When I was much younger, I use to live out in the country and as you can probably imagine there really wasn't much to do out there. As kids we would make up silly games and explore the surrounding areas. This was many years ago and back then you didn't really need to worry too much about letting your children wonder around unsupervised. Even more so because it was a rather small town and everyone knew everyone, for the most part. It was a simpler time back then to say the least.
Well, this particular story takes place in late spring early summer. It was a beautiful day outside and a bunch of neighborhood kids and I were sitting around trying to think of something to do. We really weren't allowed to stay inside all day and watch T.V. and play video games, much to our dismay. Our parents would always say "why don't you guys go outside and play, it's a beautiful day out and you have all of this at your fingertips"
Referring to the 3 to 4 acres we had, which was equipped with livestock, orchards, a baseball diamond in the back pasture, a basketball court, a swimming pool, multiple clubhouses and a playground with a jungle gym, swings, teeter totter and so on. You might be thinking, what do you mean there was nothing to do? but I can assure you after growing up on said property and playing there every single day of your life it loses its appeal. We wanted something new and exciting, something different, a change of pace so to speak.
One of us mentioned "What about heading down to Johnny's creek?" Johnny's creek was a small body of water a few miles away from our house. Some of our parents grew up playing in Johnny's creek and it was well known in the area to the locals. It was a warm day and we all decided that a dip in the water would serve us some good, along with the adventure of getting there.
We all started walking down the long country road that would lead us to the railroad tracks, that then led us to the creek. On the way there we passed by Mrs. Boone's house. Mrs. Boone had lived there for as long as I could remember, and her grandson was actually one of our friends. She was out in the garden tending to her snap dragons, a beautiful and colorful type of flower. When she noticed us walking past her house.
"What are you kids up to?" She asked and we quickly told her that we were on our way to play in Johnny's creek. "Johnny's creek!" she exclaimed. She then proceeded to tell us that if we catch her some crawdads, also known as crayfish and or crawfish. She would give us each five dollars a bucket. Our eyes immediately lit up at the prospect of making some extra cash. Mrs. Boone then handed us two five-gallon buckets and simply said with a smile, "See you soon." She then turned back to her beloved snap dragons.
We all huddled around in a semicircle on the side of the road, discussing our new financial opportunity. I had then mentioned that I had a pretty good stockpile of five-gallon buckets at my house. We all agreed to run back to my house and grab the buckets. The more buckets, the more money we thought to ourselves. After we all reached my house and retrieved the buckets, we ran into my stepfather who then asked us what we were doing with all those buckets. We told him how our initial plan was to just go down to Johnny's creek and play around for a while. But that we ran into Mrs. Boone and how she had offered us five dollars a bucket to catch her some crawdads.
My stepfather then arched an eyebrow at us and said, "You know what, crawdads sure do sound good, why don't you guys fetch us a couple of buckets as well while you are down there, and we can have a crawdad boil tonight for dinner." We all agreed as we ran down the driveway with our buckets in hand and headed towards the creek. When we finally reached the creek, we slid down the embankment towards the water with excitement. We were wading through the water in search of those freshwater crustaceans a.k.a fast money. We weren't really finding any in the location we were at, which was rather odd, and we all started heading up stream in hopes of changing our luck.
We finally started to find a couple here and there, but the further upstream we got the more crawdads we found. Slowly but surely, we started to fill our buckets. My brother went on ahead of us a small distance and shortly after that, we all heard him screech in excitement. "HOLY SHIT! I'VE FOUND THE MOTHERLOAD!" We all snatched up our buckets from the side of the creek bed and ran in his direction, and boy was he right! There were tons of crawdads walking along the bottom of the creek.
We all began snatching up the tiny creatures and throwing them into our buckets. Running further and further upstream as the crawdad population increased. We were headed towards the small bridge that allowed cars to crossover the creek, and before we knew it our buckets were filled to the brim. So, we decided to stop right there and haul our catch home and collect our reward. We were all giggling and laughing on our way home thoroughly enjoying our little outing, and rather pleased with ourselves.
