Short Stories

KILLER SUMMER

IT WAS the hottest day of the year, and he walked the line between sanity and desire as he cruised down Michigan Avenue. The girls here were good for a quick thrill, but his mate, his property, was not among them. No, he would continue to look for her. She would come to him as she always did, and they would dance. She would scream and he would feel his pulse soar. Soon. The heat made him feel empowered. And it was going to last for a week. So, he hunted. The Cedar Cove killer would never be caught. He was too careful. No, this was his territory, and he would find her. The object who would feed his desire. Until then, he would make do. It always helped.

THE CHIME rang out and Karrie Carmichael rose from her knees and hurried to the front of her bookstore. It was a restful place filled with both new and gently used books, overstuffed couches and chairs and rugs placed lovingly along the hardwood floors. Karrie’s Corner Bookshop had become a place of refuge from the boisterous world that existed outside her doors. When she’d open the store five years ago she had a plan, and while competing with the big stores had been tough, she had carved out her niche by exclusively offering thrillers, mysteries to tantalize the private investigator that lurked in one’s mind, and cozy mysteries for those who solved mysteries with a little slice of life on the side.

“Coming!” Karrie called out.

As she walked to the front, she saw red hair and heard a giggle as a toddler raced down the long but roomy isles. Karrie bent and swung the little ginger headed girl into her arms eliciting screams of delight.

“Ook,” she said. “Ook.” The little girl grasped a book with a picture of a small hedgehog wielding a magnifying glass and dressed in a trench coat on the cover.

“Ahh the mystery of ‘The Tangled Forest’. Good choice. I see you’re bound and determined to get Tabitha into mysteries.”

The woman laughed. “It’s all her. She picks them out. No ‘Mr. Turtle Learns His ABCs’ for her. She’s got the bug.” Gina was her best customer and a friend. They met five years ago when the store first opened, and Karrie was alone in her new shop hoping the marketing campaign she’d employed brought in readers. Gina spread the word and first the Sherlockians had come to inspect her collection. Next came the thriller crowd to shiver their way down the aisles. As so her store grew, little by little to what it was today. A thriving business that enabled her to hire two employees, both English majors.

“What’s on your reading list this week Gina?” Karrie knew her friend loved a thriller just as much as she did and made sure she was up to date on the latest releases.

“I’m gonna browse today, I think. I’m in the mood for something old. Maybe a book from the forties, or fifties. I’m curious as to how the police solved crimes without forensics and cellphones.”

“You know your way around. Let me know when you’re ready to check out.”

JOSEPH SALINDER called out as his driver made contact with the Titleist golf ball and it sailed straight down the fairway. The other two men groaned as it looked like Joseph was setting up for another Birdie. Joseph chuckled and stalked down off the tee as he preened before his friends. They’d known each other since college, Jake Kincaid and John Edgar Smith accompanying Joseph at Harvard Business School, and David King, the scholarship kid, they’d brought into their sorority as a goof. David wasn’t with them today. As a Deputy Public Defender, his days were spent with those downtrodden masses who couldn’t afford a real attorney or so his friends said of him.

“Looks good Joseph,” Jake called out as he climbed up to tee off. He used the little wooden tee to place his ball and ready it to be hit down the fairway that had a dog leg left before straightening out to the green. He held back his swing not wanting to out distance Joseph and thereby igniting his volatile temper. It was something his friends avoided at all costs. A little friendly competition was not Joseph’s idea of fun. Jake swung and drove the ball down the tree lined fairway about three yards behind Joseph’s ball.

“Nice, but not good enough,” jeered Joseph. He felt entitled to win a game. And to win every time. After all wasn’t he superior to these two jokers. John Edgar was a good player, but neither he nor Jake could win against him, and he relished their defeat.

As they continued to play the hole Joseph took birdie, his second on the front nine, and bragged all the way to the back nine. A golf cart rolled up and the pretty young girl offered them refreshments on this hot day. Joseph eyed her with interest taking in her long black hair, deep brown eyes, and slim figure. Nice, but not his type.

