Hello, friends.
Last week I wrote the introduction to the newsletter on a beautiful, pre-autumn day with sunshine and pleasant temperatures. Today the weather is gray and a nor’easter is hitting the area, bringing rain, high winds, and a sense of things to come. This week’s essay talks about it a little, as well as my short story “The Umbrella People.”
As a treat because I reference it, I’ve decided to put the story in the newsletter this week, too. Originally published in 2004 in Dark Discoveries, it’s a story that people have written to me about and seem to really like. I hope you enjoy it, too.
Welcome to the 192nd installment of Gauthic Times, the newsletter about my writing, my life, and musings about our current stormy times. If you’re a reader who subscribes via Substack, my website, or Patreon, your encouragement helps motivate me. I’m thankful to have any audience.
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***
Only about 3,000 words were written in Project: Memoir. Harlan Ellison and my early published stories were the focus of the chapter. I also edited a little more on Four Moons.
This week was another very busy week that left me tired. Also, I believe the lack of the Zepbound is affecting me because my Crohn’s disease is getting worse again, which taps my energy. Fucking insurance.
***
***
Back in 2003, I wrote a short story called “The Umbrella People.” It was an idea that had germinated from a lame dad joke I’d made when my parents had taken me, my older daughter (who was a wee lil one back then) and my then-wife out to a local pizza place on a rainy Saturday evening and my mother told us, “Don’t let me forget my umbrella, people.” The “Umbrella People” went from me looking around asking, “Where are your Umbrella People,” to a more sinister story that was written as the United States lied to its people and the world to justify invading Iraq. They were saying it was because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and in our post-9/11 world, we had to be on the offense.
If Iraq had WMDs, it’s because the United States sold them some before they became our enemies. It turned out, though, that Iraq did not, in fact, have WMDs. It was a power play piggy-backed onto the search for Al Queda and Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Anyone with any intelligence (I felt then, and feel now) saw that. But in the Bush/Cheney age where questioning the President and his team was seen as anti-patriotic because of 9/11, the people who should have fought barely did and we found ourselves in a war for over twenty years with nothing to show for it except the pain of those lost.
I felt we were heading in a bad place. That’s not why I wrote “The Umbrella People,” though.
At the time, I worked a bus station in downtown New Bedford, Massachusetts, which made the news this week as a place where “T——p’s private army from the DHS” haunted the streets, kidnapping people and leaving children alone at school, waiting for a parent who would not come. It was a beautiful spring day, warm, the sun shining, and I saw a person walking past the bus station wearing a trench coat and holding an open umbrella.
One of the Umbrella People, I thought, wondering if that lame joke would ever actually go away.
I soon began writing the story right there on my laptop on the counter of the ticket window, behind the mirror glass that I used to observe people but who couldn’t see me. The story flowed and I became surprised by how dark it became. It’s final message was simple: There’s a storm coming.
I don’t think I realized at the time—at least not right away—that the storm was a metaphor for the bullshit that we found ourselves in at that point in history. Because of the power grabs that came after 9/11, the infringement on U.S. citizens’ rights, the growing militarization of local police forces around the country to protect people from mostly non-existent terrorists (while conveniently ignoring the domestic terrorists that eventually made their way to the upper echelons of the U.S. government), and then the blatant lying about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, I knew we were heading into a more dangerous world.
I didn’t intend to write “The Umbrella People” about that. Exactly none of that was in my head as I wrote it. But it was all there nonetheless.
I’m thinking about that today as I write this essay because there’s a nor’easter happening in Northeastern United States this weekend. Rain, 60 mph winds, flooding and the like are all predicted. The rain is currently pouring down and the trees dance in the wind. I saw something the other day that for the first time in recorded history, there hasn’t been a single hurricane prior to September 21st to hit the U.S. This a result of climate change, which is a result from deregulations that Bush/Cheney, T—-p/Pence, and now T—-p/Vance placed on business and environmental concerns.
I’m thinking about this today because my hometown and the city I work in was attacked by ICE for two days this week, until they moved onto the neighboring city of Fall River, and then moved on to other cities in Massachusetts, a direct attack in the pre-midterm elections where a vocal critic of the current regime is running to be re-elected as governor of our state (Healey for Governor 2026! Do the right thing!).
The daily bombardment, the constant ridiculousness of everything happening. Too much to name.
In 2003, a storm was coming.
In 2026, we’re in the midst of it.
As I said to students as they streamed out of my classroom on Friday, Stay safe, everyone. This storm might be a rough one.
