Libertarian Librarian

“I miss Pa.”

“I know ya do, sweetie,” Billy’s mother said gently as she made them sandwiches. “I miss him, too.” She wiped her hands, pulled Billy into a warm hug, then tousled his hair and tried to smile. “We’re just gonna have to make do, Billyboy. Hang in there until this rain stops and we drive outta here.” She finished making his sandwich and handed it to Billy.

He took it from her and pulled himself up into one of the rough-hewn kitchen chairs. “I hate the rain.”

“Me too, sweetie. Me too.” She finished making another sandwich and sat down next to Billy. “But it can’t last forever, and once it stops, we’ll get outta here as fast as we can, okay?”

“Okay.”

They sat in silence for a while, eating their sandwiches and thinking about the night, two days ago now, when Billy’s father had headed out to the coop with the shotgun. The rain pounded on the roof above them, poured into the ground outside.

“Do you think we’re safe, Ma?”

His mother sat for a moment, considering the question. “I don’t know for sure, Billy, but I hope so. Ain’t seen anything weird since,” her voice caught, and she had to swallow heavily before she could continue, “since the other night. Maybe your pa scared it away.” She changed the subject then, and they talked for a while about other things. The coming school year, the impassable roads, the likelihood of expanding the house next year. Somehow, the conversation kept coming back to Billy’s father. There were many awkward pauses.

Finally, Billy’s mother stood up and started clearing away their lunch. She looked into his eyes briefly, started to say something, then looked away abruptly. She washed up the few dishes, and the silence was deafening as the rain drummed incessantly at the small building.

Billy sat in his chair, uncertain what to think. He felt like a python was constricting his heart, yet he felt no pain, only an awful, frightening numbness. Tears slid down his face and he did not feel them—would have been shocked to know they were there. “Ma?” he said, tentatively.

She turned then and saw the tears. Her face mirrored his as she went to him and held him and cooed to him the way she had when he was a baby. They clung to each other for a long time, and their tears mingled and soaked the thin fabric of her dress. Finally, she sighed and gently lifted his head, looking closely into his wet face. She smiled a little, just a little, and kissed him on the forehead. “I love you Billy,” she murmured into his hair, and held him tightly against her.

“I love you, too,” he choked out as he clung to her comforting warmth.

“It’s going to be all right. We’re going to be all right.” They rocked together for a while longer before she kissed him again and quietly asked, “You okay now, sweetie?”

Billy sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Yeah.” He did feel better, he realized. The constriction around his heart was gone, and the numbness was fading. He hurt, but he was no longer paralyzed.

“That’s good baby. That’s good.” She smiled at him, tousled his hair again, and turned to finish up the dishes. “I think I’ll pick some apples later on, and make us an apple pie for dessert. Doesn’t that sound good?”

“Pick apples in the rain, Ma?” His voice quavered a little. The python was back, sliding around his heart and pulling tight.

“Sure. A little rain never hurt me afore, why should it scare me now? Lord knows I’m not gonna change my whole life ‘cause of some lousy rain. Besides, a fresh, hot pie would taste good.” She smiled in reassurance.

Billy wanted to shout, “But what about the monster? What about the thing that got Pa? What about me?” but the constriction was so tight he felt he could barely breathe, and he said nothing. His eyes pleaded with her, but she wouldn’t look, turned away from him and hummed softly to herself.

“Yup,” she said softly, “an apple pie would taste mighty fine tonight. A little rain ain’t gonna stop me.”

She went out early that evening, basket in hand, shawl over her head in a feeble attempt to prevent the rain from soaking her. Billy clung to her before she left, tried to get her to stay, but she ‘had her heart set on apple pie.’

From the front porch, Billy watched as she ploughed through rain and shin-deep mud. She looked very small, very vulnerable as she slowly forced her way through the sheets of rain to the vague blur Billy knew was the apple tree. Beyond it, were the few remains of the chicken coop.

And somewhere out there in the seething ocean of brown and black mud it waited. Billy knew it. He could feel it. The python was slowly strangling him. Every minute he expected to see his mother enveloped by the huge, frenzied shape he had seen two nights before in the flames of the chicken coop.

