Strelnikov
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AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE: Tickle Street Chapter 5
by Strelnikov
Copyright 2003 by the author
Author’s Note: This story is the fifth in the Tickle Street story time line. In the middle of Chapter 4, “Ashley’s Initiation”, Sara shows up with a black eye. How did she get it? Emily gave it to her, but beyond that, Sara wasn’t talking. So I had to write this story to find out. It turned out a little darker than most. Hope you like it anyway.
Dramatis Personae (in order of appearance)
Sara Rosen
Sara is an 18-year-old adrenaline junkie, a risk-taker who likes to…let’s just say bend…the law. She’s built like Dolly Parton, a small girl with a slender waist and big…personality. She has long dark brown hair, beautiful green eyes, and a fit, toned body. Her ticklishness is her greatest weakness. She’s an enthusiastic tickler, on the principle that it’s more blessed to give than to receive.
Emily MacDonald
Emily is a fiery red-head, a petite girl with bright green eyes and shoulder-length hair. She's somewhat older than the rest of the senior class at TCHS – she spent a year in rehab after a car wreck. She and her widowed father moved to Tickle Street last summer. She’s super-ticklish but can't stand to be tickled, she feels it makes her too girly and weak... She's in for a big shock.
********************
Sara was a risk-taker. Even as a little girl, she had never refused a dare. Her classmates – even some of the guys – thought she was completely over the top. And that suited Sara just fine – she liked living on the edge.
At the Sunday afternoon tickling party, Sara had told Candice and Meghan that she would recruit Emily for their group. The following day, she had sat next to Emily at lunchtime and invited her to join a little neighborhood “club”. But Emily had no interest in her classmates or their outside activities. She had blown Sara off – politely, to be sure, but it was a rejection all the same.
That just added to Sara’s determination – she would just have to think of another approach. And she did – but it didn’t work out the way she planned.
***
Emily had been away from school long enough that she had to struggle to catch up. She applied herself without complaint – school was simply a series of chores to be gotten through so that she could move on. But after school that Monday, she decided that she needed a break. After supper was time enough to start studying – right now, she would spend some time exploring the woods to the north.
It wasn’t 100 acres, of course – it was actually about a mile square. But the neighborhood kids had called the wooded area north of Tickle Street the Hundred Acre Wood years ago, and the name had stuck.
The old man who had owned it had sold 15 acres to the developer who had built Tickle Street. He had then dropped dead, and his out-of-state heirs were still wrangling over the estate 20 years later.
In all truth, the land would be difficult to develop. It was hilly, rocky, heavily overgrown with second growth forest. Owl Creek entered it from the south before turning northeast between steep banks. An old railroad grade, long disused, crossed it diagonally from southeast to northwest. Someday, no doubt, the heirs would come to some agreement and the land would be sold. Developers would bulldoze the trees and then name the streets after them. But for now, it was a patch of suburban forest, home to the smaller forest creatures and a playground for young people in the neighborhoods nearby.
Emily changed into khaki cargo shorts, a navy t-shirt and solid walking shoes. She locked the house and headed north into the woods. She found a trail about 100 yards in and followed it to the right until it crossed another. The south fork obviously led back to Tickle Street – she continued straight. That fork led to the bank of Owl Creek. She saw that it continued on the other side, but decided not to climb down the bank to wade across. That was an expedition for another day. Emily backtracked and followed the north fork at the crossing, paralleling the creek.
The trail forked again, and she turned left. The trail opened out into a grassy clearing a little bigger than a football field. At one end was an area of tumbled stones, a patch of wildflowers and a single feral rose bush.
This had been someone’s home, Emily realized – there had been a cabin here. The stones were what remained of the fireplace and chimney. She probed in the dirt and found the hearth stone, and then, near the rose bush, the sill stone for the door. The logs and timbers had long since returned to the soil – not even a trace remained.
Nothing lasts forever, thought Emily. Three other trails led away from the clearing. She took the one heading east.
