Jennings' Folly

by Thomas C. Stone

  I returned to Aunt Liza and gave her a glass of water, but she didn’t drink it.

  I wanted to do something, but I didn’t know what. Returning to the holoscreen, I found Grandpaw dragging Pat’s lifeless form further from the creek. He gently let Pat down in a clear spot and turned to go back to his horse.

  That’s when the lizard struck again.

  It was so fast, all I saw was a blur. The attack wasn’t initially aimed at Grandpaw. The kitzloc wanted my uncle’s body and before I realized what was happening, the creature had drug Pat back into the creek, apparently with the goal of taking him deeper into the woods on the opposite side of the creek.

  Papaw must have ignored his sore leg because he moved nearly as fast as the lizard. He stood on the bank and fired the Vimbacher at nearly point blank range. I thought it worked because the monster dropped Uncle Pat and slid sideways in an effort to avoid the blasts. It finally fell into the water, close enough to splash Grandpaw.

  Papaw checked his magazine and peered down at the water.

  A black snake appeared at the water’s edge and slithered between Papaw’s legs. He tried to step away but it rose up and, for an instant, attached itself to Grandpaw’s already wounded leg.

  Papaw shouted out in pain and the snake withdrew. When the lizard rose from the water, I understood that what I had seen wasn’t a snake; rather, it was the barbed tail of this new kind of kitzloc and it had just stung my Grandfather.

  He staggered from the creek bank, but the lizard did not pursue. Instead, it disappeared into the darkness, leaving both Papaw and my uncle.

  Grandpaw waded back into the creek, gingerly crossed the slow moving, shallow stream and grasped Pat again by his lapels. Pat was a small man and Grandpaw easily pulled him across the water and back up onto the bank where he collapsed in sudden fatigue or…

  “Kaliis?” said Papaw into his mic.

  “Yes? What has happened?”

  “I need you here.”

  Kaliis reminded Grandpaw he had no horse, and wasn’t large enough to control one even if one was available.

  I could hear Grandpaw breathing heavily into the mic. He said he needed help once more before silence filled the airway. The camera view showed nothing but darkness.

  I called to Kaliis and the alien answered immediately. “What’s happening?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he responded. “Your Grandfather needs help.”

  “Can you get to him?”

  “I can try.”

  I bit my lip. What to do? I knew exactly where they were. Kaliis was on the trail perhaps half a kilometer from where the attack occurred. There was a good chance the little alien would also be attacked if he attempted to traverse the short distance.

  “I’m leaving now,” Kaliis announced. “The trail is marked but it will take time to find them.” Kaliis’ voice was unwavering and full of conviction and my heart swelled at the loyalty displayed by my tutor and friend.

  “Wait where you are,” I said suddenly. “I can be there in twenty minutes.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes,” I said, rising, “I’m on my way.”

  I looked up and Liza was standing in the door to the kitchen. Her eyes were red and wet but she blinked and told me to go before it was too late.

  I grabbed my kit, pulled on my winter suit, slung my Vimbacher over my shoulder, and headed out the door.

  Liza lowered the shield for me and as I rode away, she shouted after me to be careful. “Please come back,” she said.

  *

  Brittany was the name of the mare I rode. She was fast and steady on her feet (hooves) but not very smart. Additionally, she was easily spooked and if I didn’t pay enough attention, she would bolt at a shadow. I would rather have ridden Uncle Pat’s horse, Stormy, as he was steady as a rock and afraid of nothing. The only drawback with Stormy was that, like Pat, he was small.

  I wondered about Stormy and hoped he was all right.

  Snowflakes drifted lazily to the ground, falling out of the dark sky like harbingers of winter. The temperature kept dropping and I was glad I had pulled on my winter suit. I was toasty inside and the hood pulled over my head contained radio leads and a plug-in for my mic.

  I called over the open net to tell Grandpaw and Kaliis I was on my way. Kaliis responded in the affirmative but there was no reply from Grandpaw. Neither could I hear his labored respiration anymore.

