Silence by Rebekah Shimer (best novels for beginners txt) 📖

was going to stop, but as soon as the policeman came near him, he swung his knife at the policeman’s face. The policeman was ready though and dodged the knife smoothly. I heard more and more police cars coming and I started to cry when I saw the ambulance pull up.

A paramedic came up to me and said, “Ma’am I need you to step inside the ambulance.”

“No! You have to help Edwyn! He’s inside the house! I don’t know if he’s living or not just please . . .”

I trailed off as the paramedics stormed into my house. I saw them carrying Edwyn out on a stretcher and I breathed a sigh of relief. I saw now that there were twenty policemen that had tackled Bruce to the ground. They had taken away his knife and they were putting handcuffs on him.

One of the head policemen came up to me and asked, “Are you okay miss?”

I nodded and said through tears, “Thank you.”

He said, “It’s our job.”

I looked up at him. He had a police hat on that had the town’s emblem on it and I could tell that he wore the hat often. He was a little overweight, and he had a moustache that was completely white. His eyes were a light blue, almost like the sky, but it was hard to tell behind this thick-rimmed glasses. His hands were big and he had small little sausage fingers. He wasn’t really tall, but I was always used to Edwyn’s tall so he was probably about average height. I felt someone put a blanket around me, but it was just one of the paramedics. I looked over at the ambulance to see if Edwyn was conscious yet, but I couldn’t see anything through the wall of paramedics that were standing around Edwyn. One of them turned around and motioned for me to come inside the ambulance to get my cut cleaned up.

I nodded and walked over to the ambulance slowly, now realizing that I had a cut on my leg too from when Bruce and I had fought. When I got to the ambulance, one of the paramedics stopped working on Edwyn and came over to me. I could tell that he was one of the newer workers, since he looked like he had just gotten out of college. His dark brown hair was gelled up at the front and his eyes were almost darker than his hair. He had an abnormally long nose, but it kind of suited him. His hands were long and bony, which was almost exactly like his body. He didn’t really have that much weight on him, which meant that he probably weighed the same amount as Edwyn, who was only a senior in high school.

I said quickly, “If you need to work on him go. I don’t really need that much care. Just a few scrapes.”

He laughed and said in a surprisingly low voice, “It’s my job to patch you up. Come on.”

He led me over to the end of the ambulance and made me sit on the bumper. He started to disinfect the wound from my chest to my shoulder, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was looking behind me the entire time at Edwyn’s heart monitor. At that moment, there was only a tiny little blip that occasionally went across the screen. I knew then that Edwyn didn’t have a good chance of living. He probably wasn’t going to live. The paramedic that was working on me put a bandage on my shoulder wound and then started on my leg wound.

He gave me a rag and said, “Here. You can clean up your face by yourself I think.”

I thanked him and started to wipe all of the blood off of my face. When the paramedic was done with my leg, he took the rag and got the rest that I had missed from my face.

I said while I wrapped the blanket tighter around my shoulders, “Thanks.”

One of the paramedics that was working on Edwyn said to the paramedic that was helping me, “We need to take him to the hospital. Now.”

The college aged paramedic smiled at me and said, “Bye.”

I waved at him but I asked before he left, “Can I come with you? To the hospital I mean?”

He shook his head and said, “I think they’re wanting to ask you some questions about what happened.”

I nodded and he got in the back of the ambulance. They shut the back door and drove off with Edwyn, not even really telling me how he was doing. Or if he was even alive.

Bearer Of Bad News

Audrey

 

As soon as the ambulance turned the corner, the policeman that had talked to me earlier came up to me.

He told me, “We need to ask you some questions about what happened here okay?”

I nodded and he led me over to a circle of policemen. They all had notepads and were ready to write down what I told them.

The same police officer said, “My name is Officer James. How do you know Bruce Johnson?”

I said back automatically, “He goes to my school and he was friends with one of my friends.”

“What were you doing before Bruce came over?”

“Well my boyfriend Edwyn was over at my house. We were watching a movie, but I fell asleep. He put me in my bed and I fell asleep. The next thing I knew, he was screaming and Bruce was standing above him with a knife. Do you know how Edwyn is doing? Is he okay?”

