Victim Report Id 237

It was late at night when I found myself walking home, bathed in the light of a full moon... no, not walking, riding my bike. It's crazy to me how a detail like that is so vague in my memory while the rest is so clear.

For some reason to get back to where I parked my car I needed to cross this old abandoned bridge, it was stable enough for me to cross and had no problems as I did so, but just near the end a hooded kid was riding past me on his own bike and said, "careful goin down, left sides gone and the right ain't much better." I didn't realize what he meant until I neared the end up the bridge and saw it, the entire left way down for bikes and people on foot was checkered with holes and an entire chunk was missing, but that was still better than where the cars would've once crossed, the entire area had crumbled long ago.

The right side of the bridge must have been kept 'in repair' by someone since there were old and worn wooden planks leading the way down rather than the normal concrete or whatever the structure was originally made of. As I walked down the wooden path I could hear the wood grown with each step, occasionally I could feel it give way a little and had to hurry along.

Suddenly a sleek, midnight black crow ruffled the trees nearby and spooked me, causing me to set my foot a little too hard, and it went right through the shabby wood, sinking my foot to the calf, luckily the rest held and I pulled my foot out carefully, glancing at the dark bird. It gave me the shivers just looking at it.

Looking back on it I don't know how I knew it was a crow, or why that kid warned me about the bridge, could he somehow tell I didn't know? Was it my posture? The way I carried myself? Truly strange.

After the close encounter with the crow I slowed my pace and took careful steps the rest of the way down, rolling my bike along beside me. As I neared the bottom I could see a shady park, with a paved path going along the outside edge leading from the bridge to where I needed to go. There was a slight bend going right along a high stone wall, blocking my sight of the rest of the path. As I followed the path and neared the bend I could see a couple people, faces and features hidden by their dark hoodies. Meh, prolly a couple hobos or teenagers or something. However as I started to round the bend I saw more and more people, some leaning on the wall smoking, others just sitting and chatting, and while they didn't make it obvious I could tell they were all looking at me. An occasional glance when they thought I wouldn't notice, but with the nearly 20 people I saw sitting around I caught a few of their gazes.

Feeling the tension building I wanted to get on my bike and ride as fast as I could to get to my car, man why did I park over here instead of at where I wanted to go? Where did I go? It's so hazy...

Just as I hopped on my bike I suddenly felt a throbbing pain in my head, I hadn't even noticed the two I passed earlier had snuck up behind me, one now carrying a wooden baseball bat. He must not have hit me that hard because apart from a slight dizziness and being knocked off my bike I felt fine. He walked up to me as he pulled his hood back and gave a light chuckle, "you shouldn't have come here little buddy." The man had clearly dyed blonde hair with angular facial features, and his eyes were slightly sunken, I could also make out parts of a tattoo poking up from his hoodie around his neck

I was so confused, a gang? In this area? I lived in a small friendly city where no gangs should have resided, only the occasional drug dealing or petty theft were the most notable crimes taking place around here and most of them were outside the actual city. So why were they here?

Suddenly the one that had hit me spoke up, "aye Roddy give em the shakedown." The other hooded man I saw earlier also stepped up but I couldn't quite see his face, he reached down into my pockets but he seemed almost hesitant, did he not actually want to do this? He still pulled out my keys, my wireless ear buds, my phone, and finally my wallet. As he was beant over I caught a glimpse of his face and froze in shock, I could make out the dusty-grey colored goatee and the slight scar on his lip somehow barely illuminated by the moonlight. It was my uncle Rodd, what was he doing here? He joined this gang? And just when we all thought he was recovering well from his drug abuse, he had went through rehab and everything, he was doing well now, or so I thought.

I could see the recognition in his eyes but also something else, a warning. To not speak, I could somehow tell he wanted me to keep quiet, and as he was my family I trusted him, he didn't want to do this just as much as I didn't want to be there, and staying silent would make it pass easier. Rather than keeping the wallet he just smoothly took out all the cash inside and went to put it back in my pocket, and as he did I could see he didn't truly take all of it, he left a singular bill inside, i could only see the corner sticking up but i could make out the marking, it was the largest one I had on me, it was the hundred dollar bill I received a couple months ago on my birthday from my grandparents, the rest were just a couple fives and ones and maybe a ten.

As he slipped it in my pocket his eyes flitted to mine and then quickly away, and stepped away handing the rest to the man with the bat. "Its not much but well atleast we got something for our trouble eh? He can keep the phone it's useless to us being locked." The man said as he tossed the phone in my general direction, landing hard on the pavement and cracking. "Hmmm these keys wouldn't happen to be to them wheels sitting in the lot back there would they?" He spoke again, a slight grin on his face, this time the words spoken towards me. I thought of the look my uncle gave me and kept silent, hoping this all would just pass quickly. Unfortunately the man seemed to know, it certainly doesn't help that the electric starter has the cars brand clearly written across it. He slid them into his pocket along with the cash and earbuds.

Suddenly my uncle Rodd spoke up, "hey boss them newer cars are hard to steal, they have trackers in em, usually a couple, and they're hard to find, if we take it we're gonna have to be quick about getting it to Gary so he can remove em." This seemed to make the man pause as he thought of something, "Gary won't be in town for a couple weeks." He sighed, "ahh I guess we'll have to let it go, better than killing the kid for some wheels. Hear that little buddy? you should thank me for my kindness." Still staying silent I gave a slight vow of my head hoping it would be enough and I could hurry on out of here finally. The man tossed the keys back to uncle Rodd who handed em to me, and as I stood up the man said, "kid it's in your best interest that you forget about what happened here tonight, you understand? If anyone asks what happened just say you tripped on your way down the bridge or something. I'll know if you tell."

