Rain always makes me uneasy. It rains a lot, and they say the rain is polluted. I remember from science classes, my teacher told us that rain has all the chemicals we release into the air.

Anyone here can put a pH strip into rainwater and measure its acidity. Normally it has a pH between five and five-point-five. I tested the rainwater all the time, and more often than not it reads lower than five, sometimes with a pH as low as four. It's called acid rain.

I only go out in the rain to hunt for nightcrawlers. I like fishing, it takes my mind off the strange things around me, like all the missing persons posters and the acid rain. When I go out for nightcrawlers, which are large worms, I wear a raincoat.

The first time I saw the man with the umbrella, I was looking down at the mud, looking for worms. I had a flashlight and an open can, which I put them in. Later I could use them as bait when I fish. I had looked for quite some time for a worm and saw none. It just wasn't a good night for finding nightcrawlers.

I heard someone cough, a girl; I recognized her as a babysitter. She was walking home from babysitting. I also noticed a man dressed in a raincoat, his face shaded from the streetlight by an enormous umbrella. When I looked back at what I was doing, looking for worms, I saw they had all come up.

I've never seen worms act that way, all of them sticking up out of the ground, waving and wriggling straight up out of the mud. There were hundreds of them, and I was so surprised I didn't reach down and take a handful. I just stared at them.

Then the babysitter was walking past the man with the umbrella. He said something to her and she nodded and then he walked beside her, holding his enormous umbrella over the both of them. I thought it was strange, to see her accept the offer of a stranger like that. I felt scared for her, and I felt like something was wrong. I avoided stepping on the worms and I followed the man with the umbrella and the girl.

They went around a corner and I looked for them, and then I spotted them. I could only see their feet. He had lowered the umbrella, hiding them both behind it from the streetlights and from sight. When he raised it back up, he was standing alone.

He looked at me, and I could see just his eyes, reflecting light like a predator in the dark. Then he walked away, splashing through puddles and disappearing around the corner. Then I noticed the body of the girl lying on the sidewalk. At least, that is what I thought I was looking at. I felt terrified, thinking she was hurt or dead.

I was trembling and crying, as I neared her. Then I saw that what was lying there was not her. It was just some black trashbags someone had left next to their garbage cans, and the waste management hadn't taken them. There was a soaking wet citation taped to the bags.

I looked around, but I did not see the girl anywhere. I began to feel relieved, because I was telling myself I had only imagined all the terrible things, like her getting murdered behind the umbrella. She must have gone inside one of the houses already. So, I took myself home, because it had started raining harder.

The very next day, however, the police were out looking for her, because she had never come home. They knocked on doors throughout the neighborhood, and my mom told them she hadn't seen her. I got up and told them that I had seen her.

It was with great fear that I recounted my search for worms and my sighting of the man with her. I realized that something had happened to her. Somehow, she had vanished.

Later I went fishing, hoping to take my mind off of things. The water in the canal was high from all the rain. While I fished, I got out my kit with the pH strips in it and my logbook of the acidity of the water. The water in the canal was almost entirely rainwater, and fish got into it from the creeks and ponds and Adam's Lake, which was privately owned and stocked with fish.

I sometimes caught fish, and there was no need for a license to fish in the canal. Technically I wasn't stealing, to fish for escaped ones in the stormwater. That is when my blood froze, staring at the pale hand that was in the murky brown flowing waters. I stared, holding the pH strip in one hand and my pole in the other.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

I wandered back, in a daze, and found the house empty. My mom was at work, after-all. I took up our housephone and called the detective I had spoken to. I told the police about the dead body in the canal, and I knew somehow, by the hand, that it was the girl from the night before. I hung up, shaking and cold, afraid of what I had learned and what I had seen.

I didn't want to stay home, so I walked to my mom's work, at the diner. Along the way I saw people out walking with their umbrellas, and every large black umbrella scared me, because I thought it might be the killer with the umbrella.

