The Boy Who Melted

By Travis McBee

John Woodward suffers from one of the strangest afflictions the world has ever seen: whenever he is caught in the rain he quite literally begins to melt.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Travis McBee
• Release date: Jun 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301235452

Travis McBee

Travis McBee was born and raised just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. He is the younger of two children and enjoys backpacking, playing rugby, and watching football. Apart from his many short stories, he is the author of four novels: Bridgeworld, Bridgeworld: Encounter at Atlantis, Triton: Rise of the Fallen, and Triton: The Call of War. He is also the author of a children's series: The Chronicles of a Second Grade Genius. He currently resides with his three very fluffy guinea pigs in Georgia.

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Copyright © 2013 by Travis McBee

All rights reserved.

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Disclaimer: The persons, places, things, and otherwise animate or inanimate objects mentioned in this novel are figments of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to anything or anyone living (or dead) is unintentional.

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The Boy Who Melted

By Travis McBee

Rain. Always rain. It fell around me, destroying the peace of the afternoon; turning the pavement black; keeping me inside. Insidious rain: my jailer; my executioner.

I was three months old when my parents discovered my abnormality. They had taken me to my grandparents’ house to meet the extended family. Everything had gone well at first; the people doted on me, the new little baby. Nobody paid much attention to the clouds gathering like wolves on the horizon. To them rain was simply rain. To me, as everyone would soon learn, it was death.

By the time my parents decided that it was time to make our departure, the first fat drops of rain were falling upon the hood of our little station wagon. My mother whisked me outside in my little car seat, swinging the handle gently in the rocking fashion I seemed to enjoy. The car sat less than ten feet from the door of the house, but it was too far.

As we made the short trip, a drop of rain fell upon my face. A lucky shot, seeing as the little circle of my face was the only part of me not covered by thick clothing, but if luck was involved that day—or in my life in general—it was of the bad variety.

I began to cry at once. I wailed and threw my tiny limbs around with as much force as I could muster, but my mother paid little attention. Her lack of concern would be my own fault, for I was one of those horrible babies that screamed more than slept, and because of my love of screaming, my mother was conditioned to mumble a few baby words to me, screw a pacifier into my mouth, and leave me to my own devices. It was the action she took that horrible, rainy day, and my torture began.

Rain plastered the windshield as we drove through the winding back roads. The rain was a torrent now, blistering the road. The wheels kicked up sheets of water which hummed on the wheel wells. Like all children, I was relegated to the back seat where my car seat was turned around, giving me a wonderfully boring view of the stained cloth upholstery. The roar of the rain, windshield wipers, and cars rushing past in the other lane was loud, but my screams drowned them all. My little body rocked around in the tight straps, and my voice split the air with the persistent, piercing cries of a baby.

As I said, I was a bad baby. Screaming was the norm for me. I screamed when I wanted a bottle. I screamed when I wanted a new diaper. I screamed when I wanted the little airplanes above my crib turned on, and I screamed when I wanted them turned off. Everyone learns to ignore what is always happening. People do not stop to be amazed at the constants in life: that they are breathing or that their feet somehow manage to move them along without concentration. My mother learned not to become too concerned when I wailed. For that, I take responsibility, but I cannot—although I’ve tried—absolve her or my father of their actions that day.

The ride from my grandmother’s house to our own took an hour and a half. To my parent’s dismay, I managed to scream the entire way. They thought, of course, that what troubled me was simply the loud noise of the driving rain or an empty stomach. How were they to know that the single drop of rain was torturing me with all of the