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

by Hoover, Gary

She exited tentatively, and the others followed her lead. There was a shallow valley, more of an indentation, in the field that ran parallel to the closest wall and could provide some cover if they needed it. It was half-way along their route, and other than that, they were exposed the entire way.

  Jeff looked down at his gun belt. “Should we take weapons?” he asked.

  Nahima looked at him, then at Dave. “I don’t know. I don’t want to be too threatening, but if things don’t go right… ”

  “We take them,” Dave said decisively. “Out here, everybody is armed. If we’re not, they’ll assume we’re up to something.”

  The other two weren’t anxious to give up their weapons, so they accepted that logic and moved on.

  The three of them lined up shoulder to shoulder and began a slow, methodical approach toward the compound. Jeff tried to look as non-threatening as possible, but he found any attempt to do that resulted in an unnatural expression and gait that likely had the opposite effect.

  “I can’t see any signs of people,” Nahima commented.

  Dave scanned the top of the wall. “Well she must have just landed. She’s in there, and probably has friends. My bet is they’re watching us right now.”

  “I think I just saw some movement,” Jeff said. There were small gaps between some of the logs, and he thought he could see flashes of movement through them. He squinted, focused and tried to make it out more clearly but couldn’t see anything near where he thought he had seen movement a few seconds earlier.

  They continued a bit more tentatively than before.

  “Should we try to communicate?” Jeff asked. “Maybe shout out a greeting?”

  Nahima shrugged and looked at Dave who seemed just as unsure.

  A shot exploded ten feet in front of them, and the three scrambled instinctively to get away from where the shot had impacted. Jeff hit the ground and heard a second shot that preceded a shower of dirt.

  They were fifty feet from the small valley. Jeff pulled his bat from his belt. “I’m going to try to get their attention and draw their fire away from you two,” he said. “And hopefully that will give you a chance to get behind that edge.” He pointed to the dip in the terrain.

  Nahima and Dave nodded. Jeff jumped up and ran back and forth somewhat randomly. A few shots flew over his head as the others ran with hunched postures toward the indentation. Once they were tucked behind the leading edge, Jeff joined them.

  “Now what?” he asked as he arrived and hunched behind the protective edge.

  “Well they’re either lousy shots or not really trying to hurt us,” Nahima replied. “They probably just want to scare us away. I say we hang tight a bit and see what happens.”

  Jeff and Dave nodded. The three of them huddled against the small rise with their heads tucked below the line of fire.

  Jeff wanted to see what was going on but was afraid to expose himself. He slowly pushed his head up until he could see the top edge of the compound. He couldn’t see any movement or sign of people, but they were clearly there.

  Nahima and Dave followed his lead, and the three of them scanned the compound with eyes just barely above the edge of the ground.

  “There,” Jeff said as he caught a glint of light near the top of the compound wall. “I saw a reflection of light… off a gun or something.”

  Dave shook his head. “Guns wouldn’t reflect light. It’s probably the lens of a viewer. They can probably see us a lot better than we can see them.” He fished in his belt for his own viewer.

  “Dave?” a female voice shouting from the compound inquired. “Dave Kimble?”

  Dave cringed as Jeff and Nahima both looked at him with surprised expressions.

  “Uhhhh… yeah, yeah, it’s me!” Dave answered loudly and then gritted his teeth as if it hurt him to say it.

  “What’s going on?” Nahima asked.

  “That, uh… that’s Trina. I uh… I sort of… uh… I sort of used to go out with her… uh… until I sort of… uh… traded her… uh… for a sandwich… Oh, don’t look at me like that. It was a really good sandwich.”

  Chapter 20:

  “Can we talk?” Dave shouted.

  Nearly immediately after that, a massive amount of gunfire came from the compound and exploded in the dirt all around them.

  Jeff closed his eyes and cringed as dirt rained down on them. When the gunfire and falling debris stopped, the three of them brushed themselves off. Jeff and Nahima both stared pointedly at Dave.

