ULTIMATE FANTASY (I - III)

by J. G. Cuff

  “You see that?” he said, as the dogs sleepily opened their eyes to the sound of his voice, “That's what you get for not killing 'em first. Never trust a bitch.”

  He turned and winked at the girl, pleased with his own poor humor, and then he reached forward and pulled the glowing iron rod from the coals. She stared back at him, wide-eyed in terror, transfixed by the bright, orange tip. As he stood, her screams and cries ended in her throat, as the thick gag in her mouth muffled her voice into nothing more than a deep moan.

  She breathed rapidly through her nose in panic, and tears wet her cheeks. All she could smell in that cabin was his heavy body odor, wet dog, and hickory smoke. The dark-haired man held the poker out beside him. She could see waves of searing heat flowing from the tip. He moved towards her, sitting on the foot of the bed. She struggled helplessly. The man smiled to see her fight so hard for nothing. There was no escape. Soon enough, both of the girls would be dead, and he would bury them in the woods alongside the others. He leaned closer and whispered above her ear,

  “I'll make you a promise. Shh-sh-sh, don't cry.”

  His warm, putrid breath came again across her face,

  “I promise that you will be the most hideous girl in the entire realm when I am done with you. And when your whore-sister walks through that door, I'm going to make her watch until I'm done stuffin' you. Do you see it? Over there by the fire?”

  He grabbed her head with his free right hand and turned it toward the hearth, where a small, rusted ax leaned against the log wall,

  “I'm going to take her outside after, and remove her legs.”

  The young girl screamed in her throat and struggled hard, but she was bound tightly and nothing gave.

  Without hesitation, he quickly pressed the bright tip of the scalding iron poker into her cheek. Her skin sizzled and popped like bacon in a hot pan, and a thick puff of steam drifted up, as the hot metal cooked her flesh. Her squeals of pain were fully suppressed, and she choked hard on her gag. He felt the bed shaking underneath him, as she vibrated, fighting for her life, with the thin twine digging into her wrists and ankles. He pulled the poker away from her face and put his head against her chest to listen to her racing heart. She was trembling, soaked in sweat, whimpering into the dirty bed, and he smiled, cherishing every bit of her agony.

  GENTLE GIANT

  15

  E would never have found it, had it not been for the glowing yellow light from the small window. During the day, the shake-roof cabin would be well hidden in the dense forest. A wisp of white smoke drifted out slowly from the stone chimney on the opposite side of the small building. As he stepped closer, his right hand began to pulse with a low heat inside the bones; stretching out from his palm, to the tips of his fingers. John repeatedly made a fist to try and ease the strange sensation, but it only grew stronger. He walked straight to the door without any thought, and knocked hard on the old wooden slats. The barking of large dogs erupted from inside, and John instinctively tensed. He heard a rustling and something clanging loudly onto the floor boards.

  “Silence!” yelled a man's voice from behind the door.

  The barking ceased, followed by the sound of whimpering.

  “Where have you been you little whore?!”

  The small iron handle clicked and the door opened outward part-way. The man was startled to see a near giant standing in front of him instead of the 15-year-old girl he had sent out earlier. Behind him, on the floor, sat the two large dogs; alert and almost wolf-like in their appearance, except for their short ears. That was all that John could see from where he stood.

  The dark-haired man peered out suspiciously from the doorway. At the moment the two men made eye-contact, John saw a flash of something in his own thoughts; a vision of sickening torture—young girls suffering unspeakable cruelties, revealed itself instantly through his thoughts and he saw. I saw?

  He reeled backwards from the door, stunned with a new realization. I can see his thoughts. No...not his thoughts...his memories. He remembered the voice from the light, You have been given the Father's eye.

  “What do you want?” snarled the man angrily.

  John did not hesitate. The lie came easily.

  “I am in need of a warm fire. May I enter?”

  The door slammed shut in his face, and the latch locked on the other side, as the man yelled,

  “Keep away, or I'll send my dogs out!”

