Storm

Chapter 4

Ray was motionless. One false move and he could die. Just like that, in an instant, eyes hollow, skin pale -- like the pictures of Ghost victims he'd seen on the internet, on the first days of the Storm, when there was still an internet.

He breathed in deep, his chest convulsing every second, and pushed himself further against the wall. His feet cracked under the broken glass. The rain sprayed against his whole body like ocean surf, pouring down not a full feet from his face.

Shit, shit, shit, shitshitshitshitshit.

He looked up past the second floor to the place where the roof had given in, then down again. Already the torrent had covered the floor in a coat of clear water, rolling in small waves around his feet, bursting in little explosions under the new drops. Higher every second, maybe hours from filling out the whole pantry.

"Ray?" he heard, from the main room. Dean.

"Over here!" Ray said, though mostly to himself.

He tried to get himself to put one feet in front of his body, under the rain. It was just a curtain, blocking the way to the door, barely wider than Ray himself.

But maybe just wide enough for a Ghost.

He raised his left foot and put it under the shower, then pulled back immediately.

I can't do it I can't do it I can't do it.

It wouldn't take more than a second to cross, but what if a second was enough? In the six months since the Storm started, Ray hadn't been caught under it once, not even a drop, and he wanted to keep it that way.

Just rush through it. Rush through it, you'll be fine.

The flood was rising under his feet, almost to his socks.

"Dean!" he called, louder. "I'm in the pantry!"

Dean showed up a second later, stopping by the door and running his eyes from Ray to the rain to the opening on the roof to the wooden debris floating on the water covering the floor. "What the hell happened here?"

"I went to get a bottle for us," Ray said, backing up against the wine bottles again, "and the roof just gave in."

Dean's eyes were still on the hole on the roof, past the improvised bedroom where they slept upstairs. "Well, shit. We're gonna have to fix that," he said, "Come on, let's go find something to board that hole."

Ray didn't move. Dean turned, then turned back. "Ray, come on."

Nothing.

"Dude."

"I don't wanna cross it."

"What?"

"The water. The rain. I don't wanna cross it, man."

"Oh, for God's sake, Ray."

"They're real, Dean. My uncle saw one."

"No, he didn't."

"Yeah, he did. On the first week, before he died. He said they sneak up on you, because you can't see them, and then they kill you. I've seen the pictures of the bodies."

"Your uncle said he saw the Ghosts."

"Yes."

"And then he told you that they sneak up on you, because you can't see them."

"Yes."

"And you don't see the problem with that story."

Ray didn't answer. The water washed over his feet again and again in rolling waves. His socks were wet. He pulled back further.

"Come on, Ray, quit the bullshit. If the pantry floods, we lose all our food."

Ray pulled staccato breaths. Summing up the courage. The rain was like a house of mirrors display, distorting Dean's impatient face on the other side.

He bit his lips and, just when he thought he had it in him, he froze.

An archway opened up between the raindrops, wide like a person. Like some invisible presence materializing itself under the rain, diverting the drops in an oval shape to both sides, bringing Dean's face to sight under it.

"SHIT IT'S HERE DEAN!"

The patch of no-rain moved slightly left and right, like the invisible creature under the falling waters was bobbing, searching for an opening to charge.

Ray pushed himself further against the wall, knocking a few more wine bottles.

Dean rolled his eyes and stepped forward.

"NO, DEAN, NO, DON'T STEP UNDER THE RAIN! IT'LL GET YOU! OH, FUCK, DEAN FUCK – huh."

Dean stood right between the now two separate rain curtains, at the place where, Ray assumed, the invisible creature had been standing until a second ago, diverting the rain from its immaterial body.

"Cut it out, will you?"

Ray looked up. Between the roof hole and themselves, Wyatt's white-bearded face was framed against the rafters of the attic-bedroom, a sleepy look under his deep eyes. He was holding a piece of steel plate – a portion of the broken roof – under the shower, keeping the rain away from where Dean was standing.

"Is that dry enough for you, princess?" Wyatt grunted.

Dean stepped back and Ray crossed through the path of no-rain, and Wyatt let go of the plate, and the rain fell down uniformly again. "God damn can't get five minutes of solid sleep in this house for Christ's sake swear to God," Ray heard the old man grunting, his feet dragging back to bed over their heads.

"If I were you," Dean said, as they made way back to the main room of the restaurant, "I'd be more scared of Wyatt than Ghosts."