The Old Bones

Into the Dark

The two boys laid in their beds, as quiet as a couple of mice, waiting to see if their mother or father were going to come check in on them before heading to bed themselves. They never came, but when Court and Randall seen the light from the living room turn off from underneath the crack of the door, they knew it wouldn't be long now before they could venture out of their window. After a long stressful day in the mine and running around shopping and doing house chores, it never took their parents more than a couple of minutes to drift off into sleep. Randall whispered to his brother, "When you think we can try to get outside?"

"We'll give it a few more minutes. Just to be sure. It'd be pointless to act asleep all this time just to get caught right out of the gate."

"You nervous?" Randall sounded scared, but it's not unnatural for him to be so. He was always a little skittish, the boy was downright terrified of anything having to do with the dark. Randall would always say to his brother, 'I'm not scared of the dark so much as I'm scared of what's hiding in there.' And Court would always reply, 'Not a bad point, a lot things in them woods that can scurry off with you, you being as small as you are.' It was playful on Court's part, his brother never did like that response much, but he could never seem to remember that Court would always say it.

"I will be till we get clear of the house. You sure you got everything you need? Cause we can't come back after the fact to get nothin'." Court started to rise up from under his covers, trying his best to keep the squeaking from the springs down as low as he could.

"I think so." Randall wasn't as cautious when getting up from out of his bed, tripping over his backpack didn't help matters either; he fell, knocking some things from his nightstand onto the wood floor making so much racket, it got the dog barking outside.

"Dammit Randall. You gonna get us caught before we even get out the window!" He stopped moving, trying to hear if his parents had gotten up out of bed to see what the commotion was all about. They had gotten lucky, the light from the living room hadn't come on and there were no sign of angry footsteps coming down the hallway.

"Sorry!" Randall threw his hands up in the air; a sign that he had almost screwed them over and he knew it, he reached down and picked up his backpack, slinging it across his back.

"What the hell are you doin'?" He grabbed the strap of Randall's backpack and tugged it off of his shoulder. "Take that thing off idiot."

"What the hell's a matter with you?" Randall was confused.

"How you gonna climb out the window with that heavy backpack on dumbass? You're gonna bust the window or fall out it." He finished removing the large pack from his brother's back. "When you get outside, I'll hand 'em down to you. You gotta be smart about this man." Randall threw his head back in approval when he figured out that Court was making sense of the situation. He was glad it was his big brother doing it and not someone else; anyone else would have just pissed him off for acting like a know it all, but with Court, he'd follow his lead to the end of time.

"Sorry Court," he took the backpack the rest of the way off and sat it at Court's feet, "I wasn't thinkin' about that."

"It's fine baby brother. You ready to go?"

"Not at all. Are you sure there's nothing else we can do besides goin' out there in the woods?"

"If there was, I'd be doin' that instead. I told you, you don't have to come with me. I can do it by myself." Court slid the backpacks next to the window, preparing to get them out as quick as possible and make a break for the tree line.