Dark Rain: 15 Short Tales Read Online Free PDF

resistance,
I reported back.
    Keep going. I can help you.
    Help me how?
    I’m not from your Earth, Sam, or even from your universe. I can fly in extreme conditions.
    Even with little or no atmosphere?
    Try me.
    I flapped them harder and harder. Now, I sensed the creature’s excitement, as well. This was a new experience for him, too. And he loved to fly. Boy, did he.
    Luckily, so did I.
    I continued flapping, generating some air movement around me, but not much. Dust particles billowed and stirred. I wondered if this was the first time they had
ever
done so.
    Okay,
I thought.
Here goes.
    I leapt off the rocky perch and into the surrounding blackness as I sensed the creature aiding my flight. I also sensed a sort of energy field around me. Was I, in fact, flying within it? Well, whatever it was, it seemed to work.
    After all, I was flying.
    High above the lunar surface.

    It took some getting used to.
    One thing about the creature’s body: it was engineered to fly… seemingly anywhere. Through time and space and everything in-between.
    I stretched my wings and glided down a rocky escarpment. My shadow raced below me, as the sun itself bathed the moon as surely as it did the Earth.
    That gave me a pause for thought: yes, I was in direct sunlight now, although it was muted and etched by the blackness of deep space. The sunlight did not seem to affect me or the creature. I next wondered if it would affect Talos back on Earth. In fact, I often wondered that.
    I had never transformed into the giant flying bat back on Earth during the daylight.
    You are not affected by the sun?
I asked.
    No, Sam.
    So, when I am back on Earth…
    Yes, you can transform and have my full strength during the light of day.
    Mind,
I said.
Blown.
    An Earth idiom, I presume.
    You presume correctly.
    But I am also much easier to spot, since I am a black, giant, vampire bat and all.
    Good point.
    No longer concerned about the sun, I continued my flyover. Surely someone with a telescope, somewhere, was reporting a bat-shaped anomaly moving across the surface of the moon.
    I grinned evilly. Have to get my kicks in somewhere.

    Before me was a massive, circular ring. And it was, to paraphrase Tammy…
ginormous
.
    I followed the circle of rock, banking slightly; whatever meteorite had hit this had been huge, deeply scarring the moon face.
    I veered away from the crater, aware of one thing. I was alone. Completely alone.
    A whole world…
    To myself.
    I liked that.
    I liked that a lot.

    I dipped in and out of valleys, up and over small mountains and hills and ridges. Always, there was emptiness. Always, there was the silence. And with the silence, there was peace.
    The only movement was my own shadow beneath me, weaving in and out of chasms and over hills, speeding rapidly along, keeping pace.
    I continued flying—and continued laughing to myself. Mostly, I continued expecting to wake up in bed at any moment.
    But I never woke up.

    Through the exuberant, unbridled fun of it all, a worry finally surfaced, and the creature voiced it for me.
    You can return, Samantha, as easily as you arrived.
    Oh, thank God.
    You are a gutsy woman to come here without a thought of how to get back.
    Oh, I was going to get back.
I thought.
One way or another.
    And I did get back, too. But not before I flew some more, sweeping high and low, taking in firsthand the mountain chains and plateaus and valleys that had rarely, if ever, been seen by man.
    I grinned like a fool and dove down into a deep gulley, wings outstretched, just missing the sheer rock walls, then angled up, and up and up… and exploded out of the cleft and into the black void of space.
    I hovered there briefly, surveying the surface… deciding where to explore next.
    I saw it. Another crater. Deeper than the one before. It was wrapped in deep velvet blackness.
    I dove down, ecstatic. Yes, I was flying over the surface of the Moon.
The dark side.



Requiem: a song, chant or poem for someone who died.
    “If