STAND BY ME: Chapter 10
Chapter 10
THE RIVER
The night was a bad night. I had terrible dreams. I dreamed of Chris drowning in a lake. And there were noises in the forest. Noises that sounded like a ghost screaming in pain. We all woke up when we heard the noises. Chris said it must be some kind of bird. Vern was sure that it was the ghost of the Brower kid.
We decided to take turns staying awake. Like soldiers on a wall protecting the castle. I was the last one to keep watch. It was dawn when I started my watch. The sun was just coming up. It was going to be a hot day.
I walked over to the tracks to go to the bathroom. And there, on the other side of the tracks was a deer. It was eating grass calmly. It looked up at me with big brown eyes. It did not run away. It just kept looking at me, like it was curious about me. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
When I look back at that moment today, it was the best part of the whole adventure for me. It was a pure moment. Just the deer and me in the early morning light. Then the tracks began to vibrate. A train was coming.
The deer looked down the tracks towards Castle Rock. It turned around and took three graceful leaps into the forest, and disappeared. The train screamed past. Everyone woke up with the sound. We packed our things and started the last part of our trip.
We follow the tracks. We walk through thick forest. We eat wild fruit for breakfast. “I wish we had eggs and bacon,” Vern says. It is the hottest day so far. By nine o’clock, the sky is pale and hard. It feels hot just looking at the sky.
Sweat runs down our bodies. Insects fly around and bite us as we walk. We still have many miles to go. But something pulls us forward. We want to see the body. We don’t know what it will be like. But we want to see it.
At about half past nine, Chris and Teddy are the first to see the water. They shout to us. Vern and I run to them. There is a deep pool. A small stream flows into the pool. The stream runs under the tracks and into the larger river.
“How deep do you think it is?” Vern asks. “There’s only one way to find out,” Teddy says. “Who goes first?” I ask. “Me!” Chris says. He runs down the bank towards the water. He kicks off his shoes. He pulls off his shirt and clothes. He dives into the water. He comes up laughing. “It’s great!” he shouts.
“How deep is it?” Teddy asks. Teddy has never learned how to swim. Chris stands in the water. The water reaches his shoulders. I see something dark on his shoulder. I think it must be a piece of mud. I don’t think any more about it. If I looked closer, maybe I would not have such bad dreams in the future.
“Come on in, you pussies!” Chris shouts. We all get undressed. Vern goes in next. Then Teddy, then me. The water is cool and refreshing. It feels good. I swim to Chris. We stand up in the water and smile at each other. “Great!” we both say at the same time.
We play in the water for almost half an hour. We swim. We dive. We push each other under the water. We laugh. Then Vern moves to the shallow part of the pool. He dives under the water and stands on his hands. His legs go up into the air.
And then I see them. His legs are covered in black-gray shapes, just like the one on Chris’ shoulder. Chris opens his mouth wide, but says nothing. He goes silent. I feel all the blood in my body freeze, like ice. Teddy screams. His face turns white. Leeches.
We all run to the side of the pool as fast as we can. Now I know more about leeches than I knew then. They are mostly harmless. But I still feel the same horror today about leeches as I felt in the pool that day.
You don’t feel them when they come onto your body. And if you don’t see them, they continue feeding on your blood. They drink your blood until their huge bodies fall off you, or they may explode! We climb out of the water. Teddy is screaming as he looks at his body. Leeches are everywhere. He is covered with them.
He starts to pull them off, still screaming. He throws them onto the ground. Vern finally comes up from the water. He looks at us, confused. “What the hell’s wrong with Teddy?” he asks. “Leeches!” Teddy screams, as he pulls two of them off his legs. He throws them as far as he can.
“OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod!” Vern cries. He swims to the edge of the pool and jumps out. I still feel cold. I do not feel the heat of the warm day. I tell myself not to scream, not to be a pussy. I start pulling the leeches off my body. Six from my arms and more from my chest.
Chris turns his back to me. “Gordie? Are there any more?” he asks. “Get them off me if there are, Gordie, please.” There are more. There are five or six of them on his back. They are like horrible black buttons. I pull them off. Their bodies are soft and squishy, boneless.
We all stand in the grass, looking at each other. I start to feel better. Then I stop. That’s when I feel the big one. I do not want to look down. But I feel it there. “Oh, no, Chris, oh, no. Please, God, no,” I say with terror. I reach my hand down between my legs, behind my balls.
I feel it. It is huge and soft. I try to pull it off, but it slips from my fingers. Finally I squeeze tightly and pull. It explodes between my fingers as I pull it off. And blood, my blood, blood from my balls, runs down my hands and legs. I start to cry. I can’t stop crying. No one moves. No one does anything. They just look at me with wide eyes and open mouths.
Then Vern runs towards me, naked. “Are they off me, Gordie? Are they all off me?” He spins around in front of me like a crazy dancer. I nod and tell him they are all gone. And I keep crying. Finally, after a while, I am able to stop the tears.
When we are all dressed, we just stand there and look at each other. Then we climb back towards the tracks. I look back at the pool. I see the many bloody leeches in the grass, where we danced and screamed them off our bodies.
