The Rain Dancers

by Greg F. Gifune

  At that moment I didn’t care if he was really hurt or if this was just more of his dramatics. I slammed shut the door, locked it, and then hurried upstairs to check on Betty.

  I crossed the den and fell up the stairs, crawling on all fours before righting myself and scrambling up through the shadows and darkness at the landing on the second floor. As always, I felt like the intruder here. I’d spent as little time as possible in this house, and nearly all of it downstairs. All these years later I still felt like I was going places I didn’t belong, the boyfriend venturing deep into the house to find the daughter’s bedroom while the parents slept.

  At the far end of the dark hallway was a bathroom, the door open. Earl’s old bedroom was to my right, Betty’s to my left. Both doors were closed, but a small band of soft light leaked from the crack at the bottom of Betty’s door. I remembered the first time I’d come this far, standing in my girlfriend’s bedroom, so taken with her and so deeply in love, but more focused on the window overlooking the road, watching nervously for Earl’s pickup to come rumbling along in a cloud of dirt and dust.

  I moved forward until I’d reached the door. Hesitating a moment, I leaned closer and listened. All I could hear was the storm.

  With a turn of the knob I slowly pushed the door open.

  “Sweetheart?” My voice was raspy and uncertain.

  Betty stood alone in the empty room. Her closet door was open and a light bulb suspended from a cord had been switched on, offering enough light to reveal three floorboards had been removed from the floor of the closet.

  The clothes she’d been wearing sat in a heap several feet away. Although barefoot, she’d changed into a little plaid skirt and a white top I’d never seen before, some sort of pseudo schoolgirl’s uniform that was far too small for her. Both were badly wrinkled and looked quite old. The blouse was so tight several seams had already split and torn, but Betty seemed unaware of it. She’d put her hair in pigtails, and smeared bright red lipstick in wide frantic swathes far beyond her lips, giving her mouth a clown-like appearance. In her hand she still held a gold tube of lipstick. She looked at me as if she were confused to find me there just then, like I’d come to her from some other place and time, which I suppose I had in a sense. I stood trembling in the doorway, my heart breaking.

  “Betty?”

  She nodded but her eyes were somewhere else, somewhere dark and foreign, hiding the real her somewhere safe, somewhere far away from this old room in this dark little house, with all its nightmares and secrets.

  “Christ,” I gasped helplessly. “Baby, what are you doing?”

  Betty moved to the window and looked out at the night.

  “Laurent’s gone,” I told her. “I threw him out.”

  If she heard me she gave no indication. Instead, she reached out with her free hand and gently brushed her fingertips against the pane, as if to touch the night itself. “He used to dance in the rain,” she said softly. “I’d see him out there dancing and being so silly, and I’d laugh.” She turned, looked back at me, her eyes moist and red. “And then he’d come inside and I wouldn’t laugh anymore.”

  I thought for a moment my knees might buckle, so I steadied myself against the doorframe as my wife and her old bedroom blurred through the tears filling my eyes. Tears not so different from hers, really. Tears born of horror, heartbreak and rage. Hatred welled in me and I wanted to destroy something, anything, to completely annihilate it. Him.

  I wiped my eyes, crossed the room and looked more closely at the floor of the closet. In the cramped area beneath the floorboards she’d removed there was something more than the old clothes and lipstick she’d found. I crouched down and picked up a small manila envelope. Several old Polaroid photographs were stacked neatly inside. I dropped it without looking at them, rose to my feet and pulled Betty into my arms, holding her tight against me and whispering everything would be all right. She stood there in my embrace, lifeless, cold and silent. Over her shoulder, I looked out the window through the rain at the front walkway below. Laurent was still lying there, motionless.

  I don’t know how long we stood in Betty’s old bedroom on that hellish night, but it was a long time. Neither of us said anything, we just held each other and softly cried awhile. And when it seemed we’d expended every bit of emotion we had, shed every tear within us, she gently broke away from me and wandered back to the window. I joined her there. Laurent still hadn’t moved. Maybe he was hurt. Maybe he was dead. I didn’t care either way. But Betty wasn’t even looking at him. She was watching the night, studying something else, another time and night only she could see. I put a hand on her shoulder, kissed her on the cheek and told her I loved her.

