Rainwalkers

by Matt Ritter

  He stared straight ahead, keeping one foot in front of the other, following his river downstream. Downvalley. Toward Salinas City. Toward Helen.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “A section of the longvalley freeway has been destroyed,” the Valley Manager said, looking panicked as Ben came into his office. His eyes bulged, and he worked vigorously on a bloody hangnail.

  “Where?” Ben asked, stunned.

  “Near Gonzales. We’re cut off from the oil fields.”

  “What do we do now?” Ben asked.

  Colonel Adams sat next to the Manager’s wide metal desk. His eyes looked sunken and tired.

  The colonel looked up at Ben and said, “I just gave the order to send troops upvalley to begin immediate repairs. But we could be several days without new reinforcements, and we’ll be using up fuel reserves until trucks can get through again.”

  The Manager studied a bloody fingertip. “The timing on this couldn’t be worse.”

  Ben didn’t know why, but he thought he heard a slightly accusatory tone in the Manager’s voice.

  “Who do you think is responsible?” Ben asked.

  “We don’t know, but we need to retaliate. These so-called resistance fighters are among us. They’re deep in the Valley, and at the same time they operate for our enemies at the border.” The Valley Manager pounded a half-tightened fist onto the desk. His wrists were so thin they looked as if they may break. He stared for a moment at Ben. “Who knows, they could even be operating from inside the Administration.”

  Ben glanced at the colonel, then back to the Manager and asked, “This is a military issue. Why did you call me here?”

  “We have troops behind enemy lines,” the colonel said. “We don’t know their status, but their mission is crucial. We need to contact them, to breach the enemy’s ranks, but the border is too fortified.”

  Ben looked at the colonel, confused, then at the Valley Manager.

  The colonel continued. “It’s likely that the explosives used to destroy the longvalley highway came in through the Prunedale border at night, during the rain. We believe the Benicians have men.” The colonel paused and looked at the Valley Manager. “Actually, we don’t know if they’re men, women, or children, but people who can survive in the rain.”

  The Manager looked at Ben and said, “We need the same type of people. And we have them now.”

  “Do you mean the children?” Ben asked.

  “Yes.”

  “The oldest is a girl. Barely eleven,” Ben said in disbelief.

  “She can be trained,” the Manager said. “They all can. If they can move over the border in the rain, they can gather information and carry munitions to target locations.”

  Ben watched the colonel for a moment. He was stone-faced. Turning back to the Manager, he asked: “Are you serious?” He was beginning to sweat. “This is what you’ve come up with?”

  The Valley Manager stared at him blankly.

  “Do you know how dangerous what you’re talking about is? Children at the border, carrying explosives?”

  The colonel watched them in silence, shifting slightly in his chair.

  The Manager, trying to control his emotions, whispered, “This is our best option, Ben. This is why we looked for them. We have to use them, or the search was in vain.” Ben had known the Manager a long time and could recognize slight changes in his impassive face, minute wrinkles around the eyes, exposing cracks in the facade.

  “This is insanity,” Ben said, looking to the colonel to agree with him.

  The Valley Manager finally erupted, pounding his desk again in anger.

  “Colonel, will you give us a moment,” the Manager said loudly.

  The colonel didn’t respond. He got up, stood straight, pulled down the front of his uniform, and walked stiffly out of the office, slamming the door behind him.

  “Sit down,” the Valley Manager said, pointing to the chair the colonel had just vacated. Once Ben was seated, the Manager tried to calm himself with a deep breath and said, “What choice do we have here?”

  “You’re talking about sending our only hope of a solution on a suicide mission,” Ben said, his voice involuntarily rising as his anger began to overtake him.

  “We’re running out of options. The resistance is deep in our Valley.” The Manager’s voice was also getting louder. “I won’t sit by and let them destroy us.”

  “This isn’t the Valley we grew up in. Not the Valley we’ve always fought for.” Ben felt disgusted.

  Neither said anything.

  Finally, in a calm and cold voice, the Manager said, “We can’t let our enemies get the better of us. They’ve destroyed part of the longvalley freeway, which weakens us greatly. Now it’s us or them. The children will be used, and they’ll be used how and when I say.”

  “I need more time with them.”

  “I’ll ensure that their preparation happens here, so you still have access to them. Finish your experiments.” The Manager gave Ben a strange look, akin to pity. “Make something work.”

  The two men stared at each other.

  “For the Valley,” the Manager said, almost taunting Ben.

  Ben hesitated, then repeated, “For the Valley,” through his teeth.

  With a weary wave of his hand, the Valley Manager said, “Send the colonel back in on your way out.”

  Ben stepped outside the Manager’s office and the door closed behind him. Colonel Adams waited down the hallway, watching the shrouded city below from a tall window.

  “He’s ready to see you again,” Ben said, approaching the colonel. In the perilous world just beyond the thick glass, high clouds spewed a toxic drizzle onto the tall buildings.

  Without turning to Ben, Colonel Adams said, “We caused all this. The suffering and the endless warring. It’s almost like we’ve gotten what we deserved with this rain.”

  The colonel turned toward him and watched Ben carefully. The two men made eye contact, trying to read each other’s faces.

