~~~
Upon returning to camp, number 97 was dark. Rachel’s tent was still there but nothing else was going on. The Smiths in 99 also seemed to be out cold with no lights on and no activity. He retired to his canvas cabin and, while browsing through the photos on his digital camera again, decided it was time to go home tomorrow. Perhaps a stop or two at the other parks would be good, but he had to face facts that life wasn’t going to pause for him permanently. And the rain outside was damping his desire to stick around the four corners area anyway.
Just as he was kicking off his shoes to get ready for bed, he heard Rachel’s exhaust-heavy pickup pull in and stop near the camp office cabin. The door slammed loudly with a rattle of the metal body and then quick solid footsteps rushed to their line of camp lots. Just as Daniel thought she was moving past his and into her lot the footsteps stopped and she called out to him in a raspy voice.
“Daniel?” she inquired. “Are you there? Are you awake still?”
Something had made her lose her joyous tone she’d had earlier in the evening. Dan stood to unzip and open the flap of the cabin tent and beckoned her inside.
“Man, am I glad you’re still awake! I need to talk to someone.”
“Sure, sure,” he said, trying to evoke a soothing voice. But Dan himself was still a little shaken up too. “Come and sit down.”
Together, Daniel and Rachel unfolded another cot that was part of the rental and scooted them closer together. By the time Rachel sat down and Daniel was about ready to speak she was sobbing and so buried her face in her hands.
Dan moved from his cot to hers, sitting down beside her and taking her in his arms. He held her tight and tried to let her feel what he needed himself: a warm, fellow human body that was there to watch over her.
“What is it? What’s got you so shaken up?” He asked. His own voice faltered a bit, with a shiver about mid-sentence on his second question.
“I saw him again,” she sniffled. Tears began at the moment she finally felt free to speak about it.
Dan tried not to flinch or reveal anything too un-nerving that would dis-settle Rachel either. He knew regardless of his own experience or interpretation a good listener would let her work it out first. Then when they were back at ease perhaps they could plan what to do about it.
“The shadow thing?”
“Yes!” she hissed. “Of course! He’s following me everywhere. I’d started driving back down the mesa and was thinking about my plans. When I got to that big lookout closer to the entrance of the park I saw a lot of lightning out in the valley and decided I wanted to take some pictures and see what could get on film.”
“So…” Daniel lightly snickered, trying to warm up her emotions at the same time as shivering frame. “You’re saying you thought it would be a good idea to stand on a tall cliff and snap photos while a thunderstorm rolled towards you in the night?”
Rachel snickered too, perhaps more loudly than she would have intended but she found herself needing an emotional release and laughter was always good medicine.
“Ya…I guess that was a little silly. …you’d think a Ranger would know better.”
“Well, alright. So you’re taking some beautiful photos of lightning, which I sure hope you’re going to let me have some copies of, and what happened?”
“He came to me! I mean, he wasn’t just standing there, or was my imagination or anything, he actually came with the storm and came to see me!”
“How do you know?”
“Okay…” Rachel stood up to try to explain. Her hair was still wet and she looked tired. Daniel noticed for the first time parts of her coat and her pants had mud in them. He guessed she’d probably had fallen, but waited to hear her whole story. A pair of near lightning strikes brightened the side of the canvas cabin for an instant and then darkened again. Rachel paused and awaited the thunder as he she were timing it…or perhaps she was just waiting to see what would happen next.
“While I was taking some photos trying to catch the lightning a huge downpour started a ways away at the base of the mesa and came rushing towards me. I tried to run back towards my truck, but when I did there was this man standing by my driver’s door and it scared me terrible, so I stopped. Only, he started walking towards me and I could see it was that same shadow I saw in the Cliff Palace and his eyes were glowing. They were, like… flickering kind of…like they were shorted out lights or something.
At first I thought it was one of the rangers I’d told about the shadow and was playing a trick so I said something…”
“What did you say?”
Rachel started pacing the cabin a bit again, leery to bring up the entire vision in her mind again.
“I’m not sure…something like ‘Nice try’ or something.”
“And what happened?”
“He said my name!” Rachel had turned back and locked Daniel’s eyes with hers and she seemed to lose some of her color again. “He didn’t sound like any of the rangers I knew…”
“Well…what did he sound like?”
The pacing continued and another lightning struck outside. Daniel guessed it was even closer than the last one, but it did not put Rachel off track this time. She seemed to want to confront the experience she’d been describing head-on now.
“It wasn’t really human. …In fact, Dan…I’m not sure he so much as said my name as I heard it in my head.”
