Sunday, October 28, 2018

CHRISTINE

Copyright (c) 2018 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.




CHRISTINE


At first her heart had been pounding. Now Christine Louise Brown stood with her back to the cinder-block wall trying to act casual. She was embarrassed. Her best friends: Nancy, Beth and Susan had all been asked to dance by seventh-grade boys standing nervously at the visiting-team side of the gymnasium. As the minutes dragged on and science teacher Mr. Duff played Beach Boys and Beatles on his portable 45 RPM record-player, all three returned breathless only to be asked to dance again by different boys. Christy slowly felt the happiness draining out of her life. Last year in sixth grade she had been very popular with other girls because her mother designed and sewed custom made attire for her collection of Barbie Dolls … now all anyone wanted to talk about was boys. Christy looked anxiously toward the group of young men. There must be someone who wanted to dance with her!
Hadn’t her grandfather always told her she was the cutest little bug he had ever seen as he swung her from his arms in the backyard by the tree-house? Hadn’t her real father called her an angel as he brought her presents for her tenth, eleventh and twelfth birthdays? What was wrong with the pink polka-dot dress she was wearing? Her mother had promised that she looked adorable in it … even with her mask of red freckles. The laughter from the girls on the dance floor was beginning to hurt her ears. She hadn’t started wearing makeup yet but neither had Nancy and Susan. Only Beth did and she painted her lips with a transparent pink that looked almost as if she were wearing ChapStick.
Mr. Duff started playing old-stuff, a five year old ballad by Mark Dinning. With tears stinging her eyes, Christy walked alone toward the mirror in the girl’s bathroom. A shadow skittered across her path but she was in too much pain to care. It was cold. For a teenager, the worst injuries are not physical but social. The cuts don’t bleed but the scars are deep and last forever. A shadow moved just beyond her line of sight. Her foot tripped on something and she almost fell. When she looked around … the floor, up and down the empty hallway, there was nothing there. What just happened?
The blanched-red face that stared back from the large mirror hung over a row of six sinks was not hers. How could it be? She’d never been this unhappy in her life. She crinkled her nose and tried to look ugly. There was not a great change. Someone came in behind her and she pretended to wash her hands … over and over again. She didn’t look up to see who it was. Would they ever leave? Finally the door opened and then closed again. She was alone … but somehow this was worse.
There was nothing to do but go back to the gym. When she returned to her lonely place by the wall, Teen Angel was just ending. She’d only been gone three minutes.

-------2-------
As the year progressed things only got worse. Things were always going wrong like it was a curse. Her stepfather, David Monroe, lost his job at the Cloverdale Five and Dime. Her mother didn’t give a reason, she just took a swing-shift job at a local cannery, six nights a week, to make ends meet. Filling tin-cans with chunks of chicken and sodium water and running them through a machine that cut her fingers and sometimes sealed them against lids for a dollar twenty-five an hour. That meant her mother was never in the house when Christy walked home from school. Midas, the golden retriever her real father had given her for her ninth-birthday died suddenly without cause. The Vet said sometimes these things just happened.
Christy overheard the neighbor Mrs. Green gossiping to the postman as she was raking leaves near the backyard fence. Thelma Green told Bob Anderson that David, her step-father had been caught embezzling. Christy wasn’t entirely sure what the word meant but she was almost certain it mean stealing.
Dave began drinking shortly after his lay-off. At first just one or two Coors a night … then six … and finally ramped it up to twelve. Now there were at least seven empty bottles of Blue Goose vodka in the trash plus empty beer-cans, each time she rolled it out to the curb for Thursday pickup.
The fights usually began when her mother returned from work each night at twelve-thirty and often went on most of the night. The yelling was loud and three times the police had been called to quiet things down. Early mornings were filled with sobbing and promises … always promises … that this was the last time.
There was no one to talk to at school about her troubles. School had its own set of tortures. The group of girl-friends she’d had for years suddenly broke up and scattered each time she approached their circle. She became isolated … a loner. What she wore no longer mattered. Her dresses were often wrinkled and dirty. It was as if she had some invisible disease that everyone but her could see. Christy began to fail every test. Half of her assignments were not even turned in. She thought more and more about finding a quick way out of her endless misery … whatever it took.

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

She remembered the first day he walked through the school … everyone did. It was the fall of sixty-eight, the beginning of her junior year. He was bursting with self-confidence. Every girl’s eye followed as he strolled past. You could feel euphoria radiating outward like some kind of nuclear fusion. Light brown hair and eyes the color of summer skies hung over a smile that made your legs weak. He was every girl’s dream date. You wanted to reach out and touch him … feel the energy and the magic … and a few of the bolder cheerleaders did. He had an electrical magnetism that attracted people. He had the best seat with the most popular students in the cafeteria. If there wasn’t a place for him … they made one. He tried out for the varsity football team even though the other players had been practicing for a month and was easily selected first-string Quarterback and team Captain.
Christy remembered Johnny Lang’s first week at Cloverdale High School very well. He was certain to become someone’s dream … but would never in a zillion years be hers. That was the week she decided to end it all … but how?

