Whooo! Finally typed it all up. This is quite a long chapter, it is 7 pages exact on Word in 10pt font, I even broke up the chapter. So here it is for all of you to enjoy. All crits and comments welcome. Rated R for language and minor drug use.
EL
III. Cabin in the Canyon or (What you shouldn't read while stoned)
Kyle lay on his back contemplating the tangerine flame of his Zippo flicker in the darkness of his room. The silver dragon on the case glinted angrily in the shadows. He danced his fingers around it wondering what would happen if he just stuck them in, wondering if the pain felt any better than a knife, if the smell of burning flesh was better than the tangy taste of blood.
A knock on his basement window broke his concentration and the silver lighter flew upwards from his hands, click shut and fell through the dark, a shift of shadow, a shimmering knife.
“Fuck!” Kyle caught it and scrambled to see who was tapping, flipping on his bedside lamp on the way.
Rising to stand on top of his dresser, he popped open the small, rectangular window.
An indistinct figure sauntered into view.
“Get some clothes on dude, prison is for losers.”
Jake’s smile shimmered mischievously in the darkness.
Kyle cracked a smile before jumping off the dresser and fractically searching for clothes.
After a few minutes Jake was back at the window, “What’s takin so long princess?”
With his black Zim sweatshirt jerked half-way over his head he tried to articulate his frustration through the material; what came out was a muffled assortment of goobledegook.
“What?” Jake called impatiently.
“Can’t-find-socks.” Each word was punctuated by sharp puffs.
“Fuck ‘em.”
“But I…”
Kyle reached for a pair of ratty converse hoping that he had stuffed a pair of socks in them. No they were empty. Kyle silently cursed, as he slipped them on.
Reaching for the slight overhang under the window, shoes untied Kyle pulled himself up on the dresser.
“There you are dude. Come on, lets went, and don’t forget the bag.”
Kyle grabbed the backpack at his feet, and squirmed fish-like through the window.
*
“You know I think I ripped my pants.”
Kyle and Jake were walking the accustomed path, down the side of the state highway towards Coyote Canyon.
Jake shrugged his shoulders in the half-light.
“They’re jeans man. Count it as an addition to your hipness.”
“Oh thanks, they’re new too.”
“Don’t freak out man. Come on, that is so un-dude like.”
“Ergg-“ was Kyle’s distracted reply at the state of his pants.
“Cry me a river then build a bridge and get over it.”
Kyle just kept muttering to himself.
The two boys nimbly cut across the highway before the train tracks and continued deep into hill country.
Coyote Canyon as it was called was really nothing more than a deep ravine at the bottom was what used to be a river bed. It was sparsely wooded, but it was quiet, and despite the name there were no Coyotes. The boys had seen squirrels, rabbits, and deer and the odd stray but nothing more than that. But the prize of Coyote Canyon is the small, rundown cabin and it’s dry water well. They boys had claimed it many years ago for themselves, a sanctuary from every day teenager days.
Kyle followed Jake as they crept down the ravine face and into the cabin, wary of precarious steps and holey roof.
“Ooof,” Jake exclaimed as he flopped down onto the moth eaten couch, “It’s good to be back.”
“Here, here.” Kyle raised his hand in mock salute.
Taking his usual space in the large window frame, he balanced his backpack on his thighs.
Jake was busily digging deep within the pockets of his cargos. He produced two bottles of a yellow lemon shaded liquid, silver and black labels threatened to peel off the rounded glass sides.
“Catch.” Jake threw one to Kyle who caught it deftly.
Kyle spun the bottle in his hands, ‘Mike’s Hard Lemonade’ stood out on the cracking label.
The sound of the twist off cap popping caught his attention, he turned to Jake just as he was taking a swig.
“Where’d you get them?”
Kyle fiddled with the cap of his.
“Dad, there was a twelve pack in the back freezer, doubt he’ll miss them though.”
“Yeah,” Kyle let the tangy burning drink pierce at his lips as he brought the bottle to his lips.
“So, have you got them?” Jake gave him an expectant look.
Kyle flashed a smile.
*
“Did you know Grima Wormtongue reminds me a lot of Miss Halloway?” Jake looked up from his tattered copy of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and took another drag from the joint he was smoking, blowing the smoke towards Kyle.
Kyle didn’t miss a bit.
“And I’m massively gay. Come on man are you really that stoned?”
Kyle peered up, Jake had a very dopey look up on his face, he was holding the joint up in front of his face, he appeared very confused.
“I don’t know.”
Kyle set his on the edge near his curling foot, and put his book down.
“Lightweight.”
“Shirt lifter,” there was friendly challenge in Jake’s eyes, but he dropped it, “So what’s got you so interested?”
