ZACHARY PILL
Of Monsters and Magic
Written by
“Maine’s Other Author”TM
Tim Greaton
ALSO BY TIM GREATON
From Focus House Publishing
Pheesching Sector
(A sci-fi story)
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The Santa Shop
(Book 1 in the Santa Conspiracy Series)
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The Santa Shop’s Hollywood Ending
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Red Gloves
(Book 2 in the Santa Conspiracy Series)
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Under-Heaven
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Zachary Pill, The Dragon at Station End
Trilogy
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Bones in the Tree
(A novella)
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For the Deposit & Two Other Stories
Now Available
Dustin Jeckle & Mr. Hydel
(A Dark Story)
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The Shaft & Two Other Stories
Now Available
The Halloween Caper
(A supernatural story)
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Heroes With Fangs
2012
Contact Tim at
[email protected] Read Tim’s Blog at
timgreaton.blogspot.com
Zachary Pill
Of Monsters and Magic
(Book 1 in The Zachary Pill series)
TIM GREATON
This is a work of fiction. The names and the characters are fictional. Any resemblance to living or dead individuals or to actual places or events is purely coincidental.
ZACHARY PILL, OF MONSTERS AND MAGIC
Copyright 2012 by Tim Greaton.
The Zachary Pill (series) Copyright 2011 by Tim Greaton
Published by Focus House Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, including digital or audio sampling, internet display or download, or any other form of digital or physical display or transfer, excepting only brief excerpts for use in a literary review, without expressed written permission from the author. Original species, realms, and mechanisms of magic are all under the exclusive ownership of the author.
“Maine’s Other Author”™ is a trademark of Focus House Publishing.
Published by Focus House Publishing.
Cover design by Wizards Prism Art & Media.
Zachary Pill
Of Monsters and Magic
(Book 1 in The Zachary Pill series)
TIM GREATON
Focus House Publishing
Wilton, Maine
DEDICATION
To Joan my beautiful wife and to my three amazing children, who were all so patient during my thousands of writing hours, I can barely find words to express my love and thanks.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To my sister Tiffany, who read so many versions of this story her head must still be spinning—Without your continued help, I’m not sure I could finish another work.
To Marilyn Nulman—I will always appreciate your storytelling expertise and friendship.
To the Saco Middle School of Saco, Maine and its Literary Specialist Patricia Martin-Evans—Thanks for introducing me to the four students who became my central focus group.
And to those four (now much-older) students, Tyler Cadorette, Maggie Evans, Abby Farrington, and Andrew Lemoine—Thank you so much for your feedback which has made this a dramatically better story. I would not be surprised to find a novelist or four emerge from within your very talented ranks.
CONTENTS
Prologue
1) A Coward and a Freak
2) A Bad Decision
3) No Way Out
4) Broken Bones and Panic
5) Hospital Fears
6) X-rays and Second Thoughts
7) Dr. Gefarg
8) A Really Bad Meal
9) Dark Plans
10) Danger in the Wind
11) All Alone
12) The End of all Things
13) Abandoned
14) An Unwelcome Guest
15) Neighbor Falls, Pills Die
16) History and Secrets
17) One Bully, One Ally
18) Casket and Snakes
19) Hospitals and Blood
Zachary Pill
Of Monsters and Magic
Prologue
“Zach, hurry!” came his father’s voice, barely audible over the harsh sounds all around them. Surprisingly strong for a small man, his father dragged him by the good arm through the doorway.
“Get into the bathroom!”
Zachary ducked as a bat with blood red eyes hurtled past his head. It made a sickening splatter as it struck someplace in the bedroom behind him.
“Enough!” Zachary’s father shouted in a voice so loud it made Zachary’s ears hurt. Another bat bounced off the hallway wall and hurtled toward them, but his father chanted something and a bolt of blue light burst out of the wand and struck it in mid-flight.
