The Forgotten Eden (30 page)

“
We all reflected silently on this. Given the implied nature of the information we’d just exchanged, whatever caused the strange glow in the woods had done so more than once, maybe even several times throughout the night. Its source might’ve moved the sphere in the backyard while we slept, or while we conversed in the living room as we watched the baseball game, completely unaware something lurked outside in the backyard. Perhaps it crept up to the house and watched us sitting in the living room through cracks in the curtains, or spied on Jeremy and myself as we stared at its strange glow through the back windows, knowing what it planned for me the next day. I shuddered while Jeremy shrugged his shoulders again.

“
Grandpa came back over and stood behind the recliner. He continued to smoke his pipe, leaning on the back of the chair as he eyed me. My brother and I watched him, expecting him to say something profound. He waited awhile longer as if sorting his thoughts one last time.

“‘
I believe your story, Jack, and I believe it in its entirety,’ he said, coming around to the front of the chair where he sat down. ‘This isn’t the first time in my life that I’ve encountered the golden object you brought in here yesterday, as I’m sure you both could tell based on my reaction last night. But, it was the first time I recognized its importance right away, for it’s an evil thing. I wish I’d realized that twelve years ago, and if I’d understood its significance when I first saw one of these things as a child, I might’ve learned what to do with it later. Maybe what’s happened since could’ve been avoided.’

“
He looked really sad, and then turned away from us. When he faced us again, tears welled in his eyes like the previous evening. He wiped them with his shirtsleeve and looked at his watch. My story had taken nearly an hour and a half and it was almost ten o’clock.

“‘
It’s getting late, boys, and I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day,” he said. ‘I have a story of my own to tell that should shed some light on Jack’s story. But it can wait until tomorrow. I want to take a look at the area you went to today, Jack. To see where everything happened, I think, would benefit us all.’

“
I cringed, never wanting to see that goddamned place again.

“‘
Jack’ he said, softly. ‘Don’t be afraid. I think you’ll find the area will look nothing like it did today. The ‘City of Gold’ you visited appears to folks only every so often. In fact, every time it’s been sighted in my lifetime, it’s vanished before it could be verified and investigated. It disappears so quickly that no one has even been able to photograph the place. You’ll see. By the time we get there tomorrow, it’ll all be long gone.’

“
Of course, I’d already seen the area’s transformation after I crossed the river. What about the fire still burning in the woods? Seemingly under control, who could say it’d remain that way? Moreover, Vydora might still on the loose out there somewhere, perhaps waiting for my return to the river.

“
My silent worries threatened to escalate when the doorbell rang.

“‘
Who on earth could that be at this hour?’ wondered Grandpa. He walked over to the front door and turned on the porch light, peering through the peephole. Carl Peterson and Sheriff Joe McCracken stood on the front porch, squinting in the light’s brightness.

“‘
Good evening, Marshall,’ said Carl, once Grandpa opened the door for him. ‘Sorry to bother ya’ll at this late hour, but we saw the living room lights on and figured someone was still up.’

“
He looked genuinely pained to disturb us, but something in his eyes said it was real important to do so. Grandpa and Carl had been close friends since grade school, even though Grandpa was nearly four years older. As kids, he never minded Carl tagging along and their friendship grew from there. The best man at Grandpa and Grandma’s wedding many years ago, he was present when my grandfather retired as manager of the local saw mill when I was ten. Also, one of the few friends that remained true once the bullshit started about my parents’ sudden disappearance.

“‘
Come on in.’

“
Grandpa stepped aside to allow them entry into our home. Carl was quite a bit heavier than my grandfather, with thinning gray hair and pale blue eyes that stood out from his flushed complexion. Sheriff McCracken, on the other hand, was a thin, deeply tanned man in his mid-forties, with dark brown eyes and brown hair revealing slight touches of gray along his sideburns and moustache. Though Grandpa didn’t know him well, he seemed to respect him.

