The Rain

The earth was shaking again.

In his pre-dawn stupor Ben fought to open his eyes against the heavy blanket of sleep that shrouded him. The dark room came into focus slowly, revealing nothing notable. The same familiar shapes as always were discernable in the darkness of his room. His hand automatically groped for the bedside table. He breathed a sigh of relief as the smooth surface of the lockets metal met his palm, cold in the chill of the winter air. He closed his fingers around it and brought it to his chest under the warmth of his woolen blankets.

Ben didn’t like it when the earth shook.

Thomas had told him he didn't need to worry. He said the reinforced walls of the bunker and its depth in the ground would keep them safe from the turmoil on the surface. But he did worry. Because lately it felt untrue.

The shaking had started while they were playing UNO one afternoon. Thomas had looked at them that first day with his mouth gaping open like a fish, his eyes were wide with fear and wonder. “It’s happening! Daddy was right!” We were sure the trembling walls meant Daddy would be joining us soon. Clearly the surface wasn't safe anymore. Not even for him. Amy had waited by the entrance of the bunker for days. But he never did come. Eventually she had abandoned her vigil. The shaking had been happening for weeks now.

Ben didn't think Thomas was right about Daddy. He thought Daddy wasn’t right at all about his end of days stuff. He remembered momma saying Daddy was sick. She would point to her head and look at him knowingly. Ben wasn't sure exactly what she meant, but he did know whether Daddy was right about the world ending or not, something was happening up there now for sure. Sometimes he worried those were giants stomping around on the surface above them. Loud and heavy and shaking everything in their path. That’s what it felt like anyway. He didn’t tell Thomas this. He knew Thomas would just call him a baby.

Each day that passed, Ben thought the giants must be growing angrier. Because the shaking became more intense.

A few nights back he had stepped in loose dirt scattered on the pantry floor. There was no loose dirt in the bunker. A glance upward showed an angry crack forming in the ceiling. Exposing the soil beneath. Day by day, the crack became worse. Sometimes even leaking dirty puddles of water onto the floor. Amy was scared of those puddles, so that meant Ben was too. She said there was no way to know what kind of chemicals or toxins were in the surface water now. When the water would start to drip….drip….drip… Amy would scream for Thomas. Thomas had put a pail beneath the crack two days ago. In the mornings Ben would sneak out of bed to cautiously peer into the bucket and survey the dirty water collected from the night before. Each day he was sure he would see burning acid eating at the pails bottom, or noxious gasses billowing out of its top. But the water just looked like water. Maybe things weren’t as bad up there as Amy had told him they were?

As if in answer to his unspoken question, the rumbling came again. Harder this time, causing the baseball Thomas had given him to pitch from its place on the makeshift shelf and roll across the floor. Was it his imagination? Or when the ball fell did it make a splashing sound?

He held tighter to the locket in his palm. It was momma's locket. He liked to trace the shape of the heart over and over again with the pad of his thumb just the way she used to when she was nervous or upset. He felt nervous now. He wanted to go find Amy. He wanted to crawl into her bed and feel the safety of her presence envelop him. But that would mean leaving his bed. And Ben was scared. Because in the belly of the bunker beyond his open doorway he could hear unfamiliar sounds. Metallic groans. Cracking. Loud smacking plops as items fell from their designated places in the worsening trembling.

It was the plops that bothered him the most. He thought again of the crack in the pantry ceiling and the water that had been steadily dripping through.

“Amy?............Thomas?” His voice came out high and shook nearly as much as the walls around him. He hated when he sounded like a baby. Thomas always told him to “man up” when his voice was like that.

Peering into the abyss he listened hard. Cupping his ear and closing his eyes tight. Willing any audible sign of his siblings. The only answer that came was those unnerving foreign sounds from the darkness beyond the door.

His fear was steadily increasing, and the need to be close to Amy was a sharp ache in his chest now. He had to get to her. He had to be brave. With his heart beating fast, he mustered every ounce of courage in his body and swung his legs out of the bed. “Splash!” The icy shock of the cold ground water soaking his bare feet made him cry out. Acid!! His brain screamed. In horror, he drew back his dripping feet and began frantically swiping at them with his blankets. He knew at any moment now he would feel the deep searing burn of flesh melting from bone. Terror gripped him. Minutes passed. He held his breath, stared at his outstretched feet, wiggled his toes. Nothing happened. His panicked breathing slowed. He reached down and touched the wet edge of his pajama bottoms. Bringing his fingertips close to his face to inspect them.

Could the water really be JUST water?

Amy. He had to get to Amy. He had to tell her and Thomas that the water was ok. That they would be ok. That everything would be ok.

