The Dusty Dead in the Valley of the Blossoms

by Brian S. Wheeler

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  Chapter 7 - Risen Claws of Dust...

  The bandit leader forced the villagers to stand for a long time beneath the rising sun that hot morning before asking them to reveal their gold. The dust swirled and scratched at the villagers’ eyes. The bandit leader thought it would do well to let the crowd turn thirsty in the heat. So that bandit leader waited. He wore all of his weapons - his rifles and pistols, his saber and knives - and these he polished while the villagers wilted in the street. Carefully, he loaded his guns while each villager watched him handle the bullets in the sun.

  Finally, after his own thirst turned sour, the bandit leader addressed the crowd.

  “Who will bring me my gold?”

  Again, the villagers stared at their boots. Children whimpered. Mothers held their babies against their chest to suffocate their wails. Men both old and young did not raise their eyes to meet the leader’s stare. Old women dressed in their mourning black shuffled their feet and wrestled against the weight of water buckets perched atop their shoulders.

  The bandit leader sighed. “I’m too thirsty to shoot another man right now. You’re all very lucky that I need to take a moment to satisfy my thirst,” and here the bandit leader waved his gun towards those three women dressed in black. “Bring me some water from your buckets. There is so little water remaining in your wells.”

  The women hesitated.

  “Does this village not understand the language of my guns?” The bandit leader scowled. “Have we come upon a village filled with the deaf, crowded with people whose hearts have no care for their neighbors? This is a village of foolish folk. Time and again you force me to speak to your through my guns. Bring me your buckets, or my next shot will plant a child into the ground.”

  Wisps of dust rose from the ground. The dirt trembled as writhing cords slithered just below the surface. The earth shuddered.

  “Mercy!” One of the women dressed in her mourning black tripped and poured the contents of her bucket onto the ground. The other two women followed their companion’s lead and threw the water of their buckets onto the dust.

  “I won’t waste a bullet!” Thirsty and his patience exhausted, the bandit leader unsheathed his saber and stomped towards the women as the ground shook harder. “I’ll cut the three of you to pieces, and then I’ll set everything else in this village to flame! If you’ll not give me your gold, nor your water, then I will have your blood!”

  But before the bandit leader could reach the trembling women dressed in black, the dust and dirt slithered and shifted. The bandit leader froze as fingers of earth rose and clutched his ankles. Lines rose from beneath the ground and broke upon the surface in a strange geometry of triangles, squares and circles that rotated and pulsed as the villagers trembled and stared at the changing dust. The bandit leader’s gun roared at the tendrils of dirt erupting like tentacles from the ground to wind about his hands, his legs, his arms and his throat.

  The bandit leader’s men screamed as claws of earth rose and grabbed them. The quickest of the bandits discharged their weapons. A few kicked vainly at the hands of dirt that claimed them.

  The earth clamped upon the mouths of the bandit leader and his men, muffling their curses and their screams. The villagers turned away. They fell upon the ground as fear paralyzed them. Helpless, they watched the dust shape itself into so many talons and claws that ripped and tore at the bandits. What else would they be forced to witness and to suffer? What had their village done to attract such terror? They had only toiled to be a simple people with simple hopes, with simple dreams, a people whose only treasure had once been watching a saint of a man blossom color from the ground with a touch.

  Lines of dust continued to morph and shift. Tendrils of earth continued to rise and entangle the bandits, whose struggles could not harm the magic summoned against them. Their struggles could not keep the breath from being squeezed from their lungs. Their fight could not keep the sand from filling their throats. Their strength could not resist as those claws of earth pulled them beneath the ground.

  The dust hissed and whirled. The ground rumbled as the last vines of earth pulled the bandit leader into the grave. The villagers kept their gazes locked upon their boots. They trembled for a long time after a new layer of dust erased any trace of the strange symbols that had risen to claim the village’s enemies.

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  The granddaughter lifted her head from her grandfather’s chest. “What happened to the bandits?”

  “You know what happened to the bandits, Sunflower,” answered Henry. “You know enough of the story. This is not the night to deny it.”

  “They are the thirteen?”

  Henry nodded.

  “Then the bandits are our protectors,” sighed the granddaughter.

  “We are a simple people, Sunflower, but we are survivors. We do not deny the truth written upon our dust. The thirteen will forever serve their sentence for murdering Robert Lopez. There have been other raiding parties riding into our village. Thieves have visited us. Monsters have descended from those hills. Many a terrible thing has slithered into our valley hoping to take some of our color. But they never succeed in stealing our blossoms. The thirteen always rise to protect us.”

  A shout rose from one end of the village. A whistle shrilled from the opposite direction. Rifles boomed in the dark, and bullets echoed off of the village’s walls.

