Aaron, Abhi, Rory, and Shana
Gangsters and Trickery
The forest by the lake was overgrown and the air felt overly humid at four o'clock in the evening, so it was a surprise that any soul would want to wander amongst its monumental oak trees. Still, it was summer and the occasional stroll in the park was not inapprehensible to the young and the daring. Sauntering past an ivy- mantled behemoth of a tree through the underbrush, three former seniors at Haddonfield Memorial High School contemplated the past year.
"You're a jackass, Taylor!" bellowed the voice of Abhi, a dusky haired graduate as he hesitated before climbing over the shell of a great trunk. "There's never gonna be any fish in that pond of a lake, and if there are, I still wouldn't eat 'em. The water's toxic!" He tripped putting his other leg over the bulk of the wood and sprawled out into a mix of wood-dust and ivy covering the soil.
"Stop whining you baby!" said Mike, a husky, fair-skinned, fair haired adolescent as he climbed over the same log Abhi had just slipped. After stepping over him, he hurried towards Taylor at the edge of the tree line. "Here's the rods, where are those damn fish?"
"There," said Taylor. "That looks good." He pointed toward a clearing beside the lake which would give them a perfect view of the sunset and an easy place to cast off from without snagging their lines. Taylor had been a track runner since the sixth grade. His narrow frame was nearly nothing but skin, bone, and muscle, with a furry patch of brown hair on top, and he was easily able to go through the forest. Abhi scampered up the side of the ridge to the others who had already joined Taylor.
"I don- I don't know-know h-h- how you do it, but the tide is perfect," said the exasperated Abhi through pants. He dropped to rest on a stump, doubled over. "Maybe we'll catch a tire."
"I'd bet on a little bit more than that," said Taylor. "Look there!" He pointed to a swirl in the water a large fish had just made and smiled. Then there was a movement in the bushes below them.
"Who's that?" asked Mike, nodding towards an elderly woman on the edge of the water on their side of the bank to their left. The ridge was raised ten feet higher than the bank and gave them a clear view of their surroundings. "Is that Mrs. McNulty?"
"Naw, I think it's Mrs. Robinson from down my street," said Abhi.
"Who is that?" said Taylor squinting. "Why do old people come down here anyway? The heat can't be good for them." He began to turn away and look back to the place they had chosen when the unthinkable happened.
WHAM!!! The elderly woman was tackled by a large man in a t-shirt and shorts who looked to be about thirty. The woman rolled over, amazingly able to move and tried to throttle her assailant with immense effort. Taylor was taking his first step towards the woman to help her out when out from behind the curve of the ridge stepped two men dressed like the first, but holding handguns.
"Oh shit!" screamed Taylor. "Run for it!" He yelled to the others, while scrambling to get away from the scene. As they fled into the darkening woods, gunshots filled the air and caused a flock of Canadian geese on the water to spring into flight. Their feet barely touched the ground as their shoes tore out clods of earth and vegetation from the ground, kicking up dust.
"Did they just shoot her?!!" screamed Abhi.
"Let's get the hell outta here!" shouted Mike.
Taylor ran past a large tree and held his back against it as if he were scaling a wall. He looked for something he could use to defend himself. By his left foot sat a stone of perfect proportions for throwing. He picked it up without thinking and clutched it against his chest, his heart beating a hole in his chest. The footsteps approaching Taylor's tree grew closer, foot by foot.
"Come back here you kids!" cried a voice of one of the men. "It's alright, I won't--- Wump!" Taylor had sprung out from behind the tree as the man had rounded it, smashing the blunt rock into the back of his head, rendering him unconscious, but unwounded. He heard more crunching of twigs in the distance and ran to catch up with the others before the man could get to his unconscious companion.
The forest by the lake was known as Crows Woods. It was the only place left unaltered by the township, and most people stayed out of its deepest parts which were filled with poison ivy in the summer and too far to walk to in the cold of winter. The chase pressed onward into the depths of the forest.
"Shhh!" whispered Mike, crouching next to the others behind an overturned tree. "I think I see someone!" A shadow of a figure strolled closer and closer towards them. Suddenly it stopped and stared straight at where they were.
