The Rainy Season by James P. Blaylock Read Free Book Online Page A

porch and dug a big flashlight out of the junk cupboard, switching it on to check the batteries. “Shouldn’t take a second,” he said. He opened the back door, then flipped on the outside light, illuminating the backyard pepper tree, its branches blowing in the night wind. Raindrops slanted through the lamplight, which made the darkness beyond seem even more black. He searched the night for some sign of the prowlers, but he couldn’t see anything beyond the haze of rain. Elizabeth stood at his back. “Are you sure?” she asked.
    “Yeah,” he said. And just then, as he ducked out into the night, he heard the sound of a scream from the direction of the well, muffled by the rain and wind but eerie and loud enough to stop him in his tracks. The half-shut door opened again behind him, and Elizabeth looked out, her face full of instant curiosity. Forgetting about the gasoline and the car, Phil set out at a run across the back lawn, toward the looming shadow of the water tower and the well beyond it. Near the edge of the tower he forced himself to slow down. He moved out away from the wall, keeping to the open to avoid surprises and looking hard into the darkness. He realized then that Elizabeth was only a couple of steps behind him. She had pulled on one of his flannel shirts, one that had been hanging on the service porch coat rack.
    “What happened?” she asked, coming up behind him and grabbing his jacket sleeve. “Was that a scream?” Her eyes were wide with excitement. “That sounded like a scream. Maybe it’s the woman I was talking about!”
    “Maybe. I don’t know. You really shouldn’t be out here in the rain. You don’t even have shoes on.”
    “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she said. She had apparently given up worrying about her dress getting ruined by the rain, which fell harder now, pelting against the clapboards of the tower wall and stirring the surface of the well. The sky was full of tearing clouds, the moon hidden, the night impossibly dark. Phil pointed the flashlight toward the grove, but the light didn’t carry through the falling rain, and the trees were a mass of wavering shadow. He stepped forward again, aware of Elizabeth’s hand on his shoulder as she crept along behind him. He shined the light along the tangle of berry vines that grew up around an old clothesline pole beyond the well, and then played it across the tower door and window, which were both closed tightly.
    Elizabeth’s hand tightened on his shoulder, and he jerked to a halt, peering forward through the darkness and the falling rain. “Look!” she whispered, pointing past him. A dark figure crouched in the weeds ahead, working intently at something on the ground. Phil pointed the flashlight, illuminating the figure, a boy, soaking wet in the rain, scooping a handful of dirt into an open cloth bag.
    “Over there!” Elizabeth shouted, and Phil saw another figure in the ivory moonlight, silhouetted against the gray bark of a heavy tree. He was hunched over, with his hands on his knees as if he were out of breath. The boy on the ground jumped to his feet then and ran straight toward the grove, and in that instant Elizabeth shouted, “Run!” but in her apparent excitement she held onto him for another moment, before pushing him forward, grabbing the flashlight out of his hand at the same time. Without a thought he ran alone toward the grove, and at that instant the figure at the edge of the trees vanished into the shadows.
    Phil shouted, “Wait!” not really expecting them to stop and turn around, and within moments he was in among the trees himself, jogging along silently on the rain-soaked leaves. The two boys ran steadily ahead, making for the arroyo. They vanished into the darkness for the space of five seconds, and then abruptly reappeared on the creekbank and were visible for an instant in a patch of moonlight before dropping out of sight down the far side, down into the arroyo itself.
    Phil slowed to a