Chapter 1

A young boy and his friends stumble upon a body on the edge's of their quiet, rural town.

            There were three of them that day: Billy, Rachel, and Charlie.  Rachel was the oldest of the three and usually ended up telling them what to do in situations like this, but Charlie didn’t think they’d ever really been in a situation like this.  They stared at the boy at the bottom of the bank they were standing on, as a car zoomed past on the highway behind them.

            “We’re not going down there, right?”  Billy sounded scared, and his knees were trembling. 

            “I think we need to,” said Rachel, trying to sound brave.  Charlie rubbed his glasses on his shirt, trying to act busy.  Overhead, the sky was quickly darkening.  Dad would’ve looked up at them and said something like:

            “Yep, it’s goin’ to be a helluva storm, tonight,” and it sure looked that way, Charlie thought.

            “That’s Frankie Nesbit, Charlie,” said Billy, “Jesus Christ, we were in the same class last year.”  He looked at Charlie for acknowledgment, but he continued to busily wipe his glasses.  “With Mrs. Wright.  She was a b***h to us, remember?”

            “How do you know?” Rachel didn’t sound so brave anymore.

            “That pack he’s got on, I saw him wearing it everyday last year; he sat right in front of me.”

            Charlie recognized the pack too. 

            “Let’s go get your pa, Rachel, he should be at the corner store locking up, he can get sheriff.”

            Charlie finally got his glasses clean and took another look down the steep bank.  Another car passed them on the road.

            Frankie was lying face-first in the leaves and mud.  His arms were splayed out in front of him and his legs contorted, curled up behind him like he’d been running and tripped.

            “Rachel, let’s go.”  Billy was starting to sound desperate.

            Without answering, Rachel started down the bank.  Glancing at each other, they followed her down.

            They gathered around Frankie, about an arm’s distance away.  Charlie almost expected him to reach up and yell “Boo!”  His sandy-blond hair was filled with twigs and leaves.

            “Oh my God, Charlie, his ear, oh my God his ear!”

            Billy turned away and upchucked his lunch.  Charlie looked closer at Frankie’s head, seeing what Billy had just seen.  Where his ear should have been neatly placed on the left side of his face was nothing but a gaping hole with a blackish jelly oozing out into the mud.

            The fear hit him in one, sudden wave.  All at once his body was frozen and he couldn’t do anything but stare, hypnotized by that gaping hole where Frankie’s ear should’ve been.

            Rachel seemed to be under the same spell as him, because she didn’t make a sound or move.

            Billy retching seemed to eventually make her snap out of it.

            “Go get my dad, Billy,” said Rachel, finally.  Her voice quivered, and almost failed.  Billy didn’t have to be told twice, and he took off running back to town.

            “Should he go alone?”

            She looked at me, almost not understanding what I was asking.

            “You think whatever did that is still around?”

            Charlie looked back at the bank, where another car drove passed. 

            He turned back to Frankie and looked beyond the body, into the woods where it looked like he had ran out of.

           

The Woods, as they seemed to be known to children and adults alike, ran through the center of Feller’s Glen and surrounded it on all sides.  It was home to bears and wolves and even mountain lions, supposedly, and old man Wrigley claimed that he’d even seen Bigfoot in there once, but Charlie and his friends had played in the glades and hills that made The Woods almost every day of his childhood, unless the snow was too high or the rain too heavy.  He’d never been afraid of The Woods, and had never seen or heard anything to make him fear it.

The county jail stood on the other side of the woods, on the edge of the county-line, near route 39, and the thought of that made Charlie think of the inmates that had escaped a couple years back, thought of to have hidden in the forest.  He couldn’t remember whether or not they had been caught but…

Charlie shuddered, thinking about poor Frankie coming across three or four fugitives, whose only purpose is to remain hidden in the woods they had crept through for years, living off squirrels and rabbits, malnourished and desperate.

A vehicle approached and Charlie turned around to see Rachel’s and his fathers and the town sheriff climbing down the bank.

“You kids get back, you hear?”

Charlie and Rachel immediately obeyed, more than relieved to let the adults take control of the situation.  The sheriff bent down and kneeled next to Frankie’s body.  Donning white rubber gloves, he lifted his head just enough for Charlie to catch a glimpse of Frankie’s face. 

His lips and eyelids rotten away, exposing a mouth full of writhing maggots and two yellow, glazed eyes staring up at him with dreadful repose.

He turned and emptied his own stomach, making a twin pile of vomit next to Billy’s lunch. 

            Charlie took one last look at the body and noticed something he hadn’t before:  In Frankie’s right hand, clutched tightly, was a yellow flower, stained red by what Charlie could only assume was one thing.

            Holding Rachel’s hand, he ran up the hill to the car.

 

Author's Note

comments?
questions?

Reviews

[A. H. Pinley]

Few stories That excite me Are ones that Remind me of when I was a child When the mind was left to wander Crazy make believe journeys Like you saw stand by me, It, The witches And I'm sure there are many more. I would be happy to read your stuff And hopefully give you some valuable input.

[John]

Thank you!
I couldn't agree more, stand by me... classic.
I'm hoping to catch the magic of childhood adventures without copying any of the stories already out. I'm hoping I can make this my own. Stay tuned!!!!

[Ninja'sMuse]

Intriguing! This made me want to read more, and I enjoyed it. One little thing: The chapter was written in third person except for one part, "another car passed us on the road." Just change "us" to "them" and it's fine. Good work! I'm curious to find out how old the characters are.

[John]

thanks, i'll fix it pronto.