Holliday's Gold

by Steeven R. Orr

  He had been at one of those clubs the night he had met Goldilocks. He’d bought her a drink. She’d accepted. He’d asked her to dance. They’d danced. They had talked and they had danced. He’d bought drinks and Goldilocks drank them. She’d given him her phone number. Then she’d left.

  He had called her the next day, which all of his friends had told him not to do. They’d said that he had to wait at least three days to call. Calling the next day screamed of desperation. But he was desperate. She was a drop of water and his life the Sahara. He needed her. And so he’d called. And so they’d dated.

  Tim and Goldilocks. Goldilocks and Tim. What a great couple they had made.

  Three days later they were in Vegas. They’d married in a ceremony performed by a man dressed as Elvis Presley. Tim had never been happier.

  Two days after that, Goldilocks was gone.

  All she’d left was a note. She’d said she had to leave, but couldn’t explain why. She’d said that she was sorry. She’d said that she loved him; that she’d never meant for any of this to happen. But still, she was gone.

  And so Tim went away … and in his place was the Beast.

  The Beast had spent every waking moment since then trying to find Goldilocks. The chase had taken over two years and most of his life savings. But he will never stop. Until his dying breath takes him to the world beyond, the Beast will hunt.

  Such is the way of beasts.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  BURT, BEATRICE, AND DANNY Griswold arrived home just in time to hear the fire alarm stop.

  The entire household staff milled about on the lawn with a large company of firefighters. The emergency vehicles sat silently in the front yard, their lights spinning and flashing in every direction.

  The firefighters stood idly by with nothing to do. Some talked to members of the household staff; the cleaning ladies especially seemed to be getting plenty of attention. Others talked into radios. A few stood off to the side, texting on their cell phones or just sitting in the grass enjoying the day. Henrietta Sugarbaker stalked through the crowd, gnashing her teeth at how everyone was treating her lawn.

  “What’s going on, Burt?” Beatrice asked. “Was there a fire?”

  “I don’t know, Bea. I don’t see any smoke.”

  “My Legos!” Danny shouted. He started to run for the house, but Beatrice snatched him back.

  Just then, Burt spotted the head of security, Jack, stumbling out the front door. He held his head gingerly as he shuffled along toward them. His nose trickled blood. He looked bad. Like he had had a table slammed on top of him or something.

  Burt went to Jack and put a hand on his shoulder.

  “What’s going on here, Jack? Was there a fire?”

  “No sir,” Jack said. “No fire.”

  Jack fell to the grass and landed flat on his bottom.

  “Can I get some help here!” Burt shouted to the idle firefighters. “We have an injured man here!”

  “No, I’m okay,” Jack sputtered. “The girl.”

  “Girl?” Burt crouched down to Jack’s level.

  “Goldilocks. The girl. She’s still in the house.”

  “In the house?” Burt scratched at his chin in confusion.

  “A girl showed up today after you left. A young woman. She called herself Goldilocks. She said she’d been attacked. I don’t know, maybe she was, but something about her felt … off”

  “Go on,” Burt said, handing Jack his handkerchief.

  “I let her inside and took her to the kitchen to clean up,” Jack dabbed at the blood trickling from his nose with the handkerchief. “She refused to allow me to call the authorities. I wanted to sir, you have to believe me.”

  “It’s okay, Jack. Tell me what happened next.”

  “Mike, the chef, he began to ladle the lobster bisque into your bowls and the girl just went crazy. I think she was hungry. I think the bisque set her off. She started screaming and pointing to the main door to the kitchen. Everyone turned to look at what she was pointing at, but it was nothing. Nothing at all. I turned back to her and she was running like a madwoman toward the opposite wall. She pulled the fire alarm. Everything went berserk after that.”

  Two paramedics arrived and started poking and prodding at Jack, all the while hemming and hawing and using words that Burt usually heard on popular television shows about doctors who spent more time kissing and taking off their clothes then doing any actual doctoring.

  “People were running for the doors,” Jack continued. “The girl was screaming. It was a madhouse sir.”

  “And she’s still in there?”

  “Yes, sir. I believe she is. And, sir?”

  “What is it, Jack?”

  “I think that,” he paused and swallowed.

  Jack looked Burt in the eye and opened his mouth to speak. Burt leaned in. Jack closed his mouth and swallowed again. He opened his mouth once more, only to close it a moment later.

  “Good lord, Jack,” Burt said. “What is it, man!?”

  “I think that she’s eating your lobster bisque.”

  “She’s eating my lobster bisque?” Burt turned from Jack and looked out over nothing in particular.

  “She’s eating my lobster bisque?” Burt said to no one but himself. Then he turned back to Jack.

  “She’s eating my lobster bisque!” he yelled and anger made its presence know with those words. Burt stood and turned to Beatrice and Danny.

  “Burt?” Beatrice could tell something was wrong.

  “There’s a girl in the house, Bea. She’s in there now. She’s eating the lobster bisque.”

  Beatrice straightened, stood tall and firm. Her focus was the house. She looked from the house to Burt. She looked from Burt to the house.

