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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 33: Brown 293
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Takano 94
“Give us The Trumpet, now!” the swirling faces in the ground-hugging cloud demanded again, getting louder, more insistent. Derek prayed, and he got a sense.
Wait.
The fogs screamed again, louder, more insistent. Derek spoke.
“The way I see it, we have a standoff. I think they called it a Mexican standoff in this time. You kill Maurice, and you know I’m not giving you the trumpet, even if I have to verse out with it.”
“We will kill, kill, kill him.”
Vashti grabbed his arm, and he looked over at her. She gave him a supportive nod.
“Way I see it, if you kill Maurice, he goes to Heaven. You don’t like that, do you?”
“Jesus is my Redeemer,” Maurice gasped from the ground before the creature’s jaws tightened again on his throat, cutting off any more words in a gasp.
“Give, give, give, give, now, now, now, now!” the voices shrieked, each one trying to out-do the other in their loudness and the horror of their faces.
“Since we’re going to be here for a while, why don’t I play some music for us?” Derek prepped his trumpet, and began to play A Mighty Fortress is our God, and even as he played, and Vashti joined in, he remembered a story from the Spritish scriptures of how Nuhok, the Prophet, had been thrown into a pit after his wings were bound. His enemies had gathered about him, and began to toss down stones on him–but the King had intervened. He had put an invisible wall about Nuhok so that the stones had not hit the sprite. Enraged beyond reason, his enemies had cast down more rocks, even tearing down a nearby house for stones, and so Nuhok had climbed the rocks that had reached his feet until he was able to climb out of the pit. He had then ran off, and when the others flew after him the King sent a windstorm which had blown them off course.
Finishing the song, he asked, and the answer seemed to be ‘yes.’ so he spoke to Maurice.
“Come on, get up, and come over here. I need your help on this next song.”
Surprised, Maurice looked, and then chose to act on faith, and got up. The creature’s teeth flashed to rip his throat out, but hit a hard wall, and slid off. Startled, the creature leapt back, and with a relieved, tear-stained smile Maurice joined the other two. Then they began to play ‘Saints’.
The fogs blew back in part, and the night was dark but clear. However, the creature had placed itself between them and the door of the house. Clearly to its mind the confrontation was not over. Finishing the song, Maurice spoke.
“It’s a Grunch. They can suck all your organs out through a small hole, or they can punch with their fists or rip with their huge teeth.” He took a deep breath. “It probably lives nearby in some muck and mire in some nearby swamp.”
Mockingly, the Grunch cried again, sounding like a human child. Looking back to where it had fallen, Derek saw a dead rabbit, which must have supplied the blood to make the goat-thing look injured.
“Think you can shoot it?”
“I’ll try.” Maurice handed Vashti his trombone, and unlimbered the shotgun. Taking his time, he made the shot. The Grunch just stood, bent over on its too long front arms.
“Missed,” Maurice said. Derek was not sure. Maurice took another shot, and the creature just waited patiently for it. This one clearly hit, and did not a lick of damage. The Grunch bleated in a very sarcastic sounding way.
“Fine. Lets see how you like ultratech,” Derek said with a hard voice. He gave Vashti his trumpet. She was beginning to be burdened by instruments. He lined up the shot with his laser rifle, and the Grunch looked a bit nervous–but it stood. A flash of light illumined the night and hit the Grunch squarely in the chest. A tiny burning area of fur sizzled for a second, and then a few hairs fell loose to land in the grass and be extinguished. The Grunch bleated again, clearly laughing.
He was facing a beast that was more spirit than body; he remembered, though, fighting vampires alongside Lauren. He didn’t know any of the scripture she quoted–but he did remember much of the scripture of the sprites which he had studied as a boy in school.
“And the King and His armies pulled the Raptor from its perch and cast it into the lake, where it drowned. So shall be the end of all the enemies of the King.”
At this point the Grunch shuddered; Derek shot it again, and this time the laser burned a hole clean through the center of the body.
“Shoot it again, Maurice. It has lost its protection.”
The blast of the shotgun removed the ugly head from the deformed body, and both fell to the ground. Derek walked over and nudged it with a toe, but was satisfied that it was dead. It stank even worse, if that were possible, now that it was dead.
Looking toward the house as the fog began to clear fully, he said, “Let’s go home.” He took his trumpet from Vashti and made sure the others were both with him. Then as he walked, he started to play the upbeat second verse of Saints, so their haste would feel more like victory than like running for cover. He hoped that was the end of the trouble for the night.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #502: Character Setbacks. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