***
THE UMBRELLA PEOPLE
by Bill Gauthier
Gerard chuckled when he saw the man with the gray trench coat and fedora holding an open black umbrella. It was one of those moments that should’ve disappeared as quickly as the sound of that chuckle, Gerard later thought. The early June sun fell on New Bedford without intensity but keeping the coastal city warm. The streets of downtown held an unusual amount of smiling people, many colors of clothing, and the feeling that summer was here and the cold, hard reality of the world could be left behind for a season. And amongst it all was this man dressed for a rainy October day.
Gerard returned his attention to driving and trying to find a song on the radio that he could listen to, enjoy, but not be assaulted by bad music or bad vocals. That ruled out almost everything. The umbrella man was gone from his mind.
It wasn’t until the end of the afternoon as he boarded the elevator with Harris Jones, both ready to start the weekend, that the umbrella man came back to him.
“You won’t believe what I saw at lunch,” Harris said, loosening his tie and holding his suit jacket behind him.
“The city council in an orgy with goats?” Gerard said.
Harris laughed. “Sooner or later it’ll be on public access. Seriously, though, at lunch I’m at the sandwich shop on Union Street and this guy walks by—”
“Amazing.”
“Shut up. This guy walks by wearing a fuckin’ trench coat and one of those Indiana Jones hats—”
“A fedora.”
“—yeah, one of those—and he’s holding an—”
“—open umbrella,” Gerard finished. “Yeah, I saw him this morning on my way to work.”
“Isn’t that a fuckin’ riot?” Harris said. He only cursed that much on Friday afternoons. “One of the most beautiful days of the year and some psycho’s dressed for a goddamn monsoon.”
The elevator doors opened to the garage and the coworkers stepped out.
“Only in fuckin’ New Bedford, man,” Harris said.
Gerard smiled and fought the urge to point out that strange people populate every city. Doomsayers with sandwich boards proliferate New York, weirdoes in Boston and L.A. Even small cities in southeastern Massachusetts like New Bedford and Fall River have them. He could point that out, but why bother? What good would it do?
“See ya Monday,” Harris called as he climbed into his car.
Gerard waved. He soon drove toward the garage’s exit ramp and as the gate rolled up, its clattering amplified to a roar in the tunnel, the umbrella man walked in front of the car and stopped. Gerard blinked, surprised at seeing him again, especially after talking to Harris about him only a few minutes ago. The man didn’t look at Gerard but stared straight ahead, seemingly unaware of the car waiting to leave. The gate was rolled all the way up. The man didn’t move. Gerard beeped.
The Umbrella Man slowly turned his head, revealing light blue eyes that were so bloodshot they appeared red. His cracked and peeling lips opened, revealing gray and black teeth.
“The storm’s coming,” he rasped.
Gerard blinked. He shouldn’t have been able to hear the voice at all yet it sounded as though the man were in the car with him.
A horn blared behind Gerard and Harris shouted, “Move, ya fuckin’ psycho!”
The Umbrella Man smiled and continued walking, destination unknown. Gerard pulled out of the garage and looked in the direction the man had gone. He just caught a glimpse of the black umbrella as it passed behind the corner of the building. Gerard shivered despite the warm air, and drove away.
He tried to have a good weekend, but he kept thinking of the Umbrella Man and his storm. It frightened him, and the fright left him embarrassed.
☂
On Sunday it was a woman wearing a dull cranberry trench coat, a rain bonnet, and holding a dirty yellow umbrella. Gerard was jogging, wearing shorts and an old, thin tee shirt. The sight of the woman stopped him. He was already breathing heavy and his heart beat a good Latin rhythm, but the cold that filled his chest was a direct result of the woman. She was across the street, in front of the vocational technical high school, and walking in the direction opposite from where Gerard was running. She looked at him without stopping and smiled.
“There’s a storm coming,” she said.
Her voice traveled across the busy boulevard to him. His feet froze. He actually stopped breathing he was so scared. The woman kept walking, not looking at him anymore, acting as though the world around her didn’t exist, caught in her own, private storm.
Gerard watched the woman walk until she was out of sight. He didn’t feel like jogging anymore that day. He walked home with questions running through his head. Was there a new cult? That was a little ridiculous, Gerard thought. He’d seen two people with umbrellas, dressed for rain on gorgeous sunny days, but only two. Two people hardly constituted a cult. It was more likely just odd occurrences in odd times.
At home, after his shower, Gerard tried to put the Umbrella People out of his mind. It hardly worked. He didn’t know why these two people had disturbed him so much—
Maybe it’s the fact that both sounded as though they were in your head, a voice suggested.
