A Small Town Mystery, Solved

by M.C. Schmidt

About the Author: M.C. Schmidt's recent short fiction has appeared in Southern Humanities Review, EVENT, Coolest American Stories 2024, and elsewhere. He is the author of the novel, The Decadents (Library Tales Publishing, 2022).

Excerpt

It was around noon on a miserably hot July day when Draymond discovered the written confession. When he arrived at the river gorge, he had expected other kids to already be there, cooling off and hanging out, but he was surprised to find all the normal spots abandoned. Upon realizing this, Draymond himself felt abandoned, fearing the others had all conspired without him to find a new place, or—perhaps worse—that they had each individually outgrown the gorge, leaving him alone with the childish desire to splash and dive and risk cracking his head open on the shallow bottom just for the stupid thrill of it. Probably, though, a bunch of kids were just on daytrips with their families or watching their younger siblings while their parents were at work. Probably, a bunch were just still in bed. He smiled at the thought of his lazy peers sleeping the day away. Maybe, he mused, the others all got too close to the old Minkey house and Andy Minkey had nabbed and eaten them, as local rumor suggested he might. He didn’t really think so, of course; there was no way old Andy Minkey could have gotten them all.

After accepting that he was on his own for the day, Draymond considered going ahead and stripping down and jumping in, but there was something sad about it, swimming in the gorge alone. And if he did happen to hit his head or break his leg on a rock, there would be no one around to help him. That was just good common sense.

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