by Ripley, Ron
Good morning, Farmer, the dragon king said.
“It was,” Israel replied.
The dragon chuckled. Yes, I suppose it was.
“What do you want?” Israel asked.
I want you, Ka-Riu replied. I want you. You cost me the boy the other night, although I did enjoy the police officer. You still cost me the boy.
“I did do that.” Israel agreed. “But you can’t have me.”
A laugh rippled out from the dragon and across Israel’s mind. You don’t have a choice, Farmer. I take what I want, as you well know.
“I know a lot of things, Ka-Riu, more than I wish.”
There was silence from the dragon for a moment, and when Ka-Riu spoke again, there was more than a hint of anger in it.
You know my name, Ka-Riu said. That’s impressive, but it won’t save you.
“Maybe not, “Israel agreed. “but that won’t matter in the end, will it? In the end, someone will kill you.”
I can’t be killed, Ka-Riu snarled.
“Everyone can be killed.” Israel replied. “It’s a sad fact.”
I’ll outlive you! the dragon spat.
“That might be true, too” Israel nodded. “But you’re still going to be killed. Hell, maybe they’ll even put a few of your glittery scales on my grave.”
Letting out a horrific hiss, Ka-Riu leaped down from the side of the barn, landing halfway between the house and the barn.
As the dragon king opened his mouth to spit, Israel brought his shotgun up to his shoulder and fired both barrels at once. The shot caught Ka-Riu in the mouth and sent him spinning back. The scream that followed caused Israel’s vision to blur and his ears to ring. He staggered into the door jamb as he broke the shotgun open, replaced the shells with fresh rounds and snapped the weapon back in place.
Ka-Riu twisted back to Israel, still screaming in Israel’s head and opening his mouth again.
And again, Israel gave the dragon king both rounds in the mouth.
“I can do this all day.” Israel said to Ka-Riu as he reloaded the weapon again. “How long can you?”
With a howl of pure rage, the dragon king raced off into the darkness.
Israel managed to stay on his feet for another moment before collapsing and vomiting all over the kitchen floor. Turk nuzzled the back of his neck while Israel’s steaming bile splashed across the spent shells.
Israel was left wondering when the dragon king might return again.
* * *
Book 3: Nowhere to Run
Chapter One
Henry Moran and the BMW
Henry Moran stifled a yawn as he pulled out of the Enfield Police station a little after midnight. Pat Dorn had come in for the third shift, and the regular Enfield cop, Tom Henderson, would pick up the first shift again. How had that guy Jerry managed to cover two shifts on a regular basis? Between his own shift for New Hampshire and covering in Enfield, Harry was going crazy.
All the disappearances and the attack on the girl earlier in the night didn’t help. He’d meant to call Tom and see if the man had learned anything from the two guys who disappeared in the forest, but it was too late. Henry would be ready to murder someone if they woke him up after he got some rest, and he wasn’t nearly as strung out as Tom was.
Signaling right, Henry headed home towards Canaan. He drove through town, and was heading down Route 4 towards Interstate 89 when he came to a black BMW pulled over on the side of the road. The car was off the edge of the road, the front tires sunk down in the sand. The lights were on, but no hazards.
Frowning, Henry turned on his emergency lights and pulled in behind the BMW.
Leaning over, he picked up his radio, brought the mic up, and keyed it, saying, “221 to Dispatch.”
A moment later dispatch came back. “Go ahead, 221.”
“On Route 4, Enfield, I’ve got a black BMW off the road, New Hampshire tags November-Romeo-Foxtrot-Hotel-Romeo-Delta-Romeo. Copy?
Dispatch repeated the tag number back to him.
“Checking it out now, Dispatch.”
“Good copy, 221.”
Putting the mic back, Henry opened the door and got out of the cruiser. He took his flashlight off his belt and clicked it on, the powerful, concentrated beam playing across the car. He walked up slowly, seeing for the first time that the front, passenger side window was smashed in. Glass and blood splattered the seat and the interior of the door. Blood stained the dashboard and the steering wheel, and the driver’s seatbelt was torn and frayed.
