Richard, Annalisa and Carl checked into the motel at
the base of the mountain.
“Enjoyed your spaghetti
dinner?” the motel clerk smiled. He soon realized Richard did not remember him from the day before.
“Yes, it was very good,” Carl
answered politely. They walked to the
rooms pondering how the clerk knew they’d had spaghetti. They were too out of it to notice that they
still had rather large sauce goatees.
They did not recall leaving spaghetti handprints on the safe.
At a campsite by the Kern
River, Bobby and The Fly Eater thanked the campers they just met for an
excellent trout dinner. They settled
around the campfire to roast marshmallows and listen to the story about the
evil king from the planet of the double sun.
“The Tree of Lost Souls is not
of this earth. The evil king scattered
seeds across the universe so that beacon trees would grow on every planet.
When the roots of one of these trees finally grew down into the den of the
damned, the leaves lit up and began to spin like gold sequins to signal the
king to come to earth.
This secret chamber wasn’t
always a den of the damned. It began as
a sanctuary where the queen hid her children from certain death. After eons of isolation in that chamber, the
children became demons. Evil seeps from
this tree. First there were just the two
souls of the children trapped there. They could not get out, but they found a
way to bring more souls in, with the idea that when king finally found them,
they would greatly out number him.
One day a squirrel happened
upon this tree and decided it was so intimidating that it would be a good place
to hide his acorns. Before long every
space in the bark had an acorn jammed into it.
Evil traveled up the tree and into those acorns. As the squirrel ate them one by one, he began
to be able to communicate with the children in the den of the damned. They gave him powers and made him collect
souls for them. Soon he was able to
shape shift into the form of a man. He
is often seen on college campuses wearing a mustard colored suit, collecting
the best and the brightest for his masters,” The Fly Eater ate a marshmallow.
“What will the king do when he
finally finds his children?” One of the campers asked.
“He’ll eat them. He is insane with jealousy, afraid his
children will surpass him. Here, pass this around. I made it myself. It wards off mosquitos and evil spirits.” The
Fly Eater produced a famous brand name mosquito repellant.
************************
“She took my bike!” Richard
woke to find Annalisa had gone.
Richard and Carl took the van
back up the mountain to look for her.
“She said the medicine man told
her that there was an extraterrestrial tree on the Rim of the World Highway in
Skyforest. She believes the soul of her
sister is in the tree. Richard, what was
in the safe?” Carl chewed the cuticle of
his thumb while he navigated the narrow, foggy mountain road.
“A cursed play. People who read
it can never stop reading it. They go
mad. They do evil things.” Richard was serious. He didn’t tell Carl that
the title was THE KING IN YELLOW because it would give the evil more strength
if those words repeated in Carl’s thoughts.
“You think that is the play you
were going to do tonight?”
“Yes. The house we were sitting belongs to the
patron. Carl, that crazy Paiute saved
our lives.”
“Look! Your bike!” Carl pointed to a parking lot nestled in Skyforest
. There were huge candy canes, gingerbread
houses and a sign that read, “Santa’s Village”.
It was closed for the season. The
fog was so thick that they could only see a few yards ahead. A deer calmly walked by them as if they were
invisible.
“Annalisa!” They called for her. They found her sitting at a picnic table by
the Pixie Pantry.
“Why didn’t you answer?” Carl asked.
“My sister is in here,”
Annalisa held an acorn in the palm of her hand.
“Look at her eyes. Annalisa, can you hear me?” Richard got an idea. He ran to get the
satchel on his bike. When he returned he
began rubbing the suntan oil on her.
“Here, honey, you have to drink
this, it will make you better,” Richard began pouring the suntan oil down her
throat.
“What if it kills her?” Carl
shrieked. Maybe there are no demons.
~ To Be Continued ~
