Midnight: A Foxvalley Thriller (First Draft)✔

Chapter VII: Secrets of Lies

5:18
Colorado 9, between Foxvalley and Canon City, Colorado

The brilliant waxing crescent moon sank into the tall pine trees, hiding beneath the dark leaves. A blue haze filled the sky from the east. Along with the yellow glow of Colorado Springs in a thick mist over the eastern mountain ridge. The stars of the grey night sky dissipated in the incoming light of day. The songs of early birds rang through the mountain region. A red 70s style car was pulled over on the side of the road. Glass laid shattered in pieces on the windshield. A human leg rested in a dent in the glossy red hood of the car. Dried blood crusted around the end of the leg that had been separated from the body.

It was strange, it wasn't even a clean cut. There was no visual evidence the legs had been sliced through. Most of the evidence pointed towards the fact it had been pulled from the rest of the body. A white tennis shoe covered the foot of the disembodied leg. Three scarlet red, thin stripes stretched along the shoe. The shattered glass beneath the leg had a sharp edges coated in blood. Between the two headlights was the disfigured manufacturer symbol. Behind the car, in the center of the street laid a large flat tire.

It laid, lonely, by itself in the headlights of a black Ford Taurus, sitting vacant up the road. Behind it was the dancing red and blue lights of a patrol car. The lights lit the forest around them in vibrant red and blue. On the opposite side the road, across from the bent up car laid a smashed-up hunk of metal. Another tire laid on the ground, separated from anything else. A stop sign rested, detached from the hunk of metal, on the side. A dark scarlet red streak hung down the front of the red stop sign. It covered over the "O" of the white lettered word "STOP".

Along the top side of the hunk of flattened metal sat a row of smashed, glassless windows. Dark red blood crusted around the silver metal frames of the windows. Underneath the row of windows it read on the yellow paint in black letters, "Fremont County Community Schools". Above where the stop sign should of been rested a couple lumps of skin. They were bloodied and torn with slices of muscles hanging out into one of the smashed windows. One was an arm with a blooded sleeve on the top, disembodied end. Crushed, snapped bones stuck out of the skin through slit, flattened skin. A puddle of dark red surrounded the arm. A few feet from the arm rested a leg in a very similar condition, disembodied and crushed to a small pulp. The skin almost flat with a crushed bone inside. Blood and muscle escaped through rips in the skin, leaking down into open holes and cracks in the bus. A bloodied piece of pant jeans covered the smashed leg. The shoe of the leg's foot appeared completely crushed. The rubber bottom of the shoe looked ripped all the way through. Someone or something crushed the shoes in half. Blood and muscles leaked from the two flattened parts of the shoe was blood and muscle.

Flashlight beams shined through the forest behind the smashed bus. F.B.I. Agent David Budsworth hiked out from the wooded forest. Light skimmed across the forest floor in front of him. A black government issued flashlight in his hand. He stepped up to a tree on the side of the road. The remaining bent up pieces of the school bus sat beside them. Benjamin sat with his back up against the tree, looking forward, blankly. Budsworth sighed and sat down beside him. "Listen Ben, I apologize for what happened to your brother." Budsworth sympathized with him. Ben didn't give any reply. Neither did he give any proof that he even heard Budsworth or paid any attention. He just continued to stare into the darkness of the forest across the street as if into a mysterious void.

A tear streamed down from his eye. He reached up and wiped it away. Another rolled out down his cheek. Budsworth followed his gaze across the street at the shadowed forest. He laid his back against the tree beside Ben and reached into his front pocket and pulled out a small copper bullet. Ben's gaze shifted toward it. The tip gleamed in the shine of a the headlights of Budsworth's car. "What's with the bullet?" Asked Ben. Budsworth looked back at him for a quick moment, then back at the bullet in his hand.