  I rode on through the dark as the snow slowly increased, passing the broad fields of my childhood and trees and rocks that had become signposts and landmarks for me and my step-brothers. The entire area we now called Jennings’ Folly – not to my Grandfather’s face – was our playground and there wasn’t an inch of it with which we were not familiar.

  Unlike townsfolk, we weren’t afraid of individual lizards. We were all taught how to shoot at an early age and even Riley had shot one of the critters by the time he had turned ten which was just last Spring. Grandpaw was with Riley for that event and Riley came home wearing the tip of the lizard’s tail on a strap hung about his neck. When Liza threw a fit about it and made him take it off, he pulled the lizard’s ear flaps from a pocket and asked, “What should I do with these?” Exasperated, Liza allowed Riley to keep his trophies, but “not in the house,” she told him. “Put them out in the barn with Phineas’ things.”

  Those were certainly better times.

  I finally rode over the last hill and saw the pile of boulders where Kaliis had situated himself. He must have heard me riding up because he twisted around and waved. The place he had chosen to sit was like a natural fortress and I remembered playing there when I was younger.

  I steered Brittany alongside the rocks like a ship edging up to a dock and Kaliis stepped onto the horse, situating himself behind me facing backwards like he always did when he rode with Papaw.

  There was no reason for idle chatter, no new information to impart, so we quickly rode on without speaking. A minute later, we were on the trail beside the creek.

  I wanted to spur Brittany forward in order to get to Grandpaw as quickly as possible, but I didn’t want to ride into a trap either, so I kept Brittany’s pace down to a rapid walk.

  When I rounded the last bend in the trail, the first thing I saw was Papaw’s horse standing tied to a stump, then, farther on, I saw two shapes lying on the ground side by side. It was cold and I could see the larger one’s breath every time he expelled. Grandpaw’s chest moved up and down and I knew he was still alive. A glance at poor Uncle Pat told me what I already knew: his wounds were fatal and he had passed on.

  I reined in Brittany and pulled her to a halt before sliding from the saddle. I let Kaliis climb down by himself and rushed to Papaw. As I kneeled by his side I saw his eyes were open and staring upward, watching flakes of snow as they drifted down between tree limbs.

  He looked at me as I cradled his head. “What took you so long?” he whispered.

  “I had to finish my dinner,” I answered.

  He smiled and turned his face back to the sky. He intended to die there but I wasn’t about to let him.

  Pat’s horse was nowhere in sight and I worried we would have no way to take my uncle’s body home. I knew we would have to tie Grandpaw to his saddle and it would be difficult just lifting him that far. Grandpaw was a big man, towering over me (and everyone else) and outweighing me by at least a hundred and fifty pounds. Kaliis assured me the two of us could manage. “However,” he said, “Pat presents us with a problem.”

  I looked across the creek and shined my light along the bank, hoping to catch sight of Pat’s mount. I remembered from the video feed that he had tied his horse to some brush below the natural dike formed by the bend in the stream. Stepping to the edge of the water, I looked both ways as if crossing a busy street in Calgary.

  I took a step into the icy water and Kaliis asked what I was doing.

  “Stormy is nearby. At least, he was. If he’s still there, I’m going to get him and we’ll lie Pat
across his back.”

  I took another step in the creek and Kaliis urged me to hurry. I started to say something catty, but a shadow loomed in front of me and a great hissing sound issued forth. Stumbling backwards, I fell onto my rear in the cold water, dropping the Vimbacher in the process.

  On the opposite bank, the great black lizard stood before me, its mouth open and displaying double rows of triangular teeth. Its long, slender tongue darted in and out and I noted that it was forked at the end just like the dragons in the fairy tales Aunt Liza read to me when I was little.

  The lizard spread his upper limbs and splayed his taloned fingers in a show designed to induce fear. It worked. I was suddenly terrified.

  It was the first time I’d gotten a good look at this anomaly, this deviation from the already vicious species that inhabited Dreidel and I realized the creature was much larger than I had thought. He, it, towered over me and must have been at least three meters tall. Sinewy muscles moved beneath its scaly skin revealing its latent strength.

