@@DESCRIPT="`Across the Road' By TS"
                         Across the Road
                         By The Stranger

     As we walked up Bleeding Mountain I knew this was a bad idea. 
They called it Bleeding Mountain because where the pavement of the
road turned into weeds and grass, splashes of redness covered the
field.  They said it was blood from the fools who crossed the
streets but that was just childhood stories.
     It was me and Charlie Cook.  We got up to the top of the hill
they called Bleeding Mountain and just stood there looking across
the road.  No one comes back, they say, you cross the road and the
forests gets you.  Well Charlie and I were eleven now, going on
twelve, and we didn't believe such stories.  We knew what the
stories really were, teenage boys trying to scare the elementary
kids, thats all.  
     So we made the trek on this Sunday morning not really knowing
if either of us were gonna try to cross the road.  But we thought
once we got there we could decide what we were going to do. 
Charlie talked like a big man, saying he was going to run back and
forth across that street, maybe even just run into the forest and
back out.  But I knew Chalie better than that, I knew the Charlie
who crid every time his mom made him take medicine.  He was tough
on the outside but inside he was just a scared child, like me.  
     And now standing at the edge of the country road looking
across into the darkness of the forest I really thought we both
would chicken out.  The empty road seemed harmless but I could see
the ghosts standing on the other side taunting us to come over.  I
saw all those stories I'd heard playing back like a tape 
over and over again in my head.  Zack Wilks said sometimes if you
look really hard you can see those trees moving forward towards the
road waiting for a victim.  I looked at those trees and maybe it
was the sun or maybe it was my imagination but I do think I saw
those trees coming closer.  
     "You ready" Charlie asked me.  I looked down at his face and
it was probably a reflection of mine.  Sweat beads were building at
his forehead and his eyes were watching everything closly on the
other side.  
     "Uh, Yeah" I lied.  The black pavement of the road with its
single broken line down the center looked hotter than hell.  The
road looked like lava in my eyes waiting to burn this small fools
feet up.  I didn't see myself getting any closer to the road then
I was now.  
     A loud horn came violently honking in the air.  The semi came
charging down the road with loud thuderous noise and then passed us
by.  "Charlie I don't know about this."  I can't believe I said
that but I did.  I waited for those calls of chicken or scaredy cat
but this was Charlie, my best fried.
     "Stay then if you don't feel like going.  I'm going though." 
Was it courage or stupid kid heroics that was talking for Charlie? 
I don't know.  But I watched him knowing that any second he was
going to take his first step onto the road and I knew down deep I
was never going to see him again.
     But he stood there, not moving a muscle, just looking across
the road into the depths of the woods.  I think he saw ghosts 
too.  The sun was starting to blaze into my neck and I swatted my
baseball cap around to block the sun.  My eyes squinted with the
suns ray.
     And then it happened, Charlie started walking.  Slowly I
watched as one foot fell in front of the other, slapping into the
pavement of the road.  "Charlie" I said.  I don't think he heard
me.  For God's sake he looked possesed, walking like a sleepwalker
with eyes glued forward.  "Charlie" I yelled this time but no
reaction.  His feet touched across the center line and out of the
corner of my eye I saw those branches get closer.
     "Charlie" I screamed louder than before.  "Get back Charlie." 
His feet kept moving forward and I almost found my own feet
starting to touch the road.  And I saw steam rising from the
pavement everytime his feet fell down on it.  The sun was blazing
all of a sudden and I thought I might faint from heat stroke.  The
temperture rised twenty degrees easily I would say.  
     Then his feet landed on the grass across the road.  He turned
back and looked at me and I couldn't believe it but he looked like
the Charlie I knew.  No longer did he have the possesed rage across
his face, he was just Charlie again.
     But the trees were moving, I saw them hover down coming closer
to his shoulders.  They were almost on him, how could he not feel
them or hear them?  My pulse was rising and my heart started
jumping in my chest.  "CHARLIE" I screamed.  I heard a scream, I
think, as another huge eighteen wheel truck roared 
across the street with its horn blasting across the days calm air. 
     The truck passed and Charlie was no longer standing across the
road.  I screamed his name one last time but I knew he wouldn't
hear me.  I stood there for a second and then I started shaking and
then I fell to the ground.  I don't know how long I lied in the
grass before my father came and brought me back home.  But when I
sat up in bed and tried to talk I just couldn't make any words come
out.  I looked down at my clothes and I wasn't surprised at what I
saw.  Red stripes crossed all over my clothes as if I had been
laying on wet paint.  



Copyright, 1994.

