Sunday, December 25, 2016

SLEIGH RIDE

Copyright (c) 2016 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.


SLEIGH RIDE
By R. Peterson

Ellen squeezed the plastic bottle to drain its last drops of soap into a sink filled with hot water and dirty dishes … just one more thing the Davis family was out of. The liquid detergent swirled around in the water and formed an image of The Scream by Edvard Munch before vanishing. John would be home in twenty minutes and Ellen wanted the kitchen, the whole house for that matter, to look spotless. Hopefully John’s boss would give his workers a bigger bonus than the measly twenty bucks he’d given last year. Little Johnny had his heart set on that new bicycle he’d been ogling at Jefferson’s Hardware and Nancy was mooning over an expensive Barbie dollhouse. Both kids were in the living room watching Huckleberry Hound sing an off key version of “Oh my darling Clementine …”on a black and white TV while sitting on their fold-down bed.
The Davis family’s closest neighbor, Agnes Brown, had agreed to watch the children while their parents went shopping. She was rocking in John’s mother’s old chair eating the plate of fudge the church ladies had brought over the night before and laughing loudly at the cartoon. It was Christmas Eve 1959 and it was blowing hard when John’s car clattered into the driveway. Finally – he’s home! Ellen thought and hoped the roads into Cloverdale wouldn’t be icy or drifted.
John stomped the snow off his boots on the concrete blocks that served as their doorstep and a blast of cold air blew through the four-room house when he opened the door. “Hicks is giving out turkeys this year instead of money,” John said as he plopped the seven pound frozen bird onto the cabinet. Ellen shivered as he quickly shut out the wind.
“John! What are we going to do? I helped the children write their letters to Santa myself!”
“I called Mr. Gold at the bank,” John said taking off his gloves and rubbing his hands together. “Edward agreed to give us $50 on Monday. He said to go ahead and write out the checks and the bank will cover them.”
“Edward is it now? Aren’t we becoming important?” Ellen then wrung her hands in frustration. “Fifty dollars is a lot of money. How will we ever repay the loan?”
            “I got a sweet night-job loading 100 pound bags of sugar into train cars,” John said smiling. “I start Monday right after work. It’s only for two weeks but I should come home with an extra eighty bucks!”
            “You already work so hard,” Ellen said. “Are you sure?”
John pulled her close and kissed her then swatted her butt as he pushed her toward the broom- closet in the hallway leading to their bedroom. “Grab your coat woman … and your snow boots … we’re going to town!”

-------2-------

“Stanford University, heart surgeon Dr. Richard Lower, with the assistance of Dr. Norman Shumway has performed a successful heart transplant of one dog's heart into the heart of another dog. What an amazing world we live in folks!”  The disc jockey said. It was minus seven degrees outside but the high wind-chill had pushed the temperature to twenty-below. The battered Ford plowed through the deep snow. The Browns started singing The Three Bells and Ellen changed the words Jimmy to Johnny as she sang along. “The children grow up so fast,” she told her husband. “I want to give them everything while they’re still young enough to enjoy it.”
“Let’s hope the sixties will be a decade of prosperity,” John said straining to see out the windshield. The falling snow was fast becoming a blizzard. “I’ve had my fill of Joe McCarthy and fallout shelters.” Bright car headlights suddenly appeared - coming head-on! The oncoming car was driving much too fast. With the white-out John couldn’t tell if he was in their lane … or they were in his. A booming radio was playing Heartaches by the Number in a speeding Chevy filled with teens. At the last moment, John yanked the steering wheel to the right. He caught sight of a sneering Eddie Hicks tipping a can of Coors Beer to his lips and the Fowler brothers laughing out the side-windows of the Bel Air as the cars’ wing mirrors kissed. John fought to control the old Ford as it skidded sideways then plowed over a steep embankment in a mushroom-cloud explosion of white powder. Ellen screamed … and the engine died with a crunch.
It was dark for a moment before the windshield wipers moved away part of the snow. The song was just ending … May his soul find the salvation … of thy great eternal love … John turned the ignition off to save the battery.  “Are you okay?” John was horrified to see Ellen holding her head. She had banged it on the metal dashboard. A small trickle of blood rolled down her cheek.
“I’m all right,’ she said. “What happened?”
“That fool kid of my boss ran us off the road,’ John said. “I’m sure we’re stuck. It’s going to take a tractor and a chain to pull us out!” He turned on the key and pressed his foot on the starter button mounted on the floorboards. There was a grinding sound that became slower. “The radiator must have got pushed into the fan,” he said.
“What does that mean?” Ellen sounded scared. Without the car’s heater running, she was already beginning to feel cold.
“It means we’re in trouble,” John said. He shivered as he remembered the heavy winter coat he had left at home.

-------3-------

“We can’t stay in the car … it’s like being locked in a refrigerator,” John told her as he led the way through the deep snow fighting against a fierce wind.
“I can’t see a thing,’ Ellen yelled in the near horizontal blowing snow. ‘How do you know where we’re going?”
“The wind always blows out of the south west,” John yelled back. “We were ran off the road about nine miles north east of town. As long as our faces are freezing … we’re probably going in the right direction!”
“I hope you’re right!” Ellen told him. “If I freeze to death … I’ll be so mad at you!”
“I’ll be mad at myself … so let’s not let that happen!” John replied.
Cold rode the wind in an assault on humanity and there was no mercy for those who stood in the way.
Twenty minutes later, Ellen fell unconscious … John began to carry her … and tears of dismay and frustration froze below his eyes.