“Oh, nothing I’m just trying to decipher the inner depths of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and whether in its complexity it’s better to be analyzed as a racial or progressive text.”
“Fuck me, I have no idea what the fuck you just said.”
Kyle ignored the outburst and went back to his joint and the book; not that he was going to tell Jake that he had been on the same page for the last hour, his inner monologue kept interrupting.
“Do you ever do anything easy?”
“Nope.”
“Fuck I’m stoned.” He barely heard Jake mumble.
Maybe Lord of the Rings wasn’t the best book to read while stoned, but then again he supposed through his tinted lethargic haze Heart of Darkness wasn’t either.
*
“Hey man was that you?”
Kyle looked up, it had been relatively quite for awhile now, “no.”
“Oh.”
Kyle went back to his book, but didn’t get very far before –
“I’m hungry.”
“Okay,” Kyle took another puff of the cigarette he had exchanged for the joint earlier. He wasn’t one to waste good pot.
He had even given up on Heart of Darkness, now he was a chapter into Catcher in the Rye.
“I’m hungry.”
Kyle heaved a sigh, this was one of the things he really, really disliked about lighting it up with Jake; Jake was a lightweight. He got rather annoying after awhile, that was if Kyle wasn’t under the influence as well. He had thought more than once that you had to be in the same mind frame as your compatriots that being sober when they weren’t took all the fun out of it.
“So get some food.”
“Don’t have any.”
“Fine,” Kyle rested his book and cigarette on the ledge and reached for his bag, fishing out a packet of Peanut M&M’s.
He chucked them at Jake.
The impact of the bag hitting the side of Jake’s head made a loud swoosh.
“Ow,” Jake announced before abandoning everything for the candy.
Kyle was almost done with the chapter; when Jake invaded his thoughts his thoughts again.
“Was that you?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
Kyle ignored and switched subjects. “What if I changed my name to Holden?”
“I’d disown you.” Was Jake’s flat reply.
A deflated sink hit his stomach. Kyle turned to see if he was telling the truth, but there was laughter in his eyes, and a tug at the edge of his mouth.
“Really.”
“Yes,” but Jake was losing composure and soon he broke into a wide grin.
“What’s so funny?”
That did it Jake was laughing now, Kyle thought he heard a nothing break through the laughter.
There was a crunch, like that of the death knell of a murdered twig.
Kyle shot a look at Jake, who had stopped laughing, a most serious look on his face.
“It’s probably just a bunny.”
“More like the Killer Rabbit.”
Kyle laughed at that.
But then the sound of voices approached their ears.
“Shit.”
Like deers in headlights they froze as the sound of the voices advanced on them.
Kyle spoke up, “Probably just people out for a week.”
But they had never encountered hikers or jogger in the canyon before.
The voices were bickering now, Kyle heard the vague words like ‘boys’ and ‘catch him’. Jake must have heard them as well.
“Shit.”
There was frenzy then, they frantically put out there smokes, tried to hide the bottles, hoping it wasn’t the cops.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit!” Jake was voiced exactly how Kyle felt.
“Cops?” There was fear in Jake’s voice now.
Pausing to douse the latern Kyle motioned to crouch low next to him in the corner.
The line of sight was disrupted by the couch. Kyle clutched his bag to his chest.
Shit.
If they were caught, which was most likely to happen, they were in for the big time.
Shit.
A cold sweat broke over Kyle, and his body threatened to betray them by running.
The footfalls encroached ominously, and pounded against the deck and their voices quieted as they reached the door.
Kyle jumped slightly when Jake rested his hand on his shoulder. He looked at his friend, who looked as scared-shitless as he felt.
The door creaked open and swayed on it hinges. Shadows slinked into the doorway.
A deep voice broke the silence, “Light.”
A torch appeared out of the darkness, Kyle’s breath hitched as the sight.
Oh gods, I’m going insane. Lock me up in a white coat, doctor.
In the doorway stood a menacing man and two brutes, looking straight out of Age of Empires or every medieval movie ever made. The torch they carried was no more than a burning branch.
Fuck me, I’m stoned.
The man with the torch stalked forward, his boots clunking against the floor, his chain mesh jangling and clanging.
One of the brutes spoke.
“Milord, maybe he is not here.”
The man just snarled back. Clammy, hair-razing fingers of fear travelled up Kyle’s spine.
“Oh he is here. I can smell him.”
Kyle tried to clamp down on the fear that was tying his stomach in knots and crouched lower trying to make his body as small as possible.
With encroaching ease the boots thudded closer. Kyle huddled, his knees under his chin, clutching his bag, he glanced at Jake who was wide-eyed.