She was at the tree now, slowly picking the few apples that still clung to the tree despite the rain’s ferocious pounding. Each one was gently placed in the small wicker basket she carried. Billy could see her silhouette as she moved around the tree, a distorted blur seen through the shimmer of the never ending rain. She seemed to move in slow motion as she circled the tree, and he found himself holding his breath as she slogged from apple to apple. He had to force himself to breath, force the stagnant air past the constriction of the python that squeezed his lungs and ate at his heart.

Finally, she was finished, and Billy felt the snake loosen its hold a little as his mother began the long, slow voyage back across the sea of mud that separated them. He wanted to scream to her to hurry. The words caught in his throat. He see her clearly now, hair and shawl plastered to her head, water streaming off her face and down her coat. She was almost to the porch, almost out of the rain and the mud. Almost safe.

She was on the porch and Billy clung to her wet, soggy frame. She seemed thinner to him, but she was there. Finally, he let her go, and half-skipped through the front door and into the living room. He was through the living room and stepping into the kitchen with a smile on his face when her scream tore through his soul and shattered his heart.

Spinning around, he found her staring at him in agony and sorrow. Her right hand was holding the doorknob desperately while the rest of her body was suspended in midair. A brown-green tentacle was wrapped around her left leg and was pulling her back. Back into the rain. Back into the mud.

He was frozen to the spot. He reached for her, but even as he did, another tentacle rose from the mud and smashed down on her right forearm. Through blind eyes he saw her dragged backward into the mud. Her screams echoed in his mind. A trail of blood was the only evidence she had ever existed. A trail of blood, and her severed right hand, still clinging to their front door.

It took him over an hour to dislodge the hand from the doorknob.
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“Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day.”

Bill was humming under his breath as he worked. Sweat bathed his face, and a bright light shone in his eyes. He was almost done, the trap almost finished. Placing the last piece of venison in the middle of the living room, Bill stood and looked at his preparations with satisfaction.

A trail of venison led from the bedroom, where the rain seethed through the hole left by the thrashing of the creature, into the living room. Bill had soaked the floorboards of the living room with the kerosene from the last lantern in the house. He had been very careful not to spill any of the fuel in the bedroom or the kitchen. Going to the kitchen, he took the box of matches out of the cupboard where his mother always kept them. A grim smile remained on his face the entire time. He sat in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room and waited. The fumes from the kerosene were making him drowsy and groggy. He sang quietly to keep himself awake. “Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day.”
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A loud crash startled Bill from the light doze he had fallen into after waiting for what seemed like hours. He rose to his feet quickly and nearly collapsed back to the floor as his cramped muscles protested the sudden movement. Another crash rocked the shack and threw Bill head first into the living room, where he slid a little on the kerosene soaked wood. His mind was bleary with sleep and kerosene fumes. He couldn’t think—why were the crashes coming from behind him? The creature was supposed to follow the venison trail from the bedroom into the living room.

He climbed to his feet, the fumes making his eyes sting and water. With a thunderous concussion, the back door flew through the kitchen, into the living room and smashed into the wall behind Bill. His heart clutched with fear as long, brown-green tentacles writhed through the doorway. Feeling as though he were moving in slow motion, Bill clambered through the living room towards the bedroom. At any moment he expected to feel those hideous writhing tentacles wrapping around his legs.

Diving into the bedroom, he turned to see the tentacles wrapped around the venison. The large chunks of meat were rapidly dissolving under a sickly green slime. Bill knew he did not have long—the venison was almost gone. He crawled across the floor as quickly as his still stiff legs would allow, stopping once he reached the doorway between bed and living rooms. He groped out a match and struck it viciously against the wooden floor. The match sprang into life, a small, furious flame.

A long, hideously mottled tentacle smashed the match from his hand, and agony lanced down his arm and into chest. He could not feel his right hand. The tentacle wrapped around his leg and began to drag him into the living room, towards the green blob of bubbling ooze that was all that was left of the venison. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Bill groped for another match with his left hand.

Triumphantly, he struck the match against the floor and threw the burning ember into the middle of the room. As the match landed near the bubbling remains of the venison, a whooshing wave of fire washed through the room. Partially blocked by the tentacle, the flames still seared his hair and singed his clothes. Then it was gone, and the thing was thrashing about in agony as a fierce fire engulfed it.

