by Jeff Vrolyks
Chapter Three
After a late breakfast Michael packed his backpack with his video games and PSP, stuffed the Buck knife down his pocket, and got a move on, promising his folks he’d be back in a little bit. His mother said have fun. Fun, ha! Michael forced a grin and waved goodbye, trudged along toward the brook.
He gave himself fifty-fifty odds of making it back without bruises, perhaps a black eye or a pair of them. His heartbeat steadily increased not from exertion but dread. When he arrived at the swimming hole he found nobody, prayed that they had changed their minds, improbable as it seemed. He checked his watch and saw that he still had a few minutes before noon. He was downright sick, and hurried to the brook, puking into the shallow water. He wiped his mouth and chin, meandered away from the water.
“Please don’t show up,” he muttered.
It was five minutes after the hour when he spotted Ryan. He was alone. Michael supposed it was probably better this way. He didn’t need a woman seeing how pathetic he is at fighting, if it indeed came to blows.
“Afternoon, dick-biter,” Ryan said disdainfully.
Michael rolled the backpack off his shoulder and set it at his feet. “I got your stuff.”
“Of course you do.”
Ryan stopped just before Michael, dark eyes glaring icily into his, wooden-faced. “Did you get my money?”
Michael sighed. “Not all of it. But I’ll mail you the rest, and you can have my Buck—”
“The fuck you will,” interrupted Ryan. “I was afraid this would be the case, that you’d fuck me out of my money. That’s why Emily didn’t come along, she didn’t want to watch me pound you into a world of hurt, hard as that is to imagine. If I was her I’d pay money to watch someone beat the shit out of you. To each their own, huh?”
“I don’t want to fight.”
“And I don’t want to be Jewed out of my hundred bucks. And I don’t want a sore dick. But you bit that shit and you screwed me out of money, so you got what’s coming to you.”
“I’m not going to fight you.”
“Well I’m going to fight you.”
“What’s wrong with your girlfriend, anyway? She whispered in your ear to stick your dick in my mouth? What kind of girlfriend would say that?”
There was a glimmer of rage in Ryan’s eyes, followed by a quick punch to Michael’s jaw. His teeth clacked shut. He took a few faltering steps back, his left foot splashing into the brook. Ryan stepped forward and threw another punch, this one directed at his nose. Michael dodged it and shoved Ryan, sending him to his ass. Michael stood massaging his tender jaw, his enemy thunderstruck by the audacious counterattack.
“You little fucker!”
Ryan shot to his feet and charged. Michael hunched down defensively, expecting another punch but receiving a kick to his thigh instead. Michael fell back to his ass in the freezing cold water, submerged to mid-back. His disadvantaged posture prevented him from escaping the next blow, which was a fist to his head, glancing his cheek. For a second Michael was stunned and motionless. Ryan capitalized by taking the back of his quarry’s head in his hand and dunking him into the water, rolled him over face-down. Michael thrashed and squirmed to get his knees under him, already starving for air. A second hand joined the first, and now Ryan was throttling him. Adrenaline coursed Michael’s veins at the thought of drowning, which seemed highly likely. Ryan threw a leg over the floundering kid and hunkered down, using his weight to keep the fucker submerged, his ass squatting on Michael’s back.
With a spike of summoned energy, Michael’s mouth turned up and broke the water, gasped sharply for air. Before Ryan could dunk his head back down, Michael cried, “You’re drowning me!”
Ryan sat all his weight on the boy’s back, moved his hands to his head and pressed with all his might, submerging his head fully. Michael thrashed wildly in his hands, consuming his oxygen reserves rapidly. Ryan figured another couple seconds and he’d let the fucker breathe, drag him out of the water and maybe kick him in the ribs a few times, piss on his face.
A sharp pain suddenly bit Ryan at the shin, a fucking massive bite. He released Michael and stepped out of the brook looking down at his left leg. He was hemorrhaging blood from a gash. What did that little prick do to him? He was evaluating his injury, and for a moment lost awareness of his enemy. Michael lunged out of the water with his Buck knife in hand, blade down, his round eyes blazing fanatically. Ryan gasped and took a step back, put his hands out. Michael lunged at him, driving the knife down into Ryan’s shoulder as they fell together. Michael straddled him at the waist, pulled the blade out of his shoulder; Ryan cried out in pain, teeth bared, eyes squinted shut.
