Hear Me Roar

by Rhonda Parrish

  “Look, Janice, I’d love to stay and help with the dragon-slaying, but if you don’t mind giving back my duffel bag, me and my buddy John will be on our merry way,” I held up my wrists, hoping she’d get the hint and cut me loose. By the way she hesitated, though, I knew something wasn’t keen, and I asked, “Where is John?”

  Janice pursed her lips. “He’s, well...There’s something you should know. After your little one-woman-army show last night the front gates were accidentally left open and The Dragon managed to slip through and drag a girl, Molly--you met her--off into the woods. Your man, he must be a regular superhero in disguise, because he went charging after the thing, right into the dark. Problem is, neither one came back.”

  Ha! See, what did I tell you? John is handy to have around. Of course that’s not what I was thinking as I lunged at the bars, spitting a slew at Janice.

  “What the fuck do you mean, ‘Neither one came back?’ Where the fuck is he?”

  “I told you,” she reiterated. “He’s gone.”

  In case it hasn’t been made clear by now, I’ve got some anger management issues, so when I asked, nay, demanded, to be let out of the cell, I was surprised that Janice bypassed my rabid, mouth-frothing threats of bodily harm and did just that, cutting the zip-ties to boot. Rubbing my sore wrists, I glared at her.

  “Call your people to a meeting,” I said with a stony-balled resolve that surprised even me. “We’re going on a hunting trip.”

  The adults around Janice’s encampment were such a motley crew that, when assembled, I swear I heard the opening guitar lick from Shout At The Devil whistling on the breeze. Along with Miguel the mechanic was Tom, an old Haight-Ashbury holdover who’d been so fried by ‘shrooms he still thought he was at Woodstock half the time, and a supermodel-skinny former lounge pianist drag queen named Liberace Hudson Jones who tended to the dogs and made me jealous by looking better cleaning out the kennel in full Frederick’s of Hollywood regalia than I ever could.

  The closest thing Janice had to a militarily trained individual was Doug, a Grade-A dweeb who’d been some kind of online video game champion back in the day and had somehow managed to survive the apocalypse without being skinned alive. I swear, if it wasn’t for all that first-person-shooter experience giving him enough working knowledge to help run weapons ordinance I would’ve saved everyone the trouble and strangled him myself.

  If Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard wasn’t bare at the jail, the same couldn’t be said of its armory. Besides the .38 that Wolfie had pulled on me, the only firearm in the camp was a pump-action shotgun with nine shells to go with it; everything else had been vulture-picked clean through the years. Yet some interesting items remained in the arsenal nonetheless; there was an ample supply of batons, Tasers, pepper spray, and I easily recognized the sport crossbows toted by Father Christmas’s guards that Janice’s kids had pilfered from them post-mortem.

  Janice appeared in the doorway with Wolfie, who looked no worse the wear from our tussle the evening before. In his hand was my machete, and when Janice nudged him the teen held it out to me handle-first. “I believe this is yours.”

  I snatched the machete from Wolfie, feeling reunited with a long-lost friend, but when Janice took Tom’s crossbow and slung it over a shoulder I gave her a puzzled look. “You’re coming with us?”

  “Absolutely,” Janice scowled. “Whatever that thing is out there, it ate my hand. So, yeah, count me in.”

  I slapped her on the back. “Well, welcome aboard the Hispaniola, Captain Hook. You’ll get that white whale.”

  Janice sighed. “Classic literature weeps.”

  “I’m sure,” I shoved a can of pepper spray in my pocket. “Now let’s kickstart this shit.”

  Which we did. Leaving Tom and Liberace behind to watch over the younger children, Janice, Doug, Miguel and Wolfie followed while I hacked a path through the wilderness beyond the jail, and it wasn’t long before I remembered why I’d never been one of those trail-mix-snacking, vista-basking, take-a-dump-behind-a-tree types Before, because really, I hate hiking. I mean, I was kicked out of Girls Scouts ‘cause I pretty much loathed everything about The Great Outdoors. Well, that and I stabbed our Den Mother with a plastic fast-food spork, but that’s another story.

  We’d been out about an hour when Doug spotted Molly’s dirty, fleece-lined leather jacket in the underbrush, one sleeve shredded, the fly-smothered remains of a disemboweled Rottweiler not far away.

  “It’s Zeke,” Janice told me, crinkling her nose at the smell. “He chased after The Dragon last night with Molly and your man.”