—but they did. Feelings, emotions, often had no basis in logic. Maybe these two people both had that condition that prohibited them from being in direct sunlight and that was how they protected themselves. No matter, they shouldn’t have bothered him.
However, a little after eight that night, Gerard caught himself going through his apartment, looking out the windows, fearful he’d find Umbrella People walking up the street. His cheeks burned and he walked away from the window. He spent the rest of the night resisting the urge to keep checking. Later, as he drifted off to sleep, he laughed at himself.
You’re like a cheesy 1950s sci-fi flick. Attack of the Umbrella People or something.
Somehow, the fully formed thought didn’t seem as funny.
☂
In the Monday morning light, the whole idea of Umbrella People scaring him seemed absurd. That didn’t stop him from noting that he hadn’t seen any of them on his drive downtown. He despised himself for feeling relieved by that.
In his cubicle, he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d held. His hands trembled and he felt even more foolish. Harris erupted through the cubicle’s opening and Gerard jumped, gasping.
“You are not going to believe this,” Harris said. Though he smiled, it felt false. Gerard wasn’t sure if he was projecting his own feelings onto Harris, but it seemed like his coworker had a nervous edge to him.
“Believe what?” Gerard asked, though he didn’t think he really wanted to know.
“I’m dating this chick lives in Rochester, right? You familiar with the area?”
“Kinda.”
“Well, there’s this large white strip mall, nice looking place, has a deli, video store, small used bookstore.”
“Yeah,” Gerard said. “I’ve been to the bookstore.”
“Well, there’s this pizza place there. The chick I’m dating and I went there Saturday night, we were gonna have a pizza and rent a video. Well, I’m sitting in the place, small place with okay food, and looking out the window. You remember Saturday night, right? Warm, the sun was out till late.”
“Gorgeous night,” Gerard said, his voice low. He knew where the conversation was headed and didn’t like it.
“Exactly. Gorgeous. Anyway, I’m sitting there biting into my linguica pizza when I see some yahoo walking through the parking lot. He’s dressed normal except for a goddamn umbrella. Just like that whacko we saw Friday.”
“Did he say anything to you?”
Harris blinked. He gulped. The smile remained on his face only now Gerard knew it was forced.
“Of course not,” Harris said, a quiver in his voice. “He was outside and I was inside.”
Gerard didn’t believe him, not at all, but he nodded.
“I saw a woman with an umbrella Sunday morning while I was out jogging.”
“Allison, the chick I’m dating, said she’d seen some, too.”
“You told her about—?”
“No! And let her think I was a fuckin’ basket case? She saw me looking at the man and she turned and looked. She said she saw a guy like that last week, with an umbrella and shit, from the bookstore where she works. On the fuckin’ Cape.”
The Umbrella People had already invaded Cape Cod and Rochester, a suburban area. It wasn’t only a few nuts in the city anymore. And if they were in southeastern Massachusetts, why wouldn’t they be elsewhere? How many Umbrella People were there in the whole Northeast? On the East Coast? Maybe the whole country was affected.
Stop it, he told himself. This is crazy.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Harris said. “But I’m going to find out.”
“Just be careful.” The warning surprised Gerard as much as it seemed to surprise Harris. Harris stared at him for several moments, he didn’t seem to know what to do. Finally, he turned and left Gerard’s cubicle.
Gerard went through the rest of the workday with growing apprehension. He found himself sneaking peeks out the windows whenever he passed one, looking at the street and at the people, waiting to see an umbrella amongst the moving heads, a blot on an otherwise colorful, varied collection. He saw none. He skipped lunch, convincing himself he had too much work to do. Actually, he thought he’d seen movement from Harris’s cubicle during lunch but wasn’t sure. Leaving work for the day was stressful; he and Harris barely spoke in the elevator. In his car, Gerard’s hands ached from clutching the steering wheel with white-knuckled apprehension. But there was no Umbrella Man, no Umbrella Woman, no Umbrella People. Not downtown, not in the north end.
☂
Harris wasn’t at work Tuesday.
☂
Gerard didn’t see any Umbrella People. Maybe it was over.
☂
Wednesday. Gerard saw four different Umbrella People on his way to work. If he’d seen four, how many hadn’t he seen? His heart rammed by the time he parked in the parking garage below the building. Sweat trickled down his face despite the air conditioning. He got to his cubicle as quickly as he could and sat, out of breath.
“This is fucking insane,” he whispered. “Get a hold of yourself.”
He forced himself to work. A little past 8:30, the phone rang.
“Gerard,” Harris said when Gerard answered. “I understand now.”
It took a few moments for him to find the words and he already knew what the answer was before he spoke them. But he couldn’t not ask. “Understand what?”