After a quarter-mile, the trail joined another that paralleled the creek, apparently a continuation of the trail she had followed earlier. She continued along, following it until it intersected the railroad grade.
The trains hadn’t run in years – the tracks and crossties had been taken up. The only reason the grade wasn’t completely overgrown was that it was used regularly by hikers and mountain bikers. There had been talk of converting it into a paved bike trail, maintained by the county, but sales tax collections had fallen off when the economy went south, so nothing had been done.
The iron truss bridge that had carried the trains over Owl Creek was still there, though. There was a pool just downstream, scoured out by the stream flowing between the bridge abutments, that was apparently used as a swimming hole. But the summer had been dry – the creek came nowhere near to filling its banks.
Emily climbed down the slope to the rocky stream bed and walked downstream. She sat on a stone slab jutting out over the water just past the bridge, took off her shoes and socks, and dangled her feet in the water. It’s peaceful here, she thought. I like this place.
***
Sara had decided to approach Emily again at home, after school. She was just crossing the street when she saw Emily head into the woods north of Tickle Street. That suggested her course of action. She would use the approach direct – follow Emily, and if necessary… just tickle the hell out of her. Why not? It had worked with Meghan, hadn’t it?
Sara quickly went back to her house, changed into jeans shorts, a black t-shirt and sneakers, and tied her long dark hair back in a pony tail. She had played in the woods for years. She didn’t have to follow Emily too closely and risk spooking her. Instead, she picked up the creekside trail at the end of the cul-de-sac, moving noiselessly along the packed earth of the trail.
She waited in the woods while Emily explored the clearing, then doubled back through the woods and came out on the creekside trail behind her. She followed Emily to the bridge, watched her as she seated herself and took off her shoes. Perfect!
“Hi, Emily!” Sara called out as she headed down the slope to the stream. “Mind if I join you?”
Emily turned, looked up at her, made a noncommittal gesture. Sara took that as agreement. She came down and sat next to Emily. Like the redhead, she pulled off her shoes and put her feet in the cool water.
“Nice, isn’t it?” Sara said brightly.
“Have you been following me?” Emily asked.
“No,” she lied. “I come here all the time. Candice and I have played here for years. Still do, sometimes.” She stood up. “Come on – I’d like to show you something.”
***
It was bad enough to be disturbed, thought Emily. But why, of all the girls in the neighborhood, did it have to be Sara?
Emily knew Sara’s type. The girl suffered from an affliction more commonly found in young men: she was an adrenaline junkie. Emily had experienced the rush that comes in situations of mortal peril. Sensible people avoided such situations whenever possible. Sara, a privileged child of an affluent society, saw herself as a daring risk taker. Sara didn’t have a fucking clue.
Still, Sara had been unfailingly polite so far, so Emily felt obligated to be polite in return. She followed after Sara, wading in the shallow water around the edge of the pool.
Sara walked onto the shore. The stream bed was wider here, the shore a level grassy area where the sun shone through the trees. “Come on, Emily,” she said. “We have picnics here sometimes. Club meetings too – lots of laughs! We’d be happy to have you join us – the more the merrier!”
Emily joined her. The grass was soft under her bare feet. Not really caring, she asked, “What do you do at your club meetings?”
“This!” shouted Sara, and attacked Emily’s ribs.
Emily was extremely ticklish, and the tickle attack took her by surprise. She burst into helpless laughter and collapsed on the ground. Sara’s tickling hands never lost contact – she landed on her knees next to Emily, still tickling. She crab clawed Emily’s ribs, down onto her sides, then onto her tummy.
Emily laughed like a madwoman. She hated to be tickled – she detested the loss of control, the feeling of being girly and weak. This was… unbelievable! Desperately, she rolled herself into a ball to escape the tickling. But that left her feet exposed. Sara grabbed Emily’s ankles in an arm lock, stood up, and scrabbled her nails on Emily’s soles, just under the toes.
