They Came With the Rain

by Christopher Coleman

  But if his eyes were true, and there was some mutant black creature lurking around the telescope compound, the shotgun would be just the thing, and he would gladly pay the price for violation of protocol.

  The rain was still falling steadily, but the downpour was light now compared to the onslaught of ten minutes earlier, and in the distance, Jerry could now see the stars above him once again and the clear demarcation of clouds and sky.

  Jerry lifted the gun chest high, and though he already knew the gun was loaded, he broke the chamber just the same, revealing the two red shell casings that indicated the weapon was ready to go.

  Then, before he took a step toward the warehouse to begin the hunt, he stopped, doubt suddenly flooding his mind.

  This is not a good idea, he thought. Weird sightings or not, it wasn’t an excuse to break procedures.

  “What the hell am I doing?”

  Jerry took a deep breath and then lay the gun back down on the truck bed, wiping his face clear of the rain for the millionth time.

  “Relax, brother.”

  He had seen something suspicious—someone, perhaps—that was all there was to it at this stage. And, per procedures, he had investigated the issue, and, despite perhaps some hazy visual evidence to the contrary, he couldn’t find anything to report. In such cases, protocol required him to call in the incident to HQ, or, if it was an emergency, to call the police.

  This didn’t qualify as an emergency, he figured now, so he would start with his company, and when he called it in, his description could be as vague as necessary. He didn’t need to come off sounding like someone who’d just escaped from a mental hospital, especially not to the people who signed his paychecks.

  It looked like a man, I guess. I don’t know, tall. 6’9 maybe. He was black, but not in the sense of race. This last part didn’t make much sense, so Jerry figured he would just leave that off altogether, as he wasn’t sure exactly how to explain it.

  But for all Jerry knew, that was all he’d seen. The thing’s height was unusual but not impossible, and maybe its color and shape truly was just a trick of the darkness, some bizarre phenomenon that occurred with the rain and light from the guard gate, and later with the bulb above the warehouse. Or maybe his eyes were going. Or his mind. Those were not impossibilities either.

  Jerry left the gun laying in the bed and snapped closed the tailgate, and then he turned back to the guard booth, having made his final decision to retreat there and make the call into the company.

  He took a deep breath, nodding with satisfaction at the sober judgment he’d just come to, and as he looked up toward the guard station where the phone awaited him, standing in front of the barrier arm was the creature, and this time there was no question that what he was seeing was real.

  The light from the booth illuminated the outline of the slender being, making it appear as a giant silhouette, so tall and black it was as if a hole in the atmosphere had been removed, sliced with a jigsaw, perhaps, revealing behind it only the darkness of space, albeit one that was draped in smoke and haze.

  Panic erupted in Jerry’s gut with twice the level from earlier, causing him to retch up a tablespoon of vomit that he instinctively spit to the side as he continued to stare wide-eyed at the shape in front of him. The lump in his throat was massive, constricting, and he swallowed it slowly as he reached his hand back to the latch of the tailgate. Without taking his eyes off the black form that stood unmoving by the guard gate, he pulled up on the latch and dropped open the small door once again, easing it down this time, fearing any sudden noise might trigger the thing to attack.

  Jerry felt his hand around on the ripples of the metal bed, but he couldn’t immediately locate the weapon, so, in what was surely less than three seconds, he turned his head back to the truck, finding the shotgun almost immediately, just an inch or so from where his hand had been searching.

  He skated the gun toward him and lifted it, gripping it with both hands now as he slid the dual rounds into the chamber. He rotated back toward the creature, his legs ready to approach now, his will ready to fire and kill.

  But by the time Jerry turned, there was no longer any distance to cover, and the weapon in his hands was consumed by the black mass in front of him, forcing Jerry to drop the shotgun to the street, leaving him stunned and defenseless.

  The creature was upon him, standing above him like an enormous charcoal statue, its head, which to this point had been barely recognizable as such, tilted forward, the shape of it drifting in and out of form, as if eager to escape its master yet never wanting to get too far.

