I remember how the sun had just slipped behind the horizon. I could hear the birds conversing over the end of another day. Something, I don't know what, but something, like psychic knowledge tempted me to step outside that evening.
I was barefoot in the blades of grass that dared to caress my warm toes. Venturing around the side of the house, I was met with a horrendous site. Jacob, along with a tall, dark man unbeknownst to me, stood on the sidewalk that ran parallel to the garage. Each coddled a gun as if it were their most prized possessions. Wicked grins spread across their faces as our eyes locked. I was not afraid and continued to walk towards them. Jacob positioned his gun in his hand, cocked it, and lowered the gun so that it pointed towards the ground. I wrinkled my brows, wondering what he was doing and then I saw it. There behind the rows of potted plants cowered some young woman that I had never laid eyes on before. My steps haulted and my breath, choked off by fear. I looked at Jacob and the unknown man and then back to the helpless woman, and I watched as the bullets became lodged in the flesh of her chest and the bone of her forehead. One small trickle of blood escaped the hole in her forehead.
I went into shock, my body paralized and my senses distorted. I don't know how long I stood there, but when I emerged from some distant plane, Jacob and the man were gone. I was left there with the corpse. I panicked and picked up the gun and blood stained towel laying on the cold cement. Hoping through the garage door, I scouted for something to hide them in. Sighting a place, I wrapped the gun inside the towel, wrapped the towel inside a plastic grocery bag and shoved the whole lot of it inside the tool chest. Just as I was closing the chest, a car door opened from across the street. I turned to look at it, seeing three people staring from me to the corpse outside the garage and back again. I grabbed the plastic bag back from the chest and started running.
I ran straight to the abandoned park about a mile from home.
Night had begun to fall over the earth like a cozy security blanket. I sat down on a picnic bench to catch my breath and unwrapped the towel and gun. Scanning the area, I looked for a place to rid myself of the evidence. The stream. Perfect. I walked over to the edge and whipped the towel into the water, watching the moving stream carry it away. I sighed heavily, feeling relieved to be rid of it. I readied myself to throw the gun in after the towel but was interrupted as an officer knocked me over on the grass. The gun flew out of my hand and I heard it plunk into the water like a large rock.
The officer told me to lie still and she cuffed my hands tightly behind my back. The adrenaline pumped through me like a drug causing me to feel lightheaded. Through my hazey sight, I watched as four other officers ran down the park hill towards us, the blue and red lights of the squad cars flickering over their bodies.
"I didn't do it", I pleaded over and over again. The officer wasn't listening to me. With hardened eyes, she marched me up the hill and into the front seat of her squad car. I took no time to wonder why I was in the front seat but used the extra seconds while she ran around the other side of the car, to make my get away. I put one foot on the brake and with my teeth, put the car into drive. I hit the gas and pulled my left leg up to the stearing wheel.
"I'm getting away!" I thought to myself. I closed my eyes briefly to drowned out the panic, and the noise of the squad cars behind me but when I reopened them, all I could see was the tree coming towards me.
"NO!" I screamed and blacked out.
When I awoke, I was in bed. Home. Safe. And the book I've been reading, Dark Rivers Of The Heart, sitting on the night table beside me. I've begun to wonder if maybe I should be reading Dr. Seuss again.
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