When I reached the diner, I was seated at a window, and looked out at the drizzly day. That is when I saw an umbrella turned down, hiding someone behind it. I watched in horror, unable to look away or cry out. I was holding my breath, like I was underwater, afraid to blink or gasp for air. As the umbrella lifted, I spotted the same dark raincoat wearing man, the killer, and another mound left there for dead.

I screamed, a high-pitched wail of terror, and stood, spilling my hot chocolate. Everyone in the diner got up and looked. Some of the men ran out and found the remains, lifting the soaked paint cloth from it. The killer had hidden the body there, covering it up.

I knew then that I was tricked the first time, that the garbage bags were used to cover up the girl's dead body. He had waited until I had left and then come back for her. The police were called, and the victim was a kid from my school. I hadn't known him very well, but he lived in my neighborhood. I couldn't help but feel as though he was targeted instead of me. It was like the killer had meant to kill me, a witness, and had missed.

For a day or two, at the diner mostly, and sometimes at school, the neighborhood talked about the killer, the Umbrella Ripper, as they called him. I knew he was more than just an ordinary killer. I couldn't sleep and I couldn't go out at night to look for worms in the rain. My appetite decreased and I missed a lot of days of school. I lived in fear, terrified of every sound in the house both at night and alone during the day.

I knew, somehow, that the Umbrella Ripper was no ordinary killer. He somehow made himself unknown. Just a week after the killing in front of the diner, it was like nothing had happened. The police went back to their usual routine of writing tickets outside of town and drinking coffee in the diner. All the other kids kept going to school and life continued, as though it was perfectly normal to have someone going around murdering people behind an umbrella on rainy days.

I begged my mom to let us move, to pack up and go somewhere else. I didn't feel safe. She asked me, "Whatever for?" like it was no big deal that the Umbrella Ripper was still out there. The whole neighborhood, the whole town, seemed to forget about him and go on with life.

More missing person posters went up, and that was the only thing that seemed to mark the passage of time. Day and night were a gray blur of rain and mists and streetlights. I had forgotten what the sun looked like and the smiling characters on my cereal box didn't make me hungry. I just slowly sipped my milk and listened to the rain.

I thought about the earthworms, how they had come up from below by the thousands, and waved and danced like they knew, like they somehow knew the way that I did, that the killer was near. I could feel him out there. Every umbrella I saw could have him under it, walking in the night or in the day, under the crying clouds and the dimly lit streets.

There were dark rings under my eyes. When my dad called me, I asked him if I could come live with him. He said "No. You wouldn't want to live with me on base. It's just not good for kids."

That is when I told him about the killer, told him all about the Umbrella Ripper.

"That's strange, there's nothing about this guy in the news. I realize a lot of people go missing there, more than anywhere else. But why doesn't anyone talk about it?"

"Dad, I am really scared, and I really miss you. I want to live with you on base. I don't want to live with Mom anymore. I'll be really good, I swear. Please?" I begged Dad.

"Alright. I'll talk to Mom about you coming to live with me. It's her decision, she has custody of you. But if you're really not doing well and it would make you feel better, then I'll let you come live with me. You have to really behave yourself though, no screw-ups, alright? You do something bad, and I'll send you back to live with Mom, got it?" Dad spoke both softly and sternly. He had a way of doing that.

"Okay." I sobbed, choking with relief.

I had to last four more days before Dad came and got me. I was already packed. There were new missing persons posters up all over town, and the latest victims looked more and more like me each time. I looked out the window as Dad drove me and all my packed boxes and my backpack out of that place.

As we were leaving, I saw a great black umbrella turned down, and fear struck me like a cold splash from a puddle, thrown by a speeding tire onto a pedestrian. When I looked back it was raised to its natural position, skyward. I saw the gleam of the eyes in the shadow under the umbrella, as Umbrella Ripper watched me go.

Then, soon after, we were out of that awful town. The skies ahead were clear and bright, making my eyes water. The fear slowly subsided like the canal after a heavy rain. Then, for the first time in my life, I saw a rainbow.

"I love you, Dad."