Red Tower (Book 2 of the Red Series)

Chapter 6: The Bushes

   Leo treaded carefully along the trail, mentally mapping where the had been and checked. He watched as Hirami came sneaking through.

   "Find anything?" Leo called out to her.

   "No, you?" Hirami called back.

   "Nope. Nodda."

   Nothing. They had been walking for what felt like two hours and there was absolutely no other exits. No gates, no cracks, nothing.

   Leo scratched his head. "Erm...maybe we should head to the gate again. Maybe we can find a way to open it or climb it..."

   "I guess...I don't know...we've been out here a while..."

   "Yeah true, but there has to be some way to get passed it..."

   The woods were darker there with the huge wall standing defiantly against the sun. The barbed wires gleamed as if challenging them. They scanned everything. The sides, the ground, even started patting the cement for a weak spot, but there was none. Whoever wanted to keep them in there was doing a great job so far. Despite their frantic searching, there were no buttons, switches, nothing.

   "Barbed wire?" Leo said to himself, not knowing Hirami was listening, "Why all of this?"

   "I don't know...is there any way we could climb it?"

    "I wish we could use a vine as rope, but this ain't no jungle. Did we bring any rope?"

   "No...since there aren't any mountains we didn't think we needed to bring any..."

   "Dammit...okay, okay, uh...there has to be something here...maybe if we...no that wouldn't work...Seriously why is this mother fucking wall here?"

    "I think...I think they are trying to keep something protected...I mean don't you think it's a little odd? I mean, this forest isn't actually private property right? Did we break some law and now they're locking us in here? Why wouldn't they just arrest us? What about that 911 call? Why wouldn't they send an ambulance? Did they know about the wall? What are they trying to protect?"

   "I don't know anymore, but I'm pretty sure it isn't, and we didn't break any laws that I know of, and nothing in this forest except for maybe that carnival is worth protecting, but if they wanted to protect something, wouldn't they kick us out and then close the gate?"

   "Oh yeah...that makes a little more sense, then are they trying to keep something in?"

   The bushes shook with a terrible ferocity. Leo panicked and ran right into Hirami, making him blush madly. The bushed continue to shake and tremble as the sound of rustling branches and leaves grew closer and closer, his breath hitched. He was used to camping and rustling leaves, but this trip had made him jumpy. Hirami didn't push him off as her heart beat in his ear.

   Two little rabbit ear poked out of a hole.

   "Awww!" They both said in unison as the little white rabbit hopped out. Their cooing soon turned to screaming when they saw the amount of blood across the rabbit's mouth.

   "Oh god! What the hell happened to you little guy?"

   The rabbit stayed silent, sniffing the air.

   "Woah...is that...is that a bullet hole?" Hirami pointed just below the little rabbit's ears.

   It was. A perfect round bullet hole was marked on the little bunnies forehead, dried blood making the rabbit's fur crusty and sticky.

   "How? How is it alive? It should be dead! What the fuck?" He steppede further away from it.

   The little rabbit gave one beady eyed look at them, then scampered off into the underbrush.

   "Hey wait come back!" Leo checked the bush, but the rabbit was gone.

   "Hey..." A gruff voice came out in the distance. "Hey come here..."

   A simple silhhouette could be seen behind them, around the trees. He was tall, about 6'2 in height and held a bottle in his left hand and some long stick in his right. He was getting closer by the second. He slurred around his calls as they grew louder and angrier. "I'm gonna find you..." The stick flipped around for a minute as he began pointing the stick at them.

   "Who is that?"

   "I don't know, but I don't want to find out, let's get out of here!"

   Something fired in the distance. A single gun shot. A warning. It was time for them to leave. They weren't getting out this way.

   Sorry this week's is so short, I've been thinking about the whole "one chapter a week" schedule and I'm thinking i'm going to try and upload more frequently and write some longer chapters. Thank you for reading and see you next time!