The Rains (Untitled #1)(4)

At last the pollen grew too strong, and he coughed into a fist and headed back to his bottle, hoping the bourbon would clear his throat.

Early the next morning, McCafferty awoke and threw off the sheets. His belly was distended. Not ribs-and-coleslaw-at-a-Fourth-of-July-party swollen, but bulging like a pregnant woman five months in. His wife stirred at his side, pulling the pillow over her head. Ignoring the cramps, he trudged to the closet and dressed as he did every morning. The overalls stretched across his bulging gut, but he managed to wiggle them up and snap the straps into place. He had work to do, and the hired hands weren’t gonna pay themselves.

As the sun climbed the sky, the pain in his stomach worsened. He sat on the motionless tractor, mopping his forehead. He could still taste that bitter pollen, feel it in the lining of his gut, even sense it creeping up the back of his throat into his head.

He knocked off early, a luxury he had not indulged in since his wedding day, and dragged himself upstairs and into a cold shower. His bloated stomach pushed out so far that his arms could barely encircle it. Streaks fissured the skin on his sides just like the stretch marks that had appeared at Lucille’s hips during her pregnancies. The cramping came constantly now, throbbing knots of pain.

The water beat at him, and he felt himself grow foggy. He leaned against the wall of the shower stall, his vision smearing the tiles, and he sensed that pollen in his skull, burrowing into his brain.

He remembered nothing else.

He did not remember stepping from the shower.

Or his wife calling up to him that dinner was on the table.

Or the screams of his children as he descended naked to the first floor, the added weight of his belly creaking each stair.

He couldn’t hear his wife shouting, asking what was wrong, was he in pain, that they had to get him to a doctor.

He was unaware as he stumbled out into the night and scanned the dusk-dimmed horizon, searching out the highest point.

The water tower at the edge of Franklin’s land.

Without thought or sensation, McCafferty ambled across the fields, walking straight over crops, husks cutting at his legs and arms, sticks stabbing his bare feet. By the time he reached the tower, his ribboned skin was leaving a trail of blood in his wake.

With nicked-up limbs, he pulled himself off the ground and onto the ladder. He made his painstaking ascent. From time to time, a blood-slick hand or a tattered foot slipped from a rung, but he kept on until he reached the top.

He crawled to the middle of the giant tank’s roof, his elbows and knees knocking the metal, sending out deep echoes. And then he rolled onto his back, pointing that giant belly at the moon. His eyes remained dark, unseeing.

His chest heaved and heaved and then was still.

For a long time, he lay there, motionless.

There came a churning sound from deep within his gut. It grew louder and louder.

And then his body split open.

The massive pod of his gut simply erupted, sending up a cloud of fine, red-tinted particles. They rose into the wind, scattering through the air, riding the current toward his house and the town beyond.

What happened to Hank McCafferty was terrible.

What was coming for us was far, far worse.





ENTRY 4

It was later that same night when Patrick came to get me in the barn.

Gripping the baling hooks at my sides, I stepped through the rolled-back door into the night. My brother’s face was turned to the east. That bitter breeze kept blowing in across the fields.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Patrick raised a hand for silence.

A shift of the wind brought distant noises. Hammering sounds. And then, barely audible, the squeals of children.

“McCafferty’s place?” I asked.

“Sounds like it.”

“Do we wake Uncle Jim?”

Patrick turned his gaze at me. “And if it’s just the kids messing around, playing a game? You wanna be the one to tell Jim sorry for dragging him outta bed, knowing the workday he’s got tomorrow?”

I spit to clear the bitter taste from my mouth. “Then why do we need the shotgun?”

Patrick headed along the side of our ranch house toward the McCafferty place. “’Cuz what if we see a buck along the way?”

I didn’t smile.

As we passed the rows of cozy crates lining the outside wall, our seven remaining ridgies stirred, a few of the boys sniffing the air and starting to growl. All at once they went crazy, snapping at the scent on the wind and howling. When they were riled up, you could hear the hound in them.

“Quiet,” Patrick hissed. “Quiet!” Then to me, “Make them shut up before they wake Jim and Sue-Anne.”

I said, “Hush,” and the dogs fell silent, though Cassius whimpered with impatience.

Weeds grew tough and fast out here, so Uncle Jim let a few hungry goats roam the acre beyond our doorstep to keep the view. A few bleated as we passed them by and cut through the pasture. Some of the cows stirred as we drifted by. As we neared the McCafferty place, the cries got louder and my mouth dryer. The air tasted so vile I choked on it.

“You think something’s burning?”

Patrick shook his head. “No. That’s something else.”

A dot of yellow illuminated the McCafferty porch, the light glowing next to the front screen. The door was laid open, the house’s interior black as pitch.