by Mitch Goth
Rain sighed off her final journal entry. She couldn’t help but crack a subtle smile as she shut the red notebook. As much as her family might despise her first few pages, she knew the last would make up for it all, she couldn’t wait to see their faces when they read it.
A familiar tapping noise came through the room, taking Rain away from the comfort of her thoughts. Ben knocked lightly on her doorframe. She looked up, still wearing her small smile.
“You ready to go?” he wondered.
“Yep, I’m all packed up,” she nodded, sliding the journal into her backpack and tossing the heavy bag over her shoulder. As she looked around the bland, dirty room she couldn’t help but feel sentimental. She’d always remember this place, and all the people who came with it. Her smile grew larger.
“You’re sure you got everything?” Ben asked.
“Positive,” she assured, approaching him. She attempted to give him a final hug, but he was swift to stop her.
“It might be easier if we don’t,” he figured. “Goodbyes are always hard enough, you know?”
“Yeah, I guess,” she nodded. As understandable as it was, Ben’s apprehension still wiped the smile from Rain’s expression. “So, we’re leaving now?”
“Car’s outside,” Ben replied. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Rain turned to get one more look at the room before shutting off the light and stepping out into the hall. She could hear Ben shut the door behind her.
“So,” she said, concerned, “you’re sure we’ll see each other again someday?”
“As positive as I could be,” Ben laughed a little. “Don’t worry. We’ll run into each other again at some point. The world isn’t big enough to keep that from happening.”
“Alright,” Rain returned a chuckle, relatively reassured, “let’s go.”
-
The drive through the darkness was oddly silent. Ben drove and had Joe in the passenger seat. Both of them stared intently into the blackness beyond the headlights, still as statues. Rain sat in the back, too enthralled in her own thoughts to pay too much notice to the silence.
She watched the scenery go by in a blur, hardly able to contain her excitement. The smile had returned to her face as she delved back into her mind. Her parents would be so astonished and elated to see her, but somehow she figured she’d be more excited to see them again.
The car began shaking and shifting as the time of paved road ended. The vibrations shook Rain out of her mind, but as she surveyed her surroundings she realized the road was familiar. The world around them was completely lightless, but as her eyes adjusted, she knew exactly where they were.
“We’re going to pick begonias?” she wondered comically, speaking the first words of the whole trip.
“I’m driving you as far as the begonia fields,” Ben explained humorlessly. “You’re gonna have to walk the rest of the way. That’s fine with you, right?”
“Of course,” Rain nodded, “I was expecting my share of walking anyway. The fields aren’t all that far from home anyway. I’ll only be walking for half an hour or so,” it was at this that Rain finally realized just how close to home she was. Her grin grew bigger as her happiness mounted. “Say, where’s Vin for all this?”
“He’s busy,” Joe responded quickly. “That Delicate Rain business is a twenty-four hour job, for real.”
“I hear its selling well,” Rain replied.
“Very well,” Joe agreed.
Just then, the farm fields and tall trees gave away to the endless plains of orange flowers. Ben’s car immediately slowed to a halt at the mouth of the begonia fields. He shifted it to park and turned back to Rain.
“This is where I gotta leave you,” he explained glumly. “Sorry I can’t take you any further.”
“Its fine, don’t worry about,” Rain alleviated his poor feelings.
“The walk won’t take long,” Joe added.
“Not long at all,” Rain nodded. “Right here is just fine. Thank you,” she opened her door, illuminating the car’s overhead light. She was halfway out of the car before turning back. “I’ll miss you guys. Don’t forget about me, alright?”
“We won’t,” Ben replied, sounding strangely nervous, “we won’t.”
“See ya ‘round,” Joe gave her a nod.
“Bye,” Rain gave her syllable with a departing smile before finally getting out of the car and walking onward through the dark begonia fields.
Rain walked ahead of the car and was immediately appreciative of the light the headlights gave off. The gradually dimming lights helped her eyes adjust to the pitch darkness beyond. But just as she was reaching the end of the bright beams, a dark obstruction halted her progress. Before she knew it, Rain was at the edge of this dark mass.
It was an obviously misplaced portion of darkness. But she was quick to realize that it wasn’t just darkness for darkness’s sake. The mass of black was a hole in the trail, a deep one, a perfectly square one. A grave.
Terror shot through her body at the realization of what she’d come across. Rain spun back around in an instant. She saw the silhouettes of Ben and Joe standing a dozen feet away. Ben had drawn his pistol and had it aimed directly at her.