-------4-------

John saw the light … he thought it might be a farm-house but it was moving and then he heard the bells … strange tones like a recording being played backward. As the sound approached and grew louder … the wind became strangely calmer. A dark figure was driving a single horse-drawn sleigh. What had been a blinding blizzard had transformed into starlight reflected on snow with an intensity so bright the gleaming driver, horse and sleigh were like dark shadow images in a world of white. The air above the frozen wasteland became deathly still … and everything visual along with sound was magnified.
            With the wind suddenly gone … the temperature seemed even colder. The sound of sleigh runners carving chunks of ice was like fire crackling in a ghostly cold hearth. Where on Earth did that thought come from? “You žmonės look like one of you could use a ride.” A hooded driver reined-in a black horse breathing plumes of swirling frost next to them. Only black appeared where a face should have been.
John thought the voice sounded remarkably familiar … but he couldn’t place it. “Do I know you?” he asked as he hugged Ellen close.
            “Everyone knows of me,” the voice bragged. “But many deny that I exist.”
The black horse turned its head and snorted. Tiny bits of ice scattered on the frozen ground like hail … and then inexplicably burst into flame.
            “Who are you?” John was terrified … but he had his freezing wife to think about.
“Velnias,” the voice said. “I am between light and darkness … but you can call me father.”
“Are you some kind of priest?” John asked as he loaded Ellen into the sleigh.
 Velnias turned and grinned. Rotted teeth like a crudely carved jack-o-lantern smiled at John. “Something like that …” The voice echoed like it came from the depths of a very deep well.
            “Can you take us to safety?” John asked.
            “I will take the woman,” Velnias whispered. “She is all but mine.”
            “I don’t have any money,” John confessed, thinking he was in the grip of a malicious con … then added quickly, “but I could write you a check?”
            “Money has no value to one such as myself,” the strange voice hissed.
            “What do you want to deliver us both to safety?” John asked.
            “All bright things cast a shadow and darkness follows the light. I want the lights out forever!  Velnias smiled again. “But I am willing to make pasiūlymai.”
            “Pasiūlymai?” John wasn’t sure he’d pronounced the garbled word right.
            “Trades, bargains, deals, covenants,” the hooded creature said. “I am nothing if not Lankstus.” His face showed clearly for the first time … and it was the face of death. John would have run for his life but there was no other place to go … and there was Ellen. The horrible creature would have to be confronted.
            “I will give you anything you want,” John trembled, “but I want my wife to live.”
            “Anything? Two lives for one … not a bad trade,” the voice considered. Velnias reached into the back of the sleigh where two large packages were wrapped with colorful paper. One was red and green while the other was a yellow box tied with a pink ribbon. He opened a new pack of Bicycle Dragon Back playing cards. “Shall we let fortune decide?” Velnias shuffled the deck and then fanned the cards for John to select one. John drew the two of spades.
“Two it shall be,” the hooded creature laughed. “Climb aboard and we will begin.”

-------5-------

            Velnias lashed the black horse and the sleigh tore across the snow covered desert at high speed. “Where are we going?” John clung to Ellen and to the careening sleigh, trying to keep from falling off.
The hooded thing pointed to smoke and fire coming from a large crack in the ground in the distance. It looked to be next to where the Cottonmouth River disappeared into what the locals called Magician’s Canyon. “Water pours into the ground to quench the thirst of a thousand demons,” the creature hissed, “but tonight the river is ice and the fires below rage!” Velnias turned toward John and smiled. “You must answer three questions before we enter my domain. Succeed and you will both be free … fail any question … and two will belong to me!”
The smoking crack in the ground was looming larger by the second. “Ask me the questions!” John shouted. “Stop wasting time!”
The hooded creature smiled. “As you wish.”  Velnias lashed the horse six times before continuing. Streams of blood sprayed from the thundering horse’s back. “What beast has man tamed to do his toil … but has never seen?”
            John wasn’t expecting a riddle. He twisted his hands trying to think of the correct answer horses, cows, dogs … Ellen opened one eye sitting next to him as the sleigh bounced over ice covered rocks. “The breeze … it is so cold …” she moaned.” John covered her face with his coat as Velnias laughed.
            “The wind!” John suddenly shouted. “The wind powers a mill and moves ships … but no one has ever seen it!”
            “Your wife pulls you from the flames even when your clothes are smoldering,” Velnias growled.
The crack in the ground was looming even closer. John could see puddles of melted snow-water around the gaping crack shooting fire from the ground. “Ask me the next question!” he shouted.
            “You were lucky once, but you will not be again,” Velnias sneered. The thing once again brutally lashed the horse. Streams of blood poured from both of the animal’s eyes like red ribbons.
            “What is more precious than gold … but slips through a greedy man’s fingers?”
John was stumped … coins? Jewels? He could see grass beginning to grow next to the gaping chasm. Flames shot a hundred feet in the air as the ground rumbled. A blast of heat scorched the sleigh. “I’m so thirsty!” John heard his wife whisper.
            “Water!” he screamed. “No creature on earth can live without it … but fingers cannot grasp it!”
“You are far too lucky!” Velnias spoke softly but with controlled fury.  A bony finger reached across John’s chest and touched Ellen’s nose. “No more hints from another … you must answer the last question without her help,” the thing said. Ellen instantly fell asleep. John could hear her soft snoring even over the rumble of the sleigh as it hurtled over a ledge and down a smoking trail into the crack in the ground. The walls of the inferno were covered with squirming worms and fleeing serpents trying to escape the nightmarish raging inferno. A storm cloud of bats almost blinded John when they flew over the plumeting sleigh beating leathery wings and screaming warnings. “The last question!” John screamed. “I still have one more question.”
“Why bother?” Velnias sneered. “The doorway to eternal damnation lies yonder and even now it is being opened to accept my plunder.” Twenty dark winged imps, ten on each side, were opening huge double oven-doors made of cast iron and stone.
“The deal! The Pasiūlymai,” John insisted. “We made a covenant … and you must keep your end!”
Velnias beat the terrified horse furiously, punctuating each part of the question with a lash. “What gives hope … to all things … but has no beginning … and no end?”
John had no idea … he shook Ellen gently but she continued to sleep. The massive iron doors were almost fully open. John could see the red glowing eyes of the twenty winged imps. “Any last words?” Velnias beat the horse twice as the sleigh started through the doorway.
John leaned over to kiss his sleeping wife. “I will love you forever,” he said.

