Early in the morning of October 22nd, 2006 it began to rain in the town of King's Point, New York. A light drizzle, nothing unusual. Merely an annoyance. It wasn't even heavy enough to merit umbrellas. The people went about their regular routines. The rain continued to fall.
By the afternoon it was still raining. A little more than sprinkling, but not quite a full-fledged rainstorm. Umbrellas went up, people cursed their wet clothes and the sky, life went on. And the rain continued to fall.
As everyone in King's Point was winding down and going to sleep the rain was still falling. Quicker now, and larger drops, but still nothing concerning. Some people might have even considered the rain pleasant, an ever-present rhythmic plit plit plit plit. No thunder, no lightning, just rain.
The next day the sun didn't rise. The sky was grey and dull. And the rain was falling in its rhythmic pattern. Plit plit plit plit. Local meteorologists made wild predictions about when the rain ought to clear- some said within the day, some within the week, a few even said within the hour. Undaunted, the rain continued to fall.
Nobody seemed to notice it had grown heavier in the night. Under their umbrellas, everyone in King's Point went about their business. The grey oppressive sky above, the hard grey asphalt bellow. The people mucking about in between.
Of course, two days of rain wasn't anything to get worried about. "It's normal for this time of year." "We could use the rain, the grass has been pretty dry." "I'm sure it'll be gone soon," the people said to one another, optimistic of what they thought would come. Nobody paid the rain much mind. The rain continued to fall.
A day later, nothing changed. A week later, nothing changed. The rain kept falling, ignorant of the meteorologist's predictions that it ought to have moved south by now. The clouds never moved, never dissipated. King's Point was isolated by a blanket of grey clouds, a personal little crown of gloom.
The people went about their lives, annoyed and aggravated that the rain still had yet to go away. Nothing flew above the city - not a bird, not a plane, nothing - but if something had, it would have watched the intricate dance of umbrellas scurrying to and fro, keeping their masters dry.
The rain had grown stronger yet. What started as a light drizzle had become a veritable storm now, and it showed no sign of stopping.
Yet nobody quite knew when the rain got stronger. It simply happened. For the people of King's Point, it was a fact of life. Grass grows, birds fly, and rain slowly gets stronger over time. They still didn't mind much, though. The clouds, grey and depressing as they might have been, brought no thunder. The wind, when it came, was cold and clear.
Children went about their Halloween festivities under umbrellas. Parents saw no reason to cancel a holiday on account of a little rain, and umbrellas had become so ubiquitous in town everyone was expected to have one anyway.
The rain claimed its first victim that night. A boy, Thomas Shelley, slipped and fell into the local river. Little Thomas wasn't a very strong swimmer, and he was encumbered by his costume. He drowned on Halloween night, still wrapped in his little ghost sheet. His body was never found- the authorities expected he drifted downriver and he would show up later. He didn't.
The tragedy of Thomas Shelley rocked the small town. The people began to treat the rain as a menace, a threat to their children. The rain, however, remained as impassive as ever. It continued to fall, hard but familiar.
The next day, King's Point closed schools. Nobody wanted another Thomas Shelley incident, and everyone figured it was better safe than sorry in the circumstances. Children stayed at home, playing their games and reading their books, safe from the rain. Adults went about their lives on edge but undeterred.
The day after that, a strange thing happened. The grey clouds seemed to fall into the town below. Well, not as much "fall" as "vaguely saunter downwards." When people woke up and left for work, the clouds were in the sky where they'd been. As everyone left work, they found the town enveloped in a cold, grey mist.
The fog wrapped icy tendrils around everything. Grasping, clutching fingers of fog tore at eyes and noses, freezing people to their core, blinding their eyes. The mist oppressed, controlled, condemned.
In a span of just two hours, the mist claimed five lives. Four from traffic accidents (which left even more injured, but alive) and one who couldn't see where she was going and ended up walking right into the river. Her name was Mary Lee. Just like poor Thomas Shelley, she drowned that night. Her body, like Thomas', was never found.
The rain continued to fall amidst this fresh hell, cold and strong as ever. Had the people been able to see past the mist, they would have seen the sky, black as death above them. Instead, all they saw was the endless grey around them. The first warning was missed, lost to the mist.
The next morning, people still went in to their offices and life continued, despite the tragedies of the night before. Everyone was careful and quiet, hoping to avoid similar grisly fates. The meteorologists tried to alleviate the growing concern of the townsfolk, but all hope was fading fast. The rain showed no sign of stopping.
A few tried to leave town, afraid of what might happen if they stayed. They feared the rain as much as they would fear a man who had killed six people- for after all, that's what the rain had done. Five cars left town, to family or friends or anyone who would take them in.
The first was found an hour later. In the river, just like Mary and Thomas. Everyone inside had drowned. Their bodies were pulled out and the wreckage dredged to the bank. Three victims. Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy, and their daughter Lizzy.
The second and third cars were found three hours later, having collided with one another head-on. The crash had killed all the passengers on impact. Seven mangled bodies were pulled from the hellish scene. Authorities were baffled. Did one of the cars turn around? They must have, because it was a head-on collision, but why?
