Land of Nod, The Child (Land of Nod Trilogy Book 3)

by Hoover, Gary

  I received a very interesting correspondence via courier today. Pheerion Rex says he is working with a number of devices that can distort space-time, and he would like to collaborate with me. Since I have been so frustrated with my own efforts, the possibility of collaboration intrigues me. I sent a response indicating I would like to learn more and requested more information on his efforts.

  Can I trust him?

  I received some detailed notes and calculations from Pheerion Rex today. His approach is fresh. He has arrived at some similar conclusions to mine but via different routes. Very interesting. He could help me break through some of the barriers I’ve been encountering. He has some of his own equipment, and the two of us can probably accomplish much more together. Still not convinced, but I will continue to correspond.

  Still not sure if I can trust him, but I’m thinking that I may feel compelled to make the leap. Preparing to make the trip. When the courier returns, I’ll go back with him.

  That was the last mention of Pheerion Rex, and the notes ended shortly after that. Jeff felt sure that his father had gone to work with Pheerion Rex. Is he still there? Did he help him develop the weapons? Why would he do that?

  Jeff leaned back in his chair and looked around the room but couldn’t find anything he could use to rationalize avoiding the tedious task any longer.

  He selected a random notebook and opened it. He was reading various selections from different notebooks to see if he could find anything interesting. He put his decoding key on the page and began writing the translation in his working notebook:

  c-o-n-d-u-c-t-i-v-i-t-y m-a-y b-e t-o-o l-o-w. T-r-y s-o-m-e v-a-r-i-a-t-i-o-n-s w-i-t-h m-o-r-e c-o-n-d-u-c-t-i-v-e m-e-t-a-l-s. A-l-s-o t-r-y i-n-c-r-e-a-s-e-d d-i-a-m-e-t-e-r a-n-d s-h-o-r-t-e-r s-e-c-t-i-o-n-s

  Jeff threw the pen at the notebook in frustration. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but it’s not this.

  He stood and stretched then looked at his bat. It was hung on a loop attached to his gun-belt, and the gun-belt was hanging from a hook on the wall. Still slight staining from the blood. He pulled the bat from the belt and bounced it on his hand. He moved to an open spot, took a batting stance then took a few slow practice swings. Come on, come on, back to work. He put the bat back in the belt loop and sat heavily with an exaggerated sigh.

  He tapped the pen against the notebook and tried to refocus but soon found himself looking around the room for another distraction. His eyes fell on the spider, and he began to move toward it when there was a knock at the door.

  Jeff went to the door, opened it and saw Nahima grinning broadly.

  “I found Codi’s mother. We can go try to talk to her first thing in the morning.”

  Chapter 8:

  “The locket is the key,” Jeff mumbled to himself as he woke. He looked around the room to get his bearings and attempt to remember where he was.

  The dream was still fresh in his mind. It was a variation of one he had been having frequently. He found his father, and Jeff Senior knew how to get them home. He had it all figured out. But before they could do what they had to do, Pheerion Rex arrived in fearsome battle armor.

  Pheerion Rex had power and technology that Jeff couldn’t hope to match even with his powers. He battled desperately, but Pheerion Rex always wore him down. Ultimately, every time, Jeff ended up helpless on the floor with Pheerion Rex approaching. Then just before he struck the inevitable fatal blow, Jeff woke as he did that morning.

  Jeff rolled out of bed. He stood and stared at the notebooks, willing them to divulge their secrets and give him the information he needed.

  However, nothing came as the notebooks just sat there and stubbornly continued to be only notebooks.

  Jeff pulled out the spider and played with that for a while. He snapped twice and watched it feel its way across his bead. He snapped again and watched it immediately cease movement. Then he snapped it alive again and watched the subtle movements.

  It really is amazingly lifelike, he thought. He found it so lifelike that he was reluctant to touch it while it moved. He snapped it off and then closely examined it for any signs that it was a robot rather than a spider.

  It’s nearly perfect.

  He was startled by a knock at the door.