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

Mom was home for once when she walked in the door from school. It was Friday. Her stepfather was in the living room drinking vodka and orange juice and watching Star Trek re-runs on TV. Mother reached in her pocket as she took off her work apron and handed Christy a quarter. “Why don’t you go to the drugstore and get yourself a fountain drink,” she whispered.
Christy took the money from her mother’s scalded-red hands and slowly walked outside. Mom wanted her out of the house for some reason … another fight coming? It was too early for that. She walked slowly toward Townsend Avenue. Perhaps an Iron-port and Cherry, the large size for fifteen cents would help her decide the best way to end things. It had to look like an accident … anything else would break her mother’s heart. The rest of the money could go for candy. Why should she care about pimples?
She stopped to pet a friendly dog that jumped on her playfully. A shadow moved just beyond her line of sight. A dog tag or something clinked on the cement. Mrs. Dern came out on her porch and called her pet inside. Her scowl said now the dog would need a bath … Christy had touched it.
The sun was just in the right position to glint off from the city water tower. A ball of welded steel big as a house supported by six, ninety-foot tall girder-beam legs made the Cloverdale public works structure look like one of the monster-sized alien machines from the War of The Worlds movie. Someone had climbed the dizzying ladder, probably the night before, and had written Class of 70 with red spray paint in letters above the walkway railing that had to be seven foot tall. Christy shook her head, scaling that tower was about the most dangerous and scary thing she could think of doing … then she looked again.

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

Douglas Bond was working behind the counter when Christy walked into the drug store. He was bent over talking to Nancy and Susan. They were all laughing. None of them looked up as she sat on one of the revolving stools at the far end. The laughter stopped and Doug was walking toward her wiping his hands on a white-cloth towel. Her voice sounded mousey even to her own ears. “I’ll have an Iron-port and Cherr…” Christy reached inside her coat pocket … and the quarter was gone. She tried the other pocket … then she searched her after-school jeans. Nothing! Embarrassment was spreading across her face like a grass fire on a windy day.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered “I don’t know where my money went.”
She got up slowly from the stool, determined not to run. Her eyes scanned the rows of penny-candy placed opposite the long counter; afraid to look at the faces she used to know. Just as she opened the door she heard the sounds of contained laughter bursting like party balloons. Her feet flew down the sidewalk and across Townsend Avenue without looking … hoping to hear a screech of tires and that final thump from a speeding car or large-truck anything with the power to kill.  A shadow moved just beyond her line of sight. The normally busy street was empty … her bad luck!

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

The house was empty too when she got home. Just as well! Christy didn’t think she could stand listening to another fight from her parents. She looked at a photograph of her real father which she kept on her dresser top. He was wearing hip-waders and holding a pole in one hand and a string of trout caught from the Cottonmouth River in the other. The smile on his face made Christy cry. It had been two years since she had heard from him. South America she thought … working for an oil company. Just as well. He wouldn’t recognize her now … she had become a stranger … even to herself.
            She set the alarm for three AM. Cloverdale’s only on–duty police officer would be snoozing by that time in the used car lot next to the VFW building. His idling patrol car would be hidden among those for sale, waiting to catch that one illusive, legendary and ever convenient for napping - midnight speeder.
            Christy didn’t need the alarm. She lay awake until it was time … praying. Not for a change in circumstances, God always drove past her wretched life on the way to a better one, but for the strength to end it all.
            At one minute to three she shut off the alarm so it wouldn’t buzz and grabbed her coat. Mom and Dave still were not home? Where could they have gone? It didn’t matter. Nothing did anymore. There was a can of yellow spray paint in the garage … half full. It would be … enough she only had to write a few letters. Let people know she was there … that she had once lived.
-------6-------

