Bullets of Rain

by David J. Schow

  One of the table-size board-ups securing the oceanside bow windows had been liberated. Thin curtains had blown themselves to rags on the edges of broken glass. Apparently someone had pried off the plywood and hurled it through the window as a battering ram. Possibly more than one person, since the ledges were up past Art's head height. He imagined invaders standing on one another's shoulders, breaching the battlements with Viet Cong stealth. Smoke was steadily feeding from the top of the window frame and disintegrating like cotton candy on the wind.

  Before he could locate some way to climb, he saw the front door was wide open. He eased toward the entrance and at the threshold clicked on his light. The beam cut the yellowish smoke.

  The Spilsbury living room had been tarted out in New England nautical chic: rockers, furniture with fake antique veneer, carved wooden gewgaws. Model sailing ships on the mantel. A metal-gridded, porthole-style window that had been framed by a ship's wheel. The wheel was gone, but Art was close enough to see the pattern of dust and sun-fade it had left behind. It had been smashed, along with one of the rockers and some of the sea-chest tables, for firewood. An ungainly pile burned fitfully in the red-brick fireplace. The more porous woods had kindled faster, and the pile had spilled across the hearth, where it had already set a woven rug to smoldering.

  Cold air lashed Art from behind and he thought he felt the house sway gently. The fire horripilated and rearranged itself, spitting glowering embers onto the floor, which was mostly waxed hardwood. There was probably an extinguisher in the kitchen.

  The layout was traditional, even classic. Art moved past the main stairwell and saw the expected risers in velvet-finish white against polished wood treads, the banisters and newel post both lathed into overdetail. Brass rods secured a carpet runner. Dominating the dining room was a large, scalloped brown table and high-backed chairs with cockleshelled, cabriole legs. A poster from the Burt Lancaster movie The Crimson Pirate hung framed on the north wall. A buffet cabinet had toppled, to dog-pile the liquor bottles within; several had ruptured, and the air was redolent with the sharp tang of alcohol. He saw a phone and delicately lifted the receiver, noticing it was a Bakelite oldie with a rotary dial. No tone. He jiggled the cradle the way people do in Forties films when they can't get an operator. It never worked then and it didn't work now.

  Something fell in the living room and Art twisted, light up. Just the wind. He wished he had his gun, a gun, any gun.

  He clicked the first wall switch he found. No power. There was no fire extinguisher in the kitchen, but he saw a molded plastic sink liner he could use as a bucket to douse the fire. It would be a two-handed job, and he did not want to relinquish his only reliable source of light.

  Fast, metered thumping, trailing away, from above. Whoever was here was upstairs, hurrying down the hallway to the landing. Art clicked off his light and sprang back into the dining room, landing in a crouch, hoping the firelight was sufficient for ambush… and waited. His heart was doing a mad, jivey finger-snap inside his rib cage. He was the miscreant here, the uninvited trespasser.

  What if he had run down a person in the road back there? That would make him a murderer, like Derek… assuming Derek's story had not been another serving of high-floating delusional bushwah.

  More thumping, more lively. One set of feet, more likely two, now traversing the hall in the opposite direction.

  Art angled back toward the far end of the living room, keeping the stairs in sight. Maybe he'd already been made by his unseen opponents, and they were holing up, afraid he was packing. Maybe they'd spotted him and run back to arm themselves… or arm themselves better.

  He ghosted past an archway and was momentarily startled to feel rough hair brush his face. After another moment in the dark, with no further sounds but those caused by the storm, he gambled a spot of light, blindered by his own fingers over the lens. He had bumped into a tusked snout, dusty fur, his light mirrored in two dead eyes of black glass. The den; every home like this had one.

  The room was about ten by ten with the desk of a high-school principal and club chairs in red leather. Festooning the walls was a zoology of taxidermied kills-caribou, stag, wapati, bobcat, a wolf, game fish mounted on plaques, even a large bat. A display shelf had been swept of small preserved snakes and birds, and several elongated rodental skulls littered the floor in shards and scattered teeth. Art had brushed past the head of a boar. The room had been ransacked but he perceived, with relief, a locked gun cabinet, empty. Had there been a stock of weapons, the glass would have been smashed. Above the fireplace there were pegs for some showpiece, maybe an elephant gun or a huge spear. A blank spot before the hearth attested to where some pelt had lain. There was more than one vacant space on the floor.

