A Gentle Rain
A short horror story about loss.
I usually open a short story with a paragraph about why I wrote it or what I was feeling at the time. What I want to say will give the ending away so, if you make it that far (and know that I appreciate it if you do), you’ll find that paragraph there. Enjoy.
The dripping started a month after Ewan’s wife died. A slow, gentle patter behind their bedroom wall. At first, he thought it was living – the brittle beat of insect legs or an injured rat – but when he put his ear to the cold paint, he realized it was too influenced by gravity. This was the sound of something leaking,
drip
by drip
by drip.
Listening to the slow patter of water on wood, he wondered if this is what his life had become. An endless torrent of unfortunate events triggered by the death of the person he called home.
Knowing he didn’t have the motivation to climb into the attic to figure it out, and that the drip was weak enough to wait until morning, he did what he’d been doing since Ellie died; opened a bottle of something strong in the hopes it would help him sleep.
When it did, that sleep was restless and rough, but he found what little comfort he could in the firmness of pillows pressed against his chest.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” the electrician said, turning his flashlight off with a loud click. Ewan couldn’t remember his name. Couldn’t be bothered to bring up the email exchange to figure it out.
“What do you mean?”
“That’s what I mean. If you want me to replace something and take your money, I will. But I’m telling you there’s nothing wrong here.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. What’s the matter with you, man? I’m giving you good news.”
Ewan cursed. The dripping behind the bedroom wall had stopped but now, there was a different problem.
The lights.
He’d been scrolling his phone when they started flickering, casting frantic shadows across the room.
When he got up, trying the switch with impatient fingers, the flickering had got worse, igniting the room with feral flashes that hadn’t ended until he’d gone into the basement and shut them off at the mains.
Ewan had emailed the man standing in front of him as soon as it happened. It was the first name that popped up on Google, but he figured it would do.
For two nights after the electrician left, nothing happened. No leaks plagued the quiet, no lights flickered, and he felt good that he had done something to stop his house from falling apart.
On the third night, he woke up to the sound of something growling inside the walls.
“Hello?”
The house ate his voice, echoing out into the structure’s quiet as a clammy nervousness broke a sweat across his palms.
“Hello!”
The growl came again, a deep vibration unfurling from the back of something’s throat. He held his breath, shaking, wondering what kind of creature it belonged to. Pulling the duvet aside, he got out of bed, moving to the bedroom door on bare feet.
The hallway looked as he’d left it. His shoes were where they’d been kicked off. His jacket lay next to a bag of his wife’s clothes he’d been meaning to bring up to the attic.
He pressed his ear against the wall as he’d done days ago, listening for whatever lurked in its gaps.
He didn’t hear a growl but the dripping was back, so persistent and heavy it sounded like rain.
“Fuck it,” he whispered.
He moved into the hallway on adrenaline. He turned the light on, flinching as the bulb above him started to twitch. He ignored it, pushing into the kitchen, where he dragged the toolbox out from under the sink.
The hammer felt good in his hands. He liked the weight of it. Liked it even more when he returned to the bedroom and punctured the wall, firing chalky shards of drywall and dust over his shorts and the tops of his feet. Over and over, he struck it, giving its hard surface the beating he thought it deserved.
When he was done, he was panting, standing in front of a messy hole big enough to stick his head in. He could see the water now, dripping from somewhere above in a steady and natural stream.
With no pipe up there for it to come from, and no rain outside to pool into a leak, he made his way to the end of the hallway, knowing he was going to have to go into the attic, through a hatch that stared at him like an open and hungry mouth.
He pulled the ladder down, unfurling its length like a metal tongue. As he stepped onto the first rung, he heard a growl above him like the low rumble of thunder.
He steeled himself, gathering the courage to take another step.
He hadn’t been in the attic since he’d moved Ellie’s stuff into it, dragging box after box into its small entrance.
Out of sight, out of mind.
That was the mantra that had done it. That and her bookmark poking out of pages he knew she would never finish.
By the time he’d raised his head above the attic’s floor, he couldn’t just smell something wasn’t right, he could feel it. It was like the air was loaded. Charged with a heaviness that felt electric.
When he pulled himself into the room, stooping under the sloped ceiling, he was expecting to see a gap in the roof or a pipe he didn’t know about.
What he saw instead was so different, so out of place, he wondered how it had got there.
He was looking at dark clouds. A heaving mass of grey gathered above Ellie’s belongings, expanding and contracting like a lung. He moved toward it, and it released a growl filled with the menace of thunder.
He’d always known it had been too soon. He always knew, in the pit of his stomach, that he should have never moved her stuff up there. He should have listened to his gut. Should have given himself to instinct.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
He fell to his knees.
Cried.
Watched as the heaving mass released a gentle rain.
Welcome to the end. I’m glad you made it! Last year, I started a project called Haunted Postcards where I write micro horror stories inspired by vintage postcards. At some point I’ll give them a dedicated space online but the idea for this story started when I wrote this one. Since, I’ve been stuck on the idea of writing about a house haunted by a storm. I guess this is where that ended up. Thanks, as always, for reading.
Before you go
My latest book, Waxwing Creek, is out now. It’s a collection of interconnected horror stories about a haunted motel in a small town called Hunt. It’s available in paperback and on Kindle (including Kindle Unlimited).
Feel free to check out reviews on Goodreads or click the button below to grab a copy.
If you want to read more of my fiction on Substack, you can check out Lightbulb, a short horror story about a haunted lamp, or 483, a short horror story about the things we keep locked up.
If you want to connect, I love hearing from readers. I keep an Instagram updated and post regularly to Threads and Notes. You can also find me on TikTok.
/ JJW
How dare you for making me feel for feelings.
A great story! Loved it!🩶