David rolled up to meet his friends but carried no golf clubs. His court case had ended earlier, and he decided he would put in an appearance to head off a tirade Joseph was sure to have later in the evening when they met up for a night of drinking.

“David, no clubs?” Joseph jeered.

“No, I just finished up for the day and thought I’d come and be a spectator.” David, like the others, feared Joseph, and made sure to keep his thoughts to himself.

“Well, you’ve come in time to watch me trounce these losers” he said. “And you’re wearing a suit? What the hell?” Joseph stalked over to David as he exited the golf cart his suit hot in the noonday sun. One minute he was standing smiling at his friend expecting a handshake, and the next he was lying on his back blood running from his nose from where Joseph had punched him.

David shook his head and stood shakily. “Sorry, man,” he said.

Joseph took a calming breath and held out his hand. “Next time come ready to play, ok?”

David, Jake and John Edgar knew how volatile their leader’s temper could be. At times he was jovial, even engaging, but others he was mean as a snake and just as poisonous. This carried all the way through college, and they hoped he would mellow with age, but it had only gotten worse. And so, they existed in Joseph’s universe on guard and trepidatious.

THE DOOR chimed as David King sauntered into the bookstore in the mood for a good mystery. His nose still ached, and he had two black eyes, but the doctor said nothing was broken. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go out that night. All he wanted was curl up with a good book and forget the day.  A woman rushed forward, long black hair swinging and deep brown eyes smiling in welcome. A balm for his injured mind.

“Can I help you?” The curvy beauty asked.

“Um,” he was tongue tied. He was stunned into silence. What was he here for? A book. Yeah, a book. “I’m looking for the New Releases. I just came in to browse. Find my next new author.”

“They’re on the right wall next to the counter. We’ve had some good ones come in today. If you like a thriller, you could try James Patterson’s newest. He’s always a good read.”

“Thanks. I’ll look it over.” He enjoyed a good James Patterson book but wasn’t sure if that would touch that special place in his mind that yearned for the perfect book.

“I’ll leave you to it then.”

He watched her saunter away on long legs. As he perused the offerings he settled on the James Patterson after all and made his way to the check-out counter. It was made of a highly polished mahogany and a little spinner rack held bookmarks engaging a reader with quotations.

“Ready? Can I interest you in a bookmark? she asked.

“No, just the book and maybe a drink after you close?” He decided to take a swing.

The woman looked shell shocked and gave him a long look, as if trying to discern the depths of his soul. She smiled.

DAVID AND Karrie entered Lanigan’s Pub and David led her to a table in the back, which was quieter and engendered conversation. He wanted to get to know this woman. The waitress stopped at their table, and David ordered a Guinness and Karrie ordered a gin and tonic, light on the gin.

“I’m not much of a drinker,” she explained “and I need to be up early tomorrow.”

He liked that. Suddenly he heard his friends enter the pub and felt the anxiety well up inside. “David!” Joseph called. Upon seeing Karrie, Joseph sauntered up to the table and took the seat at one of the empty chairs. “Introduce us to your friend.”

“Karrie this is Joseph, an old college friend, and Jake and John Edgar”

Joseph scanned her up and down like she was a morsel to be devoured and something in his eyes changed. They became darker, pupils dilating to black orbs and a wicked smile curved his cruel lips. “You look great. Why are you wasting your time with this loser?”

Karrie stammered out a reply but so quietly she couldn’t be heard above the voices that suddenly roared across the rooms like a tidal wave of sound threatening to crush her.

“Joseph be kind,” David chided. “She is the book seller at the small bookshop in Troy.

“I see. Just my type, bro.” Joseph leered.

“Um, David, I just forgot. I have a box of books I need to get shelved before we open tomorrow.”

David knew Karrie was frightened and couldn’t blame her. Joseph’s aggressive nature was overwhelming.

“Sure. I’ll walk you out,” he said in hopes of seeing her again.

