Chapter 15: Grey Rain

The birds stopped at noon.

Hank noticed it first. He stood in the yard with his hands on his hips and listened to nothing.

"Everybody inside," he said. "Now."

By four o'clock the farmhouse had plastic sheeting over every window and duct tape along every frame.

Maisy rolled wet towels against the doors. Hank ran the last hose from the well pump to the bathtub and stood over it with his arms folded.

"Forty gallons," he said. "That's the last clean water we haul in on a rain day."

"Hank, the rain barrels," I said.

"Turned over, and the tarp's over the cistern. I did it Tuesday."

I had told him on Tuesday, in a voice I hoped he would believe.

He had not asked me how I knew. He had only gone out and tipped the barrels.

At six the sky went from yellow to a flat, heavy grey.

At seven, the first drop hit the porch roof.

It was grey, and it left a grey mark on the tin.

Then the rain came in sheets, and the sound on the roof was deafening.

Maisy stood at the front window with her hand flat on the plastic.

"There's someone on the road," she said.

I went to her side.

A man in a feed cap was walking along the fence line, a quarter mile off, with his head tipped back and his mouth open.

"He's looking at it," Maisy whispered. "He's just looking."

"Hank."

Hank looked once, and his jaw set.

"That's the neighbor's boy. I can't get out there. By the time I did, he'd have drunk his fill."

We watched the man stand in the rain.

After a minute he stopped looking up. He lowered his head, and his arms hung at his sides.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Apocalypse Plus One: My Snarky Sidekick from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.