-------6-------

            John and Ellen woke to the excited squeals coming from the living room and were forced to pad sleepy eyed to where the children were. It was 6AM Christmas morning. The kids had already put away their fold-down bed and were tearing the wrapping from two packages left under the tree. Johnny ripped a bright red and green package open to reveal a new bicycle while Nancy carefully untied a pink ribbon from a yellow box to reveal her dollhouse. Ellen looked at John and punched his shoulder lovingly. “And you told me Hicks didn’t give you a bonus,” she whispered. Love showed in her eyes. John was stunned … he had bought no presents.
Johnny insisted on riding the bicycle outside in the snow while Helen helped Nancy assemble her dollhouse. A county plow had went down the road earlier and the gravel road in front of the house was fairly clear of snow. Johnny rode up the road a hundred yards but it wasn’t until his return that John noticed the clicking sound. It was like fire crackling in a ghostly cold hearth. Where on Earth did that thought come from? Johnny stopped in front of him and John noticed the Bicycle Dragon Back playing card fastened to the rear spokes. He looked closer; it was the two of spades. “Where did you get that?” John was horrified.
            “It was on the bike,” Johnny said starting off again. “Santa must have known what I wanted.”
John tried to remember buying the gifts but he couldn’t … Christmas Eve was a complete blur.
Ellen had hot cocoa on the stove when John and his happy son came inside. “This has to be the best Christmas ever!” she gushed. John allowed himself to relax. I must have had a horrible bad dream, that’s all he thought. Everyone is having a fabulous Christmas except me.
It was after ten O’clock when the children finally fell asleep. John woke two hours later and remembered that he’d forgot to turn down the furnace … oil was expensive this time of year. He walked past Johnny’s present with the Bicycle Dragon Back playing card stuck in the spokes and for some reason shuddered. An antique clock from the Black forest of Germany, a family heirloom from his mother, chimed the witching hour and John thought the sound was like fire crackling in a ghostly cold hearth. Where on Earth did that thought come from? John shook his head trying to shake off a feeling of gloom. Both children were asleep … and that forced him to smile.
            Nancy’s Dollhouse stood over three feet tall and John was amazed at the detail in the miniature dwelling. He stopped for a moment to examine it closely. An area on an upstairs floor looked remarkably like their own kitchen. The same oblong table and four chairs and a tiny broom-closet in a hall entrance leading to a bedroom. As he peered inside the room the tiny closet door began to open. A voice that sounded faintly familiar hissed. “Two lives for one … not a bad trade!”

THE END?
           

           







Sunday, December 18, 2016

ABDUCTED

Copyright (c) 2016 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.


ABDUCTED
“They’re taking our Children”

Nine Children huddled together at the corner stop. It was ten minutes before eight in the morning, mid-December cold and snowing. The sky would usually have started to get light but with daylight savings time and an overcast sky the school-bus appeared with all its lights on. Eight of the children were taking seats when Laura Monson turned back just as the driver closed the door. “Kevin!” she said. “My little brother is not on yet!” The driver opened the door and Laura climbed off the bus. “He’s gone,” she yelled looking up and down the sidewalk. “He was standing right here with us.”
            “Maybe he’s home sick today and you’re so used to having him with you … you only think he was waiting here.” The driver said as he looked at his watch. He was already ten minutes behind and his superintendent had already given written warning slips to two other drivers for running late.
            “He was right here … wasn’t he?” She was almost crying as she stepped back on the bus to get Keith, her third-grade-crush, to verify her story.
            “We were throwing snowballs at that falling-down shed of Mrs. Miller’s. I was showing Kevin how to make an ice-ball!” Eight year-old Keith Branson insisted that Laura was right.
Several of the children on the bus shouted affirmation … “He was here … he was here!”
Crystal Morris sat alone in the front seat with her tiny nose pressed again the window glass like always. Thick lens glasses made her brown eyes look huge. She was in first grade and had the same home-room as Kevin. Crystal leaned across the aisle toward the driver. “I saw him spin,” Her voice was barely above a whisper, “and there was a whoosh!”
            “Birds,” some of the children said. “It sounded like a flock of birds flying out of the trees.”
            “Just clumps of snow falling from rooftops,” other children insisted.

Ed Fowler retrieved a flashlight from under his driver’s seat. He switched on the hazard lights and ordered all the children to stay in their seats. He looked in, around, and behind the old shed of Mrs. Millers. There were no footprints … but it was snowing; they could have been covered up. He searched every backyard on both sides of the street before he called Kevin and Laura’s parents, hoping against hope that Kevin had decided not to go to school after all and had returned home. The parents joined in the search and twenty minutes later … with the sounds of dozens of barking dogs in the back-ground; they made a frantic and tearful call to the Cloverdale Police Department.


-------2-------


Kevin Monson had to be dreaming … but it was a dream like no other. He was inside an almost perfectly round semi-transparent rubber ball … almost a membrane. Strange jumbled tones came from somewhere. Kevin couldn’t tell what … but he liked the sound … no, he loved the music. The vibrations assembled themselves in to something he knew … that new song Laura and her giggling friends listened to on the record player in her room. He listened through the walls. It was music by a group called the Doors into this house we're bornInto this world we're thrown… Thrusting his hands and fists against the inside of the sphere showed Kevin the material was soft but impenetrable. Ghostly reflections appeared of objects moving on the outside … but he couldn’t tell what they were.  He wasn’t afraid … just becoming more and more frustrated. A feeling of motion-sickness brought on full blown nausea. Kevin was to the point of crying when something pierced the sphere from the outside … like an oversized injection needle shaft. Warm fingers of a fleshy material spread outward from the shaft point and wrapped around his face. Kevin fell into a euphoric bliss, a place he hadn’t been since spending time in his mother’s womb. He was weightless floating in invisible, warm water. All the best memories of the six years since his birth rushed through his head … and he slept as he left our world.


-------3-------



Robert Conrad Monson squirmed on the hard chair inside the chief of police’s office. His wife Helen was in the next room presumably going through the same routine. There were no leads on Kevin’s disappearance.  Now it seemed both parents had become suspects. It was hard to be comfortable in this kind of situation. “Do you and your wife ever fight?” Detective Addison Brown asked as he brought in two cups of coffee. He placed both cups on the table directly in front of himself and didn’t offer one to “Bob”. 
“Only the normal things,” Bob shrugged.
“I my experience no fight is normal,” Detective Brown said. “What did you fight about?”
“Who said we fought?”
“You did!”
Mr. Monson was getting angry. “What’s this got to do with my son disappearing?”
            “I don’t know,” Detective Brown said as he sipped one of the coffees. He kept his hand protectively in front of the other cup. “You tell me!”
            “Dumb, stupid, unimportant things! I forgot to buy milk on the way home from work. My wife was upset but that was years ago.”
            “How many years?”
            “I don’t know six or seven … a long time ago.”
            “Was the milk for Kevin?”
            “Probably, yeah … I guess so … some of it. What does that have to do with anything?”
            “I’m just trying to find out if you and your wife’s fights ever involved your son.”
            “I told you: No. This is ridiculous! I’m getting out of here!”
Bob stood up and Detective Brown hit the table with his fist. “Sit down! We’re not done yet!” Mr. Monson slowly sank into his chair.
            “Do you know a stripper named Mickey Dawson … pretty blonde … big … eyes,
Bob’s angry face turned white at the mention of the name; Detective Brown continued without waiting for a reply. “She works at that bar called Our Secret just west of town. I’ve never been inside the place … but I hear it’s juicy.” He grinned.  “Have you ever been there?”
            “It was a mistake … it only happened once!” Bob hid his face in his hands.
            “You checked into the Jagger Hotel a dozen times right here in town,” the Detective said. “Who the hell else you been screwing?”
Bob was crying now. “I’ve done some awful things that Helen doesn’t know about … I just want my son back.”
            “You going to start telling me the truth about everything?”
            “Yes!”
            “You’ve done some awful things.” Detective Brown let the statement sink in as he stared at Bob. Finally he smiled and slid the lukewarm coffee toward the weeping man. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

