The River
an excerpt

Ronnie continued clutching his hand, but she didn’t say anything when he pulled free of her grasp and walked towards the river. The Saco was almost at a record low right now, because of the hot dry summer. There were scattered pools of deeper water, but a lot of the beach that was above ground right now had never been exposed before. It was a good 30 feet from where they’d built the fire pit to the water’s edge. He didn’t expect to see anything. If it had been an animal it would have seen his light and gotten the hell out of there. But he’d not heard anything scrambling and splashing in the water. He’d heard nothing at all. Must have been a chunk of river bank giving away, had to be or they’d of heard or seen something. As he got closer he thought he saw something slide past, just under the water. It could have been a white plastic bag, or a glad trash bag; it seemed to be a lot bigger than just a grocery store bag. Stench flashed his light after it and he saw it again, this time rising up to break the surface. He almost dropped his light. It was a body! the naked, pale body of a young girl twisting in the current. Stench blinked his eyes and shook his head. The girl had looked….almost as if… almost as if she were swimming! But that couldn’t be, could it? Who the hell is floating down this river in the dark with no clothes on? Stench did not like it, no he didn’t! He turned back to see if Ronnie had seen anything. She was gonna freak! He knew it. Maybe he could find a way to keep it from her. He couldn’t think why he needed to tell her about it, at least not now. He couldn’t tell if she had seen anything. She was a dark mass on the couch. He started to head back to her, but thought he should take another look and see if the body, if that’s what it had been, he had only seen it for a second, had become hung up on a log or a sandbar. As he searched the area with his light he happened to look down at his feet to see how close to the water he was. What he saw made him cry out and leap back in horror. There was a body washed up on the shore. It was Spearsie and he had no eyes.