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Matty couldn’t believe his luck, he’s currently walking to a store because his sister isn’t feeling well and needs medicine, even though he tried to tell his mom that most stores should be closed during this time. She didn’t care, she wanted the medicine so she sent him in the middle of the night to find a store that’s open. It also doesn’t help that she’s drunk, she probably would have never sent him to the store if she was in the right mindset.
As Matty continues walking to the store with his hands shoved in his pockets, he notices a black van ahead, it seems to slow down but he just keeps walking and tries to ignore when the guy in the van rolls down his window.
“What is someone like you doing out here this late?” says the man, he’s wearing a mask so Matty can’t see his face.
”Walking to the store” Matty says as he continues walking until the van starts reversing.
“You do know most stores are closed around this time right?”
”I’m aware” Matty says getting a bit annoyed as he continues walking, the van keeps reversing.
“Look I’m just trying to get to the store, please leave me alone before I call the cops” Matty says pulling out his phone from his pocket.
”You won’t be able to call anyone” says the man as he stops the van.
Before Matty could say anything he’s hit on the head with something strong that has him rolling off the side walk towards the forest.
Finney starts waking up, when his eyes are fully open he notices that not only is he in Robin’s room, he’s laying on Robin’s bed with Robin right next to him sleeping. Finney looks out the window and he sees it’s really dark outside. Fuck.
He was invited by Robin to study for their exam which is tomorrow. He didn’t plan on falling asleep. His dad was going to kill him.
He slowly gets off the bed and looks for his phone which is laying on top of a text book.
12:34 am.
Great.
He notices he has 12 missing calls from Gwen and 6 missing calls from his dad. Gwen also sent him about 154 messages. Mostly asking where he is.
He sighs, he knows that if he doesn’t go home now he could get in even more trouble if he stayed the night with Robin so he sends a quick message to Gwen telling her he’s on his way and starts putting his books in his backpack.
Robin seems to be waking up as he starts rubbing his eyes.
“Finn?, where are you going?” he asks with a yawn.
”Going home, if I stay my dad is going to be even more mad so” he says looking at the floor.
”Finn, it’s really late, it’ll be dangerous if you walk home”
”I know but I need to go”
”Okay, but I’m walking you home”
”what?, are you crazy” Finney asks with wide eyes.
”I’m not but you are, either you stay or in walking you home” Robin says getting up and starts putting his shoes on.
”Okay fine” Finney says with a sigh, “but you only walk me half way”
“Whatever you say Finn” Robin says with a smile as exits his room. “Let’s go” .
Finney just shakes his head and follows right after Robin.
The walk home is nice, Robin and Finney are having small conversations. There’s no one in the streets which makes sense since it is the middle of the night.
They notice a black van stopped by the side of the road, right next to the forest. When Finney and Robin walk right next to it they notice that there’s no one inside.
”That’s weird” Finney says looking around.
”It is, who would leave their van here” Robin says.
Finney was about to say something when they hear someone yell and turn to look at where the sound came from.
They both turn to look at each other before walking slowly to the source of the sound. When they make it to the side of the road they see Bruce Yamada on the ground, rubbing his ankle, it seems like he probably slipped and took a tumble down to the forest.
They know who Bruce Yamada is, the whole school does. He’s one of the smartest kids in their grade, taking all AP and advanced classes as he can and being able to keep them all above a A. He’s also the schools best baseball player and talks to everyone. Everyone knows him as the golden boy.
“Bruce?” says Finney.
”Finney Blake?, hey man what are you doing here?” Bruce says as he gets up from the ground.
”Going home, are you okay?” Says Finney as he makes his way down where Bruce is. Robin following.
”I’m fine, I was jogging and I was taking a break when I slipped I guess” Bruce says rubbing his neck. “They should really add a fence or something.” He says chuckling to himself as he leans on the tree right next to him.
”Are you sure you’re okay?, your ankle looks swollen”
”it’s fine” Bruce says smiling.
”Why are you jogging in the middle of the night?” Says Robin which makes Finney realize that Robin was behind him the whole time.
“I can’t sleep so I decided to jog” Bruce shrugs like if it’s normal to jog in the middle of the night.
”Do you want us to-“ Robin’s sentence was caught off when all boys heard a loud scream coming from deeper in the forest.
They stayed still for a few minutes before Robin spoke up.
