For weeks the rain fell. Inconstant enough so the streets were not river channels, the rain laid claim on the dips in the roads and alleys. The buildings soaked up the falling water, and Lynda wondered, if on a clearer night, they would also cover the moon.
To love the rain was a strength, she felt. Able to enjoy what others feared. Lynda would walk as they scudded from shelter to shelter or hid under plastic. Her smile would broaden when she saw how unique her appreciation was; no one else acted like her.
But this time she only felt wet. The rain was getting colder by the day, and Lynda dreaded going outside. Her clothes stuck to her body. She felt dirty, as if she had been swimming in a shallow pond. She remembered days when sunlight hit dry pavement, showed the way from here to there, and cancelled all the world's shadows.
She hugged her soaked clothes against her body as a taxi sprayed her ankles, filling her shoes with street slush. A light disturbed the gray of night'a diner at the bend of the street.

The door closed with a crash behind her. There were two others inside, including the waitress. Lynda sat at the bar, near a man with wild hair. He smelled like roses.
'Get this woman a fucking pie!'� he yelled and banged his wrist down on the table. The red canvas of his jacket sleeves covered his hand. Lynda couldn't see his eyes because of the long spikes of hair that plumed over the man's head like a lightning-struck feather duster.
The waitress brought a blueberry pie. She was a woman of forty with several degrees of red in her hair. Yellow dress, white apron, and too much make-up. She was a badly colored Lucille Ball.
'I'm Mayberry,'� said the man. 'And don't get me wrong'I'm no Small-town, USA!'�
A hand shot out from the canvas sleeve. Mayberry's shake was firm and quick.
'Get a coffee!'� He spun around at his own insistence. 'Coffeeeeee!'� he shouted at the server in varying tones until the word died out with a click of his tongue.
Lynda watched the server pour the coffee into a stained white cup. She smiled for the service; she wanted to say thank you, but her voice wouldn't work.
'Hey! You gotta tell me your name, ok?'� Three snaps to the face ' Snap Snap Snap! Lynda turned to glare at him, but there was something idiotic about his eyes. She could see now that they were green.
She managed to whisper her name, and then turned back to the pie. Defeated.
'Fucking Great, Man!'� Mayberry threw his arms up, and Lynda was amazed at how long they were ' they curved out wide and his palms struck ten long branches to the light. The smell of roses overwhelmed her, and she coughed.
eat the pie eat the pie eat the pie and leave she sang to herself.
There was nothing special about the diner pie. Lynda ate half and tried to ignore the man staring at her. 'It's good, huh?'� he asked, as though it were his own. Lynda nodded and sipped at the coffee. Hot brown water.
Her feet began to itch. She was no drier than when she stepped in, and the air-conditioned diner made her shiver. She longed for dry clothes and the privacy of her little apartment.
She scooted her chair over the puddle she had made. It was brown, and Lynda would have apologized if she thought the server cared. It might get mopped someday, she thought, but not by her.
Mayberry was silent. He watched her stand. Everything'her hair, her coat, her eyes'was attracted to the ground. Lynda was a steady drip; a rain cloud all her own.
'Thank you for the pie and coffee'�'�
'You can call me Jizz!'�
'All right,'� she whispered. She kept her smile polite and edged toward the door. She left the diner; happy to see Mayberry hadn't moved.

The numbness warmed her. Raindrops pelted her coat'soaked in and fed her soggy skin. The diner had abused her. It ruined her night vision, and it drained her life source.
The sky went from gray to black. There were few people about now, for the globular drops were heavy and constant. Street signs were illegible through the filter of falling water, but Lynda had walked this way before; she knew where she was going.
Down Landau Lane few lights were lit. The rain fell to a trickle and turned to mist. The mist became fog and the fog brought a lone tall silhouette. A man stood straight-backed and crook-legged. A large snake whipped behind him. As Lynda went by she saw that under Mayberry's wild hair was the snout of a rat (start running) and then he was gone ' well behind her.
'Stop, You Bitch!'�
Lynda's feet pounded with the rhythm of her heart. She flew like a bullet, back to her home. Rats are not people No Rats are not people No Rats are not people And People aren't rats!
Lynda never wore a purse. She kept her keys separate in the pockets of her coat. Her apartment key was in the pocket beside her racing heart. She ran into the building and fell on the stairs. She fumbled for her keys and never looked behind her.
