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Wild River Boys 
Zombie and Wolf 










The Wild River Boys

Neil pulled up to the porta potty and immediately stopped before going in. Behind the long row of portable bathrooms was a boy standing in the woods on a dirt trail. The boy was out of place here, at an outdoor classic rock concert hosted by the local radio station, not for his age, he looked about ten and many of the parents had brought their kids with them. No, the kid was out of place for what he was wearing, which consisted of a thick layer of dirt and not much else, his sun tanned brown skin was filthy, from the top of his forehead down to his bare feet. The dirty, cut off jeans shorts he was wearing were caked in dirty mud too, but the mud had dried and was flaking off.

'That is how summer should be spent', thought Neil, 'Not dressed up in a shirt and tie and stuck in an office somewhere for nine hours a day.'

The boy smiled at Neil and waved, when Neil waved back another man pushed his way past and went into the porta potty in front of him.

"Hey!" Neil protested, but the man just shut and locked the door.

The boy laughed and leaned his head to one side, then pointed along the path and made a mildly obscene indication that peeing in the woods would work just as well as using the porta potty. Neil laughed and thought, 'Why not?' and followed the kid along the path away from the blaring speakers behind him. The trees seemed to cut the music off to a dull muffled sound, cocking his head to one side Neil wondered why the sound cut off so quickly, it seemed almost unnatural. Shaking his head he decided it was because the speakers the bands set up were directed towards the crowds of people and he had walked behind them. 'Never mind that, I am not here to listen to the music.', he thought pulling up to one side of the game trail he was on. He looked around to make sure the boy wasn't anywhere close by, with the crazy sex offender laws he didn't want to be arrested for exposing himself to some kid in the woods. That very thought almost made him walk back to the porta-potties, then he contemplated the long lines to get to one and the need which had driven him to the bathroom in the first place. Sighing he unzipped and let loose. He immediately sighed with relief.

"Feels good huh?" said a voice behind him.

Neil started and turned slightly to see the kid on the trail behind him, with a nervous laugh he said, "Yeah, I really had to go. I had too much to drink there, those beer....uh drinks they serve are huge."

"You like that music?"

"Its okay, I only came for one old band and they were already up, they played the songs I wanted to hear, so now I am killing time for the rest of the night before my friends want to go home."

"Oh."

"What is your name? What are you doing out here?" Neil asked.

"I'm Sid. Me and the other boys are swimming and playing sword-fight."

"Pirates?" Neil asked.

The boy nodded, "Sure, wanna play?"

"Hell yeah I do! But, ah, my friends see, they might get worried." Neil finished peeing and zipped himself up. "How far is the river from here?"

"Just through those trees. You could come see our ship."

"You have a ship?"

"Well its just an old tree, but it's our base. The other team has to stay on the shore."

Smiling at the situation, a grown, overweight forty five year old talking about playing pirates with a skinny ten year old, Neil said, "Show me!"

The Sid smiled and grabbed Neil's hand, dragging him through the humid July afternoon to the edge of the river thirty yards away. On the muddy bank of the Des Moines River Neil laughed at what he saw, there were a dozen boys, some older, some younger than Sid engaged in a chaotic battle in front of him. One group was defending a huge tree in the middle of the river, there were less of them than their foes, who were trying to scramble onto the tree from the river. The boys were chest deep in the water at one end but barely up to their calves where the tree approached the shore.

Looking down at Sid who was smiling up at him Neil just said, "Awesome!" The boy gave a yell and jumped from the bank into the river, just in front of them the water was deep enough for a ten year old to swim in and Sid worked his way towards shallower water where he stood and started racing towards the tree.

"C'mon Neil!"

'What the fuck?' Neil thought, 'Its not like my friend will notice I am gone for awhile.' Then he jumped into the river, not thinking about two things, first that he was fully dressed with all his electronic doodads in his pockets and second that he had never told Sid his name.

The water was not so deep that he had to swim and he made his way over to the tree where the group of boys stood looking at him cautiously. "This is Neil, he is going to play with us for awhile. He is on our team, we'll get the ship first and have three other people to help us." Immediately muddy hands went up and the crowd of boys started calling out "Me! Me!". Looking thoughtful and wise beyond his years Sid gazed at the crowd then said, "Clayton, Titus and Micah." The chosen boys cheered and climbed up onto the tree, along with Neil, the other boys ran whooping back to the bank of the river.