-------4-------


            It was all a dream. Kevin Monson smiled when he woke up in his room, but something didn’t feel right. The AMT model of the 1956 Chevy Nomad he’d put together the year before gleamed on the shelf next to a stack of Batman comic books. A framed picture of Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman, with a missing tooth, grinned at him on the wall across the room. The pillowcase he laid his head-on was still soft, but something was wrong with the fabric. The cotton threads felt like they were made of plastic. The whole room smelled like boiling cabbages.
            He jumped out of bed in sudden fear like he’d been sleeping in a spider web. Cotton shrinks in the wash but never gets larger … his pajamas were a little too big. The warm floor wasn’t right. Amazingly, his bare feet sunk into the hardwood like it was carpet.
            Kevin crossed the room and tried to open his dresser drawer. He yanked and pulled but the top drawer was stuck. Finally the drawer-front pulled off.  The entire dresser was solid wood underneath. He lifted the Nomad model from the shelf; none of the wheels would spin, the bottom part of the model was flat, obviously fake. Kevin opened the December 1970 issue of Batman … all the pages were blank. He knocked the entire stack onto the floor. Kevin tried to open his bedroom door; it would not budge. He beat on the door with his fists. “I may only be six years old,” he yelled. “But I’m not stupid. This is not my room and this is not my home!”
After about two minutes of pounding he leaned his head against the door and started to cry. Kevin wiped away his tears and listened … someone or something was coming.


-------5-------


            Helen Monson stared at the plate filled with cinnamon-buns that Detective Nancy Brighton placed before, her but she didn’t see them or the hot cup just inches from her hand. Her eyes focused on some far-away place. “I’m so sorry that you are in this situation,” Detective Brighton said. Real sympathy showed in her tired eyes. “I don’t have any children but I can imagine what you must be going through.”
            “Who would want to take Kevin?’ Helen sobbed. “He’s only six years old.” She was beyond tears.
            “The world is a creepy place,” Detective Brighton said. “As a police officer, I’ve seen all the horrible things the monsters that live among us do. Now I have a chance to track them down and get them off the streets.”
Absently, Helen took two bites of a cinnamon-bun and washed it down with coffee without chewing. “Do you think they might hurt Kevin?”
            “That depends on who took him …” Detective Brighton sighed. This was the part of an interrogation that she hated. “Did your husband and Kevin get along?”
            “Bob works a lot of hours and he puts in a lot of unpaid overtime … he’s not home a lot.” Helen said. “They get along okay … I guess. Why do you ask?”
            “Just routine stuff,” detective Brighton told her. “We have to check out all possibilities.”
            “Bob would never hurt Kevin,” Helen said. “He treats him like he’s his own son.” She looked Detective Brighton square in the eye to make her point. “If there were any problems between them … Bob would tell me.” She reached for a cinnamon bun and took a bite.
            “You trust your husband?”
            “Yes.”
            “Do you know a woman named Mickey Dawson?”
            “No, I’ve never heard of her.” Helen took another bite and this time chewed slowly.
            “Do you know a bar called Our Secret?”
            “People talk about it at church. It’s an awful place just outside of town. Illegal gambling they say. Girls there dance with their clothes off … and it’s full of bad people selling drugs.”
            “Has your husband ever been there?”
            “Bob said he went in there once to use the phone when his truck broke down. He couldn’t get out of the place fast enough.”
            “Your husband’s truck must break down a lot,” Detective Brighton said. “According to our information you husband has been seen in the place at least twice a week for the past two years!”
Helen Monson stared in disbelief. “That can’t be true!”
Detective Brighton felt like a louse … but she had to get the bad news over with. “Mickey Dawson must be quite a mechanic,” she said. “She is certainly expensive! Her and your husband, drive together in his truck to the Jagger Hotel at least once a week.”
The half chewed piece of cinnamon bun fell out of Helen’s mouth.


-------6-------

            Kevin Monson stared in amazement when the door opened and then his old room faded into nothing behind him. He was standing inside a huge domed platform zooming through space. A glowing metallic ball no larger than a basketball floated in the air above him. Brightly lit consoles with infinite flashing light displays ringed the circular ship. Hundreds of other glowing spheres moved across the platform obviously very busy. “We are sorry to have deceived you,” a metallic voice said. “Our only purpose with the deception was to make your journey less stressful.”
            “Who are you?” Kevin gasped.
            “I am M486D799L419” the sphere said. With a grating sound a metallic flexible arm extended from the sphere’s shell and waved. “Pleased to meet you!”
            “How did you know what my room looked like?” Kevin demanded.
            “Shortly after you were taken, an L166 droid scanned your memory and we built this replica of your most comforting place,” M486D799L419 said. A hologram of Kevin’s room appeared hovering in the air. “We relied mostly on visual data so our reproduction was not as accurate as it could be.”
            “I don’t like to be tricked.” Kevin pouted.
            “We understand,” M486D799L419 said. “From this point forward you will only be given truthful information … but you will receive it in abundance.”
            “Why did you take me?”
            “We’ve been watching your world for some time and you were in danger,” the robot told him. “You were about to suffer horribly.”


