YAWP: A Collection of Short Stories

Rot

March 4, 2019

They ducked under the shutters of the shed, dust and shredded leaves unearthed in their wake. One of the boys swiped at the air, sending dust motes fluttering through the air like moth's wings. He shrouded his eyes from the detritus before glancing about him. The shed was littered with remnants of a man lost quite a long time ago. Resting against the wall were dented frames with initials carved like love notes into each decorative edging. Buried under grime and yellowed by age were phonebook pages, scattered on the ground, with black marker scrawled in circles around numbers and names. The trunk in the middle of the cramped space was blackened by invisible flames. The taller of the two, with hair the color of Hennessy and straw, stooped to reach between two planks of rotted wood at his feet. After a pause and impatient tugging, he exhumed a drag with a long, wooden handle. At its tip were three sheared spikes curved downward. A grin lit the boy's face.

"They say this is what he killed him with," he said eagerly.

The other boy hurried to his friend's side and inspected the farming tool with covetous eyes. "You think?"

He nodded and bit down on his tongue. "They say that he came while the old man was sleeping. Took this and smashed it down on his head."

"Why'd he do it, you think?"

The older boy shrugged. "Wanted his money, maybe. Or wanted his wife. My dad tells me about her when he starts acting silly."

The shorter boy, with hair like withered weeds, reached for the drag with both hands. His friend pulled it out of his reach. "I found it, that makes it mine."

"So? Why would you want a plow with blood on it? I want to show it to Abe." The careful shoves and lighthearted threats soon erupted into fighting. They yanked the tool back and forth and soon dust was shaking from the molded rafters. Amongst the arguing and under all that grime, they failed to notice a smell in the back of the shed. Something that smelled like rot.