The ladder began about fifteen feet off the ground but someone, a city-worker obviously, had parked a garbage truck directly beneath it. By standing on top of the cab Christy was able to reach the bottom rung.
            The first ten feet were the worst. Several times she stopped and almost started down. Her hands were bone white and numb from gripping the rungs so tightly. Only the memory of the door in the drugstore opening and the burst of laughter behind her made her go on. Those girls had been her closest friends once. Where did everything go? Was she really changed? What about her real father? He hadn’t even been around. How did he know to avoid her even from thousands of miles away? Each breath was a cry that no one could hear. Soon everything would be over. The can of spray-paint in her coat pocket banged against her leg. It felt lighter. A leak? No, everything was getting lighter. This had to look like an accident a mistake in judgment. She climbed.
            Another twenty feet and strangely she began to feel better. Domed rays from streetlights streaming downward made her think of dandelions gone to seed … in a dark and mysterious garden. Distant car lights … fireflies dancing above leafy bushes. She cried … and she climbed.
            The stars were somehow closer, rivets on an infinitely large, celestial-net spread wide and ready to catch her and sweep her all the way up to heaven if she should … when she fell. The last twenty feet she was racing up the metal ladder becoming a child once more … laughing … climbing an apple tree to get a kite caught in the branches during her fifth birthday party. This was right … this was the way her world unfolded!
            The walkway wrapped around the center of the huge metal ball … a giant’s belt with railings that came almost to her waist. Don’t look down! A spinning sickness worse than the flu. The wind rippled her red-hair out behind her … a flag in a storm.
Christine shook the can of spray paint. She would have to move to the rear side to escape the wind. A shadow moved just beyond her line of sight. Else it would foul the letters. Anyway that’s where Class of 70 was written.
            She’d laid awake thinking of what to write … something that let everyone know she was here even though they’d shut her out  of their world. Christine finally decided an and me in tiny yellow letters next to the large red ones would suffice. A person would have to look closely from the street to even see them. It somehow fit and was appropriate. No person had looked close enough to see her … not for years!
            She thought her hands would be shaking … but they didn’t. The letters were carefully constructed and seemed to become part of the Class of 70 logo … like well-made graffiti. Christine was oddly proud … it had been years since she’d done anything right. She dropped the can on the metal floor and kicked it toward the edge. It might appear to an investigator that she was reaching for it and lost her balance … went over the low railing.
She put one foot on the railing and then quick without thinking the other. Vertigo! Her arms wind-milled for a moment as she caught her balance. Her heart was pounding like at the seventh grade dance. Christine closed her eyes and lifted one foot … she was a child again … smiling …there were presents to be opened … singing … friends … and she jumped.

TO BE CONTINUED … ???



Sunday, October 21, 2018

THE WIND Conclusion

Copyright (c) 2018 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.



     
By R. Peterson


            It didn’t take Sheriff Walker and his deputies long to locate what the terrified residents of Cloverdale were calling Hodemedod.  Doors had been ripped from houses and sometimes entire walls blasted apart as the scarecrows-come-to-life rampaged through the city. The police only had to follow the bodies, broken-boards, blood and bricks littering the deserted streets. Screams told the sheriff his monsters were on the next block.
            Amazingly there were still several groups of costume-wearing children going door to door extorting the residents with what would happen if their sweet-tooth demands were not met. Trick or treat! It was Halloween night 1936. The sheriff rolled down his window and ordered a glaring witch, two spiders and a four-year-old crying goblin to go home and lock their doors. He barely got the widow up before a rotted tomato and several eggs spattered the glass.
            The sheriff’s county car careened to a stop in front of a partially demolished house on West Garlow. A city patrol car and two state police cruisers, all with lights flashing, slid to a stop behind. The sheriff jumped from his vehicle gun drawn and almost fell as he stumbled over broken picket fencing littering the street. The front porch of the white-frame house appeared to explode as a Hodmedod crashed out of the dwelling holding an unconscious man and a screaming woman under each arm. John Walker fired as the monster flung the already dead man to the side severing a straw-filled arm just as the attached clawed glove found the woman’s throat.
At least a dozen scarecrows appeared to be ripping apart a small chicken coop behind the under-siege residence. The ground shook as if an artillery shell had just landed nearby. The sheriff turned in time to see a second state police vehicle lifted in the air and slammed back down wheels in the air by a mob of the rampaging nightmares. A second later, the first overturned vehicle burst into flames and fingers of fire spread outward in all directions as the ruptured gas tank exploded.
            State patrolman Glen Young, whom Sheriff Walker had shared a flooded trench with in the Marne during World War I, opened fire from a crouched position in the street with both hands clutching his police revolver. The thirty-caliber bullets tore jagged holes through the back of the scarecrows sending bits of straw, shattered bone and moldy cloth to settle on the yellowed grass surrounding the homes. The monsters charged forward ignoring the gunfire that did so little damage. “This is no riot! This is a war!” he screamed.
            The spreading lines of burning gasoline flowed between Young and his assailants. The Hodmedod halted … then stepped back … hesitant to charge through the flames. Sheriff Walker used the opportunity to jerk his two-way radio from his car. “Officers need assistance!” he yelled into the handset. “Police under fire in Cloverdale! All units respond!”

