• I had always taken the second bus home from school. Every day for as long as I could remember I never bothered to break my ritual of getting home. I’m kind of OCD that way I guess. But today, it was Friday, and Fridays are fun days, so I decided to do something a little different. I had never tried to step out of my comfort zone before and I had no clue on what had urged me to do it now. But I did it anyway.
    I would tell you the entire story from the beginning, but many people find that terribly boring and I don’t want to bore you into putting my testimony down and moving on. What I am telling you now is the solid and plain honest truth. Cross my heart and hope to die.
    My name is Caroline Wingbay. I’m a junior in high school and I have friends, and I have enemies. And I have short brown hair that only just barely covers my ears and grey eyes. Not blue or brown or green like all the other girls, but grey. Other than that, I was just an ordinary B- average student in Billings, Montana. Nothing odd about me, no supernatural powers or family issues or death wishes or anything like that. I just chose to walk home using a different route one day. I guess everyone happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time at some point in their lives. So I will skip the intro of my thoughts and actions and I sped walked home, and get strait to the point.
    I was cutting across the field to get to my street and trudging along a path that cut through some tall dry grass behind some old house fences. It was a hot day if I remember, So I was off in some other brain land thinking about anything except my sweaty face, when I happened to notice there was a heck of a lot of crows in front of me and a nasty smell wafting into my nose. I figured they had found a dead antelope and were eating it, because there are plenty of those around here. So I went to walking right on past, but my activity startled the birds and they exploded into the air in a swarm of black feathers like wasps from their next, nearly scaring the living daylights out of me.
    I jumped, grabbing at my chest and couldn’t stop myself from looking down even though I don’t like seeing road kill or dead animals. I really didn’t want to look at it, so naturally I did. And I remember opening my mouth to scream, but nothing came out but a pathetic whoosh of air and my knees went all shaky and I wanted to throw up then and there.
    With shaking hands I fumbled to pull my phone out of my pocket and had to try four or five different times before I hit all the correct buttons, and held the phone up to my ear.
    “911 what’s your emergency?” the female operator on the other end of the line asked. I struggled to find my voice, while at the same time forcing back my tears.
    “Hello?” the operator asked again.
    “U-um, my name’s Caroline, I think I just found a dead body.” I stuttered, the words falling out of my mouth in a great big jumbled mess.
    “Where are you?”
    “In the field across from the Castle rock junior high school…. Um behind the houses. I was walking home and I just found her….”
    “Can you describe the person?” she asked. I shook my head, turning away from the sight and covering my nose. Before remembering the operator couldn’t see me, so I had to choke out;
    “I can’t.”
    “Is it a boy or a girl?”
    “Girl.”
    “Can you guess the age?”
    “High school, like me probably…. I think I’ve seen her before…” I gasped.
    “Does it look like a recent death?”
    “I… I don’t know, some birds were eating her. I can’t tell.”
    “Okay, honey can you just stay there? We have an ambulance on the way right now. I can stay on the line with you if you want.”
    But I hung up. Too scared to keep telling her things about this corpse. I had never seen anything like this before and It was too scary to see it now. I didn’t know why they were dispatching the ambulance when she was already dead and half eaten, but I figured if people were on their way they didn’t need me. So with that, I turned and I ran the rest of the way home.
    Biggest mistake of my life.