“‘
Well, hello, boys!’ said Carl, smiling as he extended a meaty hand out for both of us to shake. We remained seated on the sofa. ‘I don’t believe either of you’ve met Joe McCracken.’

“‘
Pleased to meet you both,’ offered the sheriff, who extended his hand for us to shake as well.

“‘
So, what’s the latest on the fire, Carl? It’s still under control, ain’t it?’ Grandpa asked.

“‘
Yeah, it’s definitely under control,’ Carl sighed. ‘There’s not even a glowing ember remaining from it anywhere, and we’ve covered the area twice thoroughly. Nothing’s left but smoke and blackened trees. It’s by far the strangest fire I’ve ever been involved with. Almost like it started dying on its own once we got here.

“‘
All I know is we encountered a few problems getting water flow from two of our trucks to work right, meaning we were operating at maybe forty-percent capacity. It turned out we didn’t even need that much. The flames died immediately once the water hit from our few working hoses. I ain’t ever seen anything like it—
never
in the forty-six years I’ve been doing this for a living….’

“
Carl paused, turning toward Sheriff McCracken. After the sheriff gave him a slight nod, he turned his attention back to my grandfather.

“‘
That’s not why we’re here, though, Marshall. At least not the main reason we stopped by.’

“
Grandpa appeared perplexed, though Jeremy and I could tell he wasn’t.

“‘
Oh? What’s up, Carl?’

“‘
Well, we’d like to ask Jack a few questions, if that’s all right with you.’

“
Grandpa hesitated long enough to gauge my reaction. He could tell I’d be fine with it, so he gave his okay. Sheriff McCracken took over at this point, and Grandpa offered him a seat in his favorite chair. He moved the recliner closer to me and sat down, removing a small notebook and pen from his shirt pocket. He leaned in toward me, lightly tapping his pen on the notebook. Carl moved over and joined Grandpa behind him, looking on from either side.

“‘
Jack, you’re not in any trouble,’ Joe told me. ‘So, let me start out by assuring you of that. What I’ve come to find out is this: were you anywhere near Ben Johnson’s place this afternoon? If the answer’s ‘yes’, did you see anything unusual?’

“‘
I walked by there with Banjo somewhere around six-thirty this evening,’ I replied, determined to stick with the basic facts. No need for crazy tales about running for my life to escape an angry fire-breathing dragon at this point.

“‘
Well, you see, Pete Aderley confirmed he saw you and a billy goat about that time,’ stated the sheriff. ‘You know Pete, don’t you? He owns the feed lot that sits next to the Johnson’s farm, just south of their farmhouse and silo, up near the road.’

“
He paused to allow me a moment to confirm I knew Mr. Aderley, which I did.

“‘
He noticed you were on your way to the front door of the farmhouse,’ explained Joe. ‘A few minutes later when he looked again, you had moved over by the barn. This time, he watched you long enough to see you head toward the woods.

“‘
Pete went back to unloading feed from his truck into the storage bins in the small warehouse on his lot. About fifteen minutes after he saw you leave the Johnson’s farm, he heard a tremendous racket going on next door, along with what he thought at the time was a small earthquake. Strong enough to knock a few bags of feed off the truck, he got pinned underneath. He laid there terrified from what we gather, listening to all the commotion and unable to crawl out to safety.

“‘
Now, here’s where it gets pretty weird, and where we could sure use your help, son,’ he said. ‘We need to know if you saw or heard anything, no matter how strange or crazy it might seem…. Pete swears he heard some god-awful roar, like from one of those dinosaur-action movies. Excuse me for saying so, but whatever he heard scared the holy hell out of him. I mean, it scared him so bad he literally
pissed his pants
!
You know something pretty bad had to happen to scare a man enough to make him do something as embarrassing as that.

“‘
Right after he heard the roar, everything went completely quiet. Pete said it was like whatever made the noise stopped right in the middle of making it again, like hitting the mute button on a remote control.’

“
He stopped to look around and make sure we were still with him so far. To his surprise, I imagine, Jeremy, Grandpa, and I were all straight-faced, fully attentive to what he told us. He smiled shyly.