”Let’s go check it out”
Both Finney and Bruce turned to look at Robin. “Are you crazy?”
”Yeah, I don’t want to get murdered”
”Guys we won’t get murdered but someone might be so let’s go check it out”
Both Finney and Bruce looked at each other and back at Robin like he grew a head. Was it safe to walk in the middle of the forest at 1am? Probably not, but here they were.
All three of them paused when they heard talking and walking coming their direction. Robin took out his phone and turned on his flashlight as he pointed the light towards the sound, spotting two boys who covered their eyes due to the light.
”What the hell?” said one of them.
”What are you guys doing here?” Said the other one still covering his eyes even though Robin stopped flashing the light at their faces.
”We heard a scream coming from the forest so we came to check it out” Said Robin, “I’m Robin by the way”
”Griffin” said the smaller one of the two, “we also heard a scream when we were waking”
“Wait what are you guys doing walking in the middle of the night?” Asked Bruce as he leaned on the of the trees due to his ankle.
”We were just taking a walk, it’s nice at night so” Said the other boy before he light up, “Oh!, I’m billy”
“Finney and that’s Bruce” said Finney pointing at Bruce who gave both of them a smile.
“Good to know, so are we going to check what made the noise of what?” Griffin said looking a bit annoyed.
“Yeah let’s go” Robin said.
And with that all five boys walked toward where they thought the scream came from.
It was a bit awkward due to the fact that Finney and Robin where joined by three more people, two of which they’ve never talked to before.
Finney knew who they were though. Billy Showalter, he’s known as one of the quiet kids and is the leader of their schools yearbook club. Griffin Stagg, another quiet kid who he knows nothing about, they have one class together thought.
“What the fuck are you guys doing here?” said a voice to the side of them, they all jumped at the loud voice. They all knew who the owner of the voice was. Vance Hopper, their schools delinquent. He’s been held back twice and is known to fight at least 2 times a week.
“We could ask you the same thing” Robin said as he crossed his arms over his chest.
”I was walking in the forest when I heard a loud ass scream and came to see who was getting murder” said Vance with a scoff.
Robin rolled his eyes, Finney knew that both Vance and Robin didn’t get a long well because they are both fighting for the role of the schools guys you don’t mess with even though everyone knows that title should go to Vance right away.
“Same thing”
“Yeah right” Vance said rolling his eyes, “You’re telling me that the golden boy is walking with three of the quiet kids and Robin Arellano in the middle of the night?”
“Griffin and I were walking together when we heard a scream and ran into these three”
“Robin and I were also walking when we heard Bruce fall off the side walk and roll into the forest, then we heard the scream”
“Didn’t have to tell them I slipped”
“Well he just did”
“Whatever, I’m leaving” Said Vance turning the way he came from.
“We don’t-“ Robin stopped talking when he noticed a man dragging a body, a dead body.
All boys turned to look at Robin before turning to what he was looking at and froze in place.
The man is dressed in all black with a white mask that seems to be something someone would wear in Halloween. He was dragging Matty, a well known bully. His eyes were open and he was definitely dead with all the blood coming out of his neck.
The boys seemed to still be frozen until the man noticed all of them, his eyes widening and letting go of the body, and holding up the bloody knife.
That seemed to be enough to some of the boys moving. Robin started pulling Finney as Griffin grabbed Billy’s hand and ran after Robin who was dragging Finney while both Vance and Bruce were behind them, Bruce being the last one since his ankle was still hurting. The man didn’t seem to follow them.
When the boys reached on of the main roads they stopped running. Billy started throwing up, Griffin just tried to catch his breath, Bruce seemed to having a panic attack, Finney felt like fainting, Robin kept cussing in Spanish and Vance kept looking around and couldn’t stop moving.
“What the fuck?!”
“Did we just witness a murder?
”Thats you guys wanted” Finney said pointing at Robin and Vance as he tried to steady himself.
”We need to call the cops” Said Bruce who was pale and was having problems breathing.
“Yeah and tell them what?, that we were out here in the middle of the fucking night just going for a walk?” Said Vance with a loud voice.
“If we call the cops we have to tell them the truth of why we’re out this late”
Billy was still on the ground after throwing up, Griffin was kneeling next to him and rubbing his back. Bruce was still having trouble breathing, Finney seemed to calmed down after Robin hugged him, Robin keeps hugging Finney and rubbing his back as he himself also calmed down. Vance keep looking around towards the forest.
