Dragon Chronicles XLVI

XLVI. Evils spawns from the Poster Camps

Polluted chirps break through nightmare damps

The fiddling bigotry counts past a broken thicket

The sect staggers backwards, through the wicket

Dragon Chronicles XLVI

#TuesdaySerial: Such A Fine Son (Part Three)

Such A Fine Son (Part Three)
by
Louise Dragon

A penetrating voice stabbing at his brain gradually disrupted Lyle’s slumber.

“Oh my God, my baby. What happened to my Wendy? What did this? Oh, sweet Jesus why isn’t someone helping her? Where’re the doctors? Nurse . . . Nurse . . .”


Tap, tap, tap.


“Dr. Canthrop? Doctor, sorry to disturb you but Jane Doe’s been identified. Her mother is asking for you.”


“Thank you, Maggie,” Lyle told the nurse. “Put her in my office and try to get her calmed down before she wakes up the entire floor. I’ll be right there.”


Yawning and stretching, Lyle ran a hand over his raspy face and peered at his watch. An hour of sleep was just enough to keep him on his feet until dawn. Raking his fingers through shoulder length dark hair, he ducked into the restroom to splash cold water over his bleary face. Carefully inspecting his long thin face in the mirror, Lyle pulled an elastic band from a smock pocket and quickly pulled his mass of hair back into a neat tail at the nape of his neck. From past experience, Lyle knew that parents felt uncomfortable with a doctor who resembled Jesus Christ or a host of current rock stars.


“Maggie, name?” Lyle whispered as he passed the nurse’s station.


“Wheeler, Wendy Wheeler. Mrs. Wheeler is in your office. She’s extremely agitated, Doctor.”


Lyle took a deep breath before bustling into the little cubicle he used for an office when on duty at the trauma center.


Joy Wheeler, perched bird-like on a hard plastic chair, and sprang to her feet. Her loud voice pelted the small room with needles of shrillness. “You’re the doctor? What’s happened to my daughter, Mister? I want the truth. Just tell me like it is. Was she raped?”


“Please try to calm down, Mrs. Wheeler.” Lyle leaned against a corner of his desk and folded his arms to keep from putting a hand over each ear.


“We’ve stabilized your daughter, she was beaten and raped.”


The hawk-nosed woman folded back into the chair like a deflated balloon, hands crisscrossed over her mouth and, for the moment, blessedly speechless.


Lyle waited silently for the woman to regain her composure. Her sharp-featured face, a study in whiteness under a bubble of brassy red hair, emitted a high, shrill whine from behind red-tipped fingers.


“Calm down?” she finally shrieked. “My Wendy is lying there in that bed like a broken doll and you want me to calm down? You don’t have any children, do you, Doctor?”


Lyle could feel an odd rush of heat spreading over his neck and ears. Intensely, he concentrated on keeping sarcasm out of his voice before he replied. “ I only meant . . . some coma patients are aware of their surroundings. Jane . . . er Wendy may be able to hear us. If we expect her to emerge from this coma whole in body and mind, we’ll need to surround her with tranquility and gentleness.”


“Wha-da-ya-mean we,” Mrs. Wheeler spat, crescendo rising. “What you really mean is ME! Let me remind you, ‘twas a man did this to her. I didn’t put her here. Unless you think I neglected her. That it, Doctor? You think she’s here cause I have to go to work every day to put food on the table?”


Mrs. Wheeler began to wail miserably. “How many times did I tell her to stay outa them woods? Full o’ perverts, I told her. Kids don’t listen, Doctor. They just don’t listen. I done the best I could.”


Curiously, Lyle felt unmoved by the woman’s apparent misery.


Continued . . .
 
Link to Part One (Such a Fine Son)

#TuesdaySerial: Such A Fine Son (Part Three)

Dragon Chronicles XLV.

XLV. A tireless spirit breaks free from the pack
Littleuns from Carthage now double back
The waters glow green with streaks of light
Blisters and needles litter the new launching site

Dragon Chronicles XLV.

#TuesdaySerial: Such A Fine Son (Part Two)

Such A Fine Son (Part Two)
by
Louise Dragon

“Doctor, I’m Detective Hans Steiger from the Waterville Police Department, can you tell me what happened to this girl?”



Lyle rubbed his weary eyes and tried to focus on the barely stabilized, battered body of Jane Doe.


