Don’t let your blog die during NaNoWriMo, I told myself. I’m going to post some old flash fiction, I actually posted in said blong. And here it is the first week of Decemeber and, let me check… one post, three weeks ago. Bang up job, Wombat.
Okay, here you go. Some of my flash fiction that didn’t win any contests. This one was supposed to be a Campfire Story. So I tried to make it read as if it was being spoken aloud in front of some kids. They said I had too many rhetorical questions, and I guess it was too late to say they weren’t supposed to be rhetorical. They were assuming that people were responding to them. But I’m telling you that now. So no complaining!
Enjoy.
And the Queen of England
The night was a night a lot like this.
Do you see the way the moon sits above the tree line? The way it just hangs there, a dull amber hue, lighting up our surroundings. It’s big. It’s bold. Not the type of moon you see in the city. It isn’t hiding behind a skyscraper or around the corner of the church on Third Street.
The farmers call it a harvest moon. It’s closer to the Earth this time of year. It keeps a watchful eye out over you so you can keep a watchful eye out over your crops. It’s a moon that wants to remind you that once upon a time, people thought he was a god. They prayed to him. And, boy howdy, by the time this story is finished, you’ll be praying to the almighty light of that moon, just like those old farmers were. Just like I was.
Because the last time I saw that moon was the first time I saw the half-human, half-…
You know what? I’m getting ahead of myself.
There were four of us out in the woods that night. David, the bald one. And Josh. Well, I guess Josh was bald, too. Mostly, anyway. Not everyone can have locks as luscious as your uncle, here. But I don’t really remember Josh’s hair. I think of him more as the burly guy. Built like a brick sh-, um sorry. Built like a sturdy outhouse. No? No frame of reference for that? A port-a-potty? Although those aren’t very sturdy, I know. Think of a port-a-potty that is made out of brick. Okay, sure, like the bathroom at the park.
And then there was Sonia. Poor, little Sonia. I don’t remember why she was out there with us. She had always just kind of been there. Part little sister, part would-be girlfriend. The glue that held together our motley crew. Whether we were smokin’ in the boys room or home, sweet, home. Ha, ha! Trust me, kids, when one of your college roommates introduces you to that old-school, hair-band rock music, you’ll get what a funny joke I just made.
Although I shouldn’t joke about Sonia. I haven’t seen her since that night. Diminutive little Sonia. Stood maybe five-foot-one, dripping wet. She’d have to stand on her tippy toes to hit a hundred pounds. Pixie-ish is what I used to call her. Now I know how apt that was. She really had no business being out there. None of us did, it turns out. But Sonia, least of all.
The Queen of England was there, too. I don’t quite remember when she got there, but I know she wasn’t there at the beginning. I’ll get to her later.
Have you heard that saying, “you can’t see the forest through the trees?” Well, that’s true. You see those trees right there? I know it’s dark, but that ring that’s illuminated around us. What’ve you got there, a Douglas Fir? A Noble Pine? It’s like a veritable Christmas Tree farm here. Some of them are tall and some of them are short. I mean, short to the other trees. Not short to you or I. Heck. See that one right there? What is it, twenty feet tall? On a Christmas Tree lot, that would be one of the top money getters, but here he’s just a little runt, barely stealing enough sun and nutrients from his big bullies next door.
And speaking of those bullies, check out that bad boy over there. He’s gotta be fifty feet if he’s an inch. Flickering orange in this light, but what do you think he looks like in the light of day. Is his trunk grey, like an elephant, trumpeting its power over the rest of God’s creation? Or is he a meek brown, trying to camouflage himself amongst his brethren. “Hey guys, I may be the one that everyone looks at, but I’m just one of you all. Come on, group tree hug.”
But here’s what I was saying with that whole forest-and-the-trees thing. We’re looking at that tree. But can you see the forest? Can you see what it all means? Can you even see what’s behind it? What could it be hiding? Well, that’s what David wanted to find out. So he got up from around the fire, a fire very much like this, to kill that cat’s curiosity and try to see the forest with his very own eyes.
And what did he see? You want to know what he saw, don’t you? When bald, wiry David tiptoed up to a giant pine tree standing sentinel on the edge of the light, warding off the darkness, or maybe it was vice versa, protecting the darkness from the evils of the light. What did David see, crunch, crunch, crunching through the dried pine needles like a drunken lion on shore leave?
Well, I don’t know. Because as he got to the tree, as he peered behind ever so subtly, I saw him lean in behind the tree, take a step, lean in some more and then…
David was gone.
Gone! A ghost! Like the tree had swallowed him whole. I know. I didn’t believe it at first, either. Thought maybe it was a trick of the eyes. A vantage point kinda thing. But no. David was gone. We called for him. Said his name. No response.