“Okay then what were you guys doing out here at midnight” Said Griffin pointing at Finney and Robin.
”Robin invited me over to his house to study for the exam we have tomorrow, or I guess today, I ended up falling asleep and I woke up around 12, my dad would of killed me even more if I just stayed the night, Robin didn’t want me walking by myself.” Robin gave Bruce a nod for him to tell his story.
”I go on jogs when I can’t sleep”
Griffin nodded as he turned to Billy. Billy sighed before getting up from the ground, Griffin following. “My parents were fighting, they always fight but today it was getting really bad, my mom was throwing plates at my dad as he yelled at her saying he’s going to get a lawyer so I stay with him” Billy kept looking at the ground the whole time he talked but turned to Griffin when he finished talking.
”He texted me saying he didn’t want to be in the house as long as their fighting and since he couldn’t stay at mine, I told him I would walk him over to his aunts house” Billy nodded as he rested his head on Griffins shoulders.
All five boys turned to Vance who just rolled his eyes at them. “My parents kicked me out for the night and I stay in the forest because not a lot of people go there”
They kept staring at Vance like he grew a head before he rolled his eyes once more.
“Can we call the cops now?”
”I still think its fucking dumb to call the cops”
”Dumb?!, We saw someone dragging a dead body we should definitely call the fucking cops”
”It was Matty wasn’t it?” Said Griffin.
All boys turned to look at Griffin, with Robin and Finney nodding at his words.
That was Matty someone who went to school with them. Someone who has a family and are probably waiting on his return.
”It is Matty and because of that we should call the cops”
”Look even if we call the cops for them it’s going to be a huge coincidence that the six of us were just walking, even if we do have a story.” Said Robin.
“But what else are we supposed to do?, not call the cops and let someone else find his body?”
”Yes exactly that”
”You know what Vance, I think your just scared because you know you’ll get in trouble with the cops even if you weren’t physically involved with this murder”
”And what if I am huh?, they see me, see Robin and they’ll think we fucking killed Matty, because of how violent we are okay, it’s a small fucking town, for them it would be the only thing that makes sense”
“He’s right, they would do anything for people to feel safe even if they have to lie about it, us being here is a whole coincidence, we need to be smart about this”
”Look I understand but we can’t just not say anything”
“Bruce we will figure it o-“
”Guys” Finney interrupted Griffin when he saw the man coming out of the forest and start opening his van.
All boys turned to look at what Finney was looking and as before all froze in place. The man placed the bag that was on his shoulders into the van, he didn’t place a body or anything. He got into the van and started driving away and that got the boys walking away from the opposite direction.
That was until he did a U turn, it had the boys running.
“Fuck follow me” said Vance as he ran into one of the neighborhood streets and got the boys to hide behind cars and bushes.
The black van came by, twice and then it was gone.
”Can we now call the fucking cops?, that man fucking followed us, I agree with Bruce.” Billy said after not saying anything during their other argument.
”Let’s take a vote okay, race your hand if you think we should call the cops” Bruce, Billy, Finney and Griffin raised their hands.
”It’s settled then” Robin and Vance seemed pretty upset about calling the cops but they still did.
“I think we witnessed a murder” was the first thing Bruce said as soon as the cops answered the phone.
In less than five minutes the cops arrived having the kids wait in one of the cop cars, they all stayed together as they saw detectives and men going into the forest.
They’ve been questioned a couple of times by different cops, of course nothing out of the ordinary.
Billy, Finney and Bruce are sitting in the cop car as Vance, Robin and Griffin lean against it. A detective comes their way.
”Okay so we searched all over the forest where you said the murder happened and there’s nothing, not even blood”
”What do you mean there’s nothing?”
”Theres no proof of a murder, we did went to check with Matty’s family and he did leave his home around 12am”
All boys couldn’t believe it, did the man clean the murder scene or were the cops just not looking at the right place. Whatever the case was the cops were very suspicious about the six.
“I’m going to be questioning you guys again.”
“What?!”
”it’s necessary”
”We literally told you guys everything”
”Did anyone know Matty?” The detective asks as he looks at all the kids and points at Vance to start talking.