“Hard to say. Raped, definitely. Either she was beaten too, or the wild animals got to her from the looks of those bites and scratches.” Lyle told the muscular young officer. “You did say she was found in the woods?”


“About five hundred feet south of Coca-Cola ledge,” Detective Steiger stated, chomping gum and flipping through a small notebook. Bunch of kids found her, swore she was dead. We got the call on a body in the woods at 9:20 and I went right out there. Thought she was dead myself, the poor little thing. Will she pull through?”


“It’s possible,” Lyle said. “She’s in a coma from shock and exposure. Although most of her wounds are lacerations and skin tears, she’s been brutally traumatized. We never know just how much cataclysm the human brain can withstand. It’s wait and watch now. Have you identified her yet?”


“The information went out on the eleven o’clock news,” The detective said around a wad of gum the size of a golf ball. “I expect to have her tagged by morning—if she makes it, that is.”


“Well, if you’ll excuse me, Detective Steiger, it’s been a long, rough night. I’ll try to keep the department posted on any changes in her condition.”


“Damn straight,” Steiger spat, following Lyle into the hall surrounded by a little cloud of spearmint. “I got a little sister about that age. I’d like to get my hands on the ape that did this. Right now, this little girl is the only one who can point a finger at him.  If she should come to, just call the station and ask for me. You got it Doc? I want to be the first person that little girl talks to.”


Lyle watched the red-faced detective stride into the elevator and punch the button. Slowly, the young doctor shuffled back to the bedside of Jane Doe. What’s so special about this one, he asked himself? Since she was about the tenth beaten and clawed Jane Doe brought in, in as many months, Lyle wondered at the sudden concern of the police department. Checking her vital signs one more time and finding no changes, Lyle headed for the resident intern quarters to grab a power nap before the next emergency.

Continued . . .

Link to Part One (Such a Fine Son)

#TuesdaySerial: Such A Fine Son (Part Two)

#fridayflash: Portal 7298

Portal 7298
by Louise Dragon



Portal 7298 remained buried at the base of Den Mountain for 276 years. A freak mudslide had buried it completely in the spring of 1733; and so the sentry slept. Heavy rains tormenting the Ozarks in the winter of 2009 washed away the last vestiges of earth, clay and debris. Once again, sentry felt the warmth of the sun on his planks. The sentry completed a quick check on its systems, before continuing to doze.


Corky Rolf hunched his shoulders trying to bury his neck and ears deeper into the worn old parka he’d pinched from Archer House. He wished he’d taken food and water before he’d run off. His mind wandered back a little . . .


“Corky, what’s this?” Anton Marlow had asked flipping a half pack of Marlboros across the bedspread.


Corky looked from Anton’s face to the cigarettes, his mind reaching for an excuse . . . any excuse. A lie . . . even a lie might work.


“Well . . .” Anton began, tapping on the cigarette pack.


Corky looked at his feet.


Anton sighed. “You know the rules. You’re too young to smoke. Spend the next four hours in your room reflecting on your actions. I’m also revoking your phone and television privileges for the weekend.” Anton picked up the pack and broke each of the remaining cigarettes into his palm. He left the room and Corky heard the whoosh of a toilet flush.


A frown deepened between Corky’s eyes while a hank of bedspread twisted between his fists. Ten minutes later he’d pinched a coat and a flashlight from the halfway house, and in thirty minutes he was half a mile away – working his way quickly through the forest.


They’ll be sorry, Corky’s mind worked overtime as he kicked at a heap of pinecones in his path. Lose my privileges? What efin privileges? – He struck a blow at a wide fir branch and it smacked back at his teary face. I’m never going back there . . . never.


By morning, however, Corky’s rumbling stomach and voracious thirst began to soften his resolve.


Curious humming crept into the pit of Corky’s empty stomach. He stopped and glanced around. Was he hearing it or feeling it? The sensation soothed his frazzled nerves and tortured stomach. He decided to move ahead a tad further.

As soon as the humming started . . . it dissipated and when Corky stumbled through the dense brush into a small clearing at the base of a mountain, he’d already lost all memory of the drone.


The small cabin, scrunched into the side of the mountain like a forgotten toy, belonged in a Rockwell painting. Old and weather beaten, it had a scrubbed look: clean and inviting. A stone well drew Corky’s attention and he quickly cranked up a bucket of beautifully clear water -- gulping with gusto. The water was cold and wet, but flat somehow: synthetic, not really thirst quenching – not as refreshing as he had expected.


