by Peter Plasse
She nodded, “Yes.”
“Hemlock put something in one of them just before he came up to the house. I saw him sneaking down this way, so I cut around the trail up by elephant rock and waited for him. Sure enough, in a minute, he came walking down the trail. He looked all around and waited for quite a while before he did it. It’s almost like he was checking to see if somebody was watching him or something, like he might have even known I was watching, but I don’t think he ever saw me. Anyway, we need to see what’s in it.”
“So why don’t you just go over and look?” she whispered back. She gave him a look that said, “What’s the big deal?”
“I don’t know,” he said softly. “I was thinking Hemlock believed somebody might be watching him. We should wait and see. Most importantly we need to listen. Like when we go hunting. Dad always says you should keep your eyes open, but mostly you need to keep your ears open. I picked this side because the wind is towards us.”
She crossed her arms and gave him a look of disgust. “I hate your hunting,” she muttered, and looked away.
They sat and waited.
The minutes ticked away as they stayed totally silent and hidden in the dense New England woods.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Jacqueline whispered after about twenty minutes.
Orie leaned over to whisper to her to hold it, when they both heard a stick snap. No mistaking it, there was something in the woods beyond the pumpkins in front of the cliffs.
They waited. Jacqueline wiggled closer to her brother who put his arm around her protectively. She practically burrowed herself into him.
For a long time they heard nothing, then, once again, they heard the unmistakable sounds of something big moving in the woods beyond the field, and it sounded to Orie as if it was trying to move quietly.
Then they saw it as it eased out of its cover. It was nothing like either of them had ever seen, except maybe in a fantasy movie. It had the extremities and torso of a man, including two arms and two legs. But it had the head and neck of a bull, complete with a set of vicious-looking horns. It was easily seven feet tall, maybe more. Orie’s eyes grew wide as it looked in their direction and raised its snout to sniff at the air. Jacqueline buried her face in her brother’s chest. For the longest time it stared at where they were hidden, and Orie thought they were doomed, but all of a sudden it drifted back into the woods beyond, and they could hear it move up the trail heading in the direction of Ron’s house. Again they waited, but only long enough for it to be out of earshot, and Orie whispered, “C’mon. We gotta get out of here. It might be trying to work its way behind us.”
She reached for her bicycle. Orie shook his head forcefully, “No.” He leaned towards her and whispered, “Too much noise. Follow me. Quiet, now.”
Silently, they snuck away from their temporary hiding place and partway down the trail back towards the house but, when they came to a fork, Orie went right, away from their property.
“This is the trail that Dad cut with the chainsaw,” he said softly. Jacqueline was now trembling violently. He noticed this and again put his arm around her. “We can’t go back towards the house. That’s not an option. That thing might be there, or headed there. We have to get out to the road and head off Kendra. We have to warn her. Are you okay?”
She nodded, “Yes. It was a Minotaur,” she said.
“Okay. Are you ready to run?”
She nodded, “Yes,” again.
They walked quietly, “woods quiet,” Dad would have called it, down the right hand fork of the trail for about another hundred yards, then Orie said, “Jacq’, let’s jet out of here. You lead, I’ll follow.”
And so they ran, like the wind, Jacqueline’s hair streaming out behind her. It was an uneventful dash of about half a mile. They stopped shy of the macadam road on which they lived. They were both breathing as hard as they could, Jacqueline holding her side.
When their breathing had quieted down, Orie spoke first. “I never thought I’d be happy that our driveway is a half-mile long, but right now, I’m glad that there’s a half-mile in between us and that … what did you say it was?”
“A Minotaur,” she answered. “It was a Greek god that was half-man and half-bull. It was mean. Very mean. It will kill us if it can.” She was trembling again.
“Well then, we’ll have to be smarter than it is.” He took her in his arms and gave her a big long hug. She started to cry. “Hey, hey,” he said. “It’ll be all right. Kendra will be here in a few minutes, and we’ll go with her and be fine. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”
She stopped crying and wiped her eyes. “Not against that you won’t.”
