by Ripley, Ron
“This seems like a pretty bad idea,” Israel said in a low voice.
“Yup,” Tom agreed. He sighed. “Well, let’s give it another minute or two and –“
Something crashed to their left and both he and Israel twisted around. Turk leaped to his feet, shaking off the coat as the cow awoke, bellowing in fear.
Out of the tree line the dragon came racing, faster than Tom thought possible. And by the time he realized just how fast the dragon could move, the beast was already on the cow. Israel got off two shots before Tom took off his gloves.
Both shots missed though, and the dragon was on the cow. Blood seemed to explode from the cow as the dragon tore into it.
Israel started running towards his cow, yelling at the top of his lungs and reloading at the same time. Tom brought his shotgun up but he couldn’t get a clear shot with Israel in the way, so Tom started to run as well.
But the cow was dead and the dragon latched onto it, dragging it across the pasture towards the opposite side. The beast was far quicker than Tom ever could have believed it to be, especially dragging an entire cow.
Yet even as they reached the spot where they had staked the cow, the dragon was gone, thrashing into the darkness.
“I’m going to track that son of a bitch tomorrow,” Israel said in a low, cold voice. “I hope to God that I find him.”
Turk came trotting up and sat down between them again.
Chapter Four
Doctor Kyle Bennett
Tom stood outside of Professor Kyle Bennett’s office on the Totenkopf College’s campus. The door to the office was closed, and he waited patiently, his own personal laptop under his arm. A young female intern was working steadily away at something on her computer, ear buds in as she bopped along happily.
Tom didn’t have an appointment to meet with the professor, unlike the student in the office now—as the intern had cheerfully told him—but Tom was more than welcome to wait.
So he was waiting.
Tom felt nervous as he stood there, not so much because he was about to tell another adult that he had seen a dragon on a dash-cam, but because his parents had sent him to Catholic school. Standing outside of an office meant that you had done something wrong, stupid, or bad.
Or, in Tom’s case, a combination of all three.
A moment later, the door to the office opened up, and a frustrated young man came storming out, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets as he left through the outer office’s open door.
Tom looked over at the intern who, without looking at him, gave him the thumbs up. Smiling, Tom stepped into the office saying, “Hello?”
“Hello,” a middle-aged woman said from behind a large, wooden desk.
Tom paused. “Professor Bennett?”
“Yes,” she said with a grin. “The first name throws everyone off. My mother wanted me to be Kyle, regardless of whether I was male or female.”
“Fair enough,” Tom said, smiling.
“Take a seat, please,” she said, gesturing to a pair of matching wood chairs in front of her desk. As he did so, she said, “So, as you know, I’m Professor Kyle Bennett.”
“Tom Henderson,” Tom said, putting his own laptop down on his lap and reaching over the desk to shake her offered hand. “I’m a police officer over in Enfield.”
“Oh,” she said. Her eyes opened wide. “I read about the woman found murdered behind her barn.”
“That’s part of the reason why I came to you,” he said.
The professor looked confused. “Um, I’m a professor of mythology, Mr. Henderson, I’m not sure how I’ll be able to help you.”
Tom swallowed nervously. “Well, Professor Bennett, that’s exactly why I came to see you. Because you’re a professor of Eastern Mythology. I know you specialize in Chinese myths, but you also did some Japanese myth studies.”
“You Googled me?” she asked, smiling slightly.
Tom felt himself blush. “Yes,” he said, clearing his throat. “Yes.”
“Do you think some Eastern monster did the crime?” she asked playfully.
“Yes,” Tom said softly.
Her smile widened and then fell away when she realized he was serious.“You can’t be serious about that,” she said, looking at him. All playfulness had fallen away, and a stern tone crept into her voice. “Are you really a policeman, or are you just someone having a good laugh over this?”
“No, Professor,” Tom said. “I really am a policeman. I believe a dragon is responsible for the murder of one woman, the disappearance of three men, and possibly more.”
The woman’s face hardened, and her tone became icy. “I think, Mr. Henderson that you’re going to have to leave now, unless, of course, you happen to have compelling video evidence on that laptop of yours.”
“I do.”
The professor blinked. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“I said that I do,” Tom said. He leaned forward and put the laptop on her desk. The professor leaned slightly forward as well. Using the touchpad, Tom selected the video file, accessed it and brought up the still image of Jerry’s cruiser driving up Israel’s driveway.
“This,” Tom said, “was recorded two nights ago. There was a report of a missing teenager, and when Officer Jerry Huron responded to the call, he heard shots fired. Usually, shots fired at night in Enfield isn’t that big of a deal. Rural community. However, when you’ve got a missing teen, there’s always the possibility of some irate farmer taking potshots at the kid.
“Jerry responded to the shots fired,” Tom said. He reached out and clicked ‘play’ on the video.
The volume was up. They heard sirens as well as the revving of the engine and Jerry’s own muttering. Shots rang out nearby, the loud, authoritative shots of a shotgun. Ahead, Israel’s farmhouse and barn came into view and as Jerry pulled into the yard, the dragon could be seen.
