I always hated it when it rained. In this town, it always brought out the worst in people. For awhile I started to believe that the rain was cursed. Every time it rained, something bad happened. And today it was my turn. I ran as fast as I could. Even though I was breathing in the cold winter air my lungs burned as I huffed and puffed. It was a week after my sixteenth birthday, February 20, 1955 in a small town not far from Pittsburg. My family and I moved to the north because we learned about the new jobs that were up here. I dare not turn around to see if the girls were getting any closer to me. I remember what they did to that other girl, like me, had done nothing to them. The other girl and I didn't know each other but I saw her as she passed me in the hall after they caught her and I saw that her beautiful coarse hair had been chopped off and her beautiful face was scarred. And now they said it was my turn; all because I was a lighter complexion than they were. Even though we were all African Americans I didn't understand and I wished that things were different.
They shouted after me, screaming and yelling. I finally found a place to hide right outside of the playground. I haven't been to this place since grade school, I could see them search the playground; and I prayed that they wouldn't find me. I prayed that they would give up and just leave me alone; that they would leave all of us alone. Life was hard enough. They called me all sorts of names and made fun of me. They talked about my father and my mother; they talked about my brothers and my sister.
Hiding in the bushes is not easy or as comfortable as it might seem at first especially in the rain. While I was hiding I saw an enormous slug travel past me. It slid past me and I couldn't breathe, it had antennas that stuck out and moved around and it had gills. It was as big as a large horse. A couple of dogs ran up to bark at it but when they touched the slug's residue the dogs began to fight each other. I watched in horror. I didn't have time to wonder why a slug would have gills but I stayed quiet and waited to see how the girls would react. Any moment now they would see the monstrous creature, but the slug continued to pass them by without them noticing it. No one flinched. Where they blind? Was it invisible? Then why was I able to see it? I thought my heart would jump out of my body I was so afraid. I didn't know if I should scream, cry, or run away. I even considered doing them all at the same time. Finally the girls left and I started on my way home. When I arrived my mother was in tears. Had she seen the monster? I had never experienced so many panic surges in one day. She rushed over and hugged me and she thanked me for being such a good little girl. I didn't know what she was talking about or what she meant, but I hugged her back and I asked her what was happening.
There was a woman in a red dress sitting in our tiny living room. Mother kept trying to tidy up when she thought no one else was looking. I wanted to tell her about the slug monster, but I thought that if I really was going out of my mind that only family should know.
"This is Nicole; she's from the Rosado Academy where they teach young girls like you how to be classy women." My mother was beaming; my brothers and sister all sat on the living room steps in silence.
Before I started to speak Nicole spoke, I wasn't surprised when I didn't hear a southern accent like the rest of this town, but I was shocked at how beautiful she was. Her skin was so dark and her hair was coarse and long, but she made me feel uncomfortable because she kept looking me in a strange manner.
"May I speak with Mary-Ann alone, please?" Nicole said to everyone within earshot as she looked at my brothers and sister.
My mother was beside herself she ran out of the room and shooed my siblings away upstairs.
"Let's go to the kitchen." I found myself following her as if this were her house and not my own.
For a moment we didn't speak, she just looked at me in that strange way again. "I have a proposition for you Mary-Ann. Your town is in trouble and I need your help." I realized that the story about the school wasn't real, but I didn't know what she meant. "Why me? Help with what?"
"You believe me?" she didn't look shocked, but she did seem cautious of me.
"I suppose you only lied to my mother because you want me to do something she wouldn't approve of." I bit my lip, I was feeling nervous.
"I know you've noticed the effects the rain's been having on certain people." Nicole started to explain. She continued to tell me that there was a creature polluting the waters of the town. That the creature would contaminate the water by releasing it's natural toxic into the ecosystem and therefore returning to the earth through the rain. She said that this being was the reason why there was more evil in this town than I'd ever seen before. And that she needed my help to stop it.
"Only you can do it." she was serious.
"Because you live here, only a person living in the town can save the town." she said simply.
I tried to think fast. Why don't you ask someone else? Ask Mr. Hill he's a strong man."
"Do you really want to leave saving the town up to Mr. Hill? Besides, he will fail and this monster will destroy this town and move on to the next. It will release far more toxins into the ecosystem making the humans here more violent." She misspoke and she saw me flinch. Whoever she was, she wasn't human.
"How do you know I won't fail?" I swallowed hard even though my throat was dry, I was so afraid.
"Because you're the only one in this town who can see it." Nicole smirked at me while I looked at her in horror.
I agreed to go with her. We went out to the playground. "Do you see anything? Any slug residue?" I told her that I didn't see anything and I wondered how we would find a thing like this. Immediately after I asked Nicole how I could have missed a large slug roaming around the town.
"My friend and I tried to attack it on our own. We were unsuccessful and it came here a few months ago, it's probably moving its location every so often so it would be harder for us to find it." She suggested that we look again tomorrow.
The next day I got up and went to class, I was grateful that I didn't have the same classes as those girls but I knew I would see them by the end of the day. I wasn't expecting to get pulled into the principal's office. I opened the door and Nicole was waiting for me.
"I found it. Let's move." she threw a bag at me to carry. I looked inside and my head popped up like a jack in the box.
"Is this a gun?" I asked, I shouldn't have been as shocked as I was, how else did I expect to kill a toxic releasing giant slug?
"It's a type of gun." she said to me before climbing out of the window.
I followed Nicole to the town's reservoir. It was such a long walk, I was glad that I didn't have to go to one of those schools were they had to wear uniforms with those fancy shoes.
"Is it in the reservoir?" I asked almost out of breath.
"Uh, it's near it. But if it gets in it, that'll make it harder to kill it, these guns don't work as well in the water. "Nicole explained to me as we continued on our trek.
As we walked I remembered all of the evil things that went on every time it rained. I wondered if these were things that would have happened anyway or if these were things that happened because of the creature. My attention was drawn back to the rocky terrain as I knew that we made it to our destination.
"These were the right coordinates." Nicole was shocked as she looked down at the map.
"It's gone. It was gone by the time I got here." A male voice spoke out behind us.
"Sean, don't sneak up on me like that." Nicole looked scared. She always gave the impression of someone who was never afraid. She looked even more concerned when it began to rain.
Sean shrugged his shoulders. He was Afri
can American but he had curly brown hair. He looked a little bit like my mother's half brother, my Uncle Armand.
"We could probably have gotten this thing a whole lot quicker, if we weren't stuck in 1950." He said in an annoying tone.
Nicole put her hands on her hips and responded. I smelled something foul in the air and saw the path that the slug had left behind.
"1955." she corrected him.
"Let's go before this trail disappears in the rain." I told the two of them.
"She's a little bossy." I heard Sean say.
"She's right, we need to go." Just as Nicole and Sean started to follow me, I felt as if I had done this before. I couldn't describe the feeling, I knew I had never gone monster hunting before.
As we were running along the path the slug left behind I remembered what Nicole had to say about the creature having the ability to change the behavior of the people in the area.
"How come everyone isn't affected by the rain?" I asked while the light rain drenched us.
"We're not sure; we think it might have something to do with a person's disposition. If you're a nice person, it'll be harder for the rain to alter you. But if you're already a mean person, well, it won't be that hard to convince you