The Murder Story

The Sniper

The bullet came without warning. Burying itself deep into his chest. He faltered. Then stumbled backwards, unable to comprehend what was happening, only aware of the throbbing agony in his chest that wasn't there a second ago. He brought his hand up to his chest, that was when he noticed the blood steadily pumping from where it shouldn't. He collapsed to the ground, his weak legs no longer able to support the weight of his body as his pierced heart struggled to pump the blood up to his head, let alone his legs.

Only then did someone realise that something was off. "Kasper?" said Eimear, turning toward him after hearing the thump. Her face paled when she saw the pool of blood slowly beginning to form around him. She ran to his side, dropping to her knees and putting her hands over the wound. "Guys help!" she called to the group ahead who were only realising what was happening now. "Kasper, hold on!" she called to him as he dipped in and out of consciousness. "William!" she barked at him while William stared in shock. "Come here and apply steady pressure to the wound." Not knowing what else he could do, he complied, waiting for Eimear to lift up Kasper's school jumper and shirt to reveal the small hole now gushing blood, before placing his hands over as hard as he could in an effort to stem the bleeding.

"I'm going to get help," exclaimed Giedrius, taking off at a run back down the path they came, back toward the school. The wide path through the park was unusually empty and quiet for the middle of lunchtime. Pedro had already begun calling an ambulance by the time Eimear had gotten Ronan to give him his jumper as a make-shift bandage to try and soak up some of the blood seeping through William's fingers. "Elias!" she called to the other boy just standing there not knowing what to do. "Talk to him, keep him awake, do not let him fall unconscious again." Elias just nodded, knowing now was not the time to argue. He knelt by Kasper's head and began trying to make a conversation about Smash Bros, of all things, but it kept him awake which was the main goal. "I'm going to-"

Bang.

This bullet found Szymon's head before he could finish his sentence and he was dead before he hit the ground. "Szymon!" exclaimed Ronan, rushing to his side along with Ryan and Cian, leaving no one dawdling around in a daze of confusion. Eimear redoubled her efforts to keep Kasper awake. "We need to move!" she called. "Into the tree cover, someone's shooting us off one by one and we're sitting ducks out here." She nodded to Elias and began taking over talking to Kasper as Elias began detaching Ronan and the others from Szymon's dead body. "We're going to need all of us to move Kasper, we don't know where the bullet is lodged and we don't want to tear an artery or something while moving him," he told them as they reluctantly left the cold, still body on the pavement.

They each managed to slowly raise Kasper's limp body off the ground without too many sharp movements and began making their way toward the treeline. Just as they reached the bushes though, the third bullet hit Elias directly between the eyes, and he fell dead on the spot, only a few metres from where Szymon had fallen just a minute before. When the person holding most of Kasper's weight went down, so did Kasper. He yelled out in pain as the precariously placed bullet tore through his aorta and the small wound in his chest was now gushing bright red blood at a rate that meant Kasper was dead in seconds. William and Eimear stared in horror at the blood that now coated their hands and was now pooling in large puddles in the grass. Ronan managed to pull Eimear away from the body and into the cover of the bushes as she lost all feeling and started to go numb just staring at the three dead bodies of her friends.

The next bullet went straight through the back of Eimear's head as she sat numbly against a tree while the others tried to rouse her into a run. "I couldn't save them," was all she could utter before the bullet hit. William reluctantly let her go as Ronan tugged on his arm. Pedro, Ryan and Cian were beckoning them on to begin their run away from the shooter when the next bullet hit Pedro square between the eyes.

The shooter was getting more accurate, with Kasper just a small mistake of him moving to the side just as he shot. The silenced sniper rifle was always accurate. With the small assassin perched high in the trees having a record of never missing, and he intended to keep it. One minute between each kill. That was his orders. 10 people. 10 minutes. 10 bullets. He would have to deal with Geidruis later.

Tears streamed from William's eyes as he ran from the scene, and unknowingly closer to the sniper's den. First Kasper. Then Szymon. Then Elias. Then Eimear. Then Pedro. There was almost no-one left. He wiped the tears from his eyes and focused on running then stumbled to a stop when the next bullet hit. Ronan collapsed with a bullet between his eyes. A bullet that came from the trees in front of him. "Guys! Ryan! Cian!" he called. "He's in front of us! Come back we need to run that way!" he called to no avail, gesturing to the left of him at the thicket of trees that led away from the shooter. He ran after them, determined that no-one else would die today. but he was too slow, they had gained so much that Cian was right below the sniper's tree when the bullet hit him.

Ryan stopped and turned, looking up all around the tree for the bullet that went right through his friend's head. William was still running to catch up but when he reached Cian he began to look around just as Ryan was. He knew there was nowhere he could run. Anyone who could shoot someone square between the eyes 300 feet through the trees could shoot him from this vicinity.

The next bullet hit Ryan in the back of his head and that directed William to right where the young sniper lay. He managed to stare right into the face of his best friend Arturs before he pulled the trigger and blew his brains out.

"It's almost done. I missed Giedruis but I'll get him eventually don't worry," he said into his phone as he began to dismantle his gun and put the pieces back into his backpack beside his English folder. "No-one saw you?" she asked.

"Only William. right before I shot him."

"It's a lovely way to go, being shot in the face by the boy you thought was your best friend. Anyways, kill the last boy and the job's over. Get it down by tomorrow."

"It'll be done tonight," replied Arturs, swinging his giant school bag onto the grassy ground then jumping down beside it. His small frame easily hopped over the dead bodies littering the ground on the way back to the school. He pulled some change from his pocket and counted it. Maybe I'll have enough time to buy some wedges before the end of lunch, he thought to himself as he walked through the gates, wiping a drop of William's blood from his cheek as he did so.