They Came With the Rain

by Christopher Coleman

  “It’s not something I can explain to you...right now. I just need all hands on deck. I need you all up here now. Luke, Randy, you guys copying this?”

  No reply from the Carson brothers.

  “Where the hell is everybody, Allie?”

  “Not sure, Sheriff. Haven’t seen those boys at all yet today. I know that Gloria called them before I left, but I didn’t hear any reply from them. And come to think of it, it was pretty damn quiet on the drive up here also. I’d even say weirdly quiet. I know it was early...or it could just be that nobody can get out of town today because of this giant hole in the ground so they’re all staying put?”

  Ramon hadn’t seen any activity on the road either; it was as empty as the front of the station when he left. That wasn’t necessarily unprecedented, especially for that time of day in a town as small as his, but it was unusual to be sure, and though he didn’t yet have all the pieces in place at the moment, he knew it was related to the thing he’d just watched kill Riley Tackard before vanishing in broad daylight.

  “All right, well I need you up here then, Allie. Immediately. And keep your head on a swivel. I’ll keep trying the others.”

  “10-4 on that, Sheriff.” And then, “Also, Sheriff, it looks like yours might not be the only fatality in Garmella today.”

  Ramon’s heart stopped. “How’s that, deputy?”

  “I found that Zamora kid’s truck. It’s way the hell down in the ravine. And if he was in it when it went over, there’s no way he’s alive.”

  Ramon closed his eyes, suddenly feeling like he was in the middle of a horrible nightmare. “Any evidence of...bodies?”

  “Not that I can see, but I’m thinking it’s not too promising.”

  Ramon closed his eyes again and thought of Gloria’s call from Melissa Godwin and her missing daughter. Ramon didn’t think it too promising either. “All right, Allie, we’ll do what we can, but as crazy as this might sound, I need you up here first. I’m heading up to the actual telescope, so meet me at the top. And like I said, be careful and don’t stop until you get here.”

  “Copy that, Sheriff. Over.”

  “Over and out.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Ramon placed the radio in the cradle and stared at Riley Tackard’s body, weighing his decision whether to drag it from the road or leave it be. He was disinclined to touch the corpse, not knowing exactly what the thing from the woods had done to the poor kid’s skin. His flesh had been mutilated, turned to something resembling an old, dried banana peel, and if it had been caused by some type of poison or corrosive element, Ramon figured it probably best to keep his hands to himself.

  He pulled the passenger door closed and then shifted left, taking his place in the driver’s seat. He started the engine and gasped at the sound, the rumbling of the motor sounding thunderous now in the quiet of the trees. His nerves were shredded, hands shaking, and he drove slowly up the road toward the telescope, just fast enough to keep the car moving forward up the slope. His eyes searched the landscape like a hunter desperate for a kill, every wavering branch and leaf appearing as the matte black figure from moments earlier. He tried to bring the form to the front of his mind again, but already, only minutes later, it seemed like a thing that had come to him in a dream.

  But it was real, unquestionably, and Ramon’s gut told him the creature was heading to the telescope. Jerry Zimmerman had confronted it down by the guard gate, that much was obvious, and now, after his own confrontation halfway to the top, it seemed reasonable to assume the thing was working its way up the road.

  Jerry.

  In all the madness and destruction that had just occurred, Ramon had forgotten the reason he and Riley had been driving up the road to begin with. And now, as he considered the scene again at the gate—combined with the death of Riley Tackard—there was little doubt in his mind about Jerry Zimmerman’s fate.

  He absently thought of the monitor trucks now, how they were due to arrive that weekend, and he suddenly considered a connection between the murderous figure from the forest and the telescope which rose high above Garmella like a medieval castle. He couldn’t imagine what that connection might look like, but he filed the correlation away for later anyway.

  Ramon reached the plateau of the mountain in less than five minutes, and there the land became a barren flat mesa of dirt and concrete. He pulled his cruiser up to the giant base of the Grieg telescope and then eased the car right and continued driving, orbiting the gargantuan construction once, then again, circling it like a shark in the ocean before finally parking the car so that it faced outward to the single road leading up to the site.

  Ramon clicked the radio again. “Allie.” Pause. “Allie, you still there?”

  Nothing.

  “Gloria.” Ramon’s face burned with anxiety now. “Christ, is anyone working today! Somebody, answer me!”

  Ramon gritted his teeth, seething, but he resisted slamming the two-way into the console and instead placed it gently back into the cradle. He took a breath and then disengaged the shotgun mounted beside him and gripped it tightly as he stepped from the vehicle, resuming his search of the landscape with a glare that was narrow and wary.

  He walked with purpose toward the base of the telescope, without hesitation, the gun high, aimed, expecting the black beast to emerge from the lattice base at any moment, or to plunge down from the enormous dish like a drop of oil from a giant can. But he reached the metal base of the Grieg without incident, finding there only the bone white beams of the foundation, stark and bright in the morning sun, crisscrossing each other in perfectly engineered Xs.