  As I wondered what could be capable of turning Fido into finger-food, Wolfie called out from the opposite side of a clearing and we found him staring up the trunk of a large oak tree where Molly sat stranded on a high limb like a frightened blonde kitten, eyes red from crying, right shoulder streaked with blood, but when Janice told her to climb down, the girl stubbornly shook her head.

  “I’ll get her,” Wolfie assured us, ascending the tree and carefully leading Molly to the ground, where she was a scattershot ball of nerves, her story encrypted jibber-jabber: “TheDragontookmetothewoodsbutMr.ManfoughtitoffandthenIclimbedthetreebutTheDragongotMr.Manandtookhimtoitslair...”

  “Mr. Man?” I plucked the name from the girl’s babble. “You mean John?”

  Molly nodded, pointing to a rocky outcropping on the opposite side of another clearing near a dry creek bed, and immediately I started marching towards it, ignoring the girl’s hysteric pleas of opposition. I was half-way across the field before Janice and Doug caught up to me.

  “Wait, will you?” Janice said, grabbing my arm.

  “Don’t touch,” I snarled, suppressing every urge to deck her. “It messes up the wardrobe.”

  The two of us started squabbling like hens, and it was only when Doug’s frantic cries echoed Molly’s lunatic screaming that we stopped; I turned just in time to see movement in the foliage and catch the goofy, terror-stricken look on Doug’s face right before something heaved up from the shrubbery, ten feet long with a tail to match and quick as a sprinter, tackling him with linebacker force, and suddenly all the loopy, Looney-Tune tales I’d heard were validated, because there, not ten yards away, tearing the poor dork apart with its forelimbs like a kid pulling the wings off a fly really was a dragon.

  A Komodo Dragon.

  “A what?!” Janice shouted after I screamed the creature’s name.

  “A fucking Komodo Dragon,” I yanked her to the edge of the field. “Varanus komodoensis. Native to Indonesia. The largest carnivorous lizard on earth. Their scales are practically chain-mail, and the damn thing’s bite is loaded with poisonous anti-coagulating venom. They’re known to eat wild pigs, deer, livestock, even other Komodo Dragons. And oh, yeah, people.”

  “I’m not even going to ask how you know all that.”

  “I used to watch a lot of Discovery Channel when I’d trip out on cough syrup. I guess some of it sank in.”

  From our hiding spot we couldn’t see Doug in the tall grass, but his cries were still wild in the air until with an abrupt, sickening crunch of bone they ceased altogether. Janice, horrified, looked at me.

  “How the hell did a Komodo Dragon get here?”

  “Who knows? They probably escaped from a zoo after the end, and lucky girl, you set up a snack bar smack dab in their territory.”

  “They?” Janice’s voice cracked. “As in plural?”

  There was a low, guttural hiss from behind us then, and the leathery snout of a second Komodo Dragon emerged from the brush, its long, yellow, forked tongue flicking from a razor-tooth mouth. “Yeah, I forgot to mention,” I said, backing up. “They’re group hunters.”

  There wasn’t time to run; the creature launched from its camouflaged position, a single swipe from its huge tail taking me down so fast the machete flew from my hand and I was pinned under the dragon’s girth, viscous globs of pinkish snot-slime dripping from its jaws on
to my face.

  You know, wrestling with a two-hundred-pound Jurassic relic might sound fun if you’re a hillbilly or some Norman Bates-level psycho, but really, its not. Wedging my right arm underneath the Komodo Dragon’s neck I attempted to shove it back, but it was too strong, and I felt the tear of claws at my belly. Just then I remembered the pepper spray I’d stuffed in my pocket; looking back now it’s a miracle I managed to grab it, much less aim a clear shot in the struggle, but I did, Macing the fucker like a late-night mugger in the park.

  The Dragon let out a wicked, shrieking hiss, but its attack barely slowed; only a quick arrow piercing its neck accomplished that. I looked up to see Janice gripping the crossbow, the weapon’s shaft balanced on her handless forearm, a vengeful expression on her face.

  “Come to Mother,” she said, fumbling to reload. The dragon did, too, abandoning me and charging at her with full-on locomotive speed.

