The Boy Who Appeared from the Rain

by Kevin David Jensen

No one could sleep stretched out and doubled over like this. Zach was tired, but too sore to fall asleep…and too scared. Hours had passed, but Hugh and the two Asian men had not returned. Zach shivered. How much longer until the sun rose and warmed everything up again?

  He thought he heard an owl hoot once somewhere outside the shed. What if he were somewhere in the mountains? What if a bear came by? Could a bear break into a shed?

  Zach shuddered. This was bad, really bad. He wondered how long he would be left here, whether, after all those years of dreaming that he might meet his parents someday, he would ever see them again. He really liked Mom and Dad. He loved them. They were awesome, even if they were frustrating sometimes. He frustrated them sometimes, too. If he could choose to see anyone right now, it would be them. Surely sending him away had been a mistake, some kind of misunderstanding. That must be it—a misunderstanding.

  He had never imagined discomfort like this—the awful-tasting gag tight against his tongue, pulling his lips back at the edges; the cord slowly rubbing red lines into his wrists and ankles; the muscles in his arms and legs begging for merciful release from this position they had held for hours with only a single, brief break.

  The loneliness was even worse than the discomfort. He was more alone than he had ever been in his life. Only once before had he been completely alone—during that first walk from school to his parents' home, when he had gotten lost. There had been people all around, but until he had encountered Officer Garrenton, he had been on his own, and in that sense alone.

  Worse still was the fear, the growing awareness that Mom and Dad weren't coming for him. No one was coming to save him, and there was nothing he could do to help himself except run if he got the chance. But Hugh and the Asian men weren't likely to give him a chance.

  The thought of running reminded him of Paws. He missed Paws. The dog had been such a good friend from their first night together. If Paws were here, maybe he could chew through the cord. Or if not, at least he would sit beside Zach and keep him company.

  There was movement outside; Zach barely heard it, something close to the shed. He caught the sound again—footsteps falling on the cement, quietly and very near. If a bear smelled him, would it leave him alone or break in to attack him? A moment later, someone—not a bear—tapped softly on the wall of the shed. Zach tried to scream for help, but the gag muffled his voice to almost nothing.

  The person outside must have heard him, though, because a new scraping sound came quickly at the door, followed by a snap and a clatter as the bolt on the door fell to the ground. The door opened and a face appeared—a man's face. There was too little light to see it clearly, but Zach could tell it was not one of the Asian men. He could almost make out the man's features.

  "Dad!" Zach tried to yell, but the gag muffled it into a grunt.

  The face moved closer. "Zechariah!" The voice—it was familiar, but it wasn't Dad's. "Zechariah, are you all right?"

  Zach froze. Grandfather? He's alive?

  Never before had Zach been glad to see the man, but in his present state he was thrilled to see anyone. With hands sheathed in thin, black gloves, Grandfather angled a bolt cutter to slice through the cord. Zach toppled over onto his side. Grandfather loosed the gag, letting Zach pull it out of his mouth. He spat; the taste of it, though, lingered.

  "Are you injured?" Grandfather inquired urgently.

  "No," Zach coughed, sucking in his first full breath in hours. Fighting stiff limbs, he scrambled to his feet. A sharp, new pain pulsed through them, the sting of blood flowing back into tight muscles.

  "Come quickly, Zechariah," Grandfather commanded. He was not nearly as old as Grover, but older than Mom and Dad, his hair and beard white, with wrinkles beginning to show on his face. He slipped back outside the shed. "We must leave before they return."

  Thinking to scoop up his backpack, Zach hurried to follow. He was free! He stumbled noisily out of the shed and onto the cement, his legs faltering as the muscles seized up.

  "Quietly, Zechariah!" Grandfather whispered. "Your abductors are very near." He pointed away from the shed. There was a cottage there, tiny compared to the vast mansion beyond it; the Asian men must have been inside the cottage.

  With a hand gripping Zach's jacket, Grandfather pull him upright again and tugged him into a stand of trees. They wound through the trees to Grandfather's car beyond them, a silver, two-door sedan with a new-car smell to it that welcomed Zach as he climbed into the back. Grandfather always drove new cars. The man quickly shut the door and steered them away.

