A New Death: CJ's Story Read Free Page A

understand them. I had no idea why we were packing everything up and leaving to go to the cabin. I had no idea why I was carrying my gun around and I had no idea why Aunt Laura was afraid of Uncle Josh dying.
    And why do they keep saying they wish he was here? That’d he know what to do?
    Uncle Josh was good for a lot of things, don’t get me wrong, but they were mostly related to video games or movies. If I ever needed to know where to get a certain Pokemon, Uncle Josh was the guy to go to. But serious things? The only serious thing I ever heard my uncle talk about was the Bible.
    My Dad looked at me. He knew that I was trying to piece things together, despite how much I tried to play it off. He could always see right through me.
    “What’s going on Dad?” I asked, very cool and grown up-like.
    The adults all looked at each other. I could tell they were “telepathically” arguing about whether to tell me or not. My mother’s and grandmother’s eyes  both screamed no, while G-Dad simply shrugged. My Dad looked back at me.
    “I’ll explain once we’re on the way, Son. Promise.”
    I nodded. My father always kept his promises. I’m sure there was a reason why they weren’t telling me. A reason on why they were acting all weird. I went to ask when we were planning on leaving, but didn’t get the chance to, because a gunshot was fired in the distance. Another two shots were fired, then silence.
     
    ***
     
    “What was that?” Aunt Laura asks, as everyone move towards the back door.
    “Sounded like gunshots,” said G-Dad.
    Dad turned to me.
    “Keep your sister in the house, CJ.”
    He then turned back and walked outside with the others. I looked at Hailey, who was still coloring and now had her headphones back in. She didn’t hear the gunshots. As if she knew I was thinking about her, she looked up and smiled, but went back to coloring.
    Dad said I had to keep her in the house. Ok, done. I crept closer to the back door to try and hear what was going on out there.
    The adults were all standing at the bottom of our driveway, which sloped at almost a forty-five degree angle down away from our house. I could see one of our neighbors talking with Dad. He lived next door to us on our little circle. From where I was standing, I could barely make out what they were saying. I edged a little closer to the door, trying my best to stay out of sight.
    “Did you hear it?” The neighbor asked. “Where did it come from?”
    “I don’t know,” Dad answered. “But it sounded close.”
    The neighbor mumbled something, but I still couldn’t hear him from my closer position.
    “I don’t know,” I heard Dad say again.
    He went to say something else, but was interrupted when another man walked out from behind a house on the far end of our circle. He was holding a police-special style revolver in his right hand.
    “Don’t worry y’all! I got ‘em! Sorry for all the alarm,” he yelled.
    “What do you mean? Are they here already?” Our neighbor asked.
    His question and this new man’s arrival seemed to agitate the small crowd of neighbors who were now gathering near the end of our driveway.
    “No, I think it was just one of them. Must have wandered into the neighborhood somehow. Not sure how he got past the Parkside though,” the man with the gun answered.
    Our neighborhood was split into two sections. Parkside was up near Highway 21 and was called such because the neighborhood clubhouse and park was located within it. Our half of the neighborhood, Lakeside, was filled with tiny little lakes scattered around the landscape. The neighborhood wasn’t split like this on purpose though. It was originally supposed to be developed more, but was never completed. Dad said when the housing market dropped (whatever that means), the plans to build more dropped too. Which was a bummer, because there were plans to build a grocery store and a shopping center towards the front of the subdivision. It would have been cool to ride