Dearly Departing by Geoff North (book reader for pc txt) 📕

Ray’s older brothers becoming addicted to hard drugs—they weren’t, and never did—to a depressing rehashing of his sister’s death. It was that very evening, Ray would recall in later years, that he really didn’t like his grandmother. She was a fear-mongering old witch.

He excused himself and left her house, running past half a dozen other homes with fallen leaves fluttering about in their front yards, all the way to Main Street. It was as quiet and dead in the middle of Rokerton as it was in any other small town. Ray still had a few hours to kill so he hoofed it to the west end, into the park, and past the camp grounds. He followed the bank of the winding river out of civilization and into the forests. Ray’s goal was to reach the rapids, an area where the river narrowed through a natural deposit of rocks. Older kids hung out there to drink beer, and couples liked to make out. He didn’t expect to find anyone there this time of year. The night came too fast and the air was too cold.

Ray wasn’t the only one that had gone out to the rapids that evening. He could see a little girl with bright red hair sitting out on the largest rock. It was the same rock he’d planned to sit on. Not only was it the biggest rock in the pile, it was the flattest and the one furthest out into the water. You could lie there nice and dry and watch the water rush by on all sides. It pissed him off thinking he’d have to walk all the way back without even setting foot on it. He was about to turn back when something caught his eye moving in the bushes not far from where the girl was sitting.

A man appeared. There was a trail there, Ray knew, that led back through the trees to a back road. The girl must have come that way earlier. It was probably the kid’s dad. Ray had grown a little more curious. He settled down into the tall reeds by his section of the stream and watched them. He didn’t recognize either one. The man stepped on the stones sticking up from the water to the bigger one where the girl was. He spoke, and the little girl said something back. Ray was close, but he couldn’t hear them. The running water made that impossible. They talked for a few more minutes. The man standing, the girl sitting.

The man did something then that made Ray feel instantly uncomfortable. He removed his jacket and pulled off his shirt. Men aren’t supposed to do that in front of little kids out in public unless they’re getting ready to go for a swim, Ray thought. And this guy wasn’t going to jump in the river, not at this temperature. He moved in front of her. Ray could no longer see her face, but he knew she was scared, he could tell by the way her legs were shifting on the rock, the way they curled up under her. The man’s hands went in front of him, as if he were preparing to take a pee.

In that second the girl became his sister. It was Alicia sitting there, and she was about to be molested. Ray sprang up and rushed through the reeds and grass towards them. He wasn’t even aware by the time he reached the rocks that he’d already bent down and picked a smaller, jagged one up.

The man turned too late. There was a dull expression on his face, his eye lids were half closed. It was a look that filled Ray with hatred. The man’s underwear was down to his knees. He couldn’t have reacted in time even if he tried. Ray swung back and drove a sharp end of the rock right between his eyes. That’s all it took. The man fell forward into the river with a heavy splash. The clear water turned pink, then deep red. And then the man’s dead body started floating away with the current, his bare ass sticking out the entire way until he disappeared altogether.

The little girl stood up. “My name’s Abby. Me and my parents just moved to the farm over there last week.”

She was pointing at the forest, to the trail the molester had come from. “Hi, Abby. I’m Ray Wallace, and you can’t tell anybody what happened here.”

It was only thing they said to each other—Abby introducing herself, and Ray warning her to keep it a secret. They didn’t scream. They didn’t cry. Ray tossed the bloody rock and the stranger’s clothes into the river and Abby rubbed the dust from her bottom. They went their separate ways, Abby to her new farm, Ray back to town. The body was discovered a week later thirteen miles downstream. According to the identification found in the abandoned car, the man’s name was Troy Peterson, a convicted pedophile released back out into the public just two weeks earlier. An autopsy wasn’t performed. The body had rotted in the water and been smashed by rocks into an unrecognizable mess. The pain he’d inflicted on others had finally visited him in the end, and only two children would ever know the grisly truth.

“Oh my God, Dad… you’re a hero,” Dawn said from the end of the bed.

Ray was lying back down, fully clothed and very tired. “Heroes don’t murder people and make little girls keep it secret.”

“Most kids that age would’ve done the same thing, I know I would. Why should you get in trouble for stopping a monster like that?”

“That’s what I thought at the time.” He rose onto one elbow and rubbed his sore eyes. “But it weighs on a guy after the years, even if the bastard had it coming.”

“What happened to the girl? What ever became of Abby?”

“She didn’t tell anyone… not as far