Mykal's Return to Towbar's World

by Dave Hazel

  “Don’t mention it. I’m sure you woulda done the same,” he said and shyly turned away anticipating the next question.

  “But how did you--”

  “It’s a long story,” Jake cut him off. “Go get some rest we’ll talk about it later.”

  “Yes Sir. Thanks again Myk,” Hall turned away.

  Mykal winked at Jake as if to say thanks.

  “I get the impression you do not want to tell us how that happened back there. Am I right?” Finley asked for the three of them. They were all eager to understand how Mykal created lightning bolts and a flaming sword.

  Mykal couldn’t control his nervous laugh. “Yeah, let’s talk about it later,” he answered. It struck him that if he made known what his possessions were, there might be some who would try to take them from him. Some might even resort to harm him to get such treasures. Suddenly he wished Towbar was here. He noticed William sneaking close to listen to them.

  “Well, I’m going to check on the men,” Diaz said and turned away. Both Finley and Kim followed him.

  “What’s up Myk?” William pretended to be sitting down and getting comfortable when Mykal turned in his direction. “Oh brother,” William sighed nervously as if he had been caught sneaking around. “That was scary back there, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah, crazy,” Mykal said and gave a fake smile. He knew he would have to be careful around William. “Hey, I’ll betcha that’s how those people back there were killed. It looked like they died in their sleep, still wrapped in blankets.”

  “But why?” Boris asked. “It didn’t look like it ate them.”

  “I have to talk to Captain Diaz,” William said and then left.

  Maybe the smaller plants go down the throat and suck the insides out,” Jake suggested. “That one tried to go down Hall’s throat.”

  “I don’t have a clue, but they were caught off guard. I want you guys to keep your eyes on William. I don’t trust him. Oh yeah, I have something else too,” Mykal snapped his fingers. He pulled out the leather pouch that gave off the magic glow.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Mykal untied it and was disappointed. “There’s a ring and a handful of stones shaped like lima beans. The stones were grey in color and heavy for their size. “Here’s some magic for you Boris,” he laughed playfully and poured the lima bean shaped stones into his hands.

  “What in the world am I gonna do with these?” He scoffed. Boris tossed the bean like stones on the ground to watch Mykal.

  “What are they?” Jake tried to see them.

  “It looks like some kind of petrified beans,” Mykal said and placed the gold ring on his finger so he could concentrate and try to determine the magical powers of the ring.

  In his mind, as with the other items, he saw a ring user calling out the word “Tre-na-mib” before placing the ring on his finger, and then he saw the soul or something within the user, leave his body. Once the soul or life force left his body he could enter the bodies of others thus seeing their thoughts, feeling their emotions and more importantly having the ability to control their thinking and their actions. ‘What an awesome power,’ Mykal thought with an intense sense of greed.

  Something didn’t feel right with this ring. Instantly Mykal knew there could be serious danger in using this ring. He knew this ring was a very powerful form of magic, but the risks in using this one were greater than all the others. His head started to hurt and his heart rate increased while his breathing became shallow. He had an inherent knowledge that if he used this power to enter another person, he would be able to control that person’s very existence. He also realized if that person should die, while he hijacked their life or soul or their being, he would die. His soul would be lost and wander aimlessly in limbo.

  “Oh no,” Mykal moaned and fought to keep his mind focused.

  “What is it, Myk?” Jake asked when he saw the look of desperation and fear in Mykal’s face.

  “Something’s wrong. I can see I did something wrong,” he gasped and grabbed the pounding in his head. “Something about this ring. The power is too great. Oh my goodness.”

  “What is it Myk?” Boris asked.

  “I think I put the ring on before I said the word. No, no, I was supposed to say the word first. Then put the ring on.”

  “Well take it off and try it again,” Boris suggested.

  “No, no, oh no, that won’t work,” he doubled over holding his head. “Oh my, Boris, what did you do with those beans?” He begged and looked at his friend.

  “I dropped them right—oh shit, what the hell?” Boris gasped when he turned to point in the grass where he dropped what he thought were worthless stones.

