by Michael Dean
I had stepped off the edge of a cliff. I instantly felt weightless as I began to fall downwards, head first, towards a wide, rippling river, resting in between a gigantic canyon below. The fall allowed me to catch sight of Agrelia. She was just ahead of me and it looked as if she was going to dive into the wild but shallow rock-filled rapids below.
Right before going under, she extended her wings. I knew she could fly, but I was unaware she had wings. Hers were featherless, entirely skeletal, just the bare bones themselves. Very freaky looking.
I honed in on the fleeing Goyle, trying to catch up, leveling off a few feet above the raging water beneath us. I was a short distance behind her and did my best to will up as much speed as I could. I was slowly gaining on her, but every time I got close, we’d have to whip around a corner, or she’d roll around in the air and dip up or down to avoid me making contact with her. During the chase I suddenly realized where we were at, we were zipping around the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona and the water below us was the mighty Colorado River.
With my eyes still locked onto Agrelia, we rounded another bend and I saw that we had entered a broad, long straightaway. This was the perfect chance for me to get a hold of her. I closed in on her as she looked back to see where I was. I reached out, trying to grab her ankle, but she rolled again, out of my reach. Since I was so close to achieving my goal, I wasn’t paying a lick of attention to what we were flying towards. All of a sudden Agrelia flew straight up into the air, and when she moved out of my sight, all I could see was a red canyon wall straight in front of me. With no time to dodge it, I braced myself and flew right into it. I must have flown about fifty feet deep into the canyon and hit every rock within it. Once I stopped carving my Leo-sized cave into the landscape, I brushed off the dirt and rocks that fell all over me, turned around, and blasted back out of the tunnel.
As soon as I reached the outside world again, I saw that Agrelia had come back and was waiting for me to fly out of the tunnel. When I flew out the entrance, she came at me, meeting me head on, slamming me back into another section of the canyon wall. Rocks and dirt shot out of the side like it had just been blown out by dynamite. The blow stunned me enough to allow the Hell Siren to attack me with a few more blows with her fists, spin me around by my neck, and fly me face first into the river below.
It was a hard impact when I entered the freezing river. I sucked down a mouthful of water before being dragged through the sharp-edged rocks face first. When we slowed to a halt, she held me under the water and began to break rocks over the top of my head and neck area.
Then it happened…again. A vision came to me, but this time it wasn’t of the two girls in the Victorian dresses, it was of Shade, sitting up in my tree alone, staring up at the stars in the sky above my home, waiting for me. I didn’t know if this was actually happening at this very moment, or in the past, or if I was dreaming of her, but one thing was for certain, seeing Shade gave me strength. Then, just as quickly as the vision came, it was gone.
I pushed off the rocky river floor, firing us out of the water. Agrelia was clinging to my back like a bull rider, still pummeling me, but thankfully, she was rock-less now. I turned over, aiming her towards the ground below, which caused her to let go and take off. I didn’t realize that the beating I had just taken disoriented me to the point that I fell back into the river before I could fully gather my wits again. This allowed Agrelia put some distance between us.
I staggered to my feet, soaking wet, taking to the skies after her. I located her off in the distance, dipping in and out of canyon crevices. I did my best to hold it together in order to stay on point. Then, on the top of one of canyons, some distance away, I watched her extend a hand out in front of her and open another portal while she was still in flight. She didn’t hesitate and flew gung-ho into it once it opened. I followed suit and barreled into the next open doorway.
Chapter 7
DERAILED
Exactly like I did before, prior to entering the portal, I slowed up some, but I didn’t land before entering. I took my chances and flew into the doorway at a moderate pace. The white flash engulfed my vision just like the last time and the next thing I knew I was in some kind of a dense forest. It wasn’t the kind of woods that surrounded me in Colorado, it was different. I was fairly confident that I was still in America, like one of the southern states, maybe in the hills of Kentucky or Tennessee. But that was just a guess at this point.
It was a very eerie setting. A thick fog blanketed the forest, causing the moon to struggle passing light through the trees and fog. Agrelia was nowhere in sight. I’d completely lost track of her and had no clue as to what direction she headed. This was bad. If she opened another portal and jumped again, I had only a limited time to find it and go through before it closed on me, leaving me stranded and without any idea of where in the world she went to.
I started to jog at a steady pace between shrubs and trees, frantically searching. I caught site of some white smoke lurking just above the tree-line as I ran. It was nothing significant. It looked like chimney smoke from someone’s fireplace. Still unclear as to where I was exactly and where I could find Agrelia, I decided to run towards the rising smoke.
The closer I got to the rising smoke, the darker and more sinister my demon radar became, like it does whenever I get around malevolent people or environments. I could feel a nasty energy throughout the air in the same manner as I did whenever Darryl Kite used to get near me.
