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Four Fifteen
By broman
-----Four Fifteen-----
Note: I have not completely finished checking all of my stories for grammar, but for the most part they're readable.
Harrow peered out of the bus window. Nothing but trees. Nothing but fallen leaves. The lifeless trees formed a looming brigade that patiently stood still amongst each side of the gravel road. Accompanying this silent army were roads that trailed up and down the rolling, steep hills of Edgefort, Vermont. Halloween was left weeks behind; the farmers had already sold their crops. School was already in session. Edgefort was now left to endure yet another harsh and pungent winter. As always.
Harrow had spent all thirteen years of his life in Edgefort. He had grown to used to the myriads and cluttering of thick woods that would forever entrap his town. However, this had not been any problem or annoyance to him; in fact, he looked upon the woods as peaceful, and natural. As one of the poets he had studied in school once said, “The woods are just forgotten trees that wanted their own place”. He supposed Edgefort could be considered “forgotten”. The small town, with a populace of roughly eight hundred, was nearly isolated from outer contact. The nearest town was miles away, and that town was just as similar and technologically deficient as Edgefort. Therefore, the town was continued through the efforts of its inhabitants, most of which had local, self-employed jobs with the single purpose of aiding another. That’s what Edgefort was. A community helping itself.
It was historically recorded long ago that there once was a neighboring town adjacent to Edgefort. The town was mysteriously abandoned and quarantined by the government during the 1950s, and since then, the woods had inundated it and swallowed the town whole. All that was left were abandoned, rusted, and weathered shacks and buildings reminiscent of the era it was in. The perimeter of the town was lined with red, vibrant placards that warned intruders of “Extremely-Hazardous Biological Waste”. Most Edgeworth residents presumed that a chemical had gotten into the sewage or the water system, and that it had leaked out and was too dangerous to inhabit. More importantly, though, the residents strayed away from the borders of the town and never ventured into the area, fearing that it might spread into their town as well. They did find it a bit peculiar, however, that the former town next to them did not have a name, and that shortly after the area was condemned, those who occupied the place did not stay in contact. Older Edgeworth residents did not tend to ever speak about what happened, leaving their children and generations after that completely clueless as to what did happen.
Harrow gently lurched forward and extended his arm against the seat in front of him. He leaned his head upwards and gazed down the row of the bus. None of the seats were occupied. He hadn’t noticed what had occurred, for the entire time he was staring downward at the floor listening to his blaring headphones. Harrow was quite shy amidst others; he rarely ever talked, and if he did, it was typically because his teacher, Mr. Fazwan, called him upon. Then again, Harrow never really was interested in school. He pictured it as just another obstacle through his day.
That’s weird, Harrow thought. There’s still two more stops until my house. The bus had only stopped once. He rose from his seat and brushed the dust off of his faded, navy blue jeans, which were a bit tight on him. He tugged on his slightly wrinkled, seashell-white shirt that was obscured by the faded denim jacket that went along with his pants. He slowly scanned the room with those piercing, hazel eyes that his mother always reminded him of. Still, nothing. Now things were starting to get a little eerie. Harrow quirked his left eyebrow and silently turned off his Sony Walkman. Beeeep, his headphones broadcasted. The device had shut off. Now substituting The Appleseed Cast music he had been listening to was a smooth, gentle rustling of the dead trees outside. No birds, however. They had already flown south. Hardly any wildlife, either. The squirrels and chipmunks had stocked up their food for the entire winter season, and the woods sat without their leaves, which were now rotting at the feet of the trees. The sun shone brightly, but it would only do so for another few hours. Harrow glanced down at his watch.
It was four fifteen in the afternoon.
Harrow stuffed his Walkman into his backpack and hurled it over his shoulder, strapping onto his shoulders. With his backpack equipped, he slowly advanced upon the entrance of the bus. With each step he softly pressed his hands, which peaked out of his large cuffs, against the corners of each olive-green bus seat. His eyes were fixed directly upon the bus driver’s seat. But since it was so large, it normally masked the entire bus driver. You could never tell if she was there or not. Tiny droplets of sweat ran down Hallow’s thin biceps and streaked his greasy, walnut-brown hair that was a bit long and was combed downwards. “Bed-Head”, they called it. But this didn’t matter at this point; it was awkwardly silent. The bus engine had turned off, and there was absolutely nobody occupying the bus seats on either side of him. He did notice, however, some of the backpacks were left jumbled in different positions on some of the seats. There was now definitely a sense that something had happened. A tingling feeling quickly crawled down Harrow’s back as he focused primarily on the bus driver’s seat. A moment later he was faced directly behind the back of the intimidating, tall seat. Still, silence. He took a deep breath and sharply turned his head around the seat.
Nothing.