Bill rose to his feet and painfully stumbled into the bedroom. He had no time to waste—there was probably no chance the fire would kill the monster, and there was work to be done before it recovered. He crawled through the hole in the bedroom wall, and let the incessant, relentless rain cool his fire-singed body. Slowly he slogged his way through the mud that clung to his legs and would only let go after a fierce struggle. A sea of mud and rain separated him from the shed and the tanks of kerosene and gasoline, but Bill plodded on. He ignored the pain in his legs, ignored the awful howling of the beast as it thrashed amidst the burning shack, and plodded on.

One foot in front of the other, he thought as he waded through the mud. One foot in front of the other. Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day. One foot in front of the other. Behind him, the house where Bill had been born was burning fiercely as the thrashing of the creature spread the fire throughout the building. It’s ear-piercing shriek pounded in Bill’s mind as the never-ending rain pebbled his body. One foot in front… It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man… one foot in front of the other. Almost there now, he thought as the wail of the thing ate at his mind and the rain tore at his body. He could see the shed through the sheets of rain now, and Bill’s determined grin reappeared as he recognized the looming shadow of the building. He wanted to run to the weathered door of the shed, but he could only continue to plod, one foot in front of the other.

Suddenly, the wailing of the beast ceased, and Bill almost fell as the tremendous weight of that sound vanished. Time was his enemy now. The monster was loose, and it would be coming for him very soon. Bill forced his legs to move, to plow through the mud. One foot in front of the other. His shoes had been lost in the mud many steps ago. He hadn’t noticed. One foot in front of the other, and then he was there, at the shed. Quickly, he ducked inside, out of the overbearing weight of the rain. Silent tears slid down his cheeks as he leaned, exhausted against the door of the shed.

It was nearly pitch black inside, but Bill knew the rickety clapboard building by heart. Reflexively, he stroked his mother’s hand, still safely stowed in his pocket, with his sore right hand while his left groped about in the dark. The rain drummed on the ceiling of the shed, drowned any sounds the creature might be making out in the mud. After a few moments of groping, Bill found the lantern and matches that his father always kept in their nook next to the door. His injured hand made it difficult to light the lantern, but after a few failed attempts, he succeeded. In the faint illumination of the lantern, the shed looked eerie. Old crates, planting trays, and rusty farm implements were scattered around the room, and dirt and grime seemed to cover everything. Two large barrels, perched somewhat precariously on rough-hewn pedestals, were slowly dying under thick layers of brown and red rust against the back wall. The barrels contained kerosene and gasoline. Bill thought they looked beautiful.

With a deep breathe, Bill heaved himself over to the barrels and quickly opened their valves. The heavy smell of kerosene and gasoline quickly filled the small shed as the flammable liquids splashed onto the floor and soaked into the wood. Breathing through the soaked fabric of his shirt, Bill took shallow breathes as he let the fuel run for a few minutes before cranking the valves shut. A fevered light shone in his eyes as he wiped his sweaty forehead with his jacket sleeve. He limped as quickly as he could over to the crates, used by his father in better days to store vegetables. Shivers ran down his spine as the old building creaked under the pounding weight of the rain.

His head was spinning slightly from the fumes, and with every moan and sigh of the ancient building he expected tentacles to come ripping through the walls, wrapping around his arms and legs. Still breathing through his shirt, he hurriedly scavenged amongst the battered and dirty crates. With a harsh shout of success that started a short coughing fit, he pulled loose a long length of rusty chain. Chewing harshly on his already bloodied lower lip, he hobbled back to the old barrels and carefully looped the ends of the chain tightly around the valves of the barrels. Sweat bathed his body inside the stuffy shed and made his skin itch. Blood coated his mouth as his teeth unconsciously ground his lips.

Grasping the chain in his left hand, Bill went to front of the shed and unbarred the door. Then he shuffled more to the middle of the shed, carefully stopping short of the area soaked with kerosene and gasoline. He shivered in the dim light of his lantern and waited. Water slid down his back from his wet hair and traced shivers along his skin. Time passed slowly. The rain was hypnotic in its ceaseless, rhythmic pounding and Bill struggled to stay awake. Fumes from the soaked boards of the shed’s floor fogged his mind. He could hear nothing above the pounding of the rain. The length of chain was cold in his left hand. His right clutched his mother’s severed hand fiercely.