She was locked in her sanctuary; warm and well lit. But she was drenched in fear. Was it really him, she wondered. The momentary glance'that still shot she kept in her mind'morphed to an ugly human.
'Delirium,'� she said and shredded her clothing at the door, letting them clump like a puddle of goo. She put on dry clothes, packed the wet ones in a bag, and dropped it in the tub. Then she lay on the bed. She was dry but still cold. She was shaking.
There were no knocks on the door.
No calls on the phone.
With a sigh, she submitted to sleep.

scuttling rats draw a demon on her mother & the gaping white jaw glows like jesuslight blinding eyes tombstone candy and the sobbing sappy widows for the green means go & the green means rat but you never saw your father die the demon says & stabs her pop the knife sews blackened blood in & out & in & out the sockets drain the juices dry the gray skies & lonely trees are dying on a hillside an oak in the shape of her dad & the tree offers fruit lynda eats & she sees she is fat just a seal floating grease in the well so she waits for the harvest but the green means rat & the green means death & the tombs in the earth lynda wombs in the earth & the network falls when the rain cuts the power with a burst spreading plague to the swaying gray singing gray draining gray men

When Lynda awoke she was soaked in sweat. It was 3:33 in the morning, and there was a metal clanging in the distance.
She turned on her side and peeked at her end table. The dreams were no longer with her. All images seen in the past few hours had been rendered into feelings ' pricks at the side, tingling bleeding sensations that made her want to cover up even more. Instead, she threw the blanket off her body and sat up at the edge of bed.
She couldn't sleep. She was all alone. There was nowhere to go. There was a knocking at the door.
don't answer
The knocking continued.
She tried to step softly, but the floor creaked.
'Linda!'� shouted a voice behind the door.
She got to the door and brought her eye to the peephole. The door thumped against her with a series of bangs, loud against her face!
'Linda! Open This Door!'�
Through the peephole was only black.
'Before I Die!'�
Her breath stopped. She put her back against the thudding door and slid to the floor.
She heard huffs of breath outside and wondered if the wolf would blow down her door. There were scuffling sounds in the hallway'�silence. The slam threw her forward. She knocked her head against the door. Another slam and she scooted away. The third knocked the door against her knees.
Gibberish dribbled down Mayberry's chin as he ran past Lynda. 'Fix Your Door! Fix Your Door!'� he screamed.
She stood up and slammed the door. 'What do you want from me?'� She was happy to see his face was the same as when they met in the diner.
'Lock The Door! Lock The Door!'� He repeated himself in mutters until the sounds drowned in his throat. 'They're going to Kill me!'� he squeaked and managed to squeeze into himself even more.
'You followed me!'�
Mayberry chittered, curling a finger at his chin. 'You don't know what's out there, you Cold Bitch!'� One leg rode up the other, curling like a spring. 'I thought I could tr''�
Banging bellowed near the entrance of the building. Stumbling, she put her hand out and fell against the door. 'What the hell was that?'� She looked at Mayberry who was hugging himself into a quivering spiral. A drop of liquid from his elevated shoe added to a small puddle on her hardwood floor.
Mayberry squeaked.
Lynda listened at the door. The sounds of splintering wood and folding metal grew louder. She locked the door.
When she turned, Mayberry was gone. Something stirred under her bed, so Lynda checked there first. Mayberry was laying flat on his stomach.
'You tell me what the hell is going on!'� she whisperscreamed into his hyperventilating face. The sounds outside were like the creaks of a boat.
'We need to get out of here,'� he whined. 'I'm sorry I brought you into this!'�
'Are you pissing on my floor?'�
'A little.'�
The creaks became thumps, pounding louder and louder until they stopped at her door. The muffled cackle of a dozen tongues scattered the silence. A score of rapid thuds banged all around the door. Something shouted and silence returned.
The doorknob twisted. Lynda craned forward as Mayberry scooted back. The knob changed direction and the door creaked open. Lynda started to stand, but Mayberry grabbed her.
'No, don't!'� he squealed.
The door flew open and a horde of gray entities fell inside the apartment. They were thin and naked with round heads'no ears or protruding noses. Four black holes sank into the fronts of their faces; they swallowed like muscles. Their long withered arms ended in three stick-like fingers that inspected everything in Lynda's home. One of these creatures planted its face on Mayberry's puddle and vacuumed it up with a loud slurp. It brought its face back up, and a hideous howl cut through the air. The others responded by swaying on their haunches. All of them stared at Lynda who was stuck still with fear.
