Forts: Liars and Thieves

by Steven Novak

  His hands still buried in the ground, Donald opened his fists and grabbed hold of large clumps of icy soil just below the surface. As he stood, he ripped a chunk of rock at least a hundred, maybe two hundred, times the size of his entire body from the ground and hoisted it above his head. When an Ochan soldier emerged from the smoky cloud in front of him, Donald swung the sandy boulder at the creature, smacking it directly in the chest with such force that the lizard man was instantly sent airborne. The creature landed with a thump over fifty feet away, its ribs shattered to jagged particles of bone. Another soldier leapt at Donald from behind, trying to catch the child off guard. Twisting with surprising speed to meet him, Donald used the enormous rock as a club once again, cracking this Ochan square in the chest as well. Donald used his gargantuan boulder to launch soldiers into the air, one after another, denting their armor and breaking various important bones in the process.

  Carefully navigating the debris cloud as rocks continued to rain down from above and the body of an Ochan sailed past, Roustaf called to his pink-skinned infatuation, “Tahnja! Where are you, you damn crazy broad? Where are you, baby?”

  Vision beyond a few feet had been reduced to nothing. From somewhere within the cloud of dust, the little man heard the sound of snapping bone combined with the high-pitched yelp of yet another mortally wounded soldier. A moment afterward, an airborne green-skinned Ochan parted the dust cloud above him momentarily. Soaring backward at an incredible speed, the soldier’s legs flopped loose in the wind like the wobbly, shapeless limbs of a marionette. Clutching the inverted steel of his chest plate, the screaming Ochan was quickly swallowed by the mist, sailing forth to an unknown destination. Coughing loose a mouth full of sand, Roustaf gazed to his right and spotted what he believed to be the blurry outline of Tahnja lying face down in the dirt ten feet away. Sailing over to her, he came to a sliding stop on her shoulder.

  Pulling forcefully at the fleshy loop rising up from her ears, he tried frantically to wake her. “Come on, come on, come on, get up, you’re not hurt, you’re not hurt, you can’t be hurt!”

  His voice was hoarse, sore and coated with a layer of dust so thick it had added an inch to the interior of his throat. “Come on, please, please, please, come on, get the hell up. Please get up …”

  Again the sound of cracking bone and bending steel sliced through the dust. With the cloud of dirt beginning to slowly settle, Roustaf watched as pudgy little Donald Rondage threw his massive stone at the last of the attacking soldiers. The rock collided with the creature, carried him well over a hundred yards, then squashed him against the outer wall of the king’s castle. Though Roustaf had seen the boy’s unbelievable feats of strength before, he couldn’t help but be amazed and horrified.

  “Rou–Roustaf?” Tahnja whispered between coughs, her eyes slowly fluttering open.

  Rolling onto her back, she hacked a wad of dirt from her lungs, at last noticing the tiny body of her tiny love standing on her collarbone just a few inches from her face. Her pale pink skin was covered in a thin layer of dust, transforming it into something more sandy and brown.

  “Welcome back, cutie. You scared the beejeezus outta me for a minute there,” Roustaf added playfully, breathing a sigh of relief.

  Initially overcome with joy just to see the little man alive, Tahnja’s exuberance transformed quickly to shame. “Shouldn’t have come through. Sorry. Thought you were caught. Worried you were dead.”

  Roustaf patted her on the cheek tenderly, his entire hand smaller than the tip of her nose. Leaning down, he planted a loving kiss on the crest of her sand coated lips. “You should have known better. Kill me? These jerks have been trying to pull off that feat for years now with no success whatsoever. Long story short, it just ain’t gonna happen.”

  The shared moment between the two was shattered by the anxious voice of young Donald Rondage from behind, “Uh, I hate to break up your little make out session, but I think maybe you should turn around.”

