Creepy - Death, Magic & The Golden Stingray

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

Do you remember the magic of being young?***Written by TW Grim and narrated by Joe Stofko***The Bloody Disgusting Podcast on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bloody-disgusting-podcast/id1528386150 ***The Bloody Disgusting Podcast on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/7AcIAof1JPBxbdiIEX4mQC ***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***You can also subscribe to us on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/creepypod***Produced by Steve Blizin***Title music by Alex Aldea***Intro/Outro Narration by Joe Stofko Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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the bloody disgusting podcast, where we talk about all the things we love most in. horror. Available wherever you listen to podcasts. Now, this is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepypastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Creepy Presents Death, Magic, and the Golden Stingray.

Written by T.W. Grimm. Narrated by Joe Stoffco. And produced by Steve Blizzin. I found it lying half submerged in the watery muck at the edge of the stream. caked in filth and rusted all to hell. Someone had left it there to slowly rot away, and I, a boy in desperate need of a bike, had been guided by the hand of Providence

to rescue it from its watery grave. It had been a long time since Lady Luck had shown her face in my little corner of the world. I was so happy I almost wanted to cry. I dragged the bike up the crumbling slope the embankment and laid it in the sun to dry out. I had more than my fair share of worries that summer, but at that moment, I was glad as hell to be alive on such a fine and sunny afternoon. I'd almost forgotten how good it felt to smile. It felt like coming home. It was early July in

the year 1981, and although I didn't know it at the time, I was entering the last summer of my childhood. I had just turned 10 years old. By the time I was 11, my father had run out on us to shack up with another woman. We'd moved into a trailer park, and I was working part-time in a scrapyard to help mom with the bills. But that was all in the future. In July of 81, the world around me had not yet lost its last vestiges of magic that blurs the edges of reality when you were young.

It is a pure and simple kind of magic, a potent blend of naive wonderment and childish hope. And my God, do I miss it dearly? In 1981, a good portion of the planet was reeling from the effects of a massive recession. Times were tough all over, but it seemed like they were especially tough in Renville, a small town that was getting smaller all the time. The lumber mill had closed its doors in early March, and the pulp mill down the road in Haverston was limping along with a skeleton crew.

One out of every six adults was out of work, out of savings, and out of prospects for the future. Renville was a ghost town by Christmas. A lot of my friends moved away, and none of them ever came back. My father lost his job at the lumber mill along with everyone else, but mom was a receptionist at a dental clinic. in Renville, and the dentist vowed to keep their staff working for as long as they could. With her paycheck barely keeping us above water, there wasn't much wiggle room left after the bills were paid. My parents had promised me a new bike for my 10th birthday, but that was before the

recession reared up to stomp our little town into the dirt. When the big day finally came, I was presented with a cheap pair of roller skates and an apologetic, Happy birthday, kiddo. We did what we could. I was old enough to understand the gravity of our situation, so I crushed my disappointment into a prickly little ball, shoved it deep down inside, and said thank you, with as much sincerity as I could muster.

I wanted to cry, but I didn't. Crying was for babies, and I was a big kid now. My new roller skates were uncomfortable, unsteerable, plastic pieces of shit. The wheel bearings were shot within a week. I hid them far back in the depths of my closet and forgot about them until I started packing up to move into our new home, a small trailer in a rural ghetto known as Renville Courts trailer park. I went into the backyard and threw the skates up into a tree. As far as I know, they're still hanging there to this day.

My old bike was no longer an option. The seat was already clamped to the very end of the post, and my knees damn near came up to my ears when I was pumping the pedals. No bike means no freedom for a kid who lives in the middle of nowhere, and that was intolerable. I was ten years old. It was summer vacation, and the world around me was long. lush and vibrant with the possibility of adventure.

It was a fairy tale landscape of deep gullies and dark forests, all of them connected by dozens of meandering deer trails and forgotten side roads. Any one of them might lead to just about anywhere, if you followed it far enough. One simply could not embark on such time-consuming adventures on foot, not if you wanted to make it home in time for supper. I desperately needed a bike, and sweet serendipity had delivered one into my hands. Ironically, I stumbled upon this gift of freedom while hiding from the tyranny of one Jason Richter, the terror of Renville Public School. Jason was a swaggering wall of red-faced fury, a towering

sixth grader, who was notorious for his hair-trigger temper. In keeping with the general tone of that awful year, I had somehow managed to make myself the focus of Jason's boundless rage, and once Jason Richter had identified you as a target, those crosshairs could stay on your back for a long, long time. It had all started during a spontaneous game of dodgeball during noontime recess. In a rare moment of athletic prowess, I snatched an incoming zinger out of the air

and fired it back at some fourth grade squirt on the other side. He'd been talking a constant stream of shit to us for the entire duration of the game, and I was determined to knock him on his smug little ass. The ball screamed past him by a scant inch and hit the edge of the basketball courts. It launched skyward into a long, curving arc, before plummeting earthward to bounce with great force off the top of Jason Richter's unsuspecting skull.

In a stroke of tremendously bad luck, Jason was relaxing in the shade of the old elm tree next to the basketball courts, taking some time off from being an asshole to hack a few lung darts with his buddies, Jerry Krantz, Phil Burton, and Lou DeMaso. The ball made a loud, hollow, bowing sound as it bounced off his head, and a hush immediately descended over the entire playground.

