Murder In The Woods

Twenty-two years ago, two boys whom I could hardly call friends, ventured deep into the woods. They went to find a spot suitable for a fort, for camping, and for adventurous ends.

Randy and Steven were the names of this pair of boys. Both were outsiders, somewhat disadvantaged, of all who I grew up with there were no tougher I could find.

This story, I will tell you, is not about ten year olds building a fort. Randy and Steven, on their outing, happened to stumble into adventures of a tragic sort.

Far back in that forest there was a cabin all alone. Inside there was a person who the boys found dead, so long, she was nothing but bone. On this skeleton, however, and this is where the story really starts, the boys found a beautiful ring.

Randy and Steven, being brave and tough, decided to take this ring and hide it under a rock.

Time went on, and with it, that ruby ring was all but forgotten. Randy and Steven would have been the better had their fates not intertwined the story of the ring.

For this was a story of men quite utterly rotten.



Randy in his way was a handsomish brute. He found love and romance in a red head that played the flute. Her name was Rebecca. Her family was well off. One day, early in their romance, Rebecca invited Randy for dinner at her parent’s house.

That night an image caught the young boy’s eye; something so earth shattering Randy almost could have died.

The ring he had found in that old shack in the woods was there in a picture on the hand of a woman. Randy looked twice to see. To make sure his eyes didn’t deceive him he even knocked on wood.

Rebecca’s dad noticed, with Randy, something was about. He asked the boy, please, won’t you tell me what is the matter. Randy said “nothing” and quickly stepped out.

Randy went to tell Steven on the following morning exactly what he saw, and to give him fair warning. Steven knew, right away, something was wrong. Before Randy could speak he was frightened and alarmed.



Once the boys talked it over they decided what to do. They’d take the ring to Rebecca’s dad, apologize, this was what was best, and that’s all they knew.

Rebecca’s dad was called Daryl, but the boys called him sir. When he saw what Randy and Steven brought him it caused inside him a great stir.

Where did you find this was what Daryl asked them; Randy and Steven replied, “It was in a house in the woods.” Daryl, Randy, and Steven sat down to figure things out. The boys told him the story of how they found the cabin.

They told him about the body with the ring. They told him that they were sorry; but Daryl wasn’t angry, instead he asked them, “can you show me tomorrow?”



That very next day, the boys went with Daryl, out to the shack where they’d found the body. But when they got there they were greeted by a sort of ugly pair.

Two men who looked like they had not eaten for days, or showered in months, were in the shack, already. One of the two men pounced on Daryl at once.

Daryl was quickly beaten due to a knife slash to his throat. Randy and Steven were shot running into the forest. The pair of killers were found years later living in a boat.