"I don't want any trouble," said the figure. "What you did to my partner was unacceptable and we need to talk to you about what happened." He moved nearer and nearer. Sweat dripped out of every pore on the boys' bodies as they anticipated the worst possible outcome.
"I can't take this anymore!!" Mike yelled. He stood straight up and ran as fast as he could into the woods.
"Hey, come back here!" cried the man, chasing after him. Taylor and Abhi somehow went unnoticed and felt relieved, but something still tingled inside of them. How would they get out of this place? The sky was black now and the forest too, like a thick, dark world made of charcoal.
"We have to start moving," said Taylor. "We have to get to the police station." He peered over his shoulders, then the log, still keeping his head as low as possible.
"I don't want to go anywhere, man," said Abhi. "We should just camp out and wait here until morning." He looked dead serious.
"Are you kidding me? What if they find us while we're sleeping?" asked Taylor.
"Alright, alright," agreed Abhi hesitantly. "Let's get out of here." Together they slowly moved out of their crouch, and their knees popped, causing them to sit back down quickly. Five minutes later, they stood up again and started walking back to the entrance of the woods, periodically stopping and checking for anyone else.
Crack.
"What was that?" said Abhi turning around in circles.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
"Go, go!" cried Taylor running at top speed to where they had first ran from he hoped. Trees flew by faster, then signs on a highway it seemed.
"Wait up!" yelled Abhi. "I'm so tired, I'm so…" Abhi collapsed, unable to say anything else.
"He probably fainted from the heat," thought Taylor. The night wasn't usually this warm even in August.
"Come on man!" Taylor grumbled as he kicked at him. "We have to go. Wake up, WAKE UP!" But Abhi was out like a light and the sinister feet were still approaching them from the depths of the darkness. "Sorry man, but you'd do the same for me." And with that Taylor took off back to the lake.
"It's so dark," thought Taylor. "Didn't I pass that boulder already? Where am I?" He forced himself to push these thoughts out of his head and thought only one thing is important. Run.
He gazed up at the sky and saw the big dipper and the full moon. Suddenly, his footing gave away.
"Shit!" he cried as he fell down the side of an embankment, rolling head over heel. He felt his leg crack and screamed out in agony. "I guess this is it," he thought. Carefully, he dragged himself to a tree to lean against in spite of the pain and waited for his eminent doom.
"What will they tell my mother?" he thought. "We're sorry Mrs. So and So, we found your son in the woods this morning."
The steps grew louder and louder. Taylor knew his sentence was unavoidable. The figure of one of the men appeared from on top of the embankment he fell down and walked slowly towards him.
"Son, do you have any idea who you are dealing with?" said the man.
"Just do it already," said Taylor ready to face the last frontier.
"Do what?" said the man. "My name is Officer Reynolds with the FBI. We've been deep undercover looking for an escaped convict for three days now and our search led us to these woods."
"What are you talking about?" queried Taylor, groaning from his lack of information and the searing pain of his fractured bone.
"Did you see us deal with that woman?" the officer asked.
"Well yeah, she was about 80 years old, is that normal?"
"Very funny," said the officer. "She was actually a he. He escaped from Trenton Penitentary three days ago and has been using the disguise of an elderly woman to hitchhike across the state. We traced him to here, and are very lucky to have caught him."
"But those gunshots? Did you kill him," asked Taylor.
"He was carrying a hand gun that he had stolen from one of his drivers, and tried to use it on my partner. Luckily we tackled him and held the gun away from us. In the process he fired off a couple of rounds." The officer pulled a radio off of his belt and radioed into the police station asking for an ambulance. "We found you're friends by the way."
Taylor was relieved at this. "Are they alright?" he asked.
"They're both fine." he said. "We thought you might have been helping this guy to escape after one of you hit me with that rock in the back of the head. Damn that stings!" He rubbed a large lump on his head.
"Sorry, that was me," Taylor remarked sheepishly.
"It's alright," said the officer. "I would've done the same thing if I were you." He reached down and helped Taylor up and together they walked towards the entrance of the woods.