  He held his position for nearly twenty minutes more, to no new ruckus. His teeth unclenched and he relaxed, just a notch, enough to pick a cautious path back to the kitchen, where he filled the plastic basin and splashed the remnants of the fire, which had pretty much petered out on its own.

  Perhaps the unseen interlopers had cleared out, thinking Art was the owner. They could have spotted him and escaped from an upstairs window. Maybe they had passed out. Maybe they were waiting for him to calm down, so they could strike.

  The stairs did not beckon; they warned. To ascend would leave him exposed to whatever might lunge from the blackness that enshrouded the landing. Art realized he was afraid of going up there. Scared. What business of his was this? In the city, such a smash-and-grab would be laughed off and forgotten as "paying the crime tax." He had a bigger headache waiting for him outside. Though lunatic, it seemed at least practical; the stairs were unknown territory, promising new risks.

  Disgust washed through his system. How far did he have to go to demonstrate he wasn't a coward? Shouldn't he be tending to his own house? What if this damage and vandalism had been wrought by a clique of hard partiers from Price's place? What if they, spaced-out on some designer shit that left them violent and stupid, had exhausted their fun possibilities here and had decamped to seek further nuttiness?

  Like at Art's own house, for example.

  That technically decided him, though his own feet were already pacing carefully backward toward the front door. Downbeach, waves were already slapping in twenty feet beyond the tide line, breaking upward in waterfall froth, the ocean trying to take to the air. The storm had commenced a low, grumbling noise, similar to Art's memory of apartment dwelling in the city, on the days the behemoths of municipal garbage trucks literally shook the ground with their passage. His ears clogged as the air pressure changed around him, cutting the audible noise in half. The fire was out, the threat apparently evaporated, if not avoided. He had to get moving.

  There was a swatch of hide stuck in the front grille of the Jeep, like a shred of meat in the teeth of a predator. Art's vehicle was now in the middle of a pond trying to grow into a small lake.

  Art waded in and checked the wheels. All good. He turned the scrap of hide over in his light. Zebra, all right-but dyed, fake.

  He scanned about as best as the storm would permit. No bushwhack, no concealed predators, no aggression, apart from the Wind, which desired only to carry him away.

  Ultimately, three meager saplings, already tormented into stooping by the storm, got uprooted by Art's efforts to winch his Jeep back to a standing position. He was able to loop cable geometrically in order to use the vehicle's own weight to tip it upright, but there was not much near the road dunes to employ as an anchor.

  Had he wrecked on the other side of the road, there would have been actual trees, but he was confounded by the length of his winch cable. He wished for gloves; handling the braid of wire with wet hands quickly abraded his palms raw.

  The Jeep started on the first try. Art was grateful for the hardshell roof even though both he and the cabin were completely soaked. The driver's-side window was only a memory, and the breach admitted more of the storm, but it was a tiny price. Two of the halogens were dead, along with the left he
adlight. Mirrors and trim had been sanded off the port side. As soon as Art navigated the vehicle back onto the washed-out roadway, he realized 'that the alignment was shot. It was like having to constantly jog a shopping cart with a cocked wheel. The front axle was dinged out of true and was probably dangerously fragile. At least the tires had not burst. After this latest side trip into craziness, Art appreciated the comedy value of being forced to change a flat in a hurricane, a biting mundanity intruding upon the phantasmagorical. The Wind had seemingly spared him, so far.

  Hard turns were more difficult. Art could feel the vibration of tread grinding against the dislocated front fender as he negotiated his own undulant driveway. At the corners of his dwelling, the emergency floods were on, and he could already hear the alarm siren.

  New problems.

  He forwent the dashboard key combination that would open the garage door, fire the interior lights, and otherwise announce his arrival. The funride of adrenaline was leaving him nauseous and weary, and a new spike flooded through him to break a thin sweat in spite of the chill. He felt jabbed in the ass by demons with pitchforks, prodded forward. He dismounted and checked his flashlight. Here we go again.

