Ramon closed the door slowly and hung his head for a moment, the scene of the lab still surreal in his mind, impossible. But he didn’t linger long there, knowing the larger concern was still lurking in his town somewhere, and as he headed back to the cruiser, his mind began to spin with possibility, ideas that maybe Gloria was somehow involved with the rest of what was happening in Garmella, that maybe she’d found a way to narcotize the town by mixing the drug in the water supply, or through the release of toxic fumes, vapors that caused visions, hallucinations. Maybe what he and Allie and the kids had seen hadn’t actually happened at all, at least not in the way it appeared to their eyes and brains.
These thoughts—that everything had been imagined—were ones of lunacy, of course, but Ramon also knew meth was a different kind of drug, one capable of producing vivid delusions, images like the one he had experienced. Of course, people were still being killed—that part wasn’t a mirage—but perhaps the meth had somehow made them believe a man was a monster and was being used as a cover-up for some other purpose.
None of what was ricocheting through Ramon’s head made any sense, and he quickly considered that if he were, in fact, high on crystal meth in that moment, he wouldn’t have been able to entertain the very ideas and conspiracies which blamed the drug for the visions. It would have all seemed normal and natural. But that was the way the human mind worked, always grasping for logic, continually searching for an answer that fit into what was known about the universe.
Still, though, he left the meth explanation open as a possibility.
Ramon reached the cruiser and clicked the radio button, intending to call out for Allie but instead saying, “Gloria? Gloria, it’s Ramon, do you copy?” He waited, and when he received no reply, he added, “Listen, Gloria, whatever you’ve done, whatever troubled you’re in, it’s okay. We’ll work it out. Just please answer me if you can hear this.”
He waited with anticipation, and for a moment, his intuition told him that Gloria’s voice was about to blare through the handheld, that she was alive, in hiding likely, perhaps from whatever Mexican drug lord she’d crossed who had now made the short journey to Garmella to exact his revenge. Maybe he was responsible for the day’s events, the one who had orchestrated the intoxication of the town and had somehow coerced Gloria into the plot.
“Sheriff?” It was Allie.
“Allie.” Ramon took a breath. “What...what do you got on your end?”
“We’re outside of Maria’s now, about to head in. What was that all about? With Gloria? Did you find something? What did you mean, ‘Whatever you’ve done?’”
Ramon paused, not sure how much to get into. He decided he drugs could be important, so he would reveal that much, wanting to get Allie’s opinion on his far-fetched theory. “I checked her house, Allie. Jesus, I still can’t believe what I saw.”
“What is it?”
“In a sentence: Gloria was cooking meth.”
“What!?”
“Yep. No question about it. The smell, the hot plates, the pots and filters, it’s all there. And she’s been living like a hoarder. A complete basket case. I think it was to cover up the smell maybe, all the trash and shit, but I really don’t know. I...I still can’t believe it.”
“Oh my God.” Allie’s words were a whisper on the other end of the radio. “I can’t believe it either. I wouldn’t have pegged Gloria for a drug dealer if I had a thousand years to guess it.”
“I know, me either. She’s wasn’t there though, which is good, I suppose.” Ramon paused. “Allie, I had a crazy thought.”
“No such thing today.”
“Do you think we were drugged?”
“Drugged? What do you mean? When?”
“Last night. Or this morning. I don’t know. But what if we were drugged somehow? What if what I saw up by the telescope, and what you and Maria saw at her house and Josh in his yard, what if none of it was real? What if it had to do with the meth and...whatever Gloria was in to.”
There were several beats of silence on the opposite end of the radio, and then the receiver came alive in the form of Allie chuckling. She settled her light laughter and said, “Listen, sheriff, I never made the leap to meth, thank god. Way too freaked out to ever try it. But—and I guess I shouldn’t be saying this to my boss right now, but job security’s not at the top of my concerns at the moment—I’ve taken enough drugs in my life to know that what I saw on that porch—and what you and Josh and Maria saw—that didn’t come from meth or acid or PCP. It was too isolated. Too specific. That was real, Sheriff. That shit happened.”