Kyle closed his eyes and took in a breath, hoping that this was all in his pot induced imagination. When he opened them, two sharp unfamiliar eyes stared back.
Kyle, in a moment of frenzy tried to back up farther into the wall.
The man spoke again, shining the torch at Kyle, momentarily blinding him.
“Just as I expected.”
Kyle had not a chance to think or move, before a harsh hand seized the back of his collar and hauled him from his hiding place. The man towered over him. Jake soon shared the same fate.
“What kind of joke is this? Who put you up to this? Who are you?” Jake spat, some of his bravado coming from the drugs.
A large, bony hand swept into view and crashed into the side of Jakes head sending him reeling to the ground.
“Gag him and follow.” Bellowed the man with the torch.
The man reached for Kyle who flinched at the proximity, and lugged him to his feet.
Kyle’s mind was muddle by the encountered and the strange men. As Jake and he were abducted out of the cabin and dragged into the cabin, Kyle struggled out of the iron grip of the man, but no sooner had he done that, that he was broadsided and back in the custody of the man.
Who were these guys dressed as Medieval Knights, soldiers? - Most likely a crazed cult.
Kyle couldn’t think of anyone who would play such an elaborate prank like this on him and Jake.
As they entered the far end of Coyote Canyon, a fire flickered into sight. Kyle couldn’t make out faces of features but he made out five or six silhouettes.
Kyle tried and failed to regain his balance, and he was thrust forward, to the edge of the fire. He roused to his knees frantically, searching for something to defend himself with.
Damn, I left my knife in the bag.
Jake was soon next, flung to the ground but one of the brute kept a hand on him still. Kyle caught Jake’s frightened, confused stare.
Kyle was just about to ask who they were, gathering what was left of his courage, when the man returned and snatched Kyle’s wrist, stretching his arm out palm up, the pale underside of his arm, glinting in the firelight. Another figure approached.
“Are you sure? We have come so far, to get the wrong boy…” A craggily voice spoke.
“Just get on with it Talgik.”
Kyle blinked twice before his brain registered that no, it wasn’t a trick of the light.
The man that hobbled closer was lofty, but his head was bent as if a lifetime of ducking under doors had paid its toll. On his shaggy greying head was a wide, brimmed pointy had, an awful shade of purple. His violet shabby robes, were mage-like, but patched in all different shades of purple from periwinkle to indigo. Or in the dancing light that was what appeared.
“Fuck a duck, its Merlin.” Kyle muttered before he could stop himself.
“What was that boy?” Talgik spoke.
Kyle shook his head, aware that the man, Milord-something-something still held his hand in his scratchy, pressuring grasp. Talgik dug out something from his robes, and Kyle thought he saw a pierce maniacal glint in his eyes. Milord-something-something brandished a knife, which shined in the shadows, in one swift movement he cut diagonal across Kyle’s palm.
Kyle gritted his teeth against the mass feeling of stinging pain that attacked his brain. He could smell the tangy tint of blood in the air, felt the sticky wet globs settle in the dip in his palm.
Talgik then took his palm, and shoved into the bowl he had mysteriously produced.
Kyle felt pebble like things, maybe bone fragments at the bottom. Talgik then released Kyle’s hand; Kyle jerked it back to his chest, curling in close. Talgik tossed the contents of the bowl like a salad, and then dumped the contents at his feet.
Then the mage-man bent over the bloodied fragments, mumbling erratically under his breath. Kyle was trying to stop the bleeding.
“Hmm…yes…yes…yes…yes…he is the one.” Talgik announced.
What…I am the one? Sounds like a rip-off of Star Wars, next thing Milord-something-something will be saying that he’s my father.
Seeing that both men were preoccupied with the bones, Kyle reached for one of the pieces of wood jutting out of the fire. Wrapping his hand around the end, he swung it at them. In the air coming in contact with Milord-something-something’s arm braces it shattered into a myriad of tiny little pieces of floating embers. Kyle felt more than saw the brutal slicing kick that caught him in the chest, and the man’s hand suffocating him, plying him prostrate in the dirt. The man’s hostile voice raged in his ear.
“Don’t try anything.”
The man lifted him slightly by the scruff, so that he could see a petrified, albeit still confused Jake, and the sword point pressed to his throat.
Oh gods.
“Milord,” the man holding Jake addressed the man, “What about him?”
Milord-something-something stood bringing Kyle with him.
“He is of no use to us, truss him up. We have what we came for.”
“No!” Kyle shoved against the man frantically, trying to help Jake as the brute carried him off.
The last thing Kyle felt before the darkness claimed the whole of him, was the crack on a blade hilt against his skull.
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