In his rage Michael brought the knife down a second time, this one a fatal blow to the chest.
Thud.
The lunatical rage in Michael’s eyes blinked away as if a switch was flipped. What the fuck did I just do? he thought. What the fuck did I just do! He jerked the blade out of Ryan’s chest and got off of him, took a step back and dropped the bloody knife to the pebbled shore.
“Oh my God, what did I just do? No… no, no, no!”
He looked around for witnesses. Nobody bore witness to this impossible incident.
“What did you make me do!” Michael blustered. “You asshole, you made me kill you!”
He needed to do something and fast. His first idea was to run back to camp and tell his parents. But to confess to murdering someone? He thought he’d rather die himself than to admit that. That left telling nobody, hide what he had done.
“Shit! This can’t be happening!”
How would he get away with it when the girl knew that they were meeting here? When Ryan didn’t return she’d come looking for him. Could he play it off as self-defense? The only weapon here was his own, so probably not. He patted the corpse’s pockets, praying he’d find some weapon but found nothing.
“Fuck!”
He paced around rubbing the nape of his neck. Emily would fuck him right into prison, there was no doubt. She knew who’d be responsible for her missing boyfriend and knew where she could find that culpable party. He’d go to jail for murder and at the trial the picture of Ryan’s cock in Michael’s mouth would surface, as if standing trial for murder wasn’t bad enough.
He narrowed his choices down to two. Slit his wrists right here and now, or wait for Emily to come looking for her man, and explain to her what had happened, maybe alter it a bit to make himself look more innocent (which would probably sound like pure grade-A horse-shit), and that his taking Ryan’s life was an act of self-defense. He could always fall back on the first choice if the latter didn’t pan out. He’d have to get her to see things his way, that was all. He’d weep and plea with her, grovel on his knees if he had to. But what could he possibly request of her, to forget about Ryan and tell nobody of this? That wouldn’t happen.
“Shit!”
He decided to dispose of the body. Whatever his destiny might be would be decided later; for now he needed to hide the body. Maybe he could tell Emily he hadn’t seen him. That would lead to a search party. There was no way out of this.
Upon a cursory test, Michael concluded that the body was too heavy to carry. He looked at the brook, at the darkness centering it, darkness indicative of depth. It would have to do. He gathered a few rocks and stuffed them in the pant-pockets of the body, then dragged him by the feet to the water, deeper and deeper until the water was at his shoulders. The body tried to drift downstream, partially floating—mostly at the torso. He back stepped until the water was at his chin. Keeping hold of one of Ryan’s legs, he dove under and felt around for a palmable rock, and found one. He scooped it up and shoved it down the crotch of Ryan’s pants, and with that he sank adequately. He took a deep breath and went under, pulling the body deeper into the stream. He let go and was pleased to find the body not drifting. He went up for air, took a full breath of air and dove down. He felt for rocks, moved a couple onto Ryan’s chest, stuffed a few small ones down his mo
uth before returning to the surface for a big gasp for air.
He trudged to the bank in search of more rocks, collecting them as he found ones suitable to his purpose. He’d put a few more stones on him before calling it good. He could return later with goggles and a snorkel and bury him greater. Bury him completely, in fact.
Michael rinsed clean the bloody knife in the water, then cut down the rope from the branch, wedged it under some foliage of a bush. The swing was an invitation to plunge into the section of brook where nobody should ever swim again.
Standing in the shallows he splashed water up to the bloody dirt, turning the area into sludge. He raked dry dirt over it with a foot, followed by a strew of pine-needles.
He leaned against the rock where this whole mess began less than twenty-four hours ago, collecting his thoughts. I’m a murderer, recycled in his mind. He didn’t shed tear-one over the loss of Ryan’s life, but was shedding plenty at the idea of being charged with murder. Heck, the son of a bitch deserved what he got.
He was going to drown me!
Yes, it would be wise to remember that. It was self-defense. What would he tell Emily? Christ, what would he tell her? His subconscious mind offered up a solution, one that was a little controversial and scandalous to his conscious mind, that being a second murder. No, that wasn’t an option. He found some solace in the self-defense bit; killing Emily would unravel that. But on the other hand, a second murder charge wouldn’t likely hurt him any worse than a single murder charge. Life in jail is life in jail, and there wouldn’t be the death penalty for this. He wasn’t certain of that, but felt somewhat confident he wouldn’t be commuted to Death Row, especially being that he was five years away from being an adult legally; he sure as hell felt like an adult right now.