The sudden quiet was shattered by Phil Burton, who pitched over into the scraggly grass at the foot of the tree and started braying his demented machine-gun giggle at the top of his lungs. Phil pointed at Jason and hollered, Oh, shit, Jay! It sounded like a fucking cartoon! Some of the onlookers from our dodgeball game started to crack up, along with Phil, and Jason flushed as red as a brick. He sprang to his feet, pitched his smoke, and stomped over with his hands already clenched into fists. Someone was about to get their ass handed to them, and that someone, it was me. The fourth grade squirt stared at me in horror and moaned,

Oh man, you're dead. A split second later, Jason Richter was standing among us, trying his best to stare down everyone at once as he scanned the crowd for a guilty face. Jerry Krantz wandered up and stood the short distance behind him, grining an unpleasant grin as he kept watch for the teacher on recess duty. Jason growled, Who did that? And 30 fingers instantly pointed in my direction. I backed away from him with outstretched arms, pleading my innocence as I searched for an escape route. But Phil and Lou were already waiting for me on the other side. My backside collided against the side of the school, making me grunt and surprise. I was trapped. Jason crowded in close and jabbed a finger into my chest, making me squirm beneath the drilling pressure of his blunt fingertip. His eyes were crackling

with the promise of violence. You hit me right in the head, shit for brains. You got a problem with me? I blinked up at its broad, furious face and stammered, No, no, it was an accident. I didn't mean to do that honest. Jerry peaked over Jason's shoulder and crooned in a lisping falsetto. No, it was an accident. Shut up, Nutsack. Admit it, you hit him on purpose.

Jason's lips curved into a small razor of a smile, and my legs started to shake. I'd seen that smile on many occasions. over the past five years, and I knew exactly what it meant. It meant I was about to get hurt. He seized me by the hair and tilted my head back, forcing me to look him in the eye. Do you think you're going to talk your way out of this? Are you fucking stupid or something? I'm going to beat the piss and shit out of you, kid. From somewhere close by, an indignant voice shouted,

What's going on over there? And we all jumped a little. It was the teacher on recent. access duty, Mrs. Rutherford. She was waving her arms and hustling across the playground as fast as her long, brown corduroy skirt would allow. Hey, break it up. You let him go. Jason promptly released his grip on my hair and growled, Keep them out shut, dick, don't you dare tell on me. Mrs. Rutherford swooped in and wedged her bolt between us. She turned to Jason and shook a stern finger in his face. What's going on here? she demanded. Jason shrugged and stared at the fifth-grade teacher with casual defiance. He didn't fear Mrs. Rutherford's authority in the least. She was merely an inconvenient witness. Jason knitted his eyebrows in mock confusion. Nothing's going on. I was playing dodgeball with my friends.

What are you talking about? I saw what you were doing to him, she snapped. This isn't how you play dodgeball. Jason pointed at me and said, Who, him? I wasn't messing with you, was I? Tell her I wasn't messing with you. I looked into those muddy, murderous eyes, and I shook my head. I squeaked, no, I'm fine. Mrs. Rutherford grimaced and let out a tired sigh. She said, I know you and your friends were smoking behind the tree again, Jason. I can smell it on you. Come on, we're going to the office. We ain't going nowhere, ladies.

"'Jason corrected her, and he dodged her grasping hand with a quick whirl and a mocking smile. "'He strolled away with his hand stuffed into his pockets, "'and his goon squad fell in line behind him. "'Mrs. Rutherford watched them go with her hands on her hips "'and a relieved expression on her face. "'It dawned on me that even the teachers were afraid of Jason "'and his tribe of overgrown miscreants. "'The teachers had no real authority.

over the kids at Renville Elementary. It was all a carefully orchestrated illusion of confident body language and authoritative speech patterns. Jason Richter could see through the illusion. Without it, Mrs. Rutherford had no power at all. He's gone now. You can tell me what happened. Don't worry.

I looked down at my shoes and insisted that I was fine. Mrs. Rutherford gave me a disappointed look. She pushed out another deep, defeated sigh and said, That boy is rotten to the core. Steer clear of him, and maybe he'll forget about you. He'll be gone to middle school next year, just stay out of his way. Sure, I croaked, and I manufactured a smile.

I'll try my best. I went back to my classroom and told my teacher I wasn't feeling so hot. My parents came to pick me up, and they bickered about it. money the entire way home. They were so busy arguing with each other they both forgot to ask me if I was okay. I think they may have forgotten I was in the car with them or why they'd even left the house in the first place. Looking back, I now understand completely. When finances are tight, money is the only subject that matters. Everything and everyone else takes a back seat,

friends, your own family, even yourself. The cost of living becomes a ravenous blood god who demands constant sacrifice, and no matter how many slices of your existence you offer as appeasement, it will never be enough. The rest of the school year was a midnight stroll through a minefield. Jason was the tallest kid in the schoolyard,

but he had the uncanny ability to blend in and pop up when you least expected it. I narrowly avoided getting my ass kicked in the schooly yard on several heart-pounding occasions. But my luck finally ran out on the last Friday before summer vacation. I was horsing around in the hallway with some of my friends after the dismissal bell, all of us happy as hell to be basking in the light at the end of the tunnel.

Before I knew it, my school bus was driving past the window. Now, under normal circumstances, missing the bus wouldn't exactly be the end of the world. My house was a 45-minute walk from school, which was certainly not an insurmountable distance for a healthy 10-year-old kid. The catch, of course, was that the instant I wandered outside the protective umbrella of the school ground, I was fair game for Jason Richter, who wanted nothing more than to punch and kick me into the netherworld. The walk across town was nerve-wracking. I didn't relax until I passed the town limits and left Renville behind, at which point I cranked the volume on my walkman and started singing along

with the cars at the top of my lungs. I was ten years old. The sun was warm. The sun was warm, on my face, and summer vacation was less than a week away. I flipped up my shirt collar and bopped my way down the road in a joyous state of rock and roll bliss, completely unaware that Jason and his gang of mouth-wreaters were racing up behind me on their bicycles. At the last moment I sensed some sort of commotion barreling down upon me, and I turned around. I was greeted with a drive-by punch in the mouth by Phil Burton. I twirled away from the impact and collided with Jason, who leaped off his still-rolling bike like a Hollywood stuntman to seize me by my shirt and drive a knee into my upper thigh.