In a few minutes, a car whizzed by them from the other direction. They paid it no mind, as it was not coming from the direction that Tanta Kendra would be, but suddenly Orie cried out, “Oh crap. That’s Mr. Jones. He’s got Mark and Ryan and Jordan with him.”
The car turned into their driveway and disappeared around the first bend before Orie could call out to them.
“Great,” he said. “Now what do we do?”
He was torn in two. On the one hand, he was feeling the most afraid that he had ever felt in his life, and he felt a fierce determination to protect his little sister. On the other, he knew he had to warn Mr. Jones and his three friends. That Minotaur thing, or whatever it was, was something they had to be warned about.
“C’mon,” he said, “follow me.”
“Where are we going?” Jacqueline asked.
“To John’s house,” said Orie. “I’ll call Mark on his cell phone and tell him to get out of there. Can you run?”
“I guess so,” said Jacqueline, although her legs were about done running after their half-mile sprint through the woods.
So, down the driveway they ran, but were surprised when Mr. Jones’s car came flying up the driveway so fast they practically had to jump off to avoid being hit. It stopped, and Mark rolled the window down.
“Orie, wazzup?” he offered, all smiles. “Hi, Jacqueline.”
“Wow,” said Orie. “Did you see it? The Minotaurus?”
“Minotaur,” corrected Jacqueline.
“What’s a Minotaur?” asked Mark.
“I told you that already, Mark,” said Mr. Jones. “Don’t you ever listen?”
“Oh,” said Mark, “You mean that guy that was waiting for you on your deck with the costume on? The guy that looked like a half-man half-bull? Man, he looked pretty crazy.”
“Yeah he did,” said Ryan.
Orie and Jacqueline looked at each other.
“Open up and let us in,” said Orie.
“We can’t do that,” said Mr. Jones. “We don’t have enough seat belts.”
“Please, Mr. Jones,” said Orie, “this is an emergency. Give us a ride to the end of Gungy. We need to intercept my Aunt Kendra. She’s coming to pick us up.”
“Okay,” said Mr. Jones, “but you’ll have to all duck down when we go by Officer Corey’s house. I don’t want to get a ticket for having too many kids in my car and not enough seat belts.”
Orie jammed into the front and Jacqueline in the back.
“So what’s up with that guy waiting for you at the house?” asked Jordan.
“Man, that was some freak-show of a dude …”
“I know,” interrupted Mark. “That was the most realistic costume I’ve ever seen. I was like, whoa, check out this half-man, half-bull dude. This guy rocks!”
“And did you see how strong he was?” asked Ryan. “That guy was buffed. And he seemed real nice too.”
“You spoke to him?” asked Orie, incredulous.
“Of course we did,” said Mr. Jones. “We asked him where you were. He told us you and Jacqueline had gone up in the woods about a half-hour ago, and he was waiting to surprise your mother. What was he, one of those singing telegram guys?”
Neither Orie nor Jacqueline commented, prompting Mr. Jones to ask, “So how come you have to meet your Aunt Kendra, Orie?
Why can’t you wait for her at home?”
Orie thought for a moment, and Jacqueline answered, “It’s a long story, Mr. Jones. Tanta Kendra can’t see this man. I don’t think we’re supposed to talk about it.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Jones, looking perplexed, and thankfully let it rest with no more explanation than that.
“Hey,” called out Orie. “There she is! Mr. Jones, stop the car.”
Orie and Jacqueline bolted out of the car and flagged Kendra down.
She got out as well and exchanged pleasantries with Mr. Jones and the boys, while giving Jacqueline a big hug.
“Tanta,” said Orie, “I’m going to go with Mr. Jones and these guys, if that’s okay, and Jacqueline is going to go with you.”
“Sure,” said Kendra. “Does your mother know?”
Orie and Jacqueline exchanged glances. Neither spoke.
“Well, that’s no problem. I’ll call her on her cell.”