Josh was up first to follow David beyond the tree. That’s the kinda guy Josh is. Was. David was curious, always chasing some tantalizing, ethereal distance. Josh was sturdy. Grounded. Ready to go as soon as the going got going. I followed shortly behind Josh, because for me it was a thought and for him it was instinct.
Now I know what you’re thinking. Josh is going to disappear behind the tree, just like David. They’re going to join each other in some Great Beyond like in that nineteen-eighties Netflix show. But no. Maybe it was a one-time thing, or maybe it was because I was right behind him. The darkness can only take you when you’re lonely.
Whatever the reason, Josh rounded the pine and came out clear on the other side, rounding back out into our clearling, moments before I broke the plane of the forest myself.
But there was nothing behind the tree. It was just the back side of a tree. Or the front side, or the side side, depending on your vantage point, I suppose. My point is that David wasn’t there and David had never been there. No sign of him anywhere. No black, size-eight Converse tennis shoes. No svelte, tan, designer jacket signifying “Dave was here.” If I couldn’t see his tent over by the campfire, I might not think he had joined us on our trip.
Wait, was Sonia still sitting at the fire when I looked back in that direction? She should’ve been, but I don’t remember, definitively.
What I do remember, definitively, was Josh circling the tree, and me circling behind him. Once around. Twice around. The sun and the moon. Like a yin-yang, always on the opposing side. The fighters in the “Beat It” video. Tell me your dads have shown you the “Beat It” video. Good. I don’t want to have to disown my little brothers.
Finally, I came to a stop. Josh plowed into me from behind. I had just rounded the black pine, my field of vision bleary from yet another darkness-to-light transition as the fire came into view.
Was that when I saw the Queen of England sitting in Sonia’s spot by the fire? No. No, I don’t think Her Highness was there yet. I think what had caused me to stop on this particular revolution was the sound. Or rather, the complete lack thereof.
Silence. Too silent. The cackling of the nearby fire was gone. There was no crunching of footsteps or rustling of twigs in the breeze. A silent that shouldn’t exist in a library, much less outside in the woods. I don’t even think Josh stumbling into my backside registered a single decibel. It was as if the world had put those noise-cancelling headphones on, then forgot to push “play.”
Until the scream. AHHHHHHH!
A cry. A wail. A scream both natural and unnatural. Super-natural. Like a human wail belted an octave higher than Mariah Carey’s falsetto. Like an animal trying on its human vocals for the first time. The ghost of a cat. The wraith of a raccoon. The role of a human baby’s first wail will be played in tonight’s performance by a demon from Hell.
I ran. Straight forward or left of right, I couldn’t tell you. I just ran. Past the clearing and the fire and the four empty chair, like the points of a compass, containing neither me, nor David, nor Josh, nor Sonia. Nor the Queen of England. Into the forest and the trees and the underbrush and the darkness. Somehow I avoided them all, a pinball maneuvering between every flipper in sight. Unclear about direction or destination, I just ran. Like a blind man racing against Usain Bolt.
Josh was behind me. I could feel his breathing. I could hear his grunting. I could smell his breath on my legs, then my back, then my neck and the top of my head. His hot, humid breath. A mussy, Mississippi windstorm. A slobbering, guttural growl as Josh finally overtook me.
It wasn’t Josh.
I tripped and I pitched, sprawled through the forest, sprawled through the trees, came skidding to a stop on the undergrowth. A soft, mossy landing. A pillow that cushioned me from the landing I deserved. I sent a silent thanks up to whatever spritely spirit had saved me from scratches and worse.
But as the snarls and the groans and the slobbers and the heat pressed down upon my prone form, I wondered if I was being kept whole for a more nefarious reason. A fly taking a well-deserved rest in a comfortable silken web.
AWWWOOOOOOOO!!
The sound was more distinct this time. Closer. So very, very close. Not a wail or a cry, but a call. A triumphant trumpet of victory.
I couldn’t turn around to look. I mustn’t. And yet a voice told me that I must. A tiny voice. Feminine, discreet. Either in my ear or in my head. A heart of resolve. Turn around, it was saying. See what you must see. A defendant must face his accuser. A fly must look into the maw of its spider.
The hairy, crushing, snapping, poisonous mandible of the spider.
The hairy, crushing, snapping, bloody muzzle of a creature most foul.
I’d like to say it was a werewolf. I’d like to say it was a giant rat. I’d like to say it was a rabid wombat. It was all of those things and none of them, so all I can say is what I saw bending over me from its nine-foot height.