Soon we reached Mrs. Boone's house and delivered the crawdads to her, and she handed each of us our money. We then headed to my best friend's house to give her parents some of our catch, since we caught way more than expected. They were pleasantly surprised at the amount we were able to catch and gave us lots of praise for our accomplishment. They too had said that they would be making crawdads tonight for dinner as well.
Shortly after that, the rest of our friends had to start heading home and we sent each of them off with a few buckets for their families as well. Then my brother and I headed to our house to give our share of the crawdads to our parents and prepare them for the boil. When we got home, we told our stepfather about how fruitful our adventure had been and how Mrs. Boone had gotten her share and that we had so many left over that we had divided them up amongst ourselves and the whole neighborhood would be enjoying our catch tonight.
I helped my stepfather cut up the vegetables and put a large pot of water on the stove and turned on the burner. We seasoned the water and waited for it to come to a rolling boil. Once it did, we began to put all the ingredients into the pot. Before we knew it, it was time to eat. The whole family sat down at the dinner table and my mother began to serve us. Everyone said that it was so delicious, and nothing beats freshly caught crawdads, and that they have never had any that had tasted as amazing as the ones we had brought home tonight.
After dinner I called up my best friend on the telephone and asked her, how did she and her family like our crawdads. She said they all enjoyed them very much and that as we spoke, she was currently enjoying a second helping of the dish. I then proceeded to tell her that I thought that we should head back down to the creek tomorrow and catch some more, and that we could go door to door asking the rest of the neighbors if they would like to buy some of our delicious, freshly caught crawdads for the low, low price of five dollars a bucket. She then agreed and said she would meet up with me tomorrow and start our endeavor.
The next day, as expected I met up with my best friend and a few others from the previous day before, and we all headed towards Johnny's creek with our buckets in tow. As we cleared the railroad ties and headed to the creek bed, we stopped dead in our tracks. Looking confusingly at each other. Upstream towards the small bridge we had fallen just short of the day before while collecting crawdads were police cars and caution tape blocking off the area.
We headed towards the policemen to ask them what was going on. But before we could reach the bridge and barricade a police officer approached us, saying "Stop right there, don't come any further!" We exchanged a few questioning glances amongst each other and proceeded to ask the officer what was going on. He then answered with "Nothing of your concern, now go on and head home. You kids don't need to be out here right now." I opened my mouth to procure as to why we shouldn't be out here and to what exactly was going on. But before I could even get a word out the officer said in a raised voice. "DO AS I TELL YOU TO DO AND GO HOME NOW! GO ON AND GET!"
Our eyes grew as wide as saucers, surprised at how the police officer had yelled at us, and without another word we all turned on our heels and headed back home. Occasionally glancing back at the scene over our shoulders. Once we reached home, we ran inside the house and found my parents, and proceeded to tell them what we had encountered down at Johnny's creek. At the time they didn't seem to think much of it and said it was probably a car that ran off the side of the bridge and crashed down into the creek. We had all accepted their explanation, and we all went out back into one of our clubhouses and sat around talking about the day's events. When suddenly a friend of ours named Brad came bursting through the door, out of breath and perspiring from physical exertion.
We all jumped to our feet and rushed towards Brad asking him "What the hell is going on and what has gotten his panties all in a bunch?" He bent down clasping his knees in his hands trying to catch his breath. When he finally did, he began to speak. "They found a body down in Johnny's creek, over by the crossover bridge!" He huffed out. We all shot knowing looks at one another as we listened to what Brad said.
That's why the police were down there and that's why they wouldn't let us go any further and had sent us home immediately! I then asked Brad "Was it a car crash? did the driver land in the creek and drown?" Brad's eyes grew large as he shook his head back and forth indicating no. "Then what happened and to whom?" Another friend asked. Brad held his pointer finger up in the air in an attempt to tell us to hold on a second, as he took in another deep breath.
