Shoot Me Down

Part 1

Note: This story is COPYRIGHT. Anyone who posts it without permission (yes, even with credit going to me) is violating the copyright.

Chapter One

Ten-Year-Old Breanne

            I like Sam. He’s not like other boys. He’s got brown curly hair and soft sweet eyes, and he doesn’t shove me, or pull my hair or tease. He lives in the house on the other side of the woods from me. Sometimes we’re allowed to play in the woods together, we try to climb trees – once I ripped my dress – and Sam likes digging holes a lot. We told each other that someday when we grow up we’ll get married, and I’m not kidding either.

            The river cuts through the woods. The cheerful trickling reaches me before I see it. The bank leading down to the river is steep and muddy, and I always stay carefully away from it. Sam laughs at me and calls me a scaredy-cat. He isn’t scared of the river, he climbs down the bank and tosses big stones in the water, laughing when the water splashes back and soaks his shirt.

            I see him. Today he’s wearing a huge black t-shirt, a hand-me-down from his brother probably, and a pair of khaki shorts encase his skinny legs. I tread carefully towards him, doing my best not to step in all the fresh mud that last night’s rain created. I imagine what Mom will say if I come back with my nice new shoes all covered in mud.

            “Hey Bree!” He waves me over frantically, pushing shaggy bangs out of his eyes with one hand, “Come see, I got a lizard!”

            I come to a stop in front of him, wrinkling my nose in distaste. Sam likes to chase after the little brown lizards but I think they’re gross. One time Sam caught one and held on to its tail. It ran away without it, leaving the stump behind in his fingers. He laughed, but since then I’ve refused to touch them.

            “Don’t bring it near me,” I say firmly. Most boys would laugh and come at me with it, but Sam isn’t like that, he just shrugs and reaches down to cup the lizard in one hand. “Hi, little guy.” He tries to pet the top of its head. “Look, he likes it.” Sam’s grin is huge, his front teeth are crooked.

            “It’s a lizard,” I fold my arms over my white blouse; “it doesn’t like anything. It’s too stupid.”

            Sam pretends to gasp and shield the lizard from me.“Don’t listen to her, Charlie.”

            “You named it?” I shake my head at how silly he is.“You can’t take it home. Your Mom will freak.”

            “I’ll make him a home here, out of sticks and leaves and stuff.” Sam’s eyes light up. I recognize it right away. He always looks that way when he has a project in mind. Last time we made a “mud pie bakery” with forest dirt and buckets of water we’d hauled from his house into the woods. I’d come back home with mud stains all over my lacy shirt. Mom had practically gone mental.

            “Here you go, Charlie, stay here,” Sam leans down and puts the lizard down on a flat rock at our feet.

            “He won’t stay there,” I say, and as if to prove my point, Charlie the lizard began to skitter away - off the rock and towards the river bank.

            “Hey!” Sam scrambles after it. “Come back here you…” he chases after, waving his arms in the air comically, and I start to laugh.

            Sam’s mad dash brings him to the edge of the river bank, and he goes to climb down it after Charlie, but his foot slips in the freshly churned mud.

   It happens in slow motion. I watch in horror as he slides over the edge of the steep bank, lands on his back, keeps falling. A sharp crack as his head hits a rock, and his limp form tumbles down the mud slicked grass, like when we used to roll – giggling - down grassy hills, covering our clothes in green stains.

But this isn’t fun. He has no control, his arms flail uselessly and I watch as he pitches over the lip of the riverbank. Into the water with a heavy splash. Just like that, he’s gone.

            I scream, my throat raw. Tears sting my eyes. I stumble down the bank towards the river, my feet sliding in the mud. I’m sliding, sliding, sliding… down the bank towards the river.

I’ll be killed. I’ll drown.

I grasp at the rocks jutting from the muddy grass, my feet scrambling for purchase.

            “Sam!” My anguished howl seems to crystallize in the air above me, and I claw at the rocks, tearing my fingernails painfully, keeping myself from falling, “Sam!”

            The surface of the water broils. A shadow floats just below, sinks - is gone. I’m still screaming, trying to crawl down to the river to pull him out. Never mind that I can’t swim and the current will sweep me away. Never mind that he must be on the bottom by now, lying in the cloudy mud. I wait for him to surface, to pop up and laugh, spitting water at me. His mother will be so mad. I stare at the water for what seems like hours.

            The river is unforgiving, blank. Rushing past, fast and uncaring. Nothing penetrates the surface. No pale hand shoots up out of the water to claw at the air. There is nothing.

            Sam is gone.