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Rain

Those with the spark ought to be careful of wayward thoughts.

By Alexander McEvoyPublished about a year ago Updated 8 months ago 14 min read
7
Picture by Rocket McEvoy-Elmy

Content Warning: Cosmic horror, tentacles.

A wind had blown in from the sea in the night and brought with it storm clouds that closed over the city with the finality of a coffin lid. Rain waited patiently to fall, the upturned faces of the people scurrying from cover to cover waited anxiously for it, hoping that it would hold off just long enough. One upturned face in particular bit her lip and tried to guess exactly when the clouds would decide to let their load go.

It was a game she liked to play with herself when her mind was empty. Her grandmother had tried to teach the secret of cloud reading to her when she was little, but the lessons had not stuck. Now she was only able to tell when the rain would start the same was as everyone else, by checking for wet spots on the pavement.

Mother, her grandmother had always said, lacked both the spark and the fascination. Though what exactly there was to be fascinated by had always been a mystery, still time with grandmother had always been too precious a gift to squander on idle questions. “Tasha, my sweet,” was the only answer they ever earned, said with the warmest possible voice and a gentle tousling of her hair.

The texture and colour of the clouds, that was where the answers hid, grandmother always made that piece crystal clear as she muttered at the grey skies. Tasha squinted and shifted her head from side to side, feeling the tendons in her neck click and shift. Grey in places, black in others, a quilt of clouds promising rain with a pattern too irregular to read.

No matter what grandmother had said about fascination, Tasha always knew deep in her bones that she lacked the spark. Just like her mother, the world would only ever be mundane and normal to her, lacking whatever it was that the old woman had thought she saw. Something tickled, a memory or perhaps the hope of a memory, at the back of her mind. Catching her attention for an instant like a patch of blue sky on an overcast day; and just like that patch of sky, the second Tasha looked again, it vanished.

With a sharp inhale through the nose, Tasha set off again and threw out a prayer – the same kind as everyone else, that the rain would hold off just long enough. A selfish thought, on some level she was aware of that, a desire for comfort without a care that anyone else might lack it. Selfish without cruelty or malice, merely an absence of consideration. Nothing more.

But in those with the spark, that alone can sometimes be enough.

The first roll of thunder boomed across the city, drawing nervous eyes skyward again. Umbrellas, rain jackets, and comfortable beds were thought of longingly by those without. Knowing smiles and sardonic looks from those with those comforts were outwardly endured and secretly condemned. Especially where the looks came from a friend who had recommended more appropriate clothes and wore such themselves. Anxious expectation and quiet resentment continued to build, festering, as thunder boomed again and again over the city like the tolling of an enormous bell.

A woman stood under a purple umbrella; stood waiting for the light to change at First and Harbour. Her long red scarf kicked out in a sudden gust of wind from the bay as Tasha stopped some meters away from her. Something in how the other woman stood, something about the very air around her warned Tasha to stay away. Warned her not to approach. But that was grandmother talking again, the same opinions from a time and a place better left behind.

Opening her mouth to speak, to comment on how it looked ready to start raining old ladies with sticks as grandmother used to say, Tasha hesitated. It was, of course, because people generally did not want to be spoken to by strangers. And not at all because the red scarf was too thick. Nor because it moved out of synch with itself and the wind. And certainly not because she felt as though an icy finger had stroked down her spine the moment she opened her lips to comment.

Eyes locked on the water on the other side of Harbour Street, she waited for the light to turn. There were no cars, she could technically just walk on, there was no reason not to. Be away in just a few strides. But she did not. She waited, a light sweat breaking out on her neck, beside a person who made her want to run. Thunder rumbled again, suddenly the only sound in the world.

Rain started to fall, out past the opposite sidewalk at sea. It would reach land in bare minutes, blown in by violent winds that made the ocean churn in their wake. She did not want to look, but her head turned despite the wailing of an inner voice she now remembered hearing as a child.

A voice denied by mother, who could not hear it and longed for by grandmother who did not want to be alone. The voice screamed, wailed, and begged her to run, to look away and run. But she had to see. Driven by the memory of her grandmother’s smile, she had to see what her intuition warned her against looking at.

Wet pavement caught her eye, a circle of darkened ground around the boots of the umbrella girl. Tasha’s heart leapt into her throat as her eyes travelled up the other woman, taking in her sodden clothes, dripping as though she had just that moment climbed from the bay. A perfect circle of damp under the canopy of the umbrella.

The traffic light changed, cycling from green to yellow to red with a sound like a clock striking the hour. Tasha’s feet carried her into the street like her body had divorced from her mind and decided to follow the pleading of her intuition. Decided to run, to hide. Halfway across the street, the rain reached shore; a soaking, pelting rain that caught Tasha in the face and drenched her to her bones in seconds.

Cold that had nothing to do with the rain caressed her spine, freezing her steps. Shaking, not wanting to look, she slowly turned on her heel and looked back.

Mistakes come in all forms. Mistakes of judgement and mistakes of action are the most common and combine to be the most deadly. Wanting to know, not listening to the voice, ignoring the pushing of the spark, had all been mistakes of judgement. Staying, waiting, were both mistakes of action. Looking back, just as she had broken her inertia and could have escaped, was a mistake of both.