  The colonel nodded slightly and looked both ways down the hallway. In a low whisper, he said, “I want to stop this, the same as you. There may be something that can be done. We’ll talk later.”

  Without another word, he walked stiffly back toward the Manager’s office.

  In the elevator back down to his lab, Ben’s mind raced. What did the colonel mean? He needed more time with the children. From the beginning we've been the architects of our own demise, he thought. If bloodthirsty Benician marauders overrunning our borders laid waste to the Valley from the outside, would it be worse than what we have now?

  The elevator dinged and the doors slid open, but Ben didn’t move. He saw it all so clearly at that moment. Foreign armies weren’t to be feared. His Valley was being destroyed from the inside.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Will Taft, Mary McElroy, and Zach Taylor walked the river path downstream all day toward Salinas City. Along the way, in a riparian tangle, water curled and eddied into muddy pools, each raising a brown foam. Closer to the river’s outlet, flood damage in the basin became increasingly obvious. They stepped over trees laid haphazardly down by recently swelling storm waters.

  The day got colder and darker as they went, and the sun never broke through the clouds. Nearer to the city, the sun moved somewhere out of sight, beyond the murkiness above and without ceremony, the afternoon began to fade. The reek of garlic became more intense as they moved downstream, yet still Will pushed onward, watching the unpredictable downvalley sky closely as he walked. He slowed to wait for Zach and Mary, and as they approached, both looked tired and worried.

  A slight breeze came up, cooling the sweat on Will’s forehead. Mary was standing next to him, breathing heavily and peering up at the sky.

  “What do you think?” Will asked.

  “It’s close,” she said.

  Will studied their surroundings. There was no real shelter, and the sky beyond the river was dark and agitated.

  “It’s time f
or us to look for shelter,” he said. “The weather’s changing fast.”

  As he spoke, a rumbling sound rode on the wind. With a low drumming, it began to rain a short distance downriver.

  “That’s coming our way. Right now,” Mary screamed in panic.

  “Come on,” Will yelled, and all three set off upriver at a dead run as the rain approached them from behind. Their footsteps hammered the ground and sweat ran down Will’s face. Will’s eyes watered, and the trail ahead of them began to blur. There was no time to outrun the rain, but there was nothing to keep them dry. No rain shelter, no man-made structure, just the bank of low willows.

  “There, quickly,” Will said, pointing to a twisted thicket of stems at the river’s edge.

  He followed Mary into the semi-darkness of a short tunnel in the vegetation that they knew had little chance of protecting them. They kneeled in the dappled light listening to the approaching rain, gasping for breath.

  “Pull off your jacket and keep it over Mary,” Will yelled to Zach. “Try to keep her as dry as possible.” Will took off his own jacket and handed it to Zach. “Use this one, too. Do your best to keep her dry. Stay close to the tree trunks. The leaves will shed some of the water.”

  The rain was a short distance down river now. With every breath, Will’s lungs filled with acrid garlic, and the tears in his stinging eyes blurred his vision.

  “Will,” Mary said, grabbing him. “I can’t breathe.”

  “Stay calm. Take short, slow breaths. Stay down. Here, push your way under that trunk as much as possible. Zach will keep you dry.”

  Seconds passed and the rain drew closer, pounding the ground a short distance away. Mary was lying on the ground, mumbling, almost delirious.

  I’m going to die here, maybe right now, Will thought.

  The river roared as the rain swept across it, and water splashed all around. Will took strained breaths as he helped Zach tuck his jacket over Mary.

  “Will?” Zach asked, looking at him with concern.

  “You get to Helen. Do whatever you can. Keep her with Mary.”

  Will crouched next to Mary, spreading the jacket over her. The surface of the river just beyond their willow shelter came to a boil, and the sky rumbled above them. Water drops thumped on the sandy bank just beyond the brown water.

  Wind shook their shelter. Will felt nauseous and shivered uncontrollably. His vision blackened around the edges, and he became light-headed. He felt his knees liquify. What strength he had left was giving way. He looked at Zach one last time as he melted onto the ground. The rain grew louder and more intense. Will tried to breathe, but couldn’t, bracing himself against the sand and leaves. His vision narrowed to a pin, and all he could sense was the roar and coming wetness. His eyes closed.

  Will saw Hannah’s beautiful face in the golden afternoon glow of the Gonzales tomato fields. She was laughing and drawing him toward the river, but he didn’t want to go. She kept pulling harder and harder on his arm as he resisted. Her face morphed into Millard Fillmore’s. Millard laughed sadistically and said, “Let’s get wet!”

  Will jolted awake. He was still looking at Zach, whose mouth was moving. He was saying something, but Will couldn’t make out any sound. The roar of the rain was distant and much quieter.

  “It turned. It turned,” Zach was saying.

  Will took shallow, burning breaths and blinked to clear his eyes.

  “What?” His voice came forth as a harsh croak.

  “The rain. It went off into the fields.”

  Will blinked hard and sat up. His lungs continued to ache and burn with each breath. He looked out at the river. Its surface was calm.

  “It rained for a few minutes, just right there. Then it went off in the other direction.”