  "Thank goodness I found you," Grandfather said as he drove. He took them away from the mansion and onto an empty two-lane highway. Zach soon spotted city lights up ahead; the Asian men must not have taken him far from Seattle, perhaps not far enough for there to be bears.

  "How did you know where I was?" he asked. He almost expected Grandfather not to answer. Grandfather usually ignored his questions.

  But the man responded immediately. "A hunch. I know the man who took you."

  "Hugh?"

  "Hugh McWrait, yes. That was his mansion back there. He's a bold fellow, as you have seen, but overconfident, and quite the novice at this sort of thing. Hiding you in the shed was too predictable. And leaving it unguarded was a rookie mistake. You would have been guarded more securely inside the mansion."

  "Thank you for rescuing me," Zach panted. Why was he panting, now that they were safely away from the Asian men? But he was; he was shaking again and drawing in one deep, shuddering breath after another.

  Another question lodged in his mind, and he cocked his head to the side. "Wait—how did you know they kidnapped me?"

  "I've been keeping an eye on you since I returned from Japan," Grandfather explained as he drove. He wore the same kind of clothes he always wore—a turtleneck shirt, this one white, and a dark jacket, the fancy kind with buttons in the front. "I needed to make sure you were all right. And it's a good thing I did. I only wish I had been there to stop McWrait's men from abducting you."

  Grandfather had been keeping an eye on him? He noticed Grandfather's gloved hands on the steering wheel. "It was your glove that Paws found in the back yard!" Zach exclaimed.

  "Ah," Grandfather replied. "I dropped it and your animal ran away with it in the dark."

  Zach shook his head, wondering. "I thought you were dead!" he said. "The nanny told me—"

  "Ah," Grandfather cut him off. Grandfather often cut him off. "The nanny was misinformed."

  "It wasn't true?" Zach puzzled over how this could be.

  Grandfather scoffed. "Well, look at me, boy! Do I look dead to you?"

  "No," Zach acknowledged in a small voice. Grandfather had a way of making him feel small. If Grandfather wasn't dead… "Is Grandmother still alive, too?"

  Grandfather's eyes flicked onto him briefly through the rearview mirror. "Alas, no. She has been gone for years. She did it to herself, the foolish woman. This time she could not blame me."

  They drove on in silence for a while, entering the edges of the city. They passed an electronic board that showed the time—2:16, the middle of the night. Zach thought he should feel more sleepy, but though his thoughts were a muddled blur, his body was strangely full of energy.

  Suddenly it struck him—he was free! Grandfather was taking him home! In just a little while he would be back with Mom and Dad again. Mom would hug him—he wouldn't pull away—and mess up his hair. Dad might even give him a hug, too. Paws would bark and lick his face. He was going home! It was like waking up from a horrible nightmare and realizing none of it had been real…except that his arms, legs, and mouth still ached, of course, and his lips were raw at the corners, and the taste of the gag remained, assuring him that it had been very real indeed… And except that Mom and Dad had made that deal with Hugh…

  Hope and despair wrestled inside of Zach. "Grandfather," he asked, "did you tell my mom and da
d? Do they know you found me? Grandfather?"

  The man remained silent for several long seconds. His eyes flashed solemnly back at Zach again. "No, Zechariah. I have not told them."

  At a stoplight, Grandfather turned and guided them onto a freeway. Zach caught sight of a sign informing him that they were nearing Seattle.

  "Do you have a phone? Can you call them? We should call the police! How long until we get there? Are the—"

  "Enough!" Grandfather roared from the front seat. "I am taking you to my apartment. You'll be safe there."

  Zach frowned. "But I want to go home! Why can't I just go home?"

  He waited, but Grandfather didn't answer. The man ignored him. Mom and Dad never ignored Zach like that. They might say he was asking too many questions, they might tell him to go read a book, but they never ignored him.

  "I want to go home," Zach repeated, trying not to sound rude—Grandfather had just rescued him, after all. "You always said Mom and Dad were dead, but they're still alive! They're great! You could meet them! They have a dog named Paws, and they took me to the zoo and Mount Rainier. They even took me to the beach, the big beach! And they—"

  "Zechariah." Grandfather kept his eyes on the road, but his tone was stern. "We cannot tell them where you are. We do not know whom we can trust."

