Non-Returnable
Page 4
“We shall see,” Old One said, stirring the coals of his campfire. There was little wood, and the fire was no more than a feeble orange glow in the darkness. “If the night lasts too long, I will either find the sun or else sing a sacred song and make a new one.”
After that, Old One called to him Brother Deer, Brother Fox, Brother Rat, Brother Raccoon, and many others. They all said to him what Brother Bear had said to him, and Old One answered them as he had answered Brother Bear. Before he could call Brother Wolf to him, however, Old One found that he was growing tired. Remembering his resolve to create the Human Beings today, he set about his work in spite of the darkness. By this time, his campfire had burned out, and he could no longer see in the darkness to gather more wood. Digging blindly into the earth, his creation, he took a handful of soil, spit into it. Singing a sacred song, he began to fashion a Human Being. But working in the dark, he was unable to see his handiwork. It was only by touch that he fashioned a Human Being like himself who walked on two legs like Brother Bear but was naked.
“To you, Little Brother, I give the gift of life,” Old One said. With that, he blew gently onto the molded soil until he felt it stir with life. Carefully, he held his new creation close to his face and addressed it thus:
“Also to you, Little Brother, I give command of the earth. All of the animals I have created are for you to—”
He intended to say “for you to enjoy,” but before he could continue, Brother Wolf came sniffing to Old One’s campsite. Old One heard him prowling in the darkness and called out to him, “Brother Wolf, why do you come to me, skulking in the darkness?”
“I have heard from my brother animals that you are displeased, Old One,” Brother Wolf said softly. “You have been asking my brothers if they know where the sun is.”
“And you know,” Old One said, seeing clearly into Brother Wolf’s heart.
“I do,” Brother Wolf replied, “for I have taken the sun from the sky and hidden it inside my den.”
Old One’s heart flashed like lightning with anger, yet he said nothing.
“I was saddened by what you said to me last night,” Brother Wolf went on, “that my company was not good enough for you. I stole the sun to prevent you from making Human Beings.”
“Go! Now!” Old One commanded, his voice rumbling like distant thunder in the darkness. “Return the sun to the sky, or else you and all of your children will perish.”
Without another word, Brother Wolf departed back to his cave where he retrieved the sun and placed it back in the sky. As soon as the warm yellow light touched the land, Old One looked into his hand and saw what he had created from soil and spit and by singing a sacred song in the darkness.
The Human Being was short and stunted. His body was covered with thick scales like those of Brother Lizard. The back of his head was pointed, and his face projected forward like Brother Rat’s. His eyes were round and bulged from his face like twin full moons. His shoulders were broad, like Brother Buffalo’s, but his body was narrow and had long, dangling arms that ended in wide flat hands upon which were long, curved claws like Brother Mole’s. He stood shakily on thin, gnarly legs that bowed outward at the knees like no creature Old One had ever created.
“You are a disappointment to me, Little Brother,” Old One said, looking earnestly at his creation as he placed it carefully on the ground. “I thought, working in the dark, my hands and my sacred song would guide me, but now that Brother Wolf has returned the sun to the sky, I see that I was wrong. You are not what I had in mind at all. You are not a Human Being.”
Little Brother looked up at Old One but, because Old One had not given him the gift of speech, he said nothing. The sudden blast of sunlight hurt his round, bulging eyes, and he shielded his face from the day’s warmth as best he could with his wide, flat hands.
“No, Little Brother, I am sorry, but you are not a creature of the daylight,” Old One said solemnly. “You were created in the night, and you are a creature of the dark, so to the darkness below the earth I will send you. But to show that I am kind, I will allow you and all of your children to come back to the upper world once every five years, there to see my creation and all the animals which I have created for you to—”
Again, Old One intended to say “for you to enjoy” but at that moment, Brother Wolf returned, approaching Old One with his head bowed and his snout scraping against the ground.
“See what you have done!” Old One said, clenching his fists and shaking them over his head until the wind rose high in the sky. “Because I was not able to see, I have created this, not the Human Being I intended. And it is all your fault, Brother Wolf. Because I have to banish this pitiful creature to the dark caverns below the ground, I also will have to punish you. You, Brother Wolf, will become a child of the night as well, and every night, you and all of your children will howl at the full moon, the pale reflection of that which you tried to steal from me!”
OTHER WORKS BY RICK HAUTALA
SCARED CROWS
One of the most respected names in genre fiction, Rick Hautala, delivers his second chapbook...and this one has it all...and one of the greatest comic book characters of all time...HELLBOY.
It’s a dark and stormy night somewhere in the backwoods of Maine,and when Hellboy and his friend, The Finn, stop by a bar for more than a few ‘cold ones,’ HB enchants a pretty young woman with a story designed to impress her. But every bar has its local punk just itching to make a name for himself, but he‘s about to learn a valuable life lesson...that it never pays to interrupt Hellboy...especially when he’s trying to tell a story.
SCHOOL HOUSE
From one of THE genuine Masters of Dark Fiction comes the story of Pete. (Petey) Garvey returns to his home town in Maine...and a visit to the Pingree School awakens thoughts...feelings...emotions that he thought were long buried.
He forgot that the feelings of guilt can hold you in its vice-like grip. And it’s on a visit to the empty halls of his old school that the voices from the past ask him one question. “Why didn’t you help?”
CHRYSALIS
Just outside of the sleepy town of Thornton, road crews have begun blasting the area to prepare for the straighten of Route 25.
Young Stan Walters finds the caves that have been opened up by the crews just too much of a temptation...and explores. Once inside the labyrinth, he comes upon something about the size of football - cold and almost certainly dead.
But what he and his brother, Chet, soon discover is something far from dead...something very much at the beginning of it's life-cycle.
An untcigahunk... A little brother.