It happened in slow motion. I stared up at Toothless,
watching while he unsnapped one worn strap, letting it fall off his thin white shoulders,
just as his brothers start to bend so they could hold me down. I couldn’t
fight these men, I knew that, but I wasn't just going to let them touch me
either. I had fought a few boys at school, many of them had playfully touched me wrong,
so I knew what I could do to hurt these men.
However, they were not boys that I could easily fool. I
couldn’t fight these men the way I fought those boys. Instead I ran, straight
through Tootless legs. “Shit!” he yapped, reaching down to grab one of my legs,
missing it by inches.
He turned to try
again, but I was too fast for his outstretched hand. “Goddamn!”
I had scurried away,
happy to see the woods waiting for my escape. I was
too fast for Toothless but not for his silent brother who leap frog over him.
With an extended hand he grabbed my ankle, just before I got too far away. “Got ya, you little bitch!” he said victoriously.
I turned quickly to
kick him in the face with my shoe. He yelped in pain letting me go to grab his face.
I saw blood running through his finger,
just as I turned my back on him, hoping I had broken his nose. I did a
quick crawl toward the thick dark woods, praying I could hide in its darkness, when I heard the first gunshot.
The sound of it
resonated in my ears, painfully. I stopped cold in my tracks, wondering if
one of them had just shot me. I didn’t
think I felt any pain, but my heart was racing so fast that I wasn’t sure. I
had turned to look back at the men, when the second huge blast rang out in the
silence of the woods.
This time I knew,
whoever was shooting wasn’t shooting at me. I saw Toothless, when I turned my
head. He was running toward me with a handgun in his hand. He was raising it to shoot
me when the shot rang out. I screamed, when I saw it tear off his face.
Frighten, I looked around and saw that Big brother, the one
who carried me through the woods, was already down. He held a large rifle in his
hand that was of no use to him now, because of the large hole in his chest. I
didn’t see the silent brother, but when another shot sliced through the thick
humid air, I knew he was dead too.
Copyright © 2013 Glynis Rankin