  John had no intention of keeping away. His wide shoulder burst through the locked door, snapping the dry wooden planks inward, and like kindling, they gave-way instantly to his heavy load. John saw the hog-tied child with a large white and red blister underneath her right eye, crying through a gag on the squalid mat behind the man. The dogs ran and cowered in the corner, afraid to move. John's presence was like none they'd ever known. He could smell the unmistakable odor of burning flesh.

  The girls' captor bent down quickly and snatched-up the iron poker from the floor. He lunged forward, swinging the iron rod at John's face. But John was fast; faster than he had ever been in his whole life, and he caught the still-warm end of the rod in his right fist.

  The man struggled to pull his weapon back, but the Veilman shot out his left arm and grabbed a fist-full of black, greasy hair; yanking the man's head forward like a rag-doll's. He jerked the iron rod out of the man's hands, raised it up high, and then slammed the butt end down into his teeth. The rapist wailed-out through bloodied gums, screeching, fighting and scratching at John's face like a viscous raccoon with his fur caught in an unbreakable grip. John dropped the poker the floor and turned toward the broken doorway, pulling the man outside by his hair. As John looked up, he was startled and stopped in his tracks by a shaking, young, barefoot girl holding two wooden buckets full of water. She was sheer white; frozen and terrified. John spoke calmly to her while her captor fought to free himself,

  “He can't hurt you anymore. Go inside and help the girl.” She stood shaking, afraid to move. John commanded her as a Soldier. He pointed towards the busted door with his left hand and said in a deep voice,

  “Get inside and untie her, now! Both of you, run, get away. There are houses back up the road to the east. Run!”

  She dropped the buckets and the water splashed out, melting the snow on the ground around it, as she ran inside the small cabin to free her sister. When the girls ran out of the doorway a moment later and toward the road wearing nothing more than their gowns, John grabbed his prisoner by the arms and dragged him back inside.

  He ordered the scared dogs out. They left eagerly with their tails between their legs.

  The man tried to twist his head around, screaming furiously, “Take your hands off me! I'll kill you!” But John had his hair firmly in his hand. He swung a heavy right fist into the man's gut, knocking the wind out of him, and he let go of his hair and watched him fall to the floor on his side, holding his stomach, gasping for air.

  John looked around quickly, searching for something to secure his prisoner to. He spotted a heavy wooden chair by the fire, and a length of thin, brown twine on the bed.

  Perfect.

  With his large right boot, he flipped the groaning man over onto his back, and then he bent down and lifted him by his collar. He dragged him to the chair and pinned the back of his head against the seat, where he quickly secured him by strapping the twine around his face and the seat of the chair.

  As John tightened the thin rope, the man was catching his wind, and he began punching wildly at John's sides, but it was no use. It felt as if a bear was on top him, and his clenched fists met only with the thick fur of his coat.

  John took a deep breath and placed his hands over the man's eyes. He pulled his eyelids wide open and stared intensely into the soft green light around the pupils.

  The horrible visions came again. It was like watching someone else's nightmare unfolding. The man screeched through his teeth and reached up to scratch at John's face, but John had already seen enough. He pulled his hands away and st
ood, looking down at the bound bastard. As a soldier and a killer himself, he had been witness to and served much death in his life, but this was different. This was pure cruelty.

  He swung his long, black fur coat open and reached down to his hip, unlatching the mace handle from his belt. He gripped it firmly in his right hand, and pulled it out. The man saw the heavy iron club with its long, sharp edges, rising and tapering around the head; perfectly and superbly crafted for splitting armor and bone. Helpless and bested at his own game, he screamed for mercy, laboring in deep breaths, with his hands shaking out in front of him.

  “Please! The girls wanted it! They're only whores!” Tears and sweat soaked the man's face, and snot ran down onto his lips, as he gazed up at the colossal man in front of him, and wept for his life.