  “Okay, okay, here’s the story. About ten years ago, Trina and I were dating. We had been together for about a year. She was okay but a little odd and annoying at times. Anyway, one time I was at her parent’s house, and her father pulled me aside and, well…”

  He paused and seemed to be considering how he should word the next part. “Well he offered me a fairly large amount of money to stop seeing his daughter. That didn’t seem right to me. I mean something like that shouldn’t be for sale. Right? So I told him I wouldn’t.”

  Nahima nodded. “But it didn’t end there, did it? I don’t think she’d be shooting at us now if that was the end of the story.”

  “Well after I said ‘no’, he just kept increasing the number. He got to the point where it really seemed like too much money to turn down, but even though I didn’t think she was that great, it still felt… wrong.

  “But then his chef – they were wealthy, and they had their own staff – the chef came out with the most amazing sandwich I had ever seen. Her father saw the look in my eye when I saw that sandwich, and he offered to throw it in as part of the deal. Well that got pretty tempting, but I couldn’t do that. I’d still be selling out. I’d still be taking money… but that sandwich looked really good, and I was hungry… I told him I couldn’t take the money… but the sandwich seemed okay. I said I didn’t want the money, but if he gave me the sandwich, I figured I could get over Trina easy enough. So that was it.” He shrugged.

  Nahima stared at him. “Wait, so you turned down the money but dumped her for a sandwich?!” The pitch of her voice rose at the end of her sentence.

  “Well yeah, but I didn’t sell out. I didn’t take the money, so that made it okay.”

  “How did that make it okay? You still sold out. How did it make it any better that you didn’t take the money?!”

  The two stared at each other for several moments. Dave didn’t seem to know how to respond and looked at Jeff.

  Jeff looked at Nahima. “You know, in my world we have a very wise sage/poet… named Billy Joel of Oyster Bay Long Island. He once said: You should never argue with a crazy mind.”

  Chapter 21:

  “We’d like to talk with you if you’ll allow us,” Nahima shouted over the berm.

  “Well… ” a voice responded. “I have empathy and pity for anyone who spends time with Dave Kimble, but I also question the judgment of anyone who would do that. I don’t think I want to take the risk of letting someone like that in our home.”

  “What do you think?” Nahima asked Jeff across Dave who was sitting between them with his back against the berm.

  Jeff twisted himself on one arm so he could see Nahima past Dave’s enormous chest. “I don’t know. They might be reasonable. I mean I can’t fault anyone for disliking Dave. Maybe if we wait them out a bit, they’ll come around.”

  Nahima nodded.

  “How many of them are there?” Jeff asked.

  Nahima twisted her head and looked toward the compound wall. “I don’t know. I think there are quite a few. I can see a fair amount of movement going on.”

  “Any idea if Codi might be with them?”

  Nahima shook her head. “No way to know.”

  The three of them sat silently for a few minutes before Jeff broke the silence. “Should we try to shout to them to see if they know anything about Codi or the locket?”

  Nahima shook her head. “I think we should be real careful about that. Let’s try not to tip them off. If we can ask them face to face, they’ll
have fewer options, and we’ll have a better idea if they’re hiding something.”

  I’m a little afraid to ask this next part. “Do you think there’s any chance that Codi… and maybe even the actual locket, are here?”

  Nahima shrugged. “I’d only be guessing. I do strongly suspect they know at least something, but I think we have to tread very carefully to get anything useful from them.”

  There was a sudden loud guttural sound. Jeff jumped, afraid a large animal had taken them by surprise, but he quickly realized it was the sound of Dave snoring.

  “No! No, no, no. I do NOT believe this,” Nahima exclaimed.

  She slapped Dave’s belly. He lurched and yelped as he was startled awake.

  “What? What?” Dave looked back and forth from Nahima to Jeff as he tried to get his bearings.

  Chapter 22:

  Jeff watched the clouds as Dave snored loudly beside him. Nahima had given up on trying to keep him awake twenty minutes earlier.