  Will looked down at his lap and moved his hands across his thighs in surprise. “We didn’t get wet?”

  “Not at all.”

  Will stood, bracing himself on a branch. His knees felt weak and shaky. He looked down at Mary, who was in the fetal position in the sand, under the jackets, still unconscious. Will kneeled back down, peeled the jackets off her, and saw her chest rising and falling.

  “How long were we out?”

  “Only a minute or so,” Zach said.

  “Help me pick her up.”

  Together, they lifted her limp body and moved out from under the thicket onto the sandy bank. A breeze was coming down the river, and the acidic air was clearing. Somewhere beyond the willows, Will could hear the distant and terrifying trundle of falling rain.

  “Help me lift her onto my back. We have to keep moving.”

  With Mary on his back and Zach limping behind, Will struggled along the river trail as fast as his burning muscles would allow.

  Mercifully, the breeze thinned the clouds, and the late afternoon sun showed brighter through the ceiling of haze than it had all day. Farther downriver, the reluctant sky nearly cast Will’s shadow onto the trail’s edge as he felt Mary’s limp weight stiffen on his back.

  “Will?” she asked softly.

  He stopped and carefully kneeled so that she could come off his back.

  “You’re okay. We survived it.”

  “How?” Mary asked.

  “The rain turned before it got to us.”

  “I was suffocating,” Mary said. “I thought I was going to die.” Her voice cracked, and tears fell over her pale skin and blotchy red cheeks.

  They sat in a patch of wild periwinkle on the edge of the trail, Mary with her head down between her arms.

  “Thank you,” she said, looking up at Zach, her eyes still full of tears, holding her shoulder. “Thank you.”

  Zach nodded.

  “Are you okay to walk for a bit?” Will asked her. “We’re not that far from the city.”

  “Help me up,” Mary said, offering her hand to Zach.

  She stood and closed her eyes. Will steadied her. She shook her head and drew a deep breath. “I can walk.”

  Will and Zach followed closely as Mary took her first few slow and unsteady steps down the path and into a small clearing. She stopped in her tracks, let out a scream, and stumbled backward into Will.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Just ahead was a body sprawled face-down, motionless on the path. Will pulled Mary back behind him.

  “Take your gun out,” Will said to Zach, who scrambled to pull the handgun from his belt.

  “Cover me while I look. This may be a trap.”

  Will came around the body slowly. The man was wearing a dark blue backpack that had flopped up on top of his head when he fell. Will gently kicked his boot and no response came. He crouched and lifted the pack off his head. It was soaked through along with all his clothes. Will rolled him onto his back.

  He was a young man, about the same age as Zach. His eyes were clear and wide open, as if he were awake, staring at Will and about to say something. The boy’s cheeks were clean-shaven, rosy, and blotched. Will pulled a leaf out of his matted, wet hair. His pink lips were covered partly with sand. Will felt for a pulse first on his wrist, then feeling none, reached for his neck, which was warm to the touch. Will put his ear to the boy’s open mouth. No breath came.

  Mary turned her head sideways to get a better look at the boy.

  “Oh no. Billy. Billy. I know him.” Mary came to her knees next to Will. “Is he breathing?”

  Will shook his head.

  “Quickly, hold his head up,” Mary said, wiping the sand off his lips.

  She leaned over and blew into his lungs, then felt the boy’s chest for the right location, and holding her palms out, one stacked on top of the other, pushed down rhythmically. She leaned over and blew another full breath into him and continued to pump.

  “Here, push here,” she said to Will, moving his hands onto the boy’s chest.

  Will pushed down and felt the boy’s rib cage flex below his wet shirt.

  “Keep pumping,” Mary said, then breathed again into his mouth.

  For a whole m
inute, Mary and Will worked on the boy with no result. Mary leaned over him to listen again for any breath. Will put his ear to his chest, and no sounds came from within.

  Will looked up at Mary and shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  Mary’s mouth hung open and she didn’t respond. With the tips of her slender fingers, she combed the hair straight on the dead boy’s forehead.

  “Billy,” she said under her breath.

  “He must have got caught out in the same rain that almost got us,” Will said. He looked around. Zach was a way off, gun in hand, watching the trail behind them. Will beckoned to Zach, then looked down at the dead boy, whose eyes were growing milky while the color left his cheeks.

  “He was a student of mine. Collected by the UP several years ago. When he was still so young.” Mary paused and put her hand to her mouth. “He was such a smart and kind boy. His parents went missing early, and he was with me at the school for a long time. He helped me with all the younger children.”

  Tears streamed down Mary’s cheeks.

  “They just came and took him one day, and he never came back.”

  Mary wept, while Will came around the body and held her to his chest. He could feel her small frame shaking uncontrollably against him. Will looked up at Zach, then to the sky beyond him. The evening was coming on, and clouds were accumulating again.

  Will waited until her shaking subsided. “Mary, we have to keep moving.”

  “What will we do with him?” Mary asked, her voice still muffled by Will’s chest.

  “We can’t do anything for him now.”

  Mary pulled away from Will and looked up at him. “You just want to leave him here?”