Chapter One - "Project Drome"
.1.
Add thunder and lightning together, mix in some heavy rain and a dash of hail, and sprinkle generously with strong gusts of wind and you have your typical thunderstorm in the town of Bedlane.
A thunderstorm in Bedlane is like a day of sunshine in California or Florida. Two or three storms a month was not considered an uncommon event.
To the people of Bedlane, this was not a bad thing. In fact, if you were to ask, almost any of the townspeople would say they thought the storms to be quite—well, beautiful.
Winds whistling through the trees and houses as if the air itself were singing, complimented by brilliant flashes of light and rolling crescendos of thunder for the finale. And all this orchestrated and kept in beat by the steady pulse of rainfall.
It is nature’s symphony, the theatre of life, the elements putting on a show to dazzle, charm, and enchant that these people thought much better than anything man could create. Better than a rock concert, more entertaining than the movies. Powerful. Beautiful. Real. Wet.
Then, finally, at the end, the calm, the stillness. A new, clear, refreshed picture of the world arises out of the old. As if someone took a rag and wiped the dirt off the world’s windshield.
But this particular thunderstorm was different. There was something relentless about it, something menacing even. And it wasn’t just the storm itself, it was also in the town and the surrounding forest like a dark veil had been dropped over the entire area. Something bad was coming to Bedlane, maybe was already here, and this storm was just the trumpet call, announcing its arrival.
.2.
"A storm! A lousy, stinkin' storm! Through rain, wind, and lightning. Damn, I feel like a lousy mailman. Why couldn't we have been sent to Hawaii or the Caribbean for a change? And why do we always have to fly? Why can't we just appear like the other demons get to? Always with the long route. And always with the crap assignments, huh, Siva? See, that's why we keep on failing," said Ralph as they sailed transparently through the dark and thundering sky over the earth to their target destination.
Stanley (known as Siva in the world of demons) turned on him viciously. Behind his cutting eyes, Ralph could see the same determined, menacing, and deeply evil look that he had seen in them earlier, just before they left for this assignment, and it still made him shudder. He wasn't looking at his friend, Stanley, anymore. He was looking at Siva, the demon. Yet, he knew that—to succeed as a true demon—he had to acquire that same menacing look, embody it. Ralph (a.k.a, Mahadeva in the demon world) concentrated and slowly transformed his expression – brow furrowed, fangs barred, eyes burning. He also passed a little gas, too. Concentrating was hard work for a rookie demon like Ralph.
Stanley nodded his approval – not of the gas, but of the expression. He just hoped his partner’s actions would match the evil look he had managed to conjure.
A blinding flash of lightning pierced the air. For once, Ralph was thankful that he was already dead. The lightning passed through him yet he felt no sensation at all. (And he wasn’t anxious to know what it would have really felt like. He'd had enough pain after his death already). Though he was starting to feel more and more like Mahadeva, letting the demon in him truly come out, Ralph couldn’t help but harbor a nagging little feeling in the back of his mind that he was sure to eventually feel a lot more pain. Yes, a lot more.
So what was the use, anyway? Why were he and his friend pretending, even attempting, to be something they were not? Jolly ol’ Ralph a demon? Yeah, right. When Hell freezes over—which wasn’t a bad idea.
As quickly as those thoughts came, he shook them away. Thoughts like that were what made them—him—fail in the past. “I am Mahadeva,” he whispered to himself.
"Come on, Mahadeva," said Stanley. "There's our quarry." He pointed down.
Ralph looked down and could just barely make out the lights of a small town. It was hard to see through the darkness and the heavy rain. Ralph sighed. "Okay, Siva. Whose soul are we supposed to recruit this time?"
Still looking and pointing down, Stanley's eyes seemed to fill with light—a light brighter and more intense than even the lightning, yet it was an unnatural light, not artificial, just not like anything in existence on this physical level. "A young man," answered Stanley but sounding like Siva. "Our report seems to indicate he's been quite a problem for our side."
"Figures," said Ralph.
"Don't worry, Mahadeva. This time, we will not fail. In fact, I look forward to the challenge. We'll crack this nut.”
"Nuts. I miss nuts," said Ralph. “Remember in our bar we had those cans of Planter’s Mixed Nuts we put out. When no one was looking, I’d pick out the acorns, at least, I think they were acorns. Oh, but they were good. Remember...”
Stanley grabbed Ralph by one of his horns and giving his head a quick but violent shake like it was a baby rattle, dragging him down as they started their descent. Ralph groaned. If he had a human body, he knew it would be trembling. For some reason, as they shot down towards the earth, the song, Riders on the Storm, by the Doors, went through his head. It had been a song on the jukebox in the bar they had owned when they had been human – what seemed like a million years ago. Those darn baby boomers who had sunk most of their money on some dot.com scheme and were now down on their luck used to come to their bar, Ralph remembered, and liked to play that song as they sucked down their suds. He missed those whiny boomers. He missed a lot of things about being human.
“Riders on the storm, da-da-dadada-da,” Ralph started singing.
Another yank on his horn from Stanley.
“Ow, stop it. I’m with ya. I’m focused. I am, ah, Mahadeva.”
Then Ralph shook his head – without Stanley’s help – focusing on the task at hand. He had to concentrate this time. Or else.
"What's his name?" Ralph croaked as they continued hurtling downward toward the earth.
"Drome."
.3.
