Note: When I was fourteen and we were driving back from a weekend stay in Jersey I looked out through the window and up into the puffy white clouds, and wondered if their were people up there what would they be like. When we arrived at our destination I borrowed a notepad and quickly wrote this story.

xXxXx

The Cloudpeople

If you look down from high up--like, say, on a cloud--on that grassy knoll over there, you see the little girl with the mousy brown hair. That's me. And that thing next to me? That's my dog, Max, but he's dead. They killed him. Who, you ask? Them.

You look up at the clouds and you see things. Like shoes, animals, states, dragons, and sometimes, sometimes you see people. I always see the people. Them. The Cloudpeople. They look down and hunt for their prey. That's what they did to Max. They saw I was watching them too much and tried to make me stop. So they killed Max.

Other people think I'm crazy when I talk about The Cloudpeople. Wispy, waiflike, The Cloudpeople look at you with unseeing eyes, touch you with unfeeling fingers. They reminded me of ghosts at first, a fine, white mist. Transparent. But now they don't; ghosts aren't so mean.

I know too much. I lie there staring up at them, and they're staring back. You can run, but you can't hide, Rachel, they're saying. We'll get you no matter where you go. No place is safe.

I tried telling my mom about them earlier when Max died, but she didn't believe me and said I was just upset. So I took the body of my dead best friend and brought him to the grassy knoll where he loved to play while I watched the clouds. I watched them too much. Now he's dead. And they're going to make their move if I don't stop. I think maybe I will, my mom will be happy at least

She says I'm too much of a loner. That bad things happen to loners. She's right.

I think maybe I stared too long before leaving. Suddenly my chest began to hurt. Not just heartburn, it really hurt. Hurt's like hell, my dad would say if he was me, but he's not. I'm me. And I need to run. Run before they come out of the sky to get me. So I run home. Run and leave my poor friend on the knoll. I'd have to come back and bury him the next day. I hoped no one called the A.S.P.C.A.

xXxXx

My mom was upset when I came home. She was mad I had taken off like that and I began to cry. She held me and asked what I had done with Max. I told her he was gone and she didn't ask anything else.

I went up to my room next. My pretty, peppermint room all done in pink, red, and white. There was a picture of me and Max in a frame on my dresser. That was taken on my last birthday. The day I had gotten Max. My sixth birthday. Sad six, the sad year of life. Lucky seven, I hoped I'd make it that far.

xXxXx

It was two days later when I went back for Max with my box and shovel. Nothing much had happened. My mom and dad were still trying to have another baby. My next door neighbor--the fat man with the bottle of liquor glued to his hand and the chair on the porch glued to his butt--was still out on his porch burping and farting. My other next door neighbor--the one who mowed his lawn every day--was still mowing his lawn every day. Nothing much. My daddy gave me a talk about where things go when they die. He said that Max went to Heaven. He didn't. He went to The Clouds, a place worse than Hell, Daddy's favorite word.

I went back to the knoll and Max was still there. Poor Max. He was really stiff when I picked him up to put him in the cardboard box our microwave had come in. It took a long time, but I dug a nice hole; I was good at digging. It came up to my waist and I had a hard time climbing out of it. I put Max in and started filling the hole when Tiffani Styles walked over. Tiff, she was called. She had long blond hair and big blue eyes and a nose that always pointed up and brought her chin with it. I never did like Tiff.

"What're you doing, Rachel?" she asked, her nose towards the sky.

"I'm burying Max," I told her.

She pouted at me. "Max died?" she asked. Always asking questions, never giving answers. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, my mom would say.

"Yeah."

She turned her sad face into one of disgust. "Why can't you bury him in your own backyard like a normal person?"

Tears came in my eyes. "Max didn't like my backyard! He liked it here! At the knoll!"

She shook her head. "This is a park, Rachel, not a graveyard!"

"No one comes here, anyway! So who cares? He liked it here!"

"Freak," she muttered and sat down on the ground.

"Bitch," I muttered right back, using one of Daddy's forbidden curse words. It seemed the right time to use it. I smiled and continued putting the dirt back. Very slowly I noticed Tiff lay back and raise her eyes to the sky. A warning bell shot off in my head.

"Don't look at the clouds," I told her.

She laughed. "Like you can tell me what to do, Rachel." She rested her hands behind her head and continued to smile gleefully, still watching the clouds.

"Don't look at the clouds, Tiff, I'm warning you."

"What? Are you gonna start on your 'Cloudpeople' again? 'Cause if you are, you can save it. I don't believe you and I never will." She continued to go on as I glanced upward. The Cloudpeople were at the edges of the clouds, gazing down at Tiff with interest. They're gonna take her, I realized. I couldn't let that happen. I just couldn't. I put the shovel over my shoulder and walked over to her.

"Stop staring at the clouds," I ordered, "or else."

"And what are you gonna do?"

With all my might I brought the shovel down on her head.

BONK!

She lost her smile.

I brought up my shovel and looked at the end. There was blood on it. Bright red, one of my favorite colors. Very pretty, but not after it was dry. I'd have to clean it up when I got home.

xXxXx

I went directly to the garage when I got back to the house. I rinsed the shovel off with the hose and put it back where I found it. My mom didn't hear me come in.

A couple hours later my mom knocked on the door. "Rachel?" she called.

"Yeah." I looked up from the paper I was drawing on.

"Rachel, I just came back from the hospital. Remember, I had my doctor‘s appointment today?"

"Are you pregnant?"

"Yes," she stood there in the doorway for a moment. "What do you think of that, honey?"

