This is the first Chapter of my upcoming Novel, Murder Case....enjoy :D
- Chapter 1 -
Witness
It was a stormy night on the 15th of January, 2005; everyone was soundly sleeping, cats were cruising happily down the street, wondering around curiously near the neighbor’s houses and three girls (me included) were strutting along the outskirts of Hector. Thinking back I realized that after this incident, all our lives were changed forever and there was no going back from it. Coming back from a friend’s party and heading towards home, Kate Hampton, Juliet Singer and I were talking amongst ourselves, the occasional bickering occurred but it wasn’t enough to get angry over it.
Kate Hampton is my best friend. We have known each other for almost our whole life and still I laugh at the way she used to sing, it’s like long fingernails scratching against the blackboard it’s enough to make you squirm. Kate has blonde, long hair which ends at the small of her back, when you look at her baby blue eyes they pierce right through your body. For looks, Kate was pretty, but sometimes the acne on her face demolishes the prettiness. Kate lives with her parents Johanna and Giles Hampton, and she is an only child. Once when she was little, she was creeping all over the house because she thought there was a mouse in the house. A couple of weeks later, she found it to be a kitten, and that kitten named Honey, now resides in that house as their pet. Kate and I have this sisterly bond, we both know straight away whether either one of us are in trouble or sad. Overall Kate Hampton was the nicest person you could ever meet. She was one of those friends who would come over straight away when you became sick; she was one of those friends who would see through to the end of the day that you’d get better.
Juliet Singer is my other good friend. She wasn’t as close to me as Kate was, but she is good person. She is the only one who would make decisions that impact our friendship. Sometimes Juliet has bursts of an anger problem, and she always takes it out on other people. Beastly I know, but she was basically the tough one. Juliet lived with her parents Ingrid and Stephano Singer and her older sister Sarah. She generally didn’t get along with her parents well because her parents will always fight with one another. Each time after a fight, Juliet wouldn’t take it anymore and go and stay with either Kate or I. My mum didn’t really like Juliet coming over as much because she was afraid that she might influence me into drugs or something. Juliet wasn’t anything like Kate. Unlike Kate who would come over and help you, Juliet will be the kind of person who will tell you to get over it. There was a reason why I wasn’t as close to her as Kate, a reason why were didn’t really bond with each other, because Juliet liked to say what she thought with no regard to the persons feelings or emotions. Overall, she was a very direct and controlling person.
We were still walking down the street when a roll of thunder sounded. Kate stopped walking and looked up in fright. We both stopped when we realized that she wasn’t with us.
“What the hell was that? Was that thunder?” She looked at me and Juliet with her eyes wide open. Juliet and I smirked at each other. Kate has a phobia of thunder. We both nodded and started dragging Kate along as we kept walking along the sidewalk. Another roll of thunder, but this time there was a bolt of lightning and it hit the power lines. Then all of a sudden the lights went off. This time it was me who looked around in fright, and because I have a phobia of the dark, I panicked even more. I grabbed a hold on Juliet’s shirt.
“I can’t see anything! It’s too dark!” I cried out. Juliet pulled my hands away from her shirt and calmed me down.
“Selena, you don’t have to be scared, we’re with you, and nothing is going to hap-“
Juliet’s words were cut off by the sound of running footsteps near the trees. Juliet, Kate and I froze; we all looked around carefully, trying to find the source of those footsteps.
“What the hell was that?” whispered Kate fearfully, as she looked at me and Juliet once again with wide, shocked eyes.
“It-It sounds like someone running,” I said, I too hearing the fear in my own voice.
“Shhh! It’s coming this way!” hissed Juliet quietly. We all held our breath, our hearts pumping and beating so fast you’d think we ran a marathon. The footsteps were getting louder and louder by the minute, and I felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest any second. We all jumped in fright when Juliet screamed.
“Piss off Harley!” screamed Juliet angrily, as she pushed a laughing Harley Groves out of her way.