It looked as though something had punched through the passenger’s side and ripped the driver right out of the car.
Henry walked around the front of the car to the passenger’s side, seeing no sign that the vanished driver had hit anything.
The metal of the passenger door had been smashed in. Glass and blood littered the pavement, and something had been dragged, bleeding, across the breakdown lane and into a small gully that ran alongside the road.
Henry reached for his personal radio, adjusted the volume, took hold of the mic attached to his shoulder epaulet, and keyed it. “221 to Dispatch.”
“Go ahead, 221.”
“Any information?”
“Nothing,” the dispatcher responded. “What do you have?”
“Looks like a crime scene out here,” Henry answered. “I don’t know who’s nearby, but you’ll want to send them out here. Send a wagon, too. There’s at least one victim somewhere. Contact the Sergeant on duty, too. They’ll want to scramble the crime scene techs for this one.”
“Will do, 221. Dispatch out.”
Henry let go of the mic and played the beam of the flashlight across the splashes and pools of dark blood at the bottom of the gully. Checking to make sure he’d have a firm enough path to follow, Henry made the decision to go down into the gully. There was a victim, somewhere, possibly still alive.
There was a lot of blood lost, but that didn’t necessarily mean the person was dead. More than likely, they needed help. Probably a lot of help.
Keeping his chosen path well-lit, Henry made his way down into the gully. He used the flashlight to follow the blood trail, and soon the blood led to a tall culvert up to the right. It was part of new construction that had been going on over the summer to bring Route 4 into the twenty-first century. At the moment, the road was only accessible to teenagers in their tricked-out pickups.
The blood trail turned right into the culvert, and as Henry neared it, he heard the sound of something loud and wet. Then he heard the stomach-churning sound of meat being torn.
Quietly Henry drew his weapon, slipped the safety off, and advanced with his weapon balanced on the wrist of the hand holding the flashlight, Henry stepped into the opening of the culvert.
The flashlight’s beam illuminated a scene straight out of what Henry would have believed was a low budget horror movie.
It caught him off guard.
Something large and red, with legs and teeth, was ripping into what must have been a person at one point. Shredded clothes littered the floor of the culvert, as did bits of flesh and bone.
When the thing looked up at him, blood dripping from its teeth, Henry’s training kicked in.
He started shooting.
Henry didn’t shoot for center mass on the target because there was no center mass he could see. Without thinking, he fired on the head as he backed away. He put fifteen 9 mm rounds into the creature’s head, and the scream of rage (somehow Henry knew it was rage, not pain) rampaged through Henry’s head.
Yet Henry continued backing up the way he had come, ejecting the magazine and reloading in one smooth motion. Only the shifting of the flashlight’s beam showed he had done it. He chambered a round.
The thing, which looked like a dragon, started to come out of the culvert, but four quick rounds into the side of its head forced it back for a moment.
Henry backed through the gully, reversing his path from the vehicle. The most dangerous part, he knew, was going to be cli
mbing up to the road again. But he had to do it.
His breath was racing and his heart pounding as he heard a scraping sound. The dragon’s head appeared, and again Henry fired. The thing screamed, pulling back once more.
Henry took a chance.
He glanced at the side of the gully, picked out a path, looked back to where the dragon’s head had appeared, and started sideways up the bank.
The dragon lunged into view, mouth open. Henry shot into it, putting the last of that magazine into the dragon’s maw as it spit something at him.
Henry’s footing slipped, and he dropped down nearly a foot. Whatever the dragon had spit at him struck where his head would have been. A foul smelling liquid hit the rocks and leaves. The leaves smoked as the liquid ate through them.
Acid, Henry thought. He ejected the magazine, slipped his last reload into the pistol and chambered another round. Backing up, he avoided the still smoking leaves and the rocks around them which had been struck as well. In a moment, he was back on the shoulder of the road.
The dragon lunged out at Henry once more, and Henry put a trio of rounds into the side of its head, just below the eye.
