The Rain by Joseph Turkot Read Free Book Online Page B

direction, or not see us altogether evaporates.
                “You have your knife?” he finally asks me. I show him it, and try to remember the way to stab that he taught me. You go across, not down. You keep the blade pointed toward your feet, not up to the sky. You swipe, not stab. I rehearse everything. I can’t believe he sounds like I’m actually going to use it.
     
    The silence and rain stay united, until finally, after a long torment, the splashing of oars interferes, and the boat can’t hold any more water. The limp man looks like he’s dead. He isn’t moving, bailing, even opening his eyes. I wonder if he will even try to get off the boat. The other man has a look on his face like the one that died earlier today. His eyes are spread way open, unblinking despite the rain, like he’s had a last shot of adrenaline, the final push before death. Sea water starts spilling over the rail of the boat, and the whole thing tips over. They fall out together with a quiet splash. The limp man doesn’t even try to swim, he just sort of bobs for a bit, and then floats back out into the brown, like a current is dragging him south. The other one knows how to swim and he isn’t too tired to do it.
                “He’ll make it,” is all Russell says. He stands back up, holds his knife ready, and looks at me. His face isn’t blank like before on the boat, and in the tent, or even a minute ago when he was kneeling in the mud. He looks concerned, like life’s back in him, a last fight. I stand behind him, scared to death.
                “Get next to me,” he says. I obey him immediately. We stand side by side right at the water’s edge. The man makes good time swimming in. But he’s not crying for help like the last man. Finally, he reaches our canoe, where it’s half-submerged, and uses it to hoist himself up for air. He gasps loudly, destroying for a moment the consistency of the rain taps. Then he moves again, back into the water, walking underwater right up to our feet. His hands come onto the bank first, and they find a small rock to cling to. Russell steps up and stomps on his foot. The crushing pain makes the man scream. I cringe, unsure whether or not I should jump in. Then, like the pain brought him back to full strength, the man rises to his feet and ducks his head down way low, and charges at Russell like a bull. The head rams in. Russell stumbles from the blow before he can force his knife forward. The man falls on top of Russell. I finally snap alive and run to them.
                I can’t tell who’s screaming. I reach the back of the wet animal and he throws his elbow backward at me as soon as I’m close enough to stab him. White flashing pain stuns me for a second. I can’t focus, I don’t know if Russell is pinned. I hear them grunting, a fight for life between the walking dead. I rise again, feeling undead myself, and try again to save Russell. Only he doesn’t need my help. He stands up all on his own, pushing the man off his chest. The man rolls over, both his hands firmly gripping the handle of a knife. It’s deep in his belly, right in the middle. Russell stabbed him in the gut. He doesn’t even make a sound even though the sight of it hurts my own stomach. It’s like he’s numb to it. And he starts to rise again.
     
    I think I should stand next to Russell but I can’t. I can’t take my eyes off of the face eater. He looks like one of the rotting corpses. His whole face is a beard, a dripping mop, funneling rain onto his gut where the red is streaming out. He doesn’t act fazed by the wound. He looks at Russell, and Russell steps back a couple feet. And then Russell slips when he tries to back up even farther. He falls, hits a mud stream, and rolls down, all the way down, out into the water. The man pauses, both hands still feeling the knife handle, testing it, like he wants to try to loosen it. But he decides to leave it in, and he looks