The Forgotten Eden

by Aiden James

  “Carl paused, turning toward Sheriff McCracken. After the sheriff gave him a slight nod, he turned his attention back to my grandfather.

  “‘That’s not why we’re here, though, Marshall. At least not the main reason we stopped by.’

  “Grandpa appeared perplexed, though Jeremy and I could tell he wasn’t.

  “‘Oh? What’s up, Carl?’

  “‘Well, we’d like to ask Jack a few questions, if that’s all right with you.’

  “Grandpa hesitated long enough to gauge my reaction. He could tell I’d be fine with it, so he gave his okay. Sheriff McCracken took over at this point, and Grandpa offered him a seat in his favorite chair. He moved the recliner closer to me and sat down, removing a small notebook and pen from his shirt pocket. He leaned in toward me, lightly tapping his pen on the notebook. Carl moved over and joined Grandpa behind him, looking on from either side.

  “‘Jack, you’re not in any trouble,’ Joe told me. ‘So, let me start out by assuring you of that. What I’ve come to find out is this: were you anywhere near Ben Johnson’s place this afternoon? If the answer’s ‘yes’, did you see anything unusual?’

  “‘I walked by there with Banjo somewhere around six-thirty this evening,’ I replied, determined to stick with the basic facts. No need for crazy tales about running for my life to escape an angry fire-breathing dragon at this point.

  “‘Well, you see, Pete Aderley confirmed he saw you and a billy goat about that time,’ stated the sheriff. ‘You know Pete, don’t you? He owns the feed lot that sits next to the Johnson’s farm, just south of their farmhouse and silo, up near the road.’

  “He paused to allow me a moment to confirm I knew Mr. Aderley, which I did.

  “‘He noticed you were on your way to the front door of the farmhouse,’ explained Joe. ‘A few minutes later when he looked again, you had moved over by the barn. This time, he watched you long enough to see you head toward the woods.

  “‘Pete went back to unloading feed from his truck into the storage bins in the small warehouse on his lot. About fifteen minutes after he saw you leave the Johnson’s farm, he heard a tremendous racket going on next door, along with what he thought at the time was a small earthquake. Strong enough to knock a few bags of feed off the truck, he got pinned underneath. He laid there terrified from what we gather, listening to all the commotion and unable to crawl out to safety.

  “‘Now, here’s where it gets pretty weird, and where we could sure use your help, son,’ he said. ‘We need to know if you saw or heard anything, no matter how strange or crazy it might seem…. Pete swears he heard some god-awful roar, like from one of those dinosaur-action movies. Excuse me for saying so, but whatever he heard scared the holy hell out of him. I mean, it scared him so bad he literally pissed his pants! You know something pretty bad had to happen to scare a man enough to make him do something as embarrassing as that.

  “‘Right after he heard the roar, everything went completely quiet. Pete said it was like whatever made the noise stopped right in the middle of making it again, like hitting the mute button on a remote control.’

  “He stopped to look around and make sure we were still with him so far. To his surprise, I imagine, Jeremy, Grandpa, and I were all straight-faced, fully attentive to what he told us. He smiled shyly.

  “‘I’m about to get to the point of this, and appreciate your patience,’ he said. ‘Pete’s son, Sam, arrived about thirty minutes later to check on his daddy, quite alarmed to find him hollering beneath the feed sacks. Sam uncovered him and got him cleaned up. Pete’s all right, by the way. No broken bones—just a bruised ego, I guess you’d say!’

  “He chuckled and we all politely snickered.

  “‘Anyway, Sam and Pete walked over to the Johnson’s farm, to investigate the commotion. They found out, as you must’ve earlier, that they weren’t home—and thank the Good Lord for it! The Johnson’s farmhouse has been destroyed. I mean entirely annihilated! There’s huge holes throughout the main floor, and everything inside has been either crushed or ripped apart. Even the barn closest to the house, the one you went to, got ransacked. One side of it’s completely burned away, though the fire didn’t spread for some reason. Sort of like what happened in the woods…. Carl here thinks whoever or whatever is responsible for all of this might’ve gotten spooked and ran off.’

  “The sheriff looked down at his feet, fidgeting with his pen and notepad. The room grew very quiet until he couldn’t stand waiting for some kind of response from me.