  Jeff twisted and looked over the berm toward the compound. He had never had a clear view of any of the people behind the wall, but he could see shapes and shadows moving at times. He suspected they were still there. Probably wondering when these crazy people will just go away.

  Well I’m not giving up easy. That locket is too important.

  Jeff turned back around and tried to relax against the berm. Dave certainly doesn’t seem to be having any trouble relaxing.

  He looked across the open field in the opposite direction of the compound and watched the grasses move in the wind.

  Wait a minute. What the heck is that?

  Jeff saw what seemed to be a moving ‘hole’ or distortion in the grasses. The grasses were moving and swaying in somewhat predictable and familiar waves, but there seemed to be something moving through them that was disrupting the normal pattern.

  “Nahima,” he said quietly while pointing in the direction of the odd distortion.

  Nahima looked at him then directed her attention to the area he indicated. She seemed confused for several moments, but then her hand went to her gun. “Oh hell,” she said as she drew her weapon.

  Jeff’s heart began pounding in response to her clear concern.

  “What is it?”

  “I think it’s a wulferger. Nasty little things. They’re territorial, and they’ll attack anything that enters their area – even if it’s ten times their size.”

  It was difficult to judge, but Jeff estimated it to be roughly the size of a medium boar. Jeff didn’t consider that ‘little’. He pulled his magnifying viewer from his belt and tried to get a better look. Through the viewer, he could see that it seemed to be covered with long hairs that were shimmery and seemed partly reflecting and partly transparent. The effect provided an effective and unique camouflage that allowed the animal to blend into the surrounding grasses. With the magnified view, he could also see that it had a broad, flat body. The mouth was the size and shape of a large Doberman’s but with more teeth, and those teeth were narrow and needlelike.

  He lowered his viewer and saw Nahima taking aim.

  “Are you going to kill it?” he asked.

  She dropped her gun and looked at him. “I hope so. The last thing I want to do is just wound it.”

  Jeff stood and put his viewer in its pouch on his belt. “Let me see if I can scare him away.”

  Nahima shot him a somewhat exasperated look. “You don’t know wulfergers, do you? You can’t just scare them away.”

  Jeff glanced over his shoulder, realizing that he was so interested in the wulferger he had forgotten the possibility of being shot by one of the compound inhabitants. But he felt that, while they weren’t the most hospitable group, they didn’t really want to hurt anybody if they didn’t have to.

  He smiled nervously at Nahima. “Why don’t you let me try? I am a superhero after all.” He wished the part of his brain that was making his hands shake as he reached for his bat understood that concept better.

  Chapter 23:

  Jeff walked slowly toward the wulferger. It had noticed him approaching and stopped. As Jeff came within twenty feet, the animal growled and bared its teeth. It dropped its body so that it was very close to the ground. The front of its body was wider than the rear and its legs, while small, seemed very powerful. Other than the growling, the only other activity was a slight quivering of its body. It resembled a small bear with short legs, a flat body and a long snout. The long hairs glistened, sparkled and had an almost hypnotic effect.

  Jeff stopped and spoke in a loud, clear voice. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to. I just want you to leave us alone, but I’m stronger than you and will attack if I need to.”

  Jeff didn’t know if his ability to communicate with different creatures would extend to such a relatively simple animal with limited intelligence, but he figured it was worth a try.

  The only response he got was an increased agitation and growling. He felt like he could sense agitation, but he couldn’t tell if that was any special sense or just an obvious interpretation of the animal’s actions.

  Jeff had his bat in his right hand, and he stretched both hands out to his sides to make himself look large and imposing. He stepped toward the wulferger slowly but decisively. The growls grew louder and more aggressive as he approached. Jeff’s heart beat faster than he thought possible.

  When he was within ten feet, the wulferger suddenly leapt up and charged. Jeff backpedaled as quickly as he could manage and saw the wulferger seem to slow as he did. Good! My speed trick still seems to be working. I think I’d be screwed if it didn’t.

