Read Online To Probe A Beating Heart by John B Wren - Free Book Online Page B

sputtered as it burned. Averell had to add fuel several times to keep the fire going, trying to turn the body to ash. After a while, he gave up and with a stick he pulled the half burned body parts out of the fire and loosened the soft earth under a bush making a hole where he placed the remains. He found several stones that he placed over the remains, then pushed the dirt back in the hole and stomped it down with his foot. He returned the trap to its hiding place and made sure he had all his tools before heading for home. It was nearly midnight when he approached the edge of the woods and he saw an older boy with a girl walking toward him. He hid himself and watched as they looked around before going into the woods. Curious, he followed at a safe distance and they went directly to the campsite. They stopped and the boy looked around with a concerned expression on his face. He put his hand in the fire pit and quickly withdrew it.
                  “Somebody else has been here, recently, this pit is still hot.”
                  “Come on Jeff, let’s get out of here” said the girl.
                  “Okay Sandy, let’s go,” he replied with an angry and disappointed look. Averell waited for them to leave and started for the street again. He stopped short and peered through the leaves and saw Jeff with two other boys and Sandy talking. They were looking around as if searching for someone. Averell sat down to wait them out. As he waited a car passed the woods, it was Ellie coming home. He wanted to get home just in case she opened his door to check on him. Not that she ever had before, but why take a chance. He picked up a few stones and threw them one at a time back into the woods. The boys heard it and charged into the woods with Sandy close behind. Averell then crept out of his hiding place and walked quietly across the street and down his block to home. When he was as far from the woods as he could be and still see the place where the boys were talking, he turned, paused and looked. They were still in the woods. He was half way there. Now to get back in the house without being seen. He climbed up on the garbage can to the tree and on to the roof. He was getting pretty good at this maneuver. He walked quietly across the roof and opened his window and crawled in. He undressed and put on his pajamas and turned down his covers. His hands were filthy with both mud and blood. He needed to clean up. No sounds from down stairs so he opened his door and went into the bathroom. He washed up and since he was making noise, he flushed the toilet and opened the bathroom door to go back to his room. Ellie appeared at the stairs coming up and apparently going to bed.
                  “What are you doing?”
                  “I had to use the bathroom.”
                  “Get in bed, it’s late.”
                  “Okay.”
                  He crawled into bed, pulled the covers up on himself and thought, “I made it, I’m safe.”
                  “Yeah, safe,” agreed Stelian.
                  He lay there in bed, thinking about the squirrel and seeing it’s eyes as he pushed the stick through its body. The animal’s reaction, it’s want to get free, it’s want to bite or scratch back at him, it’s want to fight to stay alive and the fear that it was about to die, to be another animal’s lunch. Averell was breathing heavier, the memory of that moment when the squirrel’s eyes went full wide, then blank, when it stopped breathing, was making him tense up, breath heavily and perspire. The excitement, the thrill, the final moment of life and he was in control. He wanted to do it again, he wanted to do it now. He wanted to feel that control over another being’s destiny. His body was tensing and he was sweating, he got out of bed and paced back and forth in his room, calming and cooling down. Then, as