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A man straight out of an old western–except the entire outfit being black from head to toe; a matching bandana tied around his mouth so that the only thing he could see was the brown eyes that shone like honey in a jar through the soft–but bright–light.
The man stands there looking at the pitiful sight of a man lying on the cold hard ground. The snow that had been falling for the past week made the mud under the soft layer of ice and snow cold, damp and hard as a rock.
Holding the lantern in his hand, he looked down his nose at the pitiful sight before him. All anyone could hear was the sound of the trees rustling in the soft winds that came by, the breaking of branches, and the occasional shuffling coming from the standing man with the lantern in his hand.
All someone could see from the sole light that shined from the singular lantern held in a steady hand was pieces of the forest because it being too dense the moon couldn’t offer any assistance–was the faint silhouettes of trees, the bare branches, and the snow that littered the ground where the light could reach. If that. The man standing before the wretched soul wheezing on the now damp ground where his body was thrown.
The rest was pitch black. The kind of dark that even seeing your own hand is pointless; a dead end.
After surveying the raspy faint noises, and the sight before him, he bends into a crouch with the lantern in his left hand, and the right resting on his bent knee.
The man lying on the ground takes all of this in with a stuttering–shaky inhale that ends in a wheezing laugh of hysteria. He smiles a crooked little thing that his wife always says she loves.
Oh how he yearns for his wife.
On the trip to the forest out in the middle of no man's land, he wished that he could see his wife again, but that’s wishful thinking as they say.
The hooting of an owl cuts through the night.
His wife would go on and on about owls for hours on end. Had even written a paper on them for one of her finals in college that she had kept till this day.
If only.
In another life he might have been able to.
The wedding band on his ring finger–the one that she had lovingly put on that very finger–is cold. Ice cold. He wheezes out a short laugh before it tapers off into a cough that burns his throat and makes his chest ache. He feels his nose run mucus down to his lip where it gets caught on the bottom one. He licks it away.
Shaking his head, he focuses back on the man crouched before him. That same man gives voice to the one thing he had been thinking the entire way to this particular forest.
“Face it: No one is coming to save you.”
The hand on the bent knee taps a couple of times before he takes a breath–continuing to say:
“Afterall, she’s the one who paid me to bring you here.”
The man watches as his eyes go wide, the stuttering of his breath coming to a stop, along with the dawning horror of what she asked him to do.
“No–no no. No. Please.”
He shakes his head rapidly, as his breathing kicks up–
“No! S-She–she wouldn’t do that. Not her. Not my wife.”
He looks up with defiance, the tears in his eyes threatening to come out. Not that he cared. He was simply here to get a job done so that he could eat tomorrow.
“Why?”
Upon hearing that question, the man sets the lantern down on the ground and with his other hand–he reaches into the side of his coat and pulls out his pistol.
“I wasn’t told the reason, just what I had to do.”
He sighs as he stands up to his feet.
Raising his hand after he checks the gun, he points it to the now crying man's head,
“It’s nothing personal; and for what it’s worth–I’m sorry.”
he pulls the trigger.
Mid January, the forest is cut off with the sharp sound of a gun going off. Everything after that goes silent.
A lone figure is seen walking out of the cloak of the dense forest and onto a moonlight back road. There was a black nondescript car parked on the side of the dirt road.
The man walks over to it and opens the driver's side door, swinging his body inside, and settles into the seat. Taking off his hat, he throws a polaroid photo onto the passenger side seat.