  “Wait! Stop! Don't you kill me!”

  The desperate pleading of a condemned man drifted out of the broken doorway, and into the hushed darkness of the surrounding forest, where nothing dared move.

  “Forgive me! You have to forgive me, I know not what I do! I can't help myself, you must believe me!”

  The man was suddenly enraged by John's blank stare.

  “Who are you to judge me?!” he spat at John.

  John raised the heavy mace over his shoulder, and in his big, deep voice; he spoke the last words that the man would ever hear again.

  “I forsake you...and into the darkness you shall be. For I am John. John The Rabid,” his voice then exploded into an angry, thunderous roar,

  “I AM THE FATHER'S HAND! AND I AM HERE- TO-DO-THE-FATHER'S WORK!”

  The mace crashed down into the man's forehead with a tremendous force, and his eyeballs blew out to the sides with long tendrils of blood and brains behind them, as the skull snapped and blew apart. It all came out under the Father's hand. His message splattered the walls, the floor, and the front of his bearskin coat.

  John looked down at the mess below him, and then curiously to the bloodied bludgeoning weapon in his right hand. He had completely pulverized the man's head with one, single blow. Impossible. John was much stronger than he had ever been before.

  What have I become? The Father's...hunter? His holy miscreation?

  John dropped the mace to the floor with a loud thud, and then stepped back outside into the moonlight, where he knelt down and wiped the blood from his hands and coat in the shallow snow. He glanced up at the stars and wondered if the place of light was really out there..., or, if it was only in his own mind.

  “Have I gone mad?” John spoke wearily to the night sky.

  As foreign as he was to himself now, strangely, something satisfied his conscience like never before. For all the years he spent killing and taking life, it was now as though he were somehow, in some twisted, macabre sense, giving something back. John turned his attention to the dead body in the cabin, and he wanted nothing more than a meal and a hot bath.

  He went back inside and searched the body, finding several coins in a small leather purse underneath the man's belt. He tucked them into his coat and then untied the rest of the broken skull from the chair. With the wool gag he saw on the floor by the bed, he wiped the blood from the mace and then latched the handle at his side once again.

  John finally decided that the fact that he had found this awful man and saved the girls from further harm, was proof enough for him that he was indeed the Father's warrior. He stood and turned toward the old West Road and headed back through the trees.

  When he reached the road's edge, he sighed and smiled to himself, feeling lively in the cool night air. The stars above sparkled, and the long valley before him looked more beautiful than anything he could remember having ever seen before. John began his march, down the road toward Otium, thinking of the poor girls. He hoped that they would be safe now. They had run like terrified rabbits. His thoughts were abruptly interrupted, as he heard something behind him, and whirled around, startled.

  No more than twenty paces back, sitting in the road with their heads down low, were the two large dogs from the cabin. They had followed him quietly all the while. John put his hands on his sides and shook his head in disbelief.

  “Well, just when I thought I'd seen it all.”

  The moment he spoke, their tails began wagging across the snowy dirt behind them. In a fatherly tone, John attempted to set the dogs on their own path. He had no way to care for them and no home to take them to.

  “Go on you mutts! I've no food.”

  The dogs did not move. They could sense something about him. His very presence, when he had first entered the cabin, had calmed and terrified them both. They had feared and revered him instantly. For the first time in their lives, they had felt safe.

  John turned around and continued to walk. The dogs whimpered and whined, but he did not stop. He simply yelled out over his shoulder,

  “Alright, come on then!” And as he turned around to face them, they were already running at him with their tongues hanging out. They jumped up on him, licking his hands and trying to reach his face. John let himself fall to the ground onto his backside, laughing aloud, as the overjoyed animals licked his face.

  “You know I can't keep you,” the giant said with a broad smile, while he patted them both with his large hands. “I guess that means I'll have to try and find someone who can.”

