A LITTLE BLACK RAIN MUST FALL

Copyright ©2004 James Bennett

In her mind and in her dreams, Rachel Mosley could sense the coming damp.

She'd been almost psychically susceptible to changes in the weather since being a little girl. Too much sunshine peppered her with orange freckles and too much snow bought her out in a rash of eczema.

Misty conditions made her feel depressed and frizzed out her already frizzy red hair. A morning frost on the fields near her home gave her a romantic chill, and thunderstorms put the fear of Almighty God into her.

Rain, however, she liked. Rain never hurt anybody.

When people in the village complained of their muddy lands and bogged down motor cars, Rachel would suppress a smile and politely agree with them about what a tragic shame the English weather was. But secretly, she never understood her neighbour's dismay. Rain was God's way of feeding the earth, cleaning the road outside her cottage down in Brambly Vale and sweeping the litter into the gutters. To complain about this, a simple, inevitable fact of nature, was like complaining about life itself, she felt. Because rain never hurt anybody.

Her view quickly changed after the day of the Kemico fiasco, but up until then, she'd been one of the few English women who found the rain a comfort.

She'd watch it occasionally from her living room window as she worked on her articles for the Maybury Post . Another short piece, usually concerning village fetes, or which lucky young girl had made May Queen that year. Nothing thrilling, but enjoyable enough. She liked the job. It beat working for the solicitors in the city. Since her last boyfriend had absconded, she'd found much more time to write and research, and started thinking about maybe expanding her articles to encompass more of the county. She subsidised this work by working as an agony aunt for a more prominent national magazine.

On this particular day, the day of the explosion over at Kemico, the sun was trying to shine through the gathering clouds. She sat at her computer, watching the light falling on her garden and listening to the radio as she typed out her notes on Mrs. Evesham's weekend fundraiser at the Maybury School. That's how she first heard about the disaster. The news bulletin went something like this:

An explosion occurred today at the Kemico chemical plant near Maybury, Cheshire. Villagers were first alerted to the catastrophe when a plume of smoke was seen from nearby houses. Rescue workers are already on the scene, although no survivors have yet been found, and no explanation for the disaster has been offered by the Kemico Company. Kemico, however, have promised to hold a press conference later this evening.

The Kemico plant has always been the cause of some controversy in the local area. Three years ago, local people picketed the gates to the plant. Originally, the building of the plant had also been contested by the Green party, alongside local farmers worried about their livestock. The protesters lost their battle with the government and a vast tract of greenbelt was destroyed in the ensuing construction, adding to the hostile attitude of the locals.

The actual function of the Kemico plant has always been the source of many unusual rumours. A London newspaper ran an expose last year about the possibility of cutting edge chemical weapons testing within the plant, and many believe the true purpose of the site to be a front for a secret government project. Conspiracy theories abound.

The explosion will come as a blow for ministers who have always insisted on the high safety record of Kemico. Scientists are hoping for rain later this evening to help quell the out of control fires.'

In other news, Victoria Beckham has finally admitted to her affair with Prince William and the showbiz world goes mad...'

Rachel's ears had pricked up immediately upon the mention of Kemico. She didn't hear the end of the bulletin because she'd already grabbed her camera, Dictaphone, car keys and was halfway down the drive when the news ended. A big story doesn't wait. Neither should she.

As her car pulled up to the police barrier half a mile from the Kemico Plant, she rolled down her window and flashed the officer her press card. He greeted the bit of plastic with a cynical grin:

"You vultures make me sick. And sick is exactly what you'll be miss, if you travel further along this road. Those are dangerous chemicals burning up there. I can't allow you to continue, I'm afraid. The perimeter isn't secure."

Rachel turned her attention to the thick pillar of dusky smoke coiling up into the overcast sky. The smoke cast a darkening pall over the barley fields on either side of her, and combined with the exhaust fumes from the queued up vehicles behind, the acrid aroma swimming through the afternoon air smelt nearly unbearable.

"I work for the Maybury Post , the village down the road. This is a matter of local interest, so I'm hardly a vulture. If it's vultures you want, maybe you should talk to the directors of the Kemico Corporation..."

So saying, she swung her battered vehicle to the side of the road, and climbed out. She began taking photos of the smoke plume, writhing into the sky like a black cobra from a snake charmer's basket. Around her, a throng of villagers and disaster watchers swarmed. Some of them she recognised, but all of their eyes were focused on the filthy shroud surrounding the green metal bulk of the Kemico plant and they paid her little to no attention. She photographed some of their horrified, upturned faces and moved in to snatch some witness accounts.

