Smith's Monthly #8

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  Patty extended her hand. “Great to meet you,” Patty said, giving the young superhero her best calming power.

  Dee shook Patty’s hand and seemed to relax a little. I didn’t add in my calming power just yet, but I had a hunch I was going to need it.

  “Your boss, Jean, says great things about you,” I said.

  Suddenly Dee looked panicked again. I remember early on in my superhero starting months, I thought no one knew I was secretly a superhero, so I was always shocked when another person knew that. Like me, she was going to be surprised as she learned just how many superheroes and gods there really were.

  At the end of the hallway, the elevator dinged and the door started to open. So I slipped us out of time and into an instant between moments of time so that we wouldn’t be disturbed. Since we were in a hallway and couldn’t hear any traffic noise outside, nothing seemed to change, so Dee didn’t notice.

  “How do you know Jean?” Dee asked, looking first at Patty, who was still smiling and then back at me.

  “We know many of the different gods,” Patty said. “I work in the hospitality area and Poker Boy here works in the poker area, just as you work in the cleaning area. We are all at the same level, just under different departments.”

  Dee nodded and relaxed again. This girl really, really was the nervous type, of that there was no doubt.

  I decided since Jean and Laverne and Stan were watching, to just jump to the problem. “Dee, are you scheduled in two days to clean Floor 14 here?”

  Panic flipped across Dee’s face and I sent calming waves at her, just as Patty was doing, trying to help her stay under control. I could feel my calming and trust-me power boosted a little as well, more than likely from Stan.

  Dee calmed down and then nodded. “It’s the 13th floor and I’m deathly afraid of it. I don’t know what to do.”

  “We can help,” Patty said, smiling as both of us kept aiming our combined calming powers at the young superhero. We were hitting Dee with so much calming juice, we could have put a horse to sleep smiling.

  “But it’s part of my job to clean that floor,” Dee said, looking like she was about to burst into tears.

  Suddenly I had another idea.

  “We can help with that if you let us,” I said. “We can help you never fear anything with the number 13 again.”

  “You could do that?” Dee asked. “And Jean wouldn’t mind?”

  “If it’s going to help you do your job,” Patty said, “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind at all.”

  Dee stared at me, then at Patty for a moment. I could feel Stan boosting my “trust me” power I was pouring at Dee.

  Finally Dee nodded.

  “Stan, bring Screamer,” I said into the air.

  A moment later Stan and Screamer appeared.

  Dee jumped. “Are you gods?”

  “He is,” Screamer said, smiling at Dee as he pointed at Stan. “Great to meet you, Dee.”

  Screamer extended his hand and the moment he touched Dee, she froze.

  Patty and I kept our calming powers aimed at Dee and turned up to full power.

  “Need help to clean this out, Stan,” Screamer said.

  Stan nodded and touched Screamer’s shoulder. I knew at that moment in time they were both inside Dee’s mind, working to clear out her fears of the number thirteen without really hurting her or changing her in any way and leaving no trace they had been in there.

  After a moment Stan nodded and dropped his hand from Screamer’s shoulder. Then Screamer let go of Dee’s hand.

  “So what can you do to help me?” Dee asked, staring at Screamer and then at Stan.

  “Do you still fear the number thirteen?” I asked.

  She frowned for a moment, then shook her head. “No, I don’t. Wow, you guys are good.”

  “We’ll let you get back to work now,” Patty said, touching Dee’s arm one more time to really leave a calming and pleasant feel with the young superhero.

  “Thanks,” Dee said, smiling. “I hope to see you again.”

  As I dropped the time shield and jumped all of us back to my office in the air over the MGM Grand Hotel, all I kept thinking about was that I had no doubt we were going to see more of that young superhero in the future. I had a hunch she might just be helping the team down the road at times.

  I guess that was my way of seeing into the future a little.

  Madge was waiting for us with freshly made milkshakes. Laverne and The Magician and Terri appeared a moment after we did.

  “Jean thanks you all,” Laverne said. “As do I.”

  “I thank you as well,” The Magician said, bowing slightly. “Your quick thinking and action has saved illusionists everywhere from a very difficult black eye.”

  Smiling, I slid into the booth and Patty slid in beside me as Terri gave Screamer a big kiss and then joined us.

  It had seemed like hours ago that my French fries had disappeared from the table, but actually, this time, we had saved the city in just under a half hour.

  “Madge,” I asked, smiling at her as she placed the last milkshake on the table, “is there any chance you could make those French fries reappear?”

  “Make that two orders,” Lady Luck said, sliding into the booth beside her daughter.

  “Three, if you don’t mind,” The Magician said, pulling up a chair.

  Madge laughed and turned for the door to the Diner. “I had a hunch you would want some after lunch got shortened, so four orders of fries are cooking right now.”

  “Seeing the future again, Miss Madge?” The Magician asked, winking.

  She smiled at him and winked back. “Depends if you have enough magic up that sleeve of yours to handle a future me.”

  “Have I ever failed you, Miss Madge?”

  Madge laughed like a young girl and disappeared through the door.