  The area where Boris threw the lima bean shaped stones began to rumble. The grass moved as if something was crawling through it. Suddenly skeletons began to grow from the ground and stood to their feet. All the skeletons were armed and moved slowly as if trying to get re-accustomed to movement.

  “You gotta be friggin kiddin me,” Jake said as he watched the skeletons grow and take form and rise to their feet amid the clickity clack noise of bones knocking against one another. They grew to full size humans armed with swords, spears, small axes, clubs and small shields. A few of them had a breastplate of metal and some wore leather. A number of them had helmets atop their boney skulls.

  “I don’t believe this,” Boris said and took a step back and the twenty-five bone soldiers began to swing their weapons as if to warm up and practice. “Are these good guys or bad guys?”

  “Damn it, they’re after me,” Mykal cried out in fear as he eyed the undead creatures that began to move slowly toward him after testing their arms and legs. Mykal saw most of the skeletons had flaws with their forms. Some were missing fingers and some lacked an arm or hand. Some had ribs missing, but they were all focused on Mykal though they had no eyes in the hollow sockets in their heads. “I screwed up. I screwed up,” Mykal’s voice was filled with panic.

  “Back up Myk,” Jake said as they slowly backed away. The skeletal frames advanced toward them. One was missing its lower jaw another had a leg twisted around so that it advanced with a limp and dragged the abnormal limb.

  Several others joined Mykal’s side, among them Diaz, Finley and Hall, the one who was nearly strangled by the plant creature. Hall felt he owed Mykal his life and he wasn’t going to abandon him no matter how bizarre the situation.

  The skeletons continued to advance toward Mykal testing the movement of various joints by swinging weapons and raising shields. They pressed forward slowly, step by step, staring at Mykal with empty eye sockets. The others didn’t exist, only Mykal since he had the ring. Mykal backed up with his men though he tried to conjure ideas to work on the magically animated creatures, but nothing came to him. The more he thought the harder his head hurt.

  The skeleton in the front of the group jumped at them and let out a high pitched scream which startled the humans. It surprised everyone because it didn’t seem possible to produce sound. They were just bones armed with weapons. When the leader jumped ahead the rest of the skeletons advanced onward except the several armed with spears. Those armed with spears threw their weapons at Mykal, but they missed him. One spear struck Corporal Hall’s M-60 machine gun and deflected upward into Hall’s belly just under his rib cage resulting in a minor injury.

  A skeleton armed with a small axe hurled it at Mykal just as he pulled his sword from its leather scabbard. The axe detoured in midair and veered into the gleaming blade. When the metal of the axe head connected to the shine of the sword the blade burst into a bright red flame blocking the axe and knocking it harmlessly to the ground. Mykal remembered seeing this many times with Towbar’s sword.

  Several men began shooting and they aimed only at the heads of the skeletons because there was nothing else to aim at. Large holes were put into the skulls of those struck, and it knocked them to the ground. To everyone’s horror all the skeletons that had been shot and knocked down rose to
their feet an advanced toward Mykal. The skeletons had large holes in their skulls or were missing large pieces of the skull caps, but they kept moving forward.

  The leader skeleton raised his sword and shrieked a loud wobbly scream and in an instant Mykal was blinded by a flash of light and was engulfed by dark grey, almost a charcoal, colored smoke that burned his eyes for a moment. Just as suddenly there was silence. Mykal couldn’t hear anything and he felt so isolated. The smoke cleared but his eyes were still tearful from the burning. The sunlight was gone. Darkness surrounded him like a cloud but he felt he could see because of Towbar’s blood in him and whatever that did for his nocturnal vision. Otherwise he was sure he would have been rendered to complete blindness. Mykal knew he was no longer in the forest with his friends.

  He heard the clanking sound of the skeletons and their slow movement. They were after him again. He looked in all directions through the darkness and found his friends were nowhere to be seen. He saw the shapes of his boney enemy. Sight, sound and feeling were different. The air he breathed, if he really was breathing, was cold. The temperature felt normal but the air entering his lungs seemed bitter cold.

