Free Red Rain: A Novel by R. L. Stine Page A

sky and saw the helicopters, five or six of them, pale green army helicopters, hovering low, moving along the shoreline.
    “They probably can’t believe what they’re seeing down here, either,” she murmured. She shivered.
    James lowered his hands to her shoulders. “Are you okay, Lea?”
    She nodded. “I guess.”
    His eyes locked on her, studying her. “No, I mean, really. Are you okay?”
    “I . . . I’m upset. No. I’m horrified. But I’m okay, James. I was just thinking about Macaw and Pierre. . . .”
    “Martha and I will walk you to your rooming house. It won’t take long. Maybe half an hour.”
    “But—”
    “If there’s a problem there, you can come back and stay with us.” He kept staring at her, as if searching for something she wasn’t telling him.
    Lea pictured the little white building with its bright yellow shutters and the sign over the entryway: Starfish House . She saw Macaw in her bright red-and-fuchsia plumage; Pierre, bored, hunched over the front desk, thumbing through a magazine, humming to himself.
    “Yes. I hope there’s no problem,” she said.
    But there was a problem. A sad and sickening problem.

14
    S taring at the wreckage, Lea hoped she had made a mistake. Maybe I’m in the wrong place. But the sign still stood, crooked on its pole: Starfish House. The two-story house had toppled forward. The walls had collapsed on themselves, folded like an accordion on its side. And now the whole house lay in a broken, ragged heap, a low mountain of soaked and cracked boards and crumbled shards of drywall.
    “No. Oh no.” Lea covered her face with her hands. She turned to James and Martha, expecting them to be close, but she saw them across the road, helping to pull someone out from under an overturned car.
    “No. No. No.”
    She stepped onto the fallen front door. It sank into the wet ground. She caught her balance and started to shout. “Macaw? Pierre? Are you here? Can you hear me?”
    Boards cracked and settled. A window casing toppled onto its side. Lea screamed and jumped back, thinking the house might fall on her.
    “Macaw? Pierre?”
    No answer. They must have gotten out safely before the house fell in.
    But what was that splash of red from under a fallen slab of wall? A scarf?
    Stepping carefully, Lea made her way onto the pile of debris and climbed closer. She stopped with a gasp when she saw the hand lying so flat . . . the hand, smeared with dark blood, reaching out from under a wall board . . . the hand open as if waving . . . waving good-bye?
    Lea’s stomach churned. She fought the sour taste rising to her mouth. “Macaw?”
    She stumbled forward, grabbed the side of a wall, and hoisted herself higher on the pile. “Oh no. No.” The splash of red was the sleeve of a dress.
    Forgetting safety, Lea dove toward it. She slipped on a broken board. Banged her knee on something sharp. Ignoring the pain, she climbed to the red sleeve. She could see more of the dress beneath the edge of the wall board.
    “Macaw?” Her voice trembling and tiny. “No. Oh no. Macaw?”
    She stared at the pale hand, on its back, like a dead bird.
    Macaw was trapped beneath a slab of wall board. Lea’s stomach lurched again. She could feel the cold fear prickling her skin. She didn’t think. She grabbed the top corner of the slab—and pulled. Hoisted it up.
    It slid more easily than she had imagined. She almost toppled over backward.
    She raised the wall board. Gazed down. Down at Macaw’s lifeless face. At the puncture . . . the puncture . . . the blood-smeared puncture in her eye.
    Lea gasped. She opened her mouth to scream, but couldn’t make a sound.
    The nail at the corner of the board—the rusted eight-inch nail, fatter than a pencil . . . Lea stared at the nail, then down to the blood-caked puncture in the dead woman’s eye socket.
    And she knew. She knew that when the wall fell in, the nail had been driven into Macaw’s eye . . . eight inches . . . driven