Excerpt: Blood Freckles

I turn and survey my house. And I know the first thing I want to do now that I’m finally alone. But I feel frozen in place. Afraid? I’m not sure. I’ think I’m more afraid of finding nothing than finding out I’ve opened a portal to the world of the dead or something. I go out through the sliding glass door at in the dining room. There is a small, slightly rotting deck, and a few steps down to the grass. I walk away from the house and toward the side of the property that borders the stone house next door. Jeremy’s house. Or, the house he used to live in. I have no idea if his family is still there. It looks empty. I would not be surprised if it was.
The trees are as thick and pretty as I remember. I can see the remains of our old garden- it was fenced and it looks like the last owners never took it down nor used it as garden.
Past the garden, further onto the trees, I slow my walk down to almost a march of reverence. I roll my eyes at my own loonieness. I am a freak. But I can’t help it. This is as close to the stories I love as I’ll ever get. The boy I love. The faceless face of the companion I hope to find. Insanity, but I don’t care, I immerse myself in the sappy mystery of it all and shake away the rational thought of what will probably happen if I actually try to track him down.
And the event itself- the gunshot, the blood, the body of a 10 year old boy before me. All diminishes in the glorious possibility. Callous perhaps on my part, but I can only feel what I feel. It is still quite except for cicadas in the trees. No cars, no wind. Just still and warm, less humid than the rest of the week has been. I reach the spot. Blank. Nothing differentiating it from the rest of the field. But I know I’m there from the distance of the trees and the fact that I can’t see the neighbors’ house from here.
“Huh. “I say. It never occurred to me that that’s what Jeremy did- he ran until he was sure his mom wouldn’t be able to see him. “I never though of that”
I sit down on the ground, which is moist enough to dirty my shorts, but who cares. I sit in silence and close my eyes. And like a dream comes in when you sleep, the world d around me shifts and turns cooler. The sun slips behind a blanket of grey and my arms get cold. . I run my hands up and down them to get warm. I hear a rustle behind me in the trees. My eyes widen and I look, but there is nothing. Except…footsteps. Crunching sticks, leaves moving and muffled speaking.
Have I been caught? Is someone coming to talk to me? I stand up and brush of my shorts. It’s cold, very cold.
Something moves past me and it startles me such that I scream a bit- more of a yelp. “What the hell?”
More rustling, though I can clearly see nothing is there, but the cold…the tremendous cold keeps coming. “Hello?”
Nothing, the footsteps stop, but there is a shifting next to me and a feeling of terrible dread comes over me and nausea strikes like lightning, I crumple to the ground. My mind races to rationloze it. I wonder if I’m having some sort of attack?
And I hear a murmur again. In front of me this time. It is undeniable. My cold arms are covered in goose bumps. Everything stops for a second and suddenly, a blast- a popping, ear bursting slam against my ears that knocks me flat on the ground. And after, warm floods me and the sun comes out from behind its shroud and coats my arms in heat and light, The rustling is gone and there’s is nothing around me. Nothing.