Ramon took a breath and closed his eyes, frowning. He accepted Allie’s experienced opinion on the matter, but he was also rattled by the significance of it. Intoxication was the only explanation he could imagine, so if the drugs weren’t responsible for what he had witnessed this morning, it meant the creatures were real. The murders were real. And Ramon’s view of the world was now changed forever. The world itself was changed, no matter what happened to them in the end.
“Sheriff, you there?”
“I’m here. I just had to throw it out there. My brain is like scrambled eggs right now.”
“Well, let me scramble them some more. I’ve got some news on this end too.”
“What is it?”
Ramon listened to Allie’s recital of her encounter with the Grieg monitors, about the van and the trio of auditors and her instruction for them to head back to the Brandt house. He was suspicious of their presence, as Allie was, but he couldn’t connect them to anything that was happening.
“Did you ask about a phone?”
“Yep. They don’t have one.” Allie paused. “There was something wrong though, Sheriff. Beyond them just being out on the road.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. They didn’t seem as worried as I would have thought they’d be. I mean, I told them there was something loose in the town murdering people, and that they were trapped here for the foreseeable future. And, oh by the way, everyone who lives here has decided either to barricade themselves in their homes for the rest of the day or has disappeared entirely. I don’t know, if that was me, I’d a had a few more questions and a little less blind compliance.”
Ramon let Allie’s concern resonate for a beat and then said, “Okay then, trust that instinct then. I don’t like the sound of it either. Any of it.” And then he added. “But, if those auditors are still alive, there might be others too. I think it’s time to start kicking in a few doors.”
“Well, I agree about the doors part anyway.”
Ramon paused, chilled by Allie’s words. “I hope you’re wrong, Allie, I really do. And I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high about that baby. Can’t be much chance he’s still alive.”
Ramon could hear Allie swallow on the opposite end of the receiver before she spoke. “I gotta keep hope alive, Sheriff. In something. What else if not that?”
“Fair enough, deputy. I hope you’re right.”
“I’ll let you know how it goes and call you back asap.”
Ramon frowned at the enormity of what Allie was preparing to see, of the deformed baby who was likely dead in its crib, either from starvation, its condition, or, more than likely, the black creatures who had invaded his town at some point during the night, bringing what appeared to be Garmella’s mass extinction.
And then there was Maria, the sister and daughter who had been left behind to deal with yet another death in her family.
“Be careful, Allie,” Ramon ordered with authority. “I want to hear from you in ten minutes. No more.”
“Roger that, Sheriff. Over and out.”
Ramon replaced the receiver and started up the cruiser immediately, and then he sped from Gloria’s house as if he were chasing down a Camaro on a desert interstate. In minutes, he was back in the center of town, ready to discover the true magnitude of Garmella’s desolation.
He parked the car diagonally in the middle of the street at the corner of Quarry Hill
and Oak, the informal hub of Garmella and the place that was as diverse as any in the town, made up of several blocks that contained a mix of private residences, businesses, and a pair of local government buildings—a small firehouse and a library.
Ramon stepped out quickly and stood in front of the cruiser, scanning the blocks in each direction, deciding which area to investigate first.
St. Patrick’s Catholic Church stood directly in front of him, a beautiful structure that had been renovated within the last ten years and was now one of the more modern buildings in Garmella. He considered starting his investigation there, but it was Thursday, and if the church had been empty, that wouldn’t have been unusual under even the most typical of weekdays.
Instead, Ramon decided to start with a brown and sienna rambler that sat atop a low hill which looked over Quarry Hill. Up until a month ago, the house had been rented by a young family who had since moved to Vegas, and a new retired couple now lived there, having moved in just a week or so earlier. Ramon had yet to meet them, but he decided there was as good a place as any to start.