That feeling crept down his back again. As he tried to soak in the fact that his entire bus was immediately abandoned and left barren, he looked over his shoulder. The bus doors were swaying gently alongside the breeze that blew outside. He gave one last look down the empty row and stepped outside. His boot dug into the dull gray gravel and small crunch ensued. Harrow blocked the sun from his eyes with his hand and squinted his eyes toward the downward slope of the road in front of him. All he could see before him was that same brigade of trees occupying each side of the gravel road, which rose up and down hills that varied in size and steepness. He had no idea where he was. This road was unfamiliar to him.
Harrow swiftly rotated and peered behind him. Nothing but what he already seen. Nothing but the low, ominous howl of the breeze. His bangs brushed leftward. He sighed. The bus was facing the opposite way, and he figured he’d advance toward where the bus came from. Maybe that would lead back to the school, or back home. He just hoped he would be there before sundown. He sighed, perplexed at what options he had. He would either wait in the bus or look for help. He cautiously started pacing down the gravel road, unsure of his destination.
* * *
As Harrow walked, he wondered what had exactly happened. Apparently, the bus had been empty in a matter of five or six minutes when Harrow was completely oblivious to what was happening. He couldn’t hear anything; hence his loud, blaring headphones, and he couldn’t have seen anything, because he was blankly staring at his feet. He lifted his head five minutes later because the bus hadn’t moved at all after it stopped. Typically, it took one or two minutes to drop off and pick up students. But five minutes was just out of the ordinary. That’s when he noticed the bus was left desolate and quiet. But why hadn’t one of the other students gotten Harrow’s attention? Why hadn’t he heard the bus driver?
Harrow gawked toward the sky. A fade of dark blue and then black was beginning to shroud the sun, as if it was evading a blanket of stars and interminable blackness. Dammit, he thought. Sundown already. He was relieved, however, to see that what seemed like an endless series of hills and gravel roads had cut short to the edge of some area of woods. His confidence was lifted. Perhaps he was home, after all. With a smirk on his face and a heart pumping with excitement, he jogged down the hill, gripping the straps of his backpack as the gravel munched rapidly below his feet. Suddenly, the crunching had come to an abrupt halt. From what was left of natural light, Harrow clearly distinguished the biological hazard signs. They glowed a vibrant, neon orange and were posted about ten trees apart with aged, rusted nails. He breathed heavily and approached the trees at a casual pace. The trees left an eerie figure against the fading sky; far above his head, he could make out the curled branches at the tips of the trees.
Harrow’s foot unexpectedly hit something hard, likely wooden, as he advanced. He looked downwards. It was roughly a five by five foot, bulky wooden sign that was shaped smoothly around the edges. Blotches of peeling white paint could be seen through the array of dead leaves smothered on top of it. Harrow knelt down and swiped off the dead leaves. His stomach lightened.
“YOU ARE NOW LEAVING EDGEWORTH”
* * *
Harrow was at a standstill for this day. There just simply weren’t any valid options left for him. The sun had now completely set, and its substitute was the ever-increasing breezes, flowing through the thick woods and jostling through the trees.
Still in denial of how unfortunate he currently was, Harrow advanced alongside the line of trees with the biohazard signs. He used their flamboyant orange color, which could be seen quite efficiently in the dark, to guide him. Any sense of direction or destination was unknown. Harrow was at a lack of ideas.
Half an hour later, Harrow’s knuckles began to feel numb. It was getting cold, and he needed shelter. Some place warm. Some place other than this. There was no way in hell he was venturing into those woods at night; no, not with all that commotion he had been hearing since he was walking alongside the boundaries. Muffled screams and moans vaguely filled right ear. He dismissed them as some sort of animal being killed. Just some coyote, or something, he thought. It’s just the chain of life. All animals need to eat. There’s just some less fortunate animals. At least they can’t eat you. They’re scared of you. All these thoughts of eating occupying his head augmented his hunger. But his first priority was finding some place or something to stay in for the night.
Harrow suddenly delayed his walking. His eyes widened as he noticed that roughly fifteen in front of him was some sort of tent. Or at least some structure, and it definitely wasn’t natural. Once again, that excitement and hope of finding some form of civilization pumped throughout his system. He ran, pacing with hope. Now, he thought, civilization didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered now was shelter, whether it’s with another person or not. Harrow cut short a couple steps before the structure. He was right; it was a tent. But it wasn’t any regular tent. It was a long, ten-foot elevated tent. Rigid, triangular supports ran about fifteen feet long, covered tightly with a thick green tarp that popped inwards and outwards with the breeze. Harrow couldn’t make out any markings or wording on the tent; but then again, that wasn’t important either. He would find out tomorrow. Better check out the inside.
Harrow searched around and found a lifting flap of the tarp. It was held down at the bottom by a sleek, long metal pipe that was curled up by the tarp. He took both of his numb hands and painfully lifted up the pipe, left himself inside the darkness of the tent, and dropped the pipe, therefore concealing him in the tent. He cringed at the pain in his hands. It felt as if his palms were burning; blistered by something as simple as lifting a pipe. It was the cold. The cold changed everything, he thought.