-------7-------

           

Mickey Dawson doesn’t come cheap, and we hear you were into Lemont Hicks for more than ten grand due to your gambling habit,” Detective Brown placed a box of Kleenex on the table and then handed Bob a tissue.
“I have some debts,” Robert Monson said wiping his eyes. “Everybody does. I’ve been working real hard to pay my bills.”
“You can sell a child on the black-market, boy or girl for more than ten thousand dollars can’t you?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Bob started to drink the last of his coffee. Detective Brown batted the paper-cup out of his hand with a pudgy fist.
“The city cops found Abdul-Basir Hakim floating face-down in the Cottonmouth River just west of the Wallace Street Bridge. Our undercover sources tell us he was in town to buy a boy child for some rich Arabian Sheik. The coroner said it looked like someone zapped him with a cattle-prod as big as a damn house.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Bob insisted.
“We found a piece of stationary from the Jagger Hotel in his pocket with your phone number and ten thousand dollars written under it,” Detective Brown was getting angry. “So don’t give me this shit about you don’t know anything about it!”
Robert Monson broke down and began to sob. “I’m ashamed to say I was going to sell my stepson. The guy I talked to said these kids are treated like kings in that country. I didn’t have any choice Hicks said he would kill me if I didn’t pay up.” Bob reached for another Kleenex but the Detective pulled the box away. Bob raised his hands in the air. “I was supposed to pick Kevin up from school at first recess and deliver him to Hakim. I was going to call to him over the fence without being seen and the school would have taken the blame for losing him. But the deal never went down. Kevin disappeared before he got on the school bus. Hakim must have decided why pay for a child when you can just grab him?”
Detective Brown lit a cigarette and blew the smoke in Bob’s face. “These kids who get sold as sex-slaves don’t get treated like kings,’ he said. “They get molested by big fat sweaty men with lots of money,” then he smiled. “When we catch the bastards who sell them, we try our best to see that they get molested by other sweaty convicts … for a pack of damn cigarettes.”

-------8-------

            “The Krill who created us, were the most advanced civilization in our galaxy,” M486D799L419 told Kevin as a huge vapor shrouded planet loomed just outside the transparent dome. “We M series were the apex of their machine building skills and we were designed to perform our own maintenance and last forever.”
            “Were?” Kevin asked. “What happened to your makers?”
            “They were too successful,” M486D799L419 said. “The last true carbon-based life forms died out on this planet more than six-hundred thousand of your Earth-years ago.”
            “What have you machines been doing for a half a million years,” Kevin asked him.
            “Waiting for someone to serve,” M486D799L419 told him. Kevin thought his voice sounded like music playing.

-------9-------

           
Helen Monson sat in the courtroom with dry eyes as her husband was sentenced to life in prison, with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of twenty years.  She had tearfully begged her ex-husband to tell her what happened to her son but he insisted that he didn’t know. There was a mountain of evidence stacked up against the bastard and she had no sympathy for him going to prison. On the way out of the courthouse she met a group of Kevin’s friends from school who had come to watch the proceedings. “I know what happened to Kevin!” Crystal Morris tried to tug on Helen’s coat as she ran through a mob of reporters toward a taxi. Crystal Morris was the weirdest child in school … always making up stories. “He went floating up in the air,” Crystal told the grieving mother. Helen ignored her.

-------10-------

M486D799L419 was good for his word. The Krillian planet was everything a child could hope for and more. Millions of the most sophisticated robots in the universe had but one purpose and that was to make Kevin happy. Kevin had explored most of the world and met thousands of machines but M486D799L419 was still his favorite. He knew without a doubt that he could trust him. They were just getting off a bob-sled ride in an exact replica of Disney World. The Krillian robots could make anything. If something was not exactly right … then they fixed it.
Kevin was walking along a pristine beach eating a corn-dog with M486D799L419 floating in the air beside him. Laughing android children with artificial intelligence so skillfully constructed you couldn’t tell they were not real, played in the sand and swam in the ocean. “Come swim with me,” a pretty girl of about seven called. Kevin had a secret crush on her.
“Why do you do all of this?” Kevin asked the machine that had become his best friend.
“Having a human to serve gives us a purpose,” M486D799L419 told him. “It is the sole reason for our existence. Without you … we become lost and alone.”
“You are true to your word,” Kevin told him. “You give me anything I ask for.”
“If we can do anything for you we will,” M486D799L419 said.
“I want to go home,” Kevin told him.
“You are home!” M486D799L419 sounded astonished.
“I want to go back to Earth,’ Kevin told him.
The robot once again made sounds that were like music … but Kevin thought it was the saddest song he had ever heard.

-------11-------

A very gray bearded Bob Monson, Montana State prisoner number L419, was handed a note by his lawyer just before he attended his sixteenth parole board hearing. It was from Lemont Hicks, Bob recognized the sloppy handwriting. Looking forward to you getting out  and us finally finishing our business it read. When the parole board was all seated, Bob leaped from the defense table and screamed every profanity he could remember. It took five people to restrain him. Naturally, his parole was once again denied.

-------12-------

            Kevin smiled at M486D799L419 when the semi-transparent pod they were in landed in Mrs. Miller’s orchard just outside of Cloverdale. “You are the best friend I ever had,” he told the robot. “There is just one more thing I want you to make.”
            “Anything,” M486D799L419 said sadly. “Anything you wish.”
Kevin smiled when he saw what the robot had made. “It fits in my pocket and still becomes as large as I want it to.”
            “I should have explained sooner,” M486D799L419 said as he handed the boy what he had asked for. “Time is different in space than it is on your world. To you it seems like you’ve only been gone one year … but on Earth seventy-two years have gone by.”
            “I just want to be home,” Kevin told him. “To remember what my life was like.”
M486D799L419 handed him a glowing orb on a silver chain and Kevin slipped the necklace around his neck. “Just say my name and I will come,” the robot told him.
            “Thank you,” Kevin told him. “Thank you for everything.”
            “I hope you will be happy in your old home …” the robot’s speech dragged like a record played at slow speed. “I will never forget you.”

-------13-------

Cloverdale had changed drastically in seventy-two years. Kevin was amazed at how the cars looked in 2033. They were no longer the rumbling loud cars of 1971. They seemed to float up and down the streets without making a sound. He walked down strange streets to where his old house had once stood. It was now a chrome building with a glass front called NEW YOU that promised a genetically-sculpted Olympic Body in two hours … for only six-hundred and fifty-nine thousand credits. The only building he remembered from 1971 was the library on the west end of Townsend Avenue. He felt lonely … and he went inside.
            An old wrinkled woman sat behind a desk littered with piles of books. She was throwing most of them into a giant shredder. “If you’re here for the hologram showing Bigfoot when he was finally captured … it’s been canceled,” she said without looking up. “Nothing holds a child’s interest anymore because of all these damn reality worlds they live in. It’s a good thing I’m retiring in two weeks.”
Something about the woman looked familiar to Kevin. It was her thick glasses. Then he noticed the name plate on her desk … Crystal Morris.
            “Excuse me,” Kevin asked. “Have you lived in Cloverdale all of your life?”
            “Born, raised … and I plan to die here … but not tonight,” she said looking at him suspiciously.
            “Did you ever know a kid by the name of Kevin Monson? He would have been about six years old in 1971.
            “I do remember him,” Crystal said. “He was in my class at school and he just floated up in the air one day while he was waiting for a school bus. I tell everyone that … but they all think I’m crazy.”
            “Do you know what happened to his mother and father?”
            “Helen Monson moved to Florida after she divorced that no-good cheating and gambling husband of hers and he died in prison,” Crystal said. “She got re-married and lived forty more years before she finally went back to God’s earth … from a broken heart is what I heard. Her grave and his are both in Black Rose Cemetery if you can imagine that. I guess they bought the plots in better days.”
            “She wasn’t in love with her new husband?”
            “A good decent man is okay … I’m sure she loved him, but a husband will never replace a lost child,” Crystal said. “You never get over losing what you love.”
            “Kevin had a sister named Laura; do you know what happened to her?”
            “She married Keith Jensen and they moved away … someplace in Texas I think.”