  Ramon continued past the telescope now and headed toward the trees, which were at least a hundred yards in front of him, shrouding the eastern perimeter like green columnar sentries. As he walked, he felt the openness of the area begin to press down upon him, and he knew if an attack were to come now, if the beast were to appear from somewhere in his blind spot, he would have only seconds to react and would need to be quick and perfect with the shotgun.

  Yet Ramon, for a reason he couldn’t have explained, doubted the figure would materialize in that way, not in the plainness of the base. The creature had come from the cover and camouflage of the woods, and Ramon assumed it had done so for a reason, that it thrived in cover and secrecy.

  Regardless, Ramon picked up his pace until he finally reached the tree line, where the wooded edge of the vast forest provided him with a sense of security, false though it may have been.

  He stopped and stared through the trees for several beats before beginning his trek around the perimeter, searching for signs of Jerry or evidence of the black figure. It didn’t take long, however—less than a quarter mile or so—for him to realize the telescope’s footprint was too immense, and that he, searching alone in this moment, was unlikely to find either. He couldn’t focus his eyes or his mind, and every sound was giving him whiplash. He needed a team of officers to canvass the area, (a team which he didn’t have, not on any day and certainly not on this particular morning), but Allie and the Carson brothers would have to do.

  Ramon lowered his weapon and squinted into the bright forest, deciding at that moment to wait for Allie to arrive before making another move. At that point, they would do a quick search of the area and then head back to the station together. They would stop at Luke and Randy’s along the way to see what the hell was up with those guys, and then at the station they would re-group, devise a plan. By then, Ramon would have worked out how to tell his story, and, if necessary, he wasn’t beyond calling in help from the State barracks in Simonson if that’s what it took. Especially if Derek Zamora and Amber Godwin were also dead. With three deaths in a day—one of them a murder—that was probably the right call to make.

  Ramon was only a few steps into his walk back to the cruiser when he heard a shuffling sound in the leaves behind him, and he snapped to attention, pivoting on his heels, the shotgun at eye level now. He chambered a round and stepped back toward the woods
.

  “Who’s there?” he called.

  The rustle again, and Ramon now prepared his mind to see the shadowed beast again, the black form that shimmered and waved in the air like a latent image emerging on a piece of film.

  Ramon called again and at first received no reply. But then, croaking from an area only yards from where he stood, he heard a voice. It was barely audible, sickly, but the word itself came through with perfect clarity.

  “Help.”

  Ramon rushed toward the tree line and stopped, lowering the gun once again, and then he moved quickly through the brush, reaching the source of the distress call. It was a boy, shivering and cowering on his side, his back pressed against a fallen log as he unconsciously searched for warmth from the damp wood. Leaves and branches covered his body from head to feet, and only the bright red of his shirt, peeking through the gaps of brown and green, gave away the camouflage.

  “Oh my god.”

  Ramon dropped to his knees and quickly removed his uniform shirt, and then he placed it across the child’s shoulders, tucking it into his collar to complete the wrap. The boy blinked frantically up at Ramon, as if just waking from a dream, his damp hair flat against his head and face, leaves and sticks entwined in his locks.

  “Sheriff?” he asked, as if not quite sure the image above him was real.

  Ramon sighed, relieved, and then he shook his head in confusion. “Josh? Jesus Christ, son, what the hell are you doing out here?” He placed the gun down and gently pulled Josh forward, lifting him to a sitting position. “Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?”

  Josh shook his head. “I dddddon’t think so. Jjjjust cold.”

  “How did you get out here?”

  Josh trembled again, a motion that seemed to Ramon to contain more than just cold. A combination of chill and fear.

  “I...I don’t really know. I jjjjust saw it. I saw it walking and...I kkkkept following. I ddddon’t know why. I...” He trailed off, breathing heavily now as exhaustion set in.

  Ramon closed his eyes as a strange feeling of gratitude fell over him, and then he looked to the heavens before focusing back on the boy. He was grateful to have found Josh, of course, that was nothing short of a miracle, but he was also relieved to know he wasn’t insane. He hadn’t truly considered that a possibility, but still, it mattered to him that there was someone else who had seen the thing too, someone alive who could validate his own story, assuming the creature was what Josh was referencing.

  “I saw it too, Josh.” Ramon nodded, wide-eyed. “I saw it too.”

  Josh stared hard at Ramon, frowning, his eyes full of tears, silently questioning the sheriff for an explanation about what they had seen exactly, searching for answers that Ramon didn’t have.

  “And then...” Josh trailed off, seeming to think better of what he was about to say.

  “What is it, Josh?”

  He stared back at Ramon sheepishly. “I...I thought I lost it. It was so hard tttto see in the dark. And the rain. But I just kept following it anyway. I just kept going in the same direction through the Tanner Farm. For miles, I guess. I didn’t even know I was on the Grieg property until I...I’m sssssorry, Sheriff. I really didn’t—”

  “I don’t care, Josh. You’re not in trouble. I only care that you’re safe. And that you stay that way. Does your mom know you’re missing?”

  Josh shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’m supposed to be at camp this morning. Mrs. Demartis was supposed to pick me up, bbbbut if I don’t come out right away when she honks, she just leaves. And my mom is at work.”

