Secrets of the Storm (The Rain Triptych)

by Brad Munson

  There was a shoe box inside it that she didn’t want to open, but now was the time. She’d put it here because she didn’t want Kerianne to stumble on it, or even to know it was there. She never even wanted to touch the goddamn thing. But now …

  She kicked backwards against whatever was plucking at her calves. She heard it thrashing in the water as she ripped open the shoe box, hands above her head, put a hand inside.

  The pistol was hard and cold against her fingers. She gripped it, harder than she had to, then dragged it down and around in a panic-stricken, jittery spin.

  Allison had picked up the pistol at Kelso’s Armament and Security Systems the week she’d arrived in Dos Hermanos, as protection from her ex. Not that she could actually stop him if he showed up to hurt her like he had before, or if he tried to get to Kerianne, but it made her feel better. She’d slept with it under her pillow for her first year, then locked in the side table for another year, but now that Kerianne was older and could go anywhere, she’d put it in the high cabinet and almost forgotten about it … until now.

  Now.

  The thing in the water flailed at her and she shot at it. Three times. She knew there were seven bullets in the gun – that much she remembered – and she was going to keep track.

  Part of the creature in the water broke off, flew away and whacked against the far wall. Allison struggled to the side and back, cutting the distance to the staircase in half.

  Lightning slashed just outside her window and a new wave of water gushed through the open door. She jumped in surprise and a fragment of the creature she couldn’t quite see surged out of the water. She fire again. Twice. More piece flew off and it spun back into the water, thrashing in what she hoped was pain.

  Then she was at the staircase, backing up to the second floor one step at a time. She had no idea what the thing in the water was. She’d never been able to see it clearly. She didn’t even know if it would be able to survive in the open air. For all she knew it could even climb stairs.

  She didn’t care. It didn’t matter. She had to get to Kerianne.

  She kept the gun in front of her, pointed at the bubbling, roiling water, as she moved up and up, towards the safety of the second floor.

  Nothing followed. Nothing moved. Her thoughts were streaming so fast she almost felt dizzy.

  The sewing machine was still downstairs. It looked like the water was still rising. She’d already lost thousands, lost all her current orders, probably lost her records. Where was her laptop? What would she do? How could she where would she when would she –

  “Stop,” she ordered herself. “Just stop.”

  She paused at the top of the stairs, still staring into the water below. It was rising. She had no idea how long she’d have. And …

  And …

  And there was a straight liberation blossoming in Allison. A huge weight was lifting from her shoulders. The world had made things so complicated for her. Things had gotten so heavy, so desperate. Work every day. Worry every night. Collapse into bed and do it again, and again, and again, to the point where she missed her daughter’s big events, where she didn’t even know how she spent her time. It was … it was so hard.

  And now it was over. Now they would have to start again. She had turned out to be a good businesswoman; they had some money in savings and her insurance was paid up and it would be okay. Even if the worst happened, it would be okay, if …

  If.

  She pushed open the door at the top of the stairs with one last look at the churning water below. Nothing was coming for her. A moment later she was slamming and locking the bedroom door behind her, well aware of how silly that was and how good it felt despite the silliness.

  “Jesus,” she said to herself. “Jesus Christ.”

  It was all over. This was it. In five minutes’ time, the world had changed. The store was gone, the customers were gone. And she had a strong feeling Dos Hermanos was gone as well. Forever.

  But none of it mattered. She was still alive. That thing at the bottom of the stairs hadn’t gotten her, and she had three bullets left.

  That was all that mattered. That … and Kerianne.

  Allison made herself stand up straight, and took a good, thorough inventory of her room.

  She had to get out of there. She had to get to Kerianne.

  They had to get the hell out of Dos Hermanos. Now.

  Twenty-one

  Katie nearly laughed out loud when she kicked the wall just right and knocked over her desk. She didn’t even mind hitting the dirty linoleum floor on one shoulder when the chains pulled her down.

