Running Through the Piedmont

Chapter 2

My whole group from Hendersonville instantly ran towards the scream. Emilee was a main part of the team since she was our main strategist. She was able to come up with plans off the bat if Cameron, Alexis, Justice, Ky or I could not come up with anything. We had only made it about a hundred meters when she came out of the woodline dragging both a buck and an unconscious body. We all stopped in our tracks and just looked. She had her bow in her left arm, the buck in over her shoulders, and dragging the body with her right arm. I ran up and took the buck off her shoulders as she continued to drag the body. I got one good look at it and knew who it was instantly.

No one talked till we got back to the group. I put the buck down next to Sadie to butcher and then took Ky, Emilee, and Alexis with me to talk over what to do with our prisoner situation. We set him up, arms tied against a tree and took all "his" gear off him. As we looked we noticed that everything we pulled off him belonged to Maddy: the gun, ammo clips, vest, helmet, knife, and even the the hygiene products. We then proceeded to hang him by his arms off a thick tree branch to show everyone. That was when we got the best view of him in total. Alexis and I took one look at him and then looked at each other shaking heads.

"What is it Wes?" Ky had never seen or heard of my family besides my dad. "Nothing Kyra, just a bad memory," replied Alexis and I at the same time. Only we knew the identity of the person, Emilee and Ky were left out and did not know what we had meant by this. "Em, I noticed that you had no gun on you, just the bow. So that would mean he was the one who shot, right?" I just wanted to know to see if I could kill him, the sooner he was gone the better. "Yes, I had just killed the buck and he had come charging at me with the knife out. I swung the bow and knocked it out of his hand. He then drew the pistol and fired at me three times. He missed since I was already moving and by the time he he was able to see me again I was on top of him and taken the pistol from him and hit him over the head knocking him out. Why does all this matter and why are you and Lexi shaking your heads?"

We knew we could not hold it to ourselves any longer and she just plain out said it the simplest way ever. "That's Wesley's older brother Chris, back when we were at the Boys & Girls club he was nice to everyone and was kind of a fuckboy. He would talk with all the girls and try to get them to date him. He then became a huge asshole when everyone of us turned him down. I have no idea why he's doing this, but I don't like him at all. I'd like to just get rid of him. Whether it's killing him here and now with a bullet or leaving him here to starve. I just want him gone and I'm pretty sure Wesley feels the same way."

"Yeah, I honestly do wish for him to be gone. He's just been an asshole to me my whole life and I could care less about him." Right after I had said that Em and Ky looked at me like I was now an animal. I had never said I wanted a person to die. I would usually hate it when someone would suggest killing one person randomly. When I looked right at them and they saw that I was not smiling and had a straight face they knew I was serious and the mood just darkened. We stood there for about five minutes before my brother woke up, and when he did he had blood in his eyes. He looked up from our boots and just looked at me standing in the center holding up my M4-16 straight at his head.

"So you're just gonna kill me huh? You're as stupid as I remember, I can help y'all but I guess y'all don't want it. You're just gonna stand behind this little idiot and get yourselves killed. I've been watching since the mission to Blue Ridge took place. I was the original leader of the group, yet was switched out at the last second to that little dumbass Asian because he was friends with you. Then when you got the group finally prepared to your liking you decided to split up, like how does that make any sense? You lost four men when you got there and when you were actually there you failed your mission. Only five of the kids there survived and those who did were the ones you seemed to like and talk with the most. Then when the whole thing with the evac happened you did something right for once. Then when you first met up with Alex you ran off without explaining to anyone at the sound of the scream. From then on I just sat back and watched the group, whether it was being in the crowd well blended like at the feast, or following in the woodline."

"Was it you who killed Maddy and Cameron?" I was having a hard time looking him in the eyes. He was my bully since we were young. He would constantly pick on me, causing me harm in anyway he could. He was my role model when I was a kid before he started hanging out with his friends a lot more and becoming more of a complete idiot.

He laughed. "So the little pussy is concerned about this little group he had made. I did do it, and I enjoyed it! Just seeing you suffer was humorous. Especially killing the Asian kid. Ohhh that felt good. Killing the little pig that took what was supposed to be my position. Oh and that little girl was not who I had meant to kill. I meant to kill the one right there beside you. I knew that would have caused you pain all throughout your body and mind that you would never get rid of. I wanted to see you hurt. I wanted to see you go on your knees and cry like a little girl."

I snapped, he finally broke me and unleashed everything that had boiled up inside of me because of him through the years. I rushed at him using both my Kabar and the knife he had took off of Maddy. I was stabbing and slicing into arms, letting the blood from the wounds drip all along his body. I moved next to his legs, carving the names of his victims into each calf. This was to remind him of his crimes and the people's lives he had cut short for no reason but jealousy. I went behind him and carved words such as traitor, rat, and other such bad phrases into it, letting the world know what kind of person he was. All the while he was screaming in pain as the blood rushed all down his body, basically coving him. I really did not care for his pain, he had given me a lot more through the several years of our childhoods.

I eventually cut him down, letting his body fall to the ground. He landed with his neck on a sharp edge of a rock, killing him instantly. I was not done however, I continued to roll him over and slash away at his stomach. The wounds were many and great between them all. I stabbed and slashed at his lifeless body for what seemed like an eternity even though it was only a couple minutes. By the time Alexis, Ky, and Em had pulled me off of him, his guts were scattered across the area and he looked disfigured so bad you would think he was a zombie that got killed. I was soaked head to toe in blood but I was not truly done. I grabbed my M4 and unloaded a couple magazines into his body before Ky was able to get the gun away from me. A big ghost of the past was now gone for me, as he was no longer just considered not family, but dead and gone for ever.