Havoc

• Rylan Boyter, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2018

Crack! Light flashed from the metallic cylinder and as the sleek smooth brass projectile wedged itself in its prey. A sigh of relief escaped my mouth. The day was going well, three snow white rabbits already dangled over my shoulder. An unusually spine chilling breeze caught the attention of the hairs on my back. “Please don’t hurt me!” a childlike voice called from behind a tree. I spun to face the voice and almost slipped on the melting snow under my feet.
“Who’s there!?” I roared and was surprised when a young girl emerged from behind the large oak tree. She was covered in crimson lines and midnight black spots and was trembling more than a truck on its road to the junkyard. She had two choices. Come with me, or die. When I promised her a warm meal the deal was sealed. On the way home the girl asked me an abnormally large amount of questions like, where are we, who are you, who am I.
The young girl followed me into my rickety old corrugated box that I called home blinking rapidly and flinching at the songs of birds. She glanced at many different pictures I had hung on the wall and they glared back. “Get out of the house,” the girl said in a blunt voice. “W…w…what?” I replied.
Crack! A gargantuan hole made itself at home with one of the four walls of the shed. Picture frames fell off their hinges and danced around on the junk covered floor. One wall and then a second collapsed onto the snow covered grass outside and I swear I ran faster than a turbo jet being pulled by a rocket but still only just made it out before the roof caved in. I couldn’t tell if the girl and my wife had been as lucky as me though. Then it just stopped.

The centre of the pile of was illuminated as the girl’s straw like hair was floating around her face that had lost all colour. Her hands gripped my wife’s neck like it was a handle on a speeding roller coaster and my partner’s face had turned into a blueberry. Waterfalls poured down the girl’s face. “I can’t stop, I’m sorry!” she screeched. I rushed to pick up my hunting rifle, the barrel was still warm from earlier and shoved one of my many projectiles inside. The girl noticed. “Please…no,” she mumbled. My finger kept half holding the trigger down but then resisting and pulling it back up. My wives eyelids flickered.

Click. Boom! It was done. Now I have the blood of an innocent young girl on my hands. But my wife was safe. My partner dropped to her knees, crimson hair covered her face that was now regained colour. “What…just happened?” she asked. ”don’t mention anything that happened in the past hour or so, please,” I replied in a dead tone.