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

            Melania, Dorothy and Bolger stood in the garden and listened to the sound of police sirens and gunfire coming from the other side of town. About half the women attending the Dance of the Scarecrows had already left, roaring away in expensive luxury automobiles wanting to know for sure that the violence infecting the city was confined to the working-class streets and not seeping into their more affluent neighborhoods. “I don’t know what’s going on tonight but I’ll bet Lavar Hicks has got something to do with it!” Dorothy had both arms around her just-brought-back–to–life scarecrow husband and was not about to let go.
            “I’m sure Hicks planned his own carnage with the stolen WIND card,” Melania said.  “But with Demilune possessing the body of Tommy Lee you can be sure that ever resourceful demon is the one in charge.”
            “How could this have happened?” Dorothy moaned. “All I wanted was my husband back … now it sounds like the entire city is being destroyed … and poor Brian is somewhere out there!”
            “Mother always warned me about the balance of power in all magic,” Melania told her. “When I tapped the rim of the last goblet and found an answer to the “D” tone in the locked chest in the attic I should have been instantly on alert. The “D” sound deals with secrets … but it can also stand for demons or Demilune!”
            “I don’t understand how he escaped!” Dorothy was pacing the floor obviously worried about Brian.”
            “In 1920 when Demilune caused a car to go off the Townsend Street Bridge in the dead of winter, he tried to take over the body of Johnny Lang who dove in the freezing water to save the trapped family but Elisabeth Walker and Thomas Lang’s illegitimate son was too strong to be possessed … so Demilune caused him to drown. Demilune was greatly weakened and Joseph Callahan and Sheriff Walker were able to secure him in the seaman’s chest. Tommy Lee was weakened when Lavar Hicks cut off his braid of hair and Demilune, under the power of an almost full moon, was able to manipulate him into releasing him and then switched bodies.”
            “Brian said that one of us would die,” Dorothy moaned. “We’ve got to find him!”
            “The last lady guest just left … so how do we stop this spawn from Hell?” Bolger came in from the garage where he had Joseph Callahan’s car running.
            “Demilune is only weakened for a short time when he takes the life of an innocent,” Melania said grabbing her coat. “I’ll walk Dorothy out to the car and she can hold Tommy Lee the marionette on her lap then I’ll come back and help you pack out the chest.” She was half-way across the kitchen when she remembered the Ombré and took it from the cabinet above the sink along with a silver spoon and a wine glass.
            “We’ve got to find Tommy Lee’s braid of hair or he’ll never be able to get his own body back!”
            “You trust me to drive after what happened last time?” Bolger started up the stairs for the chest.
            “No one explodes in a car twice,” Melania told him as she reached for the puppet hanging on strings in the parlor. “At least I hope not!”

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

            It was hard for Brian to think. The children were packed into the cage in the back of the milk-truck like sardines and they were all screaming! “How could I ever have thought this thing was Mr. Lee,” Brian moaned.
            Brian watched from a tiny window imbedded in the door at the back of the truck. They were almost to the west end of Townsend Avenue when they crossed the bridge they would be out of town and going much faster. If there was any chance of escape, they had better do it now!”
The thing possessing Tommy Lee braked hard when he saw another half dozen costumed children walking past the Royal Theatre with trick-or-treat bags in hand. There was a witch, two spiders and a goblin. “There’s no way he can squeeze more of us into this tiny cage,” Brian whispered. Then suddenly he had an idea. “If you want to go back home to your parents, you have to listen to me and do everything I say,” he told the children …
            The children were now so quiet after his instructions Brian could hear the milk-truck door opening and the monster luring more innocents to their doom. I’ve got boxes and boxes of candy in the back … climb in and fill your bags …”

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

            Hicks, Fowler and Poole were watching the rampaging Hodmedod safely inside Lemont’s truck parked behind one of the ravaged houses. “This is one nasty army you got here,” Fowler said watching the scarecrow monsters battling the police. “Too bad they shy away from flames!”
            “The fire is protecting them from us … but it also protects us from them,” Hicks said. “I saw the milk truck with the Chinaman driving turn onto Townsend a minute ago he said. “My orders were to have my army fight only until our master was back out of town and then lead them all back to the farm.”
            “These scarecrows have gone crazy with blood-lust,” Poole said. “They’ll never follow you anywhere!”
Lavar laughed. “They’ll follow us,” he said. “You just have to know the secret!” He reached into the back of the pickup bed and thumped his fist into three large burlap bags. From the squawking sounds coming from inside … each bag must have held a half-dozen live chickens.
            “You two ride in the back and make sure the Hodmedod know what tasty treats you’re holding in your hands. I’ll drive slow enough to lead them … but if they get too close let me know and I’ll give it some lead-foot!”
            “How come we two have to ride in the back with these things trying to get at us?” Fowler complained as he climbed in the back.
            “Cause I ain’t stupid!” Hicks laughed.

