It has been literal years since I've posted, and I hope that I don't get in trouble for reviving a dead thread, but I graduated from an angsty, poetry slamming teen to an adult who gets more enjoyment from writing short scary stories.
Today I am going to share a piece I wrote last year, entitled "24 Days of Rain."
Here is a link to a fantastic narration of this story. The man who narrated it writes his own soundtracks and added in special effects which make it a much more creepy experience.
24 Days of Rain
According to my phone, it’s January 16, 2017. The rain started December 23, 2016. I’m sitting in my empty bathtub typing this. My phone is at 43 percent, but there’s almost no cell signal, my data is barely there and I’ve been stuck inside for almost a month. I missed ****ing Christmas. I’m hoping that somehow this posts. I’ve given up on someone saving me, I just want for people to know what’s happening so they can be more prepared than I was.
I live in an area where we sometimes have months of drought at a time. Most of the trees are evergreens like pine and fir, so aside from the slowly browning grass, it was easy to forget that there had been no rain for over sixty consecutive days. The damp air from the coastline made its way across the state to my hometown, leaving the air mild and slightly humid, but the earth was dry and the flowers withered under the cloudless sky and merciless sun. Even though it’s the middle of winter, the temperature stayed a balmy 78 degrees Fahrenheit and more often than not, I had to shed my sweater on the way into work to avoid sweating through my t-shirt.
Almost a month ago, I checked the forecast and had to do a double take, seeing “74% Chance of Precipitation” listed on one of the later days of the week. We hadn’t seen rain in so long, my entire office was ecstatic and couldn’t wait for the revival of their lawns and flower beds that was sure to follow anything more than a light sprinkling. By that Thursday the rain had begun come down in earnest, and the forecast was calling for a week straight of scattered thunderstorms, with the first peaking around 2am on Friday morning.
I drove home that night at midnight, creeping along as the torrential downpour rendered my windshield wipers practically useless. I could see about four feet in front of my car, and each swiftly falling, golfball-sized raindrop hit my windshield heavily. The treeline framing the road might as well not have existed, and it took all my focus to just stay between the white and yellow lines on the road. The wheels of my Explorer were kicking up small waves of water, and I was so glad that I’d replaced the tires just a couple of weeks before, because I’d be hydroplaning off the road in a heartbeat if I hadn’t. The typically five minute drive ended up taking me thirty, and there were no cars going either direction down the road, which made sense, because only a crazy person would drive home in that kind of weather.
When I finally made it to my apartment, I was soaked from the walk to my door, and immediately peeled off my wet clothes and left them in the bathroom. I curled up in my bed, put on a movie, and quickly fell asleep.
I woke up to almost total darkness.
When that happens, it usually means that I slept through the entire day and had woken up after the sun had set, but in my momentary panic I checked my phone and it clearly read 12:17pm. When I looked outside, the rain was just as bad as it had been the night before, and the trail outside my window was under almost a foot of water. The wind had picked up, sending the droplets flying horizontally, and showed no sign of stopping anytime soon. With a sudden pang of realization, I picked my way through the dark apartment to the front door, and was met by a quickly growing puddle of water making its way into my carpet just by the tiled entryway.
“**** this, I am not driving to work today.”
I threw down some towels, wedging one in the crack, and settled down with a cigarette on my porch.
As much as driving in rain makes me nervous, watching it has always been a very serene and calming experience to me. There was no thunder but the wind howled through the trees, and it caught my smoke on every exhale, whipping it away almost as soon as it left my mouth. It took me a while to notice the weird movement among the trees, since everything was washed out from looking at it through the porch screen and several feet of heavy rain. The wind was making everything lean to the left but there was a pale white shape moving around a few yards from where I sat. As I tried to make out what it was, another shape joined it, and then another, until there were almost a dozen just out of my discernable line of sight.
Unnerved, I made my way back inside, locking the glass door behind me. The lights weren’t working, so I went back to my room, using a couple of candles to provide enough to attempt to read a book by. As soon as I’d gotten comfortable, the pattering of the rain on my window was interrupted by a tap-tapping that seemed not to match the quiet, patternless sound I’d been hearing previously. I shrugged it off at first, until it happened again, and then again, and again.
In horror movies, you always have that one crazy character that seems idiotically fearless and looks to see what’s causing the noise; I can tell you right now, that is not me at all. I got so nervous that I went to the other side of the room and settled down on the futon in the corner of my bedroom instead, far away from the windows framing the corner of my bed.
The tapping never stopped. The sun never broke through for as long as it had been raining, and it felt like my little section of the world was cast into a permanent, wet shadow. The power would intermittently cut on and off during the first two weeks, but it hasn’t worked now for I think eleven days.
Eventually the towels by the door became so waterlogged that I took an old set of sheets and used them to sop up some of the mess and duct taped several garbage bags around the bottom, making a seal between the door and the tile. I did it in starts and stops, because as soon as I’d get near it, I’d hear splashing and someone or something would start pounding the wood right next to my head. There’s a cacophony of tapping coming from every window now, tap tap, tap tap, tap tap, I can’t shut it out and it’s pounding into my ****ing head.
I’m out of candles and I just drank my last can of soup. There’s a sickening, sweet, rotting smell coming from my kitchen, and I drank the last of the water from the tank in the toilet today. I had my last cigarette probably 18 days ago. I turned off my phone to conserve the power since the service was out anyways, but I’m going to die. I’m out of food, out of water, and the only thing I’ve eaten in two days was that can of tomato soup that had expired in September.
I finally looked through the peephole today and all I saw was a milky white eye staring back at me, set into a face that was slimy, hairless, and just barely resembling a human.
My voice is gone from screaming at the things to go away, but they only started pounding harder. That’s when I went into the bathtub with a blanket, my phone, and some razorblades from my dismembered Schick Hydro 5, just in case. I haven’t been able to shower or shave in a long time so it’s not a huge loss. My battery is on ten percent, I might not have enough left to even comment, but I’m so weak now, it probably doesn’t matter anyways. I can’t get through to anyone in my family and I live by myself.
I don’t know what the rain washed away to uncover these… things… but if the storm is heading your way try to stay safe and dry and consider stocking up on water and food because it seems like this is never going to end.
I’m just going to stay here until it’s over because it’s harder to hear them this far from the windows and doors. I think I might listen to music until my phone dies. This is probably goodbye.
UPDATE ITS 12:05 1/17/17 THE GLASS JUST SHATERED IN MY BEDROOM I CANT DO THIS I LOCKED THE BATHROOM BUT I HEAR THEM OUT THERE MY WRISTS ARE BLEEDING BUT ITS NOT FAST ENOUGH I DONT WANT THEMTO GET ME **** **** ****
