​20 Weeks – Chapter 9 (Part 1)

20 Weeks – Chapter 9 (Part 1)
 
 
 
 
“Where did you go?” Bijuu demanded angrily of Ben, as he slowly emerged from a ring of bushes that lined the camping space tucked into a bit of untamed nature, not too far from where she’d been pulled over.
 
Bijuu had been sitting on the hood of her Jeep for about the past five minutes, as she contemplated what to do about the man in back.
 
“I didn’t want the cop to see me,” he said with a guilty look.
 
“Why the hell not?  You just left me there, to take the fall.”
 
“What fall?  You ain’t arrested, are you?  No cops.”
 
Ben gave a soft push to Bijuu’s shoulder and then tilted his face in perfect puppy-dog fashion.
 
But still, she didn’t smile.
 
“Well, I would be if the cop had noticed that my ‘drunk friend’ is really dead.”
 
“Look, Bijuu… I’ve been meaning to talk to you.  I have something…”

“Can’t it wait?  The sun’s just about to come up, and I think I’m gonna be sick.”
 
Bijuu slid off the hood of her Jeep then, and ran into the bushes.
 
“When was the last time you ate anything?” Ben hollered after her.
 
And a moment later Bijuu was suddenly terrified all the other campsites could hear the sounds of her loud retching, or Ben’s booming voice.
 
“Shhhhhh” she admonished him, as she climbed back out of the thicket.
 
And then she shrugged carelessly, wiped her sleave across her mouth, and then smiled up at the tall man.  Her skull paint now a smear of white and black across her face, which had the effect of being twice as scary.
 
“Are you gonna help me or not?” she asked sharply, as she climbed into the back of her Jeep and began tugging at the man’s rug-wrapped legs.
 
Ben, not saying a word, simply walked to the Jeep and lowered the tailgate.
 
But the man rolled in the rug did not budge.  So, Bijuu gave him a kick and a shove.  And then Ben gave him a hefty tug, and a moment later there was a meaty THUMP, as the small man’s rug-wrapped-body hit the dirt of the campsite.
 
However, the bulk of him missed the small area that had been leveled, so the body quickly rolled down the embankment, shedding itself of the filthy rug in the process.
 
“Fuck!” Bijuu hollered, and then clasped her hand over her mouth, as Ben threw her and admonishing glare of his own.
 
“Sorry,” she mouthed more than said, as the two of them stood there staring at the blood and dirt covered man that now lay in a heap amongst the ferns.
 
“This is not you, Bijuu,” her ghost said then, from a small space away.
 
“You’re not a murderer,” she told the girl she felt she needed to protect.
 
“I am now,” Bijuu said in a dry voice, one the ghost did not recognize.
 
“I’ve never had a choice.  I was made the person I am.”
 
And with that, the young girl turned back to the body, but by this time Ben had already slung Uncle Gary’s lifeless form over his shoulder.
 
And he was looking at her now, as if she’d suddenly lost her mind.
 
“I suggest we don’t stand around under the lights arguing with ourselves.  Ya?  What do you say?  Wanna go burry a body with me?”
 
Bijuu stared at the young man who suddenly seemed quite chipper about putting a man into the earth.
 
“Please.  Bij.  You don’t have to be…” Nyx the ghost started to say, but Bijuu interrupted her.
 
“Be what?  What they told me I have to be?  What they made me?  What they can tolerate, understand, quantify, put into a box, label, and control?  Be that?  Well, I’m sorry.  Because I don’t know how to be any of that!  But what I can be… for once in my goddamn life… is in control.  And I say, ‘no more’.  Besides… he deserves this.”
 
“Damn straight he deserves this,” Ben said then, as he charged past the five-foot-two pregnant girl with the disturbingly painted face.
 
“Now, stop talking to yourself and get moving.”
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
ISBN   978-1-7332979-8-1
 
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.
 

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