Katie Markum hummed her favourite song as she drove the long and grey stretch of road. Everything was perfect, everything was worked out. In a matter of hours, her and Brendan Harris would be off to Vegas, to start there own lives.
She had been dating Brendan secretly since she was 16, and it felt like nothing could ever come between them, except of course, her father. She loved her father, but for some reason he had always hated Brendan, he'd always warned her against the Harris's, said they were no good.
But he didn't know Brendan, and she knew he would never know him-she knew she would never be able to convince him that Brendan was a good guy, and if he found out they were dating, rather than kill her-he'd kill Brendan.
As excited as she was, she still couldn't shake the guilt of leaving like she was going to, just dropping everything and leaving. She loved her dad heaps, but she also wanted to live her own life, make her own choices, and move away from the neighbourhood.
She wanted to do things, get a good job and have a great life, or at least get a chance at it, and here on the "wrong side of the tracks" she wasn't going to get anywhere. Besides, her and Brendan were gonna start a new life togther, they were going to get married.
She turned a street corner, and her headlights lit up two figures on the street ahead. She recognised them as Ray Harris and his friend, she wasn't sure of his name. She wound down the window and shouted out a friendly "hi."
Suddenly Ray drew something from the darkness-a gun. "Shit!" she swerved on the road, trying to avoid the line of aim. She heard a loud crack and sudden awful pain shot through her upper arm. She screamed and slammed the car to a halt.
A thousand things were going through her head at once, all wanting answers but she had no time to think. She didn't understand what was going on, why they had shot her-all she knew was she had to get away from them fast. She struggled with the seatbelt, ignoring the pain in her arm, with a click it released and she bolted.
She heard them running behind her, shouting for her to stop, but she ignored them. Running blindly through thick bush, she finely found a place to hide.
She waited, crouched behind the thick bushes, trying to calm herself. Her legs and arms were scratched and bleeding from when the braches had flung back and caught her, and her arm hurt like crazy. She put a hand on the wound, and when she took it away, it was soaked with blood.
She was trembling with fear, awfully aware of how quiet it had suddenly got, and then she heard the soft sound of footsteps.
"where the hell is she?" she recognised Ray's friends voice, and watched from her hiding place as he and Ray came into view. "How am I supposed to know?" she almost gasped in amazement as Ray spoke. As far as she knew, as far as anyone new, Ray was a mute-he couldn't speak. "shit we gotta find her," his voice sounded strained, as if it were hard for him to say the words. "shhh!" his friend put a hand up, and said something to him in sign language, Ray nodded his head.
They both began to creep silently towards her hiding place, and Katie realised with horror that they knew she was there-they knew where she was! With a shriek she ran, she heard yelling, but ignored them, stumbling she tried desperately to outrun the two, but it was no use.
A searing pain across her legs brought her falling heavily to the ground. She turned around and saw Rays friend above her, holding a hocky stick. "please!" she screamed, "please, don't hurt me, please!" she tried to struggle away, but Ray had hold of her from behind.
"let me go!" she struggled like mad, as Ray's friend hit her over and over. "don't tell anyone!" he yelled, "don't tell anyone, did ya hear me? Did you?" he hit her again, "Katie don't tell! We didn't mean it! Do you hear me? Are you listening!" he hit her harder and harder, Katie found the pain unbearable.
She struggled like mad and managed to pull away from there gasp, she heard yelling, felt hands pulling her back, and then an unbearable jolt of searing pain throbbed through her head. She fell to the ground, unable to scream, the world swirling before her, colours slowly fading to black. . .
She managed to push herself onto her hands and knees, her head throbbing madly from where she'd been hit. Someone was dragging her through the dirt, she felt something cold against her head….
Ray was the one who pulled the trigger. Katie fell, limp, no longer breathing, blood leaking from her head-one eye wide open, staring ahead, the other one was almost closed.
"what have we done! What have we done!" he quickly singled for his friend to be quiet, but it was no use. "man we've fuckin killed someone!" Tom was almost crying, "shit man, we've killed Katie, we've fuckin killed your brother girlfriend!" Ray signed to him again. "will you shut up? I know what I've done!" Tom singed back to him know. "what are we gonna do?" Ray shrugged, "d-don't k-k-know." He managed to whisper, he always found it hard to talk, the only one who knew he could was Tom, everyone else-even his family thought he was mute.
"we had to," he signed, "we had to, she wouldn't listen to us tom, she wouldn't listen that it was an accident." He had taken his dads old gun from it's hiding spot for him and Tom to muck around with. They'd only been trying to scare Katie, not kill her. "Well, now what?" Tom sounded like he was going to throw up. "We hide her body." Ray signed back.
That morning they came back and rang the police. Tom told them about the car, that's when the officer asked for their names. "dude," Tom whispered, "they want to know her name!" "no, your name son, what are your names?" Ray could faintly hear the mans voice on the phone. "we're so fuckin outta here! Good luck man!" Tom hung up the phone, and they bolted.
No one would ever think it was them.