Chapter 2

Fishing For Worms -Chapter 2

Leaning in over the body I looked for signs of life. A twitch, a sigh, a little breath. The body was face down in the mud and I couldn’t see clearly enough to descern who it could possibly be. I began to pat down the body, checking for wounds or maybe some identification. Nothing. Slowly I rolled him over instantly recognizing the curly dark brown hair of Louis. Desparetly I worked my way around his body looking for any form of a wound, struggle marks or even more frightening the typical signs of a marine kill. “Louis, wake up.” Something caught in my throat. I’ve seen death before, lots of death. I’ve lost men in my platoon, brothers from the war but the sight of a dead child I have never been able to grasp. God he is just a kid. He’s only fifteen he shouldn’t have to die. I don’t pray much. But this moment seemed to call for it, without a wound I can’t perform any medical and I had no way of knowing how long it had been since Louis had taken the slightest of breathes. “Come on Louis, this isn’t cool.”

It was ever so small, a moan. Barely recongnizable but it was a moan. “That’s it Louis!” I there was nothing I could do but wait for him to grab hold of life with everything that he had. Slowly he opened his eyes, there was nothing there. He was blank. Like a light turning on Louis caught on. His arm jerked, reaching for the bag at his side he began searching for something. When his hands didn’t find what they were looking for Louis became frantic. “Calm down, you’re going to be alright.” Those cold dark eyes searched the night for my face. Finding me his eyes grew tight, frightened, searching over my shoulder something. “He’s gone Louis. He’s gone.” I thought htat would relieve him but instead he sat right up with a cry. “Woah Louis! Hold on you’ve been hurt.” “Vincent where is it? Where are the documents? Tell me you took them, please tell me you took them.” Shaking my head I looked through the bag at my side. Aside from a fake id and some power bars it was empty. “The papers are gone Louis, the marine took them.” “The marine?” “The one that did this to you. He was a marine.” “How can you tell?” “They have a way about them. That and he was just that awesome.” Louis was not amused, infact he looked scared, horrified, mortified. Not good.

“Don’t screw with me Vincent, where are the documents?” I had never seen Louis like this, the veins in his neck were throbbing and his eyes were piercing.

“There are no documents.” I shouted dumping out the bag. “See! That guy took them, what is so important about them?”

“They are going to kill me!” Louis jumped up and started pacing. “Not good, not good. You gotta help me Vincent, no that’s not a good idea. Vincent, go home tell Uncle you couldn’t find me and forget about this.”

“Louis shut up! You know I can’t go back to Mr.Holden without you, now tell me whats going on or come back with me.”

Louis plopped down on the ground and buried his face in his hands. We sat there in the dark for what felt like days. After awhile he raised his head, looking at me, I assume he was deciding what to do, wether to trust me or try and run.

“Those documents are important, I can’t tell you why exactly. Only that I have to deliver them soon or they’ll come after me, thinking I kept them.”

“Who?”

“The people I work for, you were in the army keep up.”

“Louis you’re fifteen, you don’t work for anyone, you go to school, get into a little trouble and that’s all.”

“If only it were that simple. Vincent, I being dead serious. I work for some freaky people, I’m like, what do they call it? A courrier, a messanger.”

“You’re a delivery boy for a ‘freaky’ people.”

“Don’t say it like that, makes me sound lame.”

“So, what do we do? Who was the marine?”

“The marine, he must be one their goons, they guys who don’t want us to continue our work.”

“Goon? Goon for whom? Louis get straight with me, stop beating around the bush.”

“You know that secret group I told you about a while back? They’re real, the name isn’t real, I don’t believe we have a name. But we are trying to free the world and the, you’re going to hate this, the government is trying to shut us down. You know, make us disapear.” Louis stopped here and watched my reaction, hoping I’d believe him. I admit it was hard to believe, it was impossible really. But I had seen the marine hovering over Loui’s ‘lifeless’ body. And he was right, I really did not relish the idea that the government was the ‘bad guy’ in this situation. I had fought for them, given my life for them and if all this was real they had betrayed me by allowing one of their ‘goons’ to beat up Louis. I sighed and reached in my pocket for my cigarette, I had to think. Pulling a crumpled box of Pal Mal’s from my pocket I felt anger rush up my spine. “Damn it!” They were all broken, laying contorted in front of me. Louis tapped me on the shoulder, handed me a cigarette. I was to confused to bust his balls for smoking. Sucking the smoke deep into my lungs, enjoying the taste rolling over my tongue. Newport. Well at least he has taste.

Cigarettes have a calming effect on me, that and they help to clear my mind enabling me to think. In the Army we couldn’t smoke because the glow would give away our location. We were forced to resort to dip, the nasty stuff always got stuck in my in teeth and tasted like sour coffee grounds. After the cigarette I looked up at Louis, jugding him and choosing my next moves with care. He seemed genuially upset about all this and he believed passionately in what he was doing. If the marine was really working for who Louis said he was then I was in, whatever this was, there is no way in hell I’ll let the government get away with betrayal.

“Are you sure he was with the government?”

“Yes.”

“The US Government?”

“Absolutely.”

I nodded.

“Ok, I guess we need to get those papers back then.”

“What?” Louis’ voice gave away his excitement or was it joy?

“Let’s go get that basterd.”

Reviews

[Daniel Gardner]

This chapter is much better. I guess you didn't get around to fixing the structure on the other one.