He scaled the concrete staircase that led from the street to the property, taking the steps two at a time, and within seconds, Ramon was through the unlocked door and standing on the stone tile of the foyer.
As expected, the main area of the house was empty, but there was evidence that it had been abandoned in a hurry. A blanket hung from a couch cushion and draped halfway to the floor, and the television was on, though there was no reception coming through it, only a message informing the viewer that something had gone wrong with their cable reception and to try again later.
Ramon did a cursory check of the house, giving half the effort he had given at Gloria’s place, and then, finding nothing extraordinary, he exited and made his way back down to the street. He walked to the front of the locked gate that led to the grounds of St. Patrick’s church and gripped the bars like a prisoner, rattling them a few times in a test of their integrity before beginning his descent down Quarry Hill, his sights set now on the Baker residence about a hundred yards in the distance.
He passed the Market Café and the Garmella lodge beside it, both of which, at least based on Ramon’s view from the street, appeared as empty as St Patrick’s. Several cars were parked along the road, and, despite Ramon’s expectations to see stone-faced citizens sitting like statues in their respective drivers’ seats, they were empty as well, a few with their doors swung wide.
The last business on Quarry Hill, before the commercial zoning ended and the street became a long ascending row of residences, was KD’s Gas and Convenience, one of two fueling stations in Garmella proper. Ramon glanced toward the station casually, prepared to pass it without perusing, but he was instantly captivated by the brightly lit interior of the store, the fluorescence of the mart drawing him like a moth. Additionally, there was a late-model sedan parked along one side of the only pump at the station, so Ramon decided to alter his path toward the Baker house slightly and veer onto the property of the station as he went.
He walked first to the car at the pump and slowly put his face to the passenger’s side window, cupping his hands around his eyes. Empty.
He then set his sights on the interior of the store twenty yards to his left, and as he began his brisk walk toward the front of the market, he suddenly downshifted his gait to a slow walk and pulled his Glock, loading the chamber. Ramon hadn’t seen anything specific that called for the firearm, but something about the glow of the store, the flicker of the lights inside, indicated life, action.
He pulled open the door with his free hand and waited, and when nothing appeared in his sight line, he stepped inside, stopping on the welcome mat as the door closed automatically behind him.
Ramon took stock of the food along the cashier’s counter and in each of the four or five rows that lined the tiny store, as well as in what appeared to be a functioning refrigerator along the back wall. He doubted he and his group would be stuck in Garmella long enough to die of starvation—it was far more likely they would be killed by the creatures, or perhaps by whatever thing had brought them there in the first place—but his instincts noted the food anyway.
Ramon moved around to the cashier’s side of the counter and stooped down, and then he pulled a small shotgun from a makeshift shelf that had been installed thigh-high to the cashier. He scanned the remaining area of the cubicle for any more weaponry and then placed the shotgun on the counter and stepped back into the customer area of the store.
He moved past the coffee maker that anchored the market and then pushed through the swinging door that led to the storeroom. The dim space at the rear of the store was empty except for several stacks of empty milk crates and cardboard boxes, but the back door that led to the outside was open, and Ramon could see what looked to be a white delivery truck parked along the rear exterior wall.
“Hello,” he called, walking slowly through the back of the store toward the open door.
Ramon stepped just outside so that he was now facing the side of the truck, which was only a few steps in front of him. He leaned to his right, trying to get a peek inside the cab, but, having no clear view, he decided to head in the other direction, moving cautiously around to the truck’s rear cargo hold.
He reached the back of the truck and saw the roll-up door to the vehicle open about a quarter of the way. At the base of the elevating tailgate, which had been lowered all the way to the street, was a dolly stacked to the height of the handles with cardboard boxes. Ramon moved in closer to the dark gap between the truck’s roll door and the rail at the base of the bed, and then he stooped down, trying to get a view of what was happening inside the cargo space.
