Silent.
Dark. Lonely. The feeling of someone being all alone, even though there were
several people behind him. Impossible, but possible things people would do,
just to get into the “cool” group. Peter was one of those desperate people who
would do anything to be accepted into the “cool” group even if it killed him…
He was ready
for the jocks to tremble from the sight of him in the halls at school. He was
sick of being pushed on the ground, and laughed at. It was time to do something
about it. This was the only way he thought could help him. The “cool” group was
his only option. His only answer.
A night out on the lake at 11 PM on November 14, 2006. His
task was simple, to swim across the lake in less than 10 minutes. It wasn’t a
wide lake, which would be good for him, but little did he know how deep it was,
and how cold it got at night.
The boys were pushing him. Pressuring him to get in the lake
already. He stripped down so that all he was wearing were his boxers. The water
was freezing cold, but he knew what he had to do. He slowly put his legs in the
water, and he was doing good on getting in, until one of the bigger, meaner
guys yelled, “Time starts now!” and pushed him, face first, into the water.
Feeling like he was going to cry, he held it in, and started
to swim as fast as he could go. His skin was tight, and he couldn’t feel his
arms and legs within 2 minutes of him swimming. “I should’ve just dove in right
away, then my arms and legs wouldn’t have froze this fast.” He thought to
himself. He looked around the lake to see where he was. He was in the middle of
the lake, and he was almost to the other side. “It’s too easy.” He thought.
“There must be something else going on.” Without thinking of where he was, or
what he was doing, his body stopped, and he didn’t even know it. His whole body
was frozen and he was sinking under the water. The other boys noticed this, and
started to freak out. Some of them ran off into different directions, but some
knew they had to help him. Sean, one of the stronger boys and the leader of the
group, suggested that him and his buddy Ralph, another strong boy, jump in and
get him. But out of nowhere Ralph ran off, too fast for him to get an answer.
Sean was a panicky mess and he didn’t know what to do. It was only him now, and
two other boys. Jimmy and Dan.
With only the three of them left, panicking, Jimmy whipped
out his cell phone, ready to call 911. Sean grabbed the phone and said, “We
don’t need the 5.O. involved in this situation, all we need to do is go get…”
but he couldn’t even finish his sentence when he looked over to the lake. Peter
was nowhere to be seen. Sean screamed, “Oh, fuck!” and jumped into the lake. He
swam as fast as he could to the middle of the lake, where he last saw Peter,
and went under. As cold as it was, he didn’t care all he wanted to do was get
Peter above water. Dead or alive.
He went deeper and deeper under water, but couldn’t get a
hold of anything under there. It’s like Peter wasn’t under water. Nothing was
under there. Until finally he grabbed onto Peter’s shirt, and forced himself up
above the water with Peter in his arms. He barely had any strength left. Jimmy
and Dan were on the grass looking at Sean struggle to get Peter out of the
water. Finally, Jimmy said, “I can’t stand here without doing anything!” as he
said that he jumped into the water, and raced to Sean and Peter before both of
them went under water again. Dan followed, for he was thinking the exact thing
Jimmy was. He couldn’t just stand around and watch them die, if it came to
that. As Jimmy reached Sean and Peter, he held onto Peter because he felt that
he was the weaker one, and they both swam towards the direction Dan was
swimming. Dan held onto Sean, and they all worked together to safely get out of
the freezing water.
They reached the dry land and quickly wrapped their coats
around themselves. They all tried to catch their breath…but Jimmy looked over
to Peter and didn’t like what he saw. “He’s not breathing!” he yelled with the
remaining breath he had. Sean looked over to Peter, and again started to panic.
“Oh, my fucking God!” He jumped over Dan, who was lying on the ground with his
teeth jittering and hands shivering, and went to Peter’s still body. He felt
Peter’s pulse. Nothing. He tried to remember CPR from health class. He didn’t
think he was doing it right, but he didn’t care. All he wanted to do was see
Peter breath. Still nothing. He started to hit Peter in the chest and scream,
“No! Fuck! No! After all I went through to get you out of the water! Breathe!” Jimmy
grasped Sean’s arms to stop him from punching Peter’s chest, and said, “He’s
gone, man.”
Sean couldn’t believe it. He repeatedly punched Peter in the
chest, even if he was dead, Sean didn’t want to believe it. He never wanted to
hurt him. All he wanted to do was help him. He never picked on him in school
because it reminded him of what he used to be like when he wasn’t “cool”.
“Jimmy call 911. We need to get an ambulance over here ASAP!” Jimmy whipped out
his cell phone and dialed the numbers he needed to dial. When someone picked up
on the other line, he didn’t really know what to say. Everything was going so
fast, and he nor Sean or Dan wanted to go to jail. “Ummm…we need an ambulance
over at the city lake right away! Something happened, and I think one of the
guys is dead!”
