by Steven Novak
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FORTS: FATHERS AND SONS
SPECIAL EDITION
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By Steven Novak
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Illustrated by Steven Novak
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All First published in the United States of America by Parallel Worlds
An imprint of Canonbridge LLC
409 Main Street, Silver City, Iowa 51571 www.canonbridge.com/parallelworlds
Subsequent publishing in the United States of America by Quiet Corner Press
33800 Chapman Heights Rd #315, Yucaipa, California 92399
Copyright © 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Quiet Corner Press.
Cover design by Steven Novak.
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CHAPTER 1
STRANGERS IN A STRANGE LAND
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A thousand years of peace had come to an abrupt and violent end. Off in the distance, trees that had stood eons longer than there have been inhabitants in this quiet, peaceful world collapsed to the ground. The thunderous boom resulting from the massive structures meeting their untimely demise echoed throughout the red forest. The creatures that called this very old, very simple place home felt tremors for miles in every direction. In response to the commotion, frightened groups of these thin, pale-skinned beings took to the treetops, hoping to learn the cause of the disturbance. Making use of limbs longer than the whole of their bodies, they scurried up the sides of the massive growths. One by one large, egg-shaped heads containing grotesquely large eyes parted the densely covered foliage, breaking the crest of the afternoon sky. Like a flock of birds, their heads moved in silent unison, focusing on the ruckus in the distance. Less than a mile away, patches of trees toppled to the ground as great plumes of dust and smoke rose toward the sky to take their place. The monstrous wall of debris began to spread across the forest, blocking out the light of the three sister suns.
For the very first time in its history, this place was slowly being enveloped by a darkness brought on, not by night, but something else entirely - something evil, angry, and aggressive – something that would change it forever.
Overcome with fear, most of the tiny creatures rapidly left their lofty perches, turned tail and scurried away in the opposite direction as quickly as their spindly legs would carry them. They saw what they had needed to see; it was instinct now that compelled the flock to get as far away from the situation as possible. An extraordinarily inquisitive, meek looking creature, however, ignored his primal instincts, choosing instead to do the exact opposite. While the others fled, this tiny thing moved toward the inconceivable force tearing its home to pieces. Sliding down the treetop, the awkward, lanky little creature headed toward the massive dirt cloud with curious caution. Within a matter of minutes, the wall of debris swallowed it completely. In the belly of the great dusty beast, sight beyond a few feet suddenly became impossible, forcing the little creature to rely on its oversized ears to guide it. With every step forward, the volume of the brutality rose significantly. With every step forward, the heart hidden behind the hollow bones in its chest beat faster - the thumping making its way upward into the creature’s head, pressing painfully against the folds of brain tucked safely inside its skull.
Through the haze of dust particles came something resembling a voice. Still too far off for the little creature to fully understand, it continued to stumble forward into the smoky abyss while listening carefully.
During a brief lull between the splintering of wood and the banishment of history, the tiny creature heard the voice once again.
This time it was deeper, louder, carrying with it a frighteningly stern seriousness, “Put your backs into it, you mutts! The area needs to be cleared by nightfall!”
With each step forward, the once-thick cloud of dirt began to clear; fuzzy images slowly twisted into focus. For a brief moment the terrified creature halted his forward progress in order to fully consider the logic behind its actions. Despite its choices to this point, this tiny being was not stupid. The feeling of danger coursing through its body was undeniable, thick and palpable, and very real. Since it was a child, the little thing had been much too inquisitive for its own good. A large portion of its youth was spent going to places and doing things that it had been repeatedly instructed not to do. Its parents had warned it on more than one occasion that curiosity would one day get it in trouble. It seems that on this point they were painfully correct.
Taking a deep breath in order to muster a bit of courage and just barely managing to halt the shaking of its thin hands, the creature made the decision to resume its journey toward the disaster area, now a little less than fifty or sixty feet away. When at last the debris cloud dissipated, the tiny, inquisitive thing realized for the first time that it should have heeded the warnings of its parents. A massive area where a lush, thriving forest once stood in beautiful elegance for generations had been almost obliterated. Thick trees covered in grayish-brown bark, once reaching proudly into the sky, lay scattered haphazardly across the forest floor. Upright walking, green-skinned, monsters adorned in layer upon layer of heavy coal black armor strolled defiantly among the wreckage surveying their progress, while others seated upon great snarling four-legged beasts continued the task of tearing down yet more ancient trees.
For the little creature, the sight was so unreal and resembled something plucked directly from a nightmare.
Every centimeter of its wiry body quivered with uncontrollable fear. The little creature slowly backed away from the madness, filling the full of its vision. It wanted to be somewhere else. It wanted to be anywhere but here. It wanted to run and continue running until its feet were covered in sores and it could run no more. In this single moment the tiny creature understood all too well that it should never had come to this place. It should have fled with the others. It should have sprinted home to its parents and curled up into the safety of their arms. Indeed, this was a sight the tiny thing would not soon forget. Some things, having been seen, could never be unseen.
