Be Scared of the Rain...

[chris]

Hey everyone!
So I today (August 31, 2016) heard a story called "Rain".
I really think it's great so I am going to post the story on this thread.
Enjoy and make sure to leave a comment on what you think of it below my post!

So the story got trimmed from my source so I am deciding to just attempt to type out the beginning the way that I heard it. Everything in between stars (*) is what I wrote and added on.


*When I was younger my grandfather told me to always be scared of the rain. There was a prison not to far from our house that held mental inmates. Many of these inmates were so bad that they had to be chained to the walls. During storms and during times when it rained, prisoners could pull the chains off the walls and escape. Many prisoners would go to other close houses nearby to get out of the rain and to try to escape.*
He would tell me that most of the time during escapes, the convicts would usually only hurt people they happened to come across. If they broke into a home to avoid police, and there was a family sitting around the TV in the living room, they would strike. He would tell me that if a Redvark prisoner escaped, and if they came to our neighborhood, and if they broke into our house, that as long as I stayed in my closet, I'd be okay. It would be possible for a convict to find me and hurt me. But as long as I stayed in my closet fort, I would be as safe as anyone in town. I would remind myself of this on rainy days. I would sit in my closet and think about it and it would make me feel safe.
My grandpa disappeared one June. I lived with him alone. My parents had died years earlier. My grandpa disappeared and I was afraid to call the police. I knew if something happened to my grandpa, the police would take me away and force me to live in a home. I didn't want to live in a home. I had a home. I kept his disappearance to myself for over a week. I would walk myself to school. I knew where grandpa kept emergency cash, and so I would take a little here and there to the corner bodega and buy some milk and sandwich meats. One day, about eight days after his disappearance they let us out of school early. Storm of the century, they said. Thunder and lightning, and heavy rain all night. The rain was so heavy that night, the local streets flooded over. On the walk home from school, the water was up to my ankles. By 9 o'clock the water was coming up to people's knees. I got home, climbed into my little hiding space and covered myself in a blanket. Thunder clapped outside. I was very afraid. The storm itself unsettled me, but thinking about Redvark and how easy it would be to escape during a storm like this terrified me.
We lost power after a little while. I sat in the closet in darkness. I turned to my Walkman for solace. After a few hours, the music started to stutter. After a few more minutes it stopped altogether. Batteries. Dead as doornails. I continued to sit in silence. The power hadn't come back on yet. The darkness and silence enveloped me. Then the silence was broken. By a scratching noise some distance away. I ignored it at first. But it grew louder and more insistent. Finally, I reluctantly left the safety of my fort. In the upstairs hallway I stopped and listened. The noise was clearly coming from downstairs. I descended the stairs, my heart pounding in my chest. I got to the kitchen and stopped to listen again. The noise still sounded as if it were coming from below me. We had no basement, so the fact that the noises were coming from beneath me was unsettling. There were more noises now, too, not just the scraping. I thought I heard moaning. I crouched low to the floor, listening. The noises got louder as I entered the living room; louder still as I entered the main corridor. I stopped on a throw rug at the end of the hallway. The noises were at their loudest here, below me. I pulled the throw rug away and saw a trap door. It must have led to a basement or crawl space. I had no idea it existed. I had no idea there was anything under that rug. I wondered why it was padlocked. I grabbed a ring of old keys that hung on a hook in the mud room. I tried the keys in the padlock one after another. The fourth key slid in to the lock like a base runner sliding in to... Something pounded against the bottom of the trap door. FTHWAAAAP! FTHWAAAAP! It was followed by muffled voices. "Ullo. Ebby dare." I could barely make out the voices. FWTHWAAAAP! "Help us!!!" I understood that. I turned the key and lifted up trap door.
The worst smell I've ever known wafted up and hit me in the chest. I instantly heard women crying and a man's voice sobbing "Thank God, oh thank God." And then another. "Water. Please, we need water."
The next few days were a whirlwind. Police, media, and gawkers descended on the house. Our small town in Arizona never saw much excitement. The news of a home-grown serial killer sent an electric jolt through the populace. The media was relentless. The police had a million questions. "Where is your grandfather?" I don't know. "Did you know what he was doing?" "Did you help him hide his secret?" No, I'd said. No, never. "Did you help your grandfather bury the bodies in the backyard?" No. "You must have helped." They'd said. No. "You must have helped. An old man like that wouldn't be able to dig in the Arizona clay all by himself." And then it hit me. "Rain." I'd said. The policemen looked at me blankly. "What?" "He'd wait for it to rain."

[chris]

@endo Let me know what you think of this!

[endo]

I'm no critic, but I thought it was pretty good. The Skins are playing so, I got a little distracted once, but overall, I liked it.
Got some authors here that might take a read and tell you what they think, way better qualified than I.

And, if you like reading horror, check out some of James Newman's stuff. He's a member here, and I like his work a lot.

[livingdeadgirl]

Sorry to have a "no" vote on this, I'm just being honest in my opinion, but I'm glad you liked it.

[endo]

Honesty is always the best policy, unless you're George Costanza.

[chris]

Aug 31, 2016 20:47:56 GMT -5 endo said:

Honesty is always the best policy, unless you're George Costanza.

Agreed! I love this story because it changes how you view the entire story in a matter of the last 3-5 words.

[chris]

Sorry by the way guys I was kinda in a rush so I had to type the top part out quickly, may not be that great.