  “Are you awake?” Nahima asked from the other side.

  “Yeah, I’ll be ready soon.”

  The locket is the key.

  Chapter 9:

  Nahima brought the car down gently in front of a small house, and she, Dave and Jeff climbed out.

  The three of them paused, looked at the house, then each other. None seemed sure how to progress. Nahima took the lead and started up the flower-lined path as Jeff and Dave fell in behind her.

  Jeff reached instinctively for his gun-belt, but it wasn’t there. They had all agreed that it would be best to be as non-threatening as possible, but he felt a little nervous without the belt that had become like a security blanket to him.

  Nahima pushed a button beside the door, and they waited.

  After a minute or two, she pushed it again. “Maybe she’s not here.”

  Jeff found himself becoming nervous. While he hoped to get some clue regarding where Codi – and the locket – might be, he found some comfort in the idea that her mother might not be home so they wouldn’t have to deal with it right then.

  The door opened widely, and Jeff saw a woman in her sixties with bright silver hair and sparkling blue eyes. “Well hello dear, how are you?” she asked Nahima then looked at Dave and Jeff with a smile. “Come in, come in. Come and sit for a bit.”

  If Jeff hadn’t known better, he would have thought the woman knew Nahima, but Nahima had made it clear on the trip that they had never met.

  “Would you like something to drink? Tea? Beer?” the woman asked.

  “I’ll have a beer, thank you,” Nahima said.

  Jeff eyed her curiously.

  “Tea please,” Dave added, eliciting an even more curious look from Jeff.

  Jeff began to look around the room which was decorated with hundreds of different images of an odd animal that looked similar to a bear but with a flatter body that was close to the ground, shaggy greenish-yellow fur and sharp, jagged teeth. It was in various poses on pillows, banners, cups – most of the items visible had a different version of the animal.

  Jeff realized everyone was looking at him. “Oh, sorry, I’ll have a tea if it’s not too much trouble.”

  The woman turned and headed toward the kitchen leaving the three of them standing in the small entranceway.

  “Needle-tooth hogs,” Nahima said.

  Jeff looked at her with a puzzled expression.

  “Needle-tooth hogs,” she repeated and made a sweeping gesture to indicate the animal that was on everything. “It’s the mascot for a team in the red-ball league. She must be a fan,” Nahima commented with a shrug.

  Jeff nodded. “Now that you’ve seen her, are you sure you never met her before?”

  “Positive,” Nahima replied, shaking her head. She stood on her toes and stretched her neck to check if she could see where the woman had gone while trying to keep her feet where they were.

  “Really? She seems very friendly to three strangers,” Jeff looked toward Dave who responded with a shrug.

  “Should we be worried?” Jeff asked. He was trying, like Nahima, to see where the woman had gone and was getting slightly nervous.

  “Maybe,” Nahima answered. “We’re flying kind of blind here. I hadn’t thought much about it… until you said it.” She gave him a gently accusing look before turning her attention back to the direction in which the woman had disappeared.

  “Come on, sit down. Make yourselves comfortable.”

  All three jumped slightly as the woman waved at them from a side room that was in the opposite direction from where she disappeared.

  She was gesturing to a small table as she placed drinks on it.

  The three began walking toward the table, and the woman hurried toward them. She to
ok Dave’s hand and led him to a seat at the table where an enormous teacup – the size of a soup-bowl – had been placed.

  She looked up at Dave as she indicated his seat. He was more than a foot taller than she was, and she had to tilt her head back to look him in the eyes. He looked down at her with a pleasant smile. Nahima and Jeff exchanged confused looks. Nahima shrugged.

  The woman patted Dave gently on his head as he sat.

  Do they know each other or something? Jeff wondered.

  Nahima took the seat that had a beer bottle and glass, and Jeff took a seat across from the woman next to what he inferred to be his cup of tea, which was much smaller than Dave’s.

  “Ms. Benedict,” Nahima began as she poured her beer. “If I can be direct, we’re hoping you can help us find your daughter, Codi.” She took a sip and waited for a response.