  It walked upright like a man and its first step towards me splashed water in my face. I scrambled to find my dropped weapon beneath the flowing waters, fingers feeling mud and sand, touching rocks smoothed by years and years of gentle erosion.

  A boom and a whoosh came from directly behind me, startling and deafening me. Kaliis had discharged his blaster into the torso of the beast at a distance of no more than a few yards. Such a blast would have torn apart any other creature, no matter how large. Yet, this lizard was only knocked backwards and momentarily stunned.

  It shook its head like a boxer recovering from a particularly hard shot before once again focusing on its task at hand, which was, apparently, the destruction of its enemies.

  Chapter 27

  While the creature recovered from Kaliis’ shot, I was on hands and knees in the icy water feeling for my dropped weapon. As it regained its senses, my hand closed on the Vimbacher’s barrel and I dragged it from the water.

  The kitzloc had been knocked across the stream to the far bank where it landed in a sitting position with its feet in the water and its upper appendages spread in order to support itself. For the briefest moment, it looked as though it might be relaxing in a bucolic setting. However, that impression did not last. It sprang back with renewed fury and I brought my gun up and pulled both triggers. Nothing happened. The water had squirreled the works and I stood helpless before the monster.

  It took a step forward and I took a step backward, tripping and falling over the bank just in front of my Grandfather.

  I watched as its large eyes focused on me and then narrowed to slits prior to its final attack. In that instant, Kaliis’ blaster roared again. The lizard was hit high and its head snapped back. It staggered a few steps downstream, seemed to recover a bit, then was hit again by a third shot from Kaliis.

  Kaliis rushed to me in the intervening moments and helped me out of the freezing water. I looked for the creature but it had disappeared. We heard the sound of it crashing through underbrush and then things grew quiet again.

  I asked for the blaster and Kaliis handed it to me. Ignoring the cold, I skipped across the shallow stream and scrambled up the bank on the opposite side. I shined the light into the brush, hoping to catch the beast with a final shot, or at least keep it pinned while we continued our attack, but unfortunately, it had made a successful retreat.

  The good news was, I spotted Stormy. Pat’s horse was tied to a low hanging limb and I retrieved him and led him back to the creek and across to where Kaliis waited beside Papaw with my Vimbacher in his lap.

  He handed it to me and I handed back the blaster. “I gotta get me one of these,” I said.

  Kaliis replied that he had dried the weapon as he waited for me and swabbed out the charge box which was essentially a battery compartment. “It’ll work now,” he said.

  It was the first time my trusty Vimbacher had failed me and was quite nearly the last.

  I prepared Stormy for the burden he was to carry. As Kaliis helped me lift my uncle’s body to sling him face down over the horse’s back, I started to cry. I was freezing too. My winter suit was soaked and no longer offered its insulated warmth. As soon as I quit moving, I began to shake and my teeth chattered uncontrollably.

  Kaliis said not a word, but quickly gathered brush and sticks as I stamped my feet and kept watch for the kitzloc. In moments, Kaliis had a fire going on the trail. He insisted I strip down to my skivvies and toss the winter suit.

  I am a modest girl, but the cold actually hurt. I peeled off the wet coverall and stood semi-naked, Vimbacher in hand, before the fire with snowflakes falling on my head. Kaliis went to Grandpaw’s horse and, standing on his toes, rifled through Grandpaw’s kit until he found a change of clothes.

  I quickly pulled them on, rolling up the sleeves and the trouser bottoms. Using a length of cord for a belt, I grabbed a blanket from Pat’s kit and threw it around my shoulders. Ordinarily, I would have had an extra set of clothes in my kit but this emergency had caught me unprepared.

  When I had sufficiently warmed myself, I roused Papaw. Kaliis helped me carry Grandpaw to his horse. Before we got him aboard, we heard something strange, something that made my skin crawl. Across the stream, in the woods beyond, an unearthly scream issued forth. It wasn’t human or any other common animal, but I knew it was made by this new type of lizard.

  In response, Kaliis fired flares into the air. They lit the night and for a moment I watched the snowflakes drifting down in the lighted sky.

