After the first week of practicing together in the big field leading up to the lighthouse Chuck knew that Chris was going to be something special when he stepped out on that diamond. Not only could the boy hit a homerun off any pitch he could call where it was going. No matter how fast Chuck threw the ball Chris just calmly watched and swung at it like he was playing T-Ball. The focus was ridiculous. Periodically when they were goofing around and not being serious about practicing Chris would perform about as well as most kids but when he got that focus going you better watch out.
Throwing and catching came naturally to Chris as well. He wasn’t as good at doing those as he was at hitting but he wasn’t bad either. Hitting is where it was at for him. Chuck thought back to Mrs. Freshwater talking to them about having Chris skip a grade. They had decided not to since they both felt strongly that school was about learning more than just your numbers and letters. School was about learning to get along with others and learn respect for your teachers and peers. Plus, they’d both wanted to make sure that Chris did not miss out on a single school memory that he may regret later in life. You only get one chance to be a kid. Now he had another reason to be glad they had not elected to allow him to skip. With a little practice this kid was going to be going to college for free on a baseball scholarship. He would have told anyone else who tried to say their fifth grader was going to get a full ride that they were crazy. He had spent the whole week with his mouth hanging wide open in amazement. Watching Chris knock the living tar out of everything he threw anywhere near the boy was surreal.
At the risk of jinxing it he even brought it up with Glenda one night after they had sent Chris to bed. She pretty much anticipated Chris to go to college for free on an academic scholarship anyway so had not been worried about it. She had researched what those IQ test scores meant and knew that their little boy was even more special than they had realized. Hearing Chuck get excited about his athletic prowess just made her even happier. She wanted Chris to live a well-rounded life and it looked like he was going to be able to accomplish that. The trick was going to be to get him to balance out his talents and still keep that modesty and honesty that she loved so much about him. He was already a popular boy and would just keep getting more and more popular but Glenda had no doubt that he’d never leave someone like Brent behind just because they were not as popular. It was just the kind of boy that Chris was.
He didn’t end up playing for one of the bank sponsored teams. The brown T-Shirt he ended up getting on the first day of practice was actually from one of the local Bed and Breakfasts. He proudly pulled on that Cliffside Inn shirt and stood there with a look on his face like he’d just pulled on his first suit and tie. On the way to the first practice Chuck let Chris know that he was really good. Chris said thanks.
“No. I mean it son. You’re a little bit scary how good you are at hitting the ball. The other kids may even get a little jealous. Remember you need to always do your best but I want you to show compassion for the people who may not be as good at it as you are. You’ve got a gift not a lot of people have”
Chuck watched the practice with the rest of the dads and moms who had dragged their kids out for the day. The warm up drills were all catching and throwing and the kids ran some laps then the coach lined them up for batting practice. Batting practice quickly turned into watching Chris knock ball after ball over the fence. All the kids, parents and the coaches were enthralled by the way Chris calmly stood there with the bat on his shoulder before striking out in fluid movement to send the ball on its journey. His form was not perfect and his stance was a little odd. Chuck had tried to work with him on that before realizing that the kid was hitting homeruns just the way he was. Why mess with his stance?
Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. The Cliffside Inn players took home the regional little league championship trophy that season thanks to Chris being able to knock the ball out of the park every time he was at bat. They would have gone even further if the state champs had not figured out they needed to walk Chris every time he was up. It was a solid strategy since no one else on the team was really very good.
Summer came and went so fast that Chris started calling it the oiled pig in his head. He’d read something about an oiled pig somewhere and the term stuck in his head and seemed particularly apt to describe how fast summer had slipped through his grasp. He’d spent the days reading and exploring the beach dunes and the old fort down the beach from the lighthouse. Most days either Chuck or Brent’s dad had arranged to drop off Brent over at the lighthouse to spend the day with Chris. They’d talked about books and baseball and spent hours with the wooden swords and shields that Chuck made for them pretending to be knights from the books they both loved to read. One day they may be the Knights Templar while the next they were the Riders of Rohan.
School started again and the squalls of fall started hitting the town they lived in more and more often. It was a stormy time of year but this year seemed to be trying to set a record. Two times hurricanes sent them all inland to stay at hotels while the storms passed by. On returning they had to wait for the National Guard to let them through to the road to the lighthouse. Even then they still couldn’t get out to their house since the hurricane had turned the peninsula into an island with the massive storm surge it pushed ashore.
Those were just the storms they had warnings about. At least one time a storm of massive intensity hit in the middle of the night and shocked them all out of their beds. The wind howled and the storm windows vibrated. Salt water from breaking waves coated the outside of all the windows. Chris stared out the window of the living room after everyone had fallen asleep. They’d chosen to all sleep together in the living room since it was the safest room in the house. He kept thinking he saw patterns in the rain. He got up to look out the window and as he approached it he heard voices mixing in with the thunder and the howl of the wind. The lighting flashed and he saw a man standing in the courtyard. The man was covered head to foot in gleaming metal and he held a scythe looking weapon in his hand and looked like he was yelling at the sky. Chris stared at him and the man turned his head and looked in the window.