Harley Groves is in the same year level as us. He might be the same age, same classes, but he was hated by everyone. I used to wonder why people hated him so much, until you start hearing his annoying made up jokes and irritating voice, I realized why. I actually felt sorry for him sometimes, he had no friends and everyone hated him, plus I forgot to mention he was dumb as anything and a real sleazebag.
Harley burst out laughing, his crooked teeth visible as his mouth opened wide with laughter. Kate and I were pulling Juliet back to stop her from beating the crap out of Harley. At one point Kate accidently let go of her arm but quickly grabbed it again.
“I’m surprised you haven’t been put on a leash, Singer. You need to be tied up,” teased Harley as he came closer and closer to a fuming Juliet. “Although the fantasy of you being tied up is actually better than I thought it would seem,” Juliet growled and tried to claw Kate and I, as she tried freeing herself to attack Harley. But Harley ran away, laughing uncontrollably because he knew that he stirred up the raging animal in Juliet.
“Juliet!” I panted, as Kate and I were struggling with a scratching and angry Juliet. “Stop it! You’re stooping down to his level!” This last line stopped Juliet, and after a few seconds of calmness, when Kate and I thought it was safe to unhand Juliet, we let her go. She turned around to face us angrily, her eyes peircing with accusation.
“Why the fuck did you two grab me for?” Kate and I looked at each other like that wasn’t the easiest question in the world.
“We grabbed you because you would’ve attacked Harley,” Kate said even more angrily, mainly because Juliet had sweared at us. Juliet turned to Kate, I could see the anger in the lines of her face, and I actually wondered at this point why I become friends with Juliet. She was such an angry person, I had no idea how I become friends with her in the first place.
“Whose side are you on Kate?” seethed Juliet angrily. “Are you on Harley’s side?” Kate stammered, but I jumped in to save her. I turned to Juliet angrily.
“How can you talk to your own friend like that? We are not on anyone’s side. Yes he was in the wrong with what he said, but you are also in the wrong when you tried to attack him. That makes you no better than he is,” Juliet fumed even more, but we all froze in shock as a sickening scream shattered the conversation to silence.
“What was that?” whispered Juliet to Kate and me fearfully.
“I think that sounded a lot like Harley don’t you think?” I said to Juliet and Kate, also at the same time trying to hear the screaming phenomenon again. Kate nodded in agreement.
“I think it –“ But Kate was cut off by Juliet who quickly shushed her.
“Shhh! Can you hear that?” All three of us suddenly became quiet, and sure enough the same scream was heard, but this time it was further away. Juliet started running and stupidly, Kate and I instantly did the same. We ran along the road, the moon shining bright as day, our loud running footsteps scraped the pavement as we ran faster and faster, the sound of the scream was getting closer and closer and my heart was thumping in my chest it hurt. As we ran across the road, we headed to Denway Park. The sound of the scream had to be here, I wondered in my head while running and nearly tripping over at the same time. Then the sound of the scream was so close, we all halted in our steps.
In the night, we could see from the moonlight a black hooded creature leaning over something, sucking noises coming from its black hood, like it was eating something, I knew then that the creature was eating someone. My gut was pulled back and I felt sick in the stomach. I instantly pulled Juliet and Kate behind a scrub bush so we couldn’t be seen. We must’ve been noisy because the black hooded creature stopped eating and looked around; and when it couldn’t see anything it continued eating its way through the poor soul who lay lying helplessly on the ground. I looked at Kate’s face, it was filled with horror and shock, and Juliet’s face seemed expressionless.
When the creature finished, it stood up. It was as tall as a full grown man, we all kept silently still, afraid the creature was going to find us too, but all it did was open its black cape and to our horror, black wings, like a massive Hawk, protruded from its thick body, and with the wings flapping so powerfully, it flew off from the ground and into the moonlight.
