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)