Behind the well Corky spied a tangle of blackberry vines. As he picked handfuls of the plump fruit he wondered where the birds were and why they hadn’t beaten him to these tempting treats. The berries looked fat, juicy and enticing, but they were disappointingly sour and lifeless. They did quiet Corky’s rumbling stomach, however.

Why is it so quiet? Not a birdcall, or insect buzz?


Corky tapped on the cabin door and it silently swung inward giving him his first glimpse inside. The cabin -- only one room -- revealed no one was home. Inside the cabin was as neat as the outside . . . no cobwebs and no dust. Someone must be living here . . . maybe they had just stepped out to . . . to what? Shoot a deer for dinner?

Corky, leaving the door ajar, explored the interior of the small cabin. He saw a stone fireplace, small table with one chair, and a neatly made bunk. Corky circled that bunk, he’d had one long exhausting night and now that his thirst and hunger had abated, sleep was next on his list.


“Who’s been sleeping in my bed?” Corky jeered, then quickly clapped a berry stained hand to his mouth. His words sounded tinny . . . hollow.


“Hello . . .Hello.” his voice seemed cracked and strained -- unfamiliar.


What I wouldn’t give for a cigarette. Corky remembered the mashed up tobacco in Anton’s palm. Had it been only yesterday? The humming sensation from the clearing washed quickly over him then stopped suddenly.


Corky turned in a full circle – stopped and gaped at the mantle above the stone fireplace. A familiar red and white pack lay on the mantle with a plain pack of book matches. Glancing quickly at the open door, Corky covered the distance between bunk and mantle in two giant steps. Seconds later he lit up and inhaled expecting the normal burst of nicotine buzz and not getting it. He examined the cigarette – ordinary white trunk with a gold filter -- but it tasted like varnish and made his stomach turn. He stubbed it out in the fireplace, removed his muddy shoes and frayed jacket, and stretched out wearily on the soft bunk.


The sentry watched quietly until the boy was asleep. It’s shapeless yellow form floated out of the wall and hovered over the sleeping figure. Misty fronds swirled in and out of the vaporous creature. The ancient ones had left the sentry here, but he needed to renew this portal’s energy from time to time to continue. He would be so glad to finally step out of the clearing and into this colorful world. The portal now held a renewed sentry.


The boy who left the clearing that afternoon looked like Corky Rolf and walked like Corky Rolf, but was not Corky Rolf.


Corky Rolf’s essence churned without shape and screamed without sound from the eaves of Portal 7298.
end

#fridayflash: Portal 7298

Dragon Chronicles XLIV.

XLIV. Arethusa will color a new river red
The souls of the ages recognize a common thread
Crackpots converge at forty and seventy-four
Peacock’s gold scraped from the ocean’s door

Dragon Chronicles XLIV.

#TuesdaySerial: Such A Fine Son (Part One)

Such A Fine Son
By
Louise Dragon


Wendy Wheeler’s flashlight cast a feeble glow through the darkness. The path, etched through the woods by the feet of hundreds of children, would eventually cross Main Street in Waterville. Town Crest Village, the housing project where Wendy lived, loomed behind her on the brink of Coca-Cola Ledge.


Wendy skipped lightly over tree roots and rocks, her thoughts already down on the streets with her friends. She loved the city streets; there was always some kind of excitement going on in town. If Ma only knew . . .


“Don’t ever take the path after dark, Honey,” Ma had said so many times.


“Heaven knows what perverts sleep in those woods. I shudder to think about it.”


But Wendy took the path many times after dark and had never encountered a soul. She usually giggled down the path with Sophie Freedman, but tonight her best friend was at choir rehearsal.


With Sophie along, Wendy had never noticed how quiet the path was, or how the tree branches seemed to reach out towards her as she skipped past. A vague feeling of alarm tugged at the tiny hairs on the back of Wendy’s neck just before her flashlight sputtered and died. She stopped dead on the murky Path. A faint breeze rattled tall branches overhead, like fingernails tapping. Wendy bit down hard on her lower lip.


Trying to rationalize her fear, she peered anxiously about in the gloom.


There! Did something move?


As she was about to sprint off like a frightened rabbit, the dark clouds above parted. The silver mottled moon beamed through a hexagon in the tree branches touching her surroundings with shimmer blight. Small white moths fluttering before her in the moonbeam eased Wendy’s thudding heartbeat. She let out a sharp caw of relief.


