Black Rain

by William R Hunt

  Kay found a roll of paper towels and cleaned Al’s vomit off the floor. After throwing the mess away, she soaped her hands and ran them under the faucet.

  “Wouldn’t do that,” Pete said.

  “Do what?”

  “Run the faucet. Any idea where that water comes from?”

  Kay thought for a moment. “A reservoir.”

  “Bingo. But is it a covered reservoir or an open one?”

  “What does that matter?” Nigel asked.

  Pete snorted derisively. “Because, genius, there’s radioactive ash falling for miles in every direction. Whatever water it hits—”

  “Will be contaminated,” Nigel finished.

  “Bingo. Give the man an award.”

  Kay picked up one of the jugs of water and studied it against the light, watching the bubbles detach from the side and rise to the surface. “So why do we have all this bottled water, then?”

  “My idea,” Pete said. “Most of that water was already in the pipes, so it’ll be safe. From now on, though, we should assume the rest of the water is contaminated. That means no more washing our hands and no more showers.”

  “I sure hope we can still flush the toilet,” Kay said patronizingly.

  Pete did not seem to notice her tone. “Of course. Just don’t touch the water.”

  Kay glanced at Nigel and rolled her eyes. He drifted toward her, the skin between his eyebrows wrinkled in a frown.

  “What’s wrong?” Kay asked.

  “Ada. She needs me. When I close my eyes...I hear her voice, calling me. She’s scared, Kay. She needs her father.”

  Kay nodded, recalling the day she had seen Ada at Luna’s soccer practice. The girl had had her father’s solemn eyes and his studious attention to the people around him, but also a carefree streak that was entirely absent in Nigel. Kay and her family had met Nigel and Ada at an aquarium later that week, and Ada and Luna had become as thick as thieves, despite the differences in their personalities: Ada quiet and introspective, happy to stand beside the first exhibit in the building and watch the seahorses puff around, while Luna kept grabbing her hand so they could race off and see the sharks. Or perhaps it was because of their differences they had gotten along so well, each complementing the other and introducing ideas the other would not have thought of.

  Kay wondered if they were holding hands right now, promising one another it would all be over soon.

  “But the ash, Nigel,” she said. “If we go up there now—” She stopped, thinking hard.

  “What?”

  She stepped around Nigel. “Pete, is it possible to go up on the surface right now, even if the ash is still falling?”

  Pete grunted, his head bent close to the radio as he listened. “Sure, if you want to puke your guts out.”

  Kay rounded the couch, then picked up the radio and tossed it into a chair. Pete stared up at her. Something flickered deep in his eyes, a warning light like the red glare of an oncoming train from deep within a tunnel.

  “I’m not joking around,” Kay said. “Of course we’ll die if we go up there without any protection. I’m asking if it’s possible to build some kind of suit to protect us from the radiation.”

  That light in Pete’s eyes burned a few moments longer before he snuffed it with a blink. His face became detached again, focusing inward on his thoughts. “It could be done,” he began slowly. “It depends on what materials Al has kicking around, but it’s possible. He must have some rubber gloves, and I’ll bet we can find some rubber for the suits as well. The masks, however…” He frowned, locking horns with a difficult, but perhaps rewarding, problem.

  Pete’s hands sank into the couch as he pushed himself to his feet. He shuffled to the door leading to the basement stairs. “Give me a few hours,” he said.

  “You have one,” Kay countered.

  Pete smiled. “You got it, ma’am.”

  After Pete had closed the door, Kay turned to Nigel. “Give him a hand, would you?”

  “You know he really creeps me out, Kay.”

  “Who, Pete?” Kay shook her head, trying to suggest the idea was ridiculous even though she felt exactly the same way herself. “He’s harmless. Besides, we need him.”

  “And what will you be doing while I’m climbing into cardboard boxes?”

  “Making a plan to find our daughters.”

  _____

  Kay found Al on his side, sound asleep. Susanna was holding a small photograph in both hands, pressing it tightly enough between her fingers for the whites of her thumbs to show. When she heard the door, she sniffed and hurriedly hid the picture beneath her hand.

  Kay pretended not to notice. “How are you holding up?”

  “Me? Oh, I’m fine.” She quirked her nose and sniffed again. “Al’s the one we have to worry about.”

  “You don’t think he’ll make it?”

  “No, quite the opposite. I just don’t know how much he’ll suffer before he pulls through. To the best of my knowledge, he’s all alone—no family, no close friends. It’s tough to fight a sickness when you don’t have much to fight for.”

  Kay imagined Luna watching the lights flicker in the school basement. She nodded and moved to the desk.

  “What are you after?” Susanna asked.

  “Pete’s working on radiation suits in the other room.”

  Susanna frowned. “You really think it’s a good idea to go up there?”

