Mary Mary Quite Contrary

Then Comes The Rain

She still recognized the familiar sweet spicy smell of the dead bodies and the oaky resin of the fresh grave she was next to, but underlying everything was a faint acrid scent. Barely even a scent, it was more a feeling. A burning in your nose. A prickling that made your hair stand on end. For some reason, it made her nervous. Not nervous enough to go home, but nervous enough to curl up in Johnson Peter's mausoleum where she felt safe. Once she was huddled in a niche in the crumbling black stone walls and all she could smell was rain washed stone and hard packed earth, no bitter acrid smell she finally started to relax and feel normal again. She felt silly for hiding in here. What did one off smell mean anyway?

The mausoleum was black and crumbling stone, with never quite enough light. It had been ther for a long time, so there were tons of little chinks in the walls perfect for pinpricks of light, and for seeing out of. Pressing her eye up to a small chink in the corner she surveyed the graveyard. 'See?' She reassured herself. Everything was still the same as always. That's what she loved about her graveyard. Nothing ever changed. When someone died they were dead, and you could count on their tombstone to be there every day. It was drizzling, but the kind of light drizzling that didn't really bother her, just made her feel damp all over. She was just about to step outside. Then she heard the scream.

It was deep and low and undeniably the voice of Peter the owner of the graveyard. Her first thought was 'shit. He knows I'm in here, and now I'm dead meat for sure.' But that wasn't it. The scream was broken, fractured. She had heard it before when she would sit in on the funeral processions. She would hear the scream of the dead person's loved ones and it would sound like splintering shards of glass, cutting into her heart. That's what his scream sounded like. She wriggled around so she could see Peter through the crack in the wall.

Her heart almost stopped beating at the sight of him.

He lay broken and twisted on the spongey grass. His body convulsed as he shrieked an earth shattering scream. And his skin. Wherever the rain touched it it blistered and steamed, falling off his body and turning him into a bloody mess. It was the rain, Mary realized.

It was all in the rain.

Her heart thudded hollowly in her chest. It sounded too loud in her own ears, almost like it was bragging. Saying 'I'm still here, Mary. While Peter lies there broken and bloody, listen to me. I am, I am, I am.' 'I am,' she started to realize slowly. 'I am still here. My heart lives to beat another day. And I'm not sure I want it to.' And she turned slowly away from the crack then, almost like she couldn't look away or the rain would come for her, and she crumpled against the wall. She sat there, waiting, for at least an hour. Waiting for tears that would never come. Waiting for Peter to spring back up and tell her to get the fuck away from here. And her eyes burned. And she bit her lip until blood ran down her chin. And still she couldn't make herself cry.

After at least an hour just staring at the wall, feeling empty, Mary numbly reached for the backpack next to her. Digging in the front pocket Mary found her phone and turned it on. She normally hated it, because it was old and clunky and crashed unpredictability, but right now she just needed some reminder that it still wasn't only her in the world. But when she opened her phone up, it just flashed a dull, crimson red. Some deep male voice she didn't recognize was playing over her speakers, so she strained to listen. "......A public service announcement. I repeat. All citizens are to stay indoors. All we know so far is that there is a virus in the rain. We don't know what causes it, or how to treat it, but whatever it is, this disease is consuming our world. The......"