  Then she spoke. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE BEAST CONTINUED TO dream.

  He no longer dreamed of the past, or of memories long forgotten. Instead, his dreams were thick with badgers. Badgers that scampered and danced in hues of blue and green, orange and purple, magenta and taupe. Badgers that bellowed songs in piercing falsetto. Songs of love. Songs of sorrow. Songs of sausages.

  At first, he was uncomfortable among the badgers. The myriad of colors made him queasy and their songs made his jaw ache, but soon the badgers fled and he floated along on waves of veal and tripe.

  The Beast turned angry. He wasn’t one who normally dreamed. At least not this vividly, but here he sat, being pulled along by a river of meat. That cursed woman must have hit him on the head harder than he thought.

  The veal and tripe faded to be replaced by nothing. Absolute bleakness.

  He simply floated in the void wearing only his boxers. There was no up. No down. No forwards nor backwards. No sense of anything at all. The Beast, who was not one to give into fear, suddenly found himself overwhelmed with a sense of terror so complete that he discovered himself wrapped in it like a caterpillar in a chrysalis. The Beast became fear, and he didn’t like it. Not one bit. He was alone in the emptiness.

  The Beast wept.

  Then something caught his eye. A glint of pale yellow in the distance. It flickered slightly, this tiny dot of yellow, and he felt comfort in it. He yearned to be near the yellow, to embrace it, to let it fill his heart and his soul. He needed the yellow. But how to escape the void? How to leave the emptiness? The Beast found that if he directed his thoughts toward the small swatch of color, that the yellow grew closer. So that was just what he did.

  As he neared the yellow, it grew from a small patch in the distance to a great swatch of yello
w blobs, a field of blurry objects the color of gold that began to fill all that he could see. He directed a sense of urgency into his thoughts and the yellow grew swiftly closer, the forms becoming more distinct as they came into focus. It was a great valley of golden roses which stretched forth into oblivion. Tears formed in his eyes as he realized that he could smell the scent that roiled forth from the field of flowers. They smelled of stale cigarettes and alcohol. It was an aroma most would find distasteful, but the Beast found divine.

  Without warning his progression toward the valley simply halted. He hung motionless in the void. Before him was the valley of yellow. A forest of dark, barren, dead trees suddenly sprang up between himself and the yellow. The Beast stepped into the trees and found himself fully clothed and with his sword and gun. The clothing and weapons brought him little comfort as the dead trees began to sway back and forth in a wind that was not there.

  The trees seemed to crowd in around him the way regulars at a neighborhood pub gathered round outsiders and he rested a hand on the revolver at his side, taking comfort in the feel of the grip. He could no longer see the yellow field, but he could still sense it out there, somewhere beyond the dark wood.

  A path opened up between the trees. A path paved of millions upon millions of small flowers, the same color of yellow as the roses he could no longer see. He stepped onto the path knowing that it would take him to the field of yellow roses. The path would take him home. He stepped swiftly.

  He walked for hours, the scenery around him remained unchanged, yet still he continued his trek. The hours turned into days, though the sun never set, a sun that he had not even realized was there until the heat began to beat down upon him, weighing him down, fighting him, trying to keep him from his goal.

  The Yellow.

  Yet he never faltered. He strode forward with grim determination, his mind set and his spirits high, knowing that the Yellow was there, just beyond the wood. So his journey continued until at last he could see the end of the forest. He could see the field of yellow roses, and his walk turned into a run.

  A joy filled him. A joy like he had never known. The feeling grew as he ran and he opened himself up to it. Swam in it. Let it become him.

  Just then, a roar erupted from within the trees, stopping him in his tracks. A roar of such magnitude that it seemed to encompass everything. The trees around him shook with the force; leaves and small bits of dead bark fell to the ground. He gripped his head and bent forward from the pain. Even the fillings in his teeth vibrated as the bestial cry continued.

  Then there was silence, a silence so complete that it simply exploded into being around him. He felt disorientated as the silence fled as quickly as it appeared and the sound of creaking wood and snapping branches came to him. Something large moved through the trees. Moving toward him. He pulled the revolver as sweat broke out on his brow.

  It emerged from the trees on all fours and loped out onto the path, standing between him and the field of yellow roses. It was an immense shaggy creature of brown fur. It was a bear. But a bear of such size and power that even the trees appeared to shrink back from it. It stood on its hind legs and let out another thunderous roar that shook the very earth beneath the his feet.

  The Beast took an involuntary step back. An anger radiated from the bear. A hostility so thick that he felt he could freeze it on a stick and sell it to evil little children. The bear wanted him dead. He knew that for sure and for certain, but he had to get to those roses, needed to get to the roses. He felt that in every square inch of his being. He knew, just somehow knew, that if he could get to that field he would no longer have to be the Beast. He would only need to be Tim. But the bear, the bear that radiated with hatred and rage at his very presence, stood in his path. The bear wasn’t giving an inch, allowing him to go no further. So the Beast did what came natural and emptied all the revolver into the bear.

  The bear dropped back down to all fours and looked at him for a moment, cocking its massive head to the side in a quizzical manner that looked almost human. That’s when the bear smiled. Actually smiled.