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

            When the thing that used to be Tommy Lee opened the door, all the ghosts, spiders and witches crammed inside the cage exploded like firecrackers stuffed into pumpkins. For a moment Brian thought they might actually escape. Then the Chinaman raised his clawed hand toward the moon. “Mettere fine a!” he screeched and everything stopped. Blackbirds startled from a Maple tree halted their flight in midair.  Clouds sweeping past the moon were frozen in time. Brian had one crow-foot raised to step up onto the curb and it hung motionless.”
The Chinaman walked slowing to the front of the escaping statues and smiled. Brian thought he looked like a crocodile even without a costume. “Now everyone back in the cage!” he screamed.
Brian and everyone else could now move but the situation was hopeless. He was turning to walk back to the milk truck when he saw something in the gutter. Brian pretended to fall and when he stood up again, after receiving a vicious kick from the Chinaman … Tommy Lee’s severed braid of hair was hidden under Brian’s black wing feathers.

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

            “We’ll make sure these fires are out … and then we’ll go after them!” Sheriff Walker told the hysterical crowd of citizens. Melania, Dorothy and Bolger had just arrived in Callahan’s car.
            “Have you seen Brian?” Dorothy was near hysterical. “We’ve looked everywhere!”
            “We have reports of about two dozen missing children,” the sheriff said. “Most were last seen climbing into the back of Tommy Lee’s milk truck!”
            “That’s not Tommy Lee driving the milk truck,” Melania told him. She gestured toward the passenger side of the car where the marionette stood propped against the seat back. The human eyes inside the wooden head were scanning the crowd.
            “I figured as much,” the sheriff sighed. “Any idea how we’re going to get Demilune back inside the chest?”
            “We’ll let the night lead us where she will,” Melania told him as she stared up at the moon. “We’ll keep our eyes open and pay close attention to everything bending starlight. An answer will come … if we call to it!”
            “You’re beginning t sound just like her!” Sheriff Walker said.
            “Who?”
            “Your mother!”

-------7-------
           
            Demilune was guarding the children behind Lavar Hicks’ house near where the impassable Motha Forest began. They were in a circle tied with a single rope. The Hodmedod were clawing at the close-growing trees trying to make entry into the forbidden woodlands.
            “You’ll never get through there … those trees are filled with iron!” Lavar said. He tossed several empty bloody bags out of the back of Lemont’s truck. When they stopped at his farm they were forced to feed the live fowl to the army following … or be torn apart themselves. “I’ve worn out a dozen chain-saws trying!”
            “With enough power … a single straw stem can be blown right through an oak tree,” Demilune told him. He raised a fist toward the moon and shook it.
            “My damn electric has been turned off for three weeks,” Hicks said. “So wherever you be gettin’ this power …. better have a real long cord!”
Lavar was amazed when several branches from the trees broke away and were tossed aside.
            “What you plan on doing with those kids once you get them into the forest?” Hicks asked. He didn’t really care about the children he just wanted to be rid of this monster.
            “I’ll see that they get plenty to eat,” Demilune said. “I like to chew on bones that have a little fat attached!”
This time an entire tree gave way and a dozen Hodemedod dragged it away. “Another ten minutes and we’ll have an opening large enough to squeeze through,” Demilune gasped.
Three police cars thundered into the barn yard followed by a dozen more filed with angry citizens. Hicks, Fowler and Poole bolted into the darkness.
            “It’s over!” the sheriff yelled as he jumped from his car. “Release the children and put your hands in the air!”
            “You can shoot me if you wish,” Demilune taunted with a smile. “But we both know it won’t be me lying on the ground bloodied. In three minutes the forest door will open. The children and I will slip inside …. and you’ll never see any of us again!”
Melania, Dorothy and Bolger fought their way to the front of the crowd. Dorothy recognized her son tied in a ring with the others. “Brian! Are you okay?”
            “I’m fine,” Brian told her looking at Demilune. “But we’ve got to do something fast!”
A surge of angry citizens moved forward but were stopped by Demilune’s raised hand. “You only come forward if you’re bidden,” he told them.
“How do we stop him?” The sheriff asked Melania.
“Causing an innocents death is the only thing that will temporarily strip him of his powers,” she said. “That’s why he hasn’t killed yet … he hasn’t had to!”
While everyone else was frozen like statues Bolger found that he could still move. Must be because I’m not really human he shook his head trying to dislodge the thought.
Clouds covered the moon … and there were only shadows moving in the darkness.
The scarecrow monsters had just pulled another tree out of the way. The opening looked large enough to squeeze through. Demilune grasped the rope tied around the children and started toward the path. “No! Bolger screamed. “I’ll not let you take my son!” He lurched forward but Brian was closer. Everyone gasped as Brian pulled the hairpiece from under his costume and held it in pl ace at the back of Demilune’s head. “Your honor is restored!” He was touching Demilune but was staring at the marionette his mother held in her arms.
            The eyes inside the wooden head glowed with a fierceness not seen since the building of the transcontinental railroad began. “No more steal … no more forget honor!” There was movement from the puppet. … Dorothy almost dropped it.
            “You’re a milkman!” Demilune laughed. “No strand of hair will ever make you my equal!” Some of the Hodmedod were already pushing past the wall of trees.
            “My legs … my feet … my shoes!” Tommy Lee insisted staring at the puppet.
Demilune felt himself losing control of the body he was inhabiting and whirled on Brian. “You could have come with me!” he hissed. “I would have eaten you last! Not a lot of fat sticks to the bits of straw under your new skin.” Brian tried to move back but Demilune’s finger touched his forehead and he burst instantly into flames.
“No,” Dorothy screamed and lurched forward. The boy made of straw was now a raging inferno. A torch lit under the light of the moon.
 “I love you!” the voice that came from the fire was calm and almost human.
Demilune turned and vaulted toward the opening in the trees which was already beginning to close. He was no longer fast on his feet but slow and sluggish. The demon was three feet from the path when he collapsed on the ground … no longer in human form but once again an apparition made of tangled string and painted wood.
            Dorothy and Bolger both turned their faces toward the moon and howled like heartbroken wolves. There is no pain in the world equal to losing a child. “We don’t belong in this world … not without Brian,” Dorothy told her husband. Melania reached out, but they were already moving toward the opening in the trees that was swiftly closing.  There was a tremendous flash of ethereal light that blinded everyone … and they were gone.
The trees guarding Motha Forest were once again an iron barrier that only rare magic could open.
            Melania stood stunned … saddened and a little frightened by all that had happened on Halloween night 1936. She watched as Sheriff Walker and her brother Parley stuffed the marionette back into the seaman’s chest and snapped on a heavy lock. Tommy Lee approached her with his head bowed. “I’m so very sorry,” he said.