  “‘So, Jack’ he said, steadily lifting his gaze. ‘Did you see or hear anything weird or unusual this afternoon?’

  “I considered his question and the best way to answer it. It truly surprised me to learn Pete Aderley could see me, and yet Grandpa and Jeremy couldn’t until after I returned to our backyard. Yeah, I knew what’d happened. Vydora finally escaped from the woods and followed my trail, destroying everything in her path until she was somehow erased from this reality with Genovene. I wasn’t about to tell him this.

  “I looked over at Grandpa, who seemed to sense my dilemma. Ready to say I hadn’t seen or heard anything, he spoke for me.

  “‘Jack told us tonight he saw a huge lizard-like critter that might’ve started the fire in the woods,’ he said, perhaps figuring a slight revelation was the best route to take. I hoped it’d keep me from having to run through the entire story again.

  “‘Is that true, son?’

  “Joe leaned closer to me, his expression serious. I nodded ‘yes’, and he turned his attention back to Carl.

  “‘Show him, Carl. Go ahead and show him what we found in the farmhouse rubble.’

  “Carl walked over and held out a large envelope he’d kept under his arm.

  “‘We found this, Jack,’ the sheriff said, and proceeded to open the envelope. He pulled out the same reptilian scale sitting here now, carefully sealed in a plastic bag.

  “Jeremy’s eyes got really big. He moved closer to get a better look while I just sat there, unfazed, not at all shocked to see the small leftover from Vydora’s visit to the Johnson’s place. I even smiled a little, thinking it such a tiny part of the monster, perhaps no more to it than the dozens of hairs people cast off each day. Grandpa watched my reaction, as did Carl and Joe. Even his eyes lit up as he looked on.

  “‘We also found two enormous footprints in the mud around Ben’s tractor near the woods,’ said Carl. ‘The pictures of them should be developed tomorrow morning, to go along with a few Polaroids that didn’t turn out as well as we’d hoped. We’re setting plaster casts right now to save the footprints.’

  “He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Meanwhile, Joe had more questions for me.

  “‘What did this ‘lizard-thing’ look like, Jack?’ he asked. “I mean, how big was it?’

  “‘Very big. Enormous is a good way to describe it,’ I told him. ‘You’ll probably find this hard to believe, but it looked a lot like a tyrannosaurus rex except it had horns on its head.’

  “I hoped that description sufficed. Telling him the critter could also fly and blow long streams of fire, as we talked about earlier, seemed like such a bad idea.

  “‘So, you’re saying, what...it was forty to fifty feet tall and Godzilla-like?’

  “He cracked a wry smile. It disappeared when he saw my expression. How could my description be so hard to believe when he’d seen the evidence?

  “‘At least that big,’

  “‘Um-hmm,’ he nodded. ‘Where’d you first see it?’

  “‘In the woods.’

  “‘In the woods…. What were you doing in the woods? Was this after the fire started or before?’

  “‘Banjo got out of the backyard and was running for the woods,” I said. “I didn’t catch up to him until he’d already gotten pretty far. The fire hadn’t started yet…. I guess it was around five o’clock.’

  “Believe it or not, Agent McNamee, I really hated lying. I felt sorely afraid of tripping on my wo
rds. Grandpa looked amused, perhaps even a little proud at my attempt to remain vague as possible. One who valued secrecy if the information being withheld wouldn’t prove beneficial, he’d protected us for years that way, especially in regard to the sphere and its origins. I felt the same principal applied right then. They likely weren’t going to find Vydora again, so why tell them more than necessary?

  “‘Well, that explains the broken weeds and downtrodden grass in the field back there,’ he said. ‘But, where exactly in the woods did you see this thing?’

  “‘I don’t remember,’ I told him. ‘It came out of nowhere and I grabbed Banjo and tried to get out of the woods. I guess I got turned around and came out over by the Johnson’s place. I ran to their house, hoping to call someone. When they weren’t there, I ran home to get help. By then, the fire raged throughout the woods and Grandpa had Jeremy call the fire department. I don’t know how the fire got started—honest. That’s all I know.’

  “Sheriff McCracken studied me in silence. But after about a minute he looked up at Carl, who shrugged his shoulders. He released a deep sigh and looked back at me.

