A twig snapped in the dark of the woods behind him.
At the sudden rift in the silence, Gabe's heart jumped. He turned on the spot, fear in his eyes hidden by the dark of the night. He could feel the cold steel in his hands as he pointed the gun into the invisible face of the sound of the night.
The click of his gun loading caused another twig to snap: Dave, a few strides ahead, whipped around, shovel from his shoulder suddenly in position to attack.
"Jesus, Gabe," he said, an obvious quake in his voice. "Don't jump at everything. You'll scare the shit out of me." He turned around again. "Now come on. Give me a hand with this."
Gabe let out a breath; relieved that the twig was just a twig, though his voice was still brittle with a greater fear.
"Sorry, Dave." Mentally willing himself to be more trusting of the night and its concealment, he shoved the gun in his back pocket and wiped his sweat from his palms onto the sides of his faded Levis. Quickening his pace, he caught up to his companion. Dave's tall, slender frame could barely be made out next to the sack that seemed, in Gabe's mind, to stand out more than anything in daylight ever could.
"Come on, give me a hand," Dave repeated. Instantly feeling sick as he looked at the sack, Gabe swallowed and tried not to think about its contents. It swung between the two boys as they continued to trudge through the forest.
Funny. The harder he tried to not think about what was inside, the clearer, the sooner the mental images came.

He'd gone with Dave to her house as a favor: Gabe had owed his friend for some petty matter. "Bring the gun," Dave had said. "We won't use it. But bring it just in case." It hadn't even occurred to Gabe that the 'just in case' bothered him.
They knocked on her door. There was no answer. They went in anyway, remnants of a session with drugs making them louder than they should have been. Dave had walked in first.
"I know you're here, Suzanne." They walked into the kitchen. He had been right, she was there. But that didn't last long.
Quiet conversation. Gabe didn't pay much attention. And suddenly, Dave yelled. The girl had a knife in her hand. He was up against the wall, face to face with the steel blade.

Bring it. Just in case.
And Gabe went for the gun.
He pointed it at the girl - she was standing across the room. His finger lay next to the trigger.
And suddenly, she wasn't standing anymore.
She was falling. Crumpling. Bleeding. Dying.

'Jesus,' Gabe thought to himself as he ducked under a low branch. 'What am I going to do?'
The two walked along in silence for a few moments, until Dave slowed to a stop. "I guess here's as good a spot as any."
"Guess so."
"I don't even know where we are - no one'll ever look here. Not 'till it's too late, anyway."
"Mhmm."
"Okay. Yeah."
Dave set the old-fashioned lantern from that kitchen down on the ground, and on one smooth motion, he swung the shovel from his shoulder and rammed it into the mossy ground. Gabe threw himself down and leaned against his tree as his friend began to dig a hole.
He couldn't help but look at the pathetic lump that had once been a living, breathing person. And he couldn't help but think, 'I did that. I'm the reason it's no longer a living breathing person. I'm the reason it's just a lump.'
Somewhere in his head, a voice of innocence told him that it wasn't his fault. That it had been his only choice. That he had done it to save Dave.
And then the first voice: 'Then why do I feel so guilty?'

Gabe looked down at his hands and dropped the gun.
"Jesus. Dave, oh God, what did I just do?" His legs gave way and he sank to the floor, back against the dirty yellow wall for support.
Dave didn't waste a moment. Like he dealt with the newly murdered every day, he grabbed the faded tablecloth from the table and threw it over the body, barely looking at it.

As the blood from the hidden body began to stain the cloth that covered it, Gabe could only stare at his shaking hands.
Dave worked quickly. After making sure she was dead, he stuffed a dishtowel into the bullet hole and wrapped an apron around it. He pushed her into a fetal position and pulled the cloth around her, tying an elegant knot to complete her new encasement.
The initial panic and disbelief had begun to seep away, and now Gabe was overwhelmed with a sense of guilt and terror. Of reality.
He sat against her wall, next to her folding chair, staring at his hands. And he began to cry.

Dave wiped the sweat from his brow, resting his arms on the handle of his shovel. "Ready," he said, jerking his head in the direction of the sack. Gabe took a deep breath, filled with the most horrible human emotions, and stood up. He walked towards Dave, and as they stood facing each other, neither one daring to look down to what stood between them. Finally, Dave spoke.
"Let's get it over with then." He stooped to grab the sack, and Gabe followed suit. They teetered as they carried her weight over to the hole, thrown off balance by the extra hundred-something pounds. They had just begun to heave the sack below the earth, when Gabe caught a glimpse of one of her eyes.
Had she been alive, her eyes wouldn't have been thought anything particularly special: they were almond shaped, and intermingling shades of brown surrounded the black of her pupil.
But sitting here, the night illuminated only by the flickering glow of an outdated lantern, that light brown eye filled with an empty terror of death, it really hit him.
He'd taken her life, and he didn't even know her.
He didn't know why she knew Dave, or how, or why she should have had to die. He didn't know if she had family, if she had friends, if she had a cat. He didn't know what her favourite movie was, or if she liked to ski, or where she went on Christmas.
He felt the hot burn of tears again as he kneeled down to meet the blossoms and grass that meant spring. Pulling a single flower from the ground, he rose, and let it fall next to the body that would never again see the spring.
He only knew that her name was Suzanne.