At the door David apologized and walked Karrie to her car. As she sped off, his anger rose and he wished, not for the first time, he’d never joined Sigma Delta. As he reentered the pub and made his way to the table now surrounded by his fraternity brothers, he noticed Joseph was missing.

“Where’s Joseph,” he asked brusquely, fear rising up to choke him.

“Don’t know. Said he needed to make a call to his office after he got a text.” John Edgar said as he drained his whiskey.

David spun and headed for the door.

KARRIE RACED home in her SUV and parked in the garage, sitting in the car as the door slowly lowered. She chanted “come on, come on,” as it descended feeling like a rabbit cornered by a hawk. When it was closed, she rushed into her condo and locked the garage door, set the alarm, and checked all the doors and windows. Joseph had chilled her, and little alarm bells were going off in her mind.

She went into the kitchen and poured out a glass of wine she had on hand for nights like these. It helped to calm her nerves and settle her down. As she sipped standing in front of the sink, her heart rate slowed, and her mind settled. Hopefully she’d sleep. She walked slowly toward her bedroom, lowered the blinds and pulled the blackout curtains. The seafoam walls and beige carpet calmed her, and she dressed for bed, turning out the light, and crawling between the cool sheets. The air conditioner was running and the overhead fan helped to cool off her room. It wasn’t hard to keep the small one floor condo cool but it wreaked havoc on her electric bill. Slowly she drifted off to sleep hoping for a dreamless night.

THE MAN walked around the building and shadowed through the security lights. He reached her bedroom window and saw it was shut tight. It wouldn’t stop him. He used his pocketknife to cut away the screen and the glass cutter to open a hole big enough to reach inside and unlock the window. Nothing stopped him. He was as quiet as a panther, dressed in black, and blending into the darkness of the room. He took the syringe from his pocket and uncapped it. The cocktail would knock her out and make her compliant enough to get her through the doors and into his waiting car.

DETECTIVE SAUL stood at the door waiting for the CSU team to finish their sweep. With a nod from the lead technician, he entered, the blue booties whooshing across the carpet. Drag marks in the carpet, an open door, a cut window, and a hot night, all the marks of the killer they’d been tracking for five years. They had a break this time, the neighbor, hearing the alarm, had seen an old blue car speeding off and got a partial plate. His partner was running it now and all they needed was a name. He hoped in time to save Karrie Carmichael.

DAVID WAS driving home when he saw Joseph’s car parked in the driveway of his modest home. The car Joseph kept here, a beat-up old Chevy, was gone. As David exited his car he saw something shining on the concrete. He leaned over and saw a moon shaped earring bent and misshapen. It looked familiar, but where had he seen it before? It was Karrie’s! She’d been wearing them at her store. Why was she here? And Joseph’s car was gone. For years he had talked his way out of various crimes, his father paying off judges. Was he doing the same thing to Karrie? He knew Joseph was a creature of habit, he spent all his time either at home, at work, at the pub, or at the country club. Would he take her to Cedar Cove? The club was deserted this time of night, and it was deep in the woods in Shelby Township. The surrounding woods would be perfect for his purposes.

David jumped back into his car and revved the engine, squealing out of the driveway. He raced up Van Dyke and exited on Fifty Nine and swung a hard left at the turn about at Hall Road. He sped up to Twenty Mile Road and made a hard right onto Cedar Road. He lurched into the parking lot, not seeing the police cruiser behind him flashing his lights and sounding the siren in a series of whoops, and saw Joseph’s beater parked at the far end by the Pro-Shop. In there? No. The alarm would go off. The equipment shed was tucked away on a backroad at the far end of the third hole as it made the turn to the fourth hole. David raced toward it, panting and sweating as the police officer chased him. Would he be in time?