Jimmy flipped his phone, and put it back in his pocket. Dan
looked at him. “What the fuck are we going to do? Are we just going to stay
here? What are we going to say to the police?” Dan sat down, put his hands over
his eyes, and started to cry. “Dude, we can get through this. All we have to do
is tell them the truth. No lies.” Sean said. “My parents are going to kill me
once they here about this!” Jimmy said.
Dan settled down and stopped crying. All of the sudden he got
up, acting normal at first, but then ran off. He didn’t know what to do, and he
was already on probation. “What the hell, Dan! Get your ass back ova here!” But
he didn’t look back; he just kept on running and running…
Sean and Jimmy didn’t know what to do. Everything started to
overlap again. They didn’t know whether Dan was important to the crime or not.
“Great, everything is going how we planned it would!” Jimmy said sarcastically.
“Would you shut the fuck up!? We have a dead kid here, and you’re making jokes.
What if we go to jail you little bitch?!”
Sean just couldn’t take all this shit happening at once. Jimmy shut up
and started to walk away. “Dude, I’m sorry…it’s just all this shit is happening
so fast. I can’t even get a breath out. Please don’t leave me here, man. I need
you to help me.” Jimmy stopped, turned around, and looked at Sean as if those
words were all he needed to hear from someone…”Okay man, I’ll stay…I’m here for
you dude. You’re not the only one who was involved in this.”
About 5 minutes after Jimmy turned around, and they both sat
on the ground, the ambulance rushed around the corner, and parked to where
Peter’s dead body was lying. One of the ambulance guys were really rushed about
what he was doing. He got out of the truck, felt Peter’s neck to see if there
was a pulse, and called to some more guys, “Bring a gurney out right away! This
kid didn’t make it.” The guy looked over at Sean and Jimmy and called out again
to another guy, “Are the cops on their way or what?” then he looked down at the
body, and back up to hear if he was going to get an answer. “Yeah, they said
they’re on their way right now, Skip.” One guy called. Skip got up from the
ground, and turned to Sean, “So, what exactly went on here boys? I have a
feeling that this wasn’t an accident…”
Both of the boys looked up at the man. Both of them were
speechless, they didn’t want to say anything wrong, and be doomed forever of
one little thing they said. “What, you guys are too cool to talk?” Skip said.
Still they did not say anything. Soon after Skip decided to give up trying to
make them talk, he walked away. In what seemed like forever, was only 2
minutes. “I just want to go home, Sean.” Said Jimmy. “Yeah, dude I know how you
feel. I can’t believe this shit is happening. And just think it’s only Friday,
all these people are going to be asking us these stupid fucking questions all
fucking weekend.” Sean screamed so everyone could here him.
The cops rolled down the street in a fashionable style, like
they knew what they were doing, and they’ve been through this type of stuff
before. But little did they know this was something different…
Officer Macbeth and his co-workers stepped out of their cars,
shut the doors, and watched as the ambulance closed the doors on the victim.
Yet, they didn’t even know that there was a victim. They didn’t even know that
this was a crime so serious. They just thought “Oh, well, it’s just some punks
causing trouble and pranking the police department again, like every Friday
night.” Wrong. They were so wrong. They would of probably wished they didn’t
have to work tonight because tonight is going to be hectic and new for them…As
Macbeth and all of the other officers walked towards the boys, the boys started
to wish they would of left Peter dead, and ran off like all the other guys did.
But they were stuck now… “What seems to be the problem gentlemen?” Officer
Macbeth questioned to the boys in an ‘I wish I wasn’t here right now’ kind of
tone. “Well, there was an accident with one of my uhh, buddies.” answered Sean
nervously. “What kind of accident?” asked Macbeth. Sean didn’t want to answer
that question… “Well umm he didn’t make it…” Jimmy adequately replied. The
other officers overheard Jimmy answer that, and they walked over to Macbeth,
and asked him if they could speak with him for a moment. Macbeth walked over to
where the officers were standing. “What?” He said impatiently. “Well sir,
didn’t you hear him? He said that the kid is dead. We’ve never had that around
this small little town since back in the year of ’81.” One of the officers
responded to him amazingly. “Yes, I heard him, and this can’t be much different
from ‘81’s bereavement. All we have to do is take the kids to the station first
thing in the morning. It’s too late now…I have to get up early to mow the
lawn.” The other officers didn’t really want to deal with this tonight either
so they agreed. It was already 2 in the morning. “Alright sir, let’s take these
kids home.” All of the officers walked over to their cars and 3 of them drove
off. One more car was left, and that was Macbeth’s, including his partner.