  The dogs walked alongside of him for a long time; one loyally at each leg, until they reached the small village. It was not hard to find an inn. The third light they saw was an outdoor lantern hanging from a robust, two-story log and stone building with large windows and a heavy wooden front door. The lantern lit-up a large sign carved:

  CROW'S NEST INN

  John opened and stepped in through the old door, leaving the two dogs to wait outside. The warmth inside touched his face and hands instantly. A log-walled lobby opened into a large room with various ram, stag and wolf heads decorating the walls around the upper gallery above him. Directly ahead of him stood a wide wooden desk where a young man in a red smock and black leather cap was looking up at him expressionless. He nodded to John and then went back to writing in a voluminous ledger with a long quill pen.

  The clerk had seen many travelers before and there was nothing particularly unusual about a human gargantuan in a long black, fur coat. Rare as they were, they had found themselves into nearly every story he'd heard. To John's right, a wide stairway led up to the second level where he counted ten doors spanning around the open lobby above and about him.

  To the left, was another large wooden door with a small lit window from where the sound of muffled voices drifted out from. John turned and headed into what was obviously the tavern. The smell of roasting meat was more than welcome after rising from the dead, performing a good old-fashioned bludgeoning in the woods, and taking a long, cold walk in the moonlight. Past a short wooden bar stood a stocky, bald bartender and a large-chested woman, talking amongst themselves. John noticed their only customers at the time. To his left, four men were seated at a round table near a large stone hearth with a hot fire burning. The men were talking in loud voices, smiling and raising their dripping mugs of cold ale. John strode over to the table where he was offered a seat amongst them and a full mug of his own. Three of the men worked at a small lumber mill, and the fourth was a sheep farmer whose wife made and sold wool blankets and clothing. He and his wife had been having trouble recently with coyotes and stray dogs killing sheep in the night.

  “Can they guard sheep?” the farmer asked John with a serious look.

  “Come and see for yourself.” John led the man outside to inspect the orphaned dogs.

  Upon seeing the large black beasts, the farmer was surprised and equally skeptical.

  “They look like wolves!”

  John frowned, hoping the farmer would see past their intimidating appearance.

  “They are quite friendly, now that the bastard who mistreated them is...gone.”

  “Glad to hear that,” said the farmer, looking up at John.

  John coul
d see that the man was fond of animals by the way he spoke gently to the dogs.

  “What are your names? Are you girls or boys?” The farmer then looked to John who shrugged his shoulders.

  “Do they have names?” the farmer asked.

  “You are free to name them whatever you like.”

  The farmer looked back to the dogs and smiled.

  “They are beautiful animals, but they look more like hunters than guard dogs.”

  “Here, let me speak with 'em,” said John with an awkward smile. The dogs' ears perked-up and they stood to attention in front of him, almost as if they could understand his words.

  John knelt down and the dogs whimpered and licked his face. He patted their heads as he spoke softly.

  “Now, this good man here is thinking of taking you in. You two need a job, and you will each have one protecting his flock.”

  John wagged his big finger at the attentive pair and sternly said,

  “No killing the woolly little buggers!”

  Both dogs cocked their heads and groaned.

  “Do you think that'll work?” the farmer asked him doubtfully.

  John looked up at him with a broad smile and said,

  “Perhaps you'll want to make sure that these two are kept well-fed. Just to be sure.”

  The farmer sighed and began to walk to his horse and open wagon beside the inn, where several sacks of grain were laid out in the back.

  The dogs stood side-by-side and looked up at John, as if for approval. John pointed toward the farmer.

  “Go on now.”

  The dogs left without hesitation and trotted to their new keeper’s heal. They jumped up onto the wagon and looked back at their savior. John smiled, shaking his head, and walked back inside. Where to now? Amicitia? It felt right. The city had been his home all of his life. If the Father had more work for him, surely it was there. John stepped up to the old wooden counter where the clerk was still writing. He stuck his hand inside his black fur coat and pulled out three coins to set onto the counter.