Short Stories and poems

Deadman's Hill Rated 13+

This is about a day that happened about seven or so years ago. It was the day I helped a person who really needed it, and a small sacrifice on my part. Of course, to understand this story, you need to know a thing or two about me, and the place that this happened.

My parents separated when my older brother was twelve years old, on my father's birthday no less. My parents had been having a hard time then, what with my mother being a homemaker and my father spending most of his time either on his mother's mother and father's barn or just with his mother. In fact, he'd often eat there. Of course, as I was quite young then, and this was over thirteen years ago, I can't quite remember everything. As such, I can't recall the exact reasons as to why my mother left my father and took me and my brothers with her.

In any case, my parents separated, and later divorced. My mother had custody of me and my brothers on the weekdays and my father had us every other weekend, with one week during Easter vacation and two weeks at the start and then at the end of Summer vacation. Later, my older brother left my mother and moved back in with my father, as the two of them did not get along. Eventually the two of them found people who cared about them, with my father marrying a woman who is my step-mother and my mother finding a man who is like a step-father to me. Also, both of them have children from previous relationships.

Now, let's talk about the place that the incident happened. It happened near the farm that my father worked on, and now owns. It lays in a valley between two sets of hills, with a road going in an East-West direction. The hills to the West are like a set of stairs, with two large and steepish steps. Together they are what I and my brothers and my step-mother's kids called Big Hill. To the East is another hill, one just as tall, if not taller, than Big Hill. However, most importantly, it didn't have that step-like bump, and was much steeper. That one we called Deadman's Hill, because if you weren’t careful, you could easily break your neck on the way down while riding on your bike. The whole road is almost two miles long, though given the hills, and the fact that I was never in the best of shape, it felt to me like it was much longer than that. However, me and my brothers and step-siblings, as well as my cousin, would go on these hills with our bikes, and push off with our feet and not touch the peddles, seeing who would get to the bottom the fastest. Of course, since Big Hill had that step, as it were, there was a point that the bike would end up slowing down before picking up speed again. Deadman's Hill didn't have that, so you'd continue to pick up speed, and you didn't dare hit the breaks, unless you wanted to fly off the bike and get more than just road burn. The safest thing to do was let the bike continue until it crossed a bridge and you started to go up this one small, yet steep, hill, when the bike would run out of kinetic energy. At that point, you could go back to the barn, or if you were really crazy, start the climb back up Deadman's Hill. Of course, I think that me and the others were slightly crazy, as we'd do it all over again.

On this particular day, me and my younger brother were over at my father's. I think that it was late summer as there was a slight chill in the air. Then again my father's family, including my uncles, was having a picnic in these trees on the side of the road on Deadman's Hill, as we'd been cutting down and cutting up trees for firewood for the winter. I was wearing a pair of shorts I believe and, most importantly, one of my favorite T-shirts, which had a picture of a wolf on a cliff howling at the moon under a blue sky. I guess I had a thing for wolves even then.

Anyways, some kids, who were related to one of those who lived on that road, were riding their bikes or skateboards or some such thing. Me, and the rest of us I guess weren't really paying much attention to them, after all, this was the last day they'd see me and my brother for at least two weeks. Suddenly there was this awful clatter or some such thing, because next thing I knew one of the kids had hit the pavement with his head and very importantly, he didn't have a helmet on, and the back of his head was bleeding. Well, me and my family had rushed over to see if we could help them. Well I saw that kid's head on the road with blood coming out of it, and no one knowing quite what to do, as I think that someone was shouting "Call 911", and another person saying something else, and other such things.

Of course, I wasn't hearing this, as all that I saw was that kid with blood coming out of his head. Well next thing I knew, I took off my shirt, rolled it into a wad or some such thing, lifted the kid's head, put my shirt under it, and set it back down. Then again, I had read somewhere about putting a towel under a wound and keeping it above the ground. I guess part of me remembered that, and that instinct took over, just to help this kid, whom I don't even know, and still don't know.

Eventually the Ambulance came and took the kid to the hospital. I don't know what happened afterwards but I think that he recovered. I don't know if he remembers what I did to help him, but I do, and that's all that matters.

However, I never did get that shirt back, and like I said before, it was quite chilly that day.