“‘
I’m about to get to the point of this, and appreciate your patience,’ he said. ‘Pete’s son, Sam, arrived about thirty minutes later to check on his daddy, quite alarmed to find him hollering beneath the feed sacks. Sam uncovered him and got him cleaned up. Pete’s all right, by the way. No broken bones—just a bruised ego, I guess you’d say!’

“
He chuckled and we all politely snickered.

“‘
Anyway, Sam and Pete walked over to the Johnson’s farm, to investigate the commotion. They found out, as you must’ve earlier, that they weren’t home—and thank the Good Lord for it! The Johnson’s farmhouse has been destroyed. I mean
entirely
annihilated! There’s huge holes throughout the main floor, and everything inside has been either crushed or ripped apart. Even the barn closest to the house, the one you went to, got ransacked. One side of it’s completely burned away, though the fire didn’t spread for some reason. Sort of like what happened in the woods…. Carl here thinks whoever or whatever is responsible for all of this might’ve gotten spooked and ran off.’

“
The sheriff looked down at his feet, fidgeting with his pen and notepad. The room grew very quiet until he couldn’t stand waiting for some kind of response from me.

“‘
So, Jack’ he said, steadily lifting his gaze. ‘Did you see or hear
anything
weird or
unusual this afternoon?’

“
I considered his question and the best way to answer it. It truly surprised me to learn Pete Aderley could see me, and yet Grandpa and Jeremy couldn’t until after I returned to our backyard. Yeah, I knew what’d happened. Vydora finally escaped from the woods and followed my trail, destroying everything in her path until she was somehow erased from this reality with Genovene. I wasn’t about to tell him this.

“
I looked over at Grandpa, who seemed to sense my dilemma. Ready to say I hadn’t seen or heard anything, he spoke for me.

“‘
Jack told us tonight he saw a huge lizard-like critter that might’ve started the fire in the woods,’ he said, perhaps figuring a slight revelation was the best route to take. I hoped it’d keep me from having to run through the entire story again.

“‘
Is that true, son?’

“
Joe leaned closer to me, his expression serious. I nodded ‘yes’, and he turned his attention back to Carl.

“‘
Show him, Carl. Go ahead and show him what we found in the farmhouse rubble.’

“
Carl walked over and held out a large envelope he’d kept under his arm.

“‘
We found this, Jack,’ the sheriff said, and proceeded to open the envelope. He pulled out the same reptilian scale sitting here now, carefully sealed in a plastic bag.

“
Jeremy’s eyes got really big. He moved closer to get a better look while I just sat there, unfazed, not at all shocked to see the small leftover from Vydora’s visit to the Johnson’s place. I even smiled a little, thinking it such a tiny part of the monster, perhaps no more to it than the dozens of hairs people cast off each day. Grandpa watched my reaction, as did Carl and Joe. Even his eyes lit up as he looked on.

“‘
We also found two enormous footprints in the mud around Ben’s tractor near the woods,’ said Carl. ‘The pictures of them should be developed tomorrow morning, to go along with a few Polaroids that didn’t turn out as well as we’d hoped. We’re setting plaster casts right now to save the footprints.’

“
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Meanwhile, Joe had more questions for me.

“‘
What did this ‘lizard-thing’ look like, Jack?’ he asked. “I mean, how big was it?’

“‘
V
ery
big. Enormous is a good way to describe it,’ I told him. ‘You’ll probably find this hard to believe, but it looked a lot like a
tyrannosaurus rex
except it had horns on its head.’

“
I hoped that description sufficed. Telling him the critter could also fly and blow long streams of fire, as we talked about earlier, seemed like such a bad idea.

“‘
So, you’re saying, what...it was forty to fifty feet tall and Godzilla-like?’

“
He cracked a wry smile. It disappeared when he saw my expression. How could my description be so hard to believe when he’d seen the evidence?

“‘
At least that big,’