9 Tales From Elsewhere 10

by 9 Tales From Elsewhere

  It made sense to the driver and the squeaky woman. The tone of the Truro mother had an off-putting effect and they did their best to ignore her.

  “Dream Mama said fate’s a double dipper, it wanted her twice, but she only let it once. Fate double dips, so can anybody else! That’s ‘cause time’s a tool like a hammer.”

  “Ok,” said the squeaky woman, the boy no longer made sense. “Popcorn forget the dipping, how were you hurt?”

  “I had a cast and they shaved my head and I got headaches. Dream Mama says everyday I’m stickin’ it to the man.” Popcorn smiled, “It’s ‘bout time to go, we got to go before the time doggies go on fire. Fuckers.” Popcorn smiled wider, his bitchy grandmother was not around anymore to give him trouble for his speech choices. He spat back toward the washroom. The spit landed and sizzled. “Fuckers!”

  Roddy looked to the squeaky woman and the link came back, or perhaps it was just common concern. They stepped toward the Truro mother and tried to get her to her feet.

  “No!” she screeched and grabbed her youngest, pulled the girl tight to her chest.

  “Lady, we need to go,” said Roddy.

  Popcorn rushed forward, “They’ll come, they will,” his smile was massive, the cigarette bobbed between his lips.

  “Do you see what’s going to happen?” the squeaky woman asked.

  “Dream Mama does and she says they’ll come along.”

  “Can you hear her now?”

  “Dream Mama lives in dreams, stupid,” Popcorn rolled his eyes as if it all so obvious. “She told me today’s the day and ‘member to get smoky and then she double dips on the sick stuff.”

  The squeaky woman lifted her hands to the sky, universal sign of, I-give-up-you’re-insane.

  “Time to go then. Come on,” Roddy pulled on the seated woman.

  “No!” she screamed and reached for her other daughter, her son clung to her shoulders from the back.

  “I thought you said…” Roddy started and then the glass broke at the back of the bus.

  The glass had changed and lost its pliable strength under the heat. Not good. The fire finally caught onto some of the seats after it worked its way out of the flame resistant washroom. The plastic melted, but it took a hotter fire to burn through. The fire was travelling that path and would soon be a real problem for anyone on the roof.

  “I’ll go first.”

  Roddy climbed down the windshield and felt for the bumper. Found it and dropped the last two feet. Through the glass, he saw the snarling silvery beasts with their slobbery, bloody maws. He wondered how long the safety glass, something that seemed a lot more like plastic than glass, would hold up.

  “Come on,” he called up, didn’t want to look around, if there was another dog, he was in trouble. They all were.

  Popcorn’s legs dangled and dropped before Roddy took hold. The boy dropped and bounced back, the cigarette rolled from his lips and he squealed chasing it.

  “Nono!” he shouted and reached under the bus.

  “Ok, come on!” Roddy shouted up.

  “The stupid woman won’t come.”

  “Just… come on.”

  Popcorn crawled under the bus to his waist and screeched gleefully. He backed out quickly, the cigarette was back between his lips. The squeaky woman dropped into Roddy’s arms and he accidentally glimpsed her underwear as the back of her skirt had a long rip running almost to her thighs. It looked like underwear to him.

  Once again, his mind wandered.

  Of course, it was never her underwear she worried about him seeing. She had tattoos, two roses that an ex-boyfriend encouraged, funded and planned. They became embarrassing when she discovered that the centre of each rose hid a vagina. The ex- explained, laughing as he did so, what a Rose of Jericho was.

  Roddy neither knew, nor considered this possibility.

  Popcorn got to his feet and whispered over the crackle coming from within the bus, “There’s a time doggy under there. It’s sleeping.”

  Sleeping, oh hell, “Better run,” Roddy whispered as he back-stepped staring up to the roof of the bus.

  Popcorn shook his head, doggies chase when you run and it wasn’t time for a doggy chase yet.

  “Dream Mama says she will make me ok.”

  “Where does that leave us?” the squeaky woman whispered as they all stepped backwards, southbound, along the Queen’s Highway 66.

  The fire flashed and broke more glass and the dogs trapped inside began to bark. The bark gave weight to their chance. Normal dogs bark, normal dogs die.

