Chapter 1

<p>The woods seemed quiet except for the sounds of birds, insects and two teenagers hiking through the woods. The pair moved at different paces. <br/><br/>A girl with a toned body, caramel skin tone and black coily hair tied into space buns, hiked ahead of a skinny pale skin boy with a short curly bright red hair, and a freckled face. She stopped constantly to yell at the boy struggling with what seemed like a large backpack "Drexxie! Hurry up!" she yelled.<br/><br/> "You try carrying your survival pack?" he panted bending over to hold his knees.<br/><br/>"Come on, we haven't got all day" she said and continued hiking her way up the hill while he groaned under his breath. They were headed to the top of the hill to find new species of Leaves, Insects and birds so that Roxanne could take pictures of them for her collection. <br/><br/>"How much further to the top?" Drexxie panted.<br/><br/>"We're almost there." Roxanne replied holding the camera that dangled from her neck.<br/><br/>"Hey, Roxanne look at this plant." Drexxie announced reaching out to pull a leaf while Roxanne turned to look at it and her eyes widened in horror.<br/><br/>"Don't touch that, it's Poison Sumac!" she screamed and he withdrew his hand immediately falling backwards while scrambling away from the plant "That was a close one." he breathed heavily.<br/><br/>"Are you alright? Did you touch it? or Did it touch you?" She asked rushing beside him and checking for any visible forming rashes and pulled out Calamine lotion from the back pack and handed it to him.<br/><br/>"Really?" his eyebrows shot up.<br/><br/> "Just to be on the safe side." she grabbed his arm and squirted some lotion on it.<br/><br/>"Do you always carry that with you?" he asked squinting his bluish-grey eyes at her.<br/><br/> "I always come prepared." she shrugged.<br/><br/> "Of course" Drexxie knew she always did come prepared, she was Roxanne after all and they'd been best friends since pre-school. <br/><br/>"Okay Clumsy, let's go" she stood up stretching her back.<br/><br/> "But, My legs are tired and the ground feels nice" Drexxie whined.<br/><br/> "Tell that to those soldier ants" she scoffed nodding to an ant hill very close to where Drexxie sat. He stood up immediately dusting his cargo shorts and stomping his hiking boots "Let's go." she started walking carrying the backpack this time and he tried to catch up with her.<br/><br/> "How do you move so fast even carrying the backpack?" he asked trying to match her pace. "Exercise, Drexel, Exercise." <br/><br/> "We've never been on this hill before, it's quite high." Drexxie said, taking out a water bottle from the backpack and chugging it down.<br/><br/>"That's because you're always complaining about how high it is and how tiring it'll be." <br/><br/>Roxanne rolled her eyes while he shrugged. "It's not any less tiring" and then stopped to peer at something "Is that a house?" he asked, while Roxanne looked towards his line of sight and saw a barn house surrounded by tall grasses. "It's the abandoned barn house." she talked in a hushed tone.<br/><br/> "I heard it haunted, it's been abandoned for years." Drexxie whispered.<br/><br/> "Why are you whispering?" she turned to look at Drexxie like he was crazy.<br/><br/>"I don't know, you're whispering"<br/><br/> "Hey, look" she pointed at a male figure running out of the barn and to a car then driving off with speed. "That was weird" Roxanne said, giving that familiar look and Drexxie knew what it meant.<br/><br/>"No, I'm not doing it." he said.<br/><br/> "Come on we'll take a little peek." she persuaded.<br/><br/> "No, it's a haunted abandoned house, I'm not going in there, who knows why the poor guy ran off." he defended.<br/><br/> "All the more reasons why we should check it out." <br/><br/>"No Roxie, we are going home and that's final." he turned back to head down but she had already started heading towards the farm "Rox...Oh my God!" he sighed, sprinting towards her and grabbing her arm.<br/><br/> "Look who decided to join me." she smiled at him.<br/><br/> "Your dad will kill me if anything happens to you. Let's just go okay, this place gives me the creeps." He whispered back.<br/><br/> "No, my knight in not-shining-Cargo shorts, I am going to Snoop around, you can go home if you want to I can handle myself." she tried to let go but he still held her.<br/><br/> "Okay, if we take a peek you swear we'll leave?" <br/><br/>"Yes." she said crossing her fingers behind her back.<br/><br/>"What are you doing?" he asked eyeing the hand behind her back.<br/><br/>"What?" she laughed.<br/><br/> "Let me see your hand." <br/><br/>"Okay fine, I promise you happy now?" she said, making her way to the building. <br/><br/>"No" he muttered under his breath and followed behind her. They were very silent walking towards the building and when they got in from the already open door, it was empty except for the stacks of hay with pitchforks in them and rusty buckets hanging from racks, the inside was very dusty and wreck looking.<br/><br/> "Everything seems normal" Drexxie whispered, "Can we go now? This place is creeping me out." <br/><br/>But she kept snooping around looking for anything that looked unusual, and he thought even the barn was unusual.<br/><br/> " Hey, look at this" she pointed a table.<br/><br/>"What? it's a table" Drexxie said "What's unusual about that?" he gave her a confused look.<br/><br/>"It's clean." She peered closely and found something "Look blood stains" she pointed at something faded. <br/><br/>"That dosen't look like a blood stain to me, can we just go now?" <br/><br/>"Smell that" she sniffed. "Smell what?" he asked sniffing too and then realized what it was "Bleach" he said.<br/><br/>"Exactly" she replied.<br/><br/> "What does that have to do with anything?" he looked around the room and back at Roxanne who was tapping her fingers on her lips.<br/><br/> "Seems like someone has done a terrible job erasing traces of whatever they'd done."<br/><br/> "And you know that how?" he asked.<br/><br/> "If my assumptions are correct then Drexxie, We're staring at a homicide case." she looked at him dead serious in the eye.<br/><br/> "How do you know it's a blood stain anyways?" <br/><br/>"The worst way to clean or hide traces of blood is using Bleach, it doesn't do a really neat job...Did you touch anything?" she turned to look at him <br/><br/>"No, asides from the door I haven't."<br/><br/> "Good" She put her back pack down and pulled out a pair of surgery gloves and surgery masks. "Here, put these on" she tossed a pair of gloves over to him and a surgery mask. He didn't ask because he knew she always carried gloves and masks Incase they saw a hurt animal or a weird species and wanted to examine them.<br/><br/> "I want you to look for anything that could look like a weapon or even better a body." She said putting her hair into a shower cap<br/><br/> "I feel like you've been preparing for this day all your life" he said as she tossed him one too.<br/><br/> "Five summers at Forensics camp, yeah pretty much." she smiled searching for more clues and evidence "Just try not to get hair on anything, our footprints are already ruining evidence."<br/><br/> "Yes, Boss" He answered walking towards the the stables. "The things she makes me do." he muttered under his breath looking through them, then something caught his eye "Roxanne! Roxanne!!" he called.<br/><br/>"What? Did you find anything?" She scrambled towards him and his face looked horrified "Oh My God! I'm calling the police" she said taking out her phone and dailing 911<br/><br/>" 911, what's your emergency?" <br/><br/>"Hello, there's been a murder...</p>