  Ramon nodded, processing the prosaic day Josh had just described, so typical in the quiet town of Garmella, with kids and camps and carpools and work. Such routine seemed an impossibility now, an ideal that would perhaps never occur in this place again. Was anyone at work right now? At camp? Alive?

  “I found it again though.”

  Ramon was back. “Found it?”

  Josh nodded and then took a full breath, whimpering and shuddering on the exhale, his body still fighting to get warm. “I almost walked into it. It was right there in front of me. But even that close—only a foot away from it, maybe—it was so black I could barely see it.” He paused. “And then it grabbed me.”

  “What?” Ramon put a hand to his mouth in shock, and the image of Riley Tackard’s twisted back and frozen face instantly appeared to him again, mauled and charred to the point of unrecognizability. The young guard had been in the monster’s grip for only seconds before being destroyed. How on earth, if the thing had grabbed Josh as well, could the boy still be alive? It was impossible.

  “What grabbed you, Josh?”

  Josh shook his head slowly. “Like I said. It was...I don’t know. I...I can’t really describe it.”

  “Did it look like...?” Ramon cut himself off, knowing that if he described to Josh what he had seen, it could lead the boy to reveal those same images in his retelling. “Just try, Josh. Just tell me what you saw.” Ramon was eager now, fighting to keep his voice calm.

  Josh began to cry now, and Ramon brought the boy in close to his chest, rubbing his shoulders, tugging his draped shirt tightly around his back.

  “Okay, let’s get you to the car. I’ve got warm blankets and I think a couple of Slim Jims in the glove box.”

  At the mention of food, Josh’s eyes ignited, and he wiped his tears away, eager to get to the meat sticks. Within the minute, the boy was sitting in the back seat of the cruiser finishing off the first Slim Jim and already opening the wrapper of the second.

  “Can you tell me what you saw now?” Ramon was seated beside Josh in the back. “If you can’t, it’s okay, but I just need to know if it was the same thing I saw.” And then he added, “Because what I saw was very scary.”

  Josh turned toward Ramon on the word scary and nodded quickly, a lump forming in his throat. “It was...so black. So tall. But...I don’t really know what it looked like. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Josh and Ramon had seen the same thing; that question was settled for good.

  “It was like a vampire maybe,” Josh added. “But...fuzzy. Without a real face.” Frustration fell across Josh’s face at his lack of vocabulary, but to Ramon, the description sounded as perfect as anything he could have expressed.

  “And it touched you Josh?” Ramon asked. “You said it...it grabbed you?”

  Josh nodded and dropped his eyes, tightening his shoulders into his torso; it was body language that suggested discomfort, an unwillingness to expand on his statement. Finally, he looked up at Ramon and nodded.

  The boy was still shaken by his encounter, that was obvious, and Ramon knew there was the risk he would shut down altogether if pushed too hard. But Ramon’s need for details was stronger than his sensitivity for a scared boy. At least in that moment. “Was there anything else? Anything you remember that might be important?”

  Josh glanced at Ramon and then dropped his eyes in a flash. It was the move of guilt and shame, an affirmation of the question itself. Ramon had seen the look from suspects his entire career.

  “What is it, Josh?”

  Josh stayed quiet for several seconds, and just when Ramon thought he’d lost him for good, the boy said, “It talked to me.”

  For a moment, Ramon thought he’d misheard the boy, and he tried for several beats to imagine what other word Josh could have said that sounded like ‘talked.’ But he knew he had heard correctly. “Talked to you? Is that what you said? Are you sure?”

  Josh nodded. “But it wasn’t really talking. Not with a mouth like real talking.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Josh frowned. “It was more like a thought that came into my brain. But I...I knew it came from the thing. Making me think about what it wanted me to.”

  Somehow, this explanation made more sense to Ramon than if the creature had actually spoken aloud. Maybe it was because it left open the possibility that Josh had imagined the words, but in his heart, Ra
mon didn’t really believe that to be the case. He had had a similar experience, not of hearing a voice exactly, but the loss of control of his mind suggested some alternate power was at play.

  “What did it say to you, Josh?”

  Josh swallowed and began to shake his head, and then he started to cry softly.

  “It’s okay, Josh. Nothing is going to hurt you as long as you’re with me. I promise.”

  Josh looked up at Ramon, his face squinted and confused. “You can’t promise that, Sheriff.”

  Ramon wanted to smile, to be adult and reassuring, but the boy’s words sent a chill of fear up his back. “Why do you say that?”

  Josh scoffed. “Because it knows you too, Sheriff. It knows everyone.”

  Ramon searched Josh’s face now, trying to find the meaning of his words somewhere in his eyes. But he could only find torture there, a grimness he’d never seen from a child before. He repeated his question. “What did it say to you, Josh?”

  Josh was stoic now, his eyes narrow and sad.

  Ramon nodded. “Go ahead?”

  “My mind started going crazy. All of these memories started coming into my brain at once. It was... I don’t know. I never felt anything like it. It was like every memory of my life in a second.” He paused. “And after, that’s when I heard it. That’s when it talked to me.” He stalled again and took another heavy breath, and then he locked eyes with Ramon. “It wanted to know my...my evil. Those were the words I...felt. ‘Tell me your evil.’”