The terrified creature’s backward movement came to an abrupt stop when it bumped into something large, was grasped tightly around the neck and lifted into the air. Now firmly in the clutches of a hulking armored figure, the creature began to flail its limbs wildly, searching for any possible means of escape, but finding none. The massive bodied, green skinned monster drew the squirming, wailing body of the pathetic little thing to within inches of his face, quizzically taking in its comically overstated features.
“Disgusting,” the monster muttered more to itself than to anyone in particular.
The dark eyes of the muscled figure focused coldly on those of the meek, squirming thing being tossed back and forth between its gloved fingers, “I am your new master, little one. Your home is now my home. Your family is now my family. Your food is my food. Most important of all, your life is now my life. Do you understand what I’m saying? Are you even capable of processing ideas such as these with your tiny brain?”
The grip around the skinny creature’s throat was slowly draining the life from its body. Its long limbs hung low and loose, flapping back and forth in the breeze created by the collapsing forest. With its throat crushed, it was unable to form anything resembling a word; the meek thing instead mumbled a sad, breathy, completely unrecognizable response; while tears streamed down the curves of its face.
“What a pity. You’re hardly worth the strength it will take to strangle you,” the green-skinned mon
ster remarked, a slight chuckle in his deep voice.
As the thick cloud of dirt continued its ascent into the once crystal-clear mid-day sky, the sound of the collapsing trees drowned out the final pained cry of the little creature.
A thousand years of peace had been brought to a conclusion in a matter of minutes.
As had been the case since the dawn of time itself, the end of one story heralded the beginning of another.
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CHAPTER 2
WEIRD LITTLE TOMMY JARVIS
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The playground was quiet. Empty chain swings softly swayed back and forth in the summer breeze as the sun began its slow descent over a row of houses off in the distance. On his way home from an hour-long detention after school, Tommy Jarvis kicked at the sporadic patches of grass sticking through the concrete of the sidewalk beneath his feet. For the third time in as many weeks he had not turned in his homework on time. This was becoming a consistent problem with Tommy, so much so that his math teacher, Mrs. Hickenbottom, had decided that it warranted sixty minutes of quiet time at the end of the day. It made Tommy miss the bus home. Missing the bus meant that he would have to walk. Walking home was a solid six miles of exercise. Most would consider this a fairly annoying situation. Quite surprisingly, Tommy Jarvis was not all that upset.
In fact, the strange, sour-faced little boy was in no rush to get home.
In many ways, the monotonous drowning silence that accompanied the act of laying his head down on the desk for an hour provided a welcome break from the norm. The lack of students resulted in endless empty hallways leading to emptier rooms filled with vacant, cold desks. The school was quiet, and quiet was a luxury that Tommy had not experienced in quite some time.
He had almost forgotten just how wonderful quiet could really be.
Passing by the Johnson’s house, Tommy pulled his heavy backpack off his right shoulder and moved it to the left. The right was sore. It was time to make the left do a little work. Ideally he would have preferred to strap the heavy sack over both shoulders and let the weight distribute itself evenly across his back. The problem with this was that one of the straps was broken. As was generally the case with all things in his life, Tommy never once whined, moaned or complained about the one-strapped bag situation. For him, one strap would always do just fine. One strap was more than enough to make do, and when that one strap eventually snapped due to the incredible amount of stress it was now forced to bear, he would use the tiny loop attached to the top of the bag to lug it around school.
After all, what was the use of complaining about the strap on a backpack?
Tommy Jarvis had more important things to worry about. A broken backpack was small potatoes. It was smaller than small potatoes and maybe even smaller than small tomatoes. It was tinier than the tiniest of teeny-tiny – which was pretty teensy-tiny.
Past the Wilson’s house, then the Peterson’s and over the chain link fence, Tommy strolled through old Mr. McGregor’s backyard. He went around the drugstore on the corner of Jefferson and Hollowood Road and walked past the office of the weird old dentist whose name he could not remember. He was making good time. Sure, his shoulders and lower back were sore and burning, and the switching of his backpack from shoulder to shoulder was coming at much quicker intervals, but he was making good time. In fact, he was making such good time that he decided to slow down a bit. What was the point in making good time when your destination was somewhere you ultimately did not want to be?
“Hey, Tommy!” The voice came from somewhere behind him, off in the distance. Tommy recognized it in an instant. Low, yet strangely high pitched at the same time, laced with a decided undertone of smarminess, it had to be him. “Hey! Weirdo! I’m talking to you, freak!” Donald Rondage - it had to be Donald Rondage.
Tommy lowered his head, dug his chin into his chest, and walked as fast as his already tired legs could manage.
“Where do you think you’re going, weirdo!?”
Despite the fact that Tommy was nearly running, Donald Rondage must have been moving faster. His voice was rapidly getting closer and louder.
A moment later Donald stopped directly in front of Tommy, the tires of his bike skidding across the sidewalk, leaving black streaks along the top of the cement, “I said…where do you think you’re going, weirdo?”
Tommy turned to run in the opposite direction but three more bicycles skidded into his path. Perched atop each of them sat a member of Donald’s goon squad, everyone the caricature of a lumbering, mindless oaf. Each burly boy looked a good deal older than his actual thirteen or fourteen years. Tommy was caught, blocked in on both sides by walls of mean, nasty, sweaty, pimply-faced youth.