The dead offered no answers. Authorities told everyone to remain calm and inside until the storm had passed, but people had long since abandoned calm. The rain now held an impressive list of victims- sixteen people had already lost their lives.
The fourth car was never found. Everyone assumed the passengers had died, though some foolishly hoped that they had made it out of King's Point alive. Regardless, the rain continued to fall.
The morning after the attempted escape, the fifth car turned up. Mr. H. S. Allen was found, asleep behind the wheel but very much alive in the middle of town. The police took him away for questioning, and life continued. The people went about their business, quickly and quietly, venturing outside only when it was immediately necessary.
The rain, by now, had grown to be a great roaring deluge, a flood of biblical proportions. The townsfolk had never feared anything quite as much as they feared the rain. It showed no sign of stopping. The mist laid thick and heavy over the town. The blood of King's Point was freezing and dying.
They appeared the next day. Nobody saw Them at first, because nobody went outside, but They were there regardless. In the rain, slick black figures with long, stringy hair wandered from place to place. Nobody knew what They were, nobody dared ask. They roamed the town, and the townsfolk stayed inside.
The rain continued to fall, but it didn't bother Them. In fact, They seemed to enjoy it. Perhaps They even caused it, though nobody dared ask Them and They never said anything about it. People watched in horror as They stalked up and down the town, though They didn't seem dangerous at all.
H.S. Allen woke up in the middle of the day. The police asked the young man about his trip, about his return, about Them. Allen said nothing. No matter what the police did to coerce an answer out of him, Allen would simply smile and shake his head. The police were baffled. The rain continued to fall, They continued to roam, all signs of life- gone.
The first encounter with Them occurred on November 5th, 2006. A policeman, Walter Samson, saw one of Them in the station window, and thinking It was in danger, ran outside to let It in. What followed was a scream, a gunshot, a sound unlike anything ever heard on this earth, then silence. The rain continued to fall. The policeman stumbled back into the station, paralyzed with fear, his ears ringing. One of Them had died. The rest of Them were not pleased.
Samson immediately called his encounter with Them to his superiors. Of course, nobody believed him at first. It was hard to believe stories about a thin, gaunt creature with long, stringy black hair, a completely smooth face except for a sucking mouth that unfolded rather than opening. As difficult as it was to believe, it was close to the truth.
The higher-ups sent a team in to investigate Them, but they never made it to King's Point. Rather, King's Point suffered a critical existence failure when they arrived. What they found was a large lake where the town ought to have been. Experts were baffled. It seemed utterly impossible for a town to simply disappear without serious fanfare, but it happened all the same.
There was one survivor of the disappearance of King's Point. H. S. Allen was found, cold and damp but very much alive adrift in the center of the lake. The authorities dragged the poor, freezing Allen out of the water, sick with hypothermia but still clinging to life. It took him months to recover, but recover he did.
[The following is the full transcript of the interview between Dr. Edgar Morris and Howard Stephen Allen, taken on December 17th, 2006.]
M: Mr. Allen, could you kindly tell me what happened the night of November 5th, 2006?
A: (Allen is unresponsive, and he mumbles something that sounds like "drowned.")
M: I'm sorry, I couldn't quite catch that.
A: They drowned us.
M: Who drowned who?
A: They. Them. They drowned us. They drowned us and now we're like them. Only we'll never be like Them, because They don't want us to be. They came, the sorrows came, and They swallowed the world. The blood of the King was frozen and dead.
M: I'm sorry, I don't follow-
A: Don't you see? They brought it. They drowned us with it. They drowned us with it because we hurt Them.
M: What's it? Who's They? (Morris is clearly trying to calm Allen; it doesn't appear to be working.)
A: They drowned the world because we hurt Them. We hurt one of Them and so They took their revenge. The deluge washed away the sinful Son of Sam because They knew that the sun was dead and the blood of the king ran ice in his veins and They came and They- (Morris cuts off the agitated Allen at this point.)
M: Mr. Allen, please. Do you know where the rest of the town is?
A: With Them. Drowned, like Them. They took 'em all away.
M: Why are you still here?
A: They told me to deliver a message. As I traveled the möbius loop that surround the Point of Kings, They gave me the message which I must deliver.
M: Which would be...?
A: The rain continues to fall. The rain, continues to fall. THE RAIN continues to FALL. THE RAIN CONTINUES TO FALL! (Morris is heard struggling to calm Allen, who continues to chant for another fifteen seconds until the recording ends.) [End transcribed audio.]
To this day, the fate of King's Point is unknown. Allen was put into a mental institution outside of Albany where he's doing quite well. Except when it rains. He suffers terrible breakdowns during the rain, though he's quite lucid in all his other day to day activities.
The town of Bakersfield, just a few miles south of the asylum, recently called the Cornell Meteorology labs in Ithaca to report an aberrant weather pattern. The residents are concerned because a light drizzle started a week ago and has yet to cease or move on. The meteorologists have assured the locals everything is normal, but they can't help but shake the feeling something is deeply wrong.
And so, the rain continues to fall.