"You need a sword." said Sid.

"Yeah." Neil said looking around.

"There!" the younger dark skinned boy with them pointed into the water; floating downstream on the current was a long stick, "Get it Neil!"

Without thinking Neil jumped into the water again at the deep end of the tree, he was surprised that it was almost over his head and he missed his first grab at the stick. "Shit." he murmured as he came up for air. Bobbing in the water he pushed himself towards the stick again, this time he got it, awkwardly he moved himself to shallower water and made his way back to the 'ship'. His tennis shoes were soaked and mud logged ad his shorts got caught on a branch and ended up around his knees as he pulled himself out of the water, bringing a chorus of laughter and whistles from the tree line and his allies alike.

"Damn it." Neil disengaged his shorts from the tree limb and finally got onto the main trunk to relative safety. The tree shook when he moved around on it.

"It moves! When he walks it moves!" said the youngest looking boy.

"Yeah, I've put a few pounds on over the years." Neil said, then his foot slipped out from under him and he fell onto one of the branches sticking up from the trunk over the water. "Damn it!" he looked at his sopping shoes and then at the boys bare feet, which seemed to provide them with better traction. Sitting down he kicked off his shoes and pulled off his socks, he hung them from the same branch he had caught himself on a minute before, where his white, mud stained socks looked like a pathetic flag of surrender.

He had just gotten up again and picked up his 'sword' when a battle cry called out from the trees, the blood curling cry made a shiver run up his back.

"Its okay Neil, we have the high ground and your sword is longer than any of theirs." said Sid, "This is Clayton, that's Micah and that is Titus."

The three other boys on his team smiled up at him and raised their swords up in a salute, Clayton looked like the oldest, perhaps thirteen, he was not yet tall or lanky, but his ebony skin gleamed wetly in the sun, the young man would grow up to be a lady kill, Neil was sure. Micah looked like he was Hispanic, his dark eyes and even darker tan contrasted with his white swiming suit, he was probably Sid's age, ten or so and his short hair was curly and plastered to his head by the river water. The last boy, Titus, was the one who had pointed out the stick floating in the river, he was the youngest by far, maybe only eight and too young, in Neil's opinion, to be out unsupervised, even if he was with friends. Titus too, was of African descent, though his skin was not as dark as Clayton's. 'Maybe they are brothers.' thought Neil, then another war cry sounded and nine boys broke from the woods in the same spot that Sid and Neil had come from five minutes before. In their hands they held various stick and the ship's guardians were surprised that several of them were longer than Neil's sword.

"Uh-oh!" Sid cried, "We can't let them get close! Neil you gotta keep those two with the long sticks away, the rest of us will take care of the rest of 'em!"

Then the battle began. The boys were no match for Neil's strength, but they had the numbers and could surround the ship and attack it from three sides, none of them initially tried to attack from the side deepest in the water, but that changed as the battle raged on. Tactics changed when the outright assault failed, the attackers switched to distraction measures and tried to send a couple of swimmers up the deep side, which almost worked, they captured Titus and tossed him down into the water as a prisoner. Neil turned to engage the two raiders and managed to shove both of them back into the water and then give Titus a hand up before the enemy could make good their escape. Eventually the 'ship' was captured, after the devastating loss of Neil's sword, broken in two when he swung too hard and slammed it into the tree trunk. Teams were re-formed and somehow Neil's shoes became war trophies, highly coveted and traded back and forth as the fighting progressed, his socks remained where they were and even fluttered in the wind once they dried out.

After what seemed like hours the group was on the far bank of the river laying in a grassy meadow that had been cleared by the park service, but was not close to any bike paths or roads. The grass was about knee high to Neil and the boys had tramped it down in a wide circle and were laying around in it laughing and recounting the days fighting. All of them agreed that Neil had been an integral part in their defense and offense at various times and he found himself recounting his epic fights with glee in the hot sun.

"I wish I were nine again. Knowing what I know now I would be out here every day, laughing and playing with my friends. You grow up and you have to put on a tie or overalls and go to work. You don't have time for sword fighting or swimming or just about anything that makes life worth living."