  From below the bus, the sleeping beast awoke and slunk forward, crouching impossibly low, like a rat climbing through a keyhole, dragging its silver belly on the bleached asphalt. Once freed, the beast straightened, making eye contact with the trio, snarled and barked. Popcorn snarled and barked back, cigarette bent and dirty, but there between his lips.

  The sleeping beast took three slow steps forward and stopped. It turned its head back and crawled back under the bus. The dogs inside continued their barking, drowning any exclamations coming from the southbound trio.

  “Ok, we’re coming, just wait!” the Truro mother shouted as she dangled her son over the front of the bus. He dropped, “Catch your sister!” next came the middle child, the child landed with a skull-jarring thump.

  The trio remained frozen, but screaming. The Truro mother climbed to the side and called for her youngest to climb on her shoulder. The girl was indignant, wailing, refusing to touch the hot steel. Fire, like time, slowed, but still threatened relentlessly.

  The former sleeping beast ran out of patience and crawled from beneath the bus again. It leapt onto the Truro mother first. Open-jawed and slobbery. Its wet and horrific jaws making quick work as it jerked away flesh by the hunks. It dropped the dead woman and then secured the other two items on the dinner menu, chewing into their throats one after the other. Drinking from the crimson fountain rushes. The small girl on the roof looked over the edge and ran in the opposite direction, toward the rising flames.

  Her scream cried higher than the barks or the flames, high that it seemed to pierce the entirety of Varney.

  “Oh my shit,” the squeaky woman mumbled and pulled on Roddy’s arm.

  The burning beasts continued to bark and whine.

  The time doggy that killed the Truro mother and two of her children stayed near the bus to take a few mouthfuls of soft, child flesh.

  Like veal.

  The driver and the tattooed woman stepped backwards away. Popcorn trailed them, watching, knowing something without knowing he knew it until the time came.

  It was almost time for Dream Mama’s smoky double dip.

  The barks became howls and glass burst outward and the beasts leapt free, through the fire-weakened windshield, their coats crisped brown and shortened, patches of ugly black and blue skin showing through. Steam rising from their backs and mouths.

  The charge took the attention of the time doggy munching on the child and it joined its brethren.

  “Shit! Shit, run!” the squeaky woman shouted.

  Popcorn stopped and busied himself with the lighter. He had never lit a cigarette and it was harder than it looked, but he saw his mama do it a million times before.

  “Come on kid!” the driver yelled.

  Southbound, they ran, turning their backs to Popcorn. The world before them shimmered, glimpses of reality, of now in real-time. There were low droning sounds and the tall hydro towers appeared where they should. Fate was the world beyond Varney.

  The five burned time doggies rushed forward, their claws tapped and clicked as they ran. The sixth followed the rest after a moment’s dining.

  They were only feet from Popcorn.

  “Fucker, fucker,” Popcorn said and dropped the lighter.

  He glanced at the rushing beasts and dropped to his knees.

  Popcorn could smell them they were so close.

  Two-handed, the lighter function and the flame touched the cigarette. Popcorn
inhaled deeply, sucking until he could suck no more, just like Dream Mama showed him.

  The lead beasts snapped, slobber and blood flying, heat ejected from their mouths like blow dryers on high. Popcorn coughed and gaged, the smoke poured from his lungs in wide swatch of cloudy greyness.

  “Jesus, look at that!” Roddy shouted as peeked over a shoulder and stopped.

  A thick cloud of smoke billowed, transforming into an armed bust, a woman’s head and chest. Long gorilla arms, fingers and claws like an eagle reached from the cloud. The dogs howled and Popcorn laughed and rolled to the side of the road. The time dogs tried to run from the familiar figure, but fate left them cold against Cloud Mama. The claws dug into the frightened backs. Popcorn pointed and vibrated excitedly, screaming nonsensical hoots and cheers.

  It was the double dip. If fate double dipped you on death, you double dipped death on life.

  Bone snaps and barking and howls became helpless whines. The beasts fell apart like the scenery, puddling in demise. The bus driver and the squeaky woman, side-by-side, had stopped to watch, but knew better than to feel safe.

  A warm breeze blew toward them from the north. It was time collecting itself, fate taking its swing back into place.