  But Little Jennifer didn’t like it at all. “What are you doing now?” she hissed from the back of the room. “When TEACHER sees you trying to get away again, we’ll all get killed!”

  We’re dead already, Katie told herself, but she didn’t say it out loud. It would just start another fight with Little Jennifer and scare poor Megan even more, and she didn’t want that. Not right now.

  Instead she just pumped her legs and hitched her shoulders like a big earthworm, shoving her way across the floor towards her target. She dragged the desk with her, a big screeching anchor.

  There was a cracked and filthy mirror leaning up against the cinderblock in one corner of the room. She’d noticed it just a few minutes before, and it had given her an idea. So she’d knocked herself to the ground, and now she was humping and shifting. She was almost there …

  “I’m going to tell TEACHER this was all your idea,” Little Jennifer said. “You are going to be in SO much trouble!”

  “Fine. So why don’t you just shut up until then?”

  Little Jennifer’s fat cheeks blew up like balloons. Nobody ever talked to her like that. If they tried, she would just beat the crap out of them. “Wha– wha– I can talk if I want to!”

  One last hump and Katie was there. Her dirty sneaker was right in front of the mirror.

  “Well, I don’t have to listen,” she said. On listen, she kicked the face of the mirror as hard as she could with the heel of her shoe.

  It did exactly what she wanted. The crack split wide open and the whole mirror – a tall, thin one like you’d hang on the back of a door – tilted forward and slammed face-first against the ground. The sound of it breaking was like a scream to her.

  She heard the chains around Megan’s wrists rattle as she put her hands over her ears. “Stop it!” the timid little girl wailed, crying again. “Stop making all that noise!”

  Katie hitched around until her hands could reach the overturned mirror. She pushed at the edge and found exactly what she had hoped for right underneath: three long, wickedly sharp triangles of broken mirror, still stuck into the cheap metal frame. She plucked at them carefully, trying not to get cut, until all three were loose. The she turned and kicked again, dragging the desk in lurches and hops back to where Megan was sitting.

  “Leave me alone,” Megan whispered as she approached. “Please.”

  Katie held up one shard of glass. “Take it,” she said.

  Megan whipped her head back and forth. Dank, dirty wings of hair waggled in her face. “No! No!”

  “Take it!” Katie snapped, and the sheer force of her voice made Megan obey. The terrified girl snatched the piece of glass out of Katie’s hand and hid it in her lap, bending over it and sobbing.

  “Now you listen to me,” Katie said. “If TEACHER comes near you, even close to near you, use that. It’s like a knife! Cut with it. That’s the only way we’re going to ever get out of here.”

  “God, you are so stupid!” Little Jennifer shouted. “You think a little kid can kill a grown-up just like that?”

  “If you have to, yes,” Katie said, scooting around and knocking desks out of the way as she pushed back towards the front of the room. “We can work together. All we have to do is knock TEACHER out and–”

  “But we’ll still be locked up, stupid!”

  “LISTEN TO ME!” Katie shouted. She couldn’t stand this fat littl
e creep. At that moment, she wanted to kill Little Jennifer first, and worry about her kidnapper later. “TEACHER must have the keys. In that big coat, or in a pocket or on a chain – somewhere. If we can find them, we can get free. We just need to work together.”

  She thrust the second shard of mirror up towards Little Jennifer’s hand. It was long and curved, like a huge fingernail or a bird’s claw.

  “No. It’ll just get us into trouble.” She was a stubborn as a wad of gum you couldn’t get off your shoe.

  Katie’s eyes narrowed. “Trouble?” she said. “Trouble? What do you think is going to happen to us, Jennifer? You think we’re just going to go free? When TEACHER is finished with … with whatever the plan is … we’ll be killed. Dead. Or maybe worse, we’ll just get left here to starve, chained to these stupid … ugly … DESKS!” She struggled madly against her chains, making them rattle and ring against the metal legs and scarred wood. She hated them. Hated them.