  “Oh come now,” the bear said, its voice like molasses running down the inside of a bass drum. “I’m sure you can do much better than that.” And with that said, the bear charged.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  COLIN PIG SAT ONCE more behind the counter at the Brick House Gas and Groceries, reading a comic book, and waiting patiently for his shift to be up so that he could finally go home and wallow in his misery. The first thing Colin had done after that woman had driven off in his car was to call the Grimmelton Police Department to report that his baby had been stolen. Immediately after that, he called his two brothers, Larry and Gary, and gave them the news about his Camaro. They didn’t seem to care. He’d also asked if one of them would come take the rest of his shift so that he could go home. Their answer came as a resounding “no”.

  After he had passed out, right in front of the Griswold family, he found that Beatrice Griswold had stayed beside him until he had come around. Once he was coherent again, Beatrice insisted that Colin call the Police once more to report the man who had threatened to shoot Colin in the face. He hadn’t actually said that he would, in fact, shoot Colin in the face, but a gun barrel speaks louder than the person holding the gun, and Colin felt fairly certain that he understood exactly what that gun barrel had been saying. Beatrice also insisted that he call his brothers again and explain that this life threatening incident had come to fray upon Colin’s nerves and request again that they let him go home early. Once again the answer he received from his brothers amounted to a simple, yet clear and resounding “no”. Once his calls were made, and the Griswolds were on their way back home, Colin grabbed a soda out of the cooler and a comic off the spinner rack and settled in for the afternoon lag.

  There wasn’t a lot for him left to do at that point. The Griswold’s had cleaned the store pretty well before they left, which meant that all Colin had to look forward to was the wait. So Colin waited. He waited for the Police because he needed to make a statement regarding his stolen car as well as give them a description of the man with the gun. Then he would wait for his shift to end so that he could go home, take a Tylenol PM, and sleep till tomorrow morning.

  Colin idly flipped through the pages of the comic on his counter when an electronic bell sounded, signifying that a customer had just walked in through the double glass doors.

  “Welcome to the Brick House Gas and Groceries. May I help you?” Colin said in the purest of monotone without looking up from the comic.

  The customer, whomever they were, walked right up to the counter before speaking. “Why thank you, son,” he said, sounding like a real Southern gentleman. “I do hope you can. You see, I’m looking for my wife. Maybe you’ve seen her.”

  “I see lots a people,” Colin said, again without looking up. “She got a name?”

  “Why yes, she surely does. Most folks call her Goldilocks.”

  At the sound of the name, that hated name, the name that he now associated with misery and fear, everything within him froze. This turned out to be somewhat of a blessing, otherwise he may have made himself a little mess right there behind the counter. It just wasn’t turning out to be his day.

  Colin’s eyes rose slowly from over the top of the comic and they goggled at the sight of the man that stood at his counter. Colin’s mouth gaped as he took the stranger in. The man who stood before him must have recently stepped off the set of a Western, or maybe out of time, for he dressed like a historical resident of Dodge City, Kansas or Tombstone, Arizona. In fact, Colin thought the man would look right at home standing next to Billy the Kid, Jesse James, or Wyatt Earp. His clothes were city clothes, not the sort your average cowpoke would don for a long cattle drive. No, this was no cowboy, this guy had the look of a professional ga
mbler and gunfighter. His hat, coat, pants, and string tie were black. His shirt was white. He wore a revolver at his left hip, the grip sticking out forwards so that the man would have to reach across his body with his right hand to pull it. He had another revolver sticking out of his coat in a shoulder holster under his right arm. The guns looked well used. The man wore a long, yet meticulously trimmed mustache. He was rather thin, and somewhat frail, yet he radiated a sense of something dangerous. Like a snake – coiled and ready to strike at a moment’s notice – yet he also maintained a look of comfort, ease, and complete self-assurance. But it was more than that. The man in black looked at Colin the way most people looked at a bug. Colin felt true fear for the first time in his life and he realized what it was about the man in black that troubled him so. His eyes, they were dark, almost black, even beyond the iris and the pupils. The man was evil, pure and simple. Colin could feel it rolling off of the man in waves.

  “What’s the matter son, cat got your tongue?” The stranger said, smiling up at Colin.

  “Goldilocks?”

  “That’s what she goes by. Look here son, I don’t believe that I got your name.”

  “Colin.”

  “Colin, you can call me Doc. Would you like to help me, Colin?”

  “Yes,” Colin said, almost involuntarily.

  “See, I knew you would. I just knew you would. Here’s the thing Colin,” Doc took a step back and looked around the store. “I know that you know what I need to know.”

  “What?”

  “Pay attention, son. I’m going to make it real easy for you.” Doc completed his quick look around the store, stepped up to Colin, pulled a long knife out from under the back of his coat, and lay it atop the counter.

  Colin looked from the knife to Doc, then back to the knife. He looked up and saw something in the man’s eyes. Something dark and twisted. For a moment, those eyes showed Colin an image of what Doc would do to the pig with the knife he had placed between them, and so he went ahead and had himself a little accident there behind the counter.