The man then walked away over to the other guys who had been watching this whole time, a smile on his face as he started telling them about his new 'earnings'. My uncle nudged me with his foot, kicking me out of my thoughts. Realizing I should get out of here while I could I stumbled to my feet and quickly made my way along the pavement, trying but failing to ignore the looks and snickers of the other people around me. My bike had already been taken aswell by one of the other members while I was dazed but I didn't even think of that, I hadn't even thought of it till after I was at my car. I had grabbed my phone on my way and it was cracked but still usable, as I opened it the first thing I saw was a message.

Uncle Rodd: don't call the police, he wasn't kidding when he said he'll know, just trust me on this, I'm sorry I had to do this but please just trust me, I already called your mother, shes on her way, said she'll drive you home after what you went through.

Why would my mother come to drive me home? I feel completely fine, I was tempted to just drive home anyways but decided against it if simply to save her the worry of me not being here when she got here. The sun had started rising on my way back to my car, 'when had so much time passed?' I thought to myself. The sun now fully up as I spotted my mom pulling into the old lot where I had for some reason parked my car, why is it so hazy? Why was I there?

As her car came to a stop she got out of the passenger seat instead of the driver seat, she was a somewhat heavy set woman with shoulder length black hair, still looking somewhat youthful despite her age in the 40's. Her all white car quickly leaving again back from where it came. Likely my scummy step father not wanting to deal with the drama and just get back to his comfy couch and TV. My mom quickly walked over to me and hugged me asking if I was alright, I told her I felt fine and that she didn't need to come but as a mother there was no way she was having any of that. "No no it's fine just get in quickly to we can get out of here and back home. Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital?" After once again telling her I was fine I handed her the keys and got in the passenger seat, ready to be done with this whole thing.

Now here's where things get really weird, instead of taking the same exit from the lot that she came in at, she started towards one clearly blocked by a high dirt mound, 3 workers standing around it working on something, as we got closer she sped up to ramp over the dirt mound,honking for the workers to move. Clearly startled, they scrambled out of the way as she passed over barely missing one of the workers. We had a solid 2 seconds of air time before hitting the road on the other side hard, I quickly glanced back making sure noone was hurt and luckily they all seemed fine. I went to turn towards my mother to ask what was going on when I saw the light ahead change, my mother had floored it after her stunt so we were already cruising at a decent speed and the breaks weren't that good, she started to stop likely thinking of her own car that could easily stop on time but I shouted "GO!" since I knew we would stop in the middle of the intersection instead. Taking my advice she stepped on it again and passed through the intersection, it had turned red while we were still crossing and I glanced in the mirror to see if a cop was gonna stop us. No such luck.

After the intersection the road narrowed and made room for a lane for people on foot or bike, and on that lane was a small family walking along heading in the same direction, 2 children, a mother, and a father. I looked over at my mother and froze, something seemed very wrong with her, not just what she had just done but just looking at her something didn't feel right, she seemed disoriented. She must've been really distracted since she didn't notice the road narrowing, and in slow motion I watch from the corner of my eye as we neared that family.... this part... it's a little hard to think about.

I turned my head and went to shout but it was too late, my mother tried to swerve at the last moment but it didn't matter, we had too much speed and they were too close, and I guess in their panic they didn't think to move out of the way, likely frozen in place trying to process what was happening, they certainly had heard us coming since when I turned my head to the front I had made eye contact with the mother, now turned around, she was staring into what felt like my soul.

Her eyes felt cold and hollow, as if at that moment she were already dead. The impact was brutal, with our speed the family was sent flying, we had missed the father but... the others... I don't know how but I had a clear view of the aftermath, imprinted in my mind, as if I was somehow standing at where it had happened instead of in the car still speeding away in the distance now on the road proper...

***********sensitive readers should skip this part, extreme gore warning**********

The mothers mangled body was lying in a ditch nearly 30 feet diagonally from the impact zone, her bones twisted and blood pooling beneath her from various wounds. Her children... the image was burned into my mind... a bloodstained fence 10 feet from the side of the road, they were launched almost directly perpendicular to the road somehow, now painting the metal horse fence blood red, bits and pieces stuck to the metal bar and the rest in a sloppy pile beneath. The father completely fine, just stared at the car speeding in the distance with empty eyes as he fell to his knees.

**************end of gory scene***********

Back in the car I was horrified by what just happened, why hadn't my mother stopped? Why is she still driving as if nothing just happened, I turned and shouted at her, WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? those... those people.." near the end I choked back a sob thinking of what just happened. My mom glanced at me and said, "I knew I wouldn't hit them, I got out of the way in time so they're fine."

My brain froze for a moment, was she delusional or had she really not seen it? Surely she had felt the impact... i... I should have just kept my mouth shut... instead I shouted at her, "YOU JUST KILLED A CHILD!" my mother seemed to have just been woken up from a stupor as she came to grips with what really just happened, the rampaging emotion and guilt plain in her eyes.

She suddenly pulled the car over and came to a stop on the side of the road, a haunted look in her eyes. She... she had just killed three people... two of them children.... she unbuckled her seatbelt and slowling pulled a gun she had tucked under her shirt... I wanted to ask what she was doing, but it happened to fast... the trigger was already pulled and my mother was dead... overtaken by the guilt of her actions... she.... and then it all went black.