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A Fantasy Trip
THE LONG TRIP home to Myers Ridge was longer than Danny Sutton remembered. He sat feeling a bit motion sick in the backseat of his father’s Taurus, surrounded by brand-new fantasy novels and superhero comics while his parents, George and Michelle, stared straightaway at the interstate. Country music—his mother’s favorite—played low from the radio. Their three-day stay in Chicago for the Fantasy Writers and Artists Fair was over and he had plenty of new reading material. However, reading in a moving vehicle hadn’t set well with his stomach. Now, neither did watching the countryside pass by at 70 miles an hour.
The day had turned to evening and his stomach had gone from feeling lousy to feeling downright rotten. He fished some chewable antacids from his backpack, and then took out his spiral bound sketch pad and an HB drawing pencil. Drawing was different than reading. Drawing relaxed his mind and took him deep into imaginary worlds, which would take his mind off being ill.
He found a blank page and lightly drew some scribbled circles. He saw a clearer image emerge as the circles connected and the drawing slowly transformed into … a … giant … lizard. No. Keep drawing. A Tyrannosaurus rex. No. A fire-breathing dragon with long, batlike wings.
Yes.
Chills crept up Danny’s arms.
A black night sky surrounded the dragon. He imagined it flying in and out of moonlit clouds above Myers Ridge, swooping down where the woods met the cliffs near the portion that broke off thousands of years ago during an ice age, making the cliffs steep and dangerous … or so said Mr. Bailey, his ninth grade science teacher.
He drew his parents’ house on the other side of the woods while imagining that he flew with the dragon—a girl dragon.
He drew another dragon just above the first. He was the second dragon and he and the girl dragon were boyfriend and girlfriend. He liked that.
He imagined that he, the boy dragon, followed the girl dragon through the night sky, racing with her and frolicking amidst the air currents and clouds. As they flew over his parents’ house, he saw a pickup truck parked along the road. The driver stood outside the truck, looking up. He lifted a long object to his shoulder and face.
The shot from a high-powered rifle broke the low sound of wind and the lazy flapping of their wings. The girl dragon twisted, then fell to the earth on her back, landing with a thud in Danny’s front yard, dead from a well-placed shot between the protective plating over her heart.
Danny stopped drawing. He tapped the backend of the pencil against his forehead, contemplating what he had imagined. Who was the man and why had he killed the girl dragon?
He looked at the two dragons he had drawn, still flying together in the night sky. Then his attention focused on something he hadn’t drawn: the man standing outside the pickup truck. In his arms, he carried a high-powered rifle with a scope.
Danny shuddered and slammed shut the pad.
“Well, I’m done,” he announced.
His mother half turned in her seat. “Done with what, dear?”
“Fantasy, magic, dungeons and dragons … the whole nine yards.”
“I thought you had a good time?” his mother asked. A frown scrunched up her nose.
Danny looked at the drawing pad he had purchased at last year’s fair. Magic Brand Art Supplies lettered the front. His pencil said the same.
“You’ll feel better when we get something to eat,” his mother said.
Danny looked up and saw his father exit the interstate. Soon, they were ordering food at a Wendy’s drive thru.
Back on the interstate, Danny ate and thought about his drawing. Surely he had drawn the man with the rifle and pickup truck. He must have been so wrapped up in his imagination that he wasn’t aware of what he was drawing.
The triple cheeseburger, large fries, and huge soft drink actually settled his stomach as well as his nerves. He thought about drawing more but the evening sun had slipped below the horizon behind them and home was less than fifty miles away.
Danny put his head back and dozed. He dreamed about flying again with the girl dragon. Her name was Tavreth and she was nine hundred years old, barely a teenager in dragon years.
In his dream, he made a friend, which left him feeling good when he awoke.
He recognized Ridge Road and knew that he and his parents were less than a half-mile from home.
As his father cleared the bend, Danny saw the rear lights of a pickup truck parked on the road in front of their home. Mr. Langford stood at the driver’s door, bathed in George Sutton’s headlights.
Mr. Langford turned and hurried toward their car as George stopped.
“What’s going on?” Michelle asked as George rolled down his window.
A sickening feeling of dread came over Danny as he listened to Mr. Langford tell them a fantastic tale. And as he looked at the black lump of dead dragon in the front yard, his aching heart went out to her.
He had to undo this. But how?
He picked up his drawing pad, and then rummaged in his backpack for his eraser. In the dim light, he read Magic Brand Art Supplies lettered along one side. He had never used it before, so he hoped his idea would work. It was, after all, his plan all along, and he should have checked to see if it worked before leaving the house.
He opened his pad to the drawing of him as a dragon flying with Tavreth, and Mr. Langford ready to shoot. Then he busily erased the old man, his rifle, and the pickup truck.
Outside, each one vanished. He erased Tavreth and she vanished from the front yard.
His mother was quick to turn on him.
He pulled from her grasp.
“It’s better this way,” George said, pulling her away from the boy.
“We’ll start over afresh,” Danny promised as he found the first drawing he had drawn the day after his real parents bought him the pad and pencil.
But as he erased his pretend parents, the ones who liked taking him places, and their pretend car, he knew that this was the end. Then, alone on the road, he erased the locked cell in the basement where his real parents were.
Picking up his backpack, he headed up the driveway and toward the front door. He paused only once, trying to figure a way to turn himself into a dragon. But he cast away the idea. His fantasy life had gone too far. It was time to face reality.
He took a deep breath, opened the front door, and entered.
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Night of the Hell Hounds
Here is the Ridgewood short story “Night of the Hell Hounds” published January 2013 at Amazon and Barnes & Noble and no longer available to purchase at those websites. This story became the basis for my upcoming novel, Margga’s Curse.
Old Bones: A Collection of Short Stories Page 4