  Instead of answering her directly, the woman looked at Dave. “Oh, are you a friend of Codi’s?” She seemed a bit disappointed and moved her hand away from the spot on Dave’s arm on which it had been resting.

  Dave shrugged. “I’ve met her, but I don’t really know her that well. These two… ” He nodded toward Nahima and Jeff. “Are more interested than me. I’m just here for the tea.” He smiled and lifted his enormous cup.

  Jeff couldn’t help being disturbed by Dave’s uncharacteristically civilized behavior.

  “She worked with my father,” Nahima explained.

  The woman lifted her hand to her mouth. “Oh, my… Bishop Winfred? You’re Bishop Winfred’s daughter, aren’t you? I should have recognized you.” She shook her head slowly, reached for Nahima’s hand and squeezed it. “Oh, darling, I’m so very sorry for your loss.”

  Nahima nodded but didn’t say anything for a few moments. “Thank you. We’re hoping Codi may be able to help us figure out some things.”

  Ms. Benedict turned her attention back to Dave. “Well if there’s anything I can do to help… I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

  “Dave.”

  “Ah, Dave. I should have known. A strong name for a strong man.”

  She put her hand back on his arm and started moving it up toward his shoulder – squeezing and kneading as she went.

  Nahima and Jeff looked at each other with a mixture of confusion and disgust.

  “Ms. Benedict?” Nahima said, trying to get her attention back.

  “Yes?” she responded but didn’t take her eyes off Dave.

  “Do you know where Codi is?”

  “No,” she said, smiling at Dave who smiled back. “No, I’ve tried her on the electro-comm, even stopped by her apartment several times, but I haven’t heard a word from her.”

  “Any idea where she might have gone?” Nahima asked.

  “Well the last time I saw her, she was with my niece, Trina, but it’s hard to say where they might have ended up. Trina has been… a little off for quite some time. Last I heard, she was living in the wilderness with some gang of thugs.”

  Jeff noticed Dave’s face take on an odd expression as the color started to drain from it.

  Chapter 10:

  “So it sounds like you didn’t get much useful information,” Baldwin said. He, Nahima, and Jeff had met for lunch at a local pub.

  Jeff shook his head and took a drink of his ‘raloo’ – a juice drink that had become a new favorite of his. “I don’t know. From what Ms. Benedict said, Codi might be with that woman – Trina.”

  “Yeah, but she also said Trina was some kind of crazy nomad. How do we find a crazy nomad with no address?” Nahima asked.

  “Well we can start asking around at some of the wilderness towns.” Baldwin suggested.

  Jeff nodded. The three of them sat silently for several moments.

  Finally, Jeff broke the silence. “I think we’re just going to have to go as soon as the boat is ready. The locket is probably already on its way to Pheerion Rex. We can’t give him time to build a new weapon as we fumble blindly.”

  Part of him wanted to stall and wait. The idea of going to another continent and battling Pheerion Rex on his home turf scared him at a level he couldn’t even describe, but he knew that the uncomfortable words he had just spoken were the truth.

  “This is all Artimus Winfred’s fault,” a loud voice from a neighboring table said.

  Jeff looked up and focused on the man who had spoken. The man, who was a foot taller than Jeff and weighed roughly three times as much as him, met Jeff’s gaze with a cold, hard stare.

  Then he looked back at his friends and continued. “He joined up with the Doclotnurians. He made us appear to be allies.”

  Jeff began to rise, but Nahima put a hand on his arm. “Don’t worry about that back-end. He’s probably just drunk and blowing off some steam.”

  A few weeks prior, Jeff wouldn’t have even thought about such a confrontation. He would have just ignored it and slinked away when he had the opportunity.

  But he wasn’t a scared little kid anymore. He had just taken on a band of pheerion warriors and gotten the better of them.

  “I’m glad he’s dead,” the man went on in a voice loud enough for every nearby table to hear – particularly since many conversations had stopped in response to the man’s odd outburst.