He of course rolled his eyes but answered his question. “I knew Matty, that asshole is known to be a bully and I’ve fought him a couple of times”
The detective nods as he turns to Robin.
”I’ve seen him around school and I’ve stopped him from bullying Finn”
That got the detective interested as he turned to Finney next, skipping the rest of the boys.
”Matty and his friends bully me, I don’t talk to them unless they decide to beat me up”
The detective nods and interviews the rest of the boys.
He leaves them.
”He thinks we did it doesn’t he?” Says Finney after a long time.
“Probably thinks you did it” Says Griffin with amusement.
”So he skips the fact that both Robin and Vance said that they fight him and was more intrigued because Matty bullies Finney”
”For reals, man’s really thinks Finney has the balls to face his bullies”
”I always do it for him”
The six boys start having conversations about a lot of thing until one of the cops comes to them.
”We are taking you guys home”
When all boys were about to leave with different cops Billy gets an idea. “Guys we should give each other our numbers”
All boys agree as they give Billy their numbers and he adds them to a groupchat as the cops just stare at them and the detective seems to write something down on his notepad.
And with that all boys are taken to their house.
This leads to all of them being grounded of course.
Apparently all the cops told the parents to keep the kids in their house so all six boys were forced to stay home and not go to school on a Friday.
Even though Matty hasn’t been missing for 48 hours, they put him as missing due to the fact the six boys saw him but they didn’t want to say he was dead until they found a body.
All boys stayed at home but saw all the things people were saying about the whole thing, of course people suspected it was Vance.
It seemed as the whole school was just on their phones posting about the situation, at least every person had one post about Matty or the six boys.
Finney was on his phone after he woke up and saw that he had a message on Instagram.
Unknownuser1774
I know you guys called the police, but stay quiet about this or you will be next
Finney kept staring at the message until he got a message from a unknown groupchat
Unnamed Groupchat
***-***-****: Billy
Billy: did you guys get the message too?
Robin: Robin, and I did
***-***-****: Griffin, yeah
Finney: Finney and I did as well
***-***-****: same and Vance
Griffin: how does the fucker know who we are to be able to find our instagrams
Vance: we need to figure that out and also where is Bruce?
Griffin: probably grounded lol
Finney: yeah his parents are strict so…
Robin: he’ll figure it out when he gets his phone then, for now we need to figure out what to do
Billy: the police is a no no
Griffin: you think?
Vance: and the fucking account has nothing, it’s like just been created but he does follow matty
Billy: I’m still confused on how he found my insta, I don’t have my name on it
Griffin: yeah but the name of it is paperboy125 and the only follower you have is me so
Billy: oh🧍♀️
Bruce: I’m here 😭
Finney: hey Bruce
Bruce: so we all got the message?
Vance: yes, didn’t you read?
Bruce: I was just making sure damn
Robin: okay so he knows who we are and he even knows who Matty is
Griffin: we need to find someone who knows everyone’s names then
Finney: teachers and the principle?
Robin: police officers and detectives
Vance: that’s good but we need to think bigger
Billy: this shit is so hard😭
Bruce: ong how does one find a murder
Robin: does anyone know who owns a black van?
Bruce: yeah, yk that magician. my parents actually just called him for my sisters birthday next week
Finney: there’s also this guy that lives two houses down who has a black van but his is more cleaner, pretty sure he just got it
Vance: the magician makes sense, he works with kids he might find a way to ask around for our names and stuff
Griffin: does anyone know where he lives?
Billy: yeah he lives in the house 7714, he still gets papers sent to his house
Vance: unknownuser7714
Robin: holy shit wait
Finney: that can’t just be a coincidence
Bruce: it has to be him right?
Griffin: well, he has a black van, is able to find our names because he works for kids, and lives in the house of the instagram account so probably
Robin: we need to confirm it before we call the cops though
Vance: Billy, when’s the next time you are giving him papers?
Billy: tomorrow
Vance: then tomorrow we all go with paperboy to deliver the papers and we knock at his door
Finney: are you crazy?
Bruce: that doesn’t sound like a good idea
Billy: ong we are literally begging to get murdered
Vance: what?, you guys just want to sit around and do nothing
Vance: Bruce you wanted to call the cops so they could find matty
Robin: Vance is right, the cops are suspicious of us, if we call them with the info that we have they are going to be even more suspicious
Robin: Vance and I don’t have a good relationship with them and they seem ti think Finn might of done something
Griffin: yeah they have a point, we are on our own
Finney: ugh😭
Billy: we are dying
Bruce: tell my parents I love them
Griffin: you guys are so extra
Robin: what’s the plan?