            “It’s not your fault,” she told him. “Magic touches everyone … when it wishes.”
The clouds covering the moon moved away and in the reflected light Melania saw a bit of paper lying on the ground where Lavar Hicks had stood only minutes before. She picked it up. It was an ancient Tarot card yellowed and ragged from the centuries. On the back was carefully inked instructions in an unusual form of Latin. On the front was a woodcut illustration of a terrible storm …
… and the simple words THE WIND.

THE END?  







Sunday, October 14, 2018

THE WIND part 10

Copyright (c) 2018 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.
      

By R. Peterson


It was the October thirtieth, nineteen thirty-six … tomorrow would be Halloween. A cold wind sent dry, red and gold leaves tumbling down Galbraith Street and lodged them in the dormant Chinese Elm hedge surrounding Joseph Callahan’s mansion. Darkness descended on the town of Cloverdale with great stealth as if a malignant night had always lingered just beyond the horizon waiting for the day to expire.
The almost full moon shone through the open window and Melania noticed the rose buds covering the special made arch had started to bloom. Dorothy was sewing straps to the feet of the scarecrows so that when a woman slipped her feet into them she could dance with her straw-stuffed partner.
“These are the last two,” Melania said admiring Dorothy’s careful stitching. “Where’s Bolger?”
“Over by the piano,” Dorothy gestured. Melania looked at the scarecrow propped against the Steinway. The light blue buttons that Dorothy had used for eyes were almost the exact same shade of her Momett husband’s before he was blown to bits by a bomb placed in Melania’s truck at her mother’s farm. And of course, the red plaid shirt and faded bib-overalls were exact copies of the ones he always wore. A large ceramic jar lay on its side and rained a seemingly endless stream of glass balls onto the keyboard where a lively rendition of Boogie Woogie Stomp played without a pianist.
“Will it be alright?” Dorothy asked. What she meant was, will we be safe?
Melania noticed the Momett woman had cautiously kept her eyes away from the corner where the wooden marionette hung by taunt strings. She was understandably nervous.
“I believe it will be,” Melania said remembering the words of her mother. “But all magic is fraught with danger”
Just then Brian strutted into the room. Dorothy gasped but Melania smiled. Dorothy’s son had spent the last two days dying three large bags of chicken feathers black and attaching them to his costume. A large orange beak made from newspaper strips dipped in watery glue jutted just below tiny holes for his eyes. “Well! What do you think?”
Melania laughed. “I don’t think anyone on their porch handing out candy will believe there is a real live scarecrow inside a walking crow!”