  Kay sighed as she shuffled through the pile of papers strewn across the desk. “I can’t keep waiting down here, not without knowing my daughter is safe. Anyway, we haven’t made a firm plan yet. If nothing else, it will keep Pete busy for a while.”

  “You don’t trust him.”

  Kay glanced at the door.

  “Don’t worry,” Susanna said. “I think he’s just lonely. He’s probably never felt needed by anyone in his life, and now that there’s a crisis, he actually knows how he can help other people. He could be a useful person to have around.”

  Kay thought Susanna was taking an overly-optimistic point of view, but she did not know her well enough to say so. She stopped sorting papers and looked at Susanna. “Is that what this is, a crisis?”

  “What would you call it?”

  The end of the world, maybe, she thought, but she only shook her head and returned to her search. “Got it!” she exclaimed a moment later as she peeled the map off the desk. The back cover was sealed to the wood with what appeared to be the sugary residue of a soda spill, and the softened paper tore easily. Kay had the part she needed, however—if she could manage to read the map despite the annotations Al had written all over it.

  “He must have kept this in his car years ago,” she said, laying the map open on the desk.

  “Back when people still used maps,” Susanna answered. She reached behind her, as if scratching her lower back, and carefully slipped the photograph into her back pocket. Kay watched from the corner of her eye.

  “Johnson Elementary?” Susanna asked.

  “Right here, Oaks and Canterbury.” Kay tapped the spot on the map. “You know, it’s funny seeing a bird’s-eye view of the town. I used to drive all these side streets when my daughter was a baby. Helped her fall asleep.”

  “How old is she now?”

  “Six. A budding little tyrant. Do you have kids?”

  Susanna blinked. “Not my own, no.”

  “Well, I’d say you should give it a try, but this probably isn’t the best time. Wouldn’t want to have a child with three arms. Two are bad enough.”

  Susanna nodded, but she did not smile. Kay had made the joke to try to relieve the tension, but it sounded callous in retrospect and she regretted it.

  The door opened and Nigel poked his head in. “Is there tape in here, by any chance?” he whispered.

  Susanna grabbed two rolls of duct tape off the shelf and handed them to Nigel.

  “Much obliged,” he said, ducking out and closing the door. The room went quiet. Kay felt as if something needed to
be said, but she couldn’t think what it might be.

  “Well, Nigel and I had better start planning—”

  “Al shouldn’t be moved,” Susanna interrupted. “It’s too dangerous.”

  Kay nodded. “We wouldn’t be able to get him into a suit, anyway. That’s why Nigel and I are going alone—unless, of course, you want to come.”

  “I have to stay with Al.” Susanna paused, studying the floor. “What about Pete?”

  “I think he’d rather stay down here than go tramping around on the surface,” Kay answered. The truth was that despite whatever useful knowledge Pete might have, he could quickly become a liability in a tight situation. He was overweight, slow, and uncommunicative. As much as she didn’t like the idea of leaving him here with Susanna, she really didn’t want him going to the school with her and Nigel.

  “How will you get to the school?” Susanna asked.

  “My car’s out in the street.”

  Susanna reached into her pocket and fished out a string of keys. “Mine’s upstairs in the garage. The tank is full and the windows are up. It’ll be much safer than walking out in the open to get to your car.”

  Kay nodded and reached for the keys, but Susanna didn’t let them go.

  “I have one condition,” Susanna said. “Don’t go today. Give Al one night—one night, and then we’ll see how he’s feeling in the morning. If he’s feeling better, we’ll all go to the school with you. If not, you and Nigel can go on your own, just as you planned.”

  Kay held Susanna’s gaze. “You don’t have kids, do you?”

  Susanna’s face showed a pained smile as she looked away.

  “If you did,” Kay continued, speaking in a hard tone that barely concealed the fear and terrible weariness she felt, “you wouldn’t ask me to stay here.”

  Susanna lowered her voice. “Think, Kay. There’s someone at the school right now looking after her, telling her—”

  “But not her mother.”

  “No,” Susanna agreed. She folded the keys in her fist again. “And if you go out into the street to get your car, you’ll pick up contaminants and bring them with you to the school. Your car’s probably contaminated already. Do you plan to put your daughter next to you and just hope she doesn’t get sick?”

  Kay did not dare think that far ahead—there were too many unknowns. “I’ll figure it out when I get there. At least I’ll have my daughter.”

  “Yes,” Susanna replied, and her voice became faint. “But for how long?”

  Kay pushed past her, uninterested in further conversation. She had almost reached the door when Susanna spoke again.

  “Please don’t go, Kay. You haven’t seen the way he looks at me. He doesn’t think I notice, but I do.”

  Kay turned around, surprised at the fear set deep in Susanna’s face. “Pete?” she asked. “You didn’t seem worry about him before.”