“It won’t work,” said Orie, “I mean, I’m sure she’s out of range.”
“Oh. Well, I’m sure it’s all right, if it’s all right with you, Nash.”
“Fine.”
“All right then. Do you have your stuff, Jacqueline?”
Jacqueline turned red and didn’t answer for a while.
“That’s all right, we’ll drive over to the house and get it.”
“You can’t do that,” said Orie.
“Goodness gracious, why not?”
“ 'Cause there’s some guy at the house that you’re not supposed to see.”
“Now Orie, whatever does that mean?” she asked. “This is all very strange, very strange. Your mother called me an hour ago and told me I had to come right down, that something urgent had come up. Where’s Stephanie?”
“That’s just it, Tanta,” said Jacqueline, “Dad and Mom had to go get her. So we have to come with you. Or now, I do. And I was all packed to come, but this guy came to the house and … can I please explain it all in the car. Please?”
“I suppose. Sure. It was nice to see you again, Nash.”
“Tanta,” said Orie, “Meet us at the ‘Ice Cream Barn’, would you please?”
“Orie, we don’t have a lot of time, and I don’t have any cash on me. I jumped in the car and came straight down like your mother asked.” She suddenly looked embarrassed.
“Oh that’s okay,” he said, “I just need to talk to Jacqueline about a couple of things.”
“I have money,” said Nash. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Well, why can’t you talk here?” Kendra asked.
“Tanta, please?” he said. His voice sounded tight, like it was about to break.
“I guess so,” she said, then, “When’s your mother going to get home, anyway?”
He pretended he didn’t hear her and jumped back into Nash’s car. “Step on it Mr. Jones,” he ordered. “Please.”
“Orie, what’s gotten into you?” Mr. Jones asked. “Why are you so jumpy?”
“Because my mother and father just beamed out to a parallel dimension to rescue Stephanie, who was tricked into going there for who knows what reason by a wizard named Hemlock Simpleton that my dad met on the way home from work yesterday, and Jacqueline and I did see a creature from ancient Greek mythology that you guys thought was a guy in a costume, and we’re all in danger of dying any second if we sit here any longer,” he thought. But he said nothing. He needed some time to sort it all out.
At the Ice Cream Barn, Nash bought all the kids a cone and made small talk with Kendra while Orie and Jacqueline talked well away from the group.
“You’re going to be fine at Tanta’s,” Orie said. “Call me on Mark’s cell phone as soon as you get there. I need to get that thing that Hemlock left in the pumpkin. I'm sure I know which one it is.”
“What about the Minotaur?” she asked.
“Don’t worry Jacq’,” he answered. “I have a plan.”
“Do you really?”
“No, but I’ll think of something.”
The last thing he saw as she drove away with her Tanta was her little face looking back at him out through the rear window. She looked terrified.
Chapter 8
Orie gave her the thumbs-up as she drove away. He tried to look upbeat and smiled. He showed her a big smile, lots of teeth. He gave the universal, “I’ll call you” sign with an imaginary phone. She acknowledged it, which made him feel a little better. Other than that, he was full of doubt. But, he knew it was important to get whatever it was inside the third pumpkin in from the right. It was an easy sneak. He knew the exact approach and could do it absolutely silently in an hour, in and out.
“So, O-Man, are you coming with us? What’s going on?” Mark asked.
“Tell you what. Mr. Jones,” said Orie, “can we all hang out here for a couple of hours? It would be good for these city kids to get some fresh air for a change.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Mr. Jones.
“I don’t know,” said Orie, “Hang out, do some shooting, play some basketball, I don’t know. Something? Nothing? Heck, I don’t know …”
“Orie, you're turning into a real hick out here,” laughed Mr. Jones.
Orie smiled. “Well, what do you guys want to do? Do you want to hang out here with Orie?”
“I don’t know,” said Mark. “We might stay over if it’s all right with Mrs. Strong.”
“All right. Well, call me.”