  What am I becoming? I’m becoming the sort of person who isn’t going to take something like this anymore.

  Jeff rose forcefully and took several long, determined strides until he was standing next to the table. The man who had been speaking just looked up at him with a smirk. The rest of pub had become completely silent.

  “Do you know who they are?” Jeff asked, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at Baldwin and Nahima.

  The man nodded and his smirk grew. “I know who they are, and I know who you are… Raja.” The last word was spoken with as much contempt as the man could manage.

  “Apologize to them,” Jeff growled through clenched teeth.

  “Or what? Are you going to make me?” the man asked with a bemused expression.

  “I SAID APOLOGIZE!” Jeff brought both of his fists down on the thick, wooden table, and it split, breaking into two pieces. Drinking glasses and plates shattered as the two halves and all the previous contents hit the floor. The three men who had been sitting at the table stumbled and fell backward as they attempted to get away from the destroyed table.

  Jeff kept his focus on the one who had been speaking. His chair had tipped over. He was getting to his feet shakily and looking at Jeff uncertainly.

  Jeff walked slowly toward the man who towered over him. When he was close enough, the man took a swing, but Jeff saw him start and threw up his arm. As he did, the man’s punch slowed, and Jeff was easily able to block it and push it aside. Jeff looked directly into the confused man’s face and stepped forward, grabbing the man’s jacket with both hands. The man swatted at Jeff’s arms, twisting and pulling, as he tried desperately to free himself, but he wasn’t able to break Jeff’s grasp. Jeff continued walking, pushing the man backward as he went. When they reached the wall, Jeff pushed him into it – forcefully but not with the bone-shattering force he could have used if had chosen to.

  The man was far larger and heavier than he was, but Jeff pushed upward and managed to lift him. The man slid up the wall until his feet were dangling. Urine dripped off his leg onto the floor.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the man whimpered breathlessly.

  “Not to me.” Jeff looked over his shoulder toward Baldwin and Nahima who were standing awkwardly amongst the shocked, amazed and slightly frightened onlookers. “To them,” he said gesturing with his head in their direction. He turned and threw the man toward them. He flailed and slid along the floor before skidding to a stop several feet in front of them.

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled without looking at them.

  Chapter 11:

  Jeff brought the jump-scoot down in a clearing near some large boulders he had been scouting from above. He mused to himself how scared he would have felt to have been alone o
utside the barrier just a week ago. However, experience and supernatural powers had given him a level of courage far beyond what he had previously possessed.

  He reached for the locket chain around his neck, pulled it over his head and held it in front of him as he flipped it open and examined the photo inside.

  I was so young then, so carefree. No, wait, that’s not true. I worried about being late for school, worried about doing poorly on my world-cultures test, worried about striking out when I was at bat. Those worries seemed very important at the time, but they seem insignificant now. I wish those were the kind of things I worried about now. I guess it’s all about perspective.

  He stared at the photo for a minute or two while running his hand around the edge. The Jeff in the photo knew the joy of greeting his mother when he arrived home from school. That Jeff knew the joys of playing with his toy cars and watching cartoons.

  Jeff smiled a simple smile of simple pleasure that came close to the one in the photo. He hadn’t managed a smile like that for so long that he couldn’t remember when the last one had been.

  I guess I should get on with it. He placed the locket carefully on a boulder and pulled the bat from its loop on his belt. Can’t let this get in the wrong hands. I’ve seen the power it has. If the other locket makes it back to Pheerion Rex, everyone I know could be doomed.

  The simple smile he had managed just moments ago seemed a distant memory as he raised the bat over his head. He brought it down with a powerful swing.

  As the bat connected with the locket, there was a blinding green flash and a shock wave that lifted Jeff and threw him back ten feet.

  He blinked and saw nothing but blue sky. He was flat on his back in the dry grass. He pulled himself up to a sitting position and shook his head to clear it. He reached for his bat, which was on the ground a few feet away, and pulled it on to his lap. He sat for a few more moments to regain his alertness before trying to stand.