  She thrust her hands up and slapped the mirror-knife onto Jennifer’s desktop. “Just take it. You know I’m right. You’re just too stubborn to admit it.” She squirmed around and started the long drag back to the front of the room.

  “I’m not going to do anything,” Little Jennifer muttered under her breath.

  “Fine,” Katie said. “Then die, I don’t care.”

  She was about to lever her desk into place, right back where she started, when the chains started rattling in the door. A moment later TEACHER bustled in, wearing the same black coat as always, all bright smiles and rubbing hands. There was a strange gurgling sound that came in, too, and a wave of water almost six inches high.

  “Such a busy time!” TEACHER said, almost bouncing with enthusiasm. “Things are just falling apart up there, children! Rats in the walls, monsters in the hallways. You have no idea how lucky you are to be here!”

  “Eww,” Little Jennifer said. “Where did that water come from?”

  TEACHER just laughed and laughed. “Oh, everywhere, Little Jennifer! Every–” The jovial expression suddenly froze. “Katie,” TEACHER said. “What are you doing on the ground?”

  “I fell,” she said shortly, hiding her makeshift weapon in the palm of one hand. She prayed that TEACHER would not notice the overturned, broken mirror across the room.

  The kidnapper’s head shook. Katie had become such a disappointment. “You were trying to get free again, weren’t you? You really have to stop that.” TEACHER reached down to grasp the desk firmly and pulled it upright with surprising strength.

  As the chair settled under her, just as TEACHER was turning away, Katie lashed out with all her strength and slashed at the kidnapper’s chest.

  But she had moved just a little too soon, a little too fast. TEACHER saw it coming and pulled back suddenly, turned at the last moment. The glass knife connected, but not where Katie had hoped: it just dug a deep furrow in an exposed forearm.

  Blood sprayed in a thin mist and TEACHER bellowed and reared back, surprised and hurt.

  “WHAT THE FUCK …?” TEACHER stared at the new wound, gaping as if such a thing wasn’t even possible. “How did you …” The kidnapper backed away from Katie, shocked and astonished. Moving unconsciously towards the other end of the long, narrow room.

  “You … you cut me,” TEACHER said. “You bitch. How am I going to explain this to the others?”

  Katie tore her eyes away, looking past TEACHER at Little Jennifer. The fat and scowling little girl was close behind the kidnapper now. She had the curved claw of glass in her hand, squeezing it so tightly that Katie was sure it was cutting her palm. She glanced nervously at Katie, then back at TEACHER. She half-raised the mirror-knife.

  Do it! Katie shouted, but only in her mind. Do it, DO IT!

  Somehow Little Jennifer must have heard. In one impulsive gesture, she lifted the shard as high as her chains would allow and drove it into the back of the black pea coat, as deep as she could. TEACHER bellowed even louder and fell back, then forward, grabbing for a desk to keep from falling.

  “NO!” the kidnapper said, staying upright in spite of everything. “No! You can’t! I won’t let you …”

  A hand went into the pea coat’s pocket and came out with the stubby little taser box. Katie felt a chill of dread ripple through her. The taser went SNAP! as an arc of blue-white electricity jumped between the studs.

  “I’ll kill you,” TEACHER said. “Kill you for breaking the rules again!” TEACHER lunged for her, the box high and humming, and Katie squeezed her eyes shut, braced herself for its ripping shock …

  … but it didn’t come.

  Katie waited. And waited some more. And finally, more terrified than ever, she opened her eyes.

  TEACHER was towering over her, trembling like a tree in the wind … and smiling.

  “No,” the kidnapper said, wiping away spittle with bloody, trembling fingers. “Not you, little hero. That wouldn’t hurt nearly enough.”

  TEACHER lurched to one side, shoving through desks and debris, and held the taser up in front of Megan Katz’s face.

  “Remember,” the kidnapper said to her. “This is Katie’s fault.”

  The studs of the taser rammed against the side of the little girl’s neck and went ZZAP! Megan choked out a scream and fell to the floor.