Officer James replied patiently, “We don’t know his medical status at the moment. Please finish your answer.”

“I was done.”

“What happened after you found him standing above your friend with the knife?”

“Well, I ran back into my room and leaned against the door, but he started to stab the door with his knife and he did it hard enough so the knife was coming out on my end of the door. I walked away from it, but then he started to hurt Edwyn when I didn’t come out. I came out and he started to threaten me. I pushed him away from me and he fell over a table. I ran upstairs and called the emergency number and tried to tell her where I lived, but Bruce carried me back down the stairs before I could finish. He tried to threaten me, but I kicked him and threw him down on the ground. I ran over to Edwyn and told him to keep hanging on until you guys came, but he told me to hide. I wasn’t going to hide and make Bruce hurt him again until I came back out, so I stayed. Bruce grabbed me, but I blacked out for a few seconds because he hit my head against the wall.

“After a while, I started to understand that he was telling me that Edwyn wasn’t going to make it and that he wanted me to speed up the process. He made me take the knife, but he put his hands over mine so I wouldn’t be able to let go. He made me press the knife into the spot just above Edwyn’s heart, but I didn’t want to. I told Edwyn I was sorry, but he closed his eyes. I thought that he was dead, so I just gave up the will to live too. I was about to let Bruce kill me, but then I remembered that I had a lot to live for, so I pushed him away from me and ran out the door. I saw that you guys were here and that’s that.”

All of the officers were madly writing things down and I thought that I had said my story too fast.

Officer James smiled down at me and said, “It’s okay. It’s all over now. Bruce is going to be put in jail and he’s never going to bother you again.”

I nodded and said, “Thank you.”

He nodded again and the whole circle of officers seemed to shut itself as they began to talk about what I had just told them. I looked around, not really knowing what to do. I wasn’t going to go back inside my house, no matter what. I knew that my mom was probably on her way at that moment, beings how she always made sure that I was safe. I waited around for a few moments before I heard a familiar voice that I longed to hear. My mom broke through the crowd of policemen and started to cry when she saw me.

I screamed out as I ran to her, “Mom!”

We came together and hugged in the middle of the street. My mom was full on crying now, and I was almost to that point too.

My mom broke the hug and asked me as she inspected my face, “Are you hurt badly?”

I shook my head and said, “No. I’m not too terribly hurt.”

My mom asked quietly, “What about Edwyn?”

I shrugged my shoulders and pointed at the end of the street that led to the hospital, “I don’t know. The ambulance took him away a while ago.”

“Then what are we standing around here for? Let’s go to the hospital.”

I nodded and we started to walk towards my mom’s car. We both got in and she turned the heater on after noticing how cold I really was underneath the blanket. We were both silent on the way to the hospital, which I was glad for. I don’t think I could’ve been able to hold a conversation while being in the state that I was in. I was worried sick about Edwyn and the memory of the small little blip didn’t help my hope either. We made it to the hospital and I got out of the car before my mom was able to shut it off. I practically ran inside the hospital and walked up to the front desk.

I asked her, “Edwyn? Edwyn Buckler?”

She looked through her charts painstakingly slow until she finally found his name.

She said slowly. “He’s in surgery right now. You’re going to have to wait.”

I nodded uneasily and joined my mom in one of the waiting chairs. I looked around me and found that the only other person in the waiting room was completely out cold across the room. The man looked to be in his early thirties, maybe even late twenties. His blonde hair fell into his face as he slept, but he was obviously too tired to care. He looked muscular but lean at the same time, which made me think that the man either played sports or lifted weights a lot to keep himself in shape. After a few hours of waiting, I finally couldn’t sit still anymore.

I got up and told my mom, “I’m going to get some fresh air.”

She nodded in understanding and I walked outside. Everyone else who was walking outside didn’t seem to have a care in the world, while it felt like the whole world was on my shoulders. Waiting for Edwyn was definitely the hardest thing that I had done while the whole tragedy was unfolding. After a few minutes of walking outside, I strangely felt claustrophobic, so I went back inside and sat down by my mom.

After a few more