Though he was temporarily blinded from the flash, Zachary heard the bat fall in a wet thump on the hallway floor not far from him. The air was filled with the sickly smell of charred flesh. He felt his father’s hands thrust him into the bathroom and he heard the door pulled shut.
“Lock it!” his father ordered.
Ashamed to be leaving his father alone with the bats but having no choice, Zachary groped along the door and forced his trembling fingers to turn the lock. Then, he backed away until his cast struck the towel rack on the back wall. Pain vibrated through his arm. He fought the need to scream, but couldn’t stop his breath, which came and went in great gasps. The windowless bathroom was pitch black. In an attempt to hear over the sound of his own sobs, Zachary clamped his good hand over his mouth.
“Krage, I’m done with this!” his father bellowed.
Simultaneously, a flash framed the bathroom door with blinding blue light. Then everything went black again. Something heavy thumped against the door. Zachary feared for the worst.
“Dad?” he whispered. Then more loudly, “Dad?”
There was another explosion of glass, maybe from his father’s bedroom. The crashing and banging sounds grew louder and reverberated from all over the apartment. Suddenly, another flash of blue light left spots swimming in Zachary’s eyes. Something about the following darkness was different this time, though. It was the silence. No crashing, no wind, nothing. Zachary could hear his own heart beating in his ears.
1) A Coward and a Freak
Wishing that magic really did exist, Zachary Pill kept smashing the Billy Timkin voodoo doll he had made from a white hand towel until its blue toothpaste eyes and mouth were smudged beyond recognition. When the bar of soap fell out of the Billy doll’s head, he glanced up at the mirror to see his bruised cheek and swollen lip.
“I never did anything to him,” he muttered.
He made a fist and debated whether to put the doll back together again and give it another good couple of whacks.
Why can’t I be more like Uncle Ned?
He pulled up his tee-shirt sleeve up and made a muscle, but the pathetic little rise at the top of his arm depressed him. He sighed and let his arms drop back to his sides. No way would his uncle let someone get away with what Billy had done to him. Anyone that touched Uncle Ned would have been the one with bruises―or worse.
Disgusted, Zachary ran a wet comb through his offensive hair and managed to push a few stray cowlicks back where they belonged. He smacked the comb against his skull. Why did his hair have to be suc
h a weird color!
“Snot hair!” he muttered.
“What hair?” a voice asked from the open bathroom doorway.
Zachary’s face turned red. He wished his father hadn’t heard that.
“That’s what Billy Timkin called me yesterday, just before he started hitting me.”
“Maybe you heard it wrong.”
“No, he definitely said ‘snot hair.’” Zachary already regretted telling his father.
“Then what happened?”
“I told him to shut up, so he punched me.” He left out the part about trying to punch Billy back―twice. Half the students in the cafeteria had laughed when he missed both times. By today, the whole school would be talking about it.
His father squeezed his shoulder and gently moved his chin closer to the light for a better look at his bruises.
“I don’t understand why the school won’t do something about that kid.”
The principal might have done something if she’d been called, but his father wasn’t the type to argue, even to defend his own son. Besides, none of the kids who witnessed the fight had admitted to seeing anything, so it was his word against Billy’s, again.
“You could have walked away,” his father suggested.
“Everyone at school already thinks I’m a freak. I’d rather get beat up than be a coward.” Zachary didn’t bother to add that Stephanie Travis had been there. It figured that the first time he really stood up to Billy, he got beat up in front of the girl he liked.
“So, getting hit was better than getting away?” his father asked.
“Uncle Ned wouldn’t have run,” Zachary countered.
His father fell silent. Small and rail thin, he wasn’t built for fighting. Zachary had never seen him stand up to anyone, not even the old woman with the poodle in the apartment across the hall. Zachary loved his father but hated the thought that he was growing up to be just like him. Like father, like son, they were both cowards.
“You can stay home if you want,” his father offered.
Zachary shook his head. “I have finals.”
“There’s still a week of school to make them up,