Sharp teeth, ragged teeth. Not the precise canines of a predator, but the mangled maw of a scavenger instead. Rat’s teeth dripping with fresh blood that glistened in the near-darkness. The snout above the snarl was rounded, like a marsupial instead of a rodent. But not one of those cute marsupials, like a panda or a wallaby. One of those nasty-looking ones. A snub-nosed opossum. A hairy-nosed wombat. The flat, pale triangle of a nose at the tip of the snout curled up to smell my delicious fear and despair.
The eyes were coal black orbs. No iris, no cornea. One hundred percent pupil, an endless pit into the depths of a scorched soul. Black like soot, the aftermath of a forest fire. The surest sign nature has to tell us of swallowed-up lives.
I tore my eyes away from the slathering face only to be mesmerized anew by its legs. Human legs. Hairier than a human, lankier than a human, but the unmistakable bipedal structure and gait of an upper primate. Human thighs. Human calves.
Human legs in camouflage cargo shorts. And black, size-eight Converse tennis shoes.
The creature was David!
“Hey, Buddy,” I said, trying to crab-walk backward, but finding no grip in the moist, silky moss. A fly caught in the Hotel California. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
“Hey, sorry I took the last hot dog last night, David.”
The monster snarled.
“I promise I’ll get up early tomorrow and percolate some fresh coffee for you.”
It growled.
“I take it back. You’re right. Reese’s make much better s’mores than Hershey’s.”
David opened its mouth wide. It descended toward its prey. Me. Hot saliva scorched my exposed neck.
“You stop that, David.” A high-pitched, high-classed voice rang out. Melodic. Regal. Royal. Large and in charge.
I looked up, and who did I see, hovering above the imposing nine-foot figure of the WereWomRat, shining in the moonlight like the crown jewels herself? Do you know who? No, it wasn’t the Queen of England. It was…
Sonia! Tiny, diminutive Sonia. Spritely little Sonia, towering ten feet in the air.
But not towering. She was hovering. She had wings! Honest-to-goodness wings. A double layer on both sides, strutting out to form a couple of upper-case B’s bordering her body. A body which, if you can believe it, was even smaller than it had been when she had her feet on the ground.
“Now, David, this is not a proper way to greet our host.”
AWWWWWWW!!! The WereDavid screamed. It was not a cry of hunger, or triumph, or even anger. It was a cry of frustration. A wail of disappointment. A child asking for just one more episode of “Dora the Explorer.” But Mommmmeeeee….
“I don’t want to hear it,” Sonia piped. “It might very well be a full moon, but it’s also time for tea. And if you do not come back to the safety of the roost soon, I cannot account for how the Troll might respond to your dalliance.”
A glow, which I had never really realized was always a part of Sonia, grew in luminosity until it was unavoidable. From the cherubic red cheeks that I knew well to the comforting warmth of a sunset over a Hawaiian sea. Then, before my very eyes, the sunset became a sunrise. Then midday. A dazzling sheen of explosive yellows and oranges and whites, with the popping brightness of twenty stars’ luminosity. The glow erupted from the Pixie Queen, who I could swear now had a perfectly apt wand with a, wouldn’t you know it, star-shaped business-end in her hand, right before everything in my sight disappeared into the bright.
She said, or rather sang, something in some long-forgotten tongue. It might have been an “abra cadabra,” or a “ziggity zaggity,” or maybe even a “slainte chugat!” I couldn’t have told you then and I can’t tell you now. Because as the world got brighter, as Sonia’s voice got louder, my consciousness grew dimmer.
And then I was out.
I don’t know how long I was out. It could have been five minutes or five hours or five seconds. The next thing I knew, someone was shaking me awake. The hulking (trolling?) form of my good-friend Josh knelt beside me as I opened my eyes on a bed of green grass. Not a silky trap of moss, just a comfortable grassy mattress.
“You okay, guy?” Josh asked.
I tried to nod through a tight head. I tried to say yes through a mouth full of marbled cotton. Both attempts failed.
Josh lifted me up with a strength that shouldn’t exist in any human being and escorted me back to the campfire. I don’t know how I moved. I merely slumbered on, like the zombie that was missing from this story of the mystical.
When we made it back to the opening, who do you think was there?
No, not her.
It was all of my friends. David, looking just as bald and svelte as he always was. And Sonia, sitting there talking a mile a minute as if nothing had ever happened. Nobody said anything about what had happened, or if anything had happened at all. We just sat down, like all of us are doing now, and busted out the marshmallows and sticks.
And like I said before, I have never seen Sonia since that day. I don’t really know why.
What’s that? Is my wife’s name Sonia? Yes. Your Aunt Sonia. Why do you ask?
Anyway…Here’s the part you’ve been waiting for…. Into the copse of trees and the campfire of friends walked who else but…
No, you know what? I don’t think that was the time we met the Queen of England. That must’ve been a different time. Sorry.
Who’s got some Reese’s?
The Writing Wombat 