Two years after I took my last high school exam, I still hadn't gone to college. I figured the smart move would be to work at a new farm, where I could do manual labor harvesting crops and planting seeds with big farm equipment. Driving those tractors was fun, especially since I had to minimize the use of Dad's old truck. Gas was hard for regular people like me to come across, and besides, the thing hadn't had an oil change in well over a year. And Dad? Well ... He wasn't doing well enough to work, and he needed the truck at home in case he had to drive himself to the hospital.
Whenever I thought about Dad, I had to grit my teeth and think about something else, like the weather, or the work. I loved him, but I had also come to hate all that time he'd spent disregarding his health.
Selfish bastard. How could he do that to me? And when my mom already abandoned us?
I knew he didn't choose to get sick, but I wasn't an idiot. Some diseases could be put off or avoided altogether if you lived the right kind of life. I could see him dying soon, from lung cancer. Hell, it wasn't like he was receiving chemotherapy. He basically signed his life away with that last pack of cigarettes.
Sweat dripped down my back. I turned toward the moon, seeing a number of normal clouds floating across the sky. Summer, I thought. Of course, it's going to rain.
And it poured. Relentlessly, for that matter.
Warm as the air had been today, the rain brought the temperature down significantly, and it easily permeated my clothes, making the rags stick to me as if I had been doused in glue. I was glad the plants were getting a nice drink out of it, at least.
Lightning crashed nearby, and we farmers had to go into the closest barn to wait out the storm. Thunder rumbled through the ground, making us tremble, and the chickens in the nearby coop clucked and p'gawked in distress.
My friend Leanna stood close to me, smelling of rich soil. You bet we used chicken shit in the fertilizer. Luckily, even a little-educated girl like Leanna remembered to wear gardening gloves when she handled any fertilized soil. That's what she was doing until when it began to rain.
"Kev," I heard her whisper near my ear, her voice low and her accent strong—she had moved to Indiana last year, from Wisconsin. "You lock your dogs up before you leave the house, don't you?"
"Of course, but there's a doggy door. They can get out if they have to. And my dad's there, anyway."
"So, he babysits them?"
"You can say that."
There were just twelve of us tonight. Enough people volunteered here to put everyone on a half-week schedule with shorter shifts. Over the years working here, I'd grown accustomed to large and small crowds, making small talk and discussing philosophy or work plans. My muscles ached and grew, and the more they grew the more I was expected by the other farmers to make them ache again. Leanna wasn't weak either—I swear, if she was angry enough, she could lift more than I could on my best day.
Neither of us went to college, but we both had a high school diploma. All of that felt so useless now. Most of what we learned about agriculture, we learned from older farmers on the job.
"What about your dog?" I asked Leanna, returning to the mundane chat while the other workers in the barn talked quietly among themselves about drinking, hookups, and the town's latest soccer game. "You don't leave her outside, do you?"
"Naw, she spends most of the day in my bedroom. Her food 'n water's in there."
"Well, I'm glad she's comfy. She's a chihuahua, right?"
"Yeah, a tan short-haired one."
I didn't enjoy our conversations much. Leanna was a hardy girl and worthy of calling my friend, but she wasn't one to ever delve into serious or "adult" topics.
These boring talks made me long for Liza and her decent wit.
Sure, I'd chosen to move on from Liza, but I had no choice but to see her almost every night in my nightmares. While I couldn't be sure that it was really her I was conversing with, while we were being chased by demons on a battlefield, or when we'd find ourselves back in that foreboding room with the winding staircase, I got something meaningful out of it. Out of her, I guess. I missed her. We hadn't seen each other in person for a long time.
And only Liza could understand why I walked with a limp. I didn't want to show anyone, Leanna, too, the eyeball constellation on my right leg. It had turned from red to purple … and I knew deep down that it was here to stay, just like those anxiety-inducing nightmares.
Thunder crashed. I shuddered, and Leanna wrapped an arm around my waist, giving me a strong squeeze.
"We're safe in here, Kev," she said reassuringly.
But it wasn't the storm that had me worried. Rather, it was the shadow that I saw with the lightning flash. When that light came in through the windows, I saw a black figure on the left side, watching us through the glass.
And the next time lightning hit the field, I saw it again. This time, I made out long hair.
Was that a woman outside?
Did she need help?
I glanced at Leanna and asked her, "Can you see the lady there?"
She looked where I pointed and let out a startled gasp. "What's she doing out there?"
The other workers acknowledged the figure, grunting and murmuring suspiciously.
"One of us should go let her in," one said, "but make sure she's not a psycho."
"I'll do it," I offered, not as paranoid as some of the people I worked with and also rather motivated by concern for anyone out in a flash storm like this.
Leanna didn't want to let go of me, but when she tightened her grip on my waist, I wasn't convinced. I simply pulled myself free and stepped toward the door.
Opening it, the rain and strong wind beat on my face. Trying to ignore how soaked I was getting, I stuck my head out and glanced leftward. There, I saw an albino woman who must have been in her late twenties. I could see her skin dripping wetly against the outdoor light shining above the barn door.
She stared at me, her pink eyes wide. She wore a black shirt, gray jeans, and teal sandals. Mud speckled her pants and her pale feet.
"Help me," she said over the storm, not moving from where she stood. I could see her shoulders tremble, though. Obviously, she was freezing. "I need you."
"Me?" I narrowed my eyes at her. "What do you need help for?"
"My son." Her voice shook like thunder and, if it wasn't for the rain, I would probably have seen tears in her eyes. She raised her arm and gestured somewhere just beyond the lights of the field, toward a dense forest of trees that was maybe three acres in total. "He's a toddler. Ran off while we were trying to escape the storm, and went into those woods."
I had walked through there before, and I knew a big stream ran through it, which posed a real threat to a two or three-year-old who wouldn't know how to swim. A lot of deer made their home in those trees, too, and a little kid might spook them—a buck or stag would likely respond with aggression.
But I could only ever navigate it when the stars were out and I had my flashlight on me. To be honest, I wasn't sure where I'd left it ... Probably in the shed a few yards from here.
"Ma'am, are you saying you lost your son?" Bad parent, I thought.
She nodded, lips quivering. "Please, help me find him."
I considered her for a moment. She was an albino, but that didn't mean she had Selene-Corpus. If anything, albinism as a comorbid condition with Selene-Corpus really only happened to kids born after the Cloud. She was too old for that to be the case; for her age, the closest Selene-Corpus symptom she would have gotten to albinism would have been vitiligo, which came in patches. She wasn't patchy.
Trusting that she wasn't delusional with Selene-Corpus, I said, "Okay, I'll help you." Then turning back to my fellow farmers in the shadows, my eyes naturally falling on Leanna, I announced, "I'm gonna go help this lady find her kid. We'll be in the woods across the road."
"I'll come with," Leanna offered, stepping toward me at the door. A few men also approached me, wanting to come too.
"Thank you all so much," the woman cried. Seven of the twelve workers followed her in the downpour, away from the purple glowing field, toward the trees. Most of the farmers, including Leanna, had flashlights beaming in their hands. I guess I wasn't prepared for the search, but I still felt obligated to go, as the fella the panicked mother first addressed.
I wish that I had known it back then, that I was being led into a trap.