One after another they sprung in her direction. An endless scream tailed her while she ran through her bathroom and into the hallway. The building was torn apart from the inside: tire-sized pits trailed along the floor, and the walls were distorted with scrapes and dents. The stairs dangled from the rails. Lynda never stopped ' down the floors and out the door, she ran down the street that led to town. It was starting to rain.
'Wait, You Arrogant Whore!'�
Lynda couldn't stop. Those faces, the slurping sound, the slow sway before the lunge; everything was right behind her, slithering up her back. Her hands shook at the ends of her arms. She warbled down the road like a beheaded chicken with a good sense of direction. As the rain fell faster, the sounds grew louder.
'I'm Gonna Cramp!'� Mayberry appeared at Lynda's side. He looked pained by the run, as if he wanted to double up with every step.
The swarming sounds yo-yoed in every direction.
'Here!'� Mayberry screamed. He grabbed Lynda's arm and ripped her down an alley. 'pleasebeopen pleasebeopen,'� he muttered. Mayberry opened a door at the side of a gray stone building, and they went inside.
Lynda shut and locked the door before she could take another breath. Mayberry dashed his hand about for a light switch but had no luck. They stumbled between wooden partitions. A faint light displayed Jesus in Pain.
'A Church?'� asked Lynda. 'Why did you bring me to a church?'�
'They won't come here.'� Mayberry sat on the dais to catch his breath. He gripped his sides and howled silent pain to the stained glass figures. ''�Oh, God'�'� He fell back with a thump.
Lynda hid behind a podium and looked for a weapon. 'Why won't they come into a church? And what the hell were those things anyway?'�
'Ghouls,'� Mayberry said, staring at the rafters.
'What are ghouls?'�
'They live underground. They have dwellings, meeting places and eating places, and then'�and then they have their gardens!'� Mayberry's laughter was like vomit. 'The gardeners harvest their crops!'�
'How do you know all this?'� Lynda found a long candlestick with a spike at the top. She was gripping it while she watched the shadows.
'I found one of their dens while I was walking through the woods. There was a hole in the ground.'�
'So, what? You went in it?'�
'Yeah! I went in and looked around and saw those things.'�
'How could you see? Do you often go walking through the woods with a flashlight?'�
'It was night. I saw them and they saw me. They've been chasing me ever since.'�
'I'd really like to believe that.'�
'Why wouldn't you?'� `
'I saw you at the diner tonight. Were they chasing you then? Is there a magical force field around all-night coffee shops too?'�
Mayberry frowned. 'They weren't chasing me then, but I knew they would be soon.'�
'Tell me the truth!'� Now she pointed the spiked stick at Mayberry.
'All right, you cocky slut queen.'� Mayberry growled and crossed his legs. 'I had some strange dreams a while ago'�dreams that really bothered me. At first all I saw were rats. A whole bunch of them, and then it became just one. One big rat, as tall as me! I followed them through sewers and alleys. Then one night there were no more rats, just me. But I had a tail'�a rat's tail, but big enough for a guy like me. Sometimes I was myself, just part rat, standing on my own two feet. Then other times I was just a little one, scurrying along the tunnels on my own.
'I don't even like rats! I think they're all fucked up and nasty, you know? But after I'd have these dreams, they'd get my head all spinning everywhere until that's all I could think about! I stopped talking to people. I was all locked up in my head, but I had to figure it all out!'�
Lynda tried to listen outside the circle while Mayberry talked, but it wasn't easy. She didn't hear a thing until now: Near the door they entered, there were scratches, like a hundred fingernails clawing at wood.
'What does this have to do with those things?'�
'I needed a place to figure things out, where I could get my head clear. I used to go to the woods, preferably the ones where there weren't so many trails. People bother me with their stupid powerwalking and cell phones ' it's like they go out there to see the forest 'cause it's pretty or whatever but they wouldn't dare touch it! They wouldn't dare get dirty, would they?'�
Figures moved behind the stained glass. Bowling ball faces pressed against the windows.
