The Boy Who Appeared from the Rain

by Kevin David Jensen

Kara's work at Grover's that day was six hours of hectic running, mostly in the rain. Jeff was sick, and that left them shorthanded for the second day of Grover's popular end-of-the-season sale. By the time she made it home at 3:45, she was worn out, cold, dirty, and ready for a warm, relaxing shower. Maybe she would take that shower, once she had dinner in the oven.

  She parked at the edge of the driveway, leaving Craig plenty of room to pull the pickup into the garage when he arrived. Coming to the front door, she began to insert her key, but thought to check the knob first—it refused to budge. Good for Zach. Craig had told him to leave the door locked once he got inside.

  She unlocked it and went in. It was quiet, just like yesterday when she had found the boy in his room, working on his homework. Maybe, if he had already cleaned his room and if he finished his homework soon, she could feel justified in allowing him to run over to Cayden's for an hour. Or then again, maybe she shouldn't, after his rudeness this morning. Or maybe she would just wait and see how his attitude was this afternoon.

  She set her handbag on the dining table and went to check on him. His door was slightly ajar. "Hey, kiddo," she announced herself, pushing it open. The room was empty. "Zach?" she called, but he did not reply.

  She walked to the den; maybe he had fallen asleep on the couch. As tired as he had been this morning, it wouldn't surprise her. But he was not there, either. "Zach?"

  A thought occurred to her. "Oh, you had better not have, young man," she warned him under her breath. "If you went to Cayden's after I told you not to—"

  She opened the side door and stepped onto the patio. Paws was there to greet her, wagging his tail happily. If Paws was waiting here beside the door, that meant Zach wasn't in the back yard. "Zechariah!" she called anyway, just to be sure. There was no response.

  Back inside, and beginning to fume at his audacity, sneaking off to Cayden's when she had explicitly instructed him to come home, she checked each room. Maybe he was hiding from her, playing a joke—he was his granddad's grandson, after all. She didn't find him, though, not even when she peeked beneath his bed and then hers.

  He wasn't home. She took back her pride in him for locking the door behind himself when he had arrived. At the kitchen counter, she dug around in a pile of notes. Finding the one with Cayden's number on it, she took a deep, calming breath, picked up her phone, and dialed.

  When Cayden's mother answered on the other end, Kara said, "Mrs. Tyler, this is Kara Fleming, Zach's mom. Is Zach there at your house?"

  "Hi, Kara. No, Cayden said Zach can't come over until he cleans his room," Mrs. Tyler replied.

  "Hmm… Well, that's good," Kara said. "At least he didn't disobey me." Her belly began to churn, though, as she wondered where he might be. "Would Cayden happen to know if Zach might have gone to another friend's house after school?"

  "I'll ask him," Mrs. Tyler said. Kara heard her call to Cayden in the background, and then her voice came back on the line a few seconds later. "The last time he saw Zach was in the hallway when school let out. He thought Zach was going to walk home."

  "Hmm, okay," Kara said, thinking hard. Her pulse had picked up and she could feel herself beginning to sweat, though there was no need—not yet. "He must have had to stay after school. If he does come by, would you have him call me right away? He still needs to pick up his room. We're having company over tonight."

  Kara called the school next, but there was no answer—only the school's voicemail. She glanced at the time—four o'clock on the dot. The office must have just closed. In that case, they would be sending Zach home about now. So she waited. It would only take him a few minutes to walk home from Briar Point.

  She did not wait patiently, though. She paced the length of the hallway several times, then wandered out to the road to watch for him. He should have come around the corner by now, she thought, checking her watch. She walked to the end of the street and looked toward the school, then in the opposite direction. There was no sign of him.

  Kara jogged back to the house. Where could he have gone?

  She started to pull out her phone, but caught herself. There was no need to bother Craig at work just yet. Zach probably was at the school. She locked the front door, hopped back in her sedan, and drove the two blocks to Briar Point.

  Once inside, she caught voices coming from an open classroom a few doors down from the entrance. She hurried to that room, knocked, and stepped inside. Mr. Herd and a few other teachers were gathered around a table at the far side of the room. They looked up as she came in.

  "Mrs. Fleming," Mr. Herd greeted her. He stood and came to join her outside the doorway.

  "Sorry to bother you," she said nervously. "I'm looking for Zach. Is he still here?"

  "As far as I know, he left right after school," Mr. Herd answered her in his deep, resonant voice, his black eyebrows furrowed. "Did he not go home?"

  She shook her head. Might Craig have picked him up for some reason?—some secret surprise they hadn't told her about, and now they were caught in traffic somewhere?

  Noticing that the teachers were all watching her with concern, she shrugged offhandedly. "I guess his dad must have picked him up. I'll just give him a call outside."

  Mr. Herd nodded and followed her to the outer door. "Is everything all right, Mrs. Fleming?"

  "Yes, I'm sure it's fine." That's not entirely true, she admitted to herself. "I just need to give Craig a call. He and Zach, they like to pull pranks sometimes—Zach especially. They probably planned something to surprise me."

  Mr. Herd opened the door for her, watching as she made her way to the car.