  ‘Where am I?’ Even his thoughts sounded channeled and distorted. ‘Am I in another dimension? Is this a spirit world?’ He wondered as he raised his fiery blade to give light. He felt alone and lost. More lost than before.

  Mykal began to swing his flaming red sword back and forth before the skeletons were upon him and it amazed him that the red flamed changed to a beautiful cerulean. It looked calmer and cooler but Mykal knew the blade was just as deadly blue as it had been red.

  He saw the opposing skeletons and he knew they outnumbered him twenty-five to one. He felt confident he could easily destroy the slow moving undead. An evil greed began to creep into his being. He wanted the all-powerful ring. It would be his after he defeated this band of old bones sent to protect the powerful gold band.

  They charged at him and moved in, clickity clack, clickity clack slow motion with weapons overhead. They were ready to strike but his ice blue flames sliced through the first three in one swipe. The attackers fell to the ground and remained motionless. On the back swing he clipped off two heads. ‘This is gonna be easy,’ he considered with a confident smile.

  He cut them down as quickly as they came to him. Not only did his mighty sword cut their boney frames down, but he shattered their weapons just as easy. His fight was effortless. ‘I could do this forever,’ he wanted to yell his cocky boast.

  Within moments, all the skeletons save one littered the ground before him in many pieces. The lone enemy stood at a distance as if weighing his options. Weapons and broken and shattered bones were all around them. The leader was the last standing skeleton. The leader wore a metal helmet and carried a sword. After a few moments the leader threw down the sword clutched in his bone fist and dropped his arms to its side.

  ‘You wised up,’ Mykal thought and gave a superior smirk. ‘I may let you live,’ he taunted in his mind and wondered if the undead creature could hear his thoughts. ‘I wonder if this thing will submit to me.’

  The lone skeletal creature suddenly raised his boney hands upward and gave an ear piercing scream that took Mykal by surprise. A cold chill rushed through Mykal’s entire body and in his mind Mykal knew something bad was about to happen. The piercing scream was reminiscent of something from a horror movie, but it stabbed into his inner being, jolting his soul with fright.

  ‘Oh no,’ he groaned inwardly when he saw all the shattered and splinted bones before him start to rumble and stir. Each skeleton, each separate bone, and bone fragment regenerated into a fully grown skeleton armed with weapons. There were over two hundred spread out before him. ‘How the hell?’ He wanted to yell but he couldn’t form words. ‘How, damn it?’ His thoughts yelled in frustration. He suddenly realized this would never end. They wouldn’t stop until they retrieved the all-powerful ring.

  The lone skeleton who summoned the broken bones to form a much larger army mocked Mykal with its shrill laughter. Its lower jaw moved and jerked to make the point it was laughing at Mykal. The new army of skeletons began circling around Mykal. They waited for the command to attack.

  ‘Forget you. No,’ his mind hollered. ‘It’s mine,’ he yelled out and raised his sword. He didn’t want to lose this special piece of magic though he didn’t fully understand the power of it. He had to ask himself if he was prepared to fight for the rest of his life. If he defeated the couple hundred before him, how many would he have to face the next round? Thousands? Thousands upon thousands?

  ‘I need this ring,’ his mind moaned as if to convince himself. Something inside tried to control him in order to possess the ring. With the ring he knew he would be able to control and manipulate others. He knew this ring had more power than all the other magic combined. ‘I need this! I can control the world with this,’ his mind yelled. ‘

  He paused when he realized his thinking turned irrational. ‘This is crazy,’ his thoughts suddenly returned to reality. ‘But I need this now. No, what about home? I need home,’ He declared when he recognized there was a battle for his mind taking place. Would this ring be worth giving up everything? Would it be worth losing his wife and kids? ‘What the hell is going on? I’m losing my mind,’ he pondered as a sense of clarity shone through and made him grasp the understanding that the ‘power’ of the ring was sucking him into a trap. ‘Is this what Diaz was talking about when he said demons would try to take control of my mind?’ He had to let it go, though inside he knew this was the type of power he would need if he ever faced the real Zizmon-Tarl.