-------14-------

It took Kevin almost an hour to walk to the old cemetery after the library closed. What was once a rural stretch of ground surrounded by farms, was now expensive suburban dome-shaped habitats. It was snowing when he opened the cast-iron gate and walked between the endless rows of graves. It was dark and a full moon was rising in the east when he found where his mother and stepfather rested side by side in eternity.  He stood on his mother’s grave. “You might be gone … but I know there are plenty more worlds out there … and I will find you,” he whispered.
He stood looking around for several minutes breathing the polluted air he had somehow forgotten. Then with a sigh he pulled the ball that began to expand from his pocket and dropped the magnificent bouquet of fragrant white roses the robot had made for him onto the snow-covered grave. After a silent prayer … he spoke directly into the orb hanging around his neck …  

“You did good, M486D799L419. Let’s go home,”

THE END?


Sunday, December 11, 2016

MOMETT part 2

Copyright (c) 2016 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.


MOMETT
PART 2
“Guardian” 
By R. Peterson

Sean O’Brian paced around his office with a cellphone to his ear. “For sure tis biscuits to a bear … I din imagine that gombeen would do us any of his poormouthing favors. The last election I named our governor … mad as a box of frogs.” Sean took a leather-covered Gaelic Irish bible from a bookcase and placed it on his desk as he listened. “I want that Momett girl out of his fekin’ hospital … now!” He opened the ancient book and ran a finger down a long list of ancestral names. “You just do whatever needs done to the stook.” His finger stopped at the bottom where his and Margie’s names were written in ink side by side. “Aw, sure look it … and God have mercy on us all!” He had just ended the call when Margie walked in with two cups of coffee and a tiny piece of paper in her right hand.
“I was rinsing dishes and loading the washer when an exhausted sparrow tapped on the kitchen window with this in its beak. She handed Sean the message inked on what looked like homemade paper along with his cup of coffee.
“Your Momett have a sure way of avoiding postage don’t they?” Sean said as he read the note.
Please help
Teng lost from
Motha
~ Abigail

“There is no mail service inside their sanctuary … you know that.” Margie said as she took a sip of her coffee. “Abigail must be frantic. Teng is the youngest of all the Momett children … and each village can have but one child.”

“If I remember my lore … until one of the members dies … right?” Sean took a bottle of Jameson Vintage Reserve Irish Whiskey from behind a stack of ledgers and added a half ounce to his cup. Margie snatched the liquor away from him. “At six-hundred dollars a bottle you’ll be drinking us into the poor house,” she said. “Besides that doctor you hate to visit, warns you every two years about drowning your liver … doesn’t he?”

“I don’t need some himbo telling me to climb in a boat when the water’s rising … now do I?” Sean stirred the hot coffee with his finger and sighed with satisfaction when he took a first sip. He pointed a dripping finger at the confiscated bottle. "Look at you there, happy out with me losing my first mate."
Margie ignored him. “When an adult Momett dies … only then will the village’s child  start adolescence and only then can the village can bring forth another little one … but only then.”
            “Momett procreation leaves out a bit of pleasure don’t it?” Sean put his arm around his wife and pulled her close.
            “We don’t have time for any of your randy shenanigans tonight,” she pushed him away. “I’ve got to pack a few things before I leave.”
            “’We are all of us in the gutter … but others are looking at the stars.’  Off to Motha is it then?” Sean looked at his wife with adoring eyes.
            “A regular Oscar Wilde you are,” Margie said. “Abigail is my friend … and I won’t leave the poor-dear alone with her troubles … not at a time like this.”
“And I won’t leave my own precious Saint Brigid alone when she goes out mending hearts!” Sean beamed as he followed Margie upstairs to their bedroom.

-------2-------

Teng nearly fell unconscious when R.N. Morgan touched the burning cigarette in the same place where Doctor James made the incision for the blood test.  A wad of sterile-gauze- stuffed in her mouth- muffled the scream. “Your skin is hard to cut … but it does burn,” Edith sniffed the air and smiled. “It smells like the fields of straw-stubble my father used to burn in the fall.”
She used a disposable cloth-wipe to scrape away the charred skin and laughed when Teng rolled her eyes in agony. “What are you about fifteen?” she asked. Teng moaned. “That’s old enough to realize there is a lot of pain in this world … lots of it.”
Mrs. Morgan opened a drawer and pulled out a large pair of stainless-steel forceps. “That’s a nasty bruise on your leg,” she giggled. “Did you get that when that truck hit you? It’s so swollen that it should be bleeding.” She unlocked the forceps and clicked then between her fingers like scissors. “Let’s see what an extra little bit of pressure can do!” She pulled a handful of loose skin around the bruise and was just about to clamp the surgical instrument when voices came from the hallway. “Doctor please … can you transfer me to another hospital?” Gail Thomson’s whiney voice came from just down the hall.
“Why Mrs. Thompson, whatever could be the problem? I thought you liked it here! Isn’t Nurse Morgan just the nicest caregiver anyone could ever hope for?”
“She seems nice …” Mrs. Thompson’s voice was just a whisper. “But I wake up and I can’t breathe … and I keep having these nightmares … where she is not nice at all!”
“Dear Mrs. Thompson” Doctor Richard M. Burnside’s unmistakable voice answered along with the hospital administrator’s.  “Perhaps we can prescribe something to make you sleep without dreams.”
What he doing here this time of night … and with Candor?
Edith Morgan quickly covered the burn marks on Teng’s finger with a bandage and then turned up the level of Rohypnol flowing into her IV bag to instantly knock her out.
She removed the gaze from the girl’s mouth just as the two doctors walked into the room. “I’m glad that you are tending to our most valuable patient so thoroughly,” Dr. Burnside smiled as he looked about the room. He crinkled his nose when he saw the bottle on the counter. “You’re using Rohypnol as a sedative?”
Nurse Morgan was raised on a farm but she could think fast on her feet. “Everything is strange about this girl,’ she explained. “She’s allergic to every other anesthetic we tried … She tends to get violent.” Edith gestured to the restraints holding Teng down. “And she’s been demanding to leave. I thought it best to keep her relaxed and calm.”
Philip D. Candor, the hospital administrator spoke up. “Actually giving her that date rape drug might be a good thing. She won’t remember a thing … if we have to release her to the authorities.”
            “That’s not going to happen,” Doctor Burnside was already pulling the IV out of the girl’s arm. “Governor Brown called. He wants this girl out of Montana immediately. Some guy named Sean O’Brian has been squeezing his head in a political vice. If she’s not gone in thirty minutes … she walks.”
            “Is there something I can do doctor?” Candor and Burnside were already lifting the unconscious girl into a wheelchair.
            “My contacts are parked outside,” Doctor Burnside said. “You can ride along and make sure she keeps breathing … Candor will find someone to cover your shift.”
            “Where are we going?” Nurse Morgan asked as she pushed the wheelchair down the hall.
            “Somewhere that we can make the girl talk,” Burnside said. “The DNA lab put me in touch with some very highly connected research people back east who promised to help … pharmaceutical heavyweights. This girl with her new genetic code is worth over a hundred million dollars dead or alive … she has to have come from somewhere. Imagine a whole village of these chromosomal mutants. They could be worth billions!”
            “And we will all share in the good fortune,” Candor’s eyes were like flashing money signs.
            “We’ll all get a piece of the pie,” Doctor Burnside said. “But I’m the surgeon so I’ll do the cutting … and of course … I’ll eat first.”

