It's Raining...It's Pouring © 2016

It's Raining...It's Pouring

The woods faded under the sky of a gray and somber morning. The rain fell upon the shingles of Conrad's home, ran off and dripped into the gutter. Conrad sat back in his chair. Slate eyes pierced out the window, a stare as sharp as steel. He watched the rain. He wanted to sleep, but it was the rain. Something spoke to him beneath the puddles, and he knew, when he nodded off, the puddles deepened, then the rain poured. He sipped his tenth cup of coffee. Dark beans, roasted longer, a tip he received from one of the locals.

"It'll stave off the bad dreams." The old woman said.

Bad dreams, he thought, that's all they were at first. But with each night, each hour, each moment he slept, the bad dreams, merely a howl in the distance, drew closer, into a snarl and a roar at his front door. Something ran its claws down the door, ripped into the paint and an inch of wood, and left its mark. He woke screaming that morning and found them, physical slashes sunken in deep. That's when Conrad realized, the roars and snarls, the claws and the scratching, were more than just a nightmare.

So every day and every night, he kept a sleepless watch, terrified of what might come as soon as he shut his eyes. He read the paper, did the crossword puzzle, and whenever he heard the slightest sound, he'd get up and look out the window to see if anything was there.

A stray cat ran out from the bushes.

"It's only a cat, the little bastard." He laughed and went back to occupying his mind with the daily funnies. It brought color to his thin, pale cheeks when he could make himself laugh, a jolly "Ho, ho, ho!" like St. Nick.

Conrad skimmed through the comic strip titled "The Old Man and the Sea."

Huh, well this is interesting, he thought.

The first panel was an ink drawing of a barge at sea, then the ship was headed towards rocks. He started to sweat. The coincidence startled him. The ship ran aground and a hole busted into the hull. He removed the handkerchief from his coat pocket and wiped his balding head, then held the cloth to his lips. Sickness took him. His pale flesh turned green. The next panel depicted people getting to the lifeboats. The others jumped in panic. Then, he could barely bring himself to look at the last panel. When he saw Them, he tossed the paper into the fire that roared in the hearth.

He lit a cigar and poured himself a glass of whiskey. The nerves settled a bit. Once more, his eyes faced the gray landscape outside, past the dirt driveway, rows of trees on either side, barren on the cool November day. Brown and orange, the wind blew the loose ones about. And the rain kept on, a light drizzle.

When will the sun come out again? He thought.

Out passed his property, beyond the driveway and to the hills, a dark figure, tall and slim, stood at the foot of the hills. Long fingers clutched an umbrella. Conrad rubbed his eyes and the figure was gone. He drank more coffee and another drag of the cigar. He looked over at the clock, it was quarter after eight. Conrad stood up, cane in one hand, glass in the other and shuffled to the kitchen to prepare his breakfast. Conrad refused any assistance. Am I dead? No? Then I'll do it myself, he always said. He prepared a small meal of bacon over the skillet, cooked at low heat to retain the thick cuts. He hated burnt bacon, and a sunny side up egg on the side, with a piece of toast cut on an angle, and a little butter from the market to top it off. He ate the breakfast and stared out the kitchen window the entire time. He used to watch the birds that came to the feeder, but they haven't come since the rain hasn't stopped. After breakfast, he placed the dishes in the sink and rinsed them off, then proceeded out onto the patio.

As long as I'm awake, I'm fine. There ain't nothing out here now, he thought.

He left the door open to allow a cool breeze to blow through the house. He enjoyed getting fresh air, it kept his spirits up, but most important, it kept him awake. The grass, once green, was nothing more than mud. Worms had floated up and were all over the ground.