“Okay kids, come with me. I’ll take you home for the night, and we’ll deal with
this in the morning. You boys try and get some sleep. Okay?” The boys looked at
the officer with perplexity, like they weren’t expecting this. They were
expecting a night in jail, or something from the time being. But, the boys
followed, and they were driven home in the back of a cop car. They were a
little freaked out, but they knew that this man didn’t want to deal with this
kind of situation tonight. “You boys’ parents don’t mind if you’re out hanging
with dead people at 2 in the morning do they? Macbeth cackled.
He pulled his car up to Jimmy’s house, and stepped on the
brakes. “Well, good look with sleeping tonight guys, hopefully you don’t have
anything to be guilty about.” Jimmy and Sean stepped out of the car. Sean
didn’t want to go home tonight, so he just got out of the car and told the
police officer he was spending the night at Jimmy’s. The police car drove off,
and Sean and Jimmy walked through the back door of his house, so his parents
wouldn’t notice. They went into his room and tried to go to sleep. Jimmy was
passed out right away for some reason. But Sean was feeling so guilty he didn’t
have time to sleep. He only had time to think about where his life is going.
Finally, after 1 more hour of thinking, Sean passed out, and was in a deep
sleep.
The next morning, there was a knock on the door. It was
Officer Macbeth and his partner, Leo. Jimmy’s mom walked over to the door and
looked through the window. “Uh, oh, what did Jimmy do now?” She thought. She
opened the door. “How can I help you officer?” She tried to look neat for the
hansom Leo, who was standing behind Officer Macbeth. “Your son, Jimmy Daniels,
is he here?” She wasn’t paying much attention to what he just said; she was
paying too much attention on smiling at Leo. But when she heard Jimmy’s name
her smile came to a grimace. “He’s still sleeping; I guess he had a fun time
last night or something. It’s already noon.” Officer Macbeth looked inside the
house. “Well we need to take him and his buddy into the station for awhile.
It’s nothing special; we just need to ask him a few questions about last
night.” The look on Jimmy’s mother’s face went down to a repulsive frown. She
yelled for her husband to wake the boys up. About 10 minutes later, the boys
walked out of their room and into the living room. They looked sleepier than
ever, and once they seen Officer Macbeth, their faces turned into distress. They
couldn’t believe their eyes. They thought that everything that happened last
night was a dream, or better yet, a nightmare. “Would you boys mind explaining
to me what is going on?” The boys looked down to the floor…
“Well, Mrs. Daniels…” Sean started to speak… “There was an
accident last night at the city lake, and our buddy Peter drowned…” The look on
her face came from anger---to shock. “I can’t believe this, you won’t make me
believe this!” She screamed. Mrs. Daniels started to go insane. “Mother, settle
down, I am going to be okay. All I have to go into the station and tell the
truth. Maybe nothing will happen to me…” Jimmy’s face went from embarrassment
to misery. His mother was still screaming around. Little did anyone know in
town that she was a psycho at heart. Everyone knew that she had mind problems,
but no one really knew how she reacted to stuff. Usually she just bottled it
all up inside. “Dad! Take care of mom;
I’ll be back later, maybe… Jimmy looked up at the police officers, “Let’s just go,
and get this over with…” All of the men walked out of the door and into the
police car. Sean’s parents didn’t even know where he was and he didn’t think
they cared. So he just left it. Leo turned around from the seat and looked at
Sean in the back seat…“Don’t your parents know where you are, kid?” Leo
questioned to Sean. “No, they don’t really pay much attention to me, but let’s
leave the questions for when we get to the station. Okay?” Leo turned around so
he was facing the front of the car, and kind of got a distressing look on his
face. Sean had an annoyed stare on his face. He has never liked talking about
his parents. He hates them. Ever since his big brother, Nick died of cancer,
they have always wished that Sean was the one who had died instead of Nick. A
tear revolved down Sean’s cheek. Jimmy looked at him when this happened. Jimmy
has never seen Sean cry. Sean was the leader of the group, the strongest guy.
This was shocking to him when he seen this little trickle of irrigate run down
his face. He pretended he didn’t see when Sean wiped his face. He just looked
out the window…
The cop car pulled up to the police station. Everyone stepped
out of the car and walked on to the sidewalk. “I’ve never really done this
before” Sean said. “So what do we do?” Both of the officers just looked at him,
and said “Just follow us…”
Sean and Jimmy walked into the police station more frightened
then ever. It was like a ghost-town in there. There hasn’t been a case like
this before since ’81. Sean and Jimmy had broken the silence of mysteries
around this little town…
They were asked to sit down in these little chairs that
looked like they were meant to be used for midgets. They sat down, gasped, and
then looked at the wall. They didn’t know what to do. So they just waited. Waited
for their punishment to begin…they didn’t want to be in trouble. “So, what all
happened last night boys?” Officer Macbeth questioned.