In between the trees, distorted through the soupy fog, I could see a light. The closer I got, the clearer the light became. It was a light coming through a window of an old, rickety looking log home. Just above that window was an old rock chimney with chunks broken out of it. This was where the smoke was coming from. The house was in desperate need of a carpenter. I could see a man wearing a white tank-top shirt and dirty blue jeans banging something against a warped piece of wood railing that surrounded the porch. I slid behind a tree and remained still when I saw the man stop to look in my direction, as if he’d heard something. When the distinct sound of a screen door creaking open and slamming shut pierced the quiet of the woods around me, I figured it was safe to peek around the tree again. The man had indeed gone back inside and I very cautiously crept tree to tree around the home, hoping to avoid any unnecessary attention.
I didn’t have a second to waste and needed to keep searching for Agrelia because I didn’t sense her being around this house. But as I was about to get back into the shadows of the woods, I heard the blood curdling scream of a woman coming from within the home. I tried to ignore it and walk on, but I couldn’t. The evil coming from the direction of that place was calling to me. I had to go see what was going on, even at the peril of losing Agrelia all together.
I hunched down and walked into the clearing that surrounded the log cabin, hiding behind a large stack of freshly chopped wood lining one side of the house, after navigating around some dirty buckets laying in the yard, a burn pile full of garbage and a stack of rebar. Above that timber was another window. I raised my eyes just above the top of the stack to peek into the window. I could hear a fierce argument going on. In that window was a dark bedroom. The moonlight shining through lit up the small frame of a little boy sitting on the edge of an old, dilapidated bed. He must have been about six or seven years old, he was hunched over, sobbing.
I turned myself into shadow and slid around the front of the house. When I slithered upon the porch, I could see what it was that he banged against the porch railing, it was a plate, completely shattered into pieces. Food was slung out in every-which way on the brown, patchy grass in the front yard.
I focused my attention on the argument. I picked out a porch window resting behind two old, rusting chairs that sat around an ashtray full of cigarette butts and ashes resting on the warped wooden floor between them. I could see an older style big box television flickering off sheet covered furniture. Attached to the living room was a kitchen and the source of the light that drew me
closer to this place from the woods. I could clearly hear the embattled couple in there although I couldn’t see them. Just as I was thinking about slipping into the house, I saw them come into view.
The very beautiful young woman was dressed in what looked to be his clothes. She sported a long baggy white men’s shirt and loose fitting grey sweats. She stood barefoot in the kitchen, crying and trembling in fear in front of her lover, who was screaming just inches from her face, pointing at the stove. I could hear what the issue was as plain as day now and my earlier assumption of being somewhere in the American south was confirmed by his thick southern drawl.
The man was furious with her because his dinner was cold when he came home from work. Something that was so small and insignificant to most humans, and very fixable, I might add, was being blown out of proportion by the enraged idiot. I recognized this behavior. I’d seen it before when dealing with Darryl. The girl was begging him to calm down and that she would make him another meal, but he was having none of it.
To prove his dissatisfaction with her, he grabbed her by the hair suddenly, pulling her head back. She was pleading with him to stop but he wasn’t through making his point. He spun her around and shoved her crying face into the stove top, screaming at her, holding her down by her neck.
“You make damn sure that my supper is fresh and pipin’ hot when I get home, understand?” He shoved her head harder into the range.
She shook her head yes and cried uncontrollably as he pulled her back and put her into a chokehold from behind. He walked her through the living room, where the girl pleaded for his mercy, but he only picked her up off the ground while still holding onto the headlock. He forced her down a narrow hallway past the living room. When they were in the corridor, she tried straightening her legs to slow him from taking her to wherever they were going. It was like this situation played itself out before with the two and the girl wanted nothing to do with where it was he was about to take her. This frustrated the man even more and he let go of her and slammed her from one side of the hallway to the other. Suddenly I heard the little boy in the room scream at the top of his lungs in fear. The man finger pointed to the crying woman, who was curled into a ball on the floor at his feet, threatening to hurt their son in the other room if she didn’t get him to shut-up. That confirmed that they were the little boy’s parents.
When his pleading mother’s cries to be quiet didn’t stop the child from muting his loud whimpers, his cowardly father took matters into his own hands and shoved open the door to the little guy’s bedroom. His mother frantically held onto one of his father’s legs, trying to prevent him from hurting their child, but she was only rewarded with a kick, which freed his leg and he went into the room.
All of a sudden the little boy came flying out of the room like he was thrown and tumbled into the wall. His mother rushed to his aid and grabbed the crying boy and curled him up against her chest, wrapping her trembling hands around his face, stroking his cheek as she whispered something into his ear. The father stormed out of the bedroom and loomed over the helpless pair, still shouting at them, belittling them.
I knew he was going to do something worse, but I had seen enough, someone had to help them. Again, I wrestled with the fact that I wasn’t supposed to directly interfere in human matters, but I guess I never learn. My anger level was beyond boiling, his anger was fueling me and I needed to teach this jerk a lesson.
Wasting no more time, I materialized and kicked open the front door. It was so old that it exploded into hundreds of pieces all over the living room. I walked in just in time to meet the bewildered husband coming into the room to investigate. A look of confusion mixed with disbelief was painted across his face as he glared at me.
“Who in hell are you?”