Emily laughed helplessly at the top of her lungs as Sara’s fingernails flew over her ticklish soles. By sheer luck, Sara had found the place where Emily was off the scale ticklish. Sara was a fiendish and inventive tickler – Emily felt her strength going, tickled right out of her.
Emily bucked violently, laughing like mad, and Sara lost her balance and fell, releasing the arm lock as she did. But Emily still wasn’t back to 100% physically, and this wasn’t Sara’s first rodeo. Before Emily could rise, Sara rolled her onto her tummy and straddled her hips facing aft.
And now the serious tickling started. Sara grabbed a foot, bent the toes back, and danced her nails along the soft skin under them. Emily’s laughter went off the chart, her contralto laughter ringing and echoing off the steep wall of the creek bed.
Sara was very, very good. She varied her technique, and the tickling filled Emily’s universe. She spider walked her nails down Emily’s arch, light flicks with the tips of her fingernails that produced a steady stream of laughter. Then heavier tickling, scratching, drawing circles and figure-eight’s with her nails, and Emily laughed her head off. Emily was past the point of resistance by now, or even coherent thought. All she could do was laugh – and laugh – and laugh some more.
Sara stopped tickling, quickly grabbed the other foot, and wrapped her leg around Emily’s shins in the fiigure-four leg lock. Emily hardly had time to catch her breath before the tickling started again, two-handed this time. The tickling fingers flew over her soles – between her toes – up and down her arches – onto her heels – back up to her toes again. Emily howled with forced mirth, red faced, tears of laughter streaming down her cheeks.
She never zoned out – Sara didn’t let her. She laughed until her ribs and tummy ached, and then laughed some more – helplessly, hopelessly, while Sara tickled and tickled and tickled! It went on forever – or seemed that way to the laughing ticklish redhead.
Finally, Sara held Emily’s toes back and tickled under them, side to side and back again, over and over. The fiendish flying fingernails tickled the breath out of her, and reduced her to red-faced, gasping silent laughter.
Good enough. Sara quit and stood up. Emily laid there until her breathing and heart rate got back to normal, then rolled onto her back and sat up. She winced – her tummy felt like she had taken a beating. She was sweaty, her throat dry, her red hair messed up, leaves and twigs tangled in the fiery locks.
“That really tickled!” she said, angrily.
“It was supposed to,” Sara said, grinning back. “That’s what we do at our club meetings. We tickle each other silly. You might as well join – you’ve already been initiated.”
Emily stood, and brushed the hair out of her face. There was murder in her eyes. She launched the blow from the shoulder, with all of the strength of her upper body behind it.
NO! Emily pulled and deflected the punch while it was in the air, but her reaction time wasn’t back to 100% either. The blow connected with a solid thump, just below Sara’s left eye. Sara sat down hard.
Never hit someone in the head with your fist, thought Emily, rubbing her bruised knuckles. Always use an implement. Sweet Jesus, what was I thinking? I lost control – I could have killed her!
***
Sara lifted a hand, touched her face and winced. Like most people her age, she had never been in a true physical confrontation, nor had she ever been really hurt. The sudden violence of Emily’s attack was shocking.
“Sara…” Emily said. There was no anger in her voice, but rather honest concern.
Sara looked up. The head movement brought a wave of nausea, and the start of a pounding headache. Her left eye wasn’t working – it had already started to swell shut.
Emily extended a hand. Sara cringed. “Please…” she said. She tried to rise, but her legs wouldn’t support her. “Please, don’t hit me again.” She was crying now, from pain and fear.
“Let me help…” Emily started.
“Just go away!” Sara said, and rested her throbbing head on her upraised knees. She sat there for a long time. When she looked up again, Emily was gone.
When Sara talked with her friends that evening, she didn’t go into detail about her second encounter with Emily, nor the circumstances under which she had gotten the black eye. She had a reputation to uphold, after all. But that reputation had suffered a collision with reality – Emily had frightened Sara very badly indeed. Sara started to grow up that day. And in that sense, though Sara didn’t realize it until much later, Emily had done her a favor.
