Rex told us to stay away from the bodies and so we did. A dead family: a mom, a dad, son and daughter, and maybe another son or a friend. We weren’t sure. They were all scarred up from head to toe and blood matted down their clothing as they were lying on the forest floor, strung out in front of their cabin. The children had no faces because somebody had unloaded on them with a shotgun. The adults managed to still have half their faces, but their skulls had been blown open; The mother at the forehead, the father at the side.
Now, this had to be the worst crime scene I’d ever bared witness to in my thirty plus years on the force. It was me, Sanders, and Magill and I’d say it was the worst any of us had seen. Well, perhaps not Sanders: he had served in ‘Nam, and I would have too however my hearing’s bad. Magill’s just a kid, I wasn’t sure what he’d seen yet. There was a K-9 with us who had sniffed out the bodies, however they stunk so god damn bad I don’t think we really needed any help.
It was hot, but we had to wait for Rex. I had Magill set up tape. People had to stay away from crime scenes, but we were to understand that this one was different. This one could hurt people. It was strange anyway, the way they were all out on the lawn like that. Didn’t seem to make much sense. Their skin looked as if it had been decomposing for a while, but that didn’t make sense because it had only gotten reported recently and a family had stayed at this site only a week beforehand. These bodies would have had to be here around then.
They also looked like maybe they were all headed in the same direction. They had all been blown onto their backs except for the mother. She was on her belly. Rex got here. He was wearing his sunglasses. He asked us if we had touched the bodies. We said no because we weren’t ordered to.
Just then, the k-9 started sniffing around. His scent trail was leading up over to one of the bodies.
“Don’t let him touch them!’ Rex yelled, but it was too late. The dog shoved his nose into the dad’s hollowed-out temple. Rex said “Ah, shit!” and shot the dog.
“What the hell did you do that for?” Magill was upset about it. I guess he hadn’t seen too much yet.
“Nobody can touch any of them. We gotta burn the bodies. Gotta burn everything.” Rex wasn’t taking shit.
A slight rustling sounded from inside the cabin. We all stopped and drew our guns. Nobody moved for a few seconds. Then out came a tiny little “Don’t shoot!”
“It’s safe now, c’mon out!” Magill said. He was shaking. I thought that was kind of funny.
There was no movement and silence. The house creeked a bit, however, so someone was moving.
“C’mon now, little shooter!” Magill said. Just then, a shotgun came flying out of one of the windows and landed in front if him. Magill jumped. I really thought that was funny so I laughed. The door of the cabin squeaked open, and out ran a crying little boy of Hispanic descent. He made sure not to touch the bodies on his way out. He hugged Magill’s legs.
Rex looked through his sunglasses around at spent shotgun shells on the ground and then looked me in the face. My look back said “Hell if I know, but I sure hope not.”
