by Dan H Kind
Chapter 12
A Frenzied Fray with the Fanged and Ferocious
Late Monday afternoon, the Black Avenger and another of the adolescent gang were keeping a sharp eye on the Olde Eden Brewery & Taphouse. They had been huddling behind the dumpster in the alleyway since early that morning, and so far nothing strange had transpired. A bit put out by all this inaction, the Black Avenger had for the last hour been surreptitiously wandering around the building, peering into the brewery's few foggy windows, through which nothing was discernible.
When he returned to the point of rendezvous behind the dumpster, he said, “You know, mebbe we can get a closer look at what’s going on in there, Sid.”
“Oh, yeah? How's that?”
The Black Avenger stared into the dumpster-filled distance, the final intricacies of a foolproof plan clicking into place in his head like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. A smile crept onto his face. “I got it, Sid! What we'll do is you'll . . . whisper, whisper . . . and I'll . . . whisper, whisper . . .”
A well over seven-foot tall man in a trench-coat and floppy fedora stumbled through the swinging saloon doors of the Olde Eden Taphouse and made his way across the barroom, swaying and wobbling from the middle like Gumby. He sat down at the bar with a grunt and a squeal, which was silenced when a muffled sound like a fist meeting flesh issued from the nether regions of his person. The few Taphouse patrons began to stare into their beers, at the walls, at the floor, anywhere but the ogre that had just entered the bar.
The single bartender in the Taphouse made his way down the bar with a bushy eyebrow raised. He had long dark hair pulled back into a braid and black rings around his eyes, as if he had gotten into an argument yesterday and received two blows to the face for his trouble. He wore what looked to be a clown’s suit, or perhaps a soccer uniform: a red and yellow striped polo shirt with an Olde Eden Brewery patch on the breast, white khaki pants, and emerald green tennis shoes.
“Hello, sir, what can I get you to drink?”
“Er,” said the behemoth. “What d’you . . . ouch! . . . what d’you got?” His high-pitched voice had changed to deep and gravelly in mid-sentence.
“Well, sir, you’re in the Taphouse of the Olde Eden Brewery. We have twelve of our own brews, brewed right here on the premises, on draft. We also carry seventy-six other regional microbrews. If you're a fan of beer, we should be able to satisfy your every desire.”
“Uh,” said the juggernaut, tapping his fingers on the bar and hoping like hell he wasn’t going to get carded. “What’s the best one you got, then?”
The bartender sighed. “They’re all excellent beers, sir. It just depends on what type of beer you prefer. Could I offer you a sample of one or two of our Olde Eden brews?”
“Um, sure,” said the mammoth, relaxing when not asked to present his nonexistent driver’s license. “That sounds swell, er, good, I mean.”
“Coming right up, sir,” said the bartender. He spun on his heels and walked down the bar to the appropriate taps.
“Sid,” whispered a voice underneath the bar, “when that bartender comes back, tell 'im you wanna sample some more beers, and that should keep him occupied with his back turned for a minute. When he turns around, I’m a-ducking behind the bar and running into the brewery.”
“All right. Just hurry up, though, wouldya?”
“Five minutes, that's all I'll need. You jist keep him giving you free samples, and when I get back we’ll be on our way outta here, okay?”
“Okay, big brother. If you say so.”
The bartender returned with a sample glass in hand. “Here you are, sir. This is Olde Eden's own Princely Pecker Porter."
The leviathan tossed back the two-ounce sample, burped, and shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess. But what else you got? Howzabout something that don't taste like a mixture of used motor oil and expired grape cough syrup?”
“But of course, sir. No problem at all, sir. Coming right up, sir.”
The bartender's left eyebrow had contracted a tic, and he walked back to the taps, muttering to himself—and a shadow detached itself from the lower portion of the giant.
In no time this apparition was under the bar and through the swinging door leading to the brewery, which stopped moving the very moment the bartender spun on his heels and walked back towards his oversized customer, samples of Olde Eden Henpecked Hefeweizen and Appleseed Applejack in hand. Because of the wide mahogany bar, he failed to notice that the “giant's” legs now swung an easy two feet above the ground.
The Olde Eden Brewery was warehouse-like in proportion, but cramped because of the machines crammed into the place like massive metal sardines. At first the brewery seemed deserted, but then the Black Avenger heard voices echoing off the high ceilings. He ducked behind a giant, kettle-like machine to his left. The voices were coming from the opposite end of the building, near the door leading to the back alley. He sneaked towards the noise, utilizing the cover provided by a pair of mounted contraptions that reminded him of propane tanks, then crept to the next machine down the line—a big, raised tub—staying hidden in darkness.
From there, he observed a group of five men partaking in an animated discussion. He crouched down and made himself comfortable for a little eavesdropping.
“ . . . will be ready for shipment tomorrow night?” asked the man recognizable as Farmer John (though his voice was different from what the Black Avenger recalled—less accented, perhaps).
“Caw, caw, caw, sure thing, boss,” said one of the men, whose hair was darker than the blackest, moonless night. “Everything should be good to go by then.”