  Simultaneously Tahnja and Roustaf craned their heads in the direction of the boy’s voice. With the dust continuing to clear, the pair was now able to see far beyond the few feet they were allotted only a moment prior. Just beyond Donald, Kragamel’s castle had become frighteningly clear and visible. Perched atop its walls were hundreds upon hundreds of Ochan archers, every last one with an arrow pointed in their direction. Hundreds more soldiers began pouring from the doorways near the base, each one angry and ready to fight, a deadly weapon in hand. The sheer volume of the advancing force was staggeringly heartbreaking. Like a tidal wave, the mountain of green flesh surrounded them entirely. The excitement coursing through Donald’s veins moments ago instantly washed away, leaving barely a shadow behind. His strength, no matter how amazing, wasn’t going to do him much good against so many. Walking slowly across Tahnja’s chest, over her stomach and up her leg, Roustaf came to a stop on the tip of her bony knee. Placing one hand on his hip, he reached up with the other and began twiddling his bushy beard nervously.

  Breathing deeply, he slumped his shoulders, threw his hands into the air and mumbled, “Ah yeah, this is gonna suck.”

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 54

  MR. BUTTON IS DEAD

  *

  “Your dog’s dead. Get your ass out back and do something with it.”

  His father’s voice was ragged, garbled and twisted, slathered in the sour, tangy wetness of a night spent drowning sorrows with drink. At first, young Tommy Jarvis scarcely believed what had just come from the old man’s mouth. Whether intentional or otherwise, so very often his father had lied to him. As if greased, the lies tended to slide easily from him in this state. Though only eleven years old, Tommy already understood the fact that lies should never come easily. They should be rough, they should require thought, and they should never come without regret. The act of passing them through your lips should be a painful, painful experience. Starting up the darkened stairway leading to his bedroom, Tommy’s father came to a wobbly stop barely three steps into the journey. When he turned to look at his son, his face was distorted, a mass of awkwardly angled wrinkles and two-day-old stubble.

  Faraway his eyes wandered and dipped, struggling to remain focused. “I said, clean up your damn dog! If that thing is still out back tomorrow morning, I swear to God, you’ll regret it.”

  It was at that instant Tommy knew the words were more than the ramblings of a mind only half there. No matter how horrifying the idea might have been, no matter how badly he wished it weren’t the case, his father was telling the truth. Tommy’s lower lip began to jitter as warm, salty puddles of emotions given birth in the corners of his eyes.

  Though his body was loopy and uncoordinated, the voice of his father remained monotone and serious, glaring at his elder son under the hood of heavy eyelids. “Do we understand each other?”

  More of a reaction than a choice, Tommy nodded. He wasn’t sure why. Content that he’d made his point, the awkward, foul-breathed thing the boy’s father often transformed into hobbled upstairs like a scarecrow on legs of straw. A single tear rolled from Tommy’s right eye and down his cheek. Quickly he wiped it away.

  Crying would do him no good. It never had.

  His little brother was upstairs asleep, and Tommy figured it best to leave him that way. Nicky did not need to know about or see this. Things like this weren’t meant for his eyes. It would only hurt him. When he woke tomorrow morning, Tommy would lie to his brother, convince him that their dog hopped the fence and ran away. The story might leave Nicky heartbroken, though not nearly as heartbroken as the truth. Lying to his brother’s innocent, round little face wouldn’t be easy, which is exactly as it should be. With some hesitation, Tommy slowly made his way from the living room, into the kitchen, through the creaky screen door with its torn mesh, and onto the porch. The entire journey took only a few minutes. To the shaky boy overcome with even shakier emotions, it felt like so much more.

  Time is little more than a matter of pe
rception, after all; time is strange that way.

  The night air was chilly. Winter had yet to fade away entirely, and spring yet to take hold. Across the cold wood of the porch, Tommy’s bare feet shuffled. At the base of the stairs leading into the darkened backyard lay a coiled ball of matted fur. Only occasionally did a jagged-stiff angle protrude awkwardly from the oval-shaped mound of brownish-black hair. Even in the subtle starlight, Tommy instantly recognized the patterns of color. He’d seen them hundreds of times before, ran his hand across them lovingly, and often felt them against his face. They were undeniably familiar; they could belong to no other. Curled up in the dry grass was his lifelong friend. The ugly, deformed thing sprawled among a bed of crinkly paper-like fallen leaves was Mr. Button.

