by Ronald Kelly
Spooked, the doves flew away, heading toward the vast blue sky above. But the crow remained. It ignored him and, surprisingly, dipped its huge black head and turned the pages of the book with its gray beak.
Not knowing what else to do, Fletcher reached down and found a good-sized rock near the pathway. "I said, go away!" Then he took aim and lobbed the stone at the ebony bird.
The rock struck the crow in the left side. The bird cawed loudly and then took flight. As it joined the doves in the sky above the mountain's peak, Fletcher looked down at the page it had turned to…and shuddered.
Suddenly, a loud crackling noise sounded from high overhead. It reminded him of a string of firecrackers going off on a Fourth of July evening. He shaded his eyes against the sun and watched, stunned, as the crow and the four doves began to evolve. In midair, they began to enlarge and flatten. Then as the shapeless objects gained momentum, they began to take form once again. But this time, it was not a lone crow and four doves that swooped from above.
Instead it was four snow-white monkeys with fleshy pink wings and equally pink uniforms and fez caps perched upon their heads. Silently, the winged monkeys dive-bombed him, while the last attacker finished its terrifying transformation. Fletcher watched as a gray-fleshed witch—wearing pigtails and a patch over one eye—jetted toward him in a billowing black cloak, riding on an equally dark broomstick. She didn't seem to be actually flying like the winged monkeys were, but rather soaring swiftly like a hawk with its head jutted forward and its wings tucked stiffly behind its back. Swooping downward with malice in its lone black eye, as though focused on an unsuspecting field mouse.
Frightened, Fletcher turned and began to run down the pathway. He had left the stone-scattered pathway and leapt into the cover of the forest, when the wicked witch touched ground. Almost immediately, that nerve-fraying crackling filled the air once again. Then a sound unlike any he had ever heard on PaleDoveMountain assaulted his ears, causing his young heart to thunder in his chest. It was the roar of a mighty feline; not a bobcat or a cougar, but something much larger and fiercer. As he ran, the boy couldn't resist the urge to glance over his shoulder. When he did, he felt his blood run cold in his veins.
It was a huge African lion nearly twenty feet in length. It was stone gray in color and its eyes and teeth were as black as coal. Atop its head, gracing its flowing mane was a broad, black bow like those that the well-off girls in town wore to church on Sunday morning. The expression of fear and cowardice that had graced the beast's illustrated counterpart was absent. Instead its massive features were full of anger and contempt.
Jumping through the thicket, dodging trees and clumps of thorny bramble, Fletcher finally made it halfway down the mountain to the log cabin the Brice family called home. His mother stood in the doorway of the structure, sweeping the dusty boards of the floor. When she saw him coming, her brow creased with puzzlement, then her eyes widened as she looked past him and saw what was fast on his heels.
Fletcher leapt inside, out of breath. "Shut the door!" he huffed, doubling over in exhaustion. "Shut it…quick!"
His mother did as he said, slamming the wooden door and barring it shut. Elijah sat at the eating table, sopping cornbread in a bowl of buttermilk. "What in tarnation is going on, boy?" he demanded, standing up.
The twelve-year-old tried to find the words, but he was still struggling for breath. Then from the side of the cabin door, came the distinctive sound of crackling, loud and unmistakable.
Elijah Brice's gaunt face grew deathly pale, as though all the blood had drained from the flesh. "Oh shit!" he muttered. He went to the stone hearth and took a double-barrel shotgun from over the wooden mantle. Warily, he started toward the door, keenly aware that the scattergun was no defense at all against the thing that lurked on the other side.
He was eight feet from the door, when the center split, sending splinters of oak wood spinning across the cabin's single room. He took a couple of steps backward and studied the thing that had done the damage. It looked like the edge of a shiny black axe. The head of the tool was withdrawn and then it struck again with even more force. This time it chopped a massive hole in the center of the door and Elijah could see outside.
A lanky man constructed of gleaming gray metal stood in the dirt yard outside, his axe raised menacingly over one shoulder. The woodman's rounded head sported an oil funnel for a hat and its limbs looked to be jointed to its cylindrical body. The tin man grinned with hinged jaws, but there was no humor to his smile. The thing's eyes, which were as dark as crude oil, glinted cruelly as it prepared to bring the head of the axe down once again.
