Limacine

1

*Disclaimer* This story is Lemara's fault. I'm not sorry.

:)

When I was younger, around 9 years old, I found myself outside a lot. Thinking about it now, I'm not sure what I was really doing. My mom used to say "Go out and explore, don't come back until the street lights come on." Only thing is, there wasn't much to explore besides our neighbor Pats' back yard.

He had a rusty swing set in the center of the yard that the overgrowth was slowly devouring. Surrounding it was a bunch of plastic crates full of tools and things that Pat told me and the few other kids who wondered into his yard not to touch. He used to live with his wife, but they yelled a lot and then one day we didn't hear them yelling anymore. I brought it up to my mom one especially quiet day, and she told me that Mr. Pat's wife moved away so they wouldn't fight all the time. One time I asked why they had a swing set in the backyard but didn't have any kids of their own, and my mom just told me some people love children but don't always get to have one.

One day when I was out exploring the porch of an old dilapidated trailer a few lots away from home, I saw a red sneaker sticking out from under one of the steps. It looked fairly new, and had a five pointed star on the side. Cautious but curious, I grabbed a long stick and poked the sneaker to find it was attached to an ankle just as red as the sneaker. But where was the other sneaker? Just one?

Wanting to get to the bottom of things, I got flat on my belly and peered under the porch to find a kid around my age laying down under the steps. "Hey! You shouldn't sleep under there, there might be spiders or bats, you know!" But the kid didn't move. I looked around to see if anyone else was outside, but it appeared it was just me and this kid and his red sneaker. It was an especially hot day, so that was probably why the folks who normally sat on their lawn chairs and watched the neighborhood weren't out at that time. I wiped the sweat off of my brow and looked under the porch one more time and just looked at the kid laying there. "Hey!" I said again but got no response. I decided to get that stick again and poke his ankle. The red skin grew a little white dot from where the stick touched it. Sunburned no doubt.

I got up and patted off the dust from my shorts, being a little unamused. Mom said that the people here did strange things, I guess this was one of those instances. I decided to go to Pats and swing for a bit. He told me that soon I would be too big to play on the swing set and to enjoy it before that time came.

Right as I was about to jump over the porch steps on to the gravel walkway, I heard a noise that sounded like a mix between a muffled car horn and a cough. Quickly, I dropped to my belly again and looked under to see the red sneaker nudging about, recoiling under the porch step. "Hey, uh, are you okay?" I called once more, only this time he responded with a low screeching noise that I still have trouble describing to this day. I looked under to see the kid curling up like a baby, only he was shaking manically back and forth at the same time. I felt all the heat from my face rise up to the tips of my hears and jumped off the porch as quick as I could. What the heck was going on?! I ran fast back down the street to my house to get Mom. When I reached the front door it was locked so I started banging on the dented metal yelling for my mom to open the door - to no avail. In the distance I could still hear the screeching, animal-like shrieks from the strange sunburnt kid under the porch steps. "Mom please open the door! Its an EMERGENCY!" I yelled on, when suddenly a hand landed on my shoulder and I turned and swatted it off of me like it was the most venomous bug in the world; so sure it was the strange kids hand. But no it was Pat, looking half awake but concerned in one of his fishing shirts and flip flops. "Whoa, whoa, what's gotten into you little miss?" he asked in a sleepy voice. I spilled out everything start to finish hoping to get him to call the police, the fire department, or the news or whoever was out there that could help us. Pat just laughed and said I had a wild imagination, but agreed to come with me to check out what all the banging was about. "But don't you hear that weird shrieking noise? Don't you hear it, Pat?" I asked wearily as we paced back down the gravel path to the scene. "Nope. I don't." I listened, and he was right. Strangely I didn't hear it anymore either. Maybe it was the heat and my imagination that got to me... but it couldn't have been.