  Once there, she did call Craig. His phone rang several times—an eternity, it seemed—before he answered. "Hey, good-looking," he greeted her.

  "Craig," she said urgently, "is Zach with you?"

  He hesitated for the briefest moment. "No, I'm still at work with Derek… Isn't he at home?"

  "He didn't come home, Craig, and school let out over an hour ago. I called Cayden's mom—he's not at their house, either. I'm at Briar Point right now. Mr. Herd said he left right after school. Craig, where else could he be?"

  Craig was silent. Kara could almost hear him calculating in his mind, thinking through the possibilities. "Do you think he ran away?" he asked.

  "Oh, no," she groaned. That was an option she had not considered. It caught her off-guard. "I should've thought of that. We had an argument this morning. I was so stupid. The last thing I said to him was that we might find him a new home. Maybe he thought I was angry enough to actually send him away."

  "Like he thought Derek and I were going to trade kids," Craig replied. "All right, why don't you go home in case he shows up and call whoever you think he might have gone to—Ben and Lia, Shanice…"

  "Rita…"

  "Right, Rita. Good thinking. If he knows how to find her, he might have gone to her. I'll tell Derek what's going on and come straight home. Give me thirty minutes. And then we'll figure out what to do next."

  "Okay," Kara agreed. "If I find out anything, I'll call you."

  She drove home and, after searching for the boy inside the house again and finding only his absence, she returned to the front porch to watch the street and make her calls. Rain that had subsided for a couple of hours resumed a light sprinkling. She hoped Zach wasn't out in it somewhere—though, she admitted, if he was, he was probably enjoying getting wet. The thought didn't quite make her smile; that churning in her gut had worsened.

  Craig arrived home sooner than expected, his face taut with his own anxiety. "Any luck?" he asked as he hopped out of the pickup.

  "Nothing," she responded. "I asked Ben to stay home in case Zach goes there, although I don't see why he would—he knows they were coming over tonight. But just in case…"

  "If he panicked," Craig pointed out, placing a supportive hand on Kara's back, "there's no telling what he might be thinking."

&
nbsp; "I called Shanice and Rita. Neither of them has heard from him, either. And I checked at Grover's. I tried to think of everyone he knows—adults, anyway. But what if he went to a friend's house to hide, somewhere other than Cayden's?"

  "Then the parents will call," Craig assured her, "just like we would. That was the first thing we would have done when he showed up here, if we had known who to call."

  Kara rubbed her forehead. It ached with worry and concentration.

  "Let's go look for him," Craig proposed. "I don't like the thought of waiting here while he's wandering the streets out there somewhere."

  "What if he comes home while we're gone?"

  "I'll leave my phone and a note for him to call us," Craig answered.

  "Okay." Kara was grateful that Craig felt the same way she did, not content to sit here and wait, hoping Zach came home on his own. She fetched her jacket from inside.

  Craig stepped into the house just long enough to write a note and tape it to the front door. Then he joined Kara in her car and pulled into the street. "Where do you think he might have gone?"

  "Not to the police," Kara replied. "He's scared they'll take him away somewhere. Maybe Rita's apartment, if he could make it. But she's four or five miles from here. Surely he's not trying—"

  "I doubt it. That's a long walk." Craig sighed as he turned the corner at the end of their block. "Let's check the neighborhood first. Most likely, he's close by. He probably decided to come back home, but got lost."

  Kara peered out the window. Despite the rain falling into the car, she kept it rolled down for a clearer view.

  They patrolled the neighborhood for an hour, then checked back at home. Craig's note was still on the door and his phone inside on the counter, the house was still empty, and Paws was still eager for their attention.

  "Craig, I don't like this at all," Kara told him, her voice quavering from nerves as they looked into his room; there was no indication that he had been there. "I was so mean. I wasn't thinking about what he might hear when I told him I would find him a new home. He must feel so betrayed!"

  "Hey." Craig took her shoulders consolingly. "It's not your fault. He knew you expected him home after school. He just overreacted, that's all. Having parents is still new to him. We'll talk with him about it when we find him…" Craig looked around the messy room. "Did he take anything unusual with him this morning, things he wouldn't want to leave behind? Anything that might give us a clue where he went?"

  Kara scanned the floor and peeked inside his closet. "His soccer ball is here. His baseball glove, his cap… Those are his favorite things. But we didn't argue until he was out the door on his way to school."

  "He could have come back for them after school."

  "And risked one of us being here? Maybe he decided it wasn't worth it."

  Craig puffed out his cheeks and exhaled loudly, thinking. "He has his key, right? Maybe he plans to come back and get his things later, when we're gone. Or…maybe he's hiding like he used to do under his bed—waiting until he thinks you're calm and it's safe to come home."

  Vexed, and drained by apprehension, Kara pounded her fist on the wall. From the corner of her eyes, she saw Craig watching her. "Go look again?" she asked.

  He nodded. "I don't know what else to do. If we don't find him by dark…"

  "Then we call the police," Kara finished.

  Craig looked at her grimly. "We'll find him, Kara." His eyes did not seem as confident to Kara as his voice did; he was afraid, though he was trying to hide it. She appreciated the attempt.

  *****