Post a response to this discussion thread
FROM THE JOURNALS OF RICHARD B. BERNSTEIN, THE ACADEMIC DETECTIVE:
We rolled through Houlton past midnight; the 8-hour drive had been wearing, if only because tempers were flaring. Traveling through the Haynesville Woods, we'd encountered markers set up every mile to memorialize interstate truck-drivers who'd lost their lives on the road during the winter. This macabre practice was unsettling, to say the least.
We'd encountered...odd phenomena...when passing through the township of Castle Rock-dark indistinct shapes, like those we'd seen earlier in the small coastal village of Collinwood, crossed the road in front of us, and seemed to follow after the van for miles, barely in sight of the rearview mirror and the backward-mounted video-camera.
My nerves were shot, and the rest of us weren't faring much better, as mournful howls broke the silence of the countryside.
"Goddammit! Do they have wolves in Maine?!?"
Zero answered my startled outburst: "My research would indicate otherwise, Professor; the pitch and timbre would indicate dogs, either feral or merely loose. Not to worry, in any eventuality...so long as we stay inside the van."
"Peachy", I responded.
We made our way North, passing through several grimy little pissant towns until we eventually came to ‘The place where two rivers meet'-Masardis, Maine. A widening of the road with a few houses scattered alongside and a crappy little store with a gas pump. Wulfgar and Zero consulted the maps that they's found, and charted a course for where Shields Brook was supposed to be. We found ourselves on gravel, then dirt roads, passing by spooky tarpaper shacks with the skulls of moose over the doorways, until we hit the rum-runners' "roads".
Daylight struck as we were discovering that a crucial part of the "road" had been washed away. We left the van behind-Wulfgar's "cats" stayed to "protect" it (his term-I think that he was leary of endangering them further. How they'd get along if anything happened to him, I wasn't at all certain).
We headed up a dry gulley, with Zero and Lady Eboshi in the lead, Philm Phan and Branagh bringing up the rear. The "road" was hardly more than a game trail where we picked it up from there-it was much-disused at that point; without bootleggers maintaining it, new growth, deadfalls, and further wash-outs made it nigh-impassable.
Zero scouted further ahead, the main body of our party falling behind; wulfgar walked beside me, brow furrowed in thought, a black expression on his face. I was about to speak when a commotion arose up ahead, and Zero vanished into the underbrush. I was somewhat surprised to find that my trusty Glock, mehitabel, in my hand. Wulfgar had his broadsword in one hand and his Automag in the other. Lady Eboshi's mini-sniper's carbine materialized in her hand, and when I checked behind me, I saw that Phan and Branagh were likewise ready for trouble.
Zero re-appeared, holding at arms' length, a slender hairy-faced man clad in a dirty-white robe with name "Red Roof Inn" monogrammed upon the hem, who had twigs and leaves matted into his hair.
"Put me down, miscreant, or you shall incur the wrath of Hierophant Druid Lord Throwing Muses!!!"
"And who" Zero queried, a bemused expression on his face. "Is ‘Hierophant Druid Lord Throwing Muses'?"
"I am he, and he is ME!!!" Shouted the eccentric figure, "and I shall call upon my forest minions to shower you with destruction most foul, even unto the very trees themselves! The Larch, the Pine, the Mighty Redwood-!"
"There are no redwoods upon this coast" Zero observed mildly.
"There SHALL be!" the robed man declared, attempting to pummel Zero unsuccessfully.
"Wha' hae ye brought us, Lad? Be it flesh, fish, or fowl?"
"Whatever it is, Brother, it is loud. And mad."
"I'd be loud an' mad, too, Lad, were summone tae be holdin' me up thataway.
Zero opened his mouth to reply when twin chaos struck us-or rather, struck Zero. Two slender figures, as delicate as dryads, sprang from the bushes, wielding club-like lengths of tree-limb, swinging ferociously at the younger Wulfgar sib.
One girl was dressed in what appears to be the staple Goth Girl costume, complete with black Doc Martens, black lipstick, black nail-polish, and "occult" jewelry, while the other wore a simple buckskin tunic and a rabbit-fur vest and battered Keds. Both had light brown hair.
"You let our brother go!" they shouted in unison, striking for Zero's midsection. He grunted in pain as he dropped and lost his grip on the "Hierophant Druid Lord", but he came up with both girls by the scruffs of their necks, holding them away from his body Throwing_Muses recovered quicly and kicked Zero in the shins, all the while calling upon the "spirits of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water" to "smite this Mortal Unbeliever".
By this point, Wulfgar was flat upon his back, laughing mightily and clutching at his stomach, as Zero made sounds that were suspiciously like "Owie-owie-owie".
"Och, make it stop, make it
STOPhohoheeheehahaa-hahahhaahahaha..."
A sharp female voice cut through the laughter-"Alpan, Hazel-Rah, Throwing_Muses, knock that shit off!"
All heads turned to face an attractive young blonde woman, dressed in worn bluejeans, red flannel shirt, with a blue bandanna tied around her hair. There was a smudge of what appeared to be potting soil to the left of her shapely nose. I also noted that she carried a well-used Winchester rifle in her hands...
(To be continued)
Post a response to this discussion thread