  “Popcorn was hurt he said. He survived, but he was hurt.”

  Roddy thought about this and tried to add something, some thought, but the world cut him off. The flames died and the far north drew itself back into reality. A new bus rolled forward. A hollow version of Roddy Barsten sat behind the wheel.

  “Holy,” Roddy whispered.

  Time sped and in a flash, the bus was feet from them. Bounding fast, too fast.

  The squeaky woman dived to the shoulder, her fingers latched onto Roddy’s bicep. He followed her drag, feeling the bus barrel through his hips. They landed in the ditch. Roddy felt nothing for two seconds beyond the horrid pain in his hips.

  A crash screamed over the landscape, echoing over the empty fields on either side of the highway. The bus pounded and rolled. Roddy Barsten felt fingers lose grip from his bicep and his body flew high into the air. It felt like a sadistic rollercoaster ride, his stomach churned and twisted riding time’s track. The motion tossed him in front of an accident he had no good reason to survive. The pain left him and for a second, he was certain he hadn’t survived at all and that, really, wasn’t so bad.

  There were other thumps and thuds and then blackness as he lay in the long grass, soaked in the standing water held in place by a clogged culvert. Alive.

  Goose Hill – Schedule Abandoned

  It was mostly dark and the scent was off, familiar but scary. Roddy Barsten wasn’t certain, but he thought he had survived an accident, did not recall the moment of certainty in demise. But, he recalled Varney.

  He tried to rise, a tremor of pain surfed his body. His mouth was dry and he thought he’d die without a drink. He looked around the dim room. He saw light beyond the edges of a drape.

  A sound approached. A squeak.

  He recalled the squeaky woman and then the rest. His heart banged against his ribs and he knew fate was on him, any second fate would drag him back to hell, fate devouring him with the ferocious bites of the time doggies.

  The squeak came closer and of course, it was the beasts. They wouldn’t give up so easily. They were probably chewing on the woman.

  Like a squeak toy! Did you really think you’d get away? Fate is a heavyweight and you’re no champ. You’re just a chump that got a lucky shot in! Fate has all the time in the universe. Time owns the doggies and you’re as good as dead. It’s paralyzed you to prove it, doggies like to toy when they’re full, the thrill is in the kill.

  The squeak came from right outside the door.

  You didn’t think they’d let you win, did you?

  The door opened and Roddy saw silver beasts leap through the door. His best and only defense… he snapped his eyes and turned his head, slightly.

  “Good, you’re awake. Come now, calm down.”

  The former bus driver opened his eyes and glanced up. No time doggies, not even an ominous stranger with a pocket watch, just a doctor with a clipboard.

  The doctor explained the accident and how fortunate he was that he landed in a small pool of water and that he could’ve broken something less forgiving than arms, legs and his hips. The bus and the tanker both exploded.

  “Just me?”

  The doctor closed her clipboard, “Well actually, if you’re willing to see her, there’s a young woman who’d like to see you. She’s just outside, fared a smidge better than you did. How do you feel about seeing her?”

  “Sure,” Roddy said, his voice sounded crispy, liked an overcooked bacon crunch.

  “Mr. Thomas, could you bring Miss Pike in?”

  The wheels squeaked and Roddy saw the squeaky woman.

  “Hello Roddy Barsten, nice to meet you, officially,” she said.

  She had a cast on her left leg and her right arm in a sling.

  “You too, Miss Pike.”

  “Susan Pike.”

  “We’ll leave you two a moment, come on Trevor, you can just wait outside the room until Miss Pike wants to go back to her room.”

  Once alone, Susan Pike, the squeaky woman, leaned down and whispered, “Popcorn said the time doggies never let go once they get on the scent.”

  “Popcorn said that?” Roddy Barsten gasped. “Did he say when?”

  Susan Pike held her serious face for exactly three seconds before breaking out into laughter, “I talked to Popcorn, he broke his tailbone and bit his cheek when the shift tossed him. He told me you thought of me as the squeaky woman and he said you tried very hard not to see my underwear. That’s all. So once again, I’m Susan Pike. But it wasn’t my underwear I hid. I found it so funny that I had to tell you, once you woke up. That’s all.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. So, goodbye, driver, have a good life.” She gave the man’s fingers a gentle squeeze. “It was real.”