  “Nobody breaks the rules,” TEACHER said with great satisfaction. The taser ducked lower, to the prone little girl who was still twitching from the first shock, and dug into the soft skin of her neck. “Ever.”

  It went ZZAP! again, and Megan’s body twitched like a frog-leg. One foot kicked out, hit an empty chair and sent it flying halfway across the room.

  “NEVER!” TEACHER said and pulled the trigger again: ZZAP!

  “NEVER!” ZZAP!

  “NEVER!” ZZAP! ZZAP! ZZAP!

  When it was finally over, Megan’s limp black hair was spread over her face like a veil. The tips were actually smoking.

  TEACHER turned to Katie Greenaway, wearing an expression that was scarcely human: eyes glittering like agates, a mouth spread far too wide showing an impossible number of teeth. A thin line of blood trickled down TEACHER’s chin from where the tongue had been bitten.

  “Now,” TEACHER said quietly. “You see what you made me do?”

  Katie barely noticed the kidnapper leaving. She couldn’t stop staring at Megan’s body. The little girl’s dead black eyes were staring back.

  It was a long time before she noticed that the water that had rolled into the room with TEACHER’s arrival hadn’t drained away. In fact, more of it was bubbling in under the door. The room was actually filling up. It was already three inches deep, and starting to lap like lake-water against Megan’s motionless corpse.

  Up there, TEACHER had said. Things were going crazy … up there.

  They were underground, Katie realized. TEACHER had let that much slip: they were in some kind of basement, and it was still raining, and the whole room was starting to fill up like a bathtub.

  She remembered the Bible stories her mom read to her at night. She remembered how some of them talked about Hell, and where it was, and she understood now:

  Hell was a place far underground.

  Twenty-two

  Douglas Pratt was about to have a stroke. “You’re coming back on Monday!” he shouted, red-faced, at the last of the parents who had come to collect their sons and daughters. “There’s no vacation! This isn’t over! You’re coming back on Monday or you all fail!”

  Pratt and the last of the teachers stood in the covered walkway outside the Cafetorium, bundled up against the maelstrom. Most of the parents had said they were going home to eat and pack what they could, but they’d be back by six for the caravan.

  Pratt was unwilling to accept this. The storm would be ending within hours. The caravan was unnecessary. Come for the child care, sure, sure, but school is not out.

  James Barrymore was beginning to worry about his administrator’s sanity. More than usual, that is.

  He was equally worried abou
t David Drucker. Their upper division English teacher was usually easy-going, even uncaring. The picture of the who-gives-a-shit, phone-it-in high school teacher. But today had been different. He’d been dark and angry since early morning, when it was clear that Carole Ann Johnson wasn’t going to make it. Since noon it had gotten even worse.

  Barrymore could see the cracks around his entirely artificial smile as he waved the last of the parents off with a cheerful, hollow, “See you at six!” But the instant the last of the cars had pulled away, David Drucker spun on his heel and confronted the principal.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” he said, almost nose to nose with the smaller man. “They’re not coming back on Monday! They’re not coming back at all, until this goddamn rain is finished! And maybe not even then!”

  “Especially after the way you treated them,” Trini said, her impressively muscular arms folded under his ample breasts. “You scared them to death, Mr. Pratt!”

  “Jesus Christ,” Pratt said, looking like he wanted to spit. “It’s just a little fucking rain! Haven’t you ever been wet before?”

  “Could you curb the language, please?” Elli said. “You’re completely out of control.” The wiry little history teacher looked frightened and freezing; she was wearing three layers of sweaters and an incongruous pair of opera gloves she’d found somewhere, strictly for warmth.

  “I’m not putting up with this shit anymore,” Drucker said, almost as angry as Pratt. “You want to fire me, fire me, but we are not bringing those children back here until it’s safe.”

  “Fine!” Pratt shot back.

  For one instant, Drucker thought he had won. He looked astonished. “Oh,” he said, stunned by his easy victory. “Good, then we–”