"I was over at Steven's house helping him and his mom plant summer squash and you know how Steven's dad works for the police department?" He asked and we all nodded knowingly at him. "Well Steven's dad came home from work and called Steven's mom into the house so he could speak with her, and Steven and I stayed out back digging the holes for the squash, but we could still hear them talking!" He paused for a moment and took another deep breath and then continued. "Well, we heard his dad telling his mom that there had been a missing prostitute and that they had finally found her body and that it was under the crossover bridge down at Johnny's creek!"
We all turned as white as a ghost and looked back and forth at one another. Not saying a word when all of a sudden, my brother shouted out "We were just down there yesterday but stopped short of the bridge!" And I blurted out that we were just down there today and seen all the police and that they had yelled at us and turned us away sending us home and that my parents had said that it was probably a car accident and that they must have gone over the bridge and landed in the creek below. Brad shook his head back and forth, "Nope!" he said, "But get this, Steven's dad had said that when they found the body it was completely covered in crawdads and that they had eaten most of the lady's flesh, and that she was all bitten up by them and that she had to of been down there for more than a week!" He exclaimed.
With that being said I had instantly emptied the contents of my stomach, as everything Brad said had clicked into place. We had just been down there the day before and we had come within feet of the body and hadn't even realized it. We had all recalled that there was an odd stench, but we thought nothing of it. Thinking that it was probably some old bate or a dead fish or something along those lines, but obviously we were all dead wrong. The woman's decomposing body had attracted all the crawdads and drew them towards her to devour her remains. That's why we could hardly find any of them downstream. "Thank God we didn't go any further!" one of my friends had said. My brother then chimed in saying "Yeah that would have been awful, nightmare juice for sure!" "Nightmare juice! nightmare juice!" I exclaimed "I'll tell you all about nightmare juice you stupid idiots!"
Everyone snapped their heads in my direction. "What, what is it?" My best friend asked with a bit of panic in her voice. "Seriously?" I asked them, in shock at their inability to put all the pieces together. "You guys, those crawdads were feasting on the flesh of a dead fucking prostitute! The very same crawdads we had caught yesterday!" They looked at me with confusion. "We ate those fucking crawdads!" and as I spoke, they all began to look at me in horror as their faces turned an eerie shade of green and a couple of them began to lose their lunch. "That's right motherfuckers, we all ate a whole mess of crawdads with bellies full of rotten, decomposing prostitute!" I shouted. My best friend then blurted out "And we fed them to our families, I fucking had seconds!"
She then took off running into the direction of her house. The rest of us all exchanged horrified glances and then proceeded to take off and scatter towards our own homes. My brother and I ran to the backdoor of our house and burst inside in tears. My mother was standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes and turned around to meet our gaze. "What! what's wrong?" she asked in a panicked voice, and my brother and I burst out into tears once again. We could hardly get the words out fast enough. When we finally did my mother's face went pale, and she rushed out of the kitchen and into the living room and we both ran after her. We ran up to where my stepfather sat on the couch, with a giant, steaming bowl of leftovers.
My mother then ran up and smacked the bowl out of his hands spilling its contents onto the floor. "What the hell!" he exclaimed. "DON'T EAT THAT!" My mother shouted. "For God's sake, what has gotten into you?" My stepfather said. Then the story just began to fall out of our mouths like word vomit. The moment the realization hit him, he jumped up and ran to the bathroom and we could all hear him getting sick. My mother then ran to the kitchen and opened up the fridge and pulled out the Tupperware containing the rest of the crawdad boil and threw the entire thing into the trash, bowl and all. She then tied up the trash bag and ran out the backdoor to put it in the outside trash bins. When my mother came back inside, we all just stood there staring at each other in silent horror. Needless to say, we were all scarred for life after that incident, and we never swam in Johnny's creek again and we never dined on crawdads again for that matter.