It was almost three hours later, just after three o’clock when he spotted Emily in the distance, the top of her head, then the rest of her. My what a difference a day makes. Yesterday he was lusting for her body, pulling loose the spaghetti string of her bikini top in his imagination. Now she was sexless to him, an insurmountable problem the size of Mount Everest, tight shorts and halter top be damned. As she descended the rocks carefully she said, “Where’s Ryan?”
“Haven’t seen him,” Michael said coolly. “He’s not with you?”
She approached him on the rock with a dubious knitting of her brow. “He hasn’t showed up? Really?”
“Really.”
She peered skeptically at him for a moment. Her suspicion was palpable. “Why are you wet?” She asked accusingly.
“I went swimming.”
She looked over to the branch that recently hung a rope swing, then glared at Michael. “What did you do?”
Michael pushed away from the rock, dusted his bottom, and stepped before her, his solemn gaze just under her cold eyes. “I need your understanding right now,” he said. “Hear me through.”
“Did you…?” She cocked her head thoughtfully, then shook it, dismissing the idea. “No, you couldn’t have…”
“Listen, Emily. Ryan tried to drown me. He would have drowned me if—”
She gasped, eyes goggled. “You didn’t!”
“It was self-defense. I swear to God.”
“Where is he? Where is he!”
Michael pointed to the brook, at the dark shadowy center.
“Murderer!”
She reached into her shorts’ pocket half-frenzied for her cellphone. The second she had it out Michael stole it away. She tried re-stealing it, but Michael wouldn’t allow it. She quit after one final fruitless attempt, glared sharply at him while calmly saying, “You’re going to jail. For life.”
She turned and ran away from Michael, ran toward the campgrounds where she would set the wheels in motion for his arrest. Michael started after her, quickly catching her, pounced on her back, sending her face-down into the dirt. She shrieked, a high pitch ear-splitter redolent of Jake’s night terrors. He turned her over and straddled her as he had Ryan hours ago. She was a petite eighteen- or nineteen-year-old, weighed about what Michael weighed: a much easier adversary than was Ryan. To shut her up he put his hands around her neck and squeezed. She clawed at his arms but he was unyielding.
“Shut up! Shut… up!” He squeezed even tighter, eliciting gurgling sounds from her. Her pretty hazel eyes looked like they were on the verge of popping out of her head. “If you don’t shut up I’m going to have to kill you! I don’t want that!”
He loosened his grip around her neck when her arms slunk down to her side defeatedly. She heaved a deep breath and coughed.
“I don’t want to do it,” Michael said, “honestly I don’t. And I didn’t want to do it to Ryan, either, but he gave me no choice. Don’t put me in that situation again, Emily, please.”
“Let me go and I won’t tell,” she said hoarsely and coughed.
He penetrated her eyes with his, searching for the truth. Why wouldn’t she tell anyone? Once she was free from him, he’d have no leverage over her. He was screwed, there was no way around it. His only chance at getting through this was joining her body with Ryan’s, and hope for the best.
“Please, just let me go,” she pleaded.
He nodded at her. He’d let her go, but in a graver sense than she had intended. He put his hands around her neck and strangled the life out of her. In the movies and on TV when he watched girls as pretty as Emily get killed he always thought What a perfectly good waste of a hot chick, but now he was thoughtless. He’d later consider that it wasn’t two people who died there that day but three. Michael’s life as he knew it was laid to rest with Ryan and Emily.
Her body joined Ryan’s at the bottom of the brook. He spent copious amounts of time mounding rocks of all sizes over their sunken bodies, until they were hidden completely. He took her phone with him, decided to destroy and dispose of it in a dumpster back in Sacramento. People would come looking for this couple, it was only a matter of time. Hopefully Michael would be long gone by then, because if the cops went from campsite to campsite showing campers photos of the missing couple, his dad would say, “Sure, they came looking for my son just the other day.” And that would be a fucking disaster.
As luck would have it, that didn’t happen. Amazingly, that didn’t happen. Michael got away with murder, at least for now. The bodies would turn up someday, surely they would.