KARRIE AWAKENED feeling pain. It encompassed her world. But her mind was clear now, as she lay on a cement floor. Her hands were bound, but in front of her with rope. She struggled and was able to reach the small pocketknife she carried. Thank you, Mrs. Gardner, her Girl Scout leader. She sawed away at the rope, cutting her hand in the process. Then she was free. She fled through the unlocked door but didn’t recognize where she was. Then she saw him. David racing across the grass. He stopped and just looked at her bruised and broken body. Joseph rose up from the shadows brandishing a knife. His eyes wild with the desire to kill. David sped forward and hit Joseph in the midsection knocking the air out of him in a whoosh and the knife spun out of his reach. David disentangled himself from Joseph as the man struggled to breathe. The police officer ran forward and grabbed David ready to cuff him, but Karrie called out “No! He’s here to help! The other one tried to kill me!” The officer spun Joseph and cuffed him behind his back as he lay in the neatly trimmed grass. Joseph, having caught his breath, began to wail like a caged animal. David fell to his knees and watched as the officer called for assistance. Soon the area was cordoned off with police tape and Detective Saul questioned Karrie. Saul knew this MO. Karrie was the right type, rope instead of duct tape, and brutality. Had they finally caught the serial killer they’d been hunting for five years? DNA would tell, but for now the woman was a good witness. An ambulance arrived and Karrie was trundled into the back, and it wailed away into the darkness. David talked with the Detective and told him about Joseph and showed him the earring. Saul took it, placed it in an evidence bag then asked David to come to the station to answer some questions. He was a witness, not a suspect. He didn’t fit the profile. Joseph Salinder would, Saul could feel it in his bones.

A WEEK later Karrie arranged shelves and dusted tomes as the warm morning waned into a hot afternoon. The door chimed and David quietly entered. Regret poured out of him like smoke as he walked toward her. She held the duster like a weapon and watched him approach. Those eyes, full of sadness, drew her in. But the memories of that night were still fresh, and it would take time to put them behind her.

“I’m so sorry, Karrie.”

“I know,” was all she could say.

“Someday?”

“Maybe.”

The door chimed and Gina and Tabitha burst through the door. Sunshine and giggles. Just what Karrie needed. David turned away, a sad smile on his face.

“David, give me some time, ok?”

“Yeah, I can do that,” he said as the door chimed again, and he walked out into the blazing summer sunshine.

THE OTHER SIDE

It was July in Michigan and on this particular day it was hot. So hot the pavement scorched bare feet, and bicycle tires deflated as if surrendering from the field of play battle before the day was started. It was the early sixties and Laura and Carla’s family moved to Mason Street. A girl named Georgie was the leader of all the kids on the block, riding her bike and taking charge of playtime. The other kids, being younger and impressed by someone marginally older, did whatever Georgie said. Laura, hanging out at their next-door neighbor’s backyard, they had a pool which was a bonus, watched from inside the pool as Georgie rode in on her red Schwinn bike with a banana seat and tall handlebars. The bike was shiny and new, and Laura was a little jealous. She had a blue monstrosity her father and mother had purchased from a yard sale last summer in their old neighborhood. It was blue, with a peeling white stripe along the fenders and body, a seat that pinched, and squeaky tires. It was embarrassing, but it was what her family could afford so Laura was grateful. At least she had a bike. Carla, her younger sister right behind her in the line of five children, ran around squalling about getting a bike, and their parents promised this summer in the new house she would get one.

“Ok, squirts we’re playing hide and seek so line up so I can decide whose it” called out Georgie.

Laura climbed the stairs in the pool, strode across the backyard yard, and struck a defiant pose in front of the red bike. She was the oldest of five in her family and used to being in charge. She led and her brother and sisters followed. Especially the younger ones.

“Hold on a minute. Who put you in charge?” Laura shouted. She didn’t really know why she shouted; her mother had sent her to charm school where she’d learned to drink tea with her pinkie finger sticking out and how to set a table with all the silverware in the correct position around the dinner plate.

“I have always been in charge. Who are you?” Georgie face flamed red and she slammed the kickstand down and hopped off her prized bike.