A tearing of metal startled Bill out of his haze, snapped him back to the present. The ceiling peeled away and the rain poured in as a huge mottled blob dropped through the gaping hole in the roof. Thick tentacles wrapped around the stunned young man.

His lantern fell to the floor harmlessly.

He was lifted into the air, pulled towards the oozing blob in the center of the shed. He couldn’t breathe. His sight was blacking out. A loud ringing filled his ears. Distantly, he heard a faint crash. It felt like a blanket had filled his lungs, and his mind was a fuzzy whirl.

And then he was flying as air was sucked into his lungs in a painful rush. He landed with a thud towards the front of the shed and rose groggily to his knees. The monster was wreathed in flames towards the back of the shed, and his lantern lay smashed near one of the thing’s many writhing tentacles. Near the edge of the ring of flames was the end of the chain he had wrapped around the spigots of the barrels.

Bill reached for the chain, then snatched his hand back as a tentacle whipped into the wall near him. The monstrosity’s harrowing screeching once more filled the air. Rain poured through the gaping hole in the roof. Already the fire that engulfed the beast was dying as the rain suffocated the flames.

Gritting his teeth, Bill lunged for the chain with his left hand. Pain lanced through his hand and arm as his fingers closed on the heated metal. His shriek joined the creature’s as the chain burned into his flesh. Instinctively, he pulled back but the chain came with him. Desperately, he struggled toward the front of the shed, the chain welded to his hand. A tentacle smashed into the floor beside him and with a frenzied dive, Bill threw himself against the door of the shed. It flew open under his weight and he fell into the night, into the rain, into the cool, soothing mud.

Bill crawled forward a few feet, then struggled to his feet. He looked back at the shed and saw the charred monster silhouetted by the remaining flames. It was moving towards him, its tentacles reaching for him. With a hoarse cry he pulled the chain taut, then yanked backwards with all his might, ignoring the fierce pain that arced through his body. The chain wrenched the spigots off of the old barrels, and streams of kerosene and gasoline poured onto the floor of the shed. The fuel instantly burst into flame, the feverish flames following the spilling liquids back up to their source. Bill threw himself into the mud as the barrels exploded with a force that flattened the shed and bathed the monster in gallons of searing liquid.

After a minute, Bill slowly raised his head from the mud and wiped the sticky clay from his face with his torn and bleeding left hand. The force of his exertions had torn it free from the links of the chain. His right hand still clutched his mother’s hand through his singed, soaked and mud-plastered jacket. There was no movement within the burning remains of the shed.

Staggering to his knees, he slowly crawled over to the still burning hulk of the creature. Bill nudged it, half expecting a tentacle to smash him as he did so. The thing squished under the pressure, but otherwise lay still. Its burning flesh smelled terrible.

Glancing around blearily, Bill crawled over to a large piece of wall that had survived the explosion and awkwardly propped it against a twisted piece of metal. He huddled under this scant protection, and cried himself to sleep while he stroked his mother’s hand through the fabric of his jacket.
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Bill woke in a puddle, his clothes soaked. Every muscle in his body was in agony, but he forced himself to stretch and to leave his small shelter. Rain washed over him. The world was a dull shade of gray. It was morning. The creatures lay where it had fallen. Only its bulk and the charred and scattered wood of the shed remained from the night’s fire.

Picking his way carefully through the mud and debris, Bill slowly and torturously made his way through the sticky, grasping muck. One foot in front of the other, he thought, and forced his legs to keep moving. Ahead, he should see the family’s truck, buried to its axles in brown mud. He plodded forward.

Finally, he reached the truck and pulled the door open with a desperate wrench of his left hand. Dragging himself into the dry, safe truck, Bill felt a huge weight lifted from him as the rain no longer pounded him. He yanked the door shut and collapsed across the seat, face down. There was a strange lump poking his right side. Slowly he sat up and reached into his pocket, removing his mother’s severed hand. Bill stared at the hand for a while, then gently removed the ring of gold from the third finger. He placed the ring safely in his pocket. Rolling down the window, he threw the hand out into the rain. He watched the mud washing over it for a minute, then rolled the window back up. He lay back on the seat and closed his eyes. He waited. It couldn’t rain forever.

Faint words slipped past his lips as he lay there, “Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day. Rain, rain, go away, come again some…” and he slid into the quiet warmth of sleep.

Labels: Writings