He sped off, tires squealing, the small macadam rocks flying all this way and that and rattling as they rained down in the irrigation ditch beside the New England small-town country road. It was silent as soon as the hum of Nash’s engine died in the distance.
“Hey Orie,” said Ryan, “Let’s go mess with that guy in the costume down at your house. We can grab some pears from your dad’s trees and pelt him.” Jordan and Mark howled their agreement. There was no doubt that this was how they wanted to spend the next hour of their young lives.
“Hey, who is this guy?” asked Ryan.
“Guys,” said Orie, “we have to talk.”
“I will insist on a perfect performance by every single one of you,” said the doctor to his assistants. “What we are about to attempt is extremely delicate.”
“Not to mention that it should have been done weeks ago,” he thought. This being the case, he gave this operation less than a one percent chance of success. He wondered to himself how the Trolls had managed to get fluids into her. But evidently they had, or she would be dead. Her unconscious state must have been intermittent was all that he could come up with by way of explanation.
He called his assistants to the bedside, positioning them just so.
“We are performing this operation on the direct order of Malance Venomisis himself, so failure is not an option. You,” he spoke to one of them, “will do this as hard and as fast as you can, against her skull, here, until I tell you to stop.” He made a drilling motion with his hands, spinning a piece of iron roundstock that he had sharpened to a wicked looking point. “Stop when I tell you to stop. If you go even one cycle after I tell you to stop, I will be very displeased. When I tell you to stop, keep the piece of iron exactly where it is, and I will replace you.” He spoke to the other three assistants. “When I tell him to stop, I will take over for him, and you will hold her down. She may start to move, and your job, as well as his, will be to keep her from moving! We are attempting to drill a hole in this girl’s head to drain the blood that is trapped there under pressure. Does everybody understand what to do?”
The procedure was carried off with perfect execution, and with the sudden gush of bright red blood the doctor was pleased. He was more so when Stephanie opened her eyes. He was less so when, in twelve hours, that is all she had done. Malance Venomisis had come to the infirmary twice to inquire about her status, and considering how busy he was taking report after report from his advisors on the status of the ongoing battles with the Humans, Elves, and Dwarves, two inquiries was a lot.
He wiped at the beads of sweat on his face and bald forehead as he inflicted some painful stimulus on his still unconscious patient. There was no response. He went through the list. She had an airway, and it was patent; moreover, she was maintaining it fine. She was breathing normally. She had a great pulse. He felt her cranium for about the twentieth time in a row, palpating the bones carefully to determine if there was any physical evidence of a depressed skull fracture. These were the bad ones because they were easy to miss. But no, her skull seemed to be clinically intact. He pulled back on each ear, inspecting the canals for the flow of fresh blood. None. He looked in her nose for evidence of blood or fluid. There was none. He continued downward. He had already done this several times and, for the life of him, he could not say why Stephanie was not waking up. He felt terrible about this. “Poor thing,” he thought, “so young, her entire life in front of her …”
He finished his exam, patted her on the hand, and started to turn away.
“Wake up child.”
Nothing. No response.
“Put these on,” said Hemlock. He handed Blake and Jessica each a small, round, gold bracelet. Each clipped it on their wrists. They fit perfectly.
“Communications?” asked Jessica.
“Universal translator,” said Hemlock. “Stephanie has the implanted variety, but we didn’t have the time so I procured these. They will work perfectly. The only disadvantage might be if we happened to get captured by the primitives. They might feel tempted to cut off our arms without waiting, to get them off quickly.”
“I’m not laughing,” said Jessica.
“You were not meant to,” said Hemlock, then, “enough of this.”
Blake was inspecting his weapons. His throwing knives were without change, right down to the scrollwork on the butts. His boot-knives as well. Mysteriously, his same longbow now had a twin. These, and a quiver of arrows, hung from his saddle as well. He reached over his head and felt his sword, sliding it up and down in its scabbard. The feel of it was just right, as he remembered from his years as an instructor.