  Freedom from the assault was almost as disorienting as being attacked to begin with, but seeing the dragon rampaging towards Janice laser-trained my focus and I rolled, snatching up my machete before grabbing hold of the creature’s tail, hoping to stop its advance. Instead I became a rodeo-rider, sidewinder-sliding through the dirt, hanging on for dear life as the Dragon plowed into Janice, knocking her off her feet and causing the second crossbow shot to go astray. Janice screamed, kicked and flailed, but still it came, an angered jabberwocky of claws and teeth.

  In desperation I jabbed the machete into the lizard’s hind legs as hard as I could; at first it ignored the slices, but I kept on hacking until the Dragon’s thick skin split and I saw blood. It bellowed again, slimy jaws snapping, tail thrashing fiercer than ever, succeeding with one last powerhouse slap in tossing me aside.

  I hit the ground hard, but scampered upright just as Janice’s screams renewed. This time I was a Whirling Dervish of frenzied female fury--I was Kali, I was Joan of Arc, I was Buffy--and with the shrillest war cry I could muster I leapt onto the beast’s back in a red-hot rage, machete grasped with both hands, cracking it down on the Komodo Dragon’s head like I was playing Whac-A-Mole, slashing and smashing and bashing until at long last it stopped moving.

  Janice, trembling, her face and right arm a mess of bleeding cuts, leaned against a tree. “Please tell me it’s dead this time.”

  “Well it’s not pining for the fjords,” I said before giving an extra machete-smack to the Dragon’s splintered skull, spattering Komodo brains all over Janice’s torn serape. “But that’s just in case.”

  Another scream punctured the quiet as Miguel, Wolfie and Molly came upon the spot where the first Komodo Dragon had attacked Doug, the trio staring in open-mouthed shock at the aftermath. Like an enormous snake the creature was attempting to swallow Doug’s corpse whole, its jaw distended and oozing copious amounts of red-tinged saliva to lubricate the proceedings, the entirety of Doug’s head up to his shoulders disappearing down its toothy gullet. I glanced at Janice.

  “Well there’s something you don’t see every day.”

  Miguel stood closest to the gruesome tableau, pump-action shotgun in his hands, but appeared too mind-fucked to use it. I sheathed my machete, took the gun from him, and slowly walked over to where the Dragon dined; so engrossed with digesting its meal the thing didn’t even notice my approach, much less feel the barrel against its skull.

  Yeah, you can pretty much fill in the blank here can’t you?

  “Are there any more of them?” Janice asked after I handed the shotgun back to Miguel.

  “I don’t know,” I answered, distractedly looking to the rocky area Molly had pointed out earlier; before I knew it I was tramping across the field again, the rest of the group struggling to keep up with my frantic pace.

  The dry creek bed was permeated with an overwhelming road kill stench, clogged with a thick cloud of flies and I soon found out why--the crags all around were a barf-inducing butcher’s-shop of rotting, half-eaten carcasses; raccoons and opossums, dogs, deereven the upper torso from one of Father Christmas’s guards.

  In the midst of it all John lay curled in a fetal ball looking like he’d been tossed in a meat grinder. I rushed over to him, not sure at first if he was even alive; slowly his head raised, a small smile spreading across his battered face.

  “Hey, babe. What’s up?”

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. All I did was kiss him hard on the lips. John breathlessly let a weak laugh escape after I pulled back.

  “See, Chia,” he said. “I always knew you loved me.”

  I groaned. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m just glad you’re not dragon chow. Can you walk?”

  “We won’t be doing the Jitterbug any time soon, but yeah,” John replied, proving it by taking a few wobbly steps back to where everyone waited for us.

  As we left the dragon’s den Wolfie pointed to a huge hole dug deep into the earth; inside was a half-exposed nest of twenty or so oblong eggs. One of them quivered even as we watched, the dragon within primed to hatch.

  “Not so fast, Norberta,” I said, grinding the eggs beneath my heel like squashed bugs before following Janice and the others out into the woods.

  And then I woke up and realized it was all a dream.

  No, I’m fucking with you. Couldn’t resist.

  Anyway, once at the jail Janice doctored everyone up as best she could. Except for Doug, of course. For him it was Game Over, and it took an additional expedition and half an hour of dissecting to remove enough of him from the dragon’s digestive tract to bury.