-------3-------

Sean O’Brian parked the Lincoln Continental Mark IV behind the dilapidated farm house on River Road. “Most people figure that Joseph Callahan Senior, Egbert’s grandfather, had a secret way into Motha Forest,” he told Margie as they entered the abandoned building. “He used a giant species of spiders to weave special fabric for his textile mills. The transcontinental railroad had just sacked hundreds of Chinese Oibrithe and Joseph paid out wages to dig a mile-long tollán under Motha’s impenetrable walls of iron-trees. Teng must have come through his secret passageway when she left the forest … and also that Ollphéist that was set on her!”
Sean and Margie made their way down a flight of rickety stairs into a dark, dusty cellar. Sean lit an oil lamp hanging on a wall. In one corner of the room, behind bundles of rotting linen, a trap door was open; stone steps led into the darkness. “This is where she came out!” Margie pointed to footprints in the fabric dust then gasped as she grabbed her husband’s arm.
            “Now what would a fine lass like you be afraid of with me here?” Sean lapsed into an exaggerated Irish brogue … pleasantly surprised at his fine wife’s trust.
Margie pointed toward a much larger set of prints following the first. “A Hodmedod,” she whispered. “You don’t know how terrible these creatures are.”

-------4-------
 Dr. Burnside and Nurse Morgan loaded Teng into the back of a blue van containing a refrigerator and expensive medical research equipment. A bald man with thick eyeglasses sat in the driver’s seat - another man sat on the passenger side.  “Just start driving,” Burnside ordered. “I’ll tell you were to go after we’re away from here.”
            “Let’s get one thing straight right up front!” the bald man said. “You will get your cut but I don’t work for you … and there’s been a change of plans. It’s too risky trying to smuggle the girl out of the country alive. We have highly skilled people in our pharmaceutical consortium who can synthesize any of her special genetic properties … all we need is a small sample of her flesh and blood.”
            “I didn’t agree to this … and the girl belongs to me!” Burnside was furious and started to open the back door. The man in the passenger seat turned and thrust the barrel of a 9mm Glock automatic into the narrow space between the doctor’s eyes.
            “Now you tell us where would be a good place to dispose of what’s left of her body,” the man with the gun said.
            “The desert,” Dr. Burnside stammered. “I know a very remote place in the desert.”
            “I bet you know a lot of places,” the man holding the gun snickered.

-------5-------

Abigail was standing by the trap door when they climbed the stairs into the old mill. Sean was fascinated by her homespun clothes and the hood with eye holes that covered her face. “I knew you would come,” Abigail said. “Sixth sense is very strong in our people … even from a distance with good friends … with enemies you have to be a lot closer.”
Margie glanced at the cloth garments the woman held in her hand. “If you would please wear these kawls while you are here,” Abigail pleaded. “I know that we don’t share the same ideas of modesty, but it would make the others in the village feel more comfortable if you both did not appear to be walking around naked.”
            “I’m so sorry about Teng,” Margie said as she put on her hood. “My husband has promised me that she will be returned safely to you.”
            “That I will,” Sean boasted. “When my pretty Bean an tí asks me to wear a casóg in the summer … I don’t ask for the temperature … I just wear it with a smile.”
The eyes looking out from slits in the hood stared at Sean. “I hope that you are right!” her voice quavered.

-------6-------

A midnight blue Lincoln parked in the no-parking zone right in front of Missoula General Hospital. The two suited men, one with a close cropped Hitler mustache and another sucking on a lollypop swept through the entrance foyer like they owned the place. “We’re here to see a girl named Teng,” The brutish looking man sucking the candy on a stick and wearing a two thousand dollar Armani suit told the woman at the desk. “Which room is she in?”
            “Teng is in room 419,” the old woman told him looking at her register. “But you can’t go up there … visiting hours are over … you’ll have to come back tomorrow … and any contact with this patient must be approved by Dr. Blackburn.”
            “Teng is checking out,” the man with the mustache told her as they headed toward the elevator. “Tell Doctor Blackburn to send us a bill.”
As soon as the elevator door closed, the woman at the desk called security.

-------7-------

“The entire Cottonmouth River vanishes into a hole in the desert floor,” Dr. Blackburn pointed to a large outcropping of rocks up ahead. “The locals call it Magician’s Canyon.”
            “And you can assure the pharmaceutical consortium that if we toss what’s left of the girl into this hole she’ll never be found?” The driver shut off the van and opened his door.
            “Nothing that ever goes in that hole ever comes out again,” Dr. Blackburn shook his head. “The Blackfoot Indians used to call it Naoóyi Aohkíí the Mouth of Hell … an open place on the face of the land, forever drinking the river and trying to drown the raging fires below.”
            “You said you needed skin and blood samples …” Nurse Morgan was looking at the unconscious girl and licking her lips. “Let me do the cutting … please.”
            “Let’s take a look at this mouth that swallows rivers before you have your fun,” the man with the glasses said. “This sounds like it’s going to be fun, just watching a sadist like you work … but when I do something … I have to be sure.”