“Mwah-hah-hah-ha-ha! Excellent.”
“Yeah, that's great and all,” piped in a man who stood two heads shorter than his mates. “But what happens when people get what they believe is Sticky-Icky Stout or Henpecked Hefeweizen in a twelve-pack or a quarter-keg and it turns out to be Hoppy Heaven Ale?” After a quiet moment, he was smacked upside by the head by a multitude of hands and told in variegated vulgar voices to shut up.
Farmer John stared daggers at the outspoken dwarf. “You absolute idiot. It won’t matter by then. Once a human being cracks open a bottle, the smell will do the rest.”
The other members of the gathering nodded and murmured about how everything was on schedule and there was nothing at all to worry about.
Placated, Farmer John inclined his head. “Very well. And now I must be on my way to look in on our prisoner in the Underworld. Plus, I have some product to drop off at the Palace. A backup, if you will.” He glared around with a stern, no-nonsense expression. “But I'll be back to check up on you jokers tomorrow morning. That beer is priority number one. Protect it at all costs.” His face caricatured into an evil grin. “Tomorrow we shall offer Hoppy Heaven Ale on draft at the Taphouse.”
More reassurances were given. Farmer John nodded and walked out the back door of the brewery, and the four remaining men began talking in low voices.
“Damn, Old Man, are you a moron or what! Why can't you learn to keep your—”
“Shush!” came the interruption from a lean, red-eyed man with sickly-looking gray skin. He sniffed of the pungent, hop-infused air of the brewery like a predator catching a whiff of prey. “Do you guys smell something . . . strange?”
The group began craning their heads and sniffing the air, snorting like pigs. The Black Avenger did his utmost to melt into the shadows, which no longer seemed like such great cover.
“Caw, search the brewery from end to end. There’s some . . . being here.”
A few seconds later, the overhead lights flickered on, and the brewery was bathed in revealing fluorescent light. The Black Avenger gulped, opened the top of the humming machine in front of him, and slipped inside, where he swam up to his neck in an oatmeal-like substance. Soon after he heard a tap-tap-tapping on the outside of the container, as if someone were drumming on the machine with their fingertips, muffled voices, a shuffle of movement, and then—silence.
He
waited ten minutes, then cracked open the top of the machine and glanced around. The coast was clear, and he sighed with relief. But when he pushed open the lid, he was grabbed under the armpits from behind and hurled across the brewery with the force of a javelin.
Covered in mashed barley, the Black Avenger slammed shoulder-first into the chest of the stick-figure man with the bloodshot eyes, who didn't even flinch.
“Well, well, well, and what do we have here? What do you think, Raven?”
The Black Avenger was once more heaved across the room. He crashed into the bottling machine at the far end of the building, sending empty bottles skittering before slipping to the cold, hard floor among shattered glass. Before he had a chance to recollect his senses, much less pick himself up off the ground, he was hauled up by the collar. He caught a whiff of rotten fish, and the man with the black-hole hair stared into his eyes.
“Caw, I ain't so sure, Coyote. What’s your opinion, Old Man?”
The Black Avenger landed amidst a mountain of twelve-packs ready to go out with Thursday's big shipment. As he slammed into the cardboard shrine, the sound of broken glass permeated the brewery, and the smell of Hoppy Heaven Ale pervaded the air. He was jerked up by the ankles. Hanging upside-down, he struggled in the grip of the dwarf-man.
“Looks like an itty-bitty eavesdropper to me. And we don’t approve of that kind of thing—do we, Rabbit?”
At point blank range the Black Avenger was twirled like a discus and tossed head-first into the brewery wall with a brute strength a man so minuscule should not possess. His forehead hit with a crunch, and he sludged to the beer-drenched floor like a glob of blood-flecked mucous. When he stood up, wobbling, he attempted to focus. But then he was dragged to his feet by the collar of his shirt and held aloft.
He wriggled and writhed—and his shirt slipped off. He landed on his feet in front of the twitching-nosed man, who was momentarily astonished to be holding nothing but an empty flannel shirt. Realizing this was probably his only opportunity, the Black Avenger moved. In a flash, he was running across the brewery.
He swooshed into the Taphouse, barely evading the many hands that reached out for him. He heard strings of oaths and curses as his pursuers' fingers slipped off him and they collided behind him. He burst into the barroom like an out-of-control freight train, earning a shocked stare from the bartender. Sample glasses of beer dropped to the floor and shattered.
A guttural “Get him, Ikto!” issued from the brewery, and the barroom cleared out in a hurry.
Needing no other incentive, the bartender jumped at the Black Avenger with a snarl, fangs extending from his shifting face.
“Run for it, Sid!” screamed the Black Avenger. He slid under the opening in the bar, narrowly avoiding the arms of Ikto—who grunted as his face smacked into mahogany—and grabbed Sid's shoulder, hauling him off the barstool and dragging him, flailing, towards the swinging Taphouse doors. But Sid had by then sampled thirty-seven of the eighty-eight draft brews offered by the Olde Eden Brewery and could barely stand, so their progress across the barroom was stalled.