"So why grow up?" asked Sid.

"It is inevitable. Today makes me think that I am not forty five, but nine with thirty six years of experience."

The few boys who were not dozing in the sun smiled at him and shook their heads. "What if you could just stay here? And play all the time? Would you do it?"

"And give up my crappy job? My lame apartment? Heck yeah I would. Maybe I can come out here again and meet you guys."

"Don't you want to stay."

Neil turned his head sideways from where he was propped up on his elbows and said, "Yes I want to stay. My heart is in it and I would never leave if I didn't have to. But" and he stopped to listen closely, "I don't hear the bands playing anymore. So that means my friends are probably pissed off and waiting for me on the other side of the river. So I better go. Has anyone seen my shoes?"

Sid smiled, "That is okay, I wouldn't worry about shoes. You said you wanted to stay, with your heart! Hey, Neil wants to stay with all his heart!" The dozing boys came fully awake and stared at him, some smiling, others laughing, some with more serious expressions on their faces.

A shoe flew through the air and landed beside Neil, followed by another. Neil picked them up and said, "So is there a shallow spot in the river or do I have to go through that deep spot by the tree again?"

"We'll show you." said Sid standing up and reaching down to give Neil a hand up. Neil feigned being unable to rise and several other boys jumped up and grabbed his hands and arms to lift him to his feet.

"Fine, okay, I guess we can go now." said Neil taking a stumbling step into a group of boys and pretending to fall, the boys giggled and shoved him upright.

"You will stay?" asked Titus.

"If I could I would. But I should go check with my friends first, one of them can swing back by later and give me a lift home."

"Or you could just stay." said Sid cutting off further conversation as they made their way to the tree to gather up Neil's socks. From the tree they waded to the far shore, where Neil still couldn't hear the music playing. The concert was supposed to last all night and the sun hadn't set yet. glancing at his muddy feet he opted to carry his shoes back to the clearing he could clean them off on the grass there. They were heading back on a different trail than the one by the porta potties and tens yards in they had to pass through a tangle of dead trees, some of the boys were playing tag and yelling in the surrounding woods, calling out names and trying to scare each other.

Neil put his hands up to pull himself through a gap above the ground when he felt a vine like movement under his hand. He tried to jerk his arm away, thinking 'snake!' as he yelled and almost fell backwards. His arm was caught in a loop of rope and Sid turned and kicked him backwards, planting one bare foot into his shirt. Neil had no leverage and fell, but didn't hit the ground because the rope held him swinging off of the ground. Micah ran forward and yelled, "Here!" holding up his hand to Neil's free arm. Not thinking Neil put his hand out and reached for Micahs', only to find it looped in another band of rope, a rope that was drawn taunt and pulled up into the trees to his right. This swung Neil around until he was facing back the way he had come from, he could barely see a glimmer of the river. 'What kind of game is this?' he wondered as Sid darted around from behind him and punched him lightly in the stomach. The hand went away, but the pain lingered.

"It's okay Neil, it's okay!" he whispered urgently, "you don't have to go!"

"I..." Neil's voice was immediately cut off by another blow, this one from Clayton, looking down Neil thought he saw a small blade flash by as the boy passed, he did see blood dripping on the ground, but could not see the wound was too far down near the top of his shorts. "Being fat sucks." he said.

"You won't be fat no more. Not anymore and you can play with us all the time!" Sid whispered.

The pain burned through Neil and he tilted his head back and screamed as each of the boys came forward and stabbed him in the stomach and upper thighs, everyone seemed to cut him once, then Sid stepped up with a rusty looking blade, something that looked like a fillet knife a fisherman might have lost on the riverbank.

"You'll be okay, you will. It's just hard, but everything will be okay." Then the boy stuck the knife into Neil's stomach just above his hips, sawing it back and forth, he cut a large opening up almost to Neil's rib cage, then he made a cross cut horizontal to the bellybutton. Pulling Neil's skin and stomach muscles back he reached one small hand into the stomach and started to pull the intestines out. Neil's screams had died to whimpering and looked at the blood soaked boy in front of him and whispered, "Why?"

"'Cause we like you. And you want to stay. You can stay now.", tugging once more Neil's insides all poured out in a bloody gush to form a pile on the ground between him and Sid. Blood was still racing down in a constant stream, forming a connection between the pile and Neil's body. On the ground Neil could swear that the pile was moving of its own violation, but his vision faded to blackness.