I went down with a scream of pain, and Jason sat on my chest, pinning my arms down with his knees on the shoulder of the road. Jason screamed, you thought you'd get away. with it, didn't you fuck had? And he started hammering on my face. The back of my head bounced off the ground from the force of his blows, and I flailed my legs

and started to cry. I sobbed. I didn't mean to hit you with the ball. It was an accident. Jason made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. He panted I don't give a shit if it was an accident. You made them

laugh at me. He stood up and he glowered down at me with naked hatred in his eyes. I'm going to do that every time I see you, he groaned. Every fucking time. They dragged me off the road and heaved me into the ditch. I rolled to the swampy bottom and cried for a while in the weeds. When the tears dried up, I dragged myself home. My dad just shook his head and left the room when I slumped through the front door.

But mom was furious. I begged her not to call the police. Instead, I convinced her to talk to the principal over the phone on Monday morning, and after she exchanged some tense words through clenched teeth, I was granted permission to stay home for the last few days of school. I thank them both from the bottom of my heart, but I knew it was only a temporary stay of execution. Renville was a small town. It was only a matter of time before we crossed paths again. I spent the next week moping around the house, playing centipede on the Atari, while mom and dad quarreled and hushed voices in the next room. I woke up Friday morning and realized I was three days into the official summer vacation. I had to get out of the house and feel the sun on my skin,

for I was going to lose my mind. My face was still mottled with scabs and bruises, but I decided it didn't matter. No one was going to see me anyway. All of my friends were gone. My entire world had boiled down to just me and two angry grown-ups who seemed to have forgotten that I existed.

I slurped down a bowl of cereal, put on my shoes, and yelled, I'm going out for a while, Dad. See ya. As I slipped out the side door. I started heading for town, thinking I could maybe go drop a shiny dime on a popsicle at the variety store. But Jason Richter's voice popped up in my head and sneered, Sure, fuckface, come on into town so I can kick your ass again. Instead, I headed into the cornfield that bordered our property and descended into the depths of

of the gully that lay beyond. It was a humid scorcher of a day, but at the bottom of the gully it was cool, shady, and dim. I followed the winding brook that gurgled along at the bottom of the gully, waving away mosquitoes and skirting clumps of poison ivy, and all I could think of was, if I had a bike, I could just zoom right past those assholes and flip them all the bird because I'd be like the wind. I followed the creek until the gully eventually leveled out into a flat, wooded area, and the creek joined up with a deep stream that cut through the middle of the forest.

I was a good way from home at this point, and my stomach was telling me that I was late for lunch. I was tired, sad, and more alone than I had ever imagined possible. And it was at this point when I spotted the Schwinn lying at the edge of the stream, A child's dreams abandoned to corrode in the murky shallows. I walked it all the way home, pushing it on flat tires as the pedal repeatedly bumped against my shin. I hosed it off in the driveway and carefully greased the chain. The bike looked a lot better with all the muck washed off.

Not brand new by any means, but it wasn't nearly as rusted as I first thought, and the brakes seemed to work just fine. I hauled out my dad's air compressor and was surprised to discover the tubes could still hold air. Given the age of the bike and conditions it had been exposed to, it was damn near a miracle. My dad came outside as I was riding the bike up and down the driveway. He was on his way to drink a cheap six-pack in the garage, his favorite pastime since he'd lost his job. He raised an eyebrow at the bike and said, Where'd you get that from, bud?

I told him I'd found it lying in the stream, and he shook his head in disbelief. That's a swin stingray. I can't believe someone would just throw it away, he muttered, and he cast a longing glance down at the six-back cradle in his arm. That bike is a classic. Well, it's your lucky day, I guess.

Good for you. Dad went into the garage to drown his sorrows, and I devoured a couple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the porch as I admired my new bike. I decided I would repaint Xavier the same joyous shade of golden yellow as the original paint job. That was its name, I'd decided, Xavier. It just seemed to fit.

I wondered about all the places it may have gone, and the untold stories of the miles which had rolled beneath its wheels in years gone by. Xavier was wise, and he was brave, but above all, he was fast. I knew it like I knew my own name. Mom pulled into the driveway as I was finishing the last bite. She stomped right past me like I wasn't there and yelled through the screen door, "'You're home all goddamn day, and you can't even mow the lawn?' I stared up at her, and in a tiny voice I said,

"'Daddads in the garage.' "'She snarled. "'Doing what? "'Drinking beer?' "'I shrank away from the intensity of the anger in her voice. "'I held up my hands and babbled. "'I don't know. "'I think he's maybe working on something.

"'But don't even worry about it, because I can mow the lawn. I can go do it right now. Mom withered my smile with a cracking heat in her stare. She snapped, Go take a walk somewhere, kid, and stormed out to the garage like an oncoming monsoon. I set my plate on the porch and scrambled to make myself scarce. I didn't want to listen to the yelling anyway.

It frightened me on a deeper level than Jason Richter, who was merely a boogeyman, of the here and now. My parents' incessant fighting made me afraid for the future. I hopped on the Schwinn and peddled down the driveway. Behind me, my mother's shrill fury blasted through the walls of the garage and pierced the sonorous quiet of the lazy summer afternoon. The first hundred yards on the bike was a bit rough, but after that, the rattling and squeaking began to smooth out. Another hundred yards and it faded away entirely. My new bike rolled like a dream. And it was fast. It was like the wind. I could go just about anywhere on that bike and still get home in time for dinner. I was free.

