T H E T U S C A R O R A R E V I E W 2 0 2 2 5 Hand-Me-Downs O L I V I A W I L H I D E My feet shot across the pavement, propelling me forward with a force I never knew I had. I ran so hard. I felt as though the ground might break beneath me. I wasn’t sure if my goosebumps were from the frigid air of that April night or the horror of what I’d just seen. Darting between streets, I leapt over stout shrubs just as my brother jumped hurdles at his varsity track meets. I wondered what his mile time was these days. I ran past the library where I used to spend days curled up in a corner, immersed in novels the size of my torso. Nothing I read could have prepared me for this. As I rounded the corner towards the ancient post office, I noticed something breaking the silence that lingered throughout the streets, footsteps. Except they were not made by my hand-me-down lace up sneakers. They were footsteps that slapped against the pavement. They were undoubtedly connected to a big, slimy body. They were after something they intended to catch. They were footsteps that were hunting. I buckled down and increased my speed, zooming past the school, the Lutheran church, and Mr. Manley’s Plus Size Boutique that was one bad month away from going bankrupt. I quickly changed tracks and jutted myself down Milton Road. Keene Park was murky and decrepit, but I could hide here. I slowed my pace as I trudged along the gravel path lined with dying lampposts. Usually, I avoided this part of town. The park is known for housing lost souls who bore lacerations and bruises as battle scars of addiction. When I was younger, my brother would take me here to play by the river, a secret we kept from my mother. I no longer heard the slapping footsteps, so I huddled behind a patch of unkempt brush. I’ve lived in Crane for my entire fifteen years of life. In the nineteenth century this town flourished as the home of a popular textile manufacturing plant. The Connecticut River that flowed through it made a great trade route and the town thrived. Now in the twenty-first century, the town was anything but established. The river flooded in 1983, leaving many home-
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