Donald’s voice rose from behind once again, “What’cha gonna do now, weirdo? Got nowhere to run, do ya?”
Tommy took a deep breath, lowered his head, and looked toward the ground. He knew he could not fight them. Not only was he outnumbered, he was outsized as well. Fighting back would only make things worse – would only make them madder. Fighting back would serve only to stretch out his suffering.
He heard Donald’s bicycle drop to the ground and a pair of knuckles crack. “Answer me, loser!”
Two hands shoved him in the back, sending him toppling forward into the row of bikes. Three more pair of hands pushed him in the opposite direction. Tommy’s backpack tumbled to the ground. His feet tripped over themselves which sent him spiraling toward the concrete. He landed with a heavy thud on his side.
“Next time I ask you where you’re going, maybe you won’t ignore me!” Donald roared as he towered above him.
The tip of the massive bully’s foot collided with Tommy’s stomach, forcing him to bend his legs. From behind, the foot of another goon crashed into his spine, while another cracked against his leg. In stereo, the four boys yelled expletives that would have prompted any of their parents to wash their mouths out with soap. Tommy closed his eyes tightly, trying his best to keep his breathing steady, absorbing each of their blows with a calmness that only someone who had been in this situation before could manage. No matter what they did - no matter how many times they did it - Tommy knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they could not hurt him.
They were big and mean and remarkably strong for their age. In the grand scheme of things however, they were amateurs. There was nothing they could do to him that he had not already felt a million times before.
By the time the kicking and shouting stopped, Donald Rondage was breathing heavily, giggling between deep breaths. One of his henchmen ripped open Tommy’s backpack and dumped its contents on the ground. Loose papers caught the wind, floating away in all directions. In response, a roar of laughter rose from the group of boys as they exchanged high fives, low fives and the occasional knuckle bump above Tommy’s fallen body, proud of what they had accomplished.
Donald leaned close to Tommy’s face - so close that Tommy could feel the warmth of the boy’s breath on his cheek as he spoke, “See you tomorrow, weirdo.”
His words were less of a warning than a promise. It was a promise the oversized fourteen-year-old would certainly keep and a promise Tommy had all but learned to accept at this point in his young life. It was a promise so commonplace that it did not frighten him as it had years ago. This was his life now; it was the way things were, and the way they would continue to be.
When something has become commonplace, commonplace is no longer frightening.
As quickly as they had arrived, Donald and his goons were gone. The world was quiet again. A soft breeze caused the loose papers to dance across the ground. Gritting his teeth, Tommy forced himself to stand despite the painful welts that were already forming on his legs. He gathered his scattered homework and stuffed the papers into his backpack. As he started to toss the sack over his right shoulder he noticed that the one functional strap was torn, rendering it useless. He stared at it for a moment, allowing himself to fully absorb the stinging pockets of pain sprouting up on various parts of his body like the
glow of lightning bugs against a pitch black night.
Across the street, an old woman with widen eyes watched him through a crack in the vertical blinds on her bay window. Tommy recognized the look on her face instantly – pity mixed with confusion. He had seen this expression before. The moment she noticed him gazing back at her, she retreated into the shadows of her house, the blinds swinging back and forth in her wake. Tommy grabbed the little strap on the top of his backpack and resumed his walk home. His pace was slow and plodding, not only because of the stinging pain in his legs, but because he still was not in any sort of hurry.
Often times when one has nowhere to go, one finds themselves in no hurry to get there.
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CHAPTER 3
CARING LITTLE STACI ALEXANDER
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While on her way to retrieve the day’s mail, Staci Alexander noticed her neighbor Tommy Jarvis making his way across the street toward his house. His pants were dirty, his hair a ruffled mess. He attempted to hide his face by staring at the ground, but it was painfully obvious that it was red and bruised. This was not the first time she had seen Tommy this way and something inside told her that it would not likely be the last. Staci’s family had lived next to the Jarvis’ all of her life. She remembered how she and Tommy would jump through the sprinkler in her backyard while their parents sat on the patio, laughing and talking about things she did not understand. She and Tommy had been good friends in grade school. In fact, she would go so far as to say they had best friends. She had even let him hold her hand on the school bus one morning. At first it had seemed weird to hold a boy’s hand. The weirdness, however, had slowly morphed into something indescribably pleasant, oddly warm and strangely sweet. Tommy had been different back then. He was so funny, always smiling and making her laugh with a stupid joke only the two of them ever fully understood. In the summer before middle school though, Tommy’s mother had died, and with her death everything changed. When his smile disappeared, so did the jokes. He did not want to make her laugh anymore. Laughter became stupid. It felt like he did not even want to be around her. Tommy’s face twisted into something unrecognizable – something dark and sad and lonely. Once after his mother’s death, Staci had attempted to hold his hand. As quickly as she had extended it, he rejected the offer. Tommy had retreated into himself and in doing so he pushed everyone and everything away, including her.