  Jeff was still facing the animal but had opened the distance to fifteen feet. He paused there, and the wulferger also stopped. It squatted back down in the grass and resumed its growling.

  Well the intimidation thing didn’t seem to work, Jeff thought as he lowered himself – trying to make his stance closer to his opponent’s level.

  He grasped his bat handle with both hands and pushed the barrel out in front of him. Maybe I can push and scoot him away. He edged back toward the growling animal.

  Jeff had great strength and speed as long as he was charging aggressively, but he found it much harder to control in more reserved circumstances. He moved slowly through the grass. He was careful to make sure he had firm footing with each step – watching for rocks or uneven ground hidden by the grass and weeds that could twist an ankle and leave him vulnerable to attack.

  Jeff kept his bat pointed at the wulferger’s head, hoping it would offer some defense against any aggressive actions. When the bat was within one foot, the animal jumped at it. Jeff cringed as teeth and claws scraped manically against the bat. Jeff held tight as the bat shook violently. He feared he might lose his grip. The growls were loud, wild and extreme as the animal thrashed intensely.

  After about fifteen seconds, the wulferger backed away, still growling loudly. It squatted back into a defensive stance ten feet away.

  Jeff collected his breath and thoughts and tried to consider his options. I don’t think it’s going to back off easily. Maybe I can use its aggressiveness against it. Maybe I can get it to chase me out of the area.

  He began to walk around the animal. As Jeff circled, he maintained a ten-foot distance with his bat still pointed. The animal turned to keep its face toward Jeff and the tip of the bat.

  When Jeff had made a complete 180º so that the wulferger was between him and his friends, he moved slowly toward it again. As before, the wulferger attacked the bat when it was close enough. Instead of standing still, Jeff walked backwards with the animal violently biting and clawing the end of the bat. It moved with Jeff as he walked.

  Jeff slowly increased his speed until the two of them were moving together at a brisk pace away from the others. Jeff grinned as his plan seemed to be working.

  Then his foot fell into a hole, and his ankle twisted painfully as he fell.

  Chapter 24:

  Jeff was on his back with the bat still held in
both hands. The wulferger was, to Jeff’s relief, still attacking the bat and hadn’t yet actually gone after his flesh – though it was close enough to do so. Its rear legs were scraping in the dirt but occasionally a claw cut through Jeff’s pants sending searing pain into his leg.

  Jeff could smell foul breath, and wulferger slobber hit his face in splatters as the incensed animal clawed and chewed at the aluminum bat.

  Okay, I’ve been trying to hold back, but I think I’m in some serious trouble here. Jeff brought the bat a little closer to his chest. The claws and teeth were getting far too close for comfort, but he needed to bring it in to gain leverage. He then pushed the bat back away as quickly and forcefully as he could manage.

  The wulferger flew five feet into the air, flipping and twisting at apogee and then fell back to the ground a few feet from Jeff. Jeff scrambled quickly to his feet and watched the wulferger twisting and getting its feet back beneath itself in slow motion.

  Jeff pointed the bat at it and began slowly backing away. The wulferger followed, a bit more tentatively than before, but it didn’t back off.

  Jeff turned and began jogging away from the wulferger. He looked over his shoulder and saw the animal pursuing in slow motion.

  If not for my extra speed, I think he could probably run me down, Jeff thought as he tried to keep a pace that gave him a comfortable separation but wasn’t so fast that the wulferger gave up pursuit. He made another over-shoulder glance and saw it continued to follow.

  Jeff could see the end of the clearing and the beginning of a dense forest ahead. Have I put enough distance between us and Nahima and Dave? Probably not, but I’m not going into the forest.

  When Jeff reached the tree line, he veered to the left and continued for a while running along the edge, keeping a watchful eye for anything even more frightening than the wulferger. Okay, here’s where I leave you in my dust. Jeff sped from his jog to a near-sprint. He knew from experience that he would be a blur to the wulferger.