***THE END***
For those who came in late, links to the other stories in this series are here:
http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30219
by Strelnikov
Copyright 2003 by the author
Author’s Note: This story is the fifth in the Tickle Street story time line. In the middle of Chapter 4, “Ashley’s Initiation”, Sara shows up with a black eye. How did she get it? Emily gave it to her, but beyond that, Sara wasn’t talking. So I had to write this story to find out. It turned out a little darker than most. Hope you like it anyway.
Dramatis Personae (in order of appearance)
Sara Rosen
Sara is an 18-year-old adrenaline junkie, a risk-taker who likes to…let’s just say bend…the law. She’s built like Dolly Parton, a small girl with a slender waist and big…personality. She has long dark brown hair, beautiful green eyes, and a fit, toned body. Her ticklishness is her greatest weakness. She’s an enthusiastic tickler, on the principle that it’s more blessed to give than to receive.
Emily MacDonald
Emily is a fiery red-head, a petite girl with bright green eyes and shoulder-length hair. She's somewhat older than the rest of the senior class at TCHS – she spent a year in rehab after a car wreck. She and her widowed father moved to Tickle Street last summer. She’s super-ticklish but can't stand to be tickled, she feels it makes her too girly and weak... She's in for a big shock.
********************
Sara was a risk-taker. Even as a little girl, she had never refused a dare. Her classmates – even some of the guys – thought she was completely over the top. And that suited Sara just fine – she liked living on the edge.
At the Sunday afternoon tickling party, Sara had told Candice and Meghan that she would recruit Emily for their group. The following day, she had sat next to Emily at lunchtime and invited her to join a little neighborhood “club”. But Emily had no interest in her classmates or their outside activities. She had blown Sara off – politely, to be sure, but it was a rejection all the same.
That just added to Sara’s determination – she would just have to think of another approach. And she did – but it didn’t work out the way she planned.
***
Emily had been away from school long enough that she had to struggle to catch up. She applied herself without complaint – school was simply a series of chores to be gotten through so that she could move on. But after school that Monday, she decided that she needed a break. After supper was time enough to start studying – right now, she would spend some time exploring the woods to the north.
It wasn’t 100 acres, of course – it was actually about a mile square. But the neighborhood kids had called the wooded area north of Tickle Street the Hundred Acre Wood years ago, and the name had stuck.
The old man who had owned it had sold 15 acres to the developer who had built Tickle Street. He had then dropped dead, and his out-of-state heirs were still wrangling over the estate 20 years later.
In all truth, the land would be difficult to develop. It was hilly, rocky, heavily overgrown with second growth forest. Owl Creek entered it from the south before turning northeast between steep banks. An old railroad grade, long disused, crossed it diagonally from southeast to northwest. Someday, no doubt, the heirs would come to some agreement and the land would be sold. Developers would bulldoze the trees and then name the streets after them. But for now, it was a patch of suburban forest, home to the smaller forest creatures and a playground for young people in the neighborhoods nearby.
Emily changed into khaki cargo shorts, a navy t-shirt and solid walking shoes. She locked the house and headed north into the woods. She found a trail about 100 yards in and followed it to the right until it crossed another. The south fork obviously led back to Tickle Street – she continued straight. That fork led to the bank of Owl Creek. She saw that it continued on the other side, but decided not to climb down the bank to wade across. That was an expedition for another day. Emily backtracked and followed the north fork at the crossing, paralleling the creek.
The trail forked again, and she turned left. The trail opened out into a grassy clearing a little bigger than a football field. At one end was an area of tumbled stones, a patch of wildflowers and a single feral rose bush.
This had been someone’s home, Emily realized – there had been a cabin here. The stones were what remained of the fireplace and chimney. She probed in the dirt and found the hearth stone, and then, near the rose bush, the sill stone for the door. The logs and timbers had long since returned to the soil – not even a trace remained.
Nothing lasts forever, thought Emily. Three other trails led away from the clearing. She took the one heading east.
