A Home For Timmy (boyxboy)

Chapter 16: Reckless

Chapter 16

  I could hear the sounds of fleeing birds and the rustling of leaves as I skulked through the trees, but more than that, I could hear the sounds of voices; not hushed speeches barely heard over the wind, but raised voices of men and a woman, and the closer I got, the easier it was the make out the words.

"Jesus Liam just shut the hell up. Do you want somebody to come running over here?"

"We're in the middle of nowhere you idiot, who the hell is gonna hear?"

"Jesus will the both of you just shut the fuck up?" another frustrated voice chipped in.

Through it all I could hear the wailing of a woman, almost drowned out by the sound of the other voices.

I navigated through the trees with caution—bent at the waist with gun in hand. When I was close enough to the voices, I slowed my pace, bending lower to hide myself behind the tall shrubs and large tree trunks.

The first thing I saw was a red shirt and as I crept closer; the body that was in it. It was a man— a teenager really—looking to be somewhere near the age of eighteen. He also wore a black baseball cap which created a shade over his face making it impossible for me to see his eyes. In his hand he waved a gun; flailing it about as though he didn't have his hand on the trigger.

I crept closer, practically crawling on the ground in order to keep myself hidden.

"He's gone. He's gone." I heard the pained wailing and the same words being repeated again and again, and when I was close enough to hear the sniffles of the woman, I stopped and listened.

"We gotta get outta here before someone shows up."

I was flat against the rich soil, but when I lifted up on my elbows and looked between the spaces in the shrubbery, I saw them—teenagers. Just a bunch of teenagers. I counted four of them, not including the girl rocking back and forth on the ground beside an unmoving body. Three out of the five of them held a gun. I cursed under my breath.

"We gotta move the body." Red shirt announced. He was the only one whose expression seemed unworried. He made his statement as though talking about something as simple as the weather and even though I couldn't see his eyes, the set of his jaw and his confident stance told me everything I needed to know; this was the person responsible for the body on the ground.

I rose higher on my elbows so I could get a better look at the body. It looked to be a male and the bloodstain on the back of that his shirt was enough to let me know that he couldn't possibly be alive. The girl on the ground beside him was covered in his blood and leaving enough prints on the body to implicate her in the crime; if her very presence didn't implicate her enough.

"You killed him. He's gone. He's gone." She continued too sob, bloodying the hair she pushed out of her face.

"Come on Jenny, get up." Striped shirt demanded, though he looked as terrified as the white-shirted guy trembling beside him.

"He's gone..." the girl was now whispering over and over in a daze. I studied their faces, taking in their expressions and their clothes, while hammering their names in my head whenever they were called.

"It's his fucking fault, get up." Red reached over and grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet.

"What about the body?" this from the striped shirt who now looked like he was about the throw up.

Red shirt looked between the girl falling apart beside him, then down at the body with a scowl.

"Leave it, we don't have time."