Hustling and Easterner, bringing out the beast in her

Perry was a friendly and sweet-mannered little boy, but had never been very bright, and the hungry thing that lived in the creek knew that. Not the way that a person knows another person or a dog knows its foodbowl, but the way a rock knows what sort of itching clicking gristle is hidden beneath itself. Some dumb, blameless, wicked sense. Perry had sprained his ankle in teeball last year, after splitting his scalp wide open at the roller rink, after crying his heart out at the burial of the family Pyrenees, after chipping his tooth on an icecube in his lemonade. The hungry thing that lived in the creek knew all of this too. It didn’t know that it knew it, but it did.

And when Perry crouched down on the bank of the creek to look for frogs, soaking the toes of his hand-me-down sneakers, the thing began to drool.

“I don’t think you’ll find much down here, whatever it is you’re looking for.”

Perry flinched away from the sound, and slipped and fell. It was a just a man, though, standing tall on the other side of the creek. Maybe he was around his father’s age but maybe not. It was difficult to say. He seemed nice, though. His clothes made him appear neat and trim and orderly, but there was something strangely oily, too, and Perry simply could not get a hold of the look of him.

“You are lookin’ for something, aren’tcha?” the man asked, friendly enough, after a few moments of the little boy staring. “Me, I just lost my watch fob down here the other day... my dog, Shepherd, he got his slobbery chops all over where I left it on the table, and ran right out the door! The scamp! Neighbor said she saw him run down here, and I just now got the time to have a look-about.”

The thing gave a pleasant smile, one that widened when Perry showed the beginnings of a shy grin. What a ripe little mouth the boy had.

“So that’s what I’m looking for... what about you?” The man hunkered down on his heels in an imitation of Perry, and began peering into the lazy water. “You didn’t lose something, too?”

Perry had blunted his palms against the smooth wet creekstones when toppling over, and as he then straightened up he unthinkingly wiped them on his khakis. Wiping like that always gave him dirty clothes, and dirty clothes always got him in stomach-whirling trouble with mom and dad about cleanliness and Godliness, but it was a deep and comfortable habit. “... no, I was, uh... I was just looking for frogs.”

By then he was expecting a harsh word from this stranger, for wandering about on his own with such little reason. He wiped his already-dry little boy’s hands against his now-dirty little boy’s shorts with a precious, tender nervousness. The thing howled inside itself.

“Is that right? I did the same thing myself, when I was younger. If it wasn't frogs, it was turtles or minnows or crayfish. Though... hey, now!” He wobbled back on his heels as if struck by thought, his eyes wide in comic realization. “I look something like a frog right now, don’t I? All eyes and knees and elbows!”

Perry’s laugh was quiet, but cheery and clear. He nodded and hunkered down, too, sticking out his elbows like a frog.

“Well, now, don’t we make a fine pair.”

Perry grinned timidly. The chip in his tooth was visible when his ripe little boy lips pulled back and oh the thing boiled and throbbed to shred them to morsels.

“Say, now, I got an idea,” the man said. “Let’s give each other a hand, hey? I’ll bet I can remember all the best frog-spots around here, once I’m not all distracted. You help me find that ol’ watch fob and we can go look for where all them frogs are hiding.”

The boy’s smile faltered, and the man hurried to explain.

“You’ve got younger eyes, is all... and that watch fob, it’s not as shiny as it used to be. My father gave it to me, he did - so it’s plenty old.” The man frowned, and completed to look of a frog by swelling and deflating with a sigh. “Don’t have a clue what I’d do, if it’s lost for good! I’d sure hate that.”

He collapsed his elbows and propped them on his knees, leaned forward, and aimed an imploring look directly at Perry. “Won’t take a minute to find! Shepherd can’t swim worth a lick, so it’s no doubt right over here. On this side, here. Won’t take a minute. Whatcha say, hm?”

Perry hesitated. He was unsure if this was the type of stranger he was supposed to watch out for, but in all honesty, he was unsure if he wanted to look for a watch fob, either. He just wanted to find some frogs. “We’ll look for frogs right after?”

“Cross my heart,” said the thing.

The boy waited only long enough to wipe his hands on his khakis, before stepping out onto a stone to cross the water. Then something roared and swallowed and grabbed at him with a damp stinking coliseum of teeth, and he kicked and kicked to get to the surface and screamed and cold wet pocketknife shrapnel filled up his mouth, and he kicked and his shoes were gone and his back was naked and shredded up against a rock and full of tiny scrapes and cuts that stung like cigarettes, and he grabbed around for anything at all and his fingers dug into something soft like gristle and soil, and he wanted to breathe and cry and go home, and he grabbed harder and he pulled, and something came away in his fingers and there was a roar again and the cold went slack and then Perry could breathe again, and he was on the bank, and there was air, he was up and he was breathing and Perry was running home in the wrong direction.

Perry was crying and bloody and his shirt was missing and his stomach-whirling-trouble-dirty khakis were even dirtier. His shoes were gone. He cut up his feet looking for the road.

(Ghost story? Allegory of pedophilia? Propaganda against watch fobs? You make the call.)