Nightmare Soup 2 The Second Helping

The Dancing Corpse

"Grab your bike and follow me..." Tim's eyes were wide and fiery as he stood on Jimmy's front porch, his breathing heavy and quick as he beckoned his friend to come outside.

Jimmy was standing in the entryway. "What's going on?" He had seen this look many times before; it usually meant they were going to do something they shouldn't.

"You just have to see. Come on, hurry, before someone else finds it."

Jimmy took a deep breath. How many times had he gone on one of these adventures only to end up grounded for two weeks or in some other kind of trouble?

"Are you just going to stand there or what?" Tim asked, "I'm telling you, this is something you need to see."

"Just tell me what it is."

"No, you won't believe me. Just come on."

Jimmy rolled his eyes. "Fine... but I swear, Tim, if we get in trouble this time, you're taking all the blame. Remember who had to wash Mr. Spencer's car for two weeks because you threw those eggs. Yeah, it was me."

"This isn't anything like that!" Tim shot back, his movements and voice filled with impatience.

"Okay, okay, let's go."

Jimmy hopped on his bike and followed Tim down the street towards "The Court," a cul-de-sac where all the neighborhood kids gathered to play capture the flag or have water balloon fights. Jimmy could barely keep up as Tim blazed down the street, his legs peddling frantically.

"Hey! Slow down!" Jimmy yelled.

"Peddle faster!" Tim responded.

As they reached the end of the street where the pavement opened to a large circle, Tim dumped his bike at the curb and dashed around to the back of Danny Fletcher's house. Jimmy was right behind him. Everyone knew this was the best way to the train tracks, an area Jimmy was specifically told never to go, but parental warnings had never stopped their adventures before, and this time was no different.

The path to the tracks was almost mystical, something straight from the pages of Huckleberry Finn. A sprawling, golden wheat field pushed up against a thick wooded area. Right in between was a slim trail of flattened grass that would lead them to their destination. The last time the two boys had been back here, they stumbled upon an old junkyard, and to a 12-year-old boy, that's nearly the same thing as finding buried treasure.

"You know how we wanted to build a go-cart? Well, I came back here earlier to find a steering wheel." Jimmy grabbed a large stick and started knocking down the brush at the entrance of the woods. "When I was headed back, I took a wrong turn that led to an old bridge by the train tracks. That's where I found it... under that bridge."

"Found what?"

"You'll see... I'm going to warn you though, think of the worst thing you've ever seen, and this is worse than that."

Jimmy stopped in his tracks. "Wait... worse than the worst thing I've ever seen in my life? Worse than the time Matt Morrison broke his leg and the bone was sticking out of the skin?"

"Way worse."

"What if I don't want to see this...thing?"

"It's not going to hurt you. Quit being a wuss."

Tim continued to knock down wild brush and tree limbs as they followed the path. They soon came to a split, one way leading to the junkyard, and the other to the train tracks.