  “The armies have arrived, Sunflower,” summoning his strength, old Henry carried his granddaughter into the shelter of his simple home. “Now it is time for us to retreat into our inner most spaces. We must be silent and wait for morning. We must be quiet so that our defenders can rise to protect us.”

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  Chapter 8 - Bloom...

  Neither army ascended again into the hills after those troops descended into the valley.

  The villagers awoke to find the broken bones of soldiers and the shattered weapons of armies strewn upon their dusty streets. The streets had drunk much blood through the night, and at dawn the color of crimson tinged the streets.

  The villagers returned to the simplicity of their lives. As the back of their necks burned from the sun, as a new layer of dust covered their hands, those villagers paused in their duties - the herding of their cattle, the scraping of their fields, the sweeping of their homes - to dig graves for all of those soldiers who fell to those defenders that once more rose from the dirt.

  And throughout the remainder of that season, the roses bloomed and sunflowers smiled.

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  Like this story? Try these tales waiting in the flatland!

  An excerpt from “Guarded Keepsakes,” available from Flatland Fiction...

  “How is anything in this barn still that white?”

  A glimmer from the barn's dim center attracted Jay's attention. He crawled through a shelve unit filled with oil cans and breached an inner circle of open space, a small sanctum free of accumulation. A paraffin lantern sat upon the floor. While dust lay deep all around the lantern, not a mote of grime blemished its white lamp. Jay had noticed no prints in the dust as he had made his way into the center of that barn, no indication of the path any soul might have taken to polish that antique. Yet the glass of that lantern's lamp remained pure and clean, bearing no trace nor patina of the years.

  Jay knelt in the dust to peer more closely at the lantern. An intricate mosaic of glass colored in subtle shades of pearl and grays depicted the myth of Persephone's winter abduction and spring resurrection. Small, embossed pomegranates adorned the copper ring that joined the lamp to a white, ivory base.

  “Something to help see the light.” Jay grinned. “It's just the piece to bring back home to Kelly. Just the thing to show her that there's treasure in the middle of all these piles. It looks ready to burn once I get it a new wick. This place is a goldmine.”

  Wind drifted through the barn's open spaces. Dust swirled as a strong breeze whistled through the scattered piles. Something rattled, lik
e windchimes, further ahead in the shadow.

  Jay's eyes pulled away from the paraffin lamp and squinted at the darkness.

  Someone grinned back upon Jay Logan.

  Jay stumbled into a retreat. His frantic movements threw clouds of dust into the air and hampered his search for the path back out of the barn. He went to his knees and crawled between tractors and machinery. He lost his bearing and painfully wedged himself between jutting iron and metal. He was lost and stuck. He could not think clearly. His heart raced as he panicked.

  Jay screamed in the shadows and prayed he would not be forgotten like so many pieces of junk surrounding him. He screamed and hoped that Gus would hear. He did not know what else to do. So Jay screamed and refused to look back behind him into the shadow, towards that thing which grinned upon him.

  An excerpt from “The Dusty Dead's Revenge,” available from Flatland Fiction...

  Gabe squinted through the flames at the Turner cabin while the posse formed behind him. His eyes struggled to adjust. His keen sight could not see anything past the fires. Darkness choked the Turner cabin. Gabe could not distinguish a window or a wall. He could not see the roof nor the front step. Gabe squinted and wondered how so much dark could so shroud the home no matter that the fires burned so close. Gabe squinted as he thought he saw a black snake, a cord of utter darkness, coil about the cabin. He worried that a gun was not the proper weapon to bring to that fight, no matter that a gun was the only weapon he knew.

  The darkness surrounding the Turner home prevented Gabe from seeing the cabin's door open. Light flashed from no window to betray any sign of escape. Rather, the darkness expanded from the cabin, rolling towards the posse like black smoke tumbling across the ground. Gabe's left hand felt heavy as stone as he watched shadows expand from the cabin.

  None in the Harlington posse made a noise as the black rolled towards them. Darkness blanketed the flames so that, strangely, no hint of light wavered through the shadows. The posse still felt the fire's heat. The men still heard the fires crackle towards the Turner home. Yet not a soul gathered to claim revenge from the Turners saw a trace of flame as shadows blanketed the fires. Though his left hand felt so heavy, Gabe lifted his pistol and aimed at the center of that darkness, however he doubted his gun's power against what might lurk in such shadow.

  The darkness engulfed them.

  Gabe heard the men behind him gasp as the black fell upon Harlington's men. His hardened spirit unexpectedly pleaded with his mind that time remained to flee, unexpectedly pleaded with his feet that time remained to run away from the Turner cabin no matter that the darkness thickening around them erased any sense of direction. Only, fear weighed too heavily upon Gabe Henderson's shoulders and pinned the gunfighter in his stance. Gabe's mind fumbled through the confusion of such an uncanny collection of shadows surrounding him. Behind him, Gabe heard the posse fumble with their guns. Gabe Henderson remained a gunfighter no matter the dark, and so his left hand aimed his pistol at the invading shadow.