  All Patty and I and Screamer and Terri could do was just stare open-mouthed at The Magician as he sipped on his milkshake, smiling.

  Lady Luck just shook her head as I tried desperately to clear the image out of my mind of a tall, skinny elf and an overweight waitress together.

  I have a hunch it’s burned there forever.

  What came before in...

  THE ADVENTURES OF HAWK

  Nineteen-year-old Danny Hawk, his uncle, and his best friend Craig, were in Cairo to look for his missing father. Danny had witnessed the death of his only contact in Cairo, Professor Davis, because the professor had Danny’s father’s journals.

  Danny knows that the men who had killed the professor were now after him and the journals. Danny finds the journals and gets his uncle and friend to safety in an airport hotel where he tells them what happened. They decide to keep searching for Danny’s father and try to rescue him.

  Along the way, Danny and Craig find some help from a street kid named Bud and twins from South Africa who had worked with Danny’s father.

  They managed to escape the men chasing them twice so far, Danny wasn’t sure their luck would hold a third time.

  And it barely did. They finally decided to head out of Cairo.

  Beyond the headwaters of the Amazon, in the Republic of Congo, after a few more close calls, they hire a guide to take them into the jungle in search of a lost ancient city.

  And even into the jungle on the Trail of Elephants, they are followed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  September 15, 1970

  Deep in the jungle, Republic of Congo

  HASSETT HAD CRAIG, the twins, and Bud hide in the jungle to the right of the path of elephants and warned them to not move for any reason, no matter what they heard or what happened. Then he used a branch to brush away their footprints where they had all entered the deep underbrush. Danny and Hassett also both left their packs, but Hassett kept a rifle he had been carrying over his shoulder.

  “This way,” Hassett said, turning and moving uphill through the jungle. Danny stayed with him for ten minutes, breathing hard and sweating even harder. Finally, Hass
ett held up his hand for Danny to be quiet, then moved to the edge of the jungle.

  “Make no sudden movements,” he whispered.

  He then led Danny over a shallow rise along the edge of the jungle. It took a moment for Danny to realize what he was seeing. The half-mile-wide path had turned almost gray under the high trees ahead. Thousands and thousands of elephants were grazing and moving slowly down the hill.

  “How did you know they were here?” Danny whispered.

  Hassett pointed at the circling flocks of small birds. “They go where the elephants go.”

  The elephants smell was thick in the air, like baskets of apples that had been left in the sun for days.

  Danny had never seen an African elephant, and was stunned at their size, and of the size of the tusks the bulls had. He had heard that ivory poaching had been bad in some areas, but it didn’t look like this massive herd had been found yet.

  Danny stayed close to Hassett, moving as silently as he could as they worked their way past the elephants, past the lead bull who stood guard.

  Hassett moved the two of them slightly out into the path above the elephants, then handed Danny some dry brush. “Get ready to wave this and run at them,” Hassett said.

  Danny finally understood what Hassett was planning.

  Hassett grabbed another handful of long, dry grass, then took his rifle off his shoulder.

  He lit Danny’s brush with a pocket lighter, then his own, and said, “Now!”

  Waving the burning grass in his hand, Danny ran at the herd of huge beasts, shouting as loud as he could.

  Hassett did the same, firing his rifle into the air at the same time.

  The noise and the sight of the flames spooked the herd almost instantly.

  The bull trumpeted a warning, as did others, and almost as one, the entire herd turned and started down the path at a full run.

  For a moment, all Danny could see was a massive wall of elephant butts disappearing into a cloud of dust.

  Thousands of huge animals, all weighing thousands of pounds, all running at the same time. It was a sight that Danny had never imagined, or thought of ever seeing.

  Danny dropped his torch and stamped it out.

  Hassett did the same.

  A couple of bull elephants trumpeted so loudly that Danny bet it could be heard miles below on Lake Albert.

  The elephant stampede shook the ground like a strong earthquake, and the rumbling echoed over the jungle. The huge dust cloud drifted out over the jungle.

  “How far will they run?” Danny shouted to Hassett over the intense noise.

  “Far enough to take care of our friends and cover our tracks!” Hassett shouted back.

  They stood and watched the amazing sight for a few moments, then Hassett led Danny back to the edge of the jungle. They plowed into the underbrush, staying in the deep jungle as they moved back down the hill toward Craig and the others.

  He and Hassett joined up with Craig and the others, and with Hassett indicating they should be very quiet, he turned and led them deeper into the jungle, away from the path of elephants.

  A very long, hot hour later of fighting their way down what seemed to be a narrow animal path, Danny finally asked Hassett, “When are we going to get to the lost city?”

  Hassett laughed and kept going. “You’ve been in it for fifteen minutes.”

  That got all of them looking around, and now that Hassett had said that, Danny could see odd shapes buried by the dense growth of the jungle.

  “How big was this place?” Craig asked, shouting his question over Danny’s shoulder to Hassett.

  Hassett entered a small meadow and stopped, dropping his pack in the shade under some large trees. “I figure that over a half million people lived here six or seven thousand years ago.”