Chris woke up the next morning with only vague recollections of what he assumed to have been dreams. Him and his dad went out to survey the damage to the property while Glenda worked on making pancakes and eggs for everybody. There was extensive damage to the house and property. Rocks had been shifted around on the jetty. A storm window in the garage had not been able to take the pressure and had shattered. Mr. Omasa from upstairs had come down to check out the damage to his Range Rover. He bade Chris and his dad a good morning while grumpily holding his head. His eyes were extremely bloodshot from self-medicating throughout the storm.
In the middle of the courtyard area the concrete was twisted and burnt. Chuck stared at it after Chris pointed it out.
“That’s weird.” He said, scratching his head. Mr. Omasa wandered over and took a look and then offered up that it may have been caused by a lightning strike. That satisfied Chuck but Chris continued to stare at it. The concrete was twisted and marred in the exact spot he had dreamed the knight to be standing in. Maybe what he had thought was a knight was really just lightning striking and waking him up out of his sleep with the bright flash? Maybe he should see if his parents could get him one of those eye mask things to sleep in so he’d stop seeing stuff in his sleep so much. At least if you saw something while wearing an eye mask in the middle of the night you could be reasonably sure it was from a dream.
The peninsula had become an island again due to the storm. The low part of the road was completely covered in a few feet of sea water. It would eventually drain off but it isolated them in the meanwhile. Mr. Omasa had walked along with them down to the water’s edge and was watching a lone fisherman who was braving the aftermath of the storm to see if it had stirred the fish up any. The man was separated from them by the moat leftover from the storm and about a hundred yards of pebble and seaweed covered be
ach. They all watched as he flung the fishing pole behind his shoulder and then whipped it forward to cast the lure far out into the ocean. As he reeled in the lure he walked closer to them before repeating the process. As he got closer Chris began to notice things about the angler. His bulky rain gear was not quite concealing the fact that his legs were longer than they should be.
The long-legged angler continued to get closer and was joined by two more fishermen who were dressed the same. Chris stared at them and focused and the rain gear and other trappings seemed to melt away from them and he saw that they looked more like tall skinny wolves with fur covered skulls than like anglers. Chris yelped and took a step back. Chuck looked down at him with concern. He had been busy watching to see what the three fishermen were going to catch. Chris pointed at the three who had stopped fishing and were now walking towards them. The fishing poles revealed to be long poles with glittering metal spikes sticking out of them. As he lost his focus the three turned back into typical retired New England fisherman out for a day of fishing and sneaking hits of brandy from their flasks.
The fishermen continued to approach. Looking for all the world like three concerned citizens walking up to see how they were doing after the storm. Chuck gave Chris another look and then faced the men over the seawater moat. The water was slowly flowing out and back into the ocean meaning the road should be passable again in a couple of hours. The fisherman stopped on the other side and started having the standard conversation with his dad. A lot of ‘how did you fare in the storm’ and ‘do you need anything kind of questions’. Chris was scared to look directly at them. He wondered if he was going mad.
“Focus boy.” Mr. Omasa had squatted down beside him and said that out of the side of his mouth. “If you don’t pull yourself together we’re not going to survive the day. I’m sorry there’s no way to ease you into this but what you see when you focus is a truer version of reality than not.”
Now Chris was completely sure he was going crazy. He looked over at the diminutive retired money manager and focused on him. As he did the man’s stature grew. No longer was he a balding white haired sixty something man with a pot belly. He was something much more. The version of Mr. Omasa that Chris was seeing now was still an older man. His face was scarred and the thick beard on it was interlaced with brilliant white streaks. The walking stick Mr. Omasa always carried around showed itself as a large sword in its sheath. The man himself seemed to gain a hundred pounds of muscle and at least six inches of height. He was old but still not someone anybody with a brain would want to pick a fight with.
Mr. Omasa was wearing chain mail covered in leather. He even had a hood of chain links over his head. Prior to focusing he had been wearing a puffy jacket with a hood on it. Chris looked away to try and see if when he looked back he’d still see a knight standing there and he got a glimpse of the three across the moat. They were the stuff of nightmares. His first glimpse had been fairly accurate but now he found himself staring at them from way too close as they paced the other side of the moat and stared back at them. They stood tall with black cloaks fluttering around them in the strong gusts of wind coming in from the sea. The parts of their arms and legs he could see sticking out from the cloaks were covered in brown bristly fur. Their heads looked like skulls with hair on them with eyes black as night staring out of enlarged sockets. Their mouths bristled with teeth. They were staring back at him. He knew they could tell that he really saw them now. The one in the center smiled and showed his teeth. Then he lowered his staff and pointed it at Chris and growled.