Something horrendous and powerful screamed in Henry’s mind, sending him staggering backward, but his pistol only wavered for a heartbeat before he centered it on where the dragon had been.
All Henry saw, though, was the flicker of the dragon’s tail disappearing into the darker shadows of the wood.
“Dispatch to 221, what’s your twenty?” Henry’s radio crackled.
Henry started to shake, the post-adrenaline rush after a fight. Swallowing to moisten his suddenly dry mouth, Henry reached up to his shoulder and keyed his mic. “With the vehicle. I found the driver. Looks like an animal got him.”
“Copy, 221. We’ve got a wagon and Militello on their way. Dispatch out.”
Henry put the safety on his pistol, returned it to the holster, and let his body shake as much as it needed to.
Chapter Two
Tom’s Late Night Visitor
A pounding on Tom’s front door snapped him out of sleep. Glancing at the clock, he saw it was almost three in the morning.
He groaned, sat up, and got out of bed. He slipped his feet into his slippers, pulled on his robe, and picked up his service weapon, freeing it of its holster and holding it down to one side as he left his bedroom.
Tom hurried down the stairs, into the hallway and to the front door, where the person was still pounding on it.
Standing off to the right, Tom said loudly, “Who is it?”
“It’s Henry Moran, Tom,” Henry said. “Open the door, please.”
Frowning, Tom stepped to the door, undid the deadbolt and opened it.
Henry Moran came in, still dressed in his uniform and looking ragged.
“Jesus, Henry,” Tom said, closing the door. “What happened? You look like hell.”
Henry nodded. “Feel like it too.”
“You want coffee?”
“Please.”
“Come on in the kitchen, and tell me what’s going on.”
Tom walked into the kitchen with Henry following, and started the coffee maker as Henry sat down at the table. Tom set his pistol down on the countertop and turned to face Henry while the coffee maker went about its miraculous business.
“There was another animal attack up on Route 4,” Henry said.
“Bad?” Tom asked.
Henry nodded.
Tom got down two mugs from the cabinet beside the stove.
“Tom,” Henry said.
“Yeah?”
“I saw the animal that did it,” Henry said.
Tom put the mugs down by the coffee maker and turned to face Henry again. “Don’t worry, Henry. You really did see what you think you did.”
Henry blinked, then he frowned and said, “What did you say?”
“You saw the animal that did the attack?” Tom asked.
Henry nodded.
“And you came here wondering if maybe I had seen it too?”
Again Henry nodded, sitting up a little straighter in his chair.
“In person, Henry,” Tom said, “I have not. But I saw the video from Jerry’s dash-cam, and I kept that video to myself.”
“I policed up all of my brass,” Henry said softly.
“What?” Tom asked. “You fired on it?”
“Yes,” Henry answered.
The coffee maker finished, and Tom poured the black coffee into the mugs and carried them to the table. Sitting down, he said, “Did you hurt it?”
“No,” Henry said. “I upset it. And then it left. After I called in that I found the body, I picked up all of the shell casings. I’d fired two magazines and a couple of more rounds from a third.” He looked at Tom. “I didn’t want anyone to think I’d gone off the deep end, you know?”
Tom nodded.
“I mean, hell, Tom, I fired almost thirty-five rounds. There was no blood trail, nothing. And I hit that thing with every round.” Henry shook his head, picked up his mug with both hands and took a drink.
“Thanks,” Henry said.
“You’re welcome,” Tom said, taking a sip of his own coffee.
“So,” Henry said, clearing his throat. “I saw a dragon.”
Tom nodded.
“Does anyone else know?”
“A few. Myself, a professor, Israel Porter, the two guys from Holt’s Auto, and the girl you helped today.”
“Jesus, that’s right,” Henry said. “The girl. Then the two guys that went in before her are dead.”
“More than likely,” Tom replied.
“Has anyone figured out how to kill it?” Henry asked.
“Not yet,” Tom said, “but that’s what the professor is working on. I’m going to the town hall tomorrow to ask for a dusk to dawn curfew because that’s when the dragon hunts the most. I’m worried, though.”