  "You mean because they sold me? But I think that was a mista—"

  "Sold you?" Grandfather's reflection glanced at him with intense interest. "Is that what McWrait told you?"

  "Yeah," Zach replied, "but they couldn't have. I don't believe him. Except that he said—"

  "What did he say?"

  Zach hesitated, but Grandfather's eyes in the mirror demanded an explanation. "He said the same thing Mom said this morning—that she would have to…find another place for me."

  "Ah," Grandfather responded a moment later. "She must have told him. That is most unfortunate."

  "But it's not true!"

  Grandfather sighed. "Alas, Zechariah, I'm afraid it is." He drove on in silence for a few seconds. "When I sent you to your parents, they seemed decent people. But, alas, they are not. They have been—"

  "Wait," Zach interrupted him, "you couldn't have sent me to them. I found them by myself, in the phonebook."

  Grandfather glared at Zach through the mirror. "Do not interrupt me, Zechariah. The nanny failed to give you their address as I had instructed her. It is fortunate that you were so resourceful, since I was away in Japan. Then, when I returned and saw that you had found them and it seemed they had accepted you, I did not worry much. But when I learned more about them—that was when I found out…"

  "Found out what?"

  Grandfather took a deep breath. "Your parents have been associating with criminals, Zechariah. Hugh McWrait is a criminal, a remarkable one in his own way. So you see—I rarely err, but I clearly erred in my judgment of your mother and father. They saw an opportunity for economic advancement and sold you to McWrait."

  "No, they didn't!" Zach screamed before he could stop himself.

  Grandfather tensed, and for a moment Zach thought the man might reach over the seat and strike him, but instead Grandfather merely let out a long breath. "I think they truly believed they loved you at first," he said. "But it is difficult to love someone for long when you did not invite them into your life. They were happy before you came to them, you see. They thought they would be happy to have you with them, and perhaps they were for a time. But eventually, the newness wore off. Did you ask irritating questions?" In the mirror, he watched Zach's mouth fall open. "Ah. Did you disobey?" Again he watched, nodding at Zach's silence. "I know you, Zechariah. You made it hard for them. You made the challenges of parenting impossible to manage. Now they had to do a thousand things they had never had to do before you appeared in their lives, and they grew weary of it—bedtimes, homework, clothes, toys, listening to you chatter… Did they never seem tired to you, Zechariah?"

  Zach's eyes grew wide as he listened. It could not be; just last night—well, two nights ago, now that it was technically morning—he and Dad had played catch until they could hardly throw anymore. They were getting along again. Mom and Dad weren't tired of him; well, they had said they weren't. But what if they just didn't want him to know?

  "Yes." Grandfather watched him again through the mirror. "You saw it, didn't you? They were on the edge of a cliff, and then with one last shove, you pushed them over that edge. What did you do that angered them, Zechariah?"

  "No," Zach stammered, "nothing, I didn't… I played catch with Dad. Mom was happy. We had ice cream. Everything was—" But those words that Hugh knew—like the burst of a bombshell, they struck home again—the last thing Mom had said to him. "Maybe we can find another place for you," Zach moaned.

  "Speak up, Zechariah," Grandfather demanded irritably. Grandfather was often irritable.

  Zach gulped. "I argued with Mom before school. I was mad. I was mean to her. That was when she said…they could find another place for me."

  "Ah." Grandfather gave a knowing nod. "You see? They were not ready to be parents. They liked it better when it was just the two of them. You pushed them too far, Zechariah."

  NO! Zach screamed to himself. No, they loved me! They took care of me! They— But all the good memories began to pale against the stark reality of Mom's final, angry words to him.

  It made horrible sense. Being a family had gotten harder. Mom and Dad had been angrier with Zach and with each other. They loved each other, and Zach had invaded their lives without their permission. He was the stranger in their home. He had been rude to them one too many times, and now…

  Now it was too late. All alone in the back seat, exhausted, Zach choked back a despairing sob. "No." He covered his face as tears began to flow again. "No!"

  Through the mirror, Grandfather observed him with grimly satisfied eyes.