  “That’s because I didn’t think I’d be alone with him. If you go now… Kay, I’m not sure he’ll ever leave.” Her words trailed off, leaving the rest to hang in the air, unspoken. Kay bit her lip and stared at the floor, wishing she could only straighten her thoughts out. It was like trying to set a train back on the tracks after it has fallen off. She pitied Susanna and understood her concern, and yet she could not imagine staying here even a few more hours. Could she really expect to sleep without knowing her daughter was safe? Even the idea of eating a meal or laughing at a joke now seemed criminal under these new and disorienting circumstances.

  And yet…could she leave Susanna alone down here with Al and Pete?

  “I was leaving,” Susanna said. “That’s why my car’s upstairs. I was just getting an oil change, and then I was going to leave it all.”

  Kay frowned, studying her. “Why?”

  Susanna met her eyes. She looked so vulnerable in that moment, so childlike, that for an instant Kay felt almost as if they were sisters. She felt a sudden impulse to step forward and wrap her arms around the other woman, but instead she kept her arms at her sides and waited.

  Susanna reached into her back pocket and handed Kay a picture. The photograph showed a small black boy in a checkered dress shirt standing beside an old tree. His hands were folded behind his back, and his face had an expression of weary concern that belied his youth.

  “I had a heart transplant shortly after I was born,” Susanna began. “When I was old enough for my parents to explain what had happened, I realized how much my life was a gift. That’s why I became a doctor—to give back.”

  “Who’s the boy in the picture?” Kay asked gently.

  Susanna smiled sadly. “That’s Jabir. As of a month ago, I was working with a missions group in Sudan. Jabir was brought in with a gunshot wound to his abdomen. I wasn’t supposed to be operating that day, but we were stretched thin and he needed immediate attention. So I took charge.” She paused, pulling her lip between her teeth as she composed herself. “While I was extracting the bullet, his heart stopped. I realized later that I’d given him too much anesthesia. He never woke up.”

  Kay silently handed the picture back, uncertain what to say.

  Susanna continued, “He had nothing on him except his clothes, his sandals…and this picture someone took of him. He looks so old, doesn’t he? Almost like he’s not a child at all.”

  “Susanna…”

  “One night,” Susanna said, a raw, pleading note in her voice. “Just one night. The ash should stop falling by then. It’ll be safer. Then we’ll all leave this place and figure things out—together.”

  Kay looked into Susanna’s eyes. Part of her wanted to flatly refuse, tell this woman that whatever trouble lay in her past was not her concern, not when her own daughter was out there. But the words would not come. She found herself compelled against her will.

  “Okay,” she answered softly. “One night. And then we leave in the morning, no matter what.”

  “No matter what,” Susanna agreed. She pressed her lips together in a sad smile. “Thank you, Kay.”

  Kay nodded and turned away, wondering if she had not just made a grave mistake.

  6

  Kay left the office and found Nigel preparing food in the kitchen. She looked at the ingredients on the counter - mayonnaise, ham, cheese, wilted lettuce, a loaf of bread, a wrinkled tomato - and felt a wave of disgust roil inside her.

  “I figure we should eat the perishables first,” Nigel said as he sliced the tomato. “But before you get too hungry, you should probably know there’s mold on the bread and the mayonnaise looks like petroleum jelly.” He sighed. “Oh, to be a bachelor again.”

  Kay leaned her back against the counter and folded her arms. “Not hungry.”

  “You need to eat, Kay,” he said patiently. “I know it feels wrong just to look at food, but you won’t be much good to your daughter if you don’t keep up your strength.”

  Kay ignored his admonition. “Susanna wants us to stay the night,” she said. “We can see how Al’s doing in the morning.”

  Nigel pried open his sandwich, adjusted a piece of ham, and then closed it again. He frowned at her. “You told her we’d stay?”

  “I don’t like waiting,” she said, “but I agree with Susanna that it’s a bad idea to get separated. For all we know, we’re the only people left in town. Besides our daughters, I mean.”

  “One night,” Nigel repeated, considering the idea. “And then we’ll all go to the school together in the morning?”

  Kay nodded.

  “Well,” Nigel said, still frowning, “I can’t say I like the idea, but we do need to stick together.”

  Kay was surprised. “I thought you’d put up more of a fight.”

  “The way I see it, our daughters are in one of two places right now: at the school, or on their way out of the path of the fallout. If they’ve left town, it doesn’t matter whether we get to the school today or tomorrow—they’ll be safe either way. If they’re still at the school, they’ll be hiding in the basement. I don’t think the staff wil
l be in any hurry to come out once they know what it’s like on the surface.”

  “So we have time, you mean,” she answered.

  “Time enough,” he replied.

  Pete emerged from the adjoining room, dressed in coveralls and wearing a paint respirator.

  “How are the suits coming?” Kay asked.

  “Finished.” He looked at the sandwich in Nigel’s hands and paused.