  When Tommy was only still in diapers, Mr. Button was barely more than a puffball from which extended four stubby, mostly useless legs that would wiggle comically when rolled onto his back. As Tommy’s limbs stretched, so did Button’s. The pair crawled together and grew side by side, laughing and playing the same as any brothers or the best of friends might. Though Tommy’s parents strictly forbade Button to sleep on his bed, when they retired for the night, the fluffy-haired rapscallion would immediately sneak into the boy’s room and curl up beside his pal. At the break of day, he would hop to the floor once more, leaving none the wiser. Mr. Button was smart; he was always so smart. On Tommy’s first day of school, Button walked with him to the bus stop. As it drove his friend away, Button chased the massive yellow vehicle for an entire block before relenting. He waited on the porch for hours until Tommy returned. On the day Megan Jarvis passed away, Button was there too, lying between both the Jarvis brothers underneath the stars well into the night as they stroked his furry back for comfort. Button’s offer of solace was his presence. It was more appreciated than he could ever comprehend.

  Moving alongside his fallen friend, Tommy scooped up his awkward, cold body and hoisted Button onto his shoulder with a grunt. Mr. Button had grown significantly since he was a pup. His body was heavy. Making matters worse, his limbs had already begun to stiffen; carrying him would prove a difficult task. Already the boy’s shoulder was sore and his legs wobbly as he struggled with everything he had in him to avoid ending up face down in the grass. With Button’s fur pressed firmly against the side of his face, Tommy set forth into the night to bury his friend and say goodbye. His progress was slow, every step bringing with it an agony born of both the physical and the emotional—yet another burden to add to the ever-growing list. Like all those that had come before, Tommy would not stumble, because he couldn’t. The option no longer existed. Mr. Button’s familiar scent snaked its way into his nostrils, thick brown hair tickling the tip of his nose and causing him to sneeze. High above, the glow of a full moon in the cloudless sky provided all the light he would require for the journey ahead. Tommy had made this trip before, many times in fact. Since the death of his mother, spending time at home had transformed into a mostly frightening experience. Scary, misshapen and wrong, it is now ranked among the very last places in the world he wanted to be.

  Even here with Button, even under these circumstances …even this was strangely preferable.

  Moving slowly, sweat pouring down his face as he struggled to carry Button’s limp, dangling weight, Tommy made his way through the space between the Parkers’ and the Thompsons’ houses and into the tree line adjoining their backyards. After ten long minutes of trudging through the forest, he exited the trees, lumbering his way up and over a large grassy field. The trip upward proved the most difficult of all. No less than three times did he drop to one knee, questioning whether or not he should continue his journey. Each and every time, he rose more dedicated than before. Having reached the crest of the hill, Tommy continued down the other side and toward another thin line of trees near the bottom. Arriving at the bank of a small stream, at last he stopped. The pain in his shoulder had crept its way into his back and was now progressing toward his legs, leaving the majority of his body inflamed and sore. The bones in his neck cracked, popping like the final few kernels of un-popped popcorn. Dropping to his knees in the mud, Tommy gently lowered Button’s stiff body to the dirt. Patting the belly of his friend tenderly, he ran the palm of his hand along Mr. Button’s side. His fur was clumped, matted and twisted, half frozen stiff by the chilly late winter air. Occasionally the light of a firefly would pop into existence above the slow moving waters of the stream not far from the pair. A moment later, as if the tiny insect never existed in the first place, the yellow dot disappeared again, swallowed by the dark sky and the even darker silhouettes of surrounding foliage. Free of their summer bloom, the limbs of the trees above resembled the fingers of the elderly; bent and knotted, the bark encrusted digits reached to the stars, aching to touch the sporadic points of light hanging stationary in the sky. Planks of wood were awkwardly nailed to the top of the larger branches directly above Tommy’s head, the humble beginnings of a tree fort he’d been working on since his mother’s death. Directly below his fort, at the bank of the stream: this was the perfect place for Button, the only place.