  Gabe heard broken, shuffling footfalls as the hairs on his skin stood upright. Gabe felt something move in the dark behind him as it brushed against his throbbing right side. The sound of scuttling upon the ground turned Gabe to his left, but the darkness remained too thick for him to see any shape moving through the shadows. He wrestled to maintain his wits. He grunted to keep his shaking, left hand raised against the black as his courage wavered.

  “Un'ghhe' imnehst Arat'khen eenour Khuns Lleung Omthe!”

  Gabe's heart froze at the strange words screamed in the dark. The babble of syllables sounded like a growl. The incomprehensible words hissed like sands ground across rock.

  “Un'ghhe' imnehst Arat'khen eenour Khuns Lleung Omthe!”

  An excerpt from “The Warden's Mark,” available from Flatland Fiction...

  "Are those monsters any closer?" I grin as Charlie's teeth clatter.

  It is a muffled sound, but in the silence that suffocates the cellbock, a rattling noise echoes from the walls. Every cell throughout the prison hears the rattles that have whispered from the walls since the darkness descended. It is impossible for anyone to blame the rattle on his neighbors. The noise is not one made by a prisoner's hands. The rattle is a strange sound that seems to come from within the very masonry of the walls. It is a chilling sound, and so it is a sound the prison attributes to dead Mr. Turner.

  Charlie slumps onto the bottom cot and curls into a ball. "Why do you torment me, Mr. Greene? What has poor, blind Charlie ever done to you?"

  It's nothing that Charlie has done to me. It's what I know he will do.

  "Are they still talking to you, Charlie?" I ask. "Are they still hissing behind your back?"

  Blind inmates throughout the prison claim they hear words accompanying those rattles whispering in their cells. The blind say they hear a strange language hissed into their ears, that they feel hot breath upon the back of their necks, that they feel the touch of teeth upon their spines. Those hissing tongues in the walls, and the lurking fear that calls those sounds company, drive the blind mad. They strike their heads against the walls. They shake their prison cells and beg to be beaten out of their misery. The blind wail like caged rabbits awaiting the fangs of the jailer wolf.

  Old and blind Charlie is no exception. He has nibbled at his nails until his fingers bleed. He jumps at every noise. He is certain that monsters will fall upon him the moment he sleeps.

  "Oh give me a little peace, Mr. Greene," Charlie sobs. "I only want a little quiet. I only want to listen and make sure whatever's hissing in the walls doesn't sneak up and eat me."

  Jackson Murphy's shadow rises from the floor. I feel his breath upon my face. Hatred emanates from his muscle like heat. I have no doubt of those desires Jackson Murphy cultivates for me. The dark shrouding our prison keeps me alive. It is because of those rattling noises from within the walls that Jackson Murphy has not taken the initiative to torture and murder me with his own hands. It is the fear that, somehow, Mr. Turner can still enact vengeance from the grave that prevents Jackson Murphy from simply snapping my neck right now in the dark.

  For I am the most special of all of Luke Turner's disciples. Upon my skin alone twirls and twists the tattooed runes and symbols that define me as my master's most precious disciple, and it will take a mob's courage to murder me, to further challenge the power of my master three days ago shoveled into the ground.

  "You've tormented Charlie enough, Wilson Greene," Jackson growls. "You leave him be to the dark."

  "Since when have you concerned yourself with a blind and old man like, Charlie?" I ask. "I think I must torment you too, Jackson Murphy. Did your Brotherhood think they could murder my master without there being a cost?"

  Neither of my cellmates respond. The rattles within the walls grow louder.

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  About the Writer

  Brian S. Wheeler calls Hillsboro, Illinois home, a town of roughly 6,000 in the middle of the flatland. He grew up in Carlyle, Illinois, a community less than an hour away from Hillsboro, where he spent a good amount of his childhood playing wiffle ball and tinkering on his computer. The rural Midwest inspires much of Brian's work, and he hopes any connections readers might make between his fiction and the places and people he has had the pleasure to know are positive.

  Brian earned a degree in English from Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois. He has taught high school English and courses in composition and
creative writing. Imagination has been one of Brian's steadfast companions since childhood, and he dreams of creating worlds filled with inspiration and characters touched by magic.

  When not writing, Brian does his best to keep organized, to get a little exercise, or to try to train good German Shepherd dogs. He remains an avid reader. More information regarding Brian S. Wheeler, his novels, and his short stories can be found by visiting his website at www.flatlandfiction.com.

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  Take a brave, first step onto the flatland! The wind whispers more tales of starlight, magic and terror. Visit Flatland Fiction at www.flatlandfiction.com and discover these additional stories of wonder and dream.

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