Northeast: Chapter 1 [Second Draft]

Chapter 1

Hint of Adventure

I was running from something, somebody.

“Ha!” the figure behind me shouted. His deep voice sounded amused. “You cannot defeat me! I am Arkantos! Last Born son of Adrian III! The Final Son of the Modern Age,” he announced. “And you dare defy me?”

I turned around and suddenly I was on a horse, charging the horrible beast. I held a revolver, gleaming silver. It felt perfectly balanced, the handle fitting my hand like it was made for my hands only--but I was hardly focused on that. My focus was on the man before me.

Arkantos towered three feet over my six. His head was a skull. His eyes? Green floating, glowing spheres in black holes. The skin that clung so tightly to his bones--and that’s literally all there was--was so pale it was almost blue, or grey. He was holding a bone broadsword, wearing hide and bone armor, covered by a cloak made of. . . Was that white tiger skin?

“What is that?” I stuttered, terrified of the monster before me.

He simply flashed a ghostly smile and raised his hand.

“Eliot Anderton. . . You’ve given me trouble. But don’t worry. You’ll suffer enough in the afterlife!”

A ball of flame looking similar to the green orbs in Arkantos’s eyes appeared in the center of his hand.

He threw it at me.

I woke with a start, falling off my bed, tangled in my covers. I was sweating hard, though it was cool in my room.

“Eliot?” someone called. For a moment I thought it was Arkantos. Then I realized it was my father, Wester.

I began to disentangle myself from my bedsheets.

“I-I’m fine,” I called. “Just had a rough wake-up.”

“Then get down here before you miss breakfast!”

I hurried to do as he ordered, shoving on a pair of simple brown cotton trousers with a cotton button-up that had probably been white at some point.

I jammed my feet into my work boots, the soft leather familiar on my cold toes.

My father, Wester, was buttoning up the coat to his black constable’s uniform.

My father’s mother was facing Northwest when she gave birth to him--making him a Northwest.

He was a tall, strong man. Most of the ladies found him handsome, too. Very handsome.

He had brown hair, a shade or two lighter than mine, and deep, sparkling sapphire eyes--which I inherited from him, along with his strong chin and chiseled jaw.

It was a little odd that he, being a variation of North, decided to settle down in one general location--Norths and their variations enjoying adventure and all that--but I guess constables got a lot of action at Impass.

Then again, he may be staying home because he’s part West, them hopeless romantic types.

Not the point.

“Halt!” A constable in the same uniform as my father ran past our window, nightstick in hand. He was presumably chasing some pickpocket.

“And that’s my cue,” Wester said, belting on his gun holster and bursting out the door to assist his comrade.

My mother, Dayse, sighed. “And he didn’t even finish his coffee.”

Dayse, being a Southwest, was a hopeless romantic. And beautiful, like every West variation.

But there was a drawback.

Wester always had to hide his whiskey, less Dayse drink it all before he could say, “HALT!”

Thank whatever divine nature there is that Souths and their variations can’t get intoxicated. We’d be in trouble then.

“You’re riding with Jon today, right?” Dayse asked with a smile.

I swallowed my mouthful of cornbread. “Yes siree.”

“Eliot! You ain’t stuck in molasses, are ya?” a boy called from outside.

“That’s ‘im,” I said, standing. I looked out the window.

A tall young man with dark brown hair was waving a grey bowler hat outside our front door. He placed a hand through one suspender.

Jon Papenbrook.

“Beat ya to the stables!” He turned and ran.

“That ain’t fair, now! North trash, you know I’m a West! I’ve got looks and that’s it!” I laughed, shoving an apple in my pocket. I slammed my hat on and ran out the door after him.

“Hold it, I just remembered,” Jon said, slowing down.

“What?” I asked, running up beside him.

“Blackjack’s with the doc,” he said. “Ain’t in the stables. I’ll come and getcha by the old saloon.”

“If you say so,” I said, walking into the stables.

“Hey, Blitz,” I said softly, stroking my horse’s thick black mane.

Blitz was my beautiful red-bay horse--a clydesdale and thoroughbred mix. The man who gifted him to me when I was four said this horse would work like magic and ran like the wind.

Boy, can he run. He can run for a long time, too. Stick ‘im at a full gallop for three hours--not that I’ve done it before or anything--and he won’t break a sweat.

Well, he will, but his heart won’t pop.

Blitz nuzzled me with a nose like velvet.

I smiled, rubbing his nose. He sniffed around my pocket.

“Always after the apples I bring, aren’tcha?” I laughed, handing him the apple. Blitz opened his large mouth over my hand and--tenderly--took the delicious red apple from my hand.

In return, he left a large amount of horse slobber.

I took Blitz to the saloon, and I waited.

An hour turned to two. Then three. I decided to exercise Blitz without the company of Jon and Blackjack.

He wasn’t there when I got home that afternoon, either.

“Ya have a good time?” Dayse inquired.

“Jon didn’t come back,” I said flatly, taking off my hat.

“Well, I trust you took care a that horse o’ yours?” she asked, putting away a freshly dried dish.

“Ma, when have I ever neglected that horse?"

“You care too much about that horse to let the stable go bad,” she said.

“Comes with the territory.” I grabbed my rifle. “I’m huntin’ for dinner.” I put my hat back on, and left.

No word had come from Jon by dinner.

Nor the next day.

Or the next.

After three days with no word, I went to Jon’s home.

I rapped loudly on the door. “Anyone in?” I shouted.

Jessie Papenbrook, Jon’s father, opened the door.

It seemed he hadn’t shaved for several days. There was a half-burned cigar hanging from his lip. The first couple buttons on his shirt were undone.

His breath smelled of booze.

Jon’s father wasn’t a South, or any of its variations. He was an East.

Jessie took pleasure in his work. Sure, I’d seen him missing an eyebrow or with a smoldering shirt, but he’d never been disheveled like this. He looked as though he had trashed himself.

I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach as I spoke to Jessie.

“Jon didn’t come back, did he?”

“. . . No.”