My troubles slipped behind in a bluer of cat tails, ditch weeds, and rippling bullgrass. All that remained was the pure joy. of motion and wind beneath the towering sky. I took a random left at Terran's side road, a single lane gravel road that offers heavy equipment access to a long stretch of farmland. I encountered an unfamiliar trail of hard-packed dirt

roughly half a mile down the road, a narrow, rutted little path that skirted around the edge of a cornfield. It cut through a dense patch of forest, and led to an enormous meadow. A vast and gently rolling explosion of green and gold in the late afternoon sunshine. Wildflowers of every description nestled in the tall grass

in startling bursts of vivid color, and above it all was the majestic mantle of the rural summer sky. The meadow was so beautiful, it was almost a thrill. A whimsical Disney landscape come to, life. I jumped off the Schwinn and ran through the tall grass with both arms extended, laughing like a loon with tears in my eyes. I was alive. I was free, and on that glorious afternoon, there was still magic in this world. I miss that feeling, you know. When you're young, anything seems possible, but youth is here and gone in the blink of an eye. All the bad decisions we make,

the endless foot-dragging, all of that bullshit. It steals your time away. A day here, a week there, and then you wake up one morning and realize there's no time left for you to waste. But you keep right on with the bad decisions and the foot-dragging, pissing away those last good years

without a second thought, and why? Why the hell do we do that? Because somewhere along the line, you forget how to hope. You get tired, and you can't force yourself to care anymore. It gets harder and harder to remember the magic. And when even the memory is gone for good,

it's all over. After that, you're just waiting for the grave. But on that Friday afternoon, the magic was still very much alive, and I was as free as I ever would be in this life. For the rest of that long and awful summer, the meadow was my home away from home. Even now, almost 40 years later, I can close my eyes and see it all in the finest of detail. I will never forget that place, not if I lived to be a hundred years old.

If I could ever go back, I would do it in a heartbeat, and this time I would stay. But that can never happen because, my magic is gone. I got old and tired, and even though I still draw breath, I am the dead. Places like the meadow don't belong to the dead. They are magic, and they belong to the living. The next morning, I opened the garage door and did a double-take at my bike. Sometime during the night, it had been given a glossy new coat of paint, and it looked like it was brand new. I reasoned my father must have painted it while he killed a six-pack in the garage, although I could see no evidence that any painting had taken place.

Nothing else made any sense. I made a mental note to thank him later, and took off at top speed down the road, grinning into the breeze as the countryside rolled past in an exhilarating blur. I decided to throw caution to the wind, and I headed for town. I wanted to buy a popsicle at the variety store. When I came out of the store, I saw that my bike had drawn a small crowd of admirers. A big, ponchy fellow in a blue workshirt clomped up to me in its steel-toed boots, and almost wistfully he said, haven't seen one of those in years. It's a classic. Where'd you get it? I shrugged and said,

Someone threw it away. I found it and cleaned it up. The man frowned at this and shook his head. It's a shame someone would do that. There's something special about this bike, you know? They threw it away. What a crying shame. Well, I guess it's yours now, kiddo.

You take care of it. I rode away with a gleam in my eye and a giant goofy smile on my mind. lips. I had the coolest bike in town and everyone knew it. I cruised through Renville like a beloved king who was returned from a long and bitter exile, waving to my adoring subject as I toured the streets on my trusty speed. My tour eventually took me to Andre's magazine and smoke shop where I spent some time furtively reading comic books I couldn't afford. Old Andre went about his business and pretended he didn't notice I was loitering.

He knew I didn't have any money, but he understood that, without a child to treasure it, a comic book is nothing but a joyless husk of pulp and colored ink. It is inherently worthless. It's only the magic of imagination. It gives value to the stories contained within. It was a good day. It was a great day even, right up until I screamed. rolled outside and locked eyes with Jason Richter.

Jason was sitting on the wooden bench in front of Andre's store with Jerry, Phil, and Lou, the four horsemen of my personal apocalypse. Jason was rolling cigarettes on a stolen Playboy magazine, Bond Scott shrieking about the highway to hell from the crackling speakers of a battered boombox at his feet. He did a double-take at me and exclaimed. I'm named. Holy shit! Look who it is!

I didn't even see you in there. What you doing, little lady? You're buying some rubbers for your boyfriend? I made a bee line for my bike, and they followed, leaving their contraband littered across the bench, as they trailed after me in a hungry little pack. Jason barked, Hey, turn around and look at me. You're not going anywhere.

I felt a hand clamped down on my shoulder as I fumbled with my bike lock. A split second later I was lying on my back with a scuffed Adidas sneaker planted on my chest. This fucking kid is dumb as a rock, Jason growled. Didn't I tell you what was going to happen if I saw you again? Didn't I fucking tell you? Phil Burton slapped his hands together in glee and unleashed his trademark lunatic giggle, a rapid fire that tore at my eardrums like nether. nails on a chalkboard. He leaned over me and cackled,

he should take him around back and throw him in the river. Imagine that. Why, we could see if he can swim. Jason nodded and slapped Phil on the shoulder, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Sounds good. Sounds like a plan. Only we'll tie him to a cinder block first. Phil squealed with unhinged delight at the hilarity of this image. He waved his arms and crowed, "'Imagine if we did that, oh man, imagine if we—' Jason shoved him back and snapped, "'Shut up, you fucking half-wit.

I'm not joking. Grab his legs.' Phil's smile faded into a puzzled frown. He cast a sharp glance over at Jerry, who was already shaking his head and backing away. Jerry muttered, "'Hey, I don't know, man. I don't think we should do that.

He could like, oh, drown or something.' Jason rounded on him and exploded. You can shut the fuck up too, Jerry. Quit being a fucking pussy and grab his legs. Come on, grab him before someone sees. Seas what? What are you boys doing out here, huh? Hey, you leave him alone.

Andre was standing in the doorway of his shop, glaring at my assailants through the thick, smeary lenses of his bifocals as he shook his cane in the air. Jason reluctantly took his foot off my chest, and I scuttled to unlock my bike from the street lamp. I was trying not to cry and was doing a piss-poor job of it. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely get the key in the lock. We weren't doing anything, Lou muttered at the ground.

Go sell your magazines. It's chicken shit to fight a guy four-on-one, André rasped, and Jason's face flushed bright red. You're a bunch of chicken-shit cowards, If you were a few years older, I'd not call for you sideways. Oh, would you now? Jason asked, and he started to drift closer. You'd beat us all up. You'd keep your distance, punk, Andre demanded.