  Her hand touched mine. Warm, familiar. “Love you too,” she said, her voice barely audible. She was still somewhere else, though, somewhere far away, and I could tell from the dead look in her eyes that we were anything but done with this nightmare.

  As rain crashed the house, I left her there at the window, returned to the downstairs, and once in the kitchen, pulled my cell free of my belt and got a phone number for Ed Hamilton.

  The line began to ring. I watched Laurent through the glass in the door, my anger slowly dissipating, replaced now with emptiness and the need for resolution.

  An older man answered on the third ring.

  I asked for Davey, my voice still a bit shaky.

  Without reply, I heard the phone being placed down on something hard. A moment later another voice said, “Hello?”

  “Davey Hamilton?”

  “Yes, this is David Hamilton.”

  I cleared my throat and tried to focus my thoughts into something coherent. “Hi, you don’t know me, but my name is Will Colby. I’m Betty Monroe’s husband.”

  After a few seconds listening to him breathe he said, “Betty Monroe.” He spoke her name fondly, but with a trace of disbelief. “I…God, I…I was so sorry to hear about what happened.”

  “I’m sure she’d appreciate that, thank you, but as you know, I’m in town cleaning out Earl’s place and—”

  “I didn’t know that, actually. Just got back to town recently myself.”

  “You didn’t know I was in town?” I asked.

  “Is there some reason I should have?”

  “Bob said your father told you both we were in town after he saw me at the store.”

  “Bob?”

  “Bob Laurent.”

  Silence filled the line for several seconds.

  “Who is this?” he asked, his previously pleasant tone replaced with one far more aggressive. “Answer me, who the hell is this?”

  “I’m Will Colby, Betty’s husband. Bob Laurent came here earlier and—”

  “OK, if this is someone’s attempt at a sick joke or something, I’m not—”

  “It’s not a joke, Davey.”

  “David. No one’s called me Davey since I was a kid.”

  “David then, I’m sorry. This is very difficult for me too, all right? I’m doing my best to explain that Laurent is still here and I think he may be hurt. Now I know he was visiting you and your parents earlier today and that they’re friends with him, so I thought I’d give you the chance to come and get him the hell out of here. If not, I’ll call the cops and have him removed. Up to you.”

  He breathed heavily into the phone, and when he spoke his voice had begun to shake as well. “We both know Bob Laurent was not here earlier and he’s not there now. Now what the hell do you want and what is this all about?”

  “I’m telling you, he’s here. I’m looking at him right now. He fell on the walkway and he could be hurt. He hasn’t moved in several minutes and—”

  “If someone there is injured I suggest you call an ambulance.”

  “Laurent came here and—”

  “What is this? Why are you calling me? If you’re really Betty’s husband then why would you be calling me with this?”

  I was gripping the phone so tight it was beginning to hurt my hand. “I thought..
.I was hoping you could help me.”

  “Help you how?”

  “Are you going to come get Laurent out of here or do I call the cops?”

  “OK, listen to me very carefully. Will, was it? Listen to me very carefully, Will. If someone’s been there tonight it wasn’t Bob Laurent. If he claims that’s who he is, he’s lying to you, understand? And if he said he was visiting my parents or me earlier today he’s lying about that too. So yes, call the police and have him removed from the property, because while I have no idea what you’re talking about or what any of this has to do with me, I do know one thing for sure. Whoever it is that’s there with you is not Bob Laurent. Do you hear me? It is not Bob Laurent.”

  “And why are you so sure of that?” I asked.

  “Because Bob Laurent has been dead and buried for years.”

  6

  Some things are not supposed to be understood. Some sins are not supposed to be forgiven. Some things that are stolen can never be reclaimed, and some nightmares are never truly over.