Everyone knows what curiosity and answers do to cats. Unfortunately, humans only get one mistake.

Dry pavement surrounded the other woman now, the end of her scarf still flowed contrary to the wind which was blowing hard from the bay at Tasha’s back, pointing straight toward her chest. It undulated out into the rain beyond the umbrella like a snake writhing across uneven ground, defying the deafening roar of the wind that drove the violently churning waves over the sea wall. The umbrella itself rippled, warping out of its shape. The scarf seemed to be getting longer.

Slowly, like a marionette in an unskilled hand, the woman took one stuttering step forward. The motion raised the umbrella just enough for Tasha to get a glimpse of the woman’s shadowed face. She wiped rain from her eyes and looked again, it was not possible, but… for just the instant it was visible… red glowed from where the eyes should have been. Deep, unnatural red eyes glared out of the shadows at her before being hidden again under the rim of the umbrella.

Another step forward. Movements all wrong, balance wrong, joints jerking with the attention of their puppeteer.

Lightning flashed, throwing the whole of the woman from shoulder to waist into shadow. The full force of the storm finally came ashore, howling inland and bringing a driving rain as hard as hail slamming into Tasha’s back. Another awkward stutter step brought the woman closer, the tapered end of the scarf straining to reach Tasha. But the curb threw the woman off balance, just enough for the umbrella to finally be caught by the wind.

In the next flash of lightning, before thunder nearly deafened her again and forced her eyes shut with the pain, Tasha saw the rest of the scarf. It wound once around the neck of the other woman, purple threads splaying out like spider silk to her elbows, knees, and wrists, then twisted up the shaft of the umbrella into the shadows.

Shadows that moved.

Unfurling like something out of a nightmare, a thick, pulsing shadow dropped from under the umbrella. It landed on the other woman’s shoulder, rising again to briefly stroke her cheek as one might a beloved child before shifting out into the rain. Another flash of lightning and other shadows began to descend, murky and indistinct in the moments between the strikes, sharply in focus in the instant the light flashed across the sky.

It was impossible. Tasha’s mind rebelled against what she was seeing. There was no way something like that could be real, let alone hide inside an umbrella that small. The thing was too big, too long. The woman took another step forward, her limbs jerking as the strings pulled taught and released. Aware of the wrongness now, Tasha could see how the woman stood, or was held aloft. Whatever was in the umbrella was there by choice, piloting the unfortunate person beneath it.

Thunder boomed and lightning flashed, each sudden burst of illumination carving new scars into Tasha’s mind. The storm raged around them as she stood, stock still, trying desperately to remember who she was, what she was doing there.

A sudden shift in the wind brought a visceral stench of rot and decay to her nose. The horrible, gut wrenching smell gave control of her legs back to her instincts and she spun, heart thudding and legs pumping before she even knew she was running. Throwing a terrified look over her shoulder, she saw the shadows writhe for a moment, just a moment, then more lightning and the other woman was following.

In a mockery of a run, umbrella unnaturally still with shadows undulating around her, the woman with the purple umbrella leapt lightly over the soaking pavement. Tasha ran harder, she had never been a sprinter but now it was time, now was the one time when-

“Tasha, my sweet,” said a voice that was not her grandmother’s. It coiled around her mind, trying to freeze her heart. “Tasha, dearest. You’ve got the spark and now you’ve seen the truth of what hides behind the veil. There’s nothing you can do to stop it.” That was true, certainly that was true but she continued to run. Tried to shut out the terrible voice. “Come here and give me a hug. This vessel is almost worn out, you see. I just need a hug,” with every sickly sweet word, the voice changed, growing warmer, making Tasha want to listen to it.

“You’re not my grandmother,” she screamed into the rain, her voice lost in the thunder and the howling of the rain.

“No,” the voice was closer now, breathing down her neck. She felt certain that if she turned her head just the slightest, she would see the inside of the umbrella. Knew for a fact that it was there, waiting, a glistening beak that could swallow her whole. “No we are not. But we spent a long time looking for her… and now we’ve found you.”

Breath coming in short, staccato gasps, Tasha ran on. There was always a chance to get away, there was always the chance to escape. Nothing was ever over until she died, that piece of wisdom had come from mother, accompanied by a knowing nod from grandmother. She could run, she could hide, she could-

With shuddering finality, a slick, rubbery something caressed her elbow, leaving behind something cold that tugged her arm back. She did not look. If she looked, then the purple thread would become real. Her instincts, the spark that her grandmother had always told her about, forced her to leave the hooks of the thread where they were, spurred her to run faster. Even touching the thing was a death sentence.

Water smacked her in the face, soaked into her shoes as she splashed through ankle deep puddles. Fear, blind and visceral drove her forward. It gifted her the strength and the stamina to run as far and as fast as she needed to. The spark in her stomach kept her warm as the aching cold of the torrential rain tried to burrow into her bones, slowing her muscles and clawing at her heels.