But Jason closed the last few yards between them and a flash and snatched the cane out of his hand. He tossed it to Phil, who proceeded to execute a clumsy dance routine, shuffling his Velcro-fastening pumas in random patterns as he vacuously grinned at some distant point down the block. Hello my baby, hello my darling, hello my ragtime gal. He bellowed and Jason burst into a gale of mocking laughter. Andre's face went pale as milk.

He grabbed his young tormentor by the back of the college and Jason whirled to slap his hand away. André grabbed him again. His lips skinned back from his yellowed old teeth in a grimace of embarrassed rage, and Jason easily pried his hands away. Well, I guess it's a good thing I'm not a few years older, right? Jason smiled. Or you'd be beating my ass right now, right?

Andre licked his lips and loudly proclaimed, I'm not afraid of you. Step away from me, boy. and I mean right now, or you'll get what's coming to you. But this was a lie. Andre was very afraid. I could see it all over his face, and so could Jason. He reached up, pulled the shopkeeper's glasses off his face with a smirk,

and tossed them into a nearby garbage can with a nonchalant flick of his wrist. What are you going to do, magazine, man? Come on, I'm waiting. Get out of here, Andre quavered. the cops. Jerry waved his hands to get his friend's attention and interjected, Fuck it, man. Whatever. Let's go before he calls the cops on us. What if we don't let him? Jason looked deep in thought as if you were pondering some interesting philosophical conundrum. What if we take them both down to the river? They can both have a cinder block. I don't even give a shit. He's getting away. While their attention had been

diverted by Andre, I had quietly unlocked my bike and pushed at a short distance down the street. Lou sounded the alarm hopping up and down and pointing at me as Jason's head swiveled in my direction. I jumped on the Schwinn and gave all four of them the two-fingered salute. Come on, assholes, try and catch me. I hollered, and I took off like a bullet. My fan club scrambled to give chase on their own bikes, streaming for my. blood as they hunched over their handlebars and tried their damnedest to catch up. Houses streaked past and startled motorists honked their horns, yelling a string of curses at the maniac kid and the old Tammy's bicycle.

My blood sang in my ears as I stood on the pedals, giving it everything I had. When I dared to look back again, Jason and the gang were long gone. I left them in the dust. The encounter took all the wind out of my sails. A popsicle was definitely not worth an ass-kicking, and it certainly wasn't worth death. Jason Richter was apparently not going to be satisfied with merely kicking my ass. Not anymore. Like it or not, I was officially in exile from the town of Renville.

But I still had the meadow, and I had my bike, and I had my life. blessings would have to do because they were the only blessings I had less. I came home just in time to witness mom shoved my dad from behind as he was walking to the car. I hid behind a boxwood shrub and watched the squalid drama play out in secret. Mom screamed, get me back those keys! And tried to snatch them out of dad's hand. Her lips were peeled back in a rictus. of fury. Dad jerked them out of reach and shook a finger in her face.

What the hell is your problem? He shouted. I'm going out for a few beers. So what? Jesus Christ, woman. Mom threw her hands in the air and sputtered, are these beers of yours going to be free, you selfish asshole? Whose money is buying that beer? Mine, my money. Your unemployment ran out three weeks ago. We're drowning here. Don't you understand? understand that? We're fucking drowning, and you want to piss away all my money at the bar. Fuck you, give me those keys. Oh, so there it is, Dad sneered back. When I was working over time, it was our money. But now that I ain't working well, suddenly it's all your money. Yeah, I see it how it is with you. Oh, fuck you, jackass, mom shrieked. Are you kidding me? It's all my

money because it's literally all my goddamn money. You aren't making anything, you stupid son of a bitch, how dare you trying to put this on me? At that point, I decided to keep on writing. Neither of them had noticed me, and that was for the best. I biked out to the me and spent the remainder of the morning relaxing in a natural hammock of hanging vines, watching the butterflies, flit and dance in the tebid breeze. I wished that I could live in the meadow, far away from the complications of this frightening new world. It would just be me, my bike,

and the blessed silence of wide, empty spaces. No one was home when I came rolling in shortly after one. I ate a bowl of cereal and watched TV until Dad came swaying through the door at five o'clock. Now, I'd seen my dad get a few beers deep on a number of occasions, but this time he was completely drunk off his ass. He growled a string of guttural curses as he bounced his way down the front hall,

struggling to make it into the living room in one piece. He blinked at me without comprehension for a moment, trying to place a name to the unexpected face that had popped up without warning in his field of vision. "'Well, there he is,' he slurred. "'Where's your mother at, bud? Where'd she go?' I murmured. "'I don't know. She was gone when I got here.

"'Are you okay?' He snapped. "'You're the one who got beat up, so I guess I'm doing a lot better than you are, kid.' Dad collapsed into his armchair and he thumped his seat on the coffee table. He studied me with dark, glassy eyes, then rumbled, that mother of yours is a loud-mouth bitch, you know that? She's a disrespectful loud-mouth fucking bitch.

Did you know that, kiddo? I gaped at him, struck mute by the coarse ferocity in his words. He snickered at my expression of dismay and struggled to light a cigarette. You lose your job, no fault of your own, and suddenly you're not worth a damn anymore. You don't deserve to be treated like a man. "'If I want to have a few beers, what's the harm in that? "'If I want to go into town and tip a few back, well, let me go. "'Who gives a shit?

"'I'm still a man, God damn it, and I'll do whatever I goddamn well want to do.' "'I licked my lips with a tongue that was dry as a desert and croaked. "'I don't care if you drink some beer, Dad. "'But I don't think you should drive when you—' "'She said I'm no good,' he interrupted. and he abruptly slammed his fist on the arm of the chair. That's what she said to me, her husband, your father. She said I'm no fucking good.