Professor Bennett gasped, even as the dragon staggered slightly under the blows of the shotgun.
Tom sat back and waited for it all to play out, stopping the video only after the dragon had left with Jerry hanging limply from its mouth.
“May I?” the professor asked, gesturing to the laptop.
“Sure,” Tom answered.
She turned the computer to her and started it over at the beginning. She watched it seven times through, pausing occasionally. Taking a notepad out of a drawer she wrote several things down, murmuring to herself and going back for an eighth time.
After that, she shook her head and sat back, looking at Tom.
“This is real,” she said.
“Yes.”
“That’s not a computer generated image.”
“No, it’s not.”
She shook her head again. After a moment she said, “I can tell you for certain that what you have there is a Japanese dragon.” She paused, rubbed her right temple, and said, “I can’t believe I just said that.”
“I know.”
With a deep breath, she continued. “I’ve jotted down the markings on the dragon. I’ll have to check my reference books as well as confer with some of my colleagues in the East, but I should have a name for you and the best way to stop it.”
“There’s a way to stop it?” Tom said, trying to keep the excitement in his voice contained. “Can we kill it?”
“I don’t know about killing it,” she said. “But they can be bound. They can be stopped.”
“Thank God,” he sighed, collapsing into the chair. “This has to stop,” he said.
“I don’t even know how this is happening,” Professor Bennett said. “In all seriousness, I can’t. I mean, I’m a student of mythology. I understand that most myths are based on some sort of past reality, but, honestly, this is more than I ever thought possible.”
“I’m sorry to have to ask this,” Tom said, “but do we know how soon it could be done?”
“Stopping the dragon?”
He nodded.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I’m really
not. I haven’t seen any lore on it that’s been translated into English, or even German. That’s why I need to speak with my Eastern colleagues.”
Tom took a deep breath and then asked the question that he didn’t want to. “Professor,” he said, “is there any hope for Jerry or for anyone that’s been taken by the dragon?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. It looks like it was taking him somewhere...to be alone.”
Tom nodded. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
Silence fell over them for a moment.
“Do you think you could give me a copy of that?” she asked, nodding to the paused video.
Tom smiled, reached into his shirt pocket and took out a small thumb-drive. “Yes,” he answered, handing it to her.
She grinned. “I know I shouldn’t be grinning about this. It’s horrible, but --” she shook her head.
“Don’t worry about it,” Tom said. From his pocket, he also took out a business card with his police information on it. “This is my work number and my work email. You don’t have to be specific when you leave a message. Just say who you are, and I’ll get back to you with a private email. My cell is on the back. Let me know as soon as you do, please.”
“You think it’s responsible for the dead woman, Jerry and possibly two others?” Professor Bennett asked.
“I do,” Tom said, standing up. “There are probably more. We’ve got a pretty widely spread community. Hunters, trappers, poachers, all sorts of folk who move through the area, not to mention cows and sheep.”
“You know,” she said, “most of the Eastern dragons were said to be peaceful and wise, nothing like their European counterparts.”
“No?” Tom asked.
“No,” she said. “But there are always exceptions that prove the rule. Like the Japanese dragons.”
He looked at her as he closed up his laptop.
“Some of them,” Professor Bennett said. “some of them were downright vicious. I’m pretty sure that the one I saw on your video is Japanese.”
“Of course it is,” Tom said, bitterness filling his voice. “Of course it is.”
***
Israel stood out in the pasture with Turk at his side. In the crook of his arm, he had his shotgun and extra shells for the gun in his pockets. He looked at the broken saplings, dried blood and torn flesh clinging to some of the sharper branches.
Behind him the sun was continuing its ascent, casting his shadow and Turk’s out before him. Israel had little desire to step into the woods, to try and find the dragon. But something had to be done. They couldn’t let the damned thing keep killing people. He knew too that the bear theory wouldn’t stand for long, especially when no bear tracks were found.
Israel inhaled deeply and then let the breath out slowly.
Well, he told himself, I won’t find it if I stand here all day.
“Come on, Turk,” Israel said, and he stepped into the woods.
Tom had felt badly about the cow and Israel had decided not to deepen the man’s hurt by telling the man that each cow had a name. Tom wouldn’t understand, but he’d still feel worse than he already was.
And there was no use in that. The man hadn’t been put Samantha out in the pasture needlessly, although that’s what it seemed like to Israel. Samantha had been the oldest of his cows, but that didn’t make the brutal nature of her death any easier to accept.
Israel shook his head and focused on the trail, which was easy to follow. The dragon had simply raced in a disorderly fashion through the woods, dragging Samantha as it went. For nearly an hour, Israel and Turk tracked the dragon and Israel wondered how long it had taken the dragon to cover the same distance, with a cow, when he stumbled upon a small glade.
In the middle of it were the remains of Samantha.
And they weren’t much.
The cow’s head was gone, although Israel saw a few of her teeth in the flattened, blood soaked grass. A few bones remained, and some offal along with most of her hide, but Samantha was gone.
As were any other tracks of the dragon.