  Now the storm favored him, covering his progress and masking his noise. He left the Jeep door hanging open and warily circled the perimeter of the house, starting with the fenced yard and working counterclockwise, ducking his own extra-long-life floodlights, which glared down in pairs from motion sensors mounted high on each corner, caged in all-weather shields. The leeward side of his kitchen appeared untouched and dark except for the counter night-light he knew to be there.

  Rain piled across the outside deck in inch-deep waves, fauceting from the edges in a steady stream. Art had stowed his patio furniture, but had forgotten the row of wind chimes on the deck. All twelve sets were gone. Inside, Blitz spotted him creeping around and began dealing out harsh, sharp warning barks, evenly spaced, utterly aggressive. The dog cleared the sofa in an easy leap and locked onto his movements, slamming into the window with both front paws. Good boy. If anyone had found a way in, Blitz would still have them occupied.

  The southernmost panel of Plexi was scored and pitted, waist to chest height, presuming someone standing on the deck and trying to raze the barrier with a pointed tool. Directional scrapes hinted that the tool might have splintered in the process. The window might give against the push of the sea blow, but was more than adequate to some burglar, whacking away.

  Blitz tracked Art the length of the deck, deploying more dog-macho and speckling the window with saliva. It would do no good to try calming him down from outside. Art hung the corner to the north face, sweeping with his torch. All clear. The only footprints were his own, and they began to melt as soon as he stepped out of them. The rain was worsening, coming down more fiercely than a mere half hour before. Just the sound of it assaulting Art's poncho hood sounded like thousands of marbles hitting a stone floor, fed by an endless treadmill.

  If anyone had been around, they were gone now. Unless they were inside, and Art trusted Blitz's behavior enough to stake odds on a clean entry.

  He parked the Jeep in the garage and threw the interior bolts to completely secure the door. The Jeep was battered and leaking fluid. It might not start again, and if it did, it might not move. Art removed his poncho one-handed, hulling himself, and left it on the hood. As for keeping his clothing dry, he might as well have just strolled out of a swimming pool. His shearling jacket was ten pounds heavier, with water, and as he wrestled out of it he suddenly thought that he, too, had been wearing an animal skin. He raked his hair back and rubbed his face roughly, allowing himself a beat to savor the relative quiet, and sanctuary from the elements.

  He started speaking to the garage-kitchen door as he unlocked it, so Blitz could begin to register the sound of his voice and not kill him. He had never seen the dog this worked up before. Perhaps maturity had seasoned his deadlier instincts to the point where Blitz was actually capable of killing, as opposed to disabling, nullifying, or threatening. Art and his dog had both grown older.

  He cracked the door and let the dog recognize him before giving him room. Then Blitz began bouncing up and down, a clown on a pogo stick, his barking louder but in altered timbre, his greeting nearly bowling Art over. Art hunkered down and ruffled Blitz's head, getting slobber on his hands for his effort.

  "Some killer," he said, instantly reassessing his pet's capacity for dealing death. He could barely hear himself over the alarm.

  The status display indicated no other section of the house had been breached, and the motion lights told him that no sectors had been compromised by trespassers, at least not by anything bigger than the dog. The LED button for the big windows was blinking red. Art tapped in his password and the air horn cut out.

  He let Blitz walk point as he checked out each room, methodically, just in case. Nothing was amiss except for the few items scattered near the windows by the dog leaping around. Blitz had not been dozing on his defense watch. All the phones were dead.

  If a group of party animals from Price's had sacked the Spilsbury house, then attempted entry at Art's and failed, they would have enough grief dealing with the storm outside.

  Art's muscles felt drawn on a rack, and he was ravenous. His hands were shaking as he pulled a packet of sliced ham out of the fridge and chomped a mouth-filling bite out of the slab. He chugged one of his juice slams and fed another gob of ham to the dog. After a moment he felt steady enough to seek painkillers and a decongestant for his head, after which he might devote actual time and labor toward constructing a civilized sandwich.