His eyes narrowed into a couple of furious little slits. He leaned in closer and breathed. What do you think, kid, huh? Do you think your own father is no fucking good? I shook my head and melted back into the couch. Dad glared at me. and tapped some ashes on the coffee table, completely missing the ashtray. I'm still a man, he growled.

I can go to the bar if I want, and I can drink some beers if I want, and I can have some fucking dignity, for Christ's sake. I can have some goddamn motherfucking son of a bitching dignity, can't I? Is that too much to ask for? I was only ten, but I was old enough to know. my father wasn't looking for an answer. He just wanted a yell at the top of his lungs because it was all he had left. There was nothing more he could do except yell. I groped for something to say that would de-escalate his boiling fury. I didn't know this hateful stranger with his slurred speech and

gritted teeth. He wasn't my father. I wanted my father to come back. I wrote a I rubbed the way the tears that threatened to spill from my eyes and said, Thank you for painting my bike, Dad. It looks really cool. I really like it. He gaped at me with a slack, uncomprehending expression, and he muttered, "'Bike?

I didn't paint your bike. The hell are you talking about?' I felt my mouth fall open, and a quick chill skittered down my spine. If Dad didn't paint my bike, Who did? Dad crumpled back into his chair and groaned, Fuck out of here. Go on, let me sleep.

He was snoring within seconds, his cigarette still burning away between his fingers. I carefully eased it out of his grasp and stubbed it in the ashtray. I tiptoed to the front door. Before I left, I whispered down the hall. You're no good. Is that what you want to hear?

You're a shitty old drunk and you're no good. I rode back out to the meadow and spent the rest of the day exploring my secret kingdom. I biked along the deer trails which cut a looping gridwork of narrow paths through the long grass, stopping occasionally to graze on the tangled tendrils of wild raspberries, which grew in abundance beside the trails. At the far end of the meadow, I discovered a place where a brisk, little forest stream cascaded over a rocky incline, creating a diminutive little waterfall. The water was cold and clean. I drank my fill and relaxed on the sandy bank of the stream,

gazing up at the sky with my bare feet cooling in the water. It wasn't heaven, but in that moment in time, it was close enough. I watched the sun sink past behind the trees in a blaze of gold and crimson, and then I reluctantly headed home. I found my mother sitting by herself in the living room, staring out the west windows into the thickening gloom. Dad was nowhere to be seen. I ventured a quiet, hi, mom, and fidgeted while I waited for a response. You're home, she said. It wasn't a greeting, just a weary acknowledgement of my presence. I asked Where's Dad? And Mom tensed up like a clenched fist.

Sleeping it off, she muttered. She was still looking out the window. Go make yourself a sandwich or something. I want you in bed by ten. I lingered for a moment, blinking at my mother's slumped silhouette in the dark. There was a hole in the drywall by the stairs, and Dad's ceramic ashtray was laying in pieces on the floor. I asked Mom if she was a few.

was okay. She blew out a long, shaky gust of air and shook her head. No, nothing is okay right now. Go eat your sandwich. It was a long time before I could fall asleep that night. When I eventually drifted away, I dreamed I was riding Xavier through the meadow, laughing and riding and living free beneath the boundless sky. As long as I was riding that golden yellow stingray through the tall grass, There would be no pain in this world. The sun would always shine, and I would never be afraid again. Not ever. For the rest of the summer, my daily routine consisted of avoiding the house

and the tensions that boiled within. I would crawl out of bed, pack a haphazard lunch by the light of the open refrigerator, and I'd be rolling down the driveway before the sun was much more than a smudge of red on the horizon. I lost myself in deep gullies and rolling cornfields. As I said earlier, the countryside was scored with dozens of deer trails and forgotten side roads, and a new adventure lay at the end of each and every one of them. Despite the rough conditions of these roads less taken, I never once hit a pothole or got soaked while rolling through a deceptively shallow-looking mud puddle.

It was almost as if the stinged, unerringly steered itself, and I was merely hitching a ride. There were many days, however, when I just hung around the meadow and merely existed, thinking of nothing in particular beyond whatever happened to fall within my line of sight. I did as I pleased, filling my days with languid errands of no particular importance. Life was different in the meadow. It was the one and only place where I was, I could be in control of my own fate. The meadow was magic,

a shimmer in the void where I could become anything I desired. I could be an astronaut on an alien world, a rugged pioneer, a time-traveling explorer from the future, or a humble shepherd of the butterflies. I could be anything and everything, or I could simply exist in the moment and be nothing at all. At the end of each day, the dream would end with the lengthening of the shadows, and it would be time to go home.

Our house was the polar opposite of the meadow. It had become a forbidding borough of heaping ashtrays and barren cupboards, enshrouded by a thick silence and covered in dust. There were always empty beer bottles scattered on the counter, and the lawn had degenerated into a sparse jungle of weeds. My happy home had been stolen by the recession and replaced with a sinister changeling, and I was powerless to do anything about it. As the days passed into weeks,

I slowly forgot about Jason Richter. Jason, however, hadn't forgotten about me. For a darkly twisted and deeply narcissistic personality like Jason, and there could be no forgetting such grievous insults, not while I still lived and breathed. In order for Jason to live with himself, there could be only one conclusion to this bitter, one-sided rivalry. I had to die.

The last day of summer vacation arrived under a blanket of threatening clouds. As usual, I woke before dawn and snuck around the house as my father's drunken snoring echoed down. the stairs, getting ready to head out for the meadow. Mom had already left for work. It was just me, a couple of bologna sandwiches, and a leaden feeling that weighed heavily on my chest. Summer was over.