“What are you doing?” she tried to back away, but quickly found no ground behind her, only the empty air of the grave. “Ben? What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m sorry,” Ben replied after a long pause, his voice shaking even more than his hands. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Rain pleaded. “I can lie, I will lie. I will say whatever you want me to say to them. I promise nobody will know. Nobody has to know.”
“You can’t lie,” Ben spoke in heavy melancholy. “You can’t lie. They already know, it’s too late.”
“You don’t know that, Ben. You don’t know that. How can you know that? They don’t know, how could they?”
“You named the pill,” Ben explained through clenched teeth. Rain could finally make enough of him out to see his eyes welling up. “You named the damn drug after that nickname you got.”
“So? That doesn’t mean anybody knows anything,” Rain tried to convince him, her voice cracking through every word. “Nobody knows anything, I promise.”
“I promise you they do. That name is all over the news now. They’re gonna know you named it, and you’re gonna have to tell them how you came across it. You can’t lie, you just can’t.”
“Please, Ben, you need to believe me, I can get through this without saying anything. Please just trust me!” tears began sliding down the sides of her face as she spoke. “You don’t have to kill me. I can work this out, I promise I can!”
“I’m sorry, Rain,” Ben struggled to speak, “there’s too much at stake. I can’t let you go, not now.”
“Jesus, Ben, I have a family at home waiting for me! You told me all this time you can’t ever kill someone with a family and just walk away. If you kill someone with people waiting at home for them, you can never come back! Well I’ve got a family Goddamn it, they would give the whole world to see me again, and now I would do the same to see them again! Please, Ben, you don’t have to do this! You can’t ever come back from this!”
“I know,” Ben spoke in a soft, apologetic tone, lowering his weapon to his side and approaching her.
Rain tried to back away again, but she was once again stopped by the lack of solid ground behind her. She had no choice but to take several steps away from the hole and towards Ben. As soon as they met each other he embraced her with his one free hand, she returned the embrace with both arms, holding him tighter than she’d held anybody else in her life.
“Please, Ben,” she said in a sobbing whisper, “I don’t want to die.”
“I know,” he whispered back lowly.
A shot rang out. Rain’s hands instantly clenched, digging her nails into Ben’s back. But in a matter of seconds their grip loosened. Her knees weakened, and she slid slowly downward and out of his grasp. Once free of h
is arm, Rain fell sideways and came to a limp end on the dirt trail of the begonia fields.
Ben looked down at the smoking gun in his hand. Never before in his life had he felt so much shame, so much pain. It was now he saw precisely why men who pull the trigger on loved people will never come back. He doubted this pain would ever leave him again. It would be an anchor on his soul for the rest of his days.
His gaze shifted to Rain. He’d shot her in the gut. It wasn’t a painless death, but her casket could be open. Her family could at least have that. After only a handful of seconds he turned away from the sight, dropping his weapon as he did. Letting it out of his grasp was the only thing keeping him from using it on himself.
“Alright,” Joe nodded, brandishing a shovel as he approached the scene, “lets get buryin’.”
“No,” Ben growled, grabbing the handle of the shovel tightly, “we’re not burying her.”
“What the hell are ya talkin’ about, Ben?” Joe scoffed, trying to pull the shovel out of Ben’s hands, to no avail. “Vin said we need to bury the body. We can’t just leave her out in the open, she’s gonna get found.”
“She needs to get found,” Ben retorted. “Her family can’t die thinking she just abandoned them. They need to know what happened. She can’t just disappear.”
“That’s the whole point, Ben. If she gets found, we gonna get busted.”
“Then so be it. But I will not let you bury her out here like this, Joe. She needs something proper. She needs a funeral with a priest, and a coffin, and family members around her. Not some shallow grave in the middle of a damn flower patch.”
“Vin’s gonna have your ass,” Joe objected.
“Then let him have it,” Ben sneered. “Not like you ever gave a shit about anybody other than yourself. Just let me take the consequences so we can leave her.”
“Son of a bitch,” Joe groaned, walking back towards the car.
Ben turned to Rain again. But this time his eye caught something he hadn’t seen before. As she fell, something tumbled from her backpack. He reached down, looking away as he did, and picked the red composition notebook out of the dirt.
“I’m sorry, Rain,” Ben’s voice shook with grief as he looked at the journal in his hands. “I’m so sorry.”
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