  A sudden high pitched scream followed by high pitched laughter alerted him to the attack. The skeletons moved toward him all at once. He hacked, chopped and sliced and broke the bones that contacted his flaming blue sword. He didn’t use any energy, as easy as swinging his arm. He destroyed the frames of former humans as if they were made of empty egg shells.

  The squealing laughter made it clear this would never end. The lead skeleton seemed determined to take the ring back. Mykal yelped out and it felt like his shoulder had been crushed from behind. The force of the blow threw him to the ground where he rolled onto his back. He knew he would be killed because there were far too many of the mindless undead to avoid.

  He tried to get to his feet but took a sword blade to the stomach. It penetrated about an inch and sliced outward. As the ice cold metal sliced through his warm flesh, the high pitched scream increased and intensified in his brain. The loud squealing hurt his head. He conceded he could not win possession of the ring though he craved it like a junky needing a fix.

  A second stab and slice to the same general area made him realize he was going to die if he didn’t part from the destructive gold band that already had its barbs stuck in his heart. The sticky wet warmness made it clear he would never see his family again. Dozens of skeletons armed with various weapons circled around him with weapons raised.

  As much as his mind fought against him he pulled the ring from his finger and threw it toward the shrieking leader. Too late, he saw at least twenty weapons coming down on him. In an instant the shrill scream became silent. The cold darkness vanished. He felt that he lay on grass and the sun beat down on his face. Pain sunk in and stabbed deeply into his stomach where he had been stabbed twice. He felt the wetness against his flesh and t-shirt. The attack could have killed him. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep. He couldn’t allow himself to sleep knowing blood drooled from the wounds.

  “Wait a minute, I feel pain,” he mumbled and started to laugh. “I must be alright.”

  “Mykal,” Diaz yelled. “He’s over there.”

  Mykal heard the sounds of feet running to him but it was a struggle to open his eyes. He wanted to laugh that the madness of that strange ring was over. “Water. I need a drink of water,” he moaned and his mouth seemed parched as if he crawled through a desert for a week.

  “How’d you get over here?” Boris asked. “Those s
keletons took you away and I didn’t think we’d ever see you again.”

  “They wanted that ring,” he replied and opened his eyes. “Oh I’m hurtin’” he pointed to the blood on his stomach.

  “What the hell happened?” Jake asked as the majority of them reached Mykal.

  “I don’t wanna talk about it. It was horrible,” he moaned.

  “Oh damn, he’s bleeding,” Finley announced.

  “I’ll be fine, just bandage me up,” Mykal said. He knew he would heal quickly because of Towbar’s blood. He knew the wounds to be minor and they didn’t strike any vital organs.

  “What happened?” Jake asked and looked for the skeletons.

  “It’s hard to explain. If we ever get outta here I’ll tell you all about it,” he laughed to avoid talking about what took place.

  Diaz grabbed Mykal’s shoulders and turned Mykal toward him. “Myk,” Diaz paused and stared deep into his eyes. “Stay away from that ungodly power. It will destroy you. I don’t know what you’re mixed up in, but you will not control it. It will control you and the demonic forces will turn on you when you think you have that ungodly power under your control. It will destroy you,” Diaz repeated. “It will crush you mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Myk, please, trust me in this. I know what I’m talking about. You can’t win toying with demons.”

  “I gave it back,” he said to stop Diaz’s warnings. “I don’t have it anymore. That’s why I’m here now.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN 12/13/1983

  1. Tuesday, December 13th 1983

  0710 hours, Unknown location, Other side of Towbar’s world

  “Hey Myk, come on, get up,” Boris shook him gently. “Come on, we’re gonna be leaving shortly.”

  “Yeah I’m up,” he gave a groggy reply and rubbed his face, but his eyes didn’t want to open. During the course of the night he rolled over onto a rock and now his back ached. He felt exhausted. His two stomach wounds, though nearly healed, still hurt with a deep throbbing ache.