Middle School: Darkened Days: Book 1 [INCOMPLLETE]&[UNEDITED]

Chapter Six

Kacey turned around, not seeing Braxton with him. He started to yell his name, soon after hearing the howl of wolves. His yelling halted, and he stood still, like a pale statue in the night as he searched the woods with his eyes. He felt a presence as he focused on one point in the darkness, swearing he saw movement.
  

His legs gave out, not themselves, but with an unknown force, pushing down on them. His face was pressed to the ground, and he was staring out into the trees when he felt a blade slowly pressing into his back, and trailing up towards his neck. There were howls and a scream. When he looked up, he saw a coyote, the one he used to feed as a child, standing above him, cleaning his wounds by licking them. He stood up, immense pain coursing through his entire body. When he stood there, with his hands on a tree, he noticed a body hanging from a tree, by its feet. He ventured forward, towards the body, and recognized the life filled face. He looked back, watching the coyote sink back into the darkness of the night woods.
  

"Braxton?” Kacey asked, curious as to how his friend had appeared in the tree.   
    “It’s a trap.” Braxton gasped, looking forward, into Kacey’s eyes, his light blue, ice-coloured eyes.
  

“What’s a trap?” Kacey asked, barely able to understand his friend. “Why are you in a tree?”  Kacey felt force hit the back of his head, and he was on the ground within seconds.
  

“Pack em’ up, get them in the truck.” A deep, course voice had said, barely audible to Braxton’s strained, blood-filled ears. Out of the corner of his eye, Braxton saw a shadow, prowling through the trees. His body froze with fear with the distant memory of the attack in these woods.    The shadow jumped out, showing its self as a coyote, and several others following it. They grabbed at the legs of the gang members and jerked at their arms, pulling them to the forest floor. Screams were heard through the night and the far-off sound of sirens was heard by the boys, and their assailants. The men were narrowly able to escape the coyotes. They ran back through the woods as though they were children running from things in their nightmares. Braxton had enough energy to lean himself up, grabbing the pocket knife he always carried since he was twelve.
  

He leaned his head up, pulling half of his body with it. He grabbed the rope tying him to the large oak tree. He held onto the rope above where he was cutting, and sliced at the rope. He had been cutting for a minute when the thick rope gave way, and the bottom half of his body swung down. He had still been holding the rope, and so he swung down, landing on his feet while soon after he collapsed next to Kacey, blacked out like a child at nine o’clock.

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The police walked through the forest, yelling for a response, but being met with unnatural taciturnity. They had been walking out there for hours when they saw the rope, and how it was cut at the bottom. The officers walked over, in a precipitous walk. They saw a pack of coyotes standing there presumably guarding the teen boys. They stood up upon the arrival of the police,  starting to bark as a pet dog would. Kacey woke up, unaware of his ambiance. He looked around, yawning and rubbing his eyes languidly. He looked to his right, seeing leaves and sticks. He remembered all of last night, and without warning his body stood up, his brain unaware he was doing it, and he picked up Braxton.
  

“We need to get him help.” He said with conviction, Although he was in need of medical help as well, he didn’t care about his well-being at the moment, he only had cared about Braxton. His limp was evident, and the cut on his back was still running with blood, but his level of concern was minimal. He had only ever really cared about himself when Braxton cared, it was like they were two halves of the same person, just completely different in many ways.
  

The police took Braxton out of Kacey’s arms and tried to put him in the back of the cop car like he was the one who attacked him. They had no evidence to prove anything, and just like half of the time, they jumped to conclusions. The one time they jumped to conclusions this year and were right was the killer in the barn.    The cops grabbed Kacey by the arms, pulling him over towards the backseat of their car. The shiny silver paint, with the green ‘sheriff’s logo’ on the side with the town name right on it. Ames Haven, it read in big black block letters. The door swung open, and he was elbowed into the car, his ribs bruised and battered. His eye a blistered purple colour. His wrists, raw, and bloody after being tied together.