With a jerk Neil woke up, he was in the meadow, surrounded by boys who were quietly chatting or dozing in the afternoon sun. 'What a fucking nightmare.' he thought to himself, smiling over as Sid came awake at the same time.

"You ready to go? I think we are going to play king of the hill on the tree, not with swords. Do you want to play?"

"Uh, I better get back. Check with my friends first, but I think I might play."

Sid laughed, "Sure you do that Neil.", to the other boys he yelled, "C'mon! King of the tree!" The pack of boys let out a whoop of delight and went running towards the river, except for Titus, who stayed behind and offered Neil a hand up.

Neil stopped and looked at his arm, it wasn't the long, fat arm with a scar from his carpal tunnel syndrome on it. It was a pale white are of a skinny pre-adolescent kid. "What? What?" he sputtered, falling back to the ground and looking down at himself. He skin was a pale white and he was dressed in a pair of oversized shorts, his shorts, he realized, but his body had shrunk. Someone had pulled the string inside the waistband until they were tight enough to stay around his skinny hips, the tops of the shorts were bloodstained and the hung almost to his ankles. "What happened to me?" he asked Titus.

The kid beamed, "You get to stay, like you wanted with your heart."

"Holy fuck. Holy...how?"

"No more work, no more lame apartment, just playing and fun from now on. Don't worry your skin will get suntanned after awhile and we'll find you some new shorts or swim trunks. It is the best life ever Neil. The best life ever."

"This isn't happening, this is not happening." Neil rolled to his hands and knees and pushed himself to his feet, his eyes were level with Titus's.

"You're nine again. Roll with it. I said eight. Other men said other ages, we all picked one and Sid made it happen."

"I don't, I can't..." Neil stopped and then looked toward the river, after a moment he looked at Titus, then turned and started running towards the water.

"Careful Neil, it takes a little getting used to."

Neil didn't listen, he stumbled through the thin line of trees and jumped off of the muddy bank into the water. The other boys were all playing 'king of the tree', screaming with delight as Neil waded and swam by. Titus followed Neil up the other bank, helping him up with he slipped and almost slid back to the river. Soon they were running through the trees for the clearing where the concert was. Neil pulled up short near the jumble of trees, seeing his old body strung up in front of him. Looking closer he saw it wasn't his body, it was a pair of thick saplings that had fallen and formed an 'x' over the path.

"It happened here." Titus said, "You got freed here."

"I want to go back."

The other boy took a step back, "Don't say that!"

His vehemence startled Neil, "Why?"

"What would you go back to? Your shitty job, your fucking lame apartment. Your dumb assed friends who didn't even come looking for you? And you can't, you said you wanted to stay and when you go you can only go back to that." the boy gestured at the crossed trees over the path.

"You shouldn't talk like that."

"Neil, I'm ninety one years old, old enough to be your grand father. I can talk any way I want."

"Ninety one? How..."

"Yeah, 'cause 'Titus' is a real common name these days. Welcome to the lost boys Neil."

"But what do we do? Where do we sleep? What do we eat?"

"Don't worry about it. It takes a little getting used to, but don't think about it too much." the other boy put his thin arm around Neil's shoulders, "You've been given the very best gift anyone can ever have. You can play all the time, live forever and it's always summer here. Unless we want to play in the snow."

"I want to see." Neil gestured ahead of them.

"Sure. There ain't no limits on seeing, but going back." Titus shook his head, "Who would want to? Give it awhile and you'll feel the exact same way."

Neil rubbed his hands across his belly, feeling for cuts given to him by the other boys and grimacing. His fingers only found smooth, unblemished skin.

"Helluva trip to get here, ain't it?" Titus asked.

Nodding Neil slowly pressed forward to the clearing. Titus held his hand and stayed beside him. Getting to the edge he found the concert was still going strong. The music was dulled, almost soundless and as he looked at the crowded clearing in front of the bands he noticed how sluggish and lifeless all the people were. The seemed grossly overweight and were replacing cheer with expensive beer and cheap drugs.

"What's wrong with them?" he asked Titus.

The boy shrugged, "They grew up. They don't see us. It takes getting used to."