  And so, we sleep. We sleep and forget and dream of other things, other times, other people and places. We dream of happiness and love and safety, and if we’re lucky we find joy in those things and do our best to never wander back to those dark and dangerous woods where truth still lingers, biding its time like a spider patiently waiting at the edge of its web, watching impassively as its prey becomes trapped.

  It is then that we realize the spider is not gone. It never truly was. It’s been there all along. And now, there is only one resolution.

  Either the spider dies…or we do.

  Bathed in the tears of the innocent, I gently stroked the scarred and bruised flesh circling Betty’s neck, traced it lovingly with my fingers, and remembered what it was like to hold her close once more.

  * * *

  I began to pace over near the sink. From the corner of my eye I saw the outside light come on in the backyard again but paid little attention. I was more concerned about my racing heart and an odd tingling sensation that was making its way across my chest and into the pit of my stomach. Not so very long ago Betty and I had been going about our business, living our lives and leaving the past behind us. And now that wasn’t even an option anymore. I wondered if it ever truly had been. My suspicions that the man claiming to be Bob Laurent was actually someone else had apparently been substantiated, but the question that remained was exactly who this man was and why was he pretending to be this monster from Betty’s past.

  “You’re sure about this?” I asked.

  “Laurent disappeared twenty-five years ago,” David said, his tone indicating perhaps he’d said more than he’d meant to. “The body was never found.”

  “Then how do you know he’s dead? If he simply vanished then—”

  “He’s dead.”

  “How do you know for sure if they never found a body?” I ran a hand through my hair. It came back slick with perspiration. “And how could Betty not know about any of this? Twenty-six years ago she was seventeen years old and still living here, in this house, with her father. That must’ve been big news in these parts, disappearances can’t happen often in this town. And if Earl and Laurent were such good friends then Earl knew about it and surely Betty did. How could she not? For that matter, how could I not know? Wouldn’t Earl or Betty have mentioned this to me before? None of this makes any sense.”

  “She did know. We all did.”

  “Then why didn’t she tell me anything about this?”

  “I can’t answer that. I’m sorry.”

  “She didn’t remember him. She claimed she didn’t anyway, it—it’s… complicated.”

  “I know,” he said softly. “Trust me, I know.” A match-strike echoed through the line, followed by a quick intake of breath and a slow exhale. “Tell me what he looks like.”

  “Seventies, tall and lanky. Bright blue eyes.”

  “It’s not possible,” he muttered. “It’s not—not possible.”

  Bile leapt from my stomach and gurgled into the bottom of my throat, acidic and nauseating. I reached for the edge of the counter and held on tight. “It’s him. Isn’t it.”

  “Bob Laurent is dead.”

  “Then who is he? How did he know you were back in town? How did he know Betty was? How did he know about Earl and Betty’s past? He even knew things about me, my family. At Earl’s funeral Sharon Lodge warned me about this, about him. About the rain, how it would bring him back.”

  I heard David drawing on his cigarette again. “He used to dance in the rain,” he said, as if reciting some old poem. “We used to watch him.”

  “And you’d laugh,” I said, trembling. “And then he’d come inside.”

  “And we wouldn’t laugh anymore.”

  “What’s happening, David?”

  “God help you.”

  “Tell me, David. Who is he? What is he?”

  “A bad dream,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry, I have to go. I always loved Betty, please know that, and part of me always will. I know you’ve been through hell, and I wish you the best, but please, don’t call here again. I can’t do this. Leave me alone. Just…please…just leave me alone.”

  A blur of motion caught my eye and I turned to find Betty standing in the doorway to the kitchen, still dressed in that hideous outfit, her mouth still covered in bright red lipstick and her cheeks streaked with remnants of tears. She said nothing, only held a hand out for my phone.

  Reluctantly, I gave it to her.

  She pressed the cell to her ear but said nothing. She listened a moment then disconnected the call and placed my cell on the counter. “It wasn’t just me.” Her voice was small and weak, like it required great effort to draw the breath necessary to speak. “The others were a part of it too.”

  “A part of what?”

  “The day he was killed and buried, I buried him too. Here,” she said, pointing to her temple. “He was dead and gone and we all moved on with our lives as best we could.”

