Freshly Fallen

It wasn’t the sight of it that bothers her; it is the sound.  That initial crunch then the squishing as the spear goes through their brains and blood gushes out turns her stomach.  It’s the sound that has her on the brink of tears each time she kills one.  There was also that sound of her victims inhaling as the pain hit them.  She never lingers long enough to hear their last breaths.

She couldn’t even remember where she got a spear, of all things.  Why wasn’t she using a gun?  Why was she killing these people to begin with? She does not understand, she just knows she had to do it.  There are five rows of students, about college age,  that she is cycling through.  Each one of them sits there and waits like it is fate for them to die by her hand and she is the angel of death.  Angel.  She is no angel.  These people had short lives.  There is no reason for them to die.  At least none that she knows.

There are a few people she can’t kill.  Something about these people makes her heart twinge, maybe it is just that… she sees them more as people than bodies.  She looks at them with tears in her eyes and walks past to the next body ready to die.  She can feel the others looking at her like she let them down.  Why had she chosen them to live?  No one speaks a word.  There are no screams, there is no pleading, just the sound of her footsteps as she walks to the next person, the crunch, the bloodletting, and the intake of their last breath.

When she gets to the end of the last row, she doesn’t look back.  She can still feel those among the living looking at her, through her. As she walks out the door, it is then that the principal walks in, at least that is who she thinks the woman is in the pencil skirt and high buttoned shirt.  The principal walks calmly past her and into the classroom, but they utter not a word.

Outside, the rain is coming down steady but not too hard.  She fumbles with the spear as she gets into her little truck and gently coaxes her dog off the driver’s seat.  She places the spear, still dripping with blood and brain matter, behind the passenger seat. The truck starts with a low rumble and she drives up the highway heading north.  With every mile, her fear increases.  She wonders when they will come for her, when they will capture her and punish her for killing nearly 25 people with her spear.  She continues north, going as fast as she can, which in her little truck was only 50 miles per hour.  As her fear increases, so does her paranoia.

She wonders, “Should I ditch the truck and move on foot?  What about Pooch?  Will he be able to keep up?  What about the weather, the autumn air is getting chilly?”

Finally, she reaches her breaking point and an empty tank of fuel as she pulls into the far parking lot of a train station.  It is at this point that she realizes she has no actual cash on her, and if she uses her cards to withdraw money from the ATM, it is sure that they will find her.  She will have to do without somehow.

She finds a harness for Pooch under the seat, grabs a backpack with some essentials (sweatshirt, small blanket, first aid), and her spear, then heads up a footpath into the woods.  As she nears the crest of the hilltop after what feels like miles, she sits with Pooch underneath what is left of a tree, hugs Pooch tight and cries.  It wasn’t until the low pitched “Whomp Whomp Whomp” of helicopter blades wake her she realizes she had nodded off with Pooch in her lap.

As the helicopter passes, she stays as still as she can with her dog.  Once it leaves, they get up and continue north on their path to wherever it leads them.  Tears continue to stream from her swollen eyes. It isn’t because of her fear or the not knowing of what to do next; it is because with every step she took there was that initial crunch of the freshly fallen leaves, then the squishing of the wet ground reminding her of what she had done to almost 25 people.  What she doesn’t realize is, they aren’t searching for her to contain her; they are searching for her so she will finish her job and continue in the darkened days to come.