My fantasy world was coming to an end. When school started, I wouldn't be able to hide from reality in the meadow anymore. I would be trapped all day in a classroom, and there would be homework to do in the evening. fall would come with its cold rains and driving winds, soon followed by the deep chill of winter. In the meantime, I would gradually lose touch with this fantastic world by degrees,

and what would happen when spring arrived? Would the meadows still be a land of wonder, or would the magic be doused by the gray rains and heavy snows? I wrestled with this awful possibility as I wheeled down the driveway, deep and thought, and I didn't even see them waiting for me on the road until Jason Richter stepped in my path. My heart lurched as I tried to dodge around him, but Jason seized me by the shoulder and yanked me off my bike. He snarled. Where the fuck do you think you're going, ass wipe? And all three of his wounds jumped on me,

dragging me to the road and pinning my arms and legs with their knees. I started to yell for help, and Jerry Cranch promptly gave me a smack in the mouth. Jason leaned over and hissed, Shut up. You didn't think I'd find you? Your dad's in the fucking phone book, dumbass. Where were you going? I gasped.

None of your business. And Phil started giggling. Oh, it's a secret. He sputtered. He'd got a secret, Jay. Whatever. Jason scoffed, and he'd shrugged off his backpack. Doesn't matter.

Jason plopped the bag on the road, smiling his narrow blade of a smile as he pulled open the zipper. Yeah, get the marker. Phil Grinned. We're going to draw dicks on your face, kid. You're going to go back to school with a bunch of big fucking wangs on your face.

You're going to be an actual dick face, Lou said. And Jerry started laughing. Come on, Jay, he giggled. Hurry up. Someone might come driving by soon. Jason pulled something out of his backpack, and Jerry's grin abruptly curdled on his lips. Jason wasn't holding a marker.

He was holding an old slot-head screwdriver, long and rusted to a dull brown color. The head of the screwdriver, however, was bright and shiny from a recent sharp. with a grinder. He tapped the business hand in his palm and nodded to himself as if he was agreeing with some dark voice inside his head. Hold him down, Jason grunted. Lou DeMaso said, what the fuck? And all three of them let go of me in unison. I popped up in a crab position and scooted out of reach. Jason trying to follow, but he was interrupted by Jerry, who stepped in his path and made a grant for his weapon.

Jason held the screwdriver out of reach and gave Jerry a one-handed shove that sent him stash... What are you doing, man? Lou demanded. You ain't gonna kill him, are you crazy? You want to get locked up in juvie or something? The nut house? Put it down. Phil chimed in.

Ah shit, can you imagine that? Getting locked up in the nut house? Put it down, Jay. You're a bunch of pussies, Jason spat. He pointed the screwdriver at Jerry. And very softly, he added, Get out of my way, last chance. Jerry raised his hands in the air,

as if we were attempting to approach a wild and unpredictable animal. He pleaded, come on, man, this is over, put it down. Jason's face hardened like stone. His eyes went dark and blank. They all laughed at me, he said. All of them laughed, and you guys, you laughed at me too. Jerry tried to run, but Jason was already in motion. He led out a berserker screeching and drove the screwdriver into Jerry sternum, sinking you in right up to the handle.

Jerry uttered a grunt of surprise and pain. And Jason launched a brutal headbutt into his face, killing the screwdriver out of his torso as Jerry fell backwards. The injured boy went down with a strangled crime. and Jason descended upon him his teeth bared in a primal snarl. He roared, No one lapsed at me! And he plunged the screwdriver into the side of Jerry's neck with a sickening splat. Jerry gobbled and squirmed on the road, struggling to escape.

But Jason was relentless. Instead of helping their fallen friend, Lou and Phil jumped on their bikes and fled in terror, peddling like the devil himself was coming to drag them to hell. I jumped on the stingray and yelled to get Jason's attention. He looked up at me, panting and spattered with blood, and I almost faltered for a moment. He didn't look like a boy anymore. He looked like a monster.

I said, You want me? Come get me then, asshole. Jason ran for his bike, and I started heading for the meadow. I knew what had to be done and what I would have to sacrifice in order to do it. It wasn't necessarily the right choice, you understand, but it was the choice I made. Summer was ending, the magic was fading, and Jason would never rest until one of us was gone. I could have easily left him behind, but I allowed my nemesis to follow closely enough to string him along.

I coasted down the dirt path and waited for him at the entrance to the meadow. Jason came streaking up a minute or two later, panting for breath with his hair sticking up in sweaty clumps and spikes. He jumped off his bike and ran into the clearing. His eyes burning in his lips stretched back in a silent war cry. The front of his t-shirt was speckled with Jerry's blood. You're not in charge here, I told him. and the flora beneath his feet sprang up to wind and curl around his legs. Jason stumbled and quickly faltered to a halt,

frozen like a statue by rope-like tendrils of tall grasses and creeping charming. He stared down at his legs in disbelief and yelled, What the fuck is this? The clouds overhead darkened from light silver to almost black, and lightning ripped across the sky in a jagged. it flash. A harsh gust of wind came whipping across the meadow in a wave of rippling

vegetation. I stared at Jason with my hair flapping around my face, and he stared back with a look of pure horror. In a pleading tone, he asked, What is this place? Where are we? Unexpected tears welled up in my eyes, hot

and bitter. I wiped them away and said, this place doesn't really exist. I made it up. Jason gaped at me and shook his head. He looked quite lost and very much diminished. He stuttered. What do you mean?

It's real. I can see it. We're standing right here. No, we're not standing here. We're not standing anywhere. We're somewhere in my mind. And you're not in control here, Jason. I am.

How? He begged. And I really. realized that I was smiling. My eyes were leaking tears, but I was smiling, too. It's magic, I said. And with a broad wave of my hand, a phalanx of ravens came blasting out of thin air and strafed the air around him. He shrieked and cowered against their beating wings. Magic can be good, and I guess magic can be used for bad, too. But even the most powerful magic doesn't last forever, I told him, and I picked the stingray up off the ground. This place, it would have faded

away over time, and I think it probably would have happened soon. If you don't live in the real world, you'll fade away too, and then I guess you're gone for good. Jason's face twisted with a sudden dread. He didn't fully understand what was happening, but he could sense the end was coming. The fuck are you talking about? He demanded. His voice was raw with panic. I'm going to leave this place behind.