"Just you hold up there!" hollered Elijah, his voice cracking. Fletcher had never seen his father frightened before, but he did at that moment. "What the hell do you want?"
The shiny man lifted a jointed finger and pointed through the crater in the door, over Elijah's shoulder…straight at Fletcher.
His father whirled, glaring at him. "What did you do?"
Fletcher shrugged. "Not much. Just chucked a rock at an ugly ol' crow is all."
Elijah rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Boy, you might as well tugged on the tail of Ol' Scratch himself!" He turned and, staring past the metallic form before him, saw a gathering of small people about the size of three-year-olds standing at a distance, watching what was taking place. The men wore long beards and pointed, broad-brimmed hats, while the women were clad in long dresses with bonnets on their heads. All were as white as the driven snow, their clothing a delicate, fleshy pink color.
"Whatever the boy did, he didn't mean to," Elijah stammered quickly. "He's ignorant of how things are here on the mountain. He knows nothing of you and the others. Believe me, he meant you no harm."
The black ax remained steady overhead for a moment longer, then slowly lowered. The tin man glared through the hole in the door, locking its shiny black eyes with Fletcher's frightened ones. Then with a shake of its head, it seemed to simply melt before the boy's eyes. Fletcher watched as the pale dwarves did likewise. They swirled and seethed in thick, gooey puddles upon the ground for a moment, crackling like a wildfire through dry tinder. Then, as one, they rose into the air…a large black carrion crow flanked by a flock of pure-white doves. In fascination, he watched as the birds shot over the treetops and winged their way toward the opposite side of the mountain.
"Oh dear God," rasped Elijah as he sat down heavily in a chair. His hands trembled as he laid the twelve-gauge on top of the table.
Fletcher left his mother's side and curiously went to the door. He peered through the ragged hole in the two-inch wood. "Papa…was that the Dark'Un?"
His father's eyes blazed angrily. "I don't wanna ever hear that name cross your tongue again, boy! And if you see a pale critter—a white possum or squirrel or deer—leave it be. That black bastard will come for you again, especially if you harm one of the white ones!"
"I promise, Papa," he said in scarcely a whisper. But his initial fear was gone. In its place were curiosity and a hunger to learn more.
It was in mid-May when Fletcher and his father went down to Tucker's Mill for supplies. It was also when the boy discovered that monsters were not limited to the wilds of PaleDoveMountain.
The two were in Leland Tucker's general store. Elijah had a long list of items his wife had jotted down, along with a few of his own. While Leland busily rounded up their order, Elijah was inspecting a table of dry goods the storekeeper had laid out. Fletcher lingered around the front counter, longing for the candy in the tall glass jars that stood there: peppermint sticks, jawbreakers, bubble gum, and hard rock candy. He would have liked to have hoped that his father would buy him a piece before they returned home, but Elijah was an unyielding, annoyingly sensible man and considered sweets a luxury they either couldn't afford or simply didn't have need of.
"Don't have that twenty pound sack of flour out here," Leland told Elijah. "It's in the back." He turned toward the rear of the store. "Wes! Get on out here."
&
nbsp; Fletcher heard a sound echo from the back, resounding off the hardwood floor of the store. Ka-klump, ka-klump, ka-klump. He turned and felt his heart skip a beat when Wesley Allen Scott limped into view. The veteran's bearded face transformed from a scowl to an expression of lewd interest when he spotted the boy standing beside the candy jars.
"Wes, Mr. Brice here needs a twenty pounder of flour," Leland told him.
"Kinda hard for me to handle…you know, with this." For emphasis, he reached down and rapped his knuckles on his leg. Tock, tock, tock.
"Fletcher, go help the man, will you?" Elijah requested of the boy.
The twelve-year-old felt his stomach sink. "What?"
"Mr. Scott needs some help toting that sack of flour. Now go on."
"But, Pa…!"
His father's eyes stopped him in mid-sentence. "No buts. Get to moving."
"Come along," Wes said, nodding toward the back room. "Shouldn't be too hard for a strapping boy like you."
