Alex and Maggie
A story about two kids.
The moon glowed softly as the boy made his away across the train tracks, the low hum of summer insects the only sound for miles. The old dilapidated building was crumbling into ruin. It stood about ten yards away from the tracks, a wide field opening up behind it, freshly sown with the season’s corn seed. Alex approached the shed, his bare footfalls mere whispers of wind rustling through the grass. He slipped in through a small crack where a board used to be and his vision was swallowed by inky blackness.
It was hot and muggy in the shed. As he crept through the barn, using his hands to guide his way, his mind couldn’t help but conjure up horrible visions of spiders, snakes, and whatever else might be waiting the shadows of the shed, just waiting to snatch at him and gobble him up. He didn’t dare think of ghosts or goblins or the Devil.
“Maggie,” he hissed through his clenched teeth. “Maggie, are you in here?”
The sound of a match lighting scratched his ear drums and he turned to see a low glow in a corner. He approached it and found a girl about his age, her mousy hair framing her freckled face. She gave him a snaggletooth grin. “Hiya.”
She was sitting on a bunch of old wood, a lantern in front of her. Alex squatted next to her and squinted at her in the low light of the lantern. “Why are we out here? You said to me earlier today to meet you out here.”
Maggie grinned again. “I just wanted to tell you good-bye is all.”
Alex raised an eyebrow. “Good-bye? What are you talking about?”
She held out her hand and in the center of her palm, gleaming like a wet stone freshly plucked from a brook, was a large, gold coin.
Alex’s interest grew, his eyes lighting up at the sight of the coin. “Wow! Where did you get that?”
Maggie’s smile grew wider. “It’s my Nana’s. She said she got it from a Leprechaun when she was a little girl.”
Alex scowled. “No, she didn’t.”
“Yes, she did! She found him at the end of a rainbow and took it from his pot of gold when he wasn’t looking.”
He shook his head. “You’re a liar.”
“I’m not a liar!” she shouted.
Alex cringed and said in a low whisper, “Shhh! Someone will hear you.”
“There’s no one to hear us! No one’s going to come to the shed at this time of night.”
Alex suddenly thought of his parents at home. They were asleep when he left, and he prayed desperately to God that his mother wouldn’t come to check on him in the middle of the night, only to find the covers stuffed with pillows. He let out a loud sigh through his nose. “Why did you want to show me a stupid coin anyway?”
Maggie closed her hand around the coin and stuffed it back in her pocket. “I’m running away and I wanted to tell you bye before I left.”
Alex felt his jaw drop. “What are you talking about? You’re not running away!”
“Yeah I am. When the midnight train comes through I’m going to hop on it and go to South America.”
“You don’t have any money,” he said.
“Stupid! I just showed you the coin! It’s pure gold, it’ll get me wherever I need to go.”
He stood up quickly. “You better not run away! I’ll tell your momma and daddy.”
“I’ll be gone by the time you get there,” she said. Just then, there was a low wail on the wind; the sound of an approaching train, its whistle haunting and foreboding in the night. “I have to go,” she said, getting up.
Alex stood in her way. “I’m not going to let you go!”
“Move, you big crybaby!” she pushed him and he toppled over onto the wooden floor boards, landing on his chest. The fall knocked the wind out of him, but as he started to get back up, he saw something that made him freeze.
In front of him, only about a foot away, was a copperhead. It was coiled inside a small niche made of pieces of rusty metal and old floor boards. It was huge and stretched out it was probably ten feet long. It stared with demon-like eyes at Alex, ready to bite him at any second. One bite; that’s all it would take to kill him. The train whistle was getting louder as the train got closer.
Maggie squealed behind him as she saw the snake. Alex knew what the snake was capable of. His cousin Randy had told him one time of a copperhead that had bitten an entire chunk of a man’s hand right off. The venom only took minutes to run through the bloodstream and right to the heart and kill a person. Alex started praying that the snake didn’t attack him. He knew he should have just stayed in bed. He should have never gotten out. It was a bad idea to go out at night to an abandoned shed like this. He didn’t care if his momma found out, he didn’t care if daddy tanned his hide with his belt, he just didn’t want to die in here like this by a snake bite.
Alex rose as slowly as a tree growing, never taking his eyes off the snake. The eyes still shined maliciously in the light of the lantern and Alex was waiting for the moment when the creature would strike. The train grew louder and louder in his ears.
Finally, he was standing up straight, looking down at the copperhead. It hadn’t moved an inch. Alex almost cried out when something touched his hand, but he relaxed as he realized it was Maggie. She squeezed his hand and slowly the two of them backed away from the snake and out of the shed.
As soon as they were in the cool air of the summer night they ran as fast as they could until they stopped at the train tracks. Just as they reached them, the train came rushing down and passed right in front them, like a mad, galloping iron horse. As the train roared by, Maggie buried her face into Alex’s chest and started crying. The sound of the train drowned out her sobs, but Alex could feel his shirt getting wet.
Finally the train was gone and the two of them stood there at the tracks. Maggie wiped the tears and snot from her face with her arm and kept saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over again. “I’m not going to run away, I’m not going to run away.” She hugged him tightly and the moon watched over them.
Maggie went home, for good, she said, and so did Alex. It was only when he got there that he realized that they had left the lantern in the shed. An image came into his mind of the copperhead, curled up and asleep, enjoying the warmth of the lantern, like a dog next to a fireplace. It was only after Alex kicked the pillows out of the covers and laid down that he realized that he had forgotten something else. He got back out of bed and on his knees, making pretty hands and resting his elbows on the bed.
“Thank you, God, for not letting me get bit by the snake. And thank you for not letting momma and daddy catch me. And thank you for not letting Maggie run away. I would miss her too much. Amen.” He scuttled back under the covers, throwing the blankets over his body. He pressed his face down into the pillow, exhaustion and warmth carrying him off to sleep.