'Mayberry!'�
'Damn! OK! I went to the woods. I was trying to get in tune, unlike anything I can do at the moment, thank you. And I meditated. I laid down in the underbrush. I got in deep. I listened to the wind. I breathed in the smell of the plants, the berries, the animals. I fell asleep.
'All the sudden I was a rat again and I was running through the forest. I came to the hole and I ran inside. I saw movement so I dug into the ground and hid. Then there was a terrible racket that echoed down the tunnels. I crept in further until I could see them.'�
The scratching had stopped, and now'all around the church'she could hear a chorus beginning to sing. Not of angels or trained humans, not from notes of black on white. Moaning swelled and harmonized in a somber key. Mayberry had to raise his voice in order to be heard.
'I saw those things congregating in a pit, smacking and slurping'�they were all hunched over like lions. There was a man laying inside the huddle of ghouls. He was wearing a black suit. It was covered in some kind of black liquid and they were ripping his clothes off and tearing his flesh.
'They carried more people in, all humans suited up like they were nabbed from a Sunday sermon. Guys in suits; Women in dresses: floral patterns, lace, wedding dresses'�. The ghouls gutted them until this geyser of black gushed over the people's stomachs. And then the ghouls would just get louder and dig in with even more lust.
'I woke up and I started running. The sun was going down and I was scared out of my mind, but I needed to find the tunnel'�to see if it was really there. I found the hole right where it was in my dream.'�
Lynda backed up against the crucifix while the choir of moans sang its detestable hymns. The doors began to rattle.
'I didn't see them though,'� said Mayberry. 'I didn't see any ghouls, thank God! But I could see! I saw as clearly as I did in my dream! I saw the hole where they gathered their'�meals. I saw the bones and torn clothing. And then I saw their garden'�a long room with markers on the ceiling. There were rectangular holes in the earth above my head. Empty coffins were thrown about the room. Hundreds of them lined the walls.
'I felt sick. So this is where we go when we die, right? To be harvested by underground ghouls when our bodies are ripe'�. I could hardly breathe, so I backed up and spent hours in the streets, just walking around thinking. I guess I went vigilante or whatever ' I felt like a superhero: I could see in the dark! I was having visions! I felt special'�chosen. It was raining hard, so I jumped into the diner to grab something to eat, and then I'd go back, but this time with a shovel or some explosives'Blow The Whole Network Down!'�
The singing ghouls clawed the doors, the windows, and the walls with their burrowing hands. They overpowered Mayberry, but he didn't raise his voice; instead, he rose and spoke into Lynda's ear.
'I was a little on edge when I met you, but I had a lot on my mind. After you left, I went to my brother's house, got some kind of pickaxe lookin' thing, and went back to the forest. I made it back to the hole and I tore the place apart. But when I got to their little corpse garden, I saw my fingers ended in claws! My arms were hairy and I felt this weight behind me. I reached back and I had a fucking Tail!
'Everything caved in, but only after they saw me! I ran and realized I was jettin' on four legs! An avalanche of dirt, coffins, and trees dominoed behind me until I rolled out of the exit. Those things were all over the forest'swaying on the trails and in the creek'but I kept on running, and'�well, that's how we met again.'�
The air was hot and growing warmer. The scratching was maddening. Lynda shook her head. While she was sleeping, an army of pale creatures was chasing Mayberry around town. 'Damn you for bringing me into this,'� she said softly; too soft to be heard above the scratching.
Then at once, all was still.
The halo of light around her brightened and widened its radius. The door they had entered was open. The main doors creaked outward, and she saw the ghouls waiting. Thousands of them surrounded the church, and the light grew even brighter so that she could see their numbers. They entered the hallowed ground on careful feet.
'Mayberry!'� Lynda shrieked. But the dais was empty except for her and the wooden Jesus. She looked up at the graven image and saw the light coming from above. Nearly blinded, she looked back to the approaching hordes. In awe they crept forward.
'Mayberry!'�
But there was no answer. The church was as bright as day, and the congregation had surrounded the platform she defended. 'Oh, God!'� she cried before the light zoomed to a quickening flash. The sustained lightning drowned all vision.

Lynda turned her head from the brightness. Long thin fingers hovered above her. She was lying on her back, and her hands were empty. She grasped and pulled handfuls of earth to her face. She looked around again. There were trees'nothing but trees'everywhere. Thin fingers of dead branches swayed above her face.
There was a rumbling in the distance. Somewhere it was starting to rain.

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