  He laughed and it hurt, “If not the underwear, what?”

  “I’m ready to go,” she called out, the big nurse stepped into the room. “It’s something you’ll never know.”

  Roddy Barsten smiled at the woman as she left his life forever. He thought he knew enough about things he shouldn’t to last him until the end of time. That little mystery was one that could stay that way for all he cared.

  THE END.

  THE DREADED TOME OF URAWN by Lee Clark Zumpe

  "Curse you, mortal," shouted the great gray dragon vexedly as the mortal on her back fidgeted nervously in his saddle. "By the gods, be still!"

  Far from her lavish den in the Northern Mountains, the dragon soared through the sky above a leafy canopy. Zuignaar and her human attendant had traveled no small distance to reach the long-abandoned city of Arrahkeesh in the wilds of the Nairuvian jungle. Therein, she hoped to find and secure a dangerous manuscript, the very existence of which caused dire concern among the Council of Elder Dragons.

  High in the evening sky, the dragon's sharp eyes could only now discern the bubbling domes and towering minarets of the ancient stronghold silhouetted against the fading traces of the sunset. Friel clutched anxiously at her hide, still trembling from the storm-darkened skies through which they had pressed to make the city before nightfall.

  "Can you see it yet?" he asked excitedly.

  "Yes, I can see it. We'll be there in a matter of moments," the dragon said, reassuring him with a softer tone of voice than she had used a moment earlier when she had reprimanded him. Though she hated to admit it, she liked little Friel and found herself exceedingly reluctant to censure him in any way. She had never developed such a fondness for one of her slaves. "I'll have you safely down on your precious ground shortly."

  The black walls of Arrahkeesh rose up arrogantly out of the tangle of an untamed jungle. Long had those walls gone unattended by guardians, and long had the watchtowers been vacant. Only the jungle itself now threatened the city whose kings and citizenr
y had disappeared ages ago. Zuignaar knew that even thieves shunned this sinister place, and that the prize that she sought would not be easily won.

  As the dragon lit upon the rain-sodden cobblestone surface of the city's central square, Friel silently offered up a prayer of thanks to the patron god of adventures, Ulahn.

  Dark towers and long-deserted temples stood silent. Streets, overrun with probing vines from the encroaching jungle, trailed off into a tangle of terraced archaic masonry haunted by shadows and legends. Overseeing the deserted streets, the citadel of the ill-famed wizard Urawn crouched upon the crest of a ridge that enfolded the city. Zuignaar wondered if the screams of Urawn's sacrifices still echoed through the halls of that fortress, if the spatters of blood still stained the marble floors of his conjure-cells.

  From the ledge of a nearby edifice, a row of grim-faced gargoyles glared down at the gray dragon and her man-servant.

  "I've not ever seen a city such as this," Friel whispered, fearful that his voice might rouse spirits of the dead. He marveled at the unusual architecture, the intricate designs adorning each building, the somber statues quietly guarding the entrance to each building. Open-mouthed he wondered at the complexities of patterns, at the vastness of it all. "Certainly this place was not built by human hands," he finally declared, looking toward his master for enlightenment.

  "Aye, it was," Zuignaar answered calmly as she scanned the crumbling walls. "Built in the Age of the Yellow Moon, when the Faceless King ruled from the throne high atop the cliffs of Mount Ty'Ryluan. The walls of this city were raised very long ago, before the Wars of the Goblin Clans, and before the Scarlet Plague descended upon your race."

  "And the dragons allowed it?" Friel asked, his eyebrows raising in disbelief. The slave could not accept that his scrawny, feeble-minded kin could erect such a colossal fortification, nor could he believe that the dragons would permit such a city's construction.

  "Well, er," the gray dragon began, trying to find a satisfactory response that would urge no further inquiries, "The city, you see, was built before the dragons had formed the confederation. In those days, the Emperor permitted the establishment of some settlements to see whether or not freed humans could live independently. It was nothing more than an experiment, one which clearly failed." Zuignaar smiled a little, inadvertently flashing her dagger-length fangs. "Once the confederation had been founded, the Council of Elder Dragons quickly outlawed mortal colonies -- which, I think, was for the best."