Ikto took advantage of this. He grabbed Sid's leg and dragged him from the Black Avenger’s shoulders, down onto the wooden floor.
“You may be quick, but you’re nowhere near as strong as the spiderman!” he bragged, dragging Sid back towards the bar by the hair like a caveman corralling his philandering cave-bitch.
The Black Avenger jumped forward like a backwoods ninja and landed a series of lightning-quick punches on the worst place for a male being of any kind to take a hit. Ikto howled, dropped Sid, and clutched at his throbbing loins. Sid peered up blearily at his elder brother, vomited on Ikto’s shoes, and passed out cold on the barroom floor.
The Black Avenger jumped for his fallen brother, but slipped on a puddle of beer and fell flat on his face. When he looked up, Sid was being dragged behind the bar by Ikto, and monstrous figures began swarming into the Taphouse from the brewery.
Ikto the bartender was sprouting excess arms all over, the clown clothing he wore shredded to tatters by the transmogrification. Before long he had gained four extra limbs, his skin had turned from peachy-soft to a leathery black pelt, and he sported a wicked set of fangs, dripping green poison. Iktome, the Sioux's own spiderman, dropped to all eights, skittered up the wall, and hung from the ceiling by a strand of incandescent blue webbing.
The twitching-nosed man's nose was still twitching, though his form was now that of an eight-foot-tall yellow rabbit. His long ears flopped down over his cute pink nose, but this bunny did not by any means look happy. Rabbit, the Cherokee's Trickster god, reached into the fanny-pack about his waist and procured a handful of magical fire-pellets.
The lean man now sported the mangy gray pelt of a stray dog. A scraggly tail jutted from his backside, and a pink tongue lolled from his open mouth, exposing a row of dagger-like teeth. His eyes were red, wild, rabid. Coyote, the scourge—and, often, laughingstock—of the southwestern tribes and more, grinned a maniacal grin.
The dark-haired man perched upon the bar flapping massive black wings, sending out gusts of wind that stank of spoiled fish. Wicked talons scratched deep furrows into the bar, and massive beak snapped like a vice: Raven, Bringer of Light, fallen Creator god of the northwestern coastal tribes.
The dwarf wilted inside his clothes, losing a foot of height. He pulled from nothingness and strapped to his shins a pair of leggings that exuded rainbows in the dim bar lighting. Old Man, a living Blackfoot legend, stamped his feet, and red-hot flames spewed down his shins and spread across the barroom floor.
Despite the ghastly appearances of these fiends from another World, in his mind the Black Avenger had one thought: I gotta get Sid, and we gotta get the hells outta here! When he saw Rabbit throw something in his direction, he sprang to his feet, up and over the bar in an instant. There boomed a violent explosion behind him as he landed on the employees-only side. When he glanced back, a smoking hole in the hardwood was all that remained of the spot of barroom he had just vacated.
Sid was unconscious, pinned underneath Coyote, two yards ahead of him. The Black Avenger lunged towards his brother with the intent of diving between the monster's legs, grabbing Sid, jumping back over the bar with brother in tow, and running like hell for the door.
“I don’t think so, kid!” snarled Coyote. He reared back and delivered a wicked uppercut to the chin of the diving Black Avenger, catapulting him backwards.
The Black Avenger slammed hard onto the bar-top and slid a good ten feet across it, sending pint glasses, pitchers, and bowls of peanuts crashing to the ground. He slipped to the barroom floor and smacked his head on the metal pipe stretching along the underside of the bar.
He nearly lost consciousness, but managed to raise his head. The fiends would be upon him at any moment, tearing him to shreds with vicious claws and wicked fangs.
But the expected blows did not fall.
So he stood up on shaky legs and peered through watery eyes at the collection of shape-shifting beings, who grinned at him from the other side of the bar.
Coyote hoisted Sid above his head, bench-pressing the unconscious lad with a single paw. With the other, he made a slashing motion across his furry throat. The Black Avenger pulled out his slingshot and loaded it with steel, ready to put a hole through one of these evil beings' faces.
But then Old Man jumped up onto the bar, and it was as though a firebomb exploded inside the Taphouse. The newborn but angry wall of flame stretched across the bar-top and blocked the Black Avenger from getting anywhere near his brother. He could make out nothing clearly through the fire, and if he shot blind, he might hit Sid.
There was a burst of raucous, guttural cackling, and he heard over the spitting of the flames: “Caw, caw, caw, run on home, boy. Do not interfere with our plans again, or we'll send your brother somewhere dark and terrible where you'll never find him. Ever.”
The Black Avenger, tears of frustration streaming from his eyes, pocketed the slin
gshot and backed away from the monstrous shadows dancing beyond the barrier of flames. He shook with anger, sorrow, and regret at having ever thought of this stupid plan. Nevertheless he raised a defiant fist to these beings of another World and vowed, “You’ll see what happens when you mess with Tom Sawyer's gang, you dirty Tricksters! One way or another, we'll get Sid back safe and sound!”
And Tom Sawyer—beaten, bloody, defeated, his little brother drunk and mythnapped—turned and limped out of the burning pyre that was the Olde Eden Taphouse.