  “‘Well, your account definitely fits the facts we have so far,’ he said. ‘Sorry if I came across a little rough on you, Jack. Certainly wasn’t my intention. As ya’ll can imagine, we’ve got a delicate situation on our hands. I’ve got to have some answers, or at least know as much information as we can gather, and still keep things quiet around here. Obviously, we don’t want the media involved and stirring everyone into an awful panic.

  “‘Your neighbors, the Palmers, were snooping around out there earlier. Carl tells me you’ve always had trouble with them. A little bit of gossip and the next thing you know, we’ll have a flock of curious types. The last thing we need is some giant lizard running loose around here and becoming the state of Alabama’s biggest attraction. It’s bad enough that we’ve got some explaining to do once the Johnson’s come back from their Florida vacation and find their home in ruins…. I’ve got a nephew that works for the FBI, and I’ll contact him in the morning and see if I can fax the pictures to him. Maybe someone in the bureau can help us—especially if the critter comes back, which I fully expect. I doubt seriously it just vanished into thin air.’

  “He eyed me knowingly, as if he could decipher the rampant thoughts racing through my head. I expected him to tell me what he really thought of my responses. But he stood up without saying anything else. He motioned for Carl to join him at the front door.

  “‘‘Sorry to have kept ya’ll up,” he told us all, just before stepping outside. Until we know how to better handle this thing, if anyone asks ya’ll what happened, please say it was just a brush fire. We’d sure appreciate it.’

  “I thought Carl and Sheriff McCracken were almost as tired as me. We watched them leave and Grandpa closed the door, locking it behind them.

  “‘Nice job, Jackie,’ Jeremy said, definite admiration in his voice.

  “He drew a fresh cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket as if he wouldn’t survive another minute without one. He’d already been dying for another smoke well before our unexpected guest’s arrival. He quickly lit it, inhaling and then exhaling a long stream of smoke.

  “‘I thought for awhile old Joe McCracken was going to corner your ass and stick it to you with a red-hot poker. Man, I really did!’ He threw his head back in laughter, but it ended quickly when he started to cough and had to take another long drag from his cigarette. ‘But, you know, Jackie. You’ve got to wonder what did become of...was it Vydor? No, Vydora...yeah, that was it. Vydora. You’ve still got to keep an eye out for that thing because you didn’t see her leave now, did you little brother?’

  “I shrugged my shoulders and said ‘no’.

  “‘I mean, I would’ve been very, very skeptical of all this since it’s beyond weird,’ he continued. ‘But, there’s no denying the concrete evidence to support it all. And, Grandpa, I’m even more curious about the stuff you mentioned before Carl and Joe showed up tonight. You know...you’ve really never told us a goddamned thing until last night with the ‘Season’. So, what’s up with that? You know, old man, now would be as good a time as any to come clean about this shit.’

  “‘Not tonight, son,’ said Grandpa, much more weary than irritated. ‘Definitely not tonight. I’m beat. I’m sure Jack is too, and we should all turn in before it gets much later since we’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow. I’ll tell you this, though. I promise to share everything I know before tomorrow’s over and done with. How’s that sound?’

  “‘Sounds great to me, Grandpa!’ I said.

  “Jeremy hesitated before agreeing he could wait one more day.

  “‘All right, I guess,’ he finally said.

  “Grandpa walked over to the gun case and pulled out a semi-automatic pistol from the bottom drawer along with the very same Winchester he’d taken out the previous evening. After making sure both weapons were properly loaded, he brought them over to the recliner and set them on the seat.

  “‘Just preparing for the rest of the evening,’ is what he told us, after we eyed him curiously. ‘The ‘Season’ ain’t over yet.’

  “That just made us both even more curious

  “‘All right, then,’ he said, responding to our uneasy expressions. ‘Though I believe everything you told us tonight, Jack, it’d be foolish to not prepare for the return of the lizard-thing, this ‘Vydora’ you’ve spoken of. Just in case. At night, especially, one can’t be too careful about such things. Tomorrow when we visit the area around the river, I’ll be packing some heat, too. Don’t worry yourselves about this. I don’t expect we’ll find anything there to remind you of Genovene’s presence, Jack, or Vydora’s for that matter. But, that’s tomorrow in the full light of day, and right now it’s nearing midnight. Who knows what could be out there in the night’s shadows, hiding and waiting for us to lower our guard, regardless that a full moon is nigh.’