It'll be gone just like that. And so will you. Ugly laughter bubbled out of my chest and spewed over my lips, dark and hatefully gleeful. Jason began to scream, plaiting his arms and keening like a trapped animal. I swallowed back to the last. of my mercy, took a deep breath, and I turned my back on him. That was all it took. In a blink of an eye, the meadow was no more, and so was Jason Richter, gone forever. I was standing by myself on a patch of scraggly weeds, alone in an untended field. There were no fruit trees, no streams,

no waterfall, only weeds and clumps of poison sumac. All of the whole, all of the fruit trees, all of it was gone because it had never been there in the first place. I was unsurprised to see that the Schwinn had transformed back into a rusted out wreck in my hands. I could sense there was still some magic in that bike, but not for me, not anymore. I would never be able to ride it again. This time there was no stopping the flood of tears, and even though it hurt to let them go, It felt good, too, good and clean. And so I stood there and sobbed, standing by myself and holding a rusted old bicycle in the middle of nowhere. When it was over, I pushed the stingray all the way back to the same stream where I had found it,

and I threw it into the murky shallows. In the distance, I heard a swelling of sirens. It was time to go home and face what I was. ever might come next. The murder of Jerry Krantz and the disappearance of Jason Richter never made national headlines, but the case rocked poor little Renville right down to its core. People pointed their fingers at the devastating effect of the recession. They pointed their fingers that rocked music. They pointed fingers at every possible thing, except Jason Richter himself. To this very day, I believe I did the right thing.

Mrs. Rutherford had been correct. Jason was rotten to the core. The world is very likely a better place without him. I stuck to my story like superglue. Jason had chased me out into the fields, and after a terrifying pursuit, I finally managed to lose him. When I heard the sirens, I came out of hiding and made my way back home. End of story.

I think the cops could sense I was lying, but they couldn't find a body, and both Phil and Lou insisted that it was Jason who killed Jerry with a screwdriver. It was presumed that Jason had gotten lost and possibly fell into a nearby river. I was more than happy to leave it at that. The detectives who questioned me

would have never believed the real story. I could see in their cold faces and hard stairs that the magic in their hearts was long since dead. My father continued to drink, of course, and he was gone by April of the next year. He met a younger woman at a honky-talk bar in a nearby town, and he fucked her in my mother's car that very night. Two weeks later, he was heading out the door with his battered old suitcase in hand. The next time I saw my father was at the visitation before his funeral. I didn't even recognize the old man laying in the casket, which is probably for the best.

If I'd recognized him, I'm not sure I could have resisted the urge to slap his corpse across the face. We were desperately poor, Mom and I, and I dropped out of school to work full time at the scrapyard. when I was barely 15. I habitually got into fights, found myself in trouble with the law. I started drinking with my friends, just like my old man, and the drinking paved away for the drugs.

These days, my life is still a bit of a mess, but I am clean, sober, and thankful to be alive. The magic in my heart is dead, but it is not yet forgotten. With this, my story comes to an end, almost. About a week ago, I went out on a long Sunday drive and found myself driving through Renville. I hadn't been there in almost 30 years.

I was sad to see it had never recovered from the recession. Most of the buildings on Main Street were boarded up and crumbling from neglect. Weeds were growing from the cracks in the sidewalks, and I hardly saw a single living soul walking down the streets. I passed Andre's magazine in smoke shop, and I was surprised to see it was still open. On a whim, I went inside and talked a while with a middle-aged man behind the counter. He was Andre's nephew,

and he wasn't terribly interested in having a long conversation with a rough-looking stranger. I bought a can of Coke, bid him a good day, and walked right into the biggest shock I'd had in many years. There was a young girl sitting on the bench out front, squinting at her phone in the bright sunshine. There was a bike leaning on its kickstand beside her, but not just any bike.

It was a golden, yellow, swin stingray. I felt my heart lurch in my chest. The girl looked up at me and said, You okay, mister? Yeah, I nodded. Sure, I'm fine. That bike. Where'd you get that bike?

The girl shrugged and said, I found it. Somewhat threw it in the river, so I brought it home and fixed it up. I nodded again, a mechanical wagging of my skull. I felt like I might gray out and tumble on my ass onto the side,

onto the sidewalk. Well, that's a shame, I croaked. It's a classic bike. But their loss is your gain, right? You're a lucky kid. She hesitated, then shrugged again and said, Sure, I guess. It's a cool bike.

I bet you it's fast. I smiled, and the girl smiled back. I could see the shadow of hard times lurking behind her gaze, and my heart twisted a little in my eyes. chest. Oh, man, is it ever, she grinned. I can hardly believe how fast it is. It's magic, I stated, and the girl's eyes lit up. Yeah, it is, she murmured. It totally is, like, she trailed off uncertain if she should voice the bike's magical properties out loud. I gave her a knowing nod and turned to go. Hold on to that magic, I told her. Hold on to that magic,

I told her. Hold on to it as long as you can. Your ego can coexist with a lot of unpleasant truths, if your will to live is strong enough. I'm not a great guy by any means, but I was more sinned against than sinning, and I have made peace with my inner demons. My magic may be long gone,

but as long as my heart still beats, I'm technically still alive. I'll never forget my misfortunes, but I can forgive, and by extension, I can still hope. You all take care out there, everyone, and if you happen to see a little girl ripped past you on a golden yellow stingray, you better get the hell out of her way. She's got things to do and places to be. After all, there's dozens of deer trails and forgotten side roads out there, and any one of them, might lead to just about anywhere if you follow it far enough. I better cheer that little girl on, folks,

because not even the most powerful magic can last forever. Hey there, everyone. This is John Megan and Zina from the Bloody Disgusting Podcast. The Discussion Podcast where we talk about all the disgusting things we love in horror. The Bloody Disgusting Podcast keeps you up to date on horror's current news and trending topics in 60 minutes or less. Like pizza. What? No.

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