By Walter Kwiatkowski

Darryl Wheeler stood in the doorway staring at the pellets of rain that pounded against the pub window. His reflection looked sadly back at him and for a moment he thought his twin in the mirror was shaking its head at him in pity. I’ve been clean for six years. No heroin. No coke. Last week, at work, stress was pushing his buttons and he laid into a co-worker. The next day, he was called into the boss’s office. He was pointed to a seat and then told that to keep his job, he had take a psychological test, which he did the next day. He looked down at the evaluation the psychologist had given him earlier in the day. Somewhat paranoid: that phrase went round and round in his head. He had not told his employers his history of drug abuse. As he buttoned up his coat, the threat of yet another termination was rearing its ugly little head. And if that wasn’t enough, there was the rain. Buckets of it coming down as hard as stones. It collided with the pub windows as if it were trying to smash the glass and flood in.

When the rain hit the city unexpectedly a little after midnight, it was loathing and hateful to everyone. Transients took cover in store shop entrances, covering themselves with cardboard boxes and black plastic bags. Junkies scurried into gaping spaces between buildings, squeezing in with annoyed rats and other vermin. And with a long sticky tongue,

the rain found and dislodged the long-legged ladies who walked up and down the street like ducks in a shooting gallery, and smiled knowing smiles.

Pools formed carelessly along curbs, swirling and then rushing like hungry wolves toward the nearest living thing.

Darryl did not know this as he did up the last button.. CCR had just finished singing Who’ll Stop the Rain on the bar stereo. The news followed, warning people not to go outside in the rain, but the remaining few patrons and the bartender had other things on their minds. The hands of the clock read three-thirty. At least that’s what time Darryl thought it read, but the dozen or so beer he had slurped down over the last several hours spun his head and blurred the clock hands. Three-thirty. Closing time. He waved to the bartender knowing that he might not be chugging down pitchers of beer for the next little while. He reached unsteadily down into the little waste basket near the entrance that acted as an umbrella stand near the front door step under the yellow awning. Groping for several seconds, he realized he hadn’t brought an umbrella.

The newscast said nothing about rain. It made him angry. With today’s technology you‘d think they could predict a downpour like this. Resigned, he flipped the hoodie hiding beneath his coat coat up onto his head and stepped out , interrupting thousands of rather large raindrops in their journey towards the pavement. The sounds they made formed an eerie kind of music.

Strangely enough, the city streets were darker than usual. He looked toward the streetlights. They were still standing and alight, but they seemed a blur. I think I drank a little too much.. But why the hell not. Celebrate my being fired on Monday.

His leather shoes clicked against the pavement as the rain flooded the curb and poured over the sidewalk. The sole of his one shoe suddenly pulled away from its toe and the water nipped at his sock. He shook his foot

“Damn it,” he said.

He crossed the street in an attempt to avoid the puddles, but the harsh rain continued.

The lights in the bars that dotted the streets, and that usually stayed open late, disappeared as he walked by. No laughter, no arguments spilling out onto the sidewalk, no curse words emitting from patrons bidding a hasty exit. But it was three thirty am. And this was not a part of the city one wanted to be strolling around in after dark. Only the criminal carnivores spying potential victims from dark cracks and alleyways found pleasure here. But they too had been scared off by the unforgiving rain.

Darryl, now sopping wet, stopped. Rustling sounds drifted from the alleyway he was passing. He turned and looked. From the back entrance of what was probably a restaurant shone a light, beaming in full glory down upon a little man hanging halfway into a small dumpster. Next to him, a rusty shopping cart filled to the brim with bulging garbage bags. The little man’s feet dangled over a pair of empty rubber boots. He was tossing items out of the dumpster.

The alleyway appeared to be tapered and sloped. The rain seemed to be collecting along the wall the dumpster was against.

 Poor sap, at least I’ve got somewhere to sleep.

Darryl continued on his way, feeling hopeful. Another ten or so minutes and he would be in his warm bed. A long scream suddenly ripped through the monotonous drone of steadily pelting rain.

Daryl stopped. It came from the alleyway. He didn’t want to get involved. Let the police handle it. But he turned and ran back, feeling somewhat sober now.

The grocery cart, the well-used rubber boots, the rubbish on the ground–all there. The homeless creature was not. Darryl scanned the well-lit alleyway. Someone might have wanted to have a little fun with him. But the scream had not at all sounded like fun. Dourly, he went into the alleyway and peered into the dumpster. A half-eaten chicken stared up at him: milk cartons, egg shells, a pizza box, and some magazines. No street urchin. Maybe someone heard him scream and took him in.