“Exactly,” I replied with a grin.
“You get your ass out of my house before I throw you out, boy.”
I didn’t say anything, just stood and grinned at him. He swallowed his fear and took a charge at me. Once he got within arm’s reach, I extended mine out and gripped his face with my palm, like holding a basketball. This stopped the inbred moron dead in his tracks. With little effort, I pulled him close to me and then shoved him as I let go of his face. He lifted off the ground and flew backwards down the hallway past his wife and child, crashing through a closed bedroom door at the end of the short hallway.
I strutted up to the frightened mother and child, who were looking up at me in terror.
“Take the boy, get out of here, and never come back. If you do, I’ll come back for both of you, if he doesn’t kill you both first. Either way, you won’t escape so easily next time.”
Of course I would have never hurt them. I just told them that in order to scare them enough to never come back to this place of evil again.
Apparently the girl got the message. She jumped up with her child in her arms like she was on a spring and ran past me in a breeze. When she got out the door, she turned to me, looked at me, and said, “Thank you…whoever you are…thank you.” I simply nodded and watched her disappear around the house.
I heard the sound of some doors shutting and an engine, which sounded like a weed-eater, start up. In a blur of dust, the girl and her son ripped across the front yard and onto the driveway in what looked to be a rusted out, late seventies compact car of some kind. Now the husband was at my mercy and I turned to the room I saw him fly into and started in his direction.
With confidence, I walked into the bedroom and stepped over more pieces of busted door. I expected to either see him knocked out, lying somewhere in the room, or charging at me. Instead I found the once brave and confrontational man standing in a corner of the room aiming a handgun in his trembling hands at me as I walked in.
“I don’t know who you think you are, son, but it ain’t gonna matter anymore. I’m within my legal rights to shoot you down. You illegally broke into my home.”
Tired of messing with this bonehead, I decided to show him the full monty and released my wings right in front of him, holding onto no secrets with this guy.
“What the hell are you?” He yelled in fear as he began to squeeze the trigger multiple times, firing a series of bullets into my chest.
I slowly crept up to him as he continued to fire away. When I stood within inches of the barrel of his gun, he ran out of ammunition. I guess the sight of the bullets ricocheting off this winged, human-like creature coming at him sent him into a blind panic because the sound of empty clicks filled the room as he continued to squeeze the trigger in vain.
“Guns don’t kill people…I do,” I sneered, grabbing a hold of his weapon while it was still within his grip, clicking away, with one of my hands and began to squeeze.
The gun cracked and crumpled into bits within my hand and fell to the floor with relative ease. His eyes grew big as cantaloupes as he fell to his knees, begging me for mercy more desperately than his wife had requested of him.
“Do unto others as they have done unto…everyone else,” I sarcastically added.
“No. Please. No,” he pleaded further.
I could only smile at the coward who was now sampling the same fear that he’d put his loved ones through just minutes before.
“I have something in mind for you,” I said, grabbing him by the hair of his head as he began to sob.
I dragged him through the house and outside. He slid on his knees behind me, making no effort to get away. Once I got out into the front yard, I continued pulling him towards an electrical pole that was just a few yards away from the home. It had a blue light on it that came on automatically at night. When we reached the pole, I pulled him off the ground, still with a handful of his hair, and pushed his back against the pole.
“Wh-wh-what are you gonna do?” His voice trembled as I reached into his pockets and pulled out his wallet, opening it to see his name on his identification.
“Stay right here, Billy. If you move one inch, you’ll pay dearly. Not only do you know I can catch you, but now I can
find you anywhere.” I banged my closed fist full of his wallet against his chest before placing it back into his pocket. I didn’t punch him, but more patted him with it in a threatening manner.
He didn’t say a word, just bowed his head and started to sob.
“Not such a bad-ass now, are ya?” I added insult to his pride.
I deliberately strolled over to the pile of the steel rebar I saw when I first came onto the property and grabbed a few pieces in different lengths. When I turned to walk back over to “Billy the Bully,” he still had his head down, but it was tilted in my direction as he watched me nervously through teary eyes. I dragged the steel rods against the ground as I strolled back to him, just for effect. I knew the sound of the loud metal being pulled across the property would make him even more anxious.
Billy was a good boy and didn’t move a muscle. I stood before him and dropped all the rebar except for one. It clanged against the ground, causing Billy to jump a bit.
“Wait, how, what—what are you doing?” He anxiety raised as I took the steel bar I was holding and bent it around his neck and back behind the pole he had his back to, twisting it like a tie on a loaf of bread behind him and around the pole.
He continued to question what I was doing but I didn’t talk to him and kept doing my work. I grabbed another piece and tied it around his waist and pole. Next I grabbed both of his hands, broke off a small piece of steel, then tied his hands behind his back and around the pole like he was wearing shackles around his wrists.
“Perfect.” I looked him over, then I reached out and pulled off his shirt, followed by his pants; ripping them off his body in one tug. Now he was completely helpless, bound to the pole wearing nothing but his boxers and scraped up cowboy boots.
“What are you going to do?”