Bella Italia by Suzanne Vermeer

and walked straight into the bushes. His heart was racing. It could be an animal he frightened away, but he had to be sure.
    Suddenly he could see a dark figure in between the bushes. It was the silhouette of a grown man. Hans took a few more steps so he could see him clearly. Suddenly he saw legs on the ground by his feet. Boy’s legs.
    “Non l’ho fatto!” The man walked back slowly with his arms raised.
    “Stay right there!”
    The man turned away from him and began to move through the bushes with great difficulty, waving his arms around wildly.
    Hans didn’t know what to do. He needed to know if the boy on the ground was still alive, if it was Niels …
    “Dad?”
    Hans instantly turned toward the sound.
    “Niels, where are you?!”
    “Here, Daddy.” Niels was sitting on the ground a little farther down.
    “What happened? Are you all right!?”
    Niels had crawled in his direction slowly. Hans quickly took his son in his arms and looked at him closely. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
    “There was nothing I could do about it,” Niels whispered in his ear.
    Before he could speak to him and reassure him, he swallowed his breath for a moment. The boy, who was lying still on the ground, was not asleep. Stiff as a board and with his eyes wide open, he was just lying there next to them. Mats.
    “Oh, my God,” he mumbled. Slowly he pushed Niels away from him, leaned forward, and pressed his two fingertips to the artery on the lifeless boy’s neck. No heartbeat. His own heart was now racing insanely in his chest.
    He made a decision; he put his hands over Niels’s ears, pulled him close, took a deep breath, and screamed his wife’s name as loud as he possibly could.

13
    Petra flew across the intersection where she and Hans had each gone their own way earlier. After about a hundred yards she slowed down.
    “Where are you!?”
    Hans’s scream had frightened her to death. Something was obviously wrong. But what exactly? Her uncertainty was just as crippling as her fear.
    “I’m over here. In the bushes.”
    She kept up the same pace and remained completely focused on the bushes. “Is Niels with you?”
    “Yes, just keep coming toward me. I’m moving toward the road.”
    She trotted along the edge of the road next to the bushes. She tried to look deep into the forest of branches obstructing her view.
    “I can’t see anything. Where are you guys?”
    Because there was no reaction she just kept on walking.
    “Here!”
    Startled, she looked up. Hans was down just a little farther, he was waving at her. Quickly, she bridged the distance.
    “Where is Niels?” she asked, fear building in her voice.
    “Over here. Come with me.” Hans turned around and created a path for them. The man he had seen had disappeared in the meantime.
    Petra dropped down next to Niels and put her arms around him.
    “Oh, my God. What’s wrong with Mats?”
    Hans kept walking. “Stay with Niels. I’m going after the bastard who was just here.”
    He stretched out his arms in order to protect himself from the braches and moved fast. After a few yards, he noticed that the bushes were getting thicker. But he didn’t let the sweeping and snapping branches stop him, even if they were cutting and scraping into his skin. Suddenly a large, solid fence appeared behind all the layers of branches. The fence was about two yards high and ran behind the whole perimeter of the campground. He looked to the left and to the right, but couldn’t see the man anymore. He must have climbed over this fence somehow, but that would be nearly impossible. Besides, the man had moved rather slowly. Was he hiding in the bushes again maybe? He kicked the fence hard, out of pure frustration. A few yards farther he heard the fence tap against something, as if it was loose. He walked toward it, pulled it back, and slipped off the property through the opening.
    As he stood on the path, he could see the man walking about fifty yards ahead of him. He zigzagged