Chapter 2

Hello adoring fans! It's been a while, I know, but here I am again, back and ready to rumble. Following up on Dale's post, here is the second installment in the Reverse Book Club (I'm not sure what is 'reverse' about it. It is more like Book Club: But Not in the Way You'd Think) written by yours truly.

Hope you enjoy,
Wes

Chapter 2: The Question

The joke was an attempt to regain her footing. A failed attempt, but an attempt nonetheless. Before Driftwood brought the card to her, before she even saw the name, she heard the voice asking her again: “Do you enjoy killing people?” This threw her off. Residual memories from her last kill were not something that she was used to. Residual memories from just about everything else – faces, snippets of conversation, lines from old movies and books – were quite frequent. But those were from before. A line from an assignment was a first. Once it was finished, once she left the site, it was done. If anything, it provided a sense of closure.

Still, the girl’s words – her voice calm and collected and her piercing blue eyes staring unflinchingly into The Rainmaker’s – were something that for whatever reason, she could not shake right now. This was a question that she has never once asked herself since she first killed a man at age twelve. It’s not that she was avoiding the question, but enjoying something would require certain emotions and she lost those emotions a long time ago. Besides, it wasn’t about enjoyment. It was what about what she needed to do.

This wasn’t the first time that a target said something to her before she pulled the trigger. Hell, this wasn’t the first time that one of them asked her a question. But usually they would ask things like “Why me?” or “Who would want to do this to me?” These were questions that The Rainmaker never thought twice about, because their understanding didn’t really matter. All that matters is that she does what she needs to do. Does the only thing she knows. And what she knows is this: she waits in the motel for the card, tracks down her target, dispatches them, and waits for the next card.

The motels had been her idea. Before she leaves for a job, she reserves room 17 in the closest Motel 6 to the target. 6 for the rain that falls in fat drops that feel like spit, 17 for those warm sun showers that are frequent in the month of May. They have provided her with an apartment, but she can’t remember the last time she was there. She likes the idea of staying in a place that will be turned over and reused by countless people once she is gone. She likes that there is no trace of her presence left behind. Especially when she has seen what the alternative can mean.

She tries to recall the girl’s name, but she knows it is useless. For some reason, the eyes and voice linger in her memory, but the name is long gone. What possessed the girl to ask her that question? She was going to die in a matter of seconds. Rain is puzzled by this. Trying to focus on something else, she flexes the card absentmindedly between her thumb and her index finger. Reaching for the drawer with her free hand, she extracts the gun by the well worn wooden handle. Her fingers run along the barrel, tracing the letters along the side: C-O-L-T A-N-A-C-O-N-D-A. She flips open the cylinder and checks the bullets. She knows that there are five bullets in there, because she knows that she loaded all of the chambers before her last kill, and she only used one bullet. She always only uses one bullet. Still, she welcomes the diversion.

She places the gun back in the drawer and gets out of bed. As she stretches her arms over her head, she catches a glimpse of the scar that runs under her left breast. Rain used to stare at this scar for hours, letting the memories rush in like a flood, but once she began to develop, the scar began to disappear from sight, and shortly thereafter, from mind. She enters the bathroom and turns the hot water in the shower on as high as it goes. Satisfied with the temperature, she steps into the tub and lets the steaming water envelop her.

Water coming from the showerhead doesn’t remind her of any type of rain. The stream falling down on her head is both the most easily controlled and the one she least cares for. Because it is not the same. It is cheating, really. A matter of reservoirs, water tanks, and plumbing. What she does to the skies is a different matter altogether. She can’t explain it any better than anyone else, but she does know that it hasn’t always been this way. The rain started falling around the same time that she got the scar. The legend began to grow soon thereafter, but as is the case with most legends, hers is more fiction than fact.

Stories went around about her being born during the worst storm in decades, of her mother dying in childbirth after being struck by a lightning bolt, her father being a direct descendant of Tlaloc, the Aztec god of rain. Of course none of these stories were true, but she rather liked the name they had given her: The Rainmaker, so she let them believe what they wanted to and that was that. There was nothing left of her old life, so she was more than happy to become the person that they made her out to be.

But the girl saw something else. She wasn’t intimidated by “The Rainmaker” or the gigantic, menacing gun pointed squarely between her eyes. She was calm and collected, and she treated Rain like she was the one who had something to answer for. Or did she? Rain wasn’t sure anymore. Maybe she was imagining things, or misremembering. And why did she care so much in any case? Their paths converged because her name was on the card and this meant that Rain needed get rid of her. Nothing more, nothing less.

She forces her eyes shut even tighter, trying to recall the name, trying to make some sense of what she was going on in her head, even though every fiber of her body was willing her mind in the opposite direction. The water scalds her body, searing white-hot pain with each bead that splashes against her pale skin. She reaches forward, turning the hot water off and the cold water all the way on. The frigid water assaults her body and mind – an attempt to jog loose the long deleted memory – but nothing comes.

She hears a scratching on the bathroom door. Driftwood clawing at the wood. Rain snaps out of her rumination and turns the water off. She steps out of the tub and takes down one of the neatly folded white towels from the rack above the toilet. She dries herself off, moving the towel slowly over every inch of her body before wrapping it around herself and pulling her dark hair into a tight bun. When she steps back into the bedroom, her cat is perched on the night table pawing at the chain hanging down from the lamp. Driftwood looks up from his new toy and watches as his owner makes her way to the folded clothing on the chair.

Once dressed, Rain proceeds to her morning workout routine. As she begins doing pushups on the worn out carpet, she listens for the rain and is surprised to hear #55; the intermittent heavy rain that fools you into thinking it has stopped before picking up again right as you put your umbrella away. She finishes her set and lies back on the bed, breathing heavily. Driftwood glides over to her and sits on her chest, rising and falling with each of her breaths. This is one of his favorite activities, and Rain is more than happy to oblige. As she tries to catch her breath, the girl’s question creeps in again, forcing her to sit up. Driftwood is none too pleased, but Rain begins to scratch his belly absentmindedly, and he purrs his gratitude.

Rain picks the card up again, and studies the details. Jerry Marston. South Haverbrook. Connecticut. These are things she can focus on. Concrete things. Things that are in front of her. She takes a deep breath and pushes the voice out of her head. It is time to go. She sits up and walks to the night table where she opens the drawer and extracts the gun, leaving the bible behind for someone who still has a chance to be saved. Putting the gun underneath the waistband of her jeans, she heads for the door and steps out into the downpour. She pulls the door shut, careful not to close it on the cat’s tail.

As she walks through the parking lot, the water drips down her face, splitting down the sides of her aquiline nose. In the rain, it is evident that she is beautiful. Fragilely so, tall and fair with a large forehead and deep-set, almost black eyes. Through those eyes, she sees the car that will get her out of here. It is an unassuming car. A red Honda Accord, maybe four years old, but she knows that the door is unlocked and that the car is well maintained, so she walks over to it and gets in. She fiddles with the wires underneath the steering harness and the engine quickly roars to life. She rolls down the passenger window and Driftwood jumps in. Putting the car in gear, she heads out onto the busy street where the traffic is making its way through rain #22, calculating her options of how to best get to Connecticut.