After a quarter-mile, the trail joined another that paralleled the creek, apparently a continuation of the trail she had followed earlier. She continued along, following it until it intersected the railroad grade.
The trains hadn’t run in years – the tracks and crossties had been taken up. The only reason the grade wasn’t completely overgrown was that it was used regularly by hikers and mountain bikers. There had been talk of converting it into a paved bike trail, maintained by the county, but sales tax collections had fallen off when the economy went south, so nothing had been done.
The iron truss bridge that had carried the trains over Owl Creek was still there, though. There was a pool just downstream, scoured out by the stream flowing between the bridge abutments, that was apparently used as a swimming hole. But the summer had been dry – the creek came nowhere near to filling its banks.
Emily climbed down the slope to the rocky stream bed and walked downstream. She sat on a stone slab jutting out over the water just past the bridge, took off her shoes and socks, and dangled her feet in the water. It’s peaceful here, she thought. I like this place.
***
Sara had decided to approach Emily again at home, after school. She was just crossing the street when she saw Emily head into the woods north of Tickle Street. That suggested her course of action. She would use the approach direct – follow Emily, and if necessary… just tickle the hell out of her. Why not? It had worked with Meghan, hadn’t it?
Sara quickly went back to her house, changed into jeans shorts, a black t-shirt and sneakers, and tied her long dark hair back in a pony tail. She had played in the woods for years. She didn’t have to follow Emily too closely and risk spooking her. Instead, she picked up the creekside trail at the end of the cul-de-sac, moving noiselessly along the packed earth of the trail.
She waited in the woods while Emily explored the clearing, then doubled back through the woods and came out on the creekside trail behind her. She followed Emily to the bridge, watched her as she seated herself and took off her shoes. Perfect!
“Hi, Emily!” Sara called out as she headed down the slope to the stream. “Mind if I join you?”
Emily turned, looked up at her, made a noncommittal gesture. Sara took that as agreement. She came down and sat next to Emily. Like the redhead, she pulled off her shoes and put her feet in the cool water.
“Nice, isn’t it?” Sara said brightly.
“Have you been following me?” Emily asked.
“No,” she lied. “I come here all the time. Candice and I have played here for years. Still do, sometimes.” She stood up. “Come on – I’d like to show you something.”
***
It was bad enough to be disturbed, thought Emily. But why, of all the girls in the neighborhood, did it have to be Sara?
Emily knew Sara’s type. The girl suffered from an affliction more commonly found in young men: she was an adrenaline junkie. Emily had experienced the rush that comes in situations of mortal peril. Sensible people avoided such situations whenever possible. Sara, a privileged child of an affluent society, saw herself as a daring risk taker. Sara didn’t have a fucking clue.
Still, Sara had been unfailingly polite so far, so Emily felt obligated to be polite in return. She followed after Sara, wading in the shallow water around the edge of the pool.
Sara walked onto the shore. The stream bed was wider here, the shore a level grassy area where the sun shone through the trees. “Come on, Emily,” she said. “We have picnics here sometimes. Club meetings too – lots of laughs! We’d be happy to have you join us – the more the merrier!”
Emily joined her. The grass was soft under her bare feet. Not really caring, she asked, “What do you do at your club meetings?”
“This!” shouted Sara, and attacked Emily’s ribs.
Emily was extremely ticklish, and the tickle attack took her by surprise. She burst into helpless laughter and collapsed on the ground. Sara’s tickling hands never lost contact – she landed on her knees next to Emily, still tickling. She crab clawed Emily’s ribs, down onto her sides, then onto her tummy.
Emily laughed like a madwoman. She hated to be tickled – she detested the loss of control, the feeling of being girly and weak. This was… unbelievable! Desperately, she rolled herself into a ball to escape the tickling. But that left her feet exposed. Sara grabbed Emily’s ankles in an arm lock, stood up, and scrabbled her nails on Emily’s soles, just under the toes.
Emily laughed helplessly at the top of her lungs as Sara’s fingernails flew over her ticklish soles. By sheer luck, Sara had found the place where Emily was off the scale ticklish. Sara was a fiendish and inventive tickler – Emily felt her strength going, tickled right out of her.