Israel circled the glade in ever widening arcs, yet there was nothing for him to find. Not a single trace of the beast. It was as if it had taken great care to slip out of the glade.
Did it know that I was going to follow? Israel thought.
It had been bad enough that he had heard it speak in his head that dark morning, but worse to think it predicted what he was going to do.
Israel shuddered in the morning air.
“Come on, Turk,” Israel said, not looking back at Samantha’s remains. “Let’s get home.”
Chapter Five
Lake View Graveyard
The once magnificent view of Lake Mascoma, for which Lake View Graveyard had its name, had been ruined decades earlier by the creation of a second, larger graveyard that spread out in front of Lake View. No longer could visitors to Lake View stroll amongst the headstones of their family members and look down a rolling slope of grass gone to seed and out onto the gentle waters of Lake Mascoma.
Now they had to look on garish modern headstones that shone in any sort of light.
Mel didn’t usually reflect on anything like that, though. He and Kaitlin only went to Lake View after dark. They could both slip away from their houses on Oak Avenue, cut through the old gates of Oak Cemetery, cross through the new stones and then up behind the groundskeeper’s shed and into Lake View, a perfect place to engage in sexual activity that their parents frowned so much upon.
This particular evening, the sky was impressively clear. The stars shone, and the moon glowed. Lake Mascoma quietly reflected all of it.
Mel took about twenty seconds to admire the whole thing before trying to get Kaitlin’s hoodie unzipped. She let out a sweet laugh and slapped his hand away playfully.
“What’s that about?” he asked, sitting down on the cold grass and leaning against a headstone. He grunted and adjusted himself.
“You move too fast sometimes, Mel,” she answered, sitting down beside him and pulling her phone out. She sent off a quick text, and put the phone in her back pocket again.
“We don’t have a whole lot of time before your parents figure out that we slipped away,” he said.
“Yeah, I know,” she answered. “I’d just like a little warm up before you jump right in and try to rip my bra off.”
Mel managed to repress a sigh. If he was going to get even the slightest bit of pleasure out of the night, he was going to have to behave and keep his mouth shut. “Sorry about that.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.” She smiled. “You just have to slow down a little.”
Trying to keep his hands off of her, Mel leaned in and kissed her.
“Yeah,” she said softly, smiling at him as they broke it off. “Like that.”
For few more minutes, they made out. When they finally came up for air, she glanced out over the lake and then said, “Oh my God, did you hear about Jason?”
“Johnson?” Mel asked, trying not to sound as disgruntled as he was. Jason was a dick, and Mel didn’t want to think about him while he was trying to score. Or to have Kaitlin thinking about Jason while Mel was trying to score.
“Yeah.”
“No,” Mel said, settling back against the headstone again. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“He got attacked by a bear.”
“What?” Mel asked. “No way.”
She nodded. “My cousin Anthony’s a paramedic, remember?”
Mel didn’t, but he nodded anyway.
“Well, he was up at the Children’s Hospital in Lebanon when they brought Jason in. The bear took his hand off while he was cutting through Farmer Porter’s property. Porter scared the bear off, and then managed to cauterize the wound to keep Jason from bleeding to death in his kitchen.”
“Wow,” Mel said, actually impressed. “How did he do that?”
“My cousin told my dad that he thinks they said Porter used an old iron.”
Mel
winced. “That’s terrible.”
“Right?”
They sat again in silence, Kaitlin’s hand stealing over to his and holding onto it.
“I like looking out over Mascoma like this,” she said softly, leaning against him.
“Me too,” Mel said, fighting the urge to slide his free hand up under her shirt. His heart pounded at her nearness, and he could smell the sweet lilac shampoo she used. He leaned in close to --
Something stepped heavily nearby.
Both Mel and Kaitlin straightened up.
Things had been crazy in Enfield. One of the cops had disappeared, and other people had too. Some people thought the bear that had attacked Jason was the reason for the disappearances. Others said it was an escaped convict or a serial killer. All sorts of things that Mel and Kaitlin both had laughed at.
Another step.
Nothing about it seemed that funny now, Mel realized.
Maybe it’s just that Statie, he thought. Mel’s father had said that there was a State cop covering some of the shifts for the Enfield police. The worse thing he’d do is cite them both for public indecency. A ticket for that would be a hell of a lot easier than dealing with an angry bear.
Mel fought the urge to bolt, and he slowly pulled Kaitlin closer to him. They were both trembling with fear when several more steps followed in rapid succession.
Then a man stepped out into the moonlight, moving through a gap in the stonewall around Lake View. He wore warm clothing, carried a tripod, and he had a camera bag slung over one shoulder. He whistled softly as he walked down another dozen feet or so into Oak Avenue Cemetery before setting up his tripod.
Mel relaxed a little, but he wasn’t sure what to do. The guy might be completely cool about what they’re doing and not care, or he could be a total pervert.
Mel wasn’t given a chance to figure out anything, however.
A dark blur launched itself out of the darkness of the trees lining the right side of both burial grounds.
The blur knocked the late-night photographer to the ground. Something broke in the confines of his bag, and the tripod bounced off several headstones.