The interior of the tent was pitch black. Harrow could see nothing. He waited a minute for his eyes to slightly adjust to the darkness, but it didn’t help too much. He held out his hands and fumbled in the darkness, groping and feeling for objects. His hands were struck by a sense of coldness as he touched something flat and metal, which was placed vertically. He crept a little further and reached lower. A few seconds later, he felt something soft and bouncy. A cot, he figured. A cot.
Harrow relieved his shoulders of that cumbersome and hefty backpack and dropped it blindly on the floor. It landed with a stifled thump, and Harrow knelt on the cot. He relaxed himself and rested his back on the unusual comfort of a cot. Harrow abhorred sleeping on cots, especially when his family took him camping. But now, this cot felt like a king-sized bed. Conspicuously waiting for his arrival.
The room was strangely a bit searing and stuffy. But Harrow enjoyed it. Anything was five steps above the breeze outside. With an awkward smug on his face, he took off his jacket and bundled it up, for now its purpose was a pillow for his head.
* * *
In the middle of the night, Harrow was awakened by a loud engine noise. Outside the tent, he heard yelling and commands exchanging back and forth between, what seemed like, young men aged probably in their 20s or mid-20s. The sound of gas gushing inside an engine loudly snorted in the background. Suddenly, he heard a hand clutch the bottom of the entrance tarp. It lifted open, consequently revealing a pair of bright, glowing yellow headlights that soaked the interior of the tent with light. Harrow leaned his upper body upwards and squinted his eyes. Two men sat staring in front of him.
“Oh my God, I thought we were finished.” One of the men said noisily.
“How’d he get out?”
“Must’ve forgot him.”
One of them men sighed. Before Harrow could utter a word, an ear-piercingly loud noise filled the room and Harrow felt an extremely hurtful and sharp pain in his left shoulder. Before he could even ponder what happened, he felt another pain in his chest, and soon the yellow headlights faded.
* * *
“Just run, keep running!” a middle-aged lady yelled backside to the group of young kids behind her. Her auburn, graying hair rose up as it collided with the breeze that strode against her. As she ran, all sounds of terrified children and the gravel crunching underneath gave way. All she could hear now were her lungs, desperately inhaling air.
Behind her, two teenagers paced quickly behind her; their faces stricken with fear and confusion. The bus driver had just snapped and stopped the bus, quietly ordering the kids to silently exit the bus. From there, she informed them to keep running in the direction the bus was facing. Nobody knew why she was yelling so loudly, telling the kids to refrain from ever looking back and just keep running. They figured her reasoning was plausible; she was never like this before. They never saw such an expression of terror on her face as they did now.
“What about that other kid?” one of the teenagers said, panting.
“Who cares, it was his fault,” The other replied with deep breaths. “I mean, nobody talks to him anyway.”
One of the teenagers glanced over his shoulder. Past his petrified peers, he could make out a figure advancing upon them. No, wait. Make that two figures. As they approached nearer to the cluster of the children, he could clearly see them. Both of the figures stood five feet tall, and they ran perhaps just as fast as the kids at the rear end of the group. His face froze in horror as his eyes fixed upon one of the figure’s faces. Both eye sockets of each figure were left empty, without any eyes at all. Instead, a vast darkness occupied their eye sockets. It was as if he were staring into what was once where the eyes belonged on a skull. However, the rest of its face was torn and decayed; its lips were completely eroded and a grim set of black and rotting teeth were visible. It let out an abnormal, deafening scream, revealing it’s tongue-less mouth. The rest of the figure’s body was just as decayed and wounded as its face; however, it ran naked, but it left spots of its body completely devoid of any skin or flesh at all; just gory, blood-stained bone. Some of the tips of its rib cage gruesomely poked out of its rotted chest.
Before the teenager reverted back to looking forward, a gunshot soared above them and when it had stopped, one of the figures pulled back and fell on the ground. Guided by pure instinct, the teenager purposely dropped to the ground and lay prone on the ground, as did the rest of the group. In front of him, he observed two jungle-green military jeeps, occupied with about four soldiers. Mounted on the back of each jeep was a stationary gun, manned by one of the soldiers. It flashed and pierced the teenager’s eardrums as it pumped rounds of bullets behind them. Shortly, the soldier halted from firing, patiently fixed his eyes to where he was shooting before, and hopped off the jeep. Light-gray smoke rose from the barrel. The soldier stood in front of the group of children lying on the ground, shocked and confused. The rest of the soldiers stood straight with their rifles pointing at them.
The soldier who was firing the gun before held his arms behind his back and scanned the group with a pair of bulging, brown eyes.
“Lieutenant, the orders were t-“ one of the fellow soldiers spouted, his rifle still preset on the group.
“I know, I know. Carry on.”
The bus driver let out a intense scream as the soldiers opened fire on the group. Soon, after all movement on the ground had stopped, the soldiers silently filed into their vehicles and drove away, leaving a pile of young, deceased children and an older woman with her expression of shock still existent. As the jeep drove off, “Regiment 415” was marked in bold, white letters on the back panel.
9/9/2004 5:52:01 PM
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