  “Grandpa had a faraway look in his eyes. Meanwhile, I wondered what good a gun would do on Vydora. As if reading my thoughts, he frowned.

  “‘Well, regardless of what ya’ll think, I’m camping out here in the living room,’ he said. ‘Strictly a precaution, it’s better safe than sorry.’

  “He smiled and pushed the recliner back over to its original position and placed the firearms on the floor beside it. He then grabbed a blanket from his bedroom and located an unopened bottle of scotch whiskey from the kitchen.

  “All set for the remainder of the night, I knew he planned to stay awake until dawn. I felt a strong urge to keep him company for awhile.

  “‘Would you mind if I join you, Grandpa?’

  “‘Not at all, son,’ he said. ‘But, you’ll need your rest. Why don’t you sleep on the sofa, Jack?’

  “‘Sure.’

  “‘Count me in, too, Grandpa,’ Jeremy said. ‘I’ll get my sleeping bag and set it up on the floor, though it’ll be strange not having any female action to keep me company tonight—just kidding, ya’ll! I wouldn’t really do that...at least not here!’

  “He shot a wry smile toward Grandpa while winking at me. I couldn’t believe the camaraderie we enjoyed. We hadn’t been like this to each other since grade school, and I prayed it’d turn into a lasting thing.

  “Jeremy left the living room and I caught up with him at the foot of the staircase. We went upstairs together to get our sleeping bags, and returned downstairs to the living room a few minutes later. We set our bags up near the fireplace and told Grandpa we’d decided to give him the sofa to sleep on. He declined our offer, stating again that he’d be just fine right where he was, sitting in his favorite chair. He turned on the light next to the recliner, switching it to its lowest setting so as not to disturb us. He expected us to drift off to sleep once we got comfortable.

  “My brother and I conversed for another twenty minutes or so, discussing several different aspects of my story. In the meantime, Grandpa picked up a mystery novel he’d nearly finished.
Every so often he looked up from his book, perking his ears as if listening closely for some suspicious noise hidden beyond our whispered voices. His earlier presumption proved correct. Jeremy and I soon fell asleep.

  “I found out later he continued to read his book for quite a while. He explored the premises twice that night, finding nothing out of the ordinary. Grandpa later told me that he found it increasingly difficult to keep his own eyes open despite the fact he lacked just a few pages to the book’s conclusion, and around 2:00 a.m. he finally drifted off to sleep.

  ***

  “Grandpa said he awoke just before dawn with the open novel on his lap. Luckily for him, he managed to avoid a stiff neck, the usual result when falling asleep in the recliner. Since Jeremy and I still slept, he quietly got up from his chair, leaving the living room to take a shower and get ready to meet the day.

  “He arrived in the kitchen not long after this, surprised to find Jeremy waiting for him at the kitchen sink, his first cigarette of the day nearly finished. He raised his cup of freshly brewed coffee in salutation.

  “‘Coffee’s nice n’ hot, the way you like it.’

  “Jeremy poured him a cup and Grandpa thanked him. I learned later that he eyed my brother curiously, perhaps wondering what the hell had gotten into his oldest grandson. It wasn’t at all like him to be so congenial, especially this early in the morning.

  “‘Did you sleep all right, son?’ he asked.

  “‘Yeah, I did,’ replied my brother. ‘I’d say better than I have in years. It may sound strange, and maybe even a bit sappy, but something about Jack’s story really gets to me. I don’t know for sure what it is, but maybe it’s the stuff about Mom and Dad. All I know for sure is I feel better, Grandpa. I mean, I don’t feel near as mad at the world, like I usually do. I know I can be a real asshole sometimes, and I’m sorry. I hope to God this feeling lasts!’

  “Grandpa told me later he couldn’t help but smile, and laid his hand on Jeremy’s shoulder, another thing that would’ve been impossible to do up until then. Rather than flinch like he normally would, Jeremy seemed at ease as he returned Grandpa’s smile.