Too dark.
“This is probably a bad idea,” Ramon said aloud, and then he holstered his gun and placed his palms on the bottom of the door, fingers pointed back toward him as if he were power lifting a barbell. He then shoved upward, driving with his legs and shoulders, heaving the door up as if he were helping to push a sofa over the railing of a second-story deck.
The roll-up door clattered open to about three-quarters, and Ramon immediately stepped back and pulled his sidearm free, aiming it at the center of the truck’s cargo space. But the body of the truck was empty save for a few boxes stacked near the refrigeration unit at the back of the space nearest the cab.
Ramon set the gun on the surface of the dolly’s top box and placed his foot on the bumper. He then grabbed the side rail of the truck and climbed up into the cargo space and walked back to the remaining arrangement of undelivered boxes. He cracked the seal on the first cardboard container, and inside he found a variety of dairy items, butter and margarine, cream and non-dairy creamer. Beside that box was a white container holding a case of dozen-packaged eggs, the contents of which had been written in red on the outside of the box.
Ramon turned back to the open door of the truck again, trying to piece together what had happened in this scene exactly. There were items still undelivered, and the driver, based on the full dolly parked by the truck, was clearly in the process of bringing in another round of supplies. But where was he? If he had been killed, where was the body?
Then again, Ramon thought, where was anybody?
If everyone in the town was dead, which was the hypothesis toward which his mind was steadily heading, then the streets and homes should have been littered with corpses, similar to those of Luke and Randy and their father at the Carson residence. As of now, however, those were the only bodies that that had been left behind, not including Riley Tackard’s, who Ramon suspected would have disappeared as well if he hadn’t been at the scene at the time of his death.
Ramon turned back to study the contents of the remaining boxes, opening two more quickly, noting they were full of more perishable items—yogurt, cream cheese, individual servings of milk—nothing that was going to last long if they were stranded for any length of time, especially if and when the power decided to go.
He pulled the two open boxes fr
om the top of the stacks and placed them on the truck floor, and then he gripped the sealed flap of the next box in the left stack and wedged his fingers between the small opening, preparing to rip it open. But before he began the tug of his hand, the lightest of sounds drifted into the truck, hovering just barely in the air before fading to silence.
On any other day, Ramon would have dismissed the noise, irrelevant shouts from a ballgame in the park, or the call of a bird in season. But today was different, obviously, and Ramon focused on the noise, keeping his eyes to the floor in concentration as the sound rang through the truck again. It was the voice of a human—there was little doubt about that—and it sounded distressed.
Ramon stood tall and turned back to the open cargo door, taking a step toward the opening to move closer to the voice, to find the general direction of where the sound had originated.
“Hey!”
Ramon heard the word clearly now, and he remained like a pillar in the body of the truck as he stared and listened, not wanting the footfalls on the aluminum floor to drown out the call if it came again. He gazed off to the area where he suspected the call had originated, in the direction of the low, stone retaining wall that ran along Palmetto Street perhaps a hundred yards in the distance.
Ramon squinted and cupped his hands around his eyes, staring toward Palmetto like a sailor searching for land, but as his gaze moved along the deserted crumbling road toward the wall, his eyes stopped and froze on a chocolate-brown dumpster sitting in the foreground about halfway between the box truck and the wall.
And he saw it again.
The fuzzy shadow of absolute blackness from the forest appeared beside the receptacle as if materializing from the dust below. It stood tall and malformed, a barely human-like figure that was both thin and hulking, and as it stepped forward, separating itself from the camouflage of the dumpster, Ramon could sense only evil and malevolence in its shape.
“Fuck me,” Ramon whispered. “Oh, my Jesus.”
Ramon held his breath, stunned for the moment but for his eyelids, which were shuttering up and down in a steady tempo, a reflex brought on by the hope that the continual visual interference would protect him from the creature’s lure, its ability to mesmerize.
They Came With the Rain Page 17