  Kaliis urged me to pay attention and, with difficulty, we hoisted Papaw atop his horse, settling him into the saddle and placing his booted feet into the stirrups.

  By the time we were ready to go, the flares had drifted to the ground and extinguished. As we started our little caravan, me on my mare with Kaliis sitting backwards behind me and holding lead lines to the other two horses, another blood-curdling scream came from the opposite bank.

  Turning in the saddle, I shined my light along the shore but saw nothing. Kaliis shot another flare into the air and we started our trip home.

  When we got to the group of boulders where Kaliis had fortified himself, Grandpaw called to me in a weakened voice. I stopped, slid off the horse, and went to him.

  He was bent over and I could tell his leg was giving him pain.

  “It stung me,” he said in a low voice.

  “What can I do?”

  He shook his head. “For me? Nothing.” He lifted his pale face and looked at me. “But the boys,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “I heard them,” he said, “calling for help.” He looked back down the trail in the direction from which we’d come. “They’re still alive and they’re back there, somewhere close.”

  Grandpaw’s eyelids fluttered as he fought to remain conscious. “Did I ever tell you I was the one who called them kitzloc? Hm? Did I ever tell you that?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  I don’t think he heard me as he continued, “…but if they were real kitzloc, I wouldn’t be here to tell you about it.” He shook his head and coughed. “This new one, though, is more like the ones back on Mirabel.”

  “Mirabel?”

  “Yes. A very dangerous place. My home, many years ago.” At that, Grandpaw’s eyes fluttered shut and I had to reach up to keep him from falling from the saddle.

  I looked at Kaliis, still sitting backwards on Brittany, and told him I had to go back to find the boys. “You take Grandpaw and Uncle Pat home,” I told him.

  But Kaliis protested. “I can’t do it alone, Amanda. Look,” he said, pointing to his dangling feet. “I can’t reach the stirrups. What if your Grandfather fell from his horse? I can’t even get down from here without help.”

  As Kaliis spoke, I looped spare straps around Grandpaw’s middle and tied the ends tautly to his saddle horn. Standing back, I said, “Maybe that’ll keep him in the saddle.”

  Papaw was bent over again and his eyes were clos
ed. He made no further comments.

  Kaliis, however, re-stated his position and asked if I heard him.

  I took a deep breath, looked back at the trail once and reluctantly agreed with him. “Let’s go, then,” I said. I climbed back into the saddle and led the little caravan back to the house as my mind turned with the possibilities.

  *

  Aunt Liza and Michael helped me get Papaw into the house where we laid him on the couch in the big room. Liza watched in shock as Kaliis and I gently pulled Uncle Pat from his horse and took his body to the barn where we placed him on horizontal planks just outside Phineas’ room.

  How I wished Phineas was there to help.

  We covered Uncle Pat with a clean sheet and left Aunt Liza alone with him while we returned to the house.

  Jambo stood with two of his brothers beside a blazing fire and told me he was ready to step up and help. “I’m almost a teenager,” he reminded me.

  I asked him to take care of his brothers and mind Aunt Liza and Kaliis. “That’ll be help enough,” I told him.

  Kaliis tended to Grandpaw. His wounded leg had ballooned and Kaliis was running computer-aided medical diagnostics on a tablet.

  I ran upstairs and changed clothes quietly, taking care not to wake the other three sleeping Frisco children. I slipped Glaucus’ good luck charm over my head and stuffed my kit with more ammo and Papaw’s blaster. I also went to the basement and took the last brace bomb from the locked munitions cabinet and stuffed it into a second, smaller bag. As an afterthought, I threw a change of clothes inside as well as an extra sweater.

  On my way out, I asked Kaliis about Papaw but the alien only shook his head in human fashion. Papaw had not opened his eyes since we first helped him to the couch.

  By the time I headed out to the barn, it was the middle of the night and the amount of snow falling from the sky had doubled. It was the first storm of the season and it was shaping up as a bad one. Michael came with me, carrying my kit and the Vimbacher.