Caroline had always been the risk-taking of the pair of us. She was my best friend, as well; not my sibling or relative. That made it rather odd to some people, when they thought about how that relaxed and laid-back Johnny McBride allowed spitfire Caroline Lanchester lead him around by the nose. After all, I was supposed to be the level-headed one as well as the calmest. Caroline was the level-headed one, though. She knew the risks, but did it anyway. I did it just because she was my only friend. Nobody really liked a lanky guy with permanently oily hair and dorky glasses that liked politics and science fiction, though. It wasn’t normal. Of course, hanging around with a pretty girl like Caroline and not dating her just upped me on the strange scale, but what could I do? Caroline didn’t date.
There was one thing she did, though. She liked adrenaline and she’d gotten me hooked on it, too, and that was why we were in the dark, me holding a pair of bolt cutters while she took off her top and shorts, displaying her itty bitty bikini. With only the moon shining on us, I couldn’t gawk too much—which was probably a good thing, since I’d probably end up dropping the bolt cutters on one of my feet.
“You do realize I don’t want to stand here all night?” I ask finally, hands trembling slightly as I let the bolt cutters fall onto the grass.
I’m not sure if I like doing something like this so close to home. I mean, the Watsons only lived a block from me. If they caught me and saw me riding a bike later, I could get arrested. Of course, that only got my heart pounding and adrenaline rushing through my system.
And that makes it all okay.
“Oh, just shut up and undress, you fool,” she says, in that playful tone of hers. She throws her clothes at me and lets down her hair, before jumping into the Watsons’ pool.
The pale light hits her perfectly, displaying her blond hair floating out in all directions and her heart-shaped face with her normal crooked grin in plain sight.
I let out a sigh and just strip to my boxers, laying all our clothes on one of the chairs, before doing a cannonball into the pool.
She refrains from shrieking as water splashes all over her, but she scowls at me as soon as I swim over to her. She throws water at me and I just grin and duck.
Then she does shriek, loudly; her eyes suddenly going wide as she looks at something behind me. I give her a look, wondering if she’s serious, before turning.
I feel every bit of happiness leave me in an instant, horror thrumming through my veins like acid. Kimberly Jones is in the Watsons’ pool and it’s quite obvious she’s dead.
“Johnny...” Caroline gasps behind me, grabbing at my arm.
I don’t respond as I clearly hear my mother’s voice, a voice I chose to forget most days. It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.
(Comments on this short story are appreciated. I did it because of a prompt on Writer's Digest's website. I went over the preferred word count, but I still think it's pretty decent. I might turn it into a novel later, but who knows? Thanks for reading, anyway. Oh, and I hope the title is semi-okay. It was the first thing that popped into my mind.)
I'm glad you liked it and I may continue then. Johnny McBride sounds like a fun sort of guy and I've never written a murder mystery before... I suppose you could say "challenge: accepted", but I'm not sure where I'd go with it yet...
