Evil Exposed

Creative writing assignment for my English 220 class

​The day started just like any other day would. I climbed out of bed, got dressed, and got in my blue Ford to drive to work. As always, I had trouble driving due to my lack of sleep. Being an insomniac left me tired and restless each day. I pulled the car up to the edge of Heath National Forest and killed the engine. Last night I had received an e-mail from the Daily Bugle asking me if I could come out and get some snapshots of the river. Apparently, a nearby chemical factory called Synergy Inc. had been illegally dumping their toxic waste into it, and I was supposed to go get proof. Sounded easy enough. I grabbed my camera bag and toted my equipment into the woods.

​Trekking through the greenery was a breeze. The crunching of leaves under my feet harmonized with the songs of a hundred birds.  Soon the rhythm was accompanied by the whoosh of rushing water. As I approached the river however, the beauty was soon lost. A rotting, sour smell permeated the air. I stepped forward, and it came into view. The water was green and choked with brown gunk. It oozed over the sides of the bank, seeping into the soil where it withered the plants. I had been to this river once before, on a senior field trip last year. Back then it was teeming with life; fish and insects alike. Now, no living thing dared to swim in the corrosive acid.

​ I set my bag down and opened the zipper. Inside was an assortment of lenseshaphazardly strewn about. I fitted the best one onto my camera and focused it. My boss at the Bugle was a slightly eccentric man. He would scorn some of the best photos that I take, and then smile with glee at some of my worst. I just hoped that these shots would satisfy him. I mounted the camera onto a tripod and snapped a few pics of the bubbling mess. I decided to move upstream to see if there was anything interesting to find. Little did I know of what was to come.

​I walked up the side of the river, the bank squishing under my tennis shoes. I was in the middle of thinking about some new shoes when the sound of voices interrupted my thoughts. Peering ahead, I saw two men carrying what looked like a large metal oil drum. One was shorter than the other and was chomping on a cigarette. The taller man was bald and wore big round glasses. Both of them were wearing matching lab coats. As they drew closer, I could just barely make out the green letters running down the side of their coats: Synergy. This was my chance to get indisputable proof! Thankfully they had not noticed me yet, so I jumped behind a nearby bush and readied my camera.

​ The two men removed the lid of the drum and hefted it upside-down over the river. The liquid that came out was thick, yet runny at the same time. It was green, orange, red, yellow - it was impossible to tell. The colors shifted as they came pouring out. It made a loud sloshing sound, like a rain boot sinking into a fresh mud puddle. Then, as soon as the goop touched the water in the river, it hissed as a silver steam unfurled and rose up into the sky. I was morbidlyfascinated with the whole display. So fascinated, in fact, that by the time the drum was emptied and the men had set it back on the ground, I realized that I had forgot to get a picture.

​I punched at the air and cursed under my breath. How could I have been so stupid? The colorful show had tempted my mind into oblivion. Now my boss will never let me hear the end of it. Perhaps I could still get a shot of the Synergy employees standing next to the drum. Yes, that would be good enough proof, right? But I soon discovered that I had bigger things to worry about. Because at that moment, the short man tossed his still-burning cigarette into the river.

​Light and heat blasted my senses as the boom echoed around me. I was momentarily blinded and knocked back onto the dirt. Shielding my face, I squinted through my fingers. Huge columns of flame erupted into the sky, stretching taller than the treetops. The inferno spread down and up the river as all of the toxic flammable chemicals ignited in an intense wave of fire. I felt the air being ripped from my lungs. Wind screamed from all directions as the oxygen was sucked into the burning vortex. I stumbled trying to back away, my hands groping for a bush or a tree to pull myself up with.

​ But then, just as quickly as it started, it was over. Sort of. I gasped for air and carefully stood up, trying to observe my surroundings. The river was gone. All of the toxic waste had been disintegrated, and the only thing that remained was a charred ditch snaking through the woods. The two men were nowhere to be found. I felt sick, and decided that I didn't want to know where they had gone. Taking a deep breath, I leaned against a tree and closed my eyes. Then I heard the crackling sound. I looked up and saw that the tree was on fire. Actually, all of the treetops were on fire. The crackling and popping got louder, and a burning branch fell down onto the ground. The grass caught, and the flames spread quickly toward me. It was a full-out forest fire.

​I turned and ran for my life, smoke beginning to billow around me. Fear leapt into my heart as I tripped over weeds and brambles, just trying to find a way out. Off in the distance I heard the loud blare of a fire truck. Turning and running that way, I decided that I would let the firemen do their job. I had my own job to do now. With these pictures, I would be able to expose what evils Synergy had done to this National Forest, and they would be shut down for good.  

Reviews

[Hester Vane]

A great piece. Full of excitment and tension. I like how you have bolded some of the words, its adds an extra dimension to the story!