“I understand,” Harris said. “I really do. There’s a storm coming, Gerard. Just like they’ve said. A storm’s co—”
Gerard hung up. He stood and left his cubicle. He didn’t know where to go. He decided on Harris’s cubicle. Once there, he turned on the computer and waited. Once the computer had booted up, he went online and checked Harris’s browser history. Gerard didn’t think during this time. Thinking would only try to rationalize the irrational. Luckily, Monday’s history was still available. Several Google searches had been performed.
Gerard gulped. Umbrella and people were the connecting words in these searches.
Gerard turned off the computer and left Harris’s cubicle. Then he grabbed his stuff, told his supervisor he was taking a sick day, and left before he was asked anything.
As he pulled out of the garage, a man with an umbrella approached the car.
“It’s coming, Gerard,” Harris said. He hadn’t shaven in two days and his bloodshot eyes carried dark bags. “The storm’s coming. Join us and you’ll be safe.”
Gerard had never burned rubber in his life. He didn’t know he knew how until that moment, screeching away from the office building with Harris holding an umbrella over his head, shouting that a storm was coming.
Under the harsh sunlight on the way home he noticed a dozen or so Umbrella People. He got home and saw one standing on the corner of an intersection near his apartment house. She looked at Gerard, deep brown eyes taking him in, ebony skin glistening from the heat of the raincoat she wore.
“A storm is on the way,” she said. It sounded like she said it in his ear.
Gerard sprinted to the door, let himself in, and ran up to the third floor. His hand shook so bad he had a hard time getting the key into the lock. Finally, he got the door open and entered, locking and chaining the door. Sweat dripped off his face and he pulled off his dress shirt, leaving his sweat-soaked undershirt, and pulled off his pants. Jeans got thrown on and throughout, Gerard tried to convince himself not to look outside.
It was futile.
There were two Umbrella People outside now: the Black woman and another woman, an older Latin American woman. Both clutched their umbrellas. Both stared up at Gerard.
He closed the blinds and stepped back. The cops. As crazy as it would sound to them, he had to try. Gerard picked up the phone and was about to dial the local number—not 911—when he heard static coming from the phone. Only, it wasn’t static. His heart sank and his stomach tightened. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled. The sound of pouring, driving rain came from the phone. He listened, mesmerized by the sound. A crash came then and he hollered, dropping the phone. Thunder.
Get out of here, he told himself. Grab some shit and hightail it outta here!
He grabbed his backpack and threw some underwear, jeans, tee shirts, and a jacket in. Out of habit, he grabbed a book. He also took all the money he could find. A baseball cap on, he had one hand on the doorknob and the other ready to unchain the door when he heard something rustle on the other side.
Gerard stopped. His breath was the only sound in the apartment. He put an ear against the door. Nothing. Then the swoosh-click of an umbrella opening.
His hands dropped from the door and he stepped back. Footsteps went downstairs and the back door opened, then closed.
Mouth dry, Gerard went to the living room. Out the window, on the street below, what had to be close to one hundred Umbrella People mulled about. Together, their umbrellas formed a canopy that blocked his view of the ground. Many of them looked up in unison, looked right at him. Their eyes were all dull. No expression crossed their faces. Harris was one of them. Even with the window closed and the air conditioner running, Gerard heard them warning him of the coming storm. It wasn’t a roar of voices one might get at a rock concert when everyone sings to their favorite songs, but a hundred voices speaking independently.
He closed the blind. He didn’t believe in God. Now he wished he could.
The TV didn’t help. Reports from around the country came in of people lining the streets, holding umbrellas. In some places, the army was called in. Video came of armed soldiers confronting a stoic mass of Umbrella People.
Gerard watched the news. Around quarter to seven that night, a special report interrupted the news about the Umbrella People. The news anchor looked grim.
Gerard turned the TV off. He didn’t need to see the special report. He knew what it would be.
There was a storm coming.
***
“The Umbrella People” and thirteen other odd, dark, scary, and moving stories are available in Catalysts. They’re early stories from a fairly young writer but I think they still mostly stand up.
***
I’ll be taking part in the Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival on October 17th, 2026, at the Lawrence Public Library in Lawrence, Massachusetts. I’m excited because so many authors, editors, and people I admire will be there, as well as a few friends. Find out more here!
I will also be joining a panel about monsters and cosmic horror at Once Upon A Bookstore in Fall River, Massachusetts, about a week later!
There may also be another event in October, too. This one is in the works but it’s a place I’ve been to that’s always a favorite.
I’ll share more info on all of these events as we get closer.
***
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