  Jerry could see the vague contours of a face now, and for the briefest of instances, he felt a pang of satisfaction at verifying that what he’d seen earlier skulking behind the warehouse was in fact something other than a man. He wasn’t crazy, it turned out, just unlucky.

  Ripples near the top of the thing’s head appeared now, small, distinct creases that began as thin lines and then separated into what Jerry could only have described as eyes. These were the first true features of the form, verifying that it was indeed alive, animal.

  And then wrinkles of contortion appeared below the eyes, narrowing the thing’s face into an expression that resembled not quite anger, but something that dared to be rejected, the look a male lion gives to another stray male as it passes the pride from a distance, the precursor to attack.

  A second later, the black monster shot its arms forward and grabbed Jerry, maneuvering him like a doll, using its large thin fingers to completely envelop the security guard’s face and head, leaving only a narrow gap through which he could see a hole in the beast’s face open, creating something akin to a mouth. The feature was invisible to Jerry until that moment, and it revealed a cavernous void that was nearly as black as the thing itself and seemed to go on for eternity, like a tunnel into space.

  The strength of the creature was like nothing Jerry had ever experienced, and as the first words started to emerge in a plea for his own life, the history of his existence to that point suddenly inundated his mind.

  Most of what he saw came so fast that it was gone before he could grasp the memory, but some images lingered, sparking the remembrance. His game-winning double that sent his team to the county middle school championship. Helen Doherty’s hand down his pants in the back of the Cineplex when he was fifteen. His father’s funeral.

  And Isaiah Adakai, the boy he’d left for dead on the road on February 9th, 2003.

  And, of course, perhaps even more frightening, the accompanying image of the headline that appeared in the paper two mornings later, along with an article that pled for the public’s help in locating the car responsible for the fatal hit-and-run.

  Jerry was drunk that night, there was no question about that; he’d had at least two too many. He could barely figure out the gear shift of his Mazda, and when he finally got it into reverse and pulled out of the parking space at Delaney’s, he nearly clipped the only car left in the lot that was parked at least ten yards behind him.

  But Jerry had also convinced himself over these last seventeen years that even if he had been as sober as the pope that night, it wouldn’t have made a difference. It was so dark. And the kid was on a bicycle at two-thirty in the morning! Maybe even drunk himself, he sometimes rationalized, though there was little evidence to support that notion. And even though the kid had been hugging the shoulder as closely as possible when Jerry came up behind him, when Jerry sped up to pass him, the kid suddenly lurched the bike to the left, at just the wrong time, right at the moment Jerry was on his hip. There was nothing to be done, drunk or not.

  Jerry heard the dull crunch of Isaiah’s head hitting the pavement, and he knew from the sound alone that, if he wasn’t dead, he was never going to live a worthwhile life again.

  Jerry knew in the moment to stop, of course, even with a BAC that was certainly north of .20, and even with the full understanding that any consequences he would face were certain to be severe and life-changing. But he nev
er slowed, never even checked his mirrors, except to see if there were any headlights in the distance, anyone behind him who would have seen the accident or the shattered bike and teenager on the road and the car speeding off into the distance.

  But there had been no one on the road that night, only he and Isaiah Adakai, the latter of whom would be laid to rest that next weekend, the case of his manslaughter unsolved.

  Jerry had thought little about Isaiah in the past few years, but he relived it now as if it were happening in the moment, along with the rest of his joys and pains over the years, none as highly pitched as that one, however.

  And then from the void of the creature’s mouth he heard a voice, toneless and guttural, as if patched together with the words of dead pirates.

  “Tell me your evil.”

  Jerry heard the voice clearly, knew the true nature of the request in an instant, but his mind simply wouldn’t allow the revelation to be spoken aloud, his conscience having committed to the secrecy of the incident years earlier.

  “No,” Jerry answered, his voice both distant and defiant.