Kate, Juliet and I waited for a couple of minutes in case the creature came back, but when it didn’t we all slowly rose up from behind the scrub bushes and headed to where the dead body lay gruesomely mangled on the Park ground. We all gasped as we reached the body, judging from its hair, and mangled face, it was indeed Harley Groves, the lifeless body lay still and silent. Kate burst into tears and Juliet quickly took her away from the body. I didn’t follow them, but I did move closer to the body, because something had caught my eye. The body laid in an awkward angle, its stomach was ripped open and all the insides were eaten away, leaving chunks of intestine lying on his body and on the ground. I covered my mouth, afraid at the thought that I might chuck up all over the dead body. I closely examined his face.
The skin was viciously ripped apart at the forehead down to the nose. The only way I could identify Harley was because of his unique stud on his bottom lip. My eyes remained on Harley’s mangled face, studying every tear that was from his skin. Then I looked further down near his stomach area where his intestines lay on the ground. I gulped back a bit of vomit and moved my face away from the body. After a couple of minutes when my stomach settled down, I turned back to the body. I over-looked the intestines and looked at the gaping hole in what used to be Harley’s stomach. Everything was gone. Cleaned out. It was like the creature had sucked out nearly everything of his insides, even the blood. As I was gawking at Harley’s open stomach, something caught my eye. There was something protruding out of his left jacket pocket, and curiosity got the best of me. I pulled my sleeves up and made sure my hand was covered; I then reached into his left pocket and pulled out a small black bag. I examined it carefully. The black bag was the size of my palm, it had white string tied tightly around it and an unusual aroma was come coming from the bag. The smell wasn’t strong, but the smell was sifting through to my nose, making my stomach lurch. My gut suddenly had a bad feeling and I knew that this bag meant no good. But nevertheless I carefully put the small bag into my own bag and continued to examine the body.
Behind me, Kate and Juliet were standing near the trees, watching me hovering over the body.
“How can she even go near the body?” sobbed Kate quietly. Juliet put her arm around her, consoling her.
“She can handle these kinds of things. We can’t,” whispered Juliet.
“What the hell was that thing?” said Kate, whose voice was getting louder by every word. Juliet shushed her and looked to where I was.
After I finished looking at the body of Harley Groves, I got up and went to Kate and Juliet.
“Are you done?” Juliet said quietly. I nodded speechless. Kate was listening attentively. “What happened?”
I looked at them, all the clues and evidence that was stuck in mind felt so terrible I didn’t want to say it. I gulped back tears.
“From the looks of it, Harley was chased down and fatally attacked,” Kate looked worryingly at Juliet. But Juliet’s stern look still didn’t change.
“How do you know he was chased down? You can’t conclude a hypothesis just from looking at the body,”
“I wasn’t only looking at the body. Follow me,” I showed Kate and Juliet a fine patch of green grass near Harley’s body. “Have a look closely and you’ll see footprints,”
Kate and Juliet leaned in close where the grass was exposed to the moonlight. Sure enough, there was a one set of footprints that was imprinted in the grass, but there was something wrong.
“The footprints are like one foot away from the body,” said Kate, who was still half sobbing. “How is that?” Juliet realized what Kate was on about and turned to me for answers.
“Well Sherlock Holmes, what do you think?” I gave Juliet a stern look; I always hated it when Juliet called me Sherlock Holmes, she made it like I was some kind of crazy person that loves playing detective all the time, which wasn’t true of course.
“I realized it when I was walking back to you guys. I think that the creature was chasing after Harley, grabbed him while it was still flying and killed him right there,” I indicted the bloody mass that lay on the ground one foot away from us. I wiped tears that were slowly coming out of my eyes.
“What makes you think he was running?” asked Kate fearfully, as she deliberately avoided looking at Harley’s dead corpse. I showed them the footprints again; clearly you could see that the footprints were far away from each other.
“The footsteps are far apart from each other. When we walk, the footsteps are closer together. But when you are running, your footsteps have a larger gap between them. Then there is a large break where his footsteps and body are,” I quickly wiped away more tears. “Because the creature can fly, we can only assume,” We all looked at the dead corpse of Harley Groves.
End of Chapter 1
