Unclean Creek

Chapter One | Prologue

   For years it had just been you three, You, Gamma, and Cujo. 

Cujo was two years older than you, You being eleven and him thirteen. Gamma was the one to take you both in during the incident or the 'fall' as it is called, She was fifty-eight. 

"Dingo! What are you doing!? You dumb idiot, get away from that!" Cujo yelled. Dingo was a nickname you could say. At first, you hated it because it sounded stupid and was an insult but after you found out it was also the name of a type of wild dog you had a newfound love for it. 

"But your shoe!" You whined back. His shoe had fallen into the water. The area you three claimed as your own was a small clearing at the edge of the creek. Where there once was grass and weeds it was now more so just hard dirt.

 Across the creek was the same dense lush forest that surrounded the clearing along with a raggedy chainlink fence that sat on an aged and crumbling concrete block; It ran the length of the creek on the other side. Above the creek and some of the clearing was a bridge of almost two hundred feet high that followed the creek downstream for miles. Upstream to the right they had a train that traveled from one side of the creek to the other.

The train was built on another bridge, around a quarter to a half a mile away but still visible over some of the tree tops. After the 'fall,' most things had to be built higher in the air. Gamma had said the creek bridge was nearly two hundred feet in the air.  

"Forget the shoe! Gamma said not to go near the water!" You knew Cujo wasn't trying to be mean, He just tended to cover up his worrying with aggression. 

"But it's right there!" You could see it; it was maybe three feet away. Cujo wouldn't go within ten feet of the creek itself. He said when he gets close, it irritates his eyes and makes them water, and his nose gets runny. You had seen it first-hand many times, more often than not making fun of him for 'crying because the creeks are too scary for him'. 

"So? Leave it! It's gonna be ruined anyways." Cujo had moved closer and was now at his ten-foot limit. 

You scoffed. You, Gamma, and Cujo never got new clothes, Losing a shoe means you're gonna be missing a shoe for at least a few months. The current pair you two had was worn and you could stick your toes through some of the holes, but it was better than nothing. 

'Oh well,' you thought. You weren't going to let him be missing a shoe because of your mistake. 

You looked over at the shoe before leaping into the water after it. The creek wasn't deep in this area only two feet. You heard Cujo scream out a panicked 'hey' before crossing his invisible barrier and looking at you from the edge of the creek. You trudged after the shoe for a moment; the current as usual was abnormally strong but it was still weaker than normal. 

After a moment you finally grabbed the shoe. There was no way you would be able to trudge upstream so instead you settled on running at an angle downstream until you reached land. 

The land here was higher up than the spot you had run in at. For the clearing, it was maybe a four-inch slope into the water. Here it was more like a five-foot drop. You grabbed a root hanging out and hoisted yourself out before sliding your hands and feet into the indents and groves and climbing up. The water ended up going a little past your waist so by the time you got out half of you was soaked. 

"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!" Cujo yelled as he crouched by you. You looked up at him from your position of lying on your back and smiled guilty while giving him the shoe as you sat up. You felt blood leaking from your nose and dripping down your chin. The back of your throat felt awful like bugs crawling and the large cut you had on your calf from falling out of a tree had finally scabbed over but now its progress was back to zero. The scab had come off and it was bleeding with a renewed vigor while the area around it was red and irritated 

"Got your shoe." You said

Cujo ran his hands down his face and let out an agonized groan before speaking. "Gammas gonna be so disappointed when she gets back."