beyond, weighing again whether to make the trespass, and when he looked back to the shed, to reconsider the shape again, it was gone.

  “What the...?”

  He walked toward the structure now, slowly, reluctantly, unconsciously forming an explanation for his middle-of-the-night presence in the yard of his neighbors. He quickly decided if Mr. or Mrs. Martinez happened to be up at this hour and were staring out at the rain—the same way he had been and probably many of his neighbors were—he would just give them the truth. He wasn’t really doing anything wrong—other than trespassing, he supposed—and if they did catch him, the bonus was he could find out what he’d seen on the roof of the storage shed.

  Josh was only a few steps from the structure now, his eyes remaining fixed on the roof and the spot where the shape had been. The rain was still driving, but the closer he got to the Martinez house, the better his visibility became.

  A crackle of wood to his left.

  Josh stopped and spun toward the sound, gasping as he did. He immediately began to backtrack towards his house, fearing that whatever had made the sound was somewhere in the tall grass of the Tanner Farm, stalking him, though he was likely safe with the fence in place.

  He kept his eyes fixed on the land past the fence line though, now expecting a coyote to appear, perhaps even a bear, which he’d heard from Ray still roamed in parts of Arizona, though whether Garmella was one of those parts Josh was unclear.r />
  But both of those possibilities were quickly eliminated when Josh spotted the shape from the roof again, just over the property line of the farm. Except now the shape was moving, its blurred form drifting away from him, moving at a quick walking pace. Josh’s eyes soon adjusted to the darkness of the field, and he could now see the shape he’d seen above the shed was attached to a much taller shape, one as black and hazy as the head above it. It continued moving quickly through the grass, heading north, deeper into the Tanner property.

  Instinctually, Josh ducked low, though there was nothing to truly hide him other than the night, and he watched in terrible fascination as the creature ascended the gradual slope up toward the Tanner house, in the direction of the Grieg Telescope.

  Despite every impulse in his body telling him to run back inside, to wake his mother and Ray and describe what he’d seen in the Martinez yard and the Tanner farm, he decided to follow the form. If he didn’t, he knew no one would believe his story, just as he wouldn’t have believed them if the roles were reversed.

  He let the black form take a few more steps into the grass of the Tanner farm, and when he heard a desperate mooing sound from a cow several yards away, Josh walked to the fence and climbed over, and then he began to follow.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Construction on the Johann Grieg Radio Telescope began in 1985 and saw first light in October of 1991. The six-year build time was almost two full years ahead of schedule, and, as a result, millions of dollars under budget, a pleasant combination of specs that was almost unheard of anywhere in the world for a project so large. By early 1992, the geniuses who had designed the telescope had it perfectly calibrated and adjusted for efficiency, and by summer of that same year, the mammoth device was in full operating mode, scanning the skies in search of signals from galaxies of almost unimaginable distances.