"We knew this would happen," Farmer Williams told her, barely looking away from the miasma weaving above them into the clouds, "didn't we always say it wasn't safe, that it'd come to no good? But they never listen to us, do they?"

"It's the locals who'll suffer," Mrs. Ramses informed her angrily, "the Kemico corporation will just find some excuse or another, someone to blame, and then they'll claim it all back in insurance. It's criminal."

"Well, I was walking my dog when I first heard the blast," Patch Summerfield told her in a confidential whisper, despite her holding the Dictaphone underneath his ruddy nose, "damn near threw me to the ground, and Dougal went crazy. All I could see were flames at first. Maybe I heard some screaming, I don't remember...and then this damn smoke everywhere. It was bound to happen..."

"Hopefully, there'll be rain tonight," a passing fireman informed her, "the weather people seem to think so. It'll clear this smoke and hopefully put out the fire as well."

Rachel could already sense the coming rain. It made itself clear by her inner calm which she always experienced before a downpour. Even the catastrophe occurring half a mile up the road, and the sluggish spiral of smoke above them couldn't dispel this sensation.

"Are there any immediate fears of radiation, do you think?"

"Kemico has a rather safe record, but if I were you, I'd keep windows and doors closed tonight, just in case."

"Can I quote you on that?"

"Like hell you can," he replied, moving off.

But she did anyway. The paper ran a special report three hours later and distributed it through the town.

ACCIDENT OR AN INEVITABLE RESULT? THE KEMICO DISASTER STUNS VILLAGE.

The headline read in bold red letters. The by-line stated dramatically:

All 254 workers feared dead. No survivors found. Fears of contamination in nearby Maybury.

That night, the rain came.

She wasn't sleeping very well anyway. The events of the day conspired to keep her alert and nervy, and even after a sleeping pill she only felt mildly drowsy, but still totally conscious. When the rain fell, hammering loudly on the roof of the cottage, she knew sleep would have to be forgone entirely.

She crossed to the bedroom window, pulled back the curtain, and looked at the deluge outside.

Rain fell like a black curtain on the road out there, spilling over the parked cars and sloshing thickly in the gutters. When random specks hit the window, she realised the colouration wasn't an effect of the light, but actually contained within the very substance of the falling water. Black liquid, falling from the sky, painting the house and the street outside with a sooty grime.

Rachel had never known anything like it, but she assumed the effect to simply be soot collected in the rainwater. She didn't know if such things were possible, but what other explanation could there be? She watched in uneasy wonder as black streaks engulfed the body of her rundown car in the driveway, and a river of inky sludge flowed slower and slower from the eaves above her. She reached for the Dictaphone again, and began to describe the phenomenon. She fell asleep sat on the side of her bed as she did this, and dreamt a dreamless sleep of obsidian nothingness.

The following morning, her radio alarm clock greeted her with the national news. The headline, of course was the Kemico disaster. The vice president of the company, Alan Simmons, had issued an official statement. Underneath his assertive tones, Rachel picked up the traces of fear even through the bandwidth static.

"Obviously we are all dismayed at the events up at Maybury, and with the tragic loss of life of the plant's employees. Early investigations indicate one of the cooling systems exploded, resulting in a minor spill. There is no cause for the public to be alarmed. Fears of contamination are completely unfounded. The plant is protected by an anti pollution shield created by the highest level of technology. We will issue a more complete statement later today after rescue workers and local authorities have cleared the site for a full inquiry to be held..."

Blearily, Rachel staggered out of bed and switched off the radio. She knew the day was going to be packed full of the catastrophe, and she didn't wish to start the day with it before she'd had a chance to make coffee.

She wandered downstairs, and at first thought she'd woken too early as it seemed to still be dark outside. Rubbing her eyes in the gloom, she realised all the downstairs windows were streaked and blotted with the oily black substance which had fallen from the sky last night. The sight unnerved her. She turned on the kitchen light, poured a coffee, and gazed at the smeared windows.

Curious, she crossed to her front door and opened it. The hinges resisted her with a sticky creaking, and thick globs of a tarry substance dropped to the ground as it swung open onto the day outside.

She was shocked to see how her entire garden had become spattered with the obsidian stuff. Flower and hedge were weighted down beneath the stuff, sagging under the gelatinous weight of it. It looked as if someone had splashed black paint across the shrubbery during the night, and out in the road, large misshapen puddles of inkiness filled the potholes.

Rachel retreated back inside the house for her camera. Then she returned to the driveway.

Her car looked vandalised, as if it had been driven into the back of a coal truck, and the dust thrown up from the imagined accident had been mixed with glue.