Fletcher followed the man as he shuffled through the doorway. When he got to the back room, he found it to be dim, there being no windows to allow the sunlight in. The air was warm and stifling, smelling of tobacco, leather, and country ham. Crates of canned goods stood around the walls, while sacks of flour, sugar, cornmeal, and seed for planting lay on wooden pallets at the back wall.
Wes Scott walked ahead of him, his crippled leg half swinging, half dragging across the storeroom floor. Ka-klump, ka-klump, ka-klump. "The flour is back here, Fletcher," the man said, looking over his shoulder with a crooked grin. The way he spoke his name made him feel somehow dirty.
Fletcher met him at the back wall. "You grab one end of that sack and I'll grab the other. Betwixt the two of us, we oughta have no trouble a'tall."
The twelve-year-old did as he was told. They were lifting it off the other sacks on the pallet, when Wes froze and stared the boy in the face. "What's that?" he said, peering at him strangely.
"What's what, Mr. Scott?"
Wes dropped his end of the flour sack and leaned in closer, leaving Fletcher still holding his end. "You've got a lash in the corner of your eye," he said softly, nearly in a whisper. "Best get it out before goes in further."
The boy's heart beat like a trip-hammer as the man leaned forward until his face was only a few inches from his own. He brought one hand up toward his left eye. "Now hold still. This'll only take a second…"
Fletcher expected the tip of the man's thumb to brush at the corner of his eye to extract the stray eyelash, but that wasn't what happened at all. Instead, the man's hand snaked behind his head and grabbed a fistful of curly blond hair. The boy gasped as his head was forced forward. Before he knew it, the man's mouth covered his own. He attempted to keep his closed, but Wes Scott's tongue rooted past his lips and teeth. It invaded his mouth, probing deep, stroking his own tongue. Fletcher's eyes widened as he struggled to pull free. The nasty taste of cigarette smoke, bad breath, and a hint of corn liquor coated his tongue, causing the inner lining of his mouth to grow hot and sickly. He felt as though he was about to throw up.
Then the man pulled his face away, grinning like a possum. He licked his lips and snickered. "Enjoy your first taste of man, son?"
Fletcher dropped his end of the flour sack and stumbled backward, losing his footing and falling across a heap of alfalfa seed. He gasped for air, feeling faint. Quickly, he struggled to his feet and started toward the door.
Wes laughed softly and winked. "You can run, Fletcher. But I ain't through with you yet."
Soon, the boy was back in the main room of the general store, surrounded by aisles of produce and canned goods, as well as bright sunlight streaming through the front windows.
Elijah Brice turned his eyes toward the boy and frowned. "I thought I told you…"
Wes Scott appeared through the doorway, struggling with the twenty pound bag of flour. "Aw, that's alright, Mr. Brice. I can handle it. I reckon the boy got spooked by the dark back there. Kinda of a big young'un to be scared of his own shadow, though, if you ask me."
Leland Tucker shot Fletcher an annoyed look. "Here, Wes. I'll help you tote it to the truck." Together, the two men hauled the flour sack outside to the customer's pickup truck.
Fletcher opened his mouth to say something, but abruptly his father was there, grabbing him roughly by the bicep. His fingers burrowed in the flesh so forcefully that it shot pain through his arm from shoulder to wrist. "What are you doing, going and embarrassing me like that? Useless, good-for-nothing boy…if you should be called such." He shook the boy violently, his face blood red in hue. "I have a mind to dress you in an apron and let your hair grow long. Let your ma raise you the way she would a daughter. 'Cause, so far, you've done little to prove that you're a son of mine."
The words hurt a dozen times worse than his bruised arm did. He yearned to tell his father about what had taken place in the storeroom of Tucker's store. Wes Scott kissed me! He fastened his mouth over mine and stuck his tongue inside! But he knew he could never tell his father such an awful truth, for the man would never believe it as such. More than likely, his father would backhand him across the mouth and accuse him of acting inappropriately; such was his low opinion of him.
"Now get your sorry ass out to the truck, whilst I square my bill with Mr. Tucker," he grated, shoving the boy toward the front door. As Fletcher stumbled forward, the two men came back inside. Leland ignored him, while Wes clapped him affectionately on the shoulder.
"Don't fret, young Brice," he told him. "You'll end up a man one of these days."
