“Mayor Hunter!” Crush called out, and the newspaper came down with a start. The mayor snapped his fingers and pointed at Crush with a smile.
“Crush, right. How the heck have you been?” he said as he stood up and walked over for a friendly handshake. Crush obliged him, and they talked about old times for a little while. “You’re looking pretty rough, there buddy. Do you need to come by the house to clean up?” Crush had not thought much about how raggedy he must look, but now that the mayor mentioned it, he was covered with dirt and grass stains from head to foot.
“I’ll take you up on it. I could also use your phone to call the home office while I’m at it,” he said.
“Sure, sure, no problem. I’ve got some clothes your size, too,” the mayor offered. “Let’s go ahead and make the call from here before we leave since the nationwide calls from here aren’t considered long distance.” Crush dialed up the home office, and there was no answer, only the machine. After three tries, Crush left a voice message for the Doc about their circumstances.
“Mayor, do you have a pen and a notepad?” Crush asked exhaustedly. “I need to write a report for the home office.”
“Sure,” the mayor said as he handed Crush a chewed up ball point pen and several sheets of blank printer paper. “We can staple your book report together when you’re done.” Crush was not sure if that was an attempt at humor, but the comment made him smile none the less. It was a terrible story that he would have to scribe for the department’s archives, and ultimately, he would have to report that it was somewhat of a failure since Calvin Smith had not survived the journey home. If it had not been for the older gentlemen’s sacrifice, they may not have made it back at all, and Crush wanted anyone that read the report to understand Calvin’s heroism. “And what of the extra travelers we brought back?” he asked himself, but he resisted the temptation to list Beni, Colere, and Simon in the statement. He would be in enough trouble with Calvin’s death; he did not think he wanted to explain why he brought two giants and an intelligent monkey back to earth with him.
When he was finished, he stapled the pages together and sealed them in a large manila envelope. The mayor then did Crush another favor and drove him over to his own home to clean up, and he promised to help Crush out with whatever was going on at Faraway Mountain.
**********
The DAM office phone rang and rang and rang, and the strange man sat next to the empty desks in the darkened room and waited for the answering machine. After listening to the message closely, he pulled down one of the blinds and peered outside the building to find a busy city bustling by. The office had been closed for several days now. The agency was shut down for restructuring, and yet here was a phone call from one of the missing agents.
“Curious,” he thought to himself. “The Director will want to hear about this,” he whispered as he placed a call on his cell phone. It would not do to use the office phones in the building where he could be so easily tracked.
**********
Queen Dowager cursed her luck when Pound vanished into the mouth of the dragon. The prisoners, her sister, and the others had all escaped from her. The castle where she lived had been destroyed, and all that she had at her disposal now were these ragged warriors.
“My Queen, where have they gone?” Rodrick asked unwittingly. With her back turned to them, she threw her hands up in the air in defeat and walked away toward the forest to leave them behind. If she was going to start over anew, she would find giants that were brighter than this group. Rodrick and the others turned their backs on the mountain and scratched their heads in wonder at their Queen’s apathy. A sigh of hot air was exhaled behind them, and when they turned around to see the source, the dragon smiled as he inserted the missing tooth back into its slot in the roof of his mouth and placed the wounded Queenmother into the saddle on his back. To make matters worse, the severed wing had grown back in place, and there was a look of renewed strength that stretched across his scaly face.
“I believe I want to upsize my meal,” the dragon said as his midsection turned red from the building fire in his belly.
###
Next Issue
With their triumphant return from the Queenmother’s dimension and the successful redemption of the kidnapped slaves, Crush and Pound find themselves in the rural parts of North Carolina with the daunting task of resettling the redeemed on modern day earth. They need the help of the DAM to begin the restoration of the freed peoples of the mine, but they return to find the DAM is not the same organization as it was before they left. Meanwhile, Dr. Tatum and Seth Hogan begin a new adventure across the country to recover a retired World War I hero from the clutches of STUN.
About the Author
Christopher Carter is an engineer by day, and transforms into a writer and artist by night. He lives with his wife and cat in central North Carolina.
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