He shook his head. Not likely. Sympathy for street people in this city came at a premium, especially in this kind of nasty weather.

The rain that had been rushing towards the tapered end of the alley had lessened. In fact, the swelling had subsided and the rain seemed to be retreating back uphill. But that was impossible. He knew it was impossible. Rain, like everything else in this world, could not defy the laws of gravity. Heroin and LSD could. Worms slithering up and down your arms, under the skin. But he was clean, so clean hospitals envied him.

Darryl didn’t know why he ran, he just did, his broken sole flapping up and down. He crossed on a red light, and stopped when he saw a police car. It sat diagonally on the road, its red top screaming and shining. An officer in a rain poncho looked up at him as he approached.

“The cells are all full. Go home and sleep it off, mister,” he said.

The words had trouble leaving his mouth. “ I saw … in the alley…the tramp.”

“What?”

He pointed down the street.

“ The alley!”

The officer swept up his night stick and rushed down the street where Darryl pointed.

That’s when Darryl saw it. The rain. As it rushed along the sidewalk, it began to swirl as if a pair of hands were wringing out a towel. But it swirled up like a typhoon. Darryl gasped because as he watched, what appeared to be a twisted pair of legs and a set of gnarled calloused arms appeared out of the swirl followed by a sinewy body, then a grotesque distorted head with what looked like a set of huge wart hog tusks. These tusks impaled themselves down into the police officer, whose screams reverberated throughout the empty streets.

Darryl turned and ran. As he ran, he saw the rain pounding the streets of his city; saw, puddles stream across neatly trimmed lawns and slide into cracks and under doors, through open windows, into cars. Looking, hunting, preying.

A restless woman, her hands trying to warm her arms on this cold night, stood, without an umbrella, in a t-shirt. The rain formed her hair into strings, and large drops probed her face. She didn’t see the pool of water forming around her. Smelling her. Suddenly arms of water shot up like sticky tongues, grasping her, anchoring her, and pulling her into the large puddle around her. She screamed, and a large eddy opened up beneath her and swallowed her up.

Darryl sprinted the remaining two blocks. He was soaked from head to foot, but he was safe. Thank God, he was safe. His lips needed a cigarette, but had quit those too years ago. Damn.

He leaned against the apartment entrance door and took several deep breaths. He stuffed a wet hand into his pants pocket and came out with a set of keys.

He unlocked the controlled glass door. The foyer was still there, with its plain red carpet and old armchair. He made his way to the elevator, pressed the button and waited. And waited and waited. He hit the elevator door in anger. He looked at the numbers on the top of the elevator. No light was running between numbers. He cursed again, and threw open the fire exit door and took the stairs.

He appeared on the fourth floor minutes later. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath.

He searched for his apartment key on the chain, and after using it, barged into his room, closing and locking the door behind him.

Safe.

He threw off his coat, stared at this morning’s dishes in the sink, went to the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. He uncapped it and took a deep swig. He went into the living room, kicked off his wet shoes, then flicked on the TV.

A woman who looked like she had had plastic surgery to at least 80% of her body smiled directly at Darryl . “ Rain, rain and more rain. This city has been hit by the biggest rain storm in its history. And it won’t end soon.” She added another professional smile, then said. “I hope my hair will survive it. Don, back to you….”

He flicked off the TV and sat back on the couch. Did I really see what I saw? Shouldn’t I call somebody? He kicked off his pants and trudged into the bathroom. A shower always cleared his mind. That’s why he always took one before going to work, and after coming home. He turned on the faucets, adjusted the hot and cold, pulled up the shower control and hopped in. The warmth was exhilarating. And he stood under that warmth for what seemed to be the longest time. He felt the hot soothing water pulsing around his ankles. Then, a sudden realization struck him. He looked down. The water wasn’t swirling down into the drain, it was pooling up around him. There was no bath tub plug in place, yet the water had almost filled the tub.

 He screamed.

It couldn’t be. It was only the rain. Not the water supply. He lifted one leg and tried to hop out of the tub, but the pooling water shot up like a tongue. It grabbed his leg. A sheer cold numbness covered his skin. Another watery tongue sprung up and grabbed his arm. Another wrapped around his neck, cutting off his air.

Below him, an eddy began to appear, swirling faster and faster and Daryl began to swirl with it, around and around. The water turned red below him, and in the fleeting moment before he died, he saw the tusks, sharp and undiscriminating, waiting for him.

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