  “David said Laurent disappeared.”

  “He did.”

  “Then how do you know he’s dead? Who killed and buried him, Betty?”

  “It was the first time we’d all been together again,” she said, like she hadn’t heard me. “Us…him…the rain.”

  People come and go. Live. Die.

  “The rain? I don’t understand.”

  “He worked outside. He didn’t work when it rained.”

  But the evil they do…it just is.

  “He died in the rain. Now he’s back.”

  “The dead don’t come back, Betty.”

  Sometimes it hides, waits awhile, but it’s always there. Watching.

  “Not him. It.”

  “It?”

  “The evil inside him.”

  It never leaves a place, never leaves us.

  “But if Laurent’s dead then…”

  Something that’s not alive don’t die, it can’t. Not ever.

  “I thought I was finally free of it,” she said, looking to the floor. “But it wouldn’t let me go, it—it wouldn’t let me go. I couldn’t fight it anymore.”

  The light out back went off then quickly came back on. Betty saw it and her face contorted into a grimace of fear and sorrow as tears again filled her eyes and spilled free. She backed away from the window over the sink, hugging herself and slowly shaking her head back and forth.

  “What’s out there?” I asked, turning to the window. “What is it, Betty? Who is it? What did you and Davey and the others do?”

  I looked out but saw only rain and the powerful floodlight illuminating part of the yard. Turning, I ran back to the door to find Laurent. I wanted answers and he was going to give them to me. If not I’d beat them out of him, but I was going to get them one way or another.

  Even before I’d pushed my way through the storm door and out into the rain I saw that he was no longer lying in the walkway. Laurent had finally gotten up, but he was nowhere in sight. All that was left behind was his suitca
se, which now lay open and discarded to the right of the walkway.

  As the violent rain crashed down on me, cold and hard, I closed on the suitcase then crouched down for a better look. It was empty but for an old rag smeared with swathes of a white paste-like substance and an open jar which lay on its side. I scooped up the jar and spun it in my hand until a label came into view that read: White Base Greasepaint.

  I looked behind me. Betty stood in the door, watching me like a zombie.

  Standing, I grabbed the suitcase and hurled it out into the road then made my way through the heavy rain to the side of the house. The backyard had fallen dark again, and there was no sign of Laurent anywhere.

  Soaked, I ran back for the front door, slipped inside then closed and locked both doors behind me. As I stood dripping on the floor, I held up the jar to show Betty. She nodded and took a step back, as if I’d thrust a burning torch at her, then brought her hands to her face and slowly rubbed her fingertips against her cheeks like she was putting the paint on herself.

  “He wore this?” I asked. “Why?”

  “At first to make us laugh,” she answered. “Then to make us cry.”

  “Jesus Christ.” I tossed the jar onto the table. “You defended him—all that harmless old man nonsense—you sided with him over me, protected him. Why? And how could you go our entire lives together without telling me about any of this? Why didn’t you tell me what had happened? I don’t—Betty—I don’t understand. Help me. Help me to understand.”

  “It’s not about me anymore. It’s about you now.” She bowed her head and shut her eyes, as if in prayer. “You tell yourself they’re only bad dreams,” she said, just above a whisper. “I told myself it was in the past and none of it happened—not really—that it was all nightmares and false memories, because none of it could be real. Even though deep down I know the truth—and now, so do you—we bury it, we fight it and push it so far down and tell ourselves every day to forget, that it’s all a lie. And eventually, we start to believe it, and that becomes the reality. We survive and we move on and we find a new life, we make a fresh start and a new history with someone who loves us. We make a life where none of those old nightmares and horrors matter, and we forget.” She opened her eyes and looked right at me. “We forget because that’s what we want, what we need. And while the pain and fear never completely leaves us, while what was taken from us is something we can never get back, what was broken can never be fixed, we hold on tight and we live our lives as if none of it ever happened. Because if we stop to remember, if we stop to look, we will see, and then it comes to life again and everything we’ve built comes toppling down like a house of cards.”