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

            “How many is that?” Lavar Hicks demanded as Lemont Pool dragged another huge scarecrow to the end of the cornfield.
            “Eighty-two I think,” Lemont gasped. “We’ve uprooted most of your fence-posts to make crosses … we will probably be twenty short!”
            “There must be two hundred of these put up in the field by tomorrow night … or it’s going to go bad for all of us!” He gestured to where Butch Fowler was busy with a propane torch welding bars into the back of Tommy Lee’s milk truck. The Chinaman hovered over Butch occasionally raking his fingernails across Butch’s face to make him hurry.
            “What’s the cage for?” Lemont whispered.
            “All that candy I guess,” Hicks told him glancing toward a mountain of cardboard boxes filled with Chick-o-Sticks, Chocolate Babies and black and orange Malt Balls. “Mr. Lee says he wants enough for every child in Cloverdale.”
Lemont shook his head as Lavar helped him drag the scarecrow. “We all know that ain’t the Chink behind those wooden eyes don’t we?”
“All I know is we’ve got one night and a day to get two hundred scarecrows up,” Lavar replied. “After you get this one planted, drive my truck to the next farm over … and start pulling up posts.”
            “Clive Olsen ain’t gonna like nobody tearing down his fence,” Lemont looked scared. “And that bull-headed Swede has been known to pack a shotgun into church meetings!”
            “I’ve already planned for that and I’ll make sure Clive and Mary Olsen don’t cause us any problems,” Lavar said as he walked toward the house. He turned and grinned from the doorway. “I’d stay at the end of the field a bit longer this time if I were you!”
When Lemont saw Lavar pulling on the rope in the kitchen that lifted the trap door in the floor of the barn he almost ran with the load he was dragging. He could hear the snorting monster reacting to the sudden light coming into the pit it was imprisoned in. “God help us all!” he moaned.

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

            “The sheriff has always been kind to me,” Dorothy told Melania over breakfast. “Don’t you think we should tell him about poor Mr. Lee and the horrible thing that escaped from the box in the attic?”
            “I’ve tried,” Melania sighed as she poured them both coffee. “John Walker and two of his deputies have been in Butte the last two days testifying in a criminal trial. They are due back tonight and I don’t trust any of the other deputies he left in charge with this kind of unique problem!”
            “Well at least we’re ready,” Dorothy said. “She walked to the Bolger scarecrow and slipped her feet into the straps attached to the bottom of his feet. “It will be so good to be a whole family again!”
Melania smiled as her Momett friend began to dance, whirling about the floor with the scarecrow in her arms. Melania couldn’t resist taking the Ombré box down from the cabinet above the sink and removing The Lovers Tarot card which she carefully lay face down on the glass table. “I know this is dangerous,” she whispered as if speaking to her dead mother. “But there is also great magic in love!” The piano in the parlor instantly began to play Melody From The Sky.
            Brian was all smiles as he entered the room and saw his mother dancing with a replica of his father. “I’ve never seen her this happy since … father was taken from us,” he stammered.
            “Let’s pray that this happiness becomes permanent,” Melania told him.

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

            There was no cloud in the night sky and the full moon shining down made outside almost as light as day. Lavar and Lemont lay on the ground exhausted. They had worked without sleep the last two days but all two-hundred scarecrows had been erected on poles at the end of the cornfield. They had worked mostly without the help of Butch Fowler. The Chinaman had kept him busy stealing a long list of items from nearby farms namely hundreds of chickens and hand pumps that attached to the gasoline cans. They somehow managed to stand and move out of the way when the Chink charged out of Lavar’s farmhouse. He was wearing Fowler’s steel-mesh welding gloves and demanded the Tarot card in Lavar’s pocket. Hicks handed over the Wind card and then stepped back after being handed a cow bell.  Glowing embers of fire rose from the card as the Chinaman held it high over his head. The demon’s voice rumbled like thunder and the flash of his teeth became lightning bolts as he read from the back of the card. “Dio del vento ascolta le mie parole!” the monster growled. “Abbiamo bisogno di vostra grazia alla vita nuova forma. Favore attende tutto bene mentre doom deve cogliere il male. Portare avanti il tuo respiro ora!”
The Chinaman dropped the card and screamed in delight as Hicks rang the bell.
            Clang! The ground shook and a wired-corral filled with chickens began to squawk.
            Clang! The rows of corn began to tremble.
            Clang! The pine-slab roof above Hick’s house caught fire and began to burn.
With a tremendous roar the corn field came to life. Ten foot tall monsters hurtled past Pool and Fowler, both of whom held gasoline cans with pumps attached. The monsters ran toward the corral and bloody feathers erupted like a volcano.
Don’t just stand there!” The Chinaman hissed. “Burn them!” It pointed towards the corn field; it seemed not all the straw men were monsters with an insane craving for blood. Those that remained waited patiently for orders, wanting only to please and be of service.
Pool and Fowler started down the rows spraying gasoline on those recently come to life who stared timidly at the new world with unknowing calm and a sad kind of acceptance.
“Burn them all … burn them before we leave,” the demon hissed.