“I’m Laura. I just moved in next door, and I am in charge of my family. If you have something to say about that then let’s fight about it.” Laura was ready for a fight. It was the late sixties and kids played in the neighborhood innocently unaware of the dangers that lurked in shadows and darkness. They lived in a world of playtime until the streetlights came on and then started again after a breakfast of cold cereal and powdered milk.

Georgie strode forward and stood toe to toe with Laura. She looked different. She had slanted eyes, long black hair, and a long body. Laura knew she could take her. She might be skinny, but she was tough. Her time spent climbing monkey bars at the park, and any tree with branches that yawned down low enough for her to reach had made her agile and at home in her own body.

The two stood facing each other, silently sizing each other up as if a prize fight was brewing. The other kids formed a circle, anxiety riding high in the warming air as bird calls rang out and cicadas sang their raspy song. Georgie moved first. She shoved Laura, who shoved her back. Georgie’s narrowed her eyes and pushed again. Laura stood her ground and then she heard her mother calling from over the fence.

“LAURA ANN RILEY, YOU COME IN HERE RIGHT NOW!” Her mother wore a housecoat and slippers and must have been awakened when the neighbor’s mother had called her. Laura’s mother worked mid-nights as a neonatal nurse at Annapolis Hospital and usually slept during the mornings. It was a rule that all five kids remained quiet and outside playing nicely.

“Coming mom!” Laura said grudgingly as she stalked off giving Georgie one last fulminating look. “This isn’t over.”

ONE WEEK later Laura was riding in her mom’s beat-up car with the hole in the floorboard in the back seat and a chugging sound that resonated through the neighborhood. The younger kids sat in the front on the bench seat her mother fearful they would tumble onto the floor and sail through the hole. The older kids knew better. It was Saturday morning, mom didn’t have to work, and she was in a relatively good mood after a visit to the grocery store. Of course, carting around all her siblings was taxing, but she loved all of them equally and was the one parent who made sure her kids got butter and sugar sandwiches on hot summer days.

“What are the plans for the day kids?” Mom asked. “What about you Laura?” Her mom was great at treating all her children as individuals, trying to instill in them a sense of independence and it worked. Each of them had their own personalities, and at times, exercised their independence much to her mom’s chagrin and impatience.

“I think I’m going to take a ride down to Georgie’s house and see if she wants to play.” Laura knew it was a long shot. Typically, her friend’s father wanted them all to himself on the weekends, or her mom would task them with digging out weeds with a wicked looking device that could spear a foot as easily as it could a dandelion.

“Well, make sure you have lunch first, ok? I don’t want the neighbors thinking I can’t feed my own children.” Georgie’s mom was always making too much food and inviting Laura to eat with them. This, for some odd reason, embarrassed her mom. The food, made by Georgie’s Japanese mother, was delicious and different, and Laura looked forward to sushi; canned tuna, white rice, wrapped in seaweed paper. When Mrs. Tanaka told her what it was Laura had balked but now it was a favorite lunchtime treat.

“Ok mom.” Laura knew better than to argue.

The car rattled and bumped into the grated driveway in front the their dilapidated garage that was hanging on to life by the sheer will of her dad’s limited handy-man abilities. Dad came out onto the side porch, arms akimbo on his hips, a smile on his thin face. He was a tall man, with black hair, thin nose, and deep green eyes. He hopped down and headed to the trunk to help with the groceries giving mom a kiss as he passed her.

AFTER LUNCH Laura jumped on her bike, riding to the end of the block they lived on, and pulled up the driveway, her tires making a sticking sound as the rubber hit the hot pavement. Laura hit the kickstand and knocked on the side door. Georgie’s mom answered and called out the her daughter in heavily accented English. Georgie raced forward, slammed through the door, and headed for the backyard to rescue her bike.

“You stay on block. No crossing street.” Georgie’s mom instructed in her broken English.

“Yeah, yeah.” Georgie showed her mom little respect. After her parents had separated Georgie blamed her mom. She talked back, yelled, and disobeyed whenever she was released from what Georgie called prison.

“Where do we go first?” Georgie asked expecting a grand adventure.