I shrugged. "It's fine. Can we name the baby Max? Like Maxwell or Maxine?"

She pressed her lips into a line. "We'll see about that." She walked into the room and looked at that picture of me and Max. "I ran into Mrs. Styles at the hospital. Tiff was attacked at the park. Did you see her there?"

"Yeah, we talked a little."

"Did you see her talk to anyone else? Did anyone hurt her?"

"No." I couldn't have hurt her. I saved her. "Who would want to hurt Tiff?"

"I don't know, but I don't want you going back to that park."

I nodded. "All right. How's Tiff?"

"Not to good. She's still unconscious, sweetheart. But I really mean it about the park, I want you to promise me you won‘t go back there."

I wondered who would attack Tiffani Styles. Probably The Cloudpeople. I'd get those bastards. “Sure,” I promised, trying to make her happy.

"You OK, honey? I mean, first Max, now Tiff… You'll be OK."

"Yeah, Mom, I think I will, I know Tiff will."

Mom gave me a funny look before she left. Parents.

xXxXx

That night I had a funny dream. I was in a pretty white gown that flowed all the way to my ankles in a beautiful field with flowers. I was walking, slowly at first, then I was running. Suddenly Max was beside me, the tiny Yorkshire terrier, running as fast as his tiny paws could take him. Soon, too soon, really, we were at the end of the field. And there was Tiff, running up to me through the trees in a dress identical to mine. "Rachel! Rachel! Wait for me!" she cried. I stood and waited.

It seemed the moment she got to me things changed. The bright blue sky--cloudless blue sky--was suddenly overtaken with gray clouds swirling above us. The grass changed into a paved red-orange floor. Max and Tiff were suddenly behind bars. Caged they were, and the sky looked on fire. Dark fire. It was the reflection off the dark clouds from the flames which soon surrounded the cage and began to devour. It was one hungry little flame. Before me my friends were being eaten alive.

Max yipped and yipped, his brown and black fur on fire. The flame ran up Tiff's dress, melting her skin. But she didn't scream. Her nose and chin were no longer pointing upwards, her eyes gazed directly into mine. I never noticed how blue her eyes were before. And I realized no one else ever would when they popped.

As the fire ate their remains, I felt no grief. I wondered why I had been spared. I turned behind me and saw one of The Cloudpeople. I was in the Hell in The Clouds. I turned back and saw that the ritual with Tiff and Max had started again. Hell is repetition, I remembered. I turned back to the one of The Cloudpeople. "Come with us, Rachel," It said in its high voice that floated on the wind.

Then I woke up.

xXxXx

The next morning when I went down to the dining room for breakfast my daddy looked at me weird. "Are you feeling OK, Rachel?" he asked me.

"Yeah, why?" My voice was softer than normal. Higher, too.

"You look kind of pale. Really pale."

My hands went to my face and I felt my eyes widen. I ran into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I was pale as a ghost, one of The Cloudpeople even. What was happening to me?

I went out to the kitchen and Mom asked me if I was feeling OK, too. I told her I was fine and asked if she had heard anything from Mrs. Styles. She said Tiff was doing better, and that the police wanted to talk to me.

They came over and asked me a bunch of questions. So many questions. They even came right out and asked me if I had hurt her. I didn't hurt her, I saved her. I didn't tell them that, though, they'd probably react the same way my parents had when I asked them about The Cloudpeople. They told my mom that she should keep an eye on me. When they left I heard one remark to the other that I was a strange kid. I'm not strange.

Later that afternoon it was when I was brushing my hair that I realized something; I couldn't feel the brush on my scalp. I yanked at my hair. I couldn't feel it. I pulled and pulled and pulled until I realized; The Cloudpeople didn't want to destroy my body and imprison my soul in The Clouds, they wanted to make me one of them. Why kill someone who knew all your secrets? Why not just make them like you?

xXxXx

I snuck out of the house and went walking for a long time after my realization. Me. One of The Cloudpeople. To become the very thing that had killed my best and only friend. I wouldn't. I couldn't. But how could I escape?

xXxXx

I went to visit Tiff at the hospital. I walked. Not very far, actually. The town I lived in was very small. Mrs. Styles was nice and let me see her. Mr. Styles had died years earlier and Tiff was all Mrs. Styles had left. Tiff couldn't die. I started thinking maybe I had hit her too hard.

As I stared at the life support she was hooked up to, I started to wonder what it would feel like to pull it out. No. The Cloudpeople were killers. They existed only to destroy. I didn't want to become one of them.

What did I do next then? I ran. Out of the hospital. Into the street. To the knoll. My Max's knoll. There was The Cloudpeople, standing on Max's unmarked grave. Coming for me. "We can help you, Rachel," They said with their wind voices. "Come. Be one of us. You'll like it better up in The Clouds with us. No one will make fun of you there."

They wouldn't be making fun of me if I hadn't seen you in the first place, I thought.

Slowly I walked away and took off for my house. Home. I had to go home. I ran. Across parking lots, across yards, across streets. Just running. I was the fastest runner in my class.

Behind me I heard The Cloudpeople. They were yelling, yelling for me to stop, to come with them before it was too late. No. No. I had to get away from them.

I ran across the street a block from my house when I heard a horn. I stopped dead in my tracks and turned around. The truck tried to stop, I saw it skid. But then it hit me.

As the darkness closed in I fell to the ground and smiled. I was safe. Away from The Cloudpeople, away from the pain and the Hell in The Clouds. I was alone. With no one watching me through puffy, white matter.

I was alone.