  In the living room, he flipped the cover from the security module and depressed the orange button. Relays thunked inside the walls, and the metal shutters ratcheted slowly down to shield the slanted windows. Each one featured a pillbox-style viewing slit. Art leaned on the wall until each shutter locked into position with a reassuring double click.

  That was it: He was fortressed in, his drawbridge up.

  ***

  The power went out at 11:32 P.M., by the kitchen clock. The ambient, almost subaural presence of all of Art's machines and devices was dunked into silence. The refrigerator quieted and the heating ducts began to click as they cooled. Afterimages of light temporarily blinded him until the battery floods snapped on. These were not so numerous or obtrusive as the exterior lights, and were blended into the wall plan in a way that kept the lines clean-one for the back hallway, one for the living room, one for the kitchen. His design of the house had assured that terminating power from the outside was impossible-unless one brought bolt cutters and a backhoe-which indicated electricity had failed for the entire area. He cut the floods to conserve battery life and dug out candles and a pair of oil lamps.

  He used the contents of the water heater while still hot, showering by lantern light to thump the cold from his bonework. Then he fell asleep, sprawled across his bed, still robed and damp, his gun on standby next to the water carafe. Blitz circled in a holding pattern for a few revolutions, then dropped into a lay-down near the foot of the bed.

  According to the learned monks of New Skete, who have graduated generations of scrupulously trained German shepherds from their monastery in upstate New York, dogs can generate a deep respect for the privilege of being permitted to sleep in their master's den. They pick their own spot and enjoy a silent, uncomplicated interaction with their human, a time when no demands are necessitated by either being. For dogs, bedrooms contain the most concentrated scents-clothing, carpeting, bedding-which amplify an essential bond. Trust is fortified, and as the master or mistress relaxes, the dog learns to relax in parallel.

  Head on paws, Blitz watched the open bedroom door for at least half an hour after Art had begun the soft, metered respiration of deep sleep.

  SATURDAY

  The generator in the garage was an industrial rig that could produce seventy-five hundred watts continuously for eight hours on just over three gallons of gas. It was housed in a wa
ll bay resembling a refrigerator turned on its side, with rubber-insulated double doors to prevent carbon monoxide leakage, and vented to the outside world by air intakes Art had designed after the horns he'd seen on the forecastle of a hovercraft. The gennie's tubular frame reminded him of a Harley chassis. It could power up via battery-fed push button, or, if that failed, a lawn-mower-style cable pull. The exhaust was mufflered, and the heavy doors reduced the noise rating of its chugging operation to nothing. There were two twenty -gallon military fuel drums in reserve, not counting what could be unstrapped or siphoned from the Jeep if things got tight.

  Art hit transfer switches to feed fire to selected sectors of the house. His satellite dish was incapacitated, probably stolen by the Wind, but he needed to check his computers, which had been set to stack stormwatch updates from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration until the signals got compromised; there would be a backlog of listings. He could conserve use of his lights and alternate with candles and lanterns. Anything with a motor pulled more power, such as the heating system or the refrigerator, so once his interior doors were all closed or braced, he really only needed to heat one room at a time. The fridge could be turned to maximum cold, opened only when necessary, and spelled according to the timeshare needs of his available power. Except for the rollers for the window shutters (which could be cranked manually), the house's security system was on its own independent circuit, juiced by a car battery. He regretted that the solar panel array had not yet been enabled; the cells would have stored more than a day's worth of extra power already. He checklisted himself around the house, unplugging everything that was nonessential.

  The last online bulletin from the NOAA had specified gale-force winds in excess of eighty miles per hour, then the DSL line had ceased to function. The range of the weather service radio in the garage was only about forty miles, but past the crackle Art learned the hurricane specs had jumped from ''watch'' to "warning," which meant that people who lived inland had probably evacuated already. The danger of flash floods was stressed by a public advisory from the National Hurricane Center. No one wasted time talking about how rare such a combination of conditions was in the Pacific Northwest, but Art knew the coastal population had increased dramatically at other points along the line… and few of these people had ever experienced the kind of storm this had already become. Some of them lived in mobile homes, for god's sake. If they hadn't cleared out, Art hoped they were used to flying.