Emily bucked violently, laughing like mad, and Sara lost her balance and fell, releasing the arm lock as she did. But Emily still wasn’t back to 100% physically, and this wasn’t Sara’s first rodeo. Before Emily could rise, Sara rolled her onto her tummy and straddled her hips facing aft.
And now the serious tickling started. Sara grabbed a foot, bent the toes back, and danced her nails along the soft skin under them. Emily’s laughter went off the chart, her contralto laughter ringing and echoing off the steep wall of the creek bed.
Sara was very, very good. She varied her technique, and the tickling filled Emily’s universe. She spider walked her nails down Emily’s arch, light flicks with the tips of her fingernails that produced a steady stream of laughter. Then heavier tickling, scratching, drawing circles and figure-eight’s with her nails, and Emily laughed her head off. Emily was past the point of resistance by now, or even coherent thought. All she could do was laugh – and laugh – and laugh some more.
Sara stopped tickling, quickly grabbed the other foot, and wrapped her leg around Emily’s shins in the fiigure-four leg lock. Emily hardly had time to catch her breath before the tickling started again, two-handed this time. The tickling fingers flew over her soles – between her toes – up and down her arches – onto her heels – back up to her toes again. Emily howled with forced mirth, red faced, tears of laughter streaming down her cheeks.
She never zoned out – Sara didn’t let her. She laughed until her ribs and tummy ached, and then laughed some more – helplessly, hopelessly, while Sara tickled and tickled and tickled! It went on forever – or seemed that way to the laughing ticklish redhead.
Finally, Sara held Emily’s toes back and tickled under them, side to side and back again, over and over. The fiendish flying fingernails tickled the breath out of her, and reduced her to red-faced, gasping silent laughter.
Good enough. Sara quit and stood up. Emily laid there until her breathing and heart rate got back to normal, then rolled onto her back and sat up. She winced – her tummy felt like she had taken a beating. She was sweaty, her throat dry, her red hair messed up, leaves and twigs tangled in the fiery locks.
“That really tickled!” she said, angrily.
“It was supposed to,” Sara said, grinning back. “That’s what we do at our club meetings. We tickle each other silly. You might as well join – you’ve already been initiated.”
Emily stood, and brushed the hair out of her face. There was murder in her eyes. She launched the blow from the shoulder, with all of the strength of her upper body behind it.
NO! Emily pulled and deflected the punch while it was in the air, but her reaction time wasn’t back to 100% either. The blow connected with a solid thump, just below Sara’s left eye. Sara sat down hard.
Never hit someone in the head with your fist, thought Emily, rubbing her bruised knuckles. Always use an implement. Sweet Jesus, what was I thinking? I lost control – I could have killed her!
***
Sara lifted a hand, touched her face and winced. Like most people her age, she had never been in a true physical confrontation, nor had she ever been really hurt. The sudden violence of Emily’s attack was shocking.
“Sara…” Emily said. There was no anger in her voice, but rather honest concern.
Sara looked up. The head movement brought a wave of nausea, and the start of a pounding headache. Her left eye wasn’t working – it had already started to swell shut.
Emily extended a hand. Sara cringed. “Please…” she said. She tried to rise, but her legs wouldn’t support her. “Please, don’t hit me again.” She was crying now, from pain and fear.
“Let me help…” Emily started.
“Just go away!” Sara said, and rested her throbbing head on her upraised knees. She sat there for a long time. When she looked up again, Emily was gone.
When Sara talked with her friends that evening, she didn’t go into detail about her second encounter with Emily, nor the circumstances under which she had gotten the black eye. She had a reputation to uphold, after all. But that reputation had suffered a collision with reality – Emily had frightened Sara very badly indeed. Sara started to grow up that day. And in that sense, though Sara didn’t realize it until much later, Emily had done her a favor.
***THE END***
For those who came in late, links to the other stories in this series are here:
http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30219
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