  “Half million?” Danny said softly. He couldn’t even imagine that, standing here in the jungle now. It would be like standing in downtown Los Angeles, after it was overgrown and all the tall buildings knocked down, and trying to imagine the size of the city.

  “Welcome to the city of Ishango,” Hassett said, waving his arm around in a wide circle.

  He moved about twenty steps to one side of the meadow, beside what looked like a wall of vegetation and yanked on some growth, pulling aside the green to show stone blocks underneath.

  Danny followed the angle of the green wall up through the trees, stunned as his mind tried to grasp what he was seeing.

  “It’s a temple,” Ed said, his voice hushed.

  “It seems we found our teaming masses,” Craig said, shaking his head and looking around.

  “Teaming masses?” Dr. Hassett asked.

  Danny nodded. “Under the teaming masses, the river becomes clear, the path muddy.”

  “The third Hydra Journal entry?” Dr. Hassett asked.

  Danny nodded. “It would seem that the teaming masses were the half million people who lived here.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” Hassett said, shaking his head and laughing. “I was so busy looking up, I never thought in twenty years to look down. I have no idea what’s under this ancient city.”

  Danny had no doubt that to continue the search for his father, they needed to find out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  September 17, 1970

  Lost City of Ishango, Deep in the jungle of the Republic of Congo.

  TWO LONG DAYS of searching later, Danny finally had some luck, but not the kind he had hoped for. The ground dropped away under him like an elevator suddenly falling.

  Danny, with his best friend, Craig James, had been exploring the ground floor on an ancient temple in the lost city of Ishango. The city, at one point, had been the home of over a million people, long before the Pharaohs ruled in Egypt. Now, Danny and the others were looking for any passage that would lead them under the ruins of the old city covered in jungle.

  Danny had been using a burning torch for light to explore a dark room in the back of the old temple while Craig went on down a narrow hallway. The thousands of years of jungle and hot weather had left nothing of the old city except the stones with which the Ishango people had built the city. If there had ever been wooden doors, they were long gone. And every stone structure was completely covered by jungle and shaded by tall trees. In the dark rooms inside the stone buildings, nothing lived except small animals and insects.

  In two days, Danny had seen more large spiders than in a bad horror movie. So far, all of them had avoided the huge creatures hovering in webs in the dark rooms. The last thing any of them needed thousands of miles from any civilization and good doctors was to be bitten by a poisonous spider.

  Or any other jungle creature for that matter.

  As the floor dropped out from under him with a loud crack and Danny fell, he did two things, almost instinctively, and at the same time.

  First, he shouted. “Craig!”

  Second, as what he thought was a solid rock floor dropped away into blackness, he twisted around like a drill the coach had made them do in football practice last year. That way he was facing what he thought was the outside wall of the building.

  He found himself falling through an open space filled with twisted roots.

  He frantically grabbed for anything to slow his fall. Everything went into slow motion as he grabbed and ripped out handfuls of thin roots.

  Finally, one of the roots held, but his grip didn’t, and his momentum yanked his hand off the root as it swung him around.

  But it slowed him enough to grab more roots, and they held, and after a moment, he found himself swinging in midair, close to what looked like a tall stone wall, holding on with all his might to handfuls of tree and plant roots.

  His hands and shoulders hurt, but he was still alive.

  Around him was complete darkness.

  He couldn’t even see his arms going past his face.

  The air was cool and smelled of damp earth and mold. And there was a faint, distant sound of water running.

  He forced h
imself to remain as still as he could and take deep breaths to let his pounding heart slow and his eyes adjust. It became clear that he wasn’t in complete darkness, but close.

  Carefully, he then looked down.

  His torch had fallen all the way through the roots and somehow remained lit, showing faint outlines of the huge cavern-like room. He could see that he still had a good fifty feet to drop from where he was hanging.

  His breath caught. Oh, wow, luckily, the roots had been here, like a false ceiling on the huge underground area, otherwise he would have been very dead on those rocks below.

  Above him, the hole into the room he had been in was an impossible twenty feet over his head. And there was nothing to climb on. The layer of roots didn’t extend all the way to the hole.

  And besides that, he didn’t trust himself to let go of the roots he was holding.

  He forced himself to take yet another deep breath. His hands and shoulders were aching. He couldn’t hold himself here for very long.

  He twisted carefully around and searched for any kind of ledge on the rock wall near where he hung.

  At first, he couldn’t see anything, but then he spotted a crack between two stones where more roots were growing out into the open area just below him. The crack didn’t look to be more than a few inches wide, but it was more than he had now, if he could get to it.

  He got swinging gently, almost holding his breath for fear he would break or pull out the roots holding him.

  Finally, he managed to get one foot on the ledge. It was more than a crack. It was actually a thin ledge about an inch wide.

  He eased around and pressed his back against the cold wall, using the heels of his shoes to take the pressure off his arms.

  The ledge felt solid under his feet, but after falling through the floor of that room, he wasn’t trusting anything at this point. He still kept his tight grip on the roots that had saved him. But at least they weren’t holding his entire weight anymore.

  “Danny!”

  Craig’s voice echoed down to him from what seemed like an impossible distance away.