From the outside, her house looked as though it had been repainted by a morbid decorator. The windows had become empty Polaroids, reflecting nothing from the grey sky.

Damn Kemico , she thought irritably, there's going to be a lot of angry villagers filing for compensation by lunchtime, and a lot more unanswered questions. Like what the hell is this stuff...?

She wandered down the driveway to the road, her slippers sliding a little on the colourless muck.

At the roadside, she became aware of the stillness. No birds were singing in the trees along the road to Brambly Vale, and no other people were around surveying the weather damage. The goo dripped wetly off the boughs above, splashing into the puddles below with a boggy sound.

Rachel took a snap of the scene.

She walked over to the edge of one of the larger puddles to survey it, and was surprised to see no reflection in the depths. The surface of the pool was a solid mass of shadowy liquid.

She bent and picked up a pebble from the road, and dropped it into the puddle. There was hardly a ripple as the stone broke the surface. The stone sank slowly, as if into mud.

Disturbed, Rachel took a picture of the puddle. The flash from her lens illuminated the pools crust, but it didn't sparkle back at her. The puddle absorbed the light like a cloud over the sun.

She felt suddenly chilled. Where were her neighbours? They should be awake by now, they usually were. Why weren't they marvelling at this horrible spectacle along with her? Their cars were in the driveways, so they weren't at work...

Rachel turned to retreat back to the cottage. She wanted a sample of this stuff for the paper to examine, and she hadn't brought a beaker with her.

She turned, and had only taken two steps when she heard the noise.

A rumbling squelch sounded behind her. She wheeled, and was horrified to see the large puddle move before her eyes. Like a flattened slug, the thing trembled wetly, as if waking from a deep sleep ...and then one end of the pool lifted itself up with an audible sucking sound.

The head of the thing, if it could be called a head, swung this way and that, as if sniffing the chemically scented air. Rachel screamed as it lurched slowly towards her. A low whine emitted from the moving puddle, rising in volume until Rachel's thin scream was completely drowned out.

She noticed through her terror, that the other puddles along the uneven road were also waking up, sliding towards her like gummy shadows. They left viscous trails behind them as they rippled towards her, a terrible sucking sound mingling with the low frequency whine coming from their shapeless maws.

Still screaming, Rachel dropped the camera and fled back towards the house.

Inside she slammed the door hard and locked it.

A thin sheen of sweat plastered her red hair to her forehead and she felt moisture trickle down her back with a chill.

For a moment, all she could do was stand there, paralysed with fear, until instinct reclaimed her senses. She ran for the knives in the kitchen door, her slippers leaving black marks across the tiles like errant ticks on A4 paper.

She didn't notice these little marks beginning to move and follow her, until she'd returned to the front door. Angrily, she stamped on the sentient stains. They spattered, reformed, followed her again.

There came a loud wet thump at the front door.

"Get away from me!" she screamed, knowing already it was hopeless. These creatures, whatever they were, didn't hold a look that promised an intelligent answer. Just that horrid sucking and the interminable whine, now coming from under the door...

Under the door!

Her eyes widened as she noticed the gap under the front door slowly becoming filled with dark ooze. The flexible shape of the living puddle started to post itself through the door. The letterbox flapped open, and black matter began to drip onto the tiles before her.

She turned to run, but something enclosed her ankle. One of the little tread marks had risen on its blue-black mass and circled her foot like a snake. She glanced down and saw her pyjama bottoms beginning to smoke as the thing coiled a tighter hold around her leg. She tried to shake it off, but to no avail.

Then her skin began burning. With a cry of pain, she lunged backwards and fell onto the kitchen tiles with an echoing thud. The back of her head cracked noisily on the porcelain.

"Get off me!" she bellowed, as more of the tread marks flowed towards her flailed limbs like some kind of demonic mercury. They centred on her exposed extremities; hands, feet and neck, and where they touched her, her skin began to blister and bubble as if touched by an intense heat.

Her screaming spilt the atmosphere of the cottage, but as she struggled to raise her head, she caught a glimpse of the larger black mass now sliding under the front door towards her.

The moments seemed to stretch themselves out torturously, and then the thing, this tarry puddle of hell, was rearing above her, a gigantic leech formed out of a nameless obsidian filth. Eyeless, it seemed to hesitate above her thrashing form for a few seconds, that terrible whine filling her eardrums.

Then a mouth stretched in the jelly, darkness upon darkness. A thin, sodden membrane quivered delicately between its opened maw, and then it descended its full weight upon her.

As the skin of her face began to melt, and her eyes imploded in the acidic heat, Rachel's last coherent thought was about the rain.

Suddenly, she didn't feel so good about it.