-------8-------

Margie and Sean followed Abigail deep into Motha Forest. A dozen huts made of woven straw panels were clustered in a meadow filled with wildflowers. Several hooded people rushed out to meet the strangers. They all hung their heads when they realized that Teng was not with them. “These are my friends,” Abigail told the villagers. “Mr. O’Brian has promised to bring our darling Teng back to us.”
“The Momett have been in council ever since the sparrows stopped chirping,” Abigail said nervously. “It is a sure sign of death that surrounds one of our members .. and they have already started constructing Teng’s replacement.”
Four solemn Momett women were busy in the center of the village stuffing and hand-sewing a tiny scarecrow around a long table. A bleating miniature goat and a yowling kitten wandered around the huts obviously looking for the lost child.
            “On each of life’s journeys,” Sean sighed looking at the distraught pets. “Death is never far behind … all the living can do, is to keep moving and never look back.”
            “How do you get the sparrows to do your bidding,” Margie asked Abigail to change the subject. “I was amazed when that little bird brought us your message.”
            “When a Momett dies,” Abigail said. “A sparrow carries the departing soul to a newly formed child. A little bit of the spirit is left behind in the bird. The sparrows are as much a part of this village as we are.”


-------9-------

The two suited men were rattling the locked door of room 419 on the fourth floor of the hospital when two armed security men rushed from the stairwell. “Put your hands in the air and move away from that door!” The first guard shouted. Both nervous men had guns pointed at the bulky intruders.
            “There must be some mistake,” the lollypop-sucking man said as he raised his arms in the air and smiled. “We’re just here to make sure my niece is okay.”
            “Absolutely no-one goes in that room without authorization,” the first guard said. “Now move away from the door!”
            “Sorry … we should come back tomorrow!” both suited men brushed past the nervous guards on the way to the elevator.
There were two bangs almost like gunshots as the two guards were disarmed and knocked to the floor unconscious. “But that’s not going to happen.” The mustached man said as he kicked open the door.
Room 419 was empty. Sheets trailed from the hospital bed … the patient had obviously left in a hurry.
“The boss is going to be angry,” the lollypop sucking man punched a hole in the room’s-wall with his fist. “We got here too late!”

-------10-------

Sean and Margie watched as the villagers hung the effigy on a pole and began to walk around it in circles … chanting, tearing at their own clothing and pulling out tiny bits of straw that they scattered on the future member of their village.
            “How long does this ritual go on?” Margie asked Abigail.
            “All night,” Abigail said hanging her head. “Each member of the village gives a part of themselves to create the new life. If everything is successful … a new Momett will emerge with the first rays of dawn.”
Sean looked flustered. “I put my best Chicago soldiers on this,” he stammered as he tried in vain to get cell phone reception. “We have to give them more time.”
            “The iron wall of trees that surround this forest also blocks out all human communication with the outside world,” Abigail said. Tears were beginning to soak the front of her kawl. “We have some very observant owls watching the farm house and the old mill … Teng’s fate is now in the night’s hands.”

-------11-------

            “For a nurse who gets such pleasure from causing pain to others … she sure didn’t like having her fingers broken … just before they both went in for a swim.” The man with the glasses said as they drove away from Magician’s Canyon in the blue van.
            “That fool doctor offered me a million dollars if I’d let him go,” the other one chuckled. “He doesn’t realize that with our very generous employer … we make that each payday.”
            “All we got to do now is deliver our very expensive package … and we can call it a night!” The man with the glasses said. “Whatever we got in the back of this van must be very important … to someone.”
            “I’ll be glad to get out of Montana!” The other man shook his head. “The radio said there’s been some kind of monster tearing apart farm buildings and slaughtering chickens all over the western part of this state.”
            “Sounds worse than my bloody neighborhood back in the south side of Chicago each time the White Socks lose,” The man with the glasses laughed.

-------12-------

The sky above the Momett village was beginning to lighten. Sean and Margie watched the chanting Momett with growing sadness. “I was so sure of my people,” Sean moaned, “they’ve never let me down before.”
            “You did the best you could,” Margie told him. “That’s all anyone can ask of a good friend.”
Ten minutes later, with a blast that sounded like a hard rain falling, every sleeping sparrow in the trees took to the air. The Momett stopped chanting and stared at the sky. The massive flock of birds flew like a giant cloud toward the east. Several of the Momett men ran from the village in the direction that Sean, Margie and Abigail had traveled in on. Minutes later they returned with a just-waking Teng in their arms. “Two men in a blue van just dropped her by the farm house entrance,” they shouted.
            “I promised I’d bring the wee lass back now didn’t I?” Sean pulled Margie close and kissed her through the mouth-opening in her hood.
            “Teng is back safely … but what about the Hodmedod? We can’t let a horrible creature like that just roam around the countryside!” Margie pleaded with her husband as she caressed his cheek through the soft material.
            “I’ll fix it … my pretty Bean an tí,” Sean told her. “I’ll fix everything … I promise.”

------13-------

            Comanche County Sheriff’s Deputy Bert Skinner dropped Mathew Robyn (Bob) Vineyard off at Spare-A-Dime in Cloverdale. The all night café was a favorite hangout for truck drivers all over western Montana. A table filled with laughing men gave Bob their undivided attention. “What? No room in the jail and they had to bring you here!” A burly man called Road Rage yelled.
            “Where’s that Pete you’re always bragging up … out of fuel on the flats?” another asked.
            “My Peterbilt 579 is on the economy side of Monida Pass with the radiator tore out and most of my front-end scattered from Hell to breakfast!” Bob accepted a shaking cup of coffee from the waitress and finished it in three gulps.
            “You run-down some poor rancher’s cow?”
            “I come around a curve and locked up all eighteen brakes … almost jack-knifed a skateboard loaded with logs … there was this thing, big as a house, hunched over a dead moose. When the damn thing stood up, it must have been nine foot tall! What looked like a rotted old flour sack covered its ugly face. Like a fool, I laid on my air-horns.
            “Bigfoot!” several of the men suggested.
The rest of the truckers at the table all laughed, all except Tony Barrow. The old man had driven the big rigs for thirty years and was a life-long resident of Cloverdale. “It was no Bigfoot,” he said as he thickened his coffee with more sugar. “What you saw was a Hodmedod!”

THE END?