“Let’s go to Henry’s and see if we can go swimming.” Laura’s next door neighbor was four years younger than the ten-year-old friends, but Henry and her brother David were best friends now and they were all invited to swim.

“Nah I don’t feel like swimming. I say we go to the park.” The forbidden forested area two streets over. Laura and Georgie’s mom agreed it was dangerous and didn’t allow the girls to go in. But true to Georgie’s and Laura’s independent personalities, they regularly went into the park.

BOTH GIRLS rode down the bicycle paths in the deeply shaded park, the cooler air drying some of the sweat running down their faces. Georgie dared Laura to ride down dead-man’s curve and Laura was tempted but knew it could lead to scraped hands and knees and even broken bones. She also didn’t want to ruin her bike, which would get her into even more trouble which was building higher and higher at the peak of which was surely a grounding and a spanking.

“Let’s go to the damn,” suggested Laura.

“I don’t know,” Georgie hedged. “My dad is coming to get me in a couple hours and if I get too wet and dirty he’s gonna kill me.”

The damn was their summer project. The Rouge River narrowed as it entered a certain area of the park and both girls had made it their mission to build a damn and stop the flow of water. They didn’t look at it as an impossible task, more a challenge with the exuberance of two ten-year olds who believed in possibilities. The faith of youth.

They quickly maneuvered their bikes through the trees along well-worn paths and heard laughter and yelling up ahead. Both girls back pedaled to engage the brakes and straddled their bikes.

“Who’s down there?” Laura asked quietly.

“I don’t know. Sounds like boys.” Georgie said.

“Let’s go take a look,” Laura whispered.

Georgie laid her bike down in the weeds along the path and Laura followed suit, in hope of disguising their rides from anyone who might abscond with them. Laura being braver of the two, having to constantly contend with her siblings, strode forward and spied the boys tearing apart all their hard work on the damn. Laura’s face reddened and her temper rose. She bravely strode forward and stood, fists clenched at her sides. She knew these boys, they went to the same catholic school she did. They were a year older and gangly with youth.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” Laura yelled the question and the boys stopped and looked at the two girls.

“What’s it to you?” The older one, with sandy blonde hair and blue eyes, stared down at them. The other two boys, each sporting bruised knees and hockey sticks stood guard over their companion who balanced precariously on the old growth tree that had fallen across the leech infested water and was the base of their damn.

“This is our place. You need to leave…now.” Laura had stepped forward and put her fists on her hips looking like Errol Flynn in one of his pirate movies her dad watched on their black and white television.

The boys laughed then the older one, Scott Schultz, jumped down off the fallen tree and began whispering to his friends. Laura prepared herself for a fight but instead the boys turned as one and smiled.

“You looking for something to do today?” Scott asked sneering at them.

“We already have something to do,” Laura argued.

“Something serious. Not some stupid damn that’ll never work. This is something special.”

Laura and Georgie stepped away, keeping a watchful eye on the boys. Laura was curious but Georgie was doubtful and cautious.

“I’m not going,” Georgie insisted. “I have to go home, and I don’t trust these boys.”

Georgie went to the public school across Saline Avenue across the railroad tracks, away from their suburban world filled with bungalows, and ice cream trucks that ran everyday just after lunch. She didn’t know these boys, but Laura did, and, while they were troublemakers, she knew Scott’s sister and was friends with her at the catholic school her parents insisted they attend even though it put a huge financial strain on their family necessitating powdered milk mixed with real milk and candy being a rare event.

“I’m going.” Laura decided.

Georgie huffed out a breath, hissed a warning, then strode away to retrieve her Schwinn bike.

“I’ll go,” Laura called out bravely as Georgie rode away as fast as she could toward home and her father.

The boys hooted and hollered and raced to get their bikes as Laura retrieved hers and they all sped off along the path that ran the length of the wider, wilder part of the river. Laura rode with care, balancing on her bike in hopes she didn’t topple into the dirty river.

“Where are we going,” she called.