  There was a pause in the creature, a settling of its strength and motion, as if it were allowing Jerry the opportunity to answer again.

  But Jerry Kellerman never reconsidered the refusal, and the last conscious thought he had just before his body froze into a solid block of black was that if he’d been pressed to say what was happening to him in that moment, he could only have described it as being killed by the Devil himself.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Ramon Thomas had arrived in Garmella only three days after graduating from the police academy. A lifelong resident of Arizona, he rode into town smiling and eager, delighted to have found employment in his home state, and in a town less than an hour from the one in which he’d grown up. Deputy of Garmella, Arizona wasn’t his dream job exactly, but it was one on which he could cut his teeth, where he could learn the real-world lessons of being a cop before moving on to a place that offered a little more challenge and variety. Scottsdale or Mesa, maybe, and then someday, hopefully, Phoenix.

  But that plan had been laid out over eight years ago, and Ramon was still in Garmella. He held the position of sheriff now, so there was progress made on that front, but still, the tiny quasi-tourist town of Garmella wasn’t the place he had pictured himself when the decade came to an end. In fact, he’d even said as much during his job interview, the sheriff at the time, Dwayne Malone, smiling and nodding as he listened to Ramon’s ambitions. Ramon had thought the man sincere in the moment, encouraging, but he wondered later if the sheriff’s looks were patronizing, as if he’d heard similar pipe dreams from rookie officers his whole life.

  But Sheriff Malone was long gone, and Ramon was king cop now, and though he wasn’t uncovering billion-dollar drug rings or solving gangland murders on a daily basis—or ever, really—he was kept busy enough, especially during the summer months when the tourists trickled into town at a modest but consistent rate. For some, the absence of mobile phones was an invitation to live as though there were no rules at all, as if Garmella were some throwback Shangri-La, or perhaps a frontier town of the early West, where any depravity the mind could conceive was permitted. Most of that impiety involved controlled substances, of course—and not the kind that grew naturally in the hills—but there were other sins as well, and Garmella was not unaccustomed to the occasional aggravated robbery or sexual assault.

  “What’s the word on that sinkhole, Glo?” Ramon asked, standing at the threshold of his office, his hand gripping the frame above his head. “Got hold of DPW yet?”

  Gloria Reynolds was one of four officers under Ramon’s command, and the most senior amongst them, both in terms of age and time on the force. She was in her early fifties and had been with Ramon for just over five years. Additionally, she was probably the hardest working of the bunch, though, truthfully, that wasn’t saying much. There was Luke and Randy Carson, brothers, two years apart and with the same glaring weakness, namely the inability to understand basic commands of their superior officer. They were fine boys, Ramon supposed, but they had a long way to go to reach their potential, and he never felt completely comfortable giving them an order that involved on-their-feet thinking, which, in policing, was a bit of a problem.

  And then there was Allie Nyler, certainly the smartest of his officers, mid-thirties and next in the seniority line. But Allie’s ambition had flatlined less than six months into the job, and though Ramon couldn’t prove it (nor did he have any real desire to), he knew this lack of motivation could be traced back to a long line of empty bottles, ones that were designed to hold both booze and pills. At least twice a week she showed up hungover, and though she was subordinate and followed most orders to a tee, her lack of enthusiasm for the job kept her from being truly effective.

  “They said they knew about it and that they’ll send someone up to assess the damage tomorrow. Didn’t give me a time though.”

  “I should hope they know about it; I called it in almost two days ago. What’s the hold up? Why tomorrow?”

  Gloria shrugged. “That’s just what they said.”

  Ramon sighed and gave a small quiver of his head, a signal of frustration at both the DPW and at Gloria, who, though hard-working, was a little too pleasant sometimes. An agreeable temperament was an asset when dealing with the public, but inside the local government, sometimes you needed a little snap.

  “And I don’t need an assessment,” Ramon added. “I need a damn mixer truck up here and a load of cement.”