The three wolf demons began advancing into the moat. Chuck was asking them if they were crazy and telling them to please be careful. A sucking sound followed by a roar and the moat rose up and washed all the demons out over the seawall onto the rocks below. Chris began walking over to see where they had landed but Mr. Omasa was grabbing him and telling him they needed to get back to the lighthouse. Mr. Omasa wanted them all to get in the truck and get out of here as fast as possible. Chuck meanwhile, had gone directly over the seawall to see if he could help the fishermen he had just seen get washed away right in front of him by some sort of rogue wave. Chris yelled at Mr. Omasa he couldn’t leave without Chuck.
To the surprise of Chris Mr. Omasa listened to him. He went to help Chuck instead of continuing to guide Chris back to the lighthouse like he’d started out doing. The old knight did not bother with the stairs but simply jumped over the seawall down to the beach below. Chris rushed to look over and see what was going on. He saw one of the wolves at the edge of the surf with its neck bent back at a weird angle. That one was obviously out of the picture. The other two were encroaching on the knight who had just landed in the surf beside them. They charged him with their staffs held high and Chris watched as the knight deftly defended himself with a sword that blurred through the air like the wings of a hummingbird.
Chris was pulled back from staring at the spectacle below by his dad who had jogged back up the stairs. Chuck grabbed him and yelled at him to run back to the house and make sure his mom was ok and to call the police. Chris wasn’t sure what the police were going to do with demon wolves and a magical fighting knight but being somewhere else certainly seemed like a healthier option than remaining where they were. He could hear the clang of steel on steel from below by the waterline. He glanced over towards where the moat had been and saw two more of the wolf demons were running towards them. Chuck had turned to look at the new demons coming as well. He saw them as tourists running over to see what was going on. He walked forward to warn them not to get too close to the seawall in case there was another rogue wave on the way.
Chris yelled at him to come with him to the house but Chuck just yelled for Chris to hurry and go check on his mom and get the police out here. The first demon sprinting for Chris casually swung his steel studded pole and bashed Chucks head in without even slowing down. The world stopped. Chris felt cold all over. Disbelief washed over him like the surge of the sea over the tops of the barnacle covered rocks in the bay. Everything slowly started moving again but it was in slow motion for Chris. He watched powerlessly as Chucks body crumpled to the ground. Even as he watched the demons advanced on him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mr. Omasa hoist himself over the seawall and run towards him with sword outstretched. Both demons loped past Chris and dove for Mr. Omasa who was forced to stop and defend himself. The wolf creatures charged and their heavy staffs rapped off his armor and sent him to the ground. He quickly rolled through the attack and came up fighting.
Chris slowly walked towards Chucks body. Another wolf demon came out of the brush and ran towards Chris. In his state of shock Chris barely even noticed the beast as it sniffed at him then hoisted him over its shoulder and sprinted with him up the long driveway. Chris finally started struggling when he figured out what was going on. The creature rapped him hard in the forehead a few times with the staff it carried and he didn’t remember anything else.
Chapter 4: A Dreadful Day of Discovery
Chris woke up in the back of a van on a pile of grey blankets. They were scratchy and looked like the kind of blankets people bought to wrap around furniture when they rented a U-Haul. He couldn’t be sure but he felt like he had just landed on the blankets a few seconds prior. His head was pounding and the world was swimming around him. He sat up on his knees and blasted the contents of his stomach all over the floor of the van. He felt the van start to accelerate and looked up towards the driver seat. In his weakened state, he found it difficult to focus but he assumed the man driving the van was not actually a man.
In addition to the man sitting in the driver’s seat, there was also a man sitting in the passenger seat. He was turned around in the seat to watch Chris. He was flipping a long knife over and over in his hand. In a gravelly voice that sounded like the result of a lifetime of smoking cheap cigarettes he asked Chris how he felt. When Chris did not respond he just laughed and gave Chris a predatory wink. The man in the passenger seat started to say somet
hing else but was interrupted by a large sword blade that came shattering through the window and went in one side of his head and out the other.
The driver spun the wheel hard and the van went off the road and through a ditch and smashed into a tree. This had the effect the driver had wanted as it threw Mr. Omasa off the side of the van and into the underbrush in front of them where he rolled out of sight. The driver had his seatbelt on so he was good except for getting bashed in the face by the airbag. He snarled and opened the door. He got out carrying his staff and a long knife. He started moving stealthily into the underbrush looking for Mr. Omasa to make and end of him while he was laying on the ground. He’d only gone about ten steps in front of the van when Mr. Omasa appeared out of nowhere and quickly dispatched the demon with a blow to the back of its head.
Chris had managed to drag himself to the front of the van by this point and watched as the demon was slain. With his head injury he was still not able to bring himself to focus enough to see any more than his aging upstairs neighbor murdering some random tourist. He wondered again if he was going insane. A flashback to the look on his father’s face as he was struck in the head by the demon made him hope that this was all just a dream. He wished for the millionth time he could wake up in bed and all of this just have been a complicated nightmare. He’d run down the hallway and his dad would hug hum and tell him he shouldn’t eat ice cream before he went to bed.
That wishful illusion was shattered by Mr. Omasa limping over to the van and getting in the driver’s side. He looked back at Chris and asked him how he was feeling.
Son of the Keeper: Book 1: Principles of Magic Page 3