Fletcher shot a glance toward his father, but reading the mountain man's expression he knew exactly what he was thinking. "I'm not all that sure that'll ever happen," he could imagine his father saying. "Not that pitiful, scrawny child I supposedly sired. No sir, I wouldn't lay down good money on that bet a'tall."
Suddenly, Fletcher knew he had to get out of there. He rushed through the front door and, standing next to his father's Ford truck, leaned against the front fender. He felt dizzy and bile rose into his throat. He could still taste the man's tongue in his mouth, coated with sin and debauchery. Fletcher wanted to puke and purge himself of the awful taste, as well as the shame of the memory. But he knew he couldn't or he would draw his father's wrath once again. He swallowed and breathed deeply. Then he climbed into the cab of the truck, waiting for his father to finish his business inside. Spring drew into the hot, muggy days of summer and, eventually, that disturbing encounter with Wes Allen Scott in the back of Tucker's store began to fade. Fletcher found that he had other things that occupied his mind: his books, his artwork…and the strange creatures that lived on the wooded slopes of Pale Dove Mountain.
Despite his father's strict rule about no books, Fletcher couldn't help but continue to check books out of the mobile library and bring them home on the sly: Tarzan of the Apes, Black Beauty, A Treasury of Greek Mythology, Moby Dick, and dozens of others. And he always sought out the illustrated edition if there was one to be found. Part of his reason for doing so was his artistic curiosity…he simply enjoyed studying the illustrator's technique and diversity, comparing it to his own. But perhaps, on a subconscious level, he wanted to see what the albino changelings might conjure themselves into next, with a little inspiration. And, of course, the Dark'Un as well. Fletcher recalled the disturbing characters of Oz and their pursuit of him down the mountainside. Half of him shuddered at the thought, while the other half wondered what literary character the Dark'Un might choose to transform itself into next.
During his long hikes around the wooded slopes of PaleDoveMountain, Fletcher would come across the pale creatures every now and then. Sometimes they showed themselves in the form of birds, sometimes small critters, sometimes larger ones like deer and bobcat. Once or twice, they even sat perched on the limb of a tree or upon a boulder, perfectly still, while Fletcher sketched them with pencil and paper. With time, they seemed to accept him and lower their guard. Fletcher did the same. He no longer feared the odd bein
gs, but found comfort with them being there. He knew in his heart, that they belonged there and had been around hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years before he was born.
One afternoon, the twelve-year-old was wandering along the northern face of the mountain, when he came across one of the pale creatures. His father set out steel traps to catch animals to skin and peddle their pelts to interested buyers in Knoxville. This time instead of a raccoon or fox, one of the traps had sprung upon one of the albino critters. It was a snow-white possum with red eyes and a pink face and tail. It struggled to break free from the jagged metal jaws, but struggling was useless. The trap had its catch and it wasn't about to let go.
Fletcher set his sketch pad aside and cautiously approached the unfortunate animal. "It's okay," he told it softly. "I'm here to help."
The possum shied away at first, then complied as the boy knelt before it and, taking the jaws in both hands, pried them apart with some effort. The animal withdrew its injured limb just before the trap's jaws popped back together with a loud snap. Fletcher reached out for the possum's injured foot. "Please. I promise I won't hurt you."
The animal licked at its hurt limb and allowed the boy to take it gently in his hands. Although the bone didn't appear to be broken, the skin and meat underneath had been lacerated and was bleeding freely. Fletcher thought for a moment and then sprang into action. He took a maple leaf from a tree nearby and, pulling a shoe string from one of his boots, quickly tied the makeshift bandage in place. The possum lifted its head and stared at the boy gratefully. Looking into those beady red eyes, Fletcher felt that he was facing something that was not only incredibly intelligent, but older than he could ever imagine.
It was at that moment, the twelve-year-old realized that they were not alone. He looked toward a dense patch of shadow beyond a grove of mountain pine. He heard that tell-tale crackle and, suddenly, a coal-black wolf leapt from the gloom and into the sunshine. Startled, Fletcher stumbled backward, unsure of the thing's intentions. He stood stone still and watched as the canine version of the Dark'Un crept closer. When it reached the possum, it gently took the animal in its toothy jaws. It regarded Fletcher for a long moment, nodded to the boy, and then disappeared into the forest.