  “I told ‘em that, but they said it’s not that easy. Said they need to see how deep it is and if it’s still sinking. Shit, I bet they don’t even get to it until next week.”

  Ramon glared at Gloria, his jaw clenched. “I don’t want hear that, Gloria. We’ve got a whole lot of people heading here starting next Saturday that will be none too happy if that’s the case. None too happy at all. And the non-residents who are here now and are stranded? There gonna be even less happy. This ain’t a damn ski resort; no one expects to get trapped in Garmella.”

  Gloria shrugged again. “Want me to call ‘em back? Maybe they can put in something temporary. A little bridge or something.”

  Ramon frowned and gave Gloria a crooked look, not quite following how exactly her speculative bridge would work. But he let it go and continued to lament the problem in silence.

  The sinkhole was a mess, no question about it, having opened up with no warning at some point over the last couple days, nearly killing Brian and Regina Simms and their two kids as they made their way out of town, off to the Grand Canyon for a couple days.

  Thankfully, the Simms’ had avoided catastrophe and reported the damage to Ramon on their way back into town; but their Canyon plans, along with the rest of those in Garmella with aspirations of getting out of town, had been put on hold until further notice.

  Ramon had called in the incident to DPW within a half hour of Brian’s alert, but Garmella was a small town, remote, and the Department of Public Works in Apache County wasn’t exactly a Swiss watch factory. He’d had to call several times just to speak to a live human and then was rewarded with a classic sing-songy explanation about how Ramon’s wasn’t the only town in need of maintenance. Spring and summer are tough, you know, all that driving on the roads takes its toll.

  Ramon got it, but summer hadn’t officially started yet, and Garmella was unique in that it didn’t have alternate routes in and out of town. It was this characteristic, Ramon believed, that should have sprung his crisis to the top of the priority list.

  “And don’t forget: it’s audit weekend.”

  Ramon closed his eyes and put the heels of his hands to his forehead, and then he slid them in opposite directions until he reached his temples, stopping there and pressing lightly before gliding his palms down the sides of his face. “It can’t be that time already?”

  Gloria nodded. “Been a month. In fact, I think I saw one of the trucks already. Must have come in a few
days ago, before the sinkhole.”

  Ramon gave Gloria a confused stare. “Can’t remember the last time that happened.” He pondered the unusual practice further. “Guess they think people are starting to figure out their schedule.”

  Gloria shrugged. “I wouldn’t have even known they were here ‘cept I happened to be coming out of Sonny’s right when it was coming in.”

  “At night?”

  Gloria nodded.

  “Hmm.”

  One weekend a month—weekends being more opportune since people were most likely to be at home on Saturday and Sunday—the Grieg Observatory sent a team of monitor trucks, typically no more than two or three, to patrol the streets of Garmella in search of anyone violating the town’s transmission agreement. It was supposed to be a secret to the citizens when they arrived, but anyone paying even the tiniest bit of attention could have figured out the schedule and when they were coming.

  The trucks rarely came in early though—Ramon thought it a few years since the last time that had happened—but perhaps they had without Ramon’s knowledge, as they weren’t obligated to tell him when they were coming.

  The white pickup trucks came loaded with detectors the size of refrigerators in their beds and usually began their patrols around dawn on Saturday and continued slowly and silently through the streets, all day, almost daring anyone to test their detection abilities.

  And people always did.

  The violations came mainly in the form of cell phone use, and of those, the vast majority were committed by out-of-towners, most of whom claimed they didn’t know the rules despite the miles of signage along 91 alerting them to the town-wide ban. Technically, the Grieg monitors had no legal power of enforcement, but Garmella received a rather generous annual compensation from the lab, a sum agreed upon when the telescope was first commissioned, and, in return, the town had agreed to legislate for radio silence, with the authority to issue an ordinance violation to anyone who broke the rules. To date, Ramon had only written a handful of such violations during his eight years; a stern warning was usually enough to prevent repeat offenders.