Leached

Writing Club

May 3, 2016

Writing Prompt:

His feet were already numb.  He should have listened.

Could he blame it on the bullfrogs?  Say he fell in trying to catch a big one?  Ma would never buy it, but Pa might.  Cole was always chasing things that slithered, buzzed or croaked...and you couldn’t turn down a double dare. 

         James had bet a fiver that Cole couldn’t beat him home.  Crossing the swamp should cut his distance home in half.  Now he was kicking himself, not only would he be losing the bet, but he would be doling out the contents of his piggy bank and his allowance would be gone for a month if he was lucky.  Probably more. 

         This would be the first and most likely last time Cole would attempt to take the short cut across the swamp on the way home.  He would call it like it was now.  A quagmire more ways than one.  The most moronic moves he’d ever made.  Cole could have bet James that the soles of his feet looked wrinkly like raisins, probably more like pickles, like they had been soaking in brine.  His feet were already numb.  He should have listened when Pa lectured him about how dangerous the swamp was.
  
         At first, it was all good as Cole left the trail and walked out into the marsh grass.  Dragonflies whizzed around the tall grass.  From all around him, the frogs pleasantly croaked a tune in unison.  The whole swamp was alive and inviting.  The ground felt squishy, but relatively solid beneath him, but just ten or so steps later, it changed to sponge.  Sinking slowly, brown ooze rose up over his sneakers with each step.  That should have been as good a sign as any that he should have turned around, but nope.  

         A few steps more and then the ground gave way and he was swimming, tangled in a mat of reeds and grass.  Splashing and scrambling, Cole managed to find something solid, a fallen tree worked as a gangplank to a small island of scrub grass and a tangle of gnarled and dwarfish trees.  Cole struggled along on his hands and knees in search of firm footing.  

         Plodding along in ankle deep mud towards the trail he’d come from only to fall again.  Grabbing a branch, he lifted his foot, fighting against the suction, his sneaker came free with a  juicy slurp.  With a heave, Cole got himself up onto a branch of a crooked little tree and sat to catch his breath.  

         After slapping a few mosquitos, he snapped off a branch and started to scrap the mud off his pant legs and his shoes.  Dang it, his shoes!  His new white sneakers were ruined and Ma would have his hide.  His legs were kind of itchy.  Rolling up his pant legs, he saw the slimy black bodies.  Ewwww! Leaches!