“Across the road to the other side of the park,” said Scott. “Scared?”

The Other Side. The words caused cold dread to pool into her heart and her hands to sweat on the handlebars. The kids on her street never went there because they were told only bad people were there. Now here she was, venturing into an unknown part of her secret play area, and no one knew where she was going. Maybe this was a mistake after all.

THE HIDDEN path leading into the other side was steep and bumpy and Laura’s old bike moved down it heroically. The old girl was proving she was up to the task even if she was a garage sale find and probably as old as she was. As the path leveled out Laura let out a sigh of relief, which was quickly followed by a gasp of shock as it opened into a field away from the river. The area was carpeted with green grass that was low to the ground, old growth trees creating shade and relief from the hot sun, and one lone old broken tree in the center. The boys dropped their bikes to the ground, the sound of spokes and pedals echoing through the open field. They sniggered and whispered as they strode toward the broken tree, from which a high-pitched scream emitted. Now Laura was scared. A ghost? A goblin? She’d read about them in the books she borrowed on library days with her mom.

“Come on!” Scott yelled.

Laura gently laid her bike on the grassy soil and stood still. The screaming had stopped and the field was eerily silent.

“What’s in there?” She asked.

“Come and see or are you chicken?”

That got her back up and she threw back her shoulders, puffed out her chest, and strode forward. She was still scared but she wouldn’t show these boys. As she approached, she saw a small opening at the base of the tree large enough for something to crawl through. She looked at Scott and saw the same features of her friend Caroline. She was kind, and part of a group of girls that called themselves by a secret name and did secret things. The nuns didn’t like their exclusive club and talked to them individually on occasion, but the girls remained resolute. How could Caroline’s older brother be this mean?

“Watch,” Scott intoned. One of the other boys handed him a hockey stick and Scott reared back and whacked the tree. A scream tore through the air. Laura took a step back and felt her feet starting to rebel. A voice in her head yelled “run!”, but she stood stock still. Scott hit the tree a second time and a small furry creature started to emerge quickly. Scott, startled, swung down and there was a loud crack that rang through the grassy field, bouncing off trees and echoing through her head as if alive and hissing.

A small baby raccoon fell to the ground, blood rushing in a torrent of red from its head. The poor thing was dead. They’d killed it. Laura felt tears welling up and she choked them back down. The boys seemed frozen in place, then in silent agreement picked up their bikes and ran off quickly, their legs pumping as fast as possible up the steep path. Laura had never seen death. She’d certainly never caused anything to die, unless you counted the ants she stepped on inadvertently every day, she walked down the sidewalk. Everyone did that, it was unavoidable. But to intentionally kill another creature was wrong. the Bible said, “Do not kill.” That was one of the big ones. While she hadn’t killed the raccoon she’d watched.

“Are you there, God…it’s me,” Georgie said softly. There was no one around so she dropped to her knees and bowed her head the way the nuns and priest taught them. “I didn’t mean it God. It just happened. What happens now?”

She didn’t expect an answer but knew her teacher, Sister Ann, would tell her to go to confession. This sin was a big one and now she knew why the kids didn’t come to this side of the park. It was evil. Evil deeds were done here, and she’d watched one happen. The priest, Father Mackowitcz talked about heaven. One of two sides after physical death. Heaven and hell. Where was she? On the other side she knew. She was in hell.

She slowly walked toward the fallen baby creature and started to dig a hole with her hands. It took over half an hour but finally it was buried. She said a prayer, made the sign of the cross, and walked her bike up the steep path and back to her safe world, on the small street, in a neighborhood that didn’t include death and murder. She saw things differently now. She wanted her mom. She wanted to tell her what happened, but she knew all she would get was a scolding and a grounding. She could tell Georgie but then she’d have to admit she’d been wrong. So very wrong. She would tell the priest in confession, God would forgive her, and she would vow to never to do harm to any living creature. She knew now. The finality of death. The shocking truth and the abruptness of a life ending. She understood. And she grew up a little that summer day.