by Amanda Nowak
any...”
“Shhhh! There it is again.” Brenda hissed.
This time Michelle heard it too, and her face filled with fear. The sound Brenda had heard was the echoing of footsteps.
“They aren't close, but they are definitely coming this way.” Michelle said. “We gotta go.”
The girls rose as quietly as they could, and started moving quickly through the woods back the way they'd come. Running as fast as they could at a crouch, Michelle resolved to get back to the cabin. It was obvious that whoever was out there wasn't gonna let them get to the road and they had no protection in the woods. She had to be able to think and the safest place would be back at the cabin.
They reached the cabin in what felt like no time at all. On the walk they had listened for echoing or twigs breaking or any noise at all that would tell them they were being followed, and there had been nothing. Approaching the cabin, they were both nervous, therefore cautious in their actions. Not exiting the woods in front of the cabin until they were sure they were alone. After five minutes or so watching for movement, they decided it was safe to walk out of the forest and towards their possible haven.
Michelle remembered that she had locked the door when they left, before all the craziness in the woods, but who knew if the person or persons out there could get into it locked cabin. They wouldn't know until they entered the cabin. Unsure of how to do that, Brenda followed her as she walked around the outside of the building, trying to find a possible way in.
After circling the entire place, checking every window and door for an opening, Michelle came to the conclusion that she would have to break a window to get in. Without telling Brenda, she started looking for a rock to break open the little window that lead to the bathroom. She found one and stood next to the window.
“Michelle, what are you doing?” Brenda whispered. Still scared that whoever was out there would hear her.
“Getting us into the cabin.” Michelle whispered back. “We will find something to board it up with once we get inside.”
She thrust the rock up against the window and it shattered loudly. Michelle stopped with the sound and looked around. Worried that someone else might have heard the noise.
“Brenda. Help me up. Quick.” Brenda came and joined Michelle. Gave her a boost into the window and hurried to the front door to be let in.
When Michelle climbed through the window, her stomach got scratched by a piece of broken. She let out a squeal of pain as she slid into the bathroom. She ignored the pain and hurried to the front door to unlock it for Brenda. Once Brenda was in the cabin, Michelle examined her wound.
It was more than a scratch. She had sliced herself pretty good on the glass and was bleeding quite a bit. Her shirt had soaked through in the short time it took her to get from the bathroom to the front door.
“Michelle! You're bleeding! What happened?” Brenda asked with a look of horror on her face.
“I cut myself on the broken glass. Lets not worry about it yet. We gotta find something to cover that window.” She turned from Brenda, so she couldn't see the pain on her face. Michelle didn't want to scare Brenda, but with the amount of blood and pain, the cut could be pretty bad.
She found a piece of flat wood, almost like a sheet of particle board that she thought would be perfect for the job at hand. She went to the kitchen and looked in the cupboard that she had noticed earlier held tools. She found a hammer and nails and headed to the bathroom. She put the board up over the window, and tried to hammer the first nail in. It was too much for her and she doubled over in pain.
“Let me do that.” Brenda said pushing her way past Michelle, taking the tools from her and started to do the chore of closing the opening that had let them in. She put the eighth nail in and pulled on the board to make sure it was secure. When it didn't move she turned back to Michelle who was now sitting on the floor, fighting for consciousness.
“Oh my God! Michelle? Michelle?” Michelle looked up at her, eyes trying to roll back in her head. “My turn to carry you.” Brenda said as she went to Michelle, scooped her up and struggled to get her to the couch. Once she laid her down, she lifted Michelle's sticky, wet shirt and examined Michelle's injury. The blood was still coming, she had to stop it somehow. She went back to the bathroom to look for something to sop up the blood with and something she could hold on there to apply pressure and figure out what to do next.
After finding a towel she went back to the couch where she had left her friend. Michelle's breathing was slightly labored. She placed the towel on the cut, and looked around for something to hold it there. The fire was out and it was getting a little chilly. She found a large book sitting next to the couch and decided that it was good enough. With that done she went to the fire place and started to rebuild the fire.
Once the fire was going strong again she returned to her friends side. Michelle was still unconscious. Brenda removed the book, and blood soaked towel to see what exactly her friend was dealing with. On her first look she had just seen blood, but with the blood slowing she was able to examine the gash in Michelle's side and gasped in dismay. The wound was deep, she unsure how deep, but she could see a lot of muscle tissue. All she could hope for right now was that it wasn't deep enough to hit any major organ. Still staring at the cut, unsure of what to do, Brenda was surprised back to reality by Michelle letting out a raspy cough. She looked from her friend's stomach to her face, and tears started streaming down her face. Michelle was coughing up blood, but unlike she's seen in movies, it wasn't bright red. It was dark, and deep. She didn't know much about internal bleeding, but she had heard that it was gonna surface as an almost brown.
“Michelle?” Brenda said through her tears. “Michelle? Wake up please. Talk to me.”
Michelle's eyes never opened, a watery gurgle came deep from her throat, and with that Brenda heard her best friend take her final breath. It wasn't dramatic, she just stopped breathing.
“Michelle! Michelle! NO! You can't leave me! I can't do it by myself!” It was like a dam had burst and she started sobbing. Throwing herself onto her breathless friend, she wept onto her blood soaked shirt.
She must have passed out from stress or grief or something, because when she came to the sun had gone down. She stood and looked around the dark cabin. The fire, now down to embers again, didn't shine much light around and she stood in the shadowed cabin, trying to gather her bearings. Then it all came back to her. Michelle was dead, she was alone in a cabin in the middle of the woods, and somewhere out there were men with guns. At least one man, she thought to herself, but there could be more.
What was she gonna do? She lost the only person she had in this world. In a haze she decided to leave the cabin. She couldn't stand being in that room any longer, and she felt she had nothing left to live for. She was sure she couldn't do it all on her own. She walked to the front door, unlocked it, and walked out into the chilly night.
In the dark, she couldn't see much but the outline of the trees. She headed down the driveway, not sure where she was going, just walking. She got about twenty yards from the house, and she saw the headlights heading her way once again. This time she didn't stop moving. She just kept walking as the car approached. The car didn't stop until it was five feet in front of her and her legs finally stopped moving. She stood in the bright lights, unable to see who was in the vehicle.
She stood there facing the lights and no one stepped out of the car. She became impatient. She wanted to know who was behind the wheel, she wanted to know who was responsible for her friend's no, her sister's death.
“Get out you bastard!” She screamed into the silence. “Show yourself.”
In return she got the sound of the horn. That being the final straw, she rushed the car, slamming her fists on the hood.
“Come out of there you coward!”
Finally, she got the response she wanted. The passenger side door opened slowly. She shielded her eyes, to get a better look as a figure stepped out of the car.
“Coward? Us?” A gruff man's voice spoke. “You are the one who shot and killed a man, and took off.”
Brenda was stunned into silence. She had figured that's what was going on, but hearing it stung her heart. She was the reason Michelle had died.
“So you saw us?” Brenda replied quietly.
“We see everything.” The unidentified man said. “We see all good. We see all bad. You need to learn that what you did was not okay.”
“I don't understand.”
“You will.”
With that, Brenda saw things flash through her mind like memories, however they were things Brenda never experienced. She saw horrendous crimes committed and the people that committed them pushed in equally heinous ways. She saw mothers that killed there children haunted to the point of suicide. She saw gangs that had committed drive-by’s slowly taken out one by one by accidental, painful deaths. She saw everyone that had murdered someone else and had gotten away with their crimes pay for them in awful, unique ways.
The tears rolled down Brenda's face as the flashes ceased. Thoughts of Michelle