Outrunning the other woman, outrunning the things breaking into reality from the umbrella. That was her only choice. Her mind tore as she remembered the shadows dropping out of a place too small to hold them, remembering the threads directing the other woman’s limbs. She screamed in defiance, forging onwards.

“You can’t escape us, Sparkling,” said the voice, it was quieter now, fading behind the lessening roar of the storm. “We will always find you. Feed on your fascination. You are ours from the moment of your birth, living on borrowed time.”

-0-

A wind blew across the plains, a gentle wind that could whip itself up to a storm that flooded fields in an instant. But Tasha knew that wind would not, could not hurt her. She was safe from the sea, the briny, rotting stench.

Perhaps in the far recesses of the past where she now stood, looking out at the cattle in a neighbour’s field, had been under water. But the taste of salt had long since been forgotten, the sea-wind a memory of rocks and fossils. It could not bother her there.

Touching her elbow, in the spot that could never be warm, she shifted her eyes to the sky and tried to read the clouds. Rain was not uncommon here, on the Prairies, but it was never the same kind of rain. It soaked people through well enough, flooded places and buried cars just as well as any other; but it lacked a critical part of true rain. The part that had driven her out of her old life.

Grey clouds on the horizon, but the sky was so big, grey clouds were hardly uncommon. They were always skirting the edge of the sky, on their way from somewhere to somewhere else. And a dry summer had its advantages. On the wettest of nights, when the wind howled through the ring of trees that protected her handsome house from the worst of the gales, that spot in her elbow would sting. Sting just as badly as it had during that first storm.

Voices would whisper in her head, one of them a voice she had long since learned to obey, and a second one too. A memory of a voice that had only ever been heard in her head, promising terrible things. Things that haunted her dreams.

Clouds continued to gather on the horizon, grey and black, roiling masses of storm as tall as mountains. It was one of her favourite things now, to sit on the porch and watch the storm approach. She set the kettle to boil and got her favourite sweater, the wind had already started, and went back to the railing. Her grandmother’s teachings never lied, that storm was coming her way, and it would be fun to watch it roll over the land as it did.

Freshly brewed tea in hand by the time the clouds had covered half the dome of the sky, she reclaimed her seat in the old rocking chair and smiled. This storm was going to be a good one. A distant rumble of thunder told her she had been right in her readings, and pride filled her chest.

Only a few minutes left.

The sheet of rain, the misty blackness of a true, powerful storm, crossed the fence onto her land. A fresh wind kicked up, rattling her trees and making the weathervane over her barn spin. The wind brought a smell to her nose, a gentle, background taste of salt that stuck in her throat.

Fin

-0-

And a special thanks to my beloved sibling Rocket McEvoy-Elmy for the brilliant cover art!! They’re a fantastic artist and I couldn’t be happier with the result!

Horror
7

About the Creator

Alexander McEvoy

Writing has been a hobby of mine for years, so I'm just thrilled to be here! As for me, I love writing, dogs, and travel (only 1 continent left! Australia-.-)

I hope you enjoy what you read and I can't wait to see your creations :)

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Outstanding

Excellent work. Looking forward to reading more!

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  1. Compelling and original writing

    Creative use of language & vocab

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    Well-structured & engaging content

  3. Excellent storytelling

    Original narrative & well developed characters

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Comments (6)

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  • Mackenzie Davis3 months ago

    I read this a couple days ago and i just had no time to be in Vocal to leave a comment! I’m so sorry! But wow! This is so damn creative, Alex! The kind of horror that I am fascinated by, the nature elements, the old magic vibes, and the stripes of literary fiction all the way through too. Just a beautiful and super effective story. Seeing the build up to the creature, seeing it reveal that it needs a new vessel (a hug, eugh!) was so freaking creepy! You really layered in the hints about what would happen at the peak of the story, and ugh, i can’t get over how well the denouement was written. Her waiting on her porch for the storm, the bit of salt in her throat, that ambiguity that the monster could get her, wow. What a satisfying end. Such a unique story! Thank you for bringing me here. And that cover art is amazing! It’s like the best kind of coming of age story imo, because it captures the dangers of nature and just of life, and teaches Tasha to be more mature and careful with her beliefs and thoughts. The manifestation element was particularly interesting to this end, that she had to refrain from turning round otherwise it would be come real. And then the cold elbow touch was great too! A fantastic reminder of her tenacity and restraint. Do you think the creature will catch up to her or is being away from the ocean enough to protect her? I feel like the creature could learn to adapt to saltless water if it was desperate enough for Tasha! But maybe I’m projecting a horror trope. Lol.

  • L.C. Schäfer6 months ago

    You're good at horror!

  • Rob Angeli7 months ago

    Ah! Calamari strikes back! That was a really fun and creepy story, everything down to the stench. So apt in your pacing and setting of atmosphere, you had me from the "clouds that closed over the city with the finality of a coffin lid," and onward to fishy rot and doom!

  • Lilly Cooper8 months ago

    Well done :)

  • Babs Iverson8 months ago

    Marvelous story!!!❤️💕

  • Colt Henderson8 months ago

    Truly appreciate you sharing this. Outstanding work!

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