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

            Melania was expecting more than quiet acceptance when she showed Sheriff Walker the talking marionette hanging in the parlor of her house. But once again, the big man surprised her. “I was with Joseph when he trapped Demilune and secured him in the seaman’s chest,” John said. “I always thought that was a bit of hell on Earth that we were done with … but as I’ve been told evil returns like a cold wind … in its own time.
            “Who told you that?”
            “Someone I greatly respected,” the sheriff said. “Your dear mother, Jesska.”
            “What should we do?”
            “Enjoy the night,” John told them glancing at Brian in his costume. “I’ll take a few deputies out to Hicks’ farm and see what the old buzzard is up to.”
Just as John Walker was leaving the house the radio blasted from his police car. After a few minutes talking he returned to the porch … he was running. “I’m afraid your stolen card will have to wait … we have trouble on the other side of town!”
            “What kind of trouble?”
            “Sounds like a riot!”
The sheriff was speeding away when Brian tugged on his mother’s skirt. “Can I still go out trick or treating?”
Dorothy looked at Melania … the town’s society women would be arriving for the Dance of the Scarecrows in minutes.
            “Have fun but stay on this side of town,” Melania told him, “and be home early.”
And that was the last Melania and Dorothy ever saw of the tiny scarecrow who had recently become … almost a real boy.

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

            Sheriff Walker and his deputies had to fight their way through the angry mob surrounding the firemen. Several houses lay in ashes while others still burned. “They came down Vineyard Road,” one frantic man sobbed.
            “Who did?” John Walker grabbed him and tried to make him speak clearly.
            “An army of monsters,” the man said. “Big as barn doors with sacks over their heads!”
            “And they started the fires?”
            “No! We did!” The man was hysterical. “It was the only way we could drive them away!”
            “What did they want?”
            “Human flesh,” the man stammered, pointing to bloody bone and pools of blood littering the street. “That’s all that’s left of Joe Morgan, his wife Emma and their six kids.”
            “Where are these monsters now?”
            “Everywhere and anywhere,” a woman spoke up. “As soon as I find my husband we’re lighting out for California. You don’t have this kind of trouble picking lettuce in that place where the sun always shines!”

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

            Dorothy waited until the rest of the women in the room unfastened themselves from their scarecrows, piled them in a corner and walked outside to cool off. The men in the orchestra followed. Dorothy danced through the rose covered arch when Melania moved the punch bowl. She felt Bolger come to life almost instantly. She held her breath until they were out back in the garden. “Is it really you?”
            “Of course,” Bolger looked at her tilting his head to one side. “Who else would I be?”
            “I’ve missed you,” Dorothy put her head on his shoulder and began to cry.
            “I was going to back-up Melania’s truck,” Bolger said. “But I don’t remember … I didn’t hurt anyone … did I?”
            “No, you were fine,” Dorothy whispered.
            “Where is Brian?” Bolger asked. Fear showed in his voice for the first time.
            “Out with his friends collecting Halloween treats,” Dorothy said. “When he gets home we will be a family again!”
            “Again?”
But Bolger could ask no more questions … Dorothy was kissing him.

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

            Brian, dressed as a crow, had made several trips up and down three streets along with a dozen children. The empty flour sack he carried was starting to get heavy when the group spied the familiar milk truck parked next to the curb on Swenson Avenue. Music was playing from a radio. Brian recognized the milkman standing by the open side-door even with the costume he was wearing. “You’re no longer a puppet hanging on strings,” he laughed.
“No, and I am human again just in time for the most wonderful night of the year!” Mr. Lee told him. Brian thought the milkman’s voice sounded a little rough but he thought it was from the clown makeup he was wearing. Red paint made his mouth look too large and large round trick-glasses made his eyes appear huge, wooden and wolf-like.
            “I knew Melania could fix you with her magic,” Brian said.
            “She sure did,” Mr. Lee agreed. He dropped several pieces of candy into each child’s open bag and then looked up and down the street. “Not many little ghosts and goblins out tonight,” he said. “Why not climb on up in the back and fill-up your treat bags,” he told them.
            “Are you sure you have enough?”
            “Boxes and boxes of every size and flavor,” the clown said. He licked his lips.
The children all laughed as they climbed into the back of the truck. There was the sound of a heavy metal door with steel bars closing and faint screams just before the milk truck started and drove away…

TO BE CONTINUED …