The Book of the Quiet

Chapter 2

One of the teenagers decide to ride his bicycle back to the city to get the police. Many of the party-goers decided to flee. There was alcohol in the party, and no one was old enough to drink. Since neither Maya nor David had drunk, they stayed in the forest so someone would be there to show the police the way. They stood next to the body, looking at it. David couldn't take his eyes off of it. He had never seen anything as gruesome before. It was hard to tell who had been killed. It was hard to tell if David knew that person or not. The face had almost been chewed off, and only the eyes remained recognizable, staring wide open, unblinking into the nothingness. David stared into those eyes, noticing they were brown, but still he couldn't have told who that person was.

"What could've have done this?" Maya asked. She had already left the area to go throw up, and come back. Right now she couldn't even look at the body; she just stared into the forest, waiting for the police. "An animal?"

"I don't think there are bears or wolves or anything in these woods. Otherwise who would let their kids be in the forest unsupervised, having parties? No. There's a chance this was done by a person. Someone like us. Someone almost normal, but not quite."

"Don't even talk like that Okay? I don't want to think a person, possibly living with us, could do something like this."

"You'd rather believe we're living amongst wild beasts that are a huge danger to us?"

"it's better to think that than someone dangerous living in Gladestump!"

David looked at Maya, who was still staring into the dark woods, trying not to look at the destroyed body. David thought about what Maya said, and she was right. It was better to think there was an animal living in the woods than to think a neighbor of theirs could've done this. David didn't want to live the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, wondering if someone was about to murder him too, tan tear his body to tiny little pieces, sprinkling them all over the woods like they were trying to grow a garden of flesh. No one wanted to live like that. Even when people wanted to die, they wouldn't want to face such a gruesome end.

They could hear footsteps coming somewhere further away. David turned and saw policemen running through the woods in the direction someone pointed out for them. Maya said that the police were there now, not knowing David was looking at the same thing she was. The police looked at the body. They questioned Maya and David quickly, but they knew nothing. They just told them how they found the body. After that, David asked: "Do you think this was one by a person or an animal?"

The police looked at another police. "Please take these kids home. T hey need safety and a good long rest after seeing something like this."

"Good long rest?" Maya whispered to avid as they were escorted out of the woods. "I'm probably going to have tons of nightmares after seeing something like this."

David nodded

The policeman took their bikes and gave them a ride home. There wasn't much time to say goodbye to each other outside the police car, and David and Maya just went back inside their houses.

David's mother was waiting for him, looking nervous and restless.

"Why did the police escort you home?" she asked, obviously thinking it was David who had done something wrong.

"Cheryl found a body in the forest, so the party was called off," David told the truth.

His mother looked at him eyes wide. "What?" s he asked. "There... There's a body? In the woods? Like a dead body?"

"Yes."

"Did you see it?"

"I did."

"Are you going to be able to sleep tonight?"