Red Rain: Clouds Gathering: (Red Rain Series #1)

by David Beers

  “How do we do it?” John said.

  “It’s got to be an accident. She can’t look like the others, no guns, no mess. She walks out in front of a bus or falls down a flight of stairs,” Harry said, looking straight forward, the ash on his cigarette growing long.

  “When?”

  Harry shook his head. “Two or three days. Any longer and the cops are going to be watching you if they have your sketch.”

  “And then what?” John said.

  “After she’s dead? We wait.”

  “Hey, he says he’s done.”

  Alan looked down at Susan, standing over her desk.

  “Completely?” she said.

  “Yeah, want to go look?”

  Susan smiled. “I’m surprised you even came over here to ask. I mean, that must have caused you to wait an extra thirty seconds or so.”

  Alan knew what she was getting at, but didn’t have the time to deal with it. Thomas said he was done and, though Susan joked, it did take an effort to come over here and get her.

  “You coming or not?” he said.

  “Aw, don’t get upset, pookie,” she said. “I’m only kidding.” Susan stood up from her desk and Alan started walking.

  He brought the girl in a little earlier, questioned her again, and then handed her off to Thomas. It took him about three hours to get the whole thing done; Alan had stared at Thomas’ office like a hyena waiting for a pride of lions to let loose a carcass. The lion finally came out and saw Alan sitting on the bench in front of his office, laptop open.

  “Well, I’m done,” Thomas had said.

  “Just give me a second,” Alan responded, closed his laptop, and went to get Susan.

  “You haven’t looked yet?” she said now, as they walked down the hallway to Thomas.

  “No, got you first.”

  “You’re such a gentleman,” she said with a smile.

  Alan ignored the rib and rounded the corner of Thomas’ office.

  “Whatcha got?” he said.

  Thomas reached for his sketchbook, a nice thing with thick pieces of paper inside. “Here,” he said.

  Alan looked at the piece of paper, the lifelike drawing truly inspiring in its genius, but he had no idea who he was looking at. A man, probably in his thirties, with dark hair parted to the right.

  “Fuck,” Susan said. “God-fucking-damn-it.”

  “What?” Alan said, not turning around.

  “That’s one of the fuckers from the SA meeting.”

  To be continued in Red Rain: Lightning Strikes!

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  Afterword

  I’ve seen addiction through just about every possible lens. Enabler. Victim. Bystander. Addict. I’ve been to Anon meetings and worked the steps.

  For the non-addict, addiction is incomprehensible. I’ve had therapists—those trained in combatting addiction—ask me why I do the things I do? I just had to laugh and shake my head.

  Because I’m an addict, man.

  I wrote Red Rain because I wanted to show what the addict’s head feels like. I wanted to show those around the addict and the horror addiction foists on them. I really wanted to show how we hurt those they love—and hate ourselves for it.

  Harry is real. I need you to understand that, if nothing else. If you know any addicts who’ve spent time in Anon, we speak about our ‘addict’ as if it’s a separate person.

  Which, in some ways, it is. It’s not who we really are. Who we want to be.

  If Harry scares you, he should. He scares me. He’s a dangerous, dangerous guy.

  See you in Book Two.

  All the best,

  David

  6/22/16