Early one morning after my parents left for work, Ziggy picked Janie and me up at school unexpectedly. When we were called to dismissal, my heart dropped since our parents had not told us about being pulled out of school early. Only one other person had the power to take us out of class. With no time to react or make a plan, Janie and I were at the front office being dismissed by Ziggy.
None of us said a word to each other as Janie and I entered the back of his pickup truck. After a couple of minutes of awkward silence, we took a sharp turn I didn’t recognize, heading down a sketchy dirt road. After about a minute of driving, Ziggy pulled the truck over, got out and grabbed a shovel out of the back. We watched him walk to a small wooded area nearby where he began to dig a hole. His face was flushed red as he spat to the side and started shoveling dirt into the air.
Only a short time had gone by before a woman out walking her dog noticed this strange behavior and questioned his motives. “Excuse me, sir. What exactly are you doing out here!?” she demanded, with one hand on her hip.
He replied, “I'm just burying my dog.”
Her response was, “Not here. Leave now, or I will call the police.”
“You got it, ma’am,” Ziggy said, putting the shovel down to appease her.
Ziggy wiped the sweat from his forehead and the woman stated, “Move along now. This is private property.” Ziggy paused for a second and then reached for his knife.
We had seen this before, confident that he was going to kill her. We both squinted our eyes shut and looked away.
After about thirty seconds of painful anticipation, Janie opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder to see the woman walking down the street.
“Why did she leave?! Sean, Ziggy didn’t kill her!” Janie alerted me. We began to panic, unable to breathe, unable to move.
“The hole is for us! This is it. We are dead!” I cried to Janie in between breaths. We hugged each other tightly, anticipating our final moments.
Then Ziggy chucked the shovel into the woods, swearing profanities at the lady ahead of him. Not at all rattled by this, she threw her hand up and continued walking away. Janie and I looked at each other, confused, and still in tears. Ziggy stopped everything and ran both of his hands through his hair as he tilted his head up to the sky.
He sauntered back to the truck, sat down softly, took a deep breath and started crying with us. He said to us, “I can’t do this. I can’t do this to your parents. They took me in when I had nowhere to go. They have been too good to me. I will tell Father Paul. I won’t do it.”
Breathing for relief but still shaking, Janie and I realized a “Catholic priest” had ordered Ziggy to end our lives.
After a long period of silence, Ziggy drove us home to my parents, gathered all his tools and started a big fight with my mother. He screamed every curse name he could think of at her so she threw him out of the house for good. She didn’t tolerate that kind of talk and he knew that. If she only knew who he really was, there would have been a lot more she wouldn't have tolerated. Did he leave the house to have an excuse for Father Paul as to why he did not kill us? At least he was gone and we could breathe again.