“About what?” Henry asked.
“I’m worried it’s going to start hunting in daylight hours soon. None of us can stop it. Sure, we can slow it down. But none of us have been able to stop it.”
”Damn.” Henry said, and looked down at his coffee.
Tom could only nod. He felt the same way.
***
Gary sat on his couch, watching a rerun of Star Trek. He was well into his whiskey when he heard something on the porch.
It couldn’t be Darla. She was at her sister’s for the night, helping out with their mother, and Gary couldn’t be happier. Ever since Darla had started working, she kept getting more and more uppity. She even wanted him to help out around the house. He didn’t put in forty a week cleaning the damned hospital in Lebanon to listen to her bullshit because she got a job at the library.
Gary grunted to himself, poured another shot and was knocking it back when the sound came from the porch again. A scraping sound, like something, was trying to get into the trash.
Raccoons, he grumbled silently. Damned raccoons.
With his lower vertebrae popping uncomfortably, he pushed himself up off of the couch, hiked his sweats into place and walked to the front door. He grabbed the old baseball bat he kept in the corner, flipped on the porch light, and opened the door, stepping out onto the porch.
He turned towards the trash, raising the bat and not seeing a thing.
Confused, Gary lowered the bat and rubbed the back of his head.
After a moment, he turned around and froze in place.
A dragon lay curled on the porch floor, looking at him. Its tail flicked back and forth, nostrils flaring.
That, a voice said in Gary’s head, is a weapon which is woefully inadequate to the task at hand, don’t you think?
The power of the voice was brutal. The pain was horrific, as though someone had grabbed his balls with both hands and squeezed them mercilessly. He vomited as he fell to his knees, losing his grip on the bat, which bounced off of the porch and onto the grass. Gary threw up again, lurching forward. He tried to catch himself with his hands on
ly to have them slip in his own vomit.
The voice laughed as Gary crashed into the porch’s warped boards. The smell of whiskey and vomit filled his nose as he rolled over onto his back, catching sight of the dragon uncurling. The beast stood up and walked slowly to stand above Gary.
Gary felt his heart seize. A pain shot through his left arm, and sparks flashed in front of his eyes.
Do you ever simply wish to eat in peace? the voice asked.
Gary couldn’t answer. He was having a difficult time breathing, an effort made harder by the fear generated by the dragon.
I know I do, the voice said. In fact, that’s all that I wanted earlier, and yet I was interrupted. Unintentionally, I’m sure. But I was interrupted, nonetheless. Now, though, now I can eat in peace. Something which I have been looking forward to all day.
The dragon opened its mouth. The neck stretched out, bringing vicious teeth towards Gary’s face.
Gary found he couldn’t even scream.
Chapter Three
Dave and Joe and the Lodge
Joe checked each lighter several times. Bic usually made them well, but he needed to be sure. He had a box of ‘strike-anywhere’ matches from the Market Basket up the street, but he didn’t want to have to use those unless it was a last resort. He looked up from the back of the Jeep to Dave.
Dave had finished off a couple more beers, but he looked fine. He looked determined, in fact, and that wasn’t a look you could usually associate with Dave. Joe watched as the man finished loading the last of half a dozen Molotov cocktails into a backpack. Dave held the bag carefully as he climbed into the passenger seat of the Jeep and buckled up.
That’s my cue, Joe thought. He slipped the last couple of Bics into the front pocket of his hooded sweatshirt and got into the driver’s seat.
“Ready?” Joe asked, glancing over at Dave.
Dave nodded.
“Okay,” Joe said, and he started the Jeep. He put the highbeams on, dropped the Jeep into gear and started out on the same path Brian and Nate had gone down, the same path the Kaitlin girl had arrived on.
They were going to burn down that lodge. He could only hope that would take care of the problem. If it didn’t, though, at least the lodge would be gone. Maybe that would chase the dragon out of Enfield, maybe even send it as far as Canada.