Stand By Me

chapter five; Leeches

Unfortunately, the forest's floor was full of ankle deep mud. Perry complained, causing Lee to either call him a pussy or hit him. Jesse had to scold them a few times, whilst I just stayed quiet, listening to the light, staticky music playing from our radio.

Some time later, we come across a pond and stop.

"How are we supposed to get across this?" Asks Perry. "We use you as a raft," Perry steal faces him, "Very funny, Lee." Jesse goes off and breaks off a branch.

He then checks how deep the body of water is. "Hey, it's not that deep, we can walk across." He tosses the stick and we start walking across... only to fall into deeper waters that stopped at our necks.

"I told you we should've stuck to the tracks," Perry says, the water stopping at his chin. Lee turns to him, his hair blocking his vision. "Is it me or are you the world's biggest pussy?" The blond squints at him, "I suppose this is fun for you."

"No, but this is!" He dunks Perry's head under the water, earning protests from the younger boy. "Come on Lee, act your age!" Jesse says. "This is my age! I'm in the prime of my youth and I'll only be young once!"

"Yeah, but you're gonna be stupid for the rest of your life," Jesse jokes and Lee starts removing his glasses. "Oh-oh, Nelson, you just signed your own death-warrant! You die, Nelson!"

I roll my eyes and lug my belongings over to the other side.

"Hey, where're you think you're going, Thirlwall?" I hear Jesse call to me. "Yeah, Thirlwall," Lee chimed in as they approach me. "Come on you guys," I urge tiredly.

Before I knew it, I was the base of a dog pile. Perry wraps an arm around my neck and began tugging on my ear, causing me to groan in annoyance. "Sleeper hold! Sleeper hold!"

I crane my neck a little, seeing something dark on his neck. "Pez, there's something on your neck!"

"Gee, right. I'm not falling for that one, Thirlwall," he says, still messing with my ear. "No, Pez, there is something on your neck," Jesse assures. That when Lee cries out, "It's a leech. Leeches!"

We hurry out of the water and strip out of our clothes; all of us had the long, black, blood-sucking slugs all over our bodies.

I wipe them off of me frantically, getting help from Jesse when I had some on my back.

Once we were sure they were all off, we stop, panting from what just happened.

Then I felt something.

I slowly look down and pull my underwear back. My body began to tremble as I see one right on my pecker. "Oh shit, Jes. Oh shit, man," I whimper to him. They all had wide eyes and held their breaths.

I reach in and take it off. To my horror, I had a sticky red substance on my fingers. The leech falls onto the ground. I stare at my hand before I drop to the ground and into darkness.

"Jason? Can you hear me? Jason, are you there?" My best friend's distorted voice calls to me.

"Maybe he's dead."

"He's not dead, he's still breathing, you idiot."

"Well I don't know."

"Hey, hey. Just cool you guys, he just fainted. Jason," I feel someone shake me and I start coming to, blinking as I look up at my worried friends.

"God, I never met anybody who fainted before," Perry says in astonishment and Lee look at him funny. "Maybe he made a bad mistake and looked at your face."

"Shut up, Lee. You okay, Jase?" I soon get myself together and nod while trying to sit up, though, I'm a bit dizzy, "Yeah."

"Alright, let's go."

———
What had happened made me feel almost numb. I isolated myself as our clothes dried and was the first to get dressed when they did. I hadn't said a word the entire time and just sat against the tree, listening to them.

"Maybe we should take Jason back," Jesse says. "Oh great, Nelson, now you're turning pussy too!" Lee says angrily. "What's your problem, Pinnock? He had a leech hanging from his balls, he fainted!"

"What are you, his mother?"

"Eat shit!"

"You eat shit!"

"Hey, hey! I think Jesse's is right. Let's go back," Perry says worriedly. Lee laughs sarcastically, "Oh haha! What a surprise, the king of the pussies wants to go back, too!"

"Stop calling me that," Perry growls. "What? A pussy?"

"Stop it."

"Pussy."

"Stop it, Lee!"

"Pussy, pussy, pussy," Lee continues. "You four-eyed psycho!" Perry tackles him to the ground and began hitting him. "Two for flinching! Two for flinching! See that?! You don't like it, d'ya?!" Jesse tries to pry Perry off, telling him to calm down, but to no avail.

"Stop it," I say, though they couldn't hear me. "Stop it," I repeat, but they continued to fight. "STOP IT!!" I scream, causing them all to shut up immediately.

Panting, I flare my nostrils, "I'm not going back," I say adamantly, standing up and grabbing my things before walking away. I hear Pez and Lee call each other names before their footsteps fall behind me.

At the time I didn't know why I needed to see that body so badly. Even if no one had followed me, I would have gone on alone.