With the locket clasped firmly in his hand, he leapt from his bed and splashed quickly through the water on his bedroom floor. It was dark in the main living area, and the the water was deeper here too. The pitch of the floor making a circular pool in the center of the room. He could see light bouncing faintly above where the ladder to the surface ascended. It illuminated the water running down the shaft in swift rivulets. He could hear sounds drifting down from above too. Cursing. Banging.

Thomas.

He wanted to call out to Thomas. Ask if everything was ok? But he knew it wasn’t. He could almost feel his brothers palpable fear coming down that shaft as swiftly as the water. He turned away and started wading his way toward Amy’s room. He could barely hear a high tinny sound over the dripping and low grumbling of the shaking walls. It reminded Ben of the barn kittens they had up there when they would cry for their mamma sometimes. The sound was small and pitiful. It became louder as he moved closer to his sisters room. He passed by the pantry and saw the old pail overflowing in its place on the floor. No longer the occasional drip, a waterfall cascaded from the ceiling above. The crack had also grown. It had expanded to at least a 2-inch-wide black crevice. He shuddered. His thumb worrying the edge of the locket.

Amy was lying on her bed in a curled position. Her shoulders shook as her body was wracked with high desperate sobs. “Amy?” She shifted up on her elbow, gasping a little when she saw him silhouetted in the doorway. She outstretched her arms. “Benny.” She choked. “Benny come here.” He ran to her. Diving needily into the safety of her waiting embrace. He buried his face in her neck, and could feel hot tears on her cheeks. She was shaking almost as hard as the walls around them. He started crying too then. Her fear bringing forth his own in a wash of knowing. Things really were not ok. Not ok at all. “The water doesn’t burn.” he said tearfully. “I am wet to my knees, but I’m not hurt. See? It’s going to be ok. We can go up! We can get out! Maybe the air isn’t bad like you thought it was either?” She was quiet. “Amy? Maybe Daddy was wrong….”

“Shhh….” She said. Pulling his body close to hers and smoothing his hair. Her hand found his clasped fingers and gently pried the locket from them. She opened the tiny, tarnished, silver heart. The faded well-worn face of our mother was there to meet her gaze. “Daddy wasn’t wrong Benny. It isn’t safe up there. It isn’t safe down here either. Maybe it isn’t safe anywhere anymore.” As she said this, her face scrunched up tight and the tears flowed harder.

Wanting to comfort her, he feebly said, “It’s ok Amy. Daddy built this bunker to protect us remember? He said it could withstand anything. Everything’s going to be ok. Thomas is fixing it. Right now.”

He said it, but he didn’t really believe it. He didn’t even know if he believed all the reasons they were down here in the first place. Momma sure hadn’t. That was why she left them. She called Daddy crazy. Maybe he was. Then one day she was just….gone. Without so much as a goodbye. Ben never could understand why momma hadn’t taken them with her.

Another metallic groan and a fresh wave of trembling rocked their tiny bedroom island. And with it, rain started to fall from the swelling seams of the bunker ceiling. The whole thing reminded Ben of a thunderstorm. The kind he and his Daddy used to watch wash over the farm in the early springtime before he had sent them underground. “It’s not safe up here anymore Benny. The air is becoming toxic. And the water is poison! You have to go down. Now. It’s the only way I can keep all of you safe.”

It was a warm, bright, sun-soaked day that last time Ben had been up there. He had never wanted to go into the ground. But despite his best efforts, crying, begging, bargaining, pleading, his father was firm as stone. There was no choice but to accept his fate.

He had breathed in one last lungful of wildflower breeze, and taken one last long look at the sun, before descending into the underground behind his brother and sister. Not because he understood any of it. Not because he believed it either. But because he trusted his father. Almost as much as he hated him in that moment.

He thought about that day often. Replayed it in his head. Turning it this way and that to try and make the pieces fit. To try and make it all feel right. He never could.

But that last day up there is not where his mind is at now.

Now he is standing on the front screen porch of their old farmhouse. Watching a storm roll in across the expanse of fields. His arms are spread wide in the air. His lips in a mischievous Cheshire cat grin. Daddy is yelling, “WOAH! Hold on Benny! Here she comes! She’s a big one!”

He can feel the breeze carrying the spray of rain into his face. His eyes are wide and wild, watching the lightening split the darkened sky. He and Daddy are laughing and counting out loud till they can hear the distant rumbling of thunder….

Amy screamed. Another loud crack sounded above them. She pulled him deeper down into the mattress. Covering his body with hers.

The storm was getting closer now....“1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi….” He whispered.

Ben had always loved the rain.