"I saw Sid."

"What'd you say to us? You liked to think that you were nine with thirty six years of experience?"

"Yeah."

"So, you saw Sid. Mostly it is people like that who see us. C'mon, I can show you something else."

Neil was expecting Titus to bring him back into the woods, instead the boy moved forward into the soggy field towards the vending lines, he cut in front of the next person in line drawing no protests from the people already there and then turned and smiled at Neil when the man behind the counter asked them what they wanted. "I want a pint of beer and two soft pretzels. Whatta you want Neil?"

"Uh, um, the same!"

"Coming right up." The vendor handed them two beers and four pretzels a moment later.

"Why'd he do that?" Neil asked, his nine year old hands had trouble holding the food and large drink. "We are too young for beer."

Titus shrugged, "I don't know man, I don't know what they see. I really don't care. Pretzels. Mmmm."

Neil took a swallow of his beer and shook his head, "Cold! Cold!" he said stuffing a hot pretzel into his mouth, his eyes opened wide in alarm, and he sputtered and choked.

Titus laughed and put one pretzel in his mouth before tossing the other onto the ground and using his empty hand to thump Neil on the back. "Yeah, I know. It tastes good!"

"This is the best pretzel I have ever had!"

"You should try the cotton candy."

"I will!" The boys made their way through the crowd to another vendor tossing the rest of the foot and drink along the way to keep their hands free. Titus ordered two cotton candy sticks and presented one to Neil, them both boys retired to a picnic style table to eat. Titus sat down on the table top and used the bench to rest his feet on and Neil followed suit.

"You didn't pay."

"Nope. I didn't, but we got food anyway."

Flicking his toes to get the grass and mud off of them Neil said, "Kinda gross, walking around like this. I feel like everyone should be staring at me."

Titus shook his head, "You get used to it, how is the candy?"

"You're right, it is good!" The boys finished the cotton candy and moved off of the table back onto the soggy ground.

"Ready to go?"

"Almost. I wanna check on my friends."

They threaded to the crowd to where Neil's friends were standing, holding beers and watching the musicians. His friends seemed to be just like everyone else, drab and uninteresting. Neil approached one of them, his friend since childhood and looked up at the man. Colton and him had grown up on the same street together, had doubled dated and even gone to the same college, now they lived in the same apartment building, but had discovered in college they couldn't live with each other.

"Colton!" The man twitched as if he heard something.

"Colton! It's me! Neil!" Neil screamed, his buddy again twitched and looked around trying to find the source of the noise, briefly his gaze dipped down and he saw Neil and nodded. It was a nod you gave to a person you didn't know, enough to acknowledge their presence, but not enough to invite them to speak with you.

"He doesn't see me!" Neil yelled over the music at Titus, who shook his head and laughed.

Reaching out quickly Titus brought his head close to Neil's ear and yelled "You're it!" before pushing the other boy onto his butt in front of his friends.

Sputtering in indignation, his shorts were now coated with slimy, muddy grass that smell like beer, Neil rolled over to get to his feet and tore after Titus through the crowd. They played alone for several minutes before more of the boys joined them from the river, the chaotic game was more fun with the blaring music and crowd to duck in and out of. The people in the crowd would press back if they boys ran into them or disrupted them too much, then the unthinkable happened, the music stopped. The crowd milled about in confusion and the boys played on until they realized the stage had gone quiet. Slowly they stopped and the lead singer nodded and said, "This next song goes out to the boys in the crowd, and you know who you are!" Then he launched into a song Neil had never heard of. Thinking about it Neil didn't see Micah running up behind him, the other boy tackled him and yelled, "Dogpile!" in a shrill voice that carried about the music, soon Neil was in a squirming mass of muddy, wrestling boys trying not to be the one on the bottom of the pile. Finally, exhausted they sat back and grinned at each other.

Between songs Sid finally yelled, "Who wants to go swimming?" and they all jumped up and raced towards the river through the woods. Looking back Neil saw the people at the concert swaying woodenly in time to the music and he caught a glimpse of the lead singer of band who had stopped everything to play them a song. The musician had a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other, his eyes caught Neil's face and he grinned and tipped his head down momentarily before Neil turned away and ran screaming after his friends to swim.

..home..