Dan grunted and mumbled, “I think I know what you mean…Ideas in your head that seem to be coming from someone else or something…”
“Exactly!” Rachel was becoming more animated. Dan felt he was at least making some headway getting her to overcome her fright at least as she sat down next to him again to continue. “He kept walking towards me a little, but then when he was getting close enough to really make him out some lightning hit right nearby. By the time I realized he wasn’t there anymore he appeared on a boulder just a ways from my right overlooking the valley.”
There was a pause while Dan contemplated. Rachel had tried to demonstrate something about the change in position of the shadow with her hands but they ended up held a little before her lap in a questioning stance. It was as if she were awaiting an answer. Her mouth hung slightly open and her brow and eyes furrowed waiting for Daniel to say something. Finally he did.
“Hmmm…Did…he say anything more on the rock then?”
“Well it was weird.” Rachel turned her gaze from Dan to her hands which became reanimated with the direction. “He turned his head towards me and I saw his eyes again. He was holding some kind of stick or…staff or something. And he said something again. He said, ‘Leave Him.’”
“Leave Him? What does that mean?” Daniel wondered. Rachel returned her gaze to him but her face expressed concern now more than fright. “Are you sure he didn’t say something more like… ‘Leave here’?”
Rachel shook her head and looked down at her hands clasped together in her lap. “No. I know he said, ‘Leave Him’. Besides, it was still like…in my head…not out loud. Kinda hard to mistake that.”
Now it was Daniel’s turn to rise and pace the room a bit. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Who are you supposed to leave?”
“Well…” Rachel still refused to look up. It was as if she were hiding something. “I’m pretty sure he was talking about you.”
“What?!” It was Daniel’s turn to furrow his brow. “Now that really doesn’t make sense. We’re going to be leaving here separately pretty quick anyway.”
“Well…I’m sure that’s what he meant.”
“Okay. So…why would he want you to leave me? What does that mean? No pen pals after all?”
“Ya…that’s what scares me even more about this thing…”
“What?” Daniel was starting to lose patience a little. It wasn’t with Rachel at all, but at trying to understand why this creature was following him and making people miserable. He hadn’t done an
ything to cause the ire that he knew of. It was just like he was being singled out by a bully at school.
Daniel sat down again when Rachel didn’t respond immediately and he took her folded hands into his. They were still very cold. He tried to warm them, wrapping them in his fingers, at the same time he tried to capture her attention again. It wasn’t working. She inclined her head towards him a bit and nodded a pair of short nods so he spoke again.
“What is it? What scares you?”
Rachel swallowed hard before answering. “I…I think it knows what I’m thinking. He…I would say he knows how I feel.”
Daniel startled, sitting up right again, but clung to her hands.
“Are you saying you were hoping to be a little more than pen pals?”
In light of the threat they were discussing, that did little to make Daniel feel better, though he thought it should.
“Yes,” she replied. “I mean, nothing serious. I still don’t want a relationship or anything…It’s just…you know. I like you a lot and I was sort of thinking I would come up and visit you at your house in a week or two depending on if I found anywhere to go.”
She finally looked up at Daniel and was biting her lower lip a bit and releasing it. Dan felt his expression must have been comical, but only after he’d had a moment to think about it, because she snickered and gave a small snort for just a second and then smiled from the left corner of her mouth.
“Now…don’t get any ideas! That’s not what I’m talking about. I just…thought it would be nice to be able to hang out now and again when I get chances like we have the last few days.”
Daniel put her hands back in her lap and held them with one hand while he put his near arm around her and gave her tight squeeze.
“I’m not thinking anything. I’m just trying to figure out…well…I’m trying to figure out two things,” Dan said.
“Ya?”
“Ya. First…why wouldn’t you have said anything about that before? And secondly…why would this thing even care?”
“Ya…” Rachel replied. “Well…on the first one: I really kind of just decided that as I was leaving the park for the last time. I was hoping I’d catch you tonight or tomorrow morning before you left so I could get your address and a map.”
“Okay. …So…he does understand what you’re thinking. At least this is starting to make a little more sense.” It wasn’t really, but Daniel felt that it should and was clinging to the hope of getting an understanding. “But why would he care whether you see me again or not?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Couldn’t say. But…that’s the feeling I was getting from it.”
After a minute or two pondering the situation, Daniel turned to Rachel and said, “I think I need a drink.”
“I’ve never had alcohol before…but I think I need one too.” She smiled but her demeanor was more of exhaustion than thirst.
“Oh!” startled again, Daniel wondered whether this was the right time. Peer pressure’s not good enough reason to start, he thought. But as he considered the moment he realized if ever there was a time to begin drinking for Rachel, tonight was probably the night. “Okay, but…you better have something pretty mellow.”
“Mellow?”
“Ya…and…probably better make it a half, or you’ll regret it.”
Speak Rain Page 13