  Again a tear leaked from Tommy’s eye. Again he wiped it away. The instant his lower lip began to quiver, he bit down hard, clamping the soft flesh between his teeth so tight it split and began to bleed. The ground was cold and thick, solid with the stiffness of winter’s remains. Digging would be difficult. Tommy didn’t care. He should have brought a shovel, but he forgot to, and in the end it really didn’t matter. He wouldn’t need a shovel to dig. Fingers would do just fine. Breathing deeply, Tommy leaned forward, tearing into the soil with his bare hands. Tossed over his shoulder, the handfuls of frosty mud and sand began piling up near the base of the home of his future fort. With time, the pile grew. Lying beside Tommy, Mr. Button remained exactly as he had been when the boy first discovered him at the foot of the stairs, exactly how he would remain from this point forward. Tommy noticed, however, that his friend’s nose looked dry and crinkly, riddled with deep, painful cracks. It had never looked so dry.

  His wide eyes appeared sad. Even in his most joyous of moments, Button had always had sad eyes.

  After ten minutes of furious digging, the muscles in Tommy’s arms were on fire, his fingers frozen and sore. Every scrape of his nails into the stiff dirt sent a ripple of pain along the contours of his hand, into his forearm and across his shoulders. Despite the pain and the numbness, never once did he stop digging. He couldn’t and wouldn’t stop. If the roles were reversed, Button wouldn’t stop. After twenty minutes, Tommy’s face was lathered in a sheen of moist sweat. The disgusting wetness glimmered occasionally in the moonlight. Tired, sore and confused, Tommy had begun to break down. He didn’t want to do this, and knew he shouldn’t be doing this. Things like this were meant for people bigger and older than he. This shouldn’t be happening. He wanted to be strong, ached to be tough, and wished he could find the strength hidden within to simply brush the entire situation away and treat it as no big deal. In the end, as he did so very often, he asked too much of himself. Despite his attempts to the contrary, Tommy began to cry. Pointless or not, he simply could no longer hold back. Under his breath, he chastised himself for being so childish, chastised his father for putting him in this situation, and chastised his mother for getting sick and going away. The lie he would tell Nicky is the exact lie his father should have told him. As the sweat dripped from his face and splashed into the hole his frozen hands had created, so did his tears, one liquid indistinguishable from the next. After half an hour, covered in splotches of black dirt, Tommy Jarvis relented. The hole was deep enough. Mr. Button could rest comfortably here. Grabbing the cold paws of his friend, he slid Button into the newly dug hole, closed his furry eyelids, and rolled his dry, rubbery tongue back into his mouth. Standing up, Tommy twiddled the filthy frozen toes of his shoeless feet in the dirt, sandwiching the gritty coldness between them. Staring lovingly at his friend, he wiped the runny snot from his nose and tears from his face. Unsure of what
to say, he chose instead to say nothing. Button couldn’t hear him anymore than his mother, his grandmother or anyone else that had left him over the past year. Though less messy, in the end words were as pointless as tears, meant solely for those grieving rather than those gone. Tommy was done with grieving. He’d had his fill. Mr. Button had gone, and he wasn’t coming back. Once done, things could not be undone. Once stuck, there was no getting unstuck. Nothing could change this. These were the harsh realities of life that should never enter the mind of twelve-year-old boys, the harsh realities Tommy Jarvis had come to know all too well. Dropping to his knees, he covered the body of his friend with the black-brown soil. What took nearly a half an hour to dig was filled in less than five. When the ground had again taken something resembling its original shape, Mr. Button was gone. Choosing not to return home for the night, Tommy instead slept alongside his lifelong pal beneath the stars. The air was cold, the ground colder still, and yet again none of this mattered. He would enjoy this final night with Button.