Billy: well I deliver papers early in the morning so we could meet up somewhere around 5am?
Bruce: 5am?
Robin: the grab n go?
Vance: that works
Bruce: why so early 😭
Billy: anyways 😐
Billy: are you guys going to be with me the whole time?
Robin: yes
Finney: omg this is fun
Griffin: finding a killer is fun?
Finney: hanging out with people 😐
Bruce: lmao
Friday ended fast, the six boys didn’t really plan anything.
Finney woke up at 4:45 and got ready, he grabbed his bat before exiting the house quietly, so he doesn’t wake up his dad and sister.
He got on his bike and made his way to the grab n go where the other five boys were already there.
They walked around the neighborhoods, throwing the newspapers and talking to themselves as they made their way to the house of the supposed killer.
Finney realized that he actually enjoyed talking to the five boys, he couldn’t believe the fact that he met them because of a murder.
After dropping off the newspapers to every house, they made their way to 7714.
”Okay so what’s the plan?” asked Robin.
”Just knock the door right?”
“Wait I don’t think he’s here” said Billy as he realized that the van isn’t where it normally is.
The six boys walked close to the house, with Bruce staying close to the gate as the others looked around the house to see through the window, it seemed like there was no one there.
“Great, he’s not here” said Billy dropping the newspaper before walking towards Bruce.
“He’s coming” said Bruce as he kept watching the black van making his way towards them.
All boys got got on their bikes and started going.
The black van noticed them and started going faster.
”Fuck, does anyone live close?”
“I do” said Robin as he went in front of everyone and stared heading home. All boys were going in the speed of light trying to lose the guy, who was in fact following them.
“it’s definitely him”
“someone take a picture of the license plate”
Finney took out his phone and took a quick picture, he then tried his best to check if you could see the license plate, he couldn’t tell so he decided to sacrifice it all, he quickly opened the groupchat and stoped as he took a picture.
”Finney what the fuck are you doing!?” Yelled Vance as he kept staring at the boy.
Finney sent the picture to the groupchat as he got on the bike once more and tried following the 5 boys.
All five boys were yelling at him since the black van sped up more when he realized Finney stopped.
Finney turned around to the van being right behind him and before he could get hit he swerved and fell to the ground, crushing his leg in the process.
The black van immediately stopped right next to him.
All five boys turned around to help their friend as the man got out of his van.
“You guys are so dumb, deciding to get involved with something that doesn’t matter” The man said as soon as the boys were close enough to him, “I always watched how bad Matty treated everyone, he wasn’t a good person, he deserved to die”.
”in that case you deserve to go to jail” Vance said.
”Don’t be like that, I just did you guys a favor, especially you Finney, he will never bully you again.” The man said as he started walking close to Finney.
Finney grabbed his bat and swung it as soon as the man was close enough to him, and before they knew it cops showed up.
When the boys saw the man close to Finney they called the cops and explained the whole situation.
Once again the boys were put in the side as the officers did their job, a cop came to them and told them that the man told them he buried the body under a tree in the forest which the cops found.
They did it, they got the killer in jail and they found the body of Matty. They saw Matty’s mom as she cried.
The boys went to school on Monday, before classes started they had a meeting talking about Matty, and explaining to them the situation about his death and the killer, and of course to pay respect to him.
The six boys sat next to each other during the assembly, they payed attention and didn’t say anything.
Everything else was pretty much the same, expect for lunch. They decided to all sit together, which was probably a bad idea, everyone was looking at them.
They didn’t care though, they ate, talked, laughed. For them it didn’t feel like they just became friends, it felt like they’ve been friends, a friendship that’s going to last forever.
Some of Bruce’s teammates walked over to their table.
”How exactly did you guys become friends, the whole school wants to know”
All of the six boys turned to each other with smiles on their faces. What they witnessed on Thursday night was very traumatizing for them all but they weren’t alone, they had each other to talk about their trauma and joke about it.
Bruce turned to look at them and said “We saw a man dragging a dead Matty in the forest”
There was a silence before “WHAT!?!”