After a few hesitant steps, however, the clouds captured the moonlight plunging her once again into darkness. At the sudden eclipse, a tiny sound of fear escaped her lips making her jump involuntarily.


Up ahead on the path, the darkness seemed to boil and twitch.


The sharp snap of a twig.


A grunt.


There was definitely someone on the path. Visions of dirty street people flashed through Wendy’s mind. Old looking men wrapped in newspapers, their rheumy eyes peeking out to watch the streets.


“Heaven knows what perverts sleep in those woods. I shudder . . .
I shudder . . .” Ma’s words echoed into her fear. “Not after dark . . . perverts sleep in those woods . . . I shudder . . . I shudder . . .”


Wendy’s fear turned into blind panic as the snapping of twigs grew louder.


Blindly, she turned and bolted. Whoever was coming up the path, sounded big.


Heavy breathing and grunting noises thundered closer. Trees crackled and branches thrashed as the quaking footfalls closed in.


Something solid struck Wendy between the shoulder blades. The loud thud rang in her ears as she lost her footing and sprawled into a bed of crunchy leaves.


The clouds thinned, triggering a faded grayish light.


Wendy rolled over to face her attacker. The sight of the beast overwhelmed her young brain, crippling her mind and body: blue-gray eyes glassed over, lithe body sagged. Watching the scene as though from afar, Wendy Wheeler’s mind overloaded in its final attempt to shield her from the horror.


The beast, bear-like and slobbering, was no mere pervert. Thick dark fur covered most of its body. Claws, like mini daggers sprouted from almost human fingers. Yellow fangs coursed twin rivers of saliva over a heavily bearded chin. The creature’s chest and abdomen were leathery pink and strangely hairless ending in a massive erection. Huge dark sunken eyes held a look of madness as it roared and grabbed the prone girl.


Shaking her like a rag doll, the monster tore the clothes from her limp body.


With an inhuman animal lust it penetrated the girl. A single high shrill scream issued from her blue lips driving the attacker to a fevered frenzy of biting, clawing and thrusting. Evil seeds discharged, the monster stood and gazed down into Wendy’s wide blue-gray eyes. Tears and snot mixed with the girl’s blood and fell from the creature’s face leaving ragged pink dots on her naked flesh. Balefully, the thing raised its massive head to the moon and moaned with hopeless anguish.


A police siren wafting up through the tangle of trees brought the beast to a wary crouch.


From her broken body, the tortured blue-gray eyes of Wendy Wheeler watched the beast flee into the shadowy forest. With it went her soul.


Continued . . .

#TuesdaySerial: Such A Fine Son (Part One)

#fridayflash: Seed Of Evil

SEED OF EVIL
By Louise Dragon


The shadow floated by the instant Claudia slipped backwards off the windowsill, and sensed the hundreds of feet of open space beneath her. It was a sign: an epiphany, the perfect ending to her life.

In her mind’s eye, Claudia pictured the devastation left behind as her body plummeted to destruction.


Her children, once beautiful sweet babies, now slept the deepest sleep of all. How could she have known they’d become nagging and whiny? They drove her to it. Never giving her a moment’s peace. She felt no remorse. She had to do it. They had spied on her . . . watched as she buried the ice pick into their father over and over again. Cried. Actually cried for him. How ungrateful. Didn’t they know she had done them a favor? Didn’t they know that she had to do it . . . he had found out about the others.

Her necessary deeds completed, she had thought about relocating and starting over; then she heard the sirens. Someone had called the cops.

No other way out now.


They couldn’t take her alive.


The sidewalk rushed up and took Claudia’s life, but not before the evil seed planted behind her left ear burst forth and buried itself into a female spectator. The watching woman gazed up in time to see a shadowy blot wing silently away, she scratched at an itchy place behind her left ear and thought: What a beautiful way to die.
END

#fridayflash: Seed Of Evil

Dragon Chronicles XLIII.

XLIII. A new lamp burns with an inextinguishable fire
Enemies will come to subdue the black friar
A death comes too late – great people re-created
All that remains is an important verse now misstated

Dragon Chronicles XLIII.

#TuesdaySerial: Wrenge (Conclusion)

Wrenge (Conclusion)
by
Louise Dragon

In the nouveau district of the city, Alec Nietupski rubbed his eyes as the symbols winked out from the center of the winged portal, like a street light flickering off at dawn.



"My God, you did it, friend," Alec whispered into the dark, quiet street.