  When John recuperated enough we pedaled around a few nearby towns for the replacement parts Miguel needed to repair the school bus, and with their transportation fixed, Janice surprised me by announcing she was packing up the entire camp to look for some new digs. When I asked her why she’d want to abandon such a secure place, she looked first at the jail and then to her bandaged stump, telling me, “It’s like a piece of cake that you’ve dropped on the floor after taking two bites. No matter how sweet it is, you just don’t want it anymore.”

  She agreed to give John and I a ride to Fulton so we could deliver Father Christmas’s shipment. The commune there was based at an old dinosaur-themed amusement park and when the bus arrived, a bunch of black beret wearing beatniks-with-Uzis met us at the gate, but once we explained who we were and why we were there, a celebratory feast of teriyaki MREs and pickled pigs feet was thrown in our honor.

  The commune’s head honcho was some self-help-guru-turned-cult-leader who called himself Emperor Hirohito Studpuff, and afterwards he actually invited Janice and her group to settle in at his camp. Surprise numero dos was that she accepted, and even though Janice asked John and I to stay on with her, I’d had enough of reptiles. So with visions of Fruit Roll-Ups dancing in my head we set out on our bicycles with a confirmation message from Hirohito addressed to Father Christmas saying that we’d accomplished our mission.

  Like I said earlier, I’m a glass-half-full thinker, but the problem with life is it has a tendency to spill that glass when you aren’t looking. Unbeknownst to either of us and true to Father Christmas’s prediction, two days after John and I left Fulton war broke out between Neo-Texas and the Southern Militia Confederation over the oil supply down that way, and not unexpectedly Wall Street was one of the first places hit by the Confederation’s raiders. The entire place was sacked, and what happened to Father Christmas is anybody’s guess. Maybe he slippery-eeled his way out before the battle, or maybe he became a giant human tetherball. I don’t know. All I did know was there was no way for John and I to claim our prize for the work we’d done.

  So. Here we are again. Open road ahead of us, the past behind. I try to focus on that freedom, the opportunity and possibilities each day brings, and not, you know, the gnawing black hole that is my stomach, and if I get too down I think about that new feather in my cap, that billion-year title I never thought I’d have.

  Chia Pet Hepburn: Dragon-Slayer.

  Coo
l.

  Hey, you think Disneyland’s still there?

  Damascus Mincemeyer was exposed to the weird worlds of horror, comics and sci-fi as a boy and has been ruined ever since. He’s now an artist and writer of various strangeness and has had stories published (or set-to-be published) in the anthologies Fire: Demons, Dragons and Djinn, Earth: Giants, Golems and Gargoyles, Air: Slyphs, Spirits and Swan Maidens (Tyche Books), Bikers Vs The Undead, Psycho Holiday, Monsters Vs Nazis, Mr. Deadman Made Me Do It, Satan Is Your Friend, Monster Party, Wolfwinter (all from Deadman’s Tome publishing, and books for which he also provided cover art), Crash Code (Blood Bound Books), Hell’s Empire (Ulthar Press), Appalachian Horror (Aphotic Realm), A Tree Lighting In Deathlehem (Grinning Skull Press), On Time (Transmundane Press), the Sirens Call ezine, and the magazines Aphotic Realm, Gallows Hill and StoryHack. He lives near St. Louis, Missouri and can usually be found lurking about on Twitter @DamascusUndead

  AMANDA KESPOHL

  THE NAGA’S MIRROR

  The heat against my back is not the sun. It is far less friendly, licking at my heels like the tongue of some venomous beast. It occurs to me that man was not meant to outrun dragon fire.

  Good thing I’m a woman.

  The muscles in my body tighten. As they uncoil, I spring over a rocky lip, plummeting through the air and into the lake below.

  No need to wonder how I came to this pass, frog-kicking through silver-green weeds to avoid the flames piercing the subterranean darkness above me. The Caverns of Reflection are a great place to meditate on your past. These mystical waters reflect the history of any person who touches them. At the moment, I am quite literally drowning in my own memories.

  I swim through the image of a gawky teenage me as she strolls along the bank of a different lake, taking a break from her chores. A gleam in the shallows catches her eye. A sword protrudes from the silt left bare by the lake’s retreat from the heat-drenched shores. It is brilliantly silver, so bright and pure that it seems to glow in the afternoon sun. The hilt is tilted invitingly in her direction. The girl—all knees and elbows and ratty red-gold hair—reaches out to touch it. A spectral wind blows her wavy hair pin-straight as light flares from the hilt and passes through her body.