STAND BY ME: Chapter 12
Chapter 12
THE BODY
Clouds begin to form in the sky around two o’clock. At first, we don’t think it will rain. It has not rained since early July. But the clouds grow larger. They rise in tall, dark shapes and move slowly toward us. Soon, we understand. It is going to rain.
The light begins to change. It is still hot, but something feels different. The birds know it too. They fly across the sky, crying loudly. The light becomes weaker, and our shadows grow soft and unclear. The sun moves in and out of the clouds. The sky in the south turns dark and heavy. Lightning flashes inside the clouds, and then we hear thunder, loud and long.
We talk about getting wet, but we are not unhappy about it. The rain will cool us down. And there will be no leeches. Around half past three, we see water through the trees. “That’s it!” Chris shouts. “That’s the Royal!” We walk faster. The storm is close now. The air begins to move, and suddenly it feels cooler. I look down and see that my shadow is gone.
We walk in pairs now, on both sides of the tracks, looking carefully. My mouth feels dry. The sky is now fully covered. The light is dull. I can smell the river, or maybe it is the rain in the air.
Suddenly, a bright flash of lightning fills everything with white light. I cry out and cover my eyes. A loud crash follows, and somewhere nearby a tree falls. The sound makes me stop. For a moment, I want to be at home, safe, reading a book. “Jesus!” Vern shouts. “Look!”
I follow his hand and see something strange. A bright ball of light moves quickly along the track. It makes a sharp sound, like an angry animal. It passes us, then suddenly disappears. “What am I doing here?” Teddy says.
“It’s going to rain hard!” Chris says, almost excited. But I feel like Teddy. The sky feels dangerous now. Lightning flashes again, and this time the thunder comes at once. Then Vern starts shouting. “THERE! THERE HE IS! I SEE HIM!” I look where he is pointing.
I can still see Vern in my mind, if I want to. I just close my eyes and think. He’s standing on the left side of the tracks. One hand is protecting his eyes from the lightning. The other is stretched out and pointing. We run to him quickly.
At first, I think he is wrong. He must be imagining it. But he is not. For a second I wish he was imagining it. At that moment I knew I did not want to see a dead body. Not even the dead body of a small animal. I look where Vern is pointing.
At the bottom of the bank, in the wet bushes, I see something pale. A hand. Just a hand. White and still. I stop breathing. Somewhere, connected to the hand, the rest of the body is there. Lightning flashes again. Thunder crashes. “Jesus,” Chris says softly.
Vern licks his lips again and again, like he is tasting something new. He looks excited and sick at the same time. Teddy stands still. His face shows nothing. There are black insects walking on the hand.
The forest begins to make a loud, whispering sound all around us. Then the rain starts. Big drops fall for a few seconds. Then it stops. Then the storm comes.
The rain falls hard. Enormous drops fall in the forest. In seconds, we are completely wet. The whispering sound changes. Now it sounds like a million hammers hitting the ground. It feels like the forest is angry at us for discovering the body.
Chris jumps down the bank. I follow him. Vern and Teddy come behind us. Chris and I reach the body of Ray Brower first. He is face down in the mud. The body is not very damaged. I think he is down here off the tracks because he was trying to escape.
He was trying to get out of the way of the train when he was hit. His head is towards the tracks. His arms are over his head. He looks like someone who is about to dive into water. His red hair is wet. There is some blood in his hair, but not much. Not enough to make you sick. The insects are worse.
He is wearing a green shirt and blue jeans. His feet are bare. Behind him, caught in a bush, are his shoes. For a moment, I do not understand. Then I do. I understand what happened and it feels like a punch in my stomach.
My wife and my family think it must be nice to have an imagination like mine. I make a lot of money using my imagination to write books. I can also see films in my mind when I want to. But sometimes my imagination can be cruel. You see things that you do not want to see. Things that keep you awake at night.
I saw one of those things then. I saw it clearly and with total certainty. The train hit him so hard, it knocked him out of his shoes. It also knocked the life out of his body. That is when I knew the boy was really dead. He wasn’t sick. He wasn’t sleeping. He wasn’t going to wake up in the morning. He wasn’t going to worry about exams at school. He was dead. Completely dead.
He wasn’t going to go out with his friends to the movies. He wasn’t going to play in the playground. He wasn’t going to kiss another girl. He was everything like wasn’t, can’t, don’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t. He was one big “not”. He was dead. I keep looking at his shoes, then at his body. He was disconnected from his shoes. They would never reconnect to his body. He was dead.
Chris looks at me. I nod. I understand what he wants to do. Chris turns the body over. His face looks up into the heavy rain, the lighting, the crack of thunder. There are insects all over his face and neck. They crawl in and out of his t-shirt. His eyes are open, but they are terribly wrong. One looks up at the sky. The other has rolled back into his head. It shows only white.
There is blood on his mouth and chin. There is a large cut on the side of his face. Even like this, he does not look too bad. Once my brother opened a door and it hit me in the face. I looked worse than Ray Brower did.
An insect comes out of his mouth and walks across his face. It steps onto a leaf of a plant and disappears. “Did you see that?” Teddy says in a strange voice. “I bet he’s full of insects…” “Shut up, Teddy,” Chris says. Lightning lights his face again. It reflects in his one good eye. For a moment, it almost looks like he is looking at us.
His body is swollen, and there is the smell of some gas. I turn away. I feel like I am going to be sick. But my stomach is dry and firm. I stick two fingers in my mouth to make myself puke, but nothing happens.
The rain and thunder are so loud that we do not hear the cars coming. We do not hear the boys moving through the trees, either. The first thing we hear of them is a voice. Ace Merrill’s voice. Louder than the rain. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