For the first time in many nights, Alec would sleep now.


~~~


Brad pulled out the drawing of Elizabeth Michael's winged portal that he had been carrying with him for days.


The winged oval was empty!


He waited for the ambulance to pick up Monks, went home and gathered Elizabeth Michael's deviant tools, and burned the heap in his father's fireplace.


It was over. The Memphis-Mangler wouldn't be claiming any more victims.


~~~


High on the craggy cliffs of Mount Moriah, a large brown vulture dropped small bits of decayed rabbit flesh into the hungry mouth of her newly hatched, adopted offspring. The half-human cherub cooed with delight and reached out chubby lavender hands, begging for more choice morsels from her new mother.
END

Link to Wrenge (part 1)

#TuesdaySerial: Wrenge (Conclusion)

#fridayflash: Memo From Hell

Memo From Hell
By Louise Dragon


Sue kicked off her heels the moment the door to her apartment swished shut behind her. Yes, her apartment; Neil was gone now. Although she’d been careful not to let her true feelings show at the funeral; she’d squeezed out tears and everything. Sue was rid of him – and she was thrilled about it.


He’s gone; she wanted to shout as she scooped up her mail. No more weirdness, no more fear; the man had been one scary guy with all of his strange books and secret mumblings. For the first time since her wedding six years ago, Sue felt serene and at ease. She was glad to be unburdened from a husband whose bizarreness had increased over the years until it finally killed him.


Scanning through the bills and junk mail, Sue paused at a chartreuse envelope with her first name scrawled across it in spiky letters. No stamp, no postmark, not even a proper address. Perhaps a sympathy card she supposed. The envelope felt warm in her hands. She tore it open and a rancid odor struck her nostrils making her hands tremble as she read the grisly message:

Dear Sue,


Since eventually you’ll be joining me, I thought you might be interested in the goings on down here.


Yesterday was my first day. It started at six A.M., when temperatures began to rise. This place reached six hundred degrees by early afternoon. The other poor souls down here tell me that’s about average for this time of year.


When they closed the lid of my coffin, I awoke almost immediately here in my little honeycomb cubicle set into the walls along with about a million others. Every one of us has his own little niche. Since it’s too hot to sleep, we amuse ourselves by counting the drops falling from the stalactites above. Sound boring? It better not be – we have to pay attention. In the morning, He might ask how many drops fell. According to the souls of the damned, it’s in our best interest to know!


Since it was my first day, I played it by ear. We can eat anything we can find. Everything tastes like charcoal, and water is hard to find. Steam is plentiful, but difficult to drink. My sinuses haven’t bothered me since I arrived.


Work assignments are passed out daily by Him, and I didn’t hear any complaints. My job for the day was clearing more little caverns in the walls to make room for new arrivals. For this I used a pick and shovel == dropping the rocks down into a bubbling pit of puke green lava to be melted down into more puke green lava. Other workers use this vile concoction to paint pictures of hideous atrocities on the walls between the small caves. The drawings give off a luminescent green glow and this where our light comes from. I’m told, over in The Blazes, the drawings give off a yellow-red light. He lives over there.


You probably want to know more about Him. What can I say? The guy looks different every time I see Him. In the morning He looked like your typical Devil image. You know – hooves, tail, pitchfork, etc; leering and ugly, just like in the movies. Big too – had to duck His head to keep from scraping His horns on the ceiling. Later on, when He came around to check our work, He looked like a giant dog – black as night with fangs the size of daggers and slanted eyes emitting an eerie purple glow of iridescent evil. I could not look into those eyes. I think I’d have gone mad. They say the bonkers souls end up in one of The Pits. No thanks, I’ll try to stay right up here in The Inferno – It’s rather cozy. They tell me that you get used to the heat at about the same time your eyes become accustomed to the green light.


I rather like Hell. I’m told that if you play your cards right, He sometimes sends you upstairs on assignment. I intend to be one of those lucky few, so plan on seeing me soon. I promise that you will be receiving my utmost attention.


Your doting husband, Neil.

As Sue read the last hideous word, greenish flames began to lick her fingers around the vile smelling sheet of paper. She managed to drop it into the kitchen sink just before she fainted.
end

#fridayflash: Memo From Hell

Dragon Chronicles XLII

XLII. The one harsh of letters will carve a horrible notch
There comes a trembling on the graveyard watch

Flood and wind -- plague and drought, bring trouble

With a wavering of the land, all evils double
 
 
 
 
 

Dragon Chronicles XLII