Catching the thick raindrops with a smile, Drome sloshed through the water-soaked ground of the Bedlane forest, his rubber boots sucking in and out of the mud as he walked. Besides his boots, all he was wearing was his trusty, non-water proof weather beaten fisherman’s hat, a pair of patched jeans and a short sleeved T-shirt with the picture of a cow sitting on a dinner plate and a caption under it reading, "Meat is Murder," — all of which were thoroughly soaked.
Drome didn't mind. He loved the rain. Gave him a feeling of being at one with nature. He was one of the more adamant of the townspeople who believed a good thunderstorm was God's way of entertaining you. While most of the townsfolk chose to enjoy the typical Bedlane thunderstorm in the warmth, safety, and dryness of their homes, Drome liked to get right out in the thick of it, be a part of it, feeling the rain and wind against his body. The weather was fairly warm tonight. Drome was never one to get sick, anyway.
Yet, in this particular storm, Drome, felt that sense of something bad in the air (actually, the word “evil” came to his mind first, seemed to fit better to him). He could smell it, like the kind of smell your nose tastes walking downwind past the town dump or when navigating through Bourbon Street in New Orleans in the morning with trash cans full to brim of half slurped daiquiris and the sidewalk covered with puke (plus the other half of the daiquiris). Decayed, rancid — just plain bad.
Drome was a most sensitive person and he was probably the first of the Bedlane folk to notice it. As he continued walking, the sensation became stronger and stronger, almost suffocating. He began to feel as if he was being watched. This was a feeling he’d had before, maybe five years ago – a long ago memory now pulled up fresh into his mind. He was well aware of the legend of the forest he was walking through and the strange stories it contained, as well as the recent murder of those two teenaged boys just a short while ago.
Poor kids, thought Drome.
But this was a different, or mixed, feeling he sensed of his being watched. One part, the largest part, felt very threatening but another part—completely separate from the other—despairing, scared...and hungry for nuts, especially acorns. It almost felt as if he was standing in a room crowded with people and everyone was staring at him.
Still, Drome wasn't afraid. He felt too good to be afraid. Then again, he always felt good. His smile never faded, it only grew wider. Just as some people walked around with permanent frowns, Drome walked around with a permanent smile. This was a guy with no worries. Some might call that blissful, still others in town thought the lad had a screw loose.
This storm was reaching an intensity that Drome had rarely seen in his life. And he had seen quite a few nasty ones. To be in a forest filled mostly with maples and Ichabod Crane oaks was not the safest of places to be during a thunder and lightning show. Duh. Drome knew that. He wasn’t worried though. Maybe he was touched in the head. He smiled at the thought.
Drome paused in his steps to take in the magnitude and sheer power of what he was seeing. Fingers of lightning crackled and sizzled across the sky like Liberace on the piano. Cannon cracks of thunder exploded every second like rapid-fire explosions. He watched as thick and stubborn trees, trees whose roots wound all through the town, were swayed and bent by the mighty winds. Some, the weaker, younger ones had even succumbed to the winds, left to die on the ground where they had fallen like inexperienced soldiers in battle. Drome himself felt his body being lifted at times as his boots slid through the mud. As the winds grew stronger the rain now began to sting like little pins and needles stabbing into the back of his neck and arms.
The most peculiar event, however, was the way the lightning seemed to be absorbed by the ground. Drome couldn't make it out completely for the thick rain pouring down blurred his vision. It seemed as if the ground drew the lightning down into mud absorbing it like a sponge. A bolt would strike the ground and melt once it hit. For just a half second, Drome could see white light, glowing and bright, spread along the ground like a pool of water and then be pulled straight into the earth leaving only the blue-red afterimage recorded by the retina of his eyes.
Before the image faded, another bolt of white, electric light was pulled into the ground not twenty feet from him. He felt a tingling, oozing sensation flow over his boots and start to go into his feet and legs. As quick as the feeling came, it left. He could feel the energy pull away from him as it continued its path into the pool of muddy earth.
Drome had heard of something like this happening once before in the town of Bedlane. He didn’t know much about the story except it happened back about a hundred years or so and was generally referred to by townsfolk as The Worst Day in Bedlane. The other thing he’d heard was that just before the “Day,” there had been a huge storm, one of the worst storms in Bedlane history. During it, a lot of people reported stories about the ground stealing lightning from the sky. It was described just as Drome now had witnessed it: pools of white light spreading out and being absorbed into the ground.
When he finally got to the old Clark house, Drome would have to tell the girls all about what he had just seen as well as about this...presence, that he felt. He knew Crystal would especially be interested. She was always excited when strange things happened. In Bedlane, she was excited quite often.
Drome's thoughts came to an abrupt end at that moment; however, because as he pulled his boots out of the sticky mud, a shearing, piercing bolt of pure white energy slammed smack into his body knocking him flat. A second before losing consciousness, he felt the lightning's energy pulse through every part of his body, then quickly pull away. The skeleton under his skin glowed momentarily like a glow-in-the-dark Halloween skeleton. At first, he saw nothing but white light. Then, movement. Faces.
His mind carried the afterimage of the actual faces of the...still, evil, was the only word that came to mind, that he had only felt earlier.
There was something very familiar these faces.
Then all went black.
.4.
Of course, this wasn’t the first time Drome had experienced a, shall we say—less than normal—accident.
posted by Christian Dude @ 10:57 AM
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