**********
A half hour later, Crush was seated on Red Doe’s saddle at the bottom of the steps to the walking bridge. The moon was still full, and Crush could see the darkened forest on the other side of the river. With a kick to her hindquarters, Red Doe climbed the steps and started across the bridge. When she had reached about halfway across, there was movement in the forest ahead, but Crush could not see anyone to match up with the sounds. As Red Doe stepped closer, Pound walked out of the cover of the sourwoods and waited for Crush at the foot of the steps.
“Pound. Is that you?” Crush asked as he rode closer. Rather than reply, Pound simply showed his fangs. “I’m going to have to do some dental work on you, I see.” A wicked laugh emanated from deep in the forest, and Crush suspected that he was in for a tremendous battle once he reached the other side of the river.
When she came to the brink of the far edge of the bridge, Red Doe stopped as Crush pulled back on her reins. Pound growled at Crush in anticipation of the brawl, but Crush showed no emotion at the vampire’s threat. Crush then stuck his short cat-like claws into the hindquarters of Red Doe, and the horse leaped from the top step, easily gliding over Pound’s head. Without missing a step, the mare barreled up the trail as fast as she could go, and Crush held tight on the reins. At the first bend in the path along the bank of the river, three of the Eagle Scouts ambushed Crush from the sides and from above, knocking him off the saddle and rolling him off the path into the cold water. Beneath the surface of the water, the scouts had him bound by the arms and around the neck, and he fought to keep them from biting him as he held his breath. With crisp efficiency, Crush elbowed one of the Eagle Scouts directly on the nose, and blood spurted out as the injured scout’s eyes rolled back into his head. Almost on cue, the other two vampires sensed the presence of the fresh blood and seized the opportunity at a feast, whether it was one of their own kind or not. Releasing their hold on Crush they jumped on the injured Scout immediately. On his feet but still in the water, Crush grabbed one of the vampires by the neck, spun him around, and punched him in the nose as well, knocking him out cold and leveling the playing field among the parasites. The third vampire screamed in rage at Crush, just long enough for Crush to catch him by the throat and fling him out of the water into the trunk of a tree. Knocked unconscious, the vampire crumpled in a heap to the ground. With a temporary victory in hand, Crush dragged the other two vampires out of the water and piled them with the third by the tree. He had won the first small battle, but the war was not over yet.
Looking around in the dark, he realized that Red Doe had kept sprinting up the trail when Crush had been thrown from her saddle, so Crush began running up the trail himself toward Faith Rock to catch up to her. Behind him, he could hear the foot stomps of Pound tracking him in the dark, and Crush dreaded the confrontation with his partner. It would not be an easy battle, and he was most afraid that if the Tory David Fanning learned of Pound’s special ability to control plant life, even trees, Crush believed that he would not stand a chance. As it was, Pound seemed to be locked in a savage state of mind, the same state to which the Eagle Scouts had succumbed. That was to Crush’s advantage. As for Andrew Hunter, Crush knew nothing yet of the mayor’s fate, but based on Pound’s current condition, he could easily guess.
When he reached the end of the trail, Crush spotted Red Doe as she stood patiently on Faith Rock waiting for him to catch up to her. Crush quickly knelt down beside her and began digging into the dirt with his claws. When he had dug a hole that was deep enough, he retrieved the horseshoe from his back pocket to place it into the ground. Before he could set it into the soil, he was shoved from behind and violently thrown out onto the stone. The horseshoe flew from his hand and clanked down the steep stone surface to the river below. Any hope of placing the talisman back where it was found were now dashed.
Whirling back onto his feet, the fur stood out straight on Crush’s neck as he found himself facing a very feral and fuming Pound. The murkiness in his eyes confirmed to Crush that he would have to win this fight or he would never make it out of Franklinville alive. With great speed, Pound lunged at Crush, but the feline hero leapt over his friend’s head and caught a limb on the tree beside Red Doe. Swinging upside down in a circle, Crush launched himself from the limb, over Pound’s head again, and down the rock toward the river. Landing on his feet he instantly sprang once more down Faith Rock, diving into the brown murky water of Deep River. Swimming with all his might to the bottom, Crush fought the current of the river and grabbed hold of a rock at the bottom. Crush could hold his breath for a very long time, but with the strong current pushing against his body, he had only seconds to search before the force of the wall of water would overcome the friction between his claws and the stone. Feeling around blindly with one hand, he felt the u-shape between his fingers and clutched the horseshoe in his grasp. When he released his hold on the rock, the overwhelming current carried him back down stream to the shallows of the bank. Upon surfacing, he discovered that the raging water of the river had carried him down to where he had battled the Eagle Scouts. To his dismay, the pile of vampires was nowhere to be found.
“Great,” he thought to himself as he climbed back onto the bank and shook the excess water off in a mood of sour vexation. He held the horseshoe tightly in his grip and examined it again thoroughly.
“Lucky, my rear,” he mumbled to himself as he placed the horseshoe in his back pocket and began the climb up the trail again. Slowly walking up the incline, Crush kept his cool demeanor and paid careful attention to all of the scents, sounds, and movements within the forest. To his surprise, he was able to trek all the way up to the end of the trail where he had stood only moments earlier. Examining the soil, he found that the hole he had dug for the horseshoe was filled in with dirt. Before he could bend down to dig the hole once again, two tattooed arms wrapped around his chest and lifted him off his feet. Crush recognized the dragon tattoos, and he flexed his arms to break free from the bear hug to no avail. For the moment, he was caught. With great exertion, Pound carried Crush out onto Faith Rock to face the devious smile on the visage of David Fanning. The Tory now held the reins to Red Doe as the Eagle Scouts and Mayor Hunter hauled themselves out into the moonlight.
“Shakespeare Crush, I presume. I am David Fanning, leader of the Loyalists of North Carolina, and I have come back from the dead to take back what is mine,” the powerful vampire said as he displayed his fangs in a ruthless smile. “Red Doe was once taken from me, leaving me with only the horseshoe which you now hold. I buried that horseshoe here at Faith Rock in 1782 in remembrance of her, and until only recently, I had remained among the dead since my first passing from the earth in 1825. But someone unearthed the horseshoe, disturbed my personal hell, and woke my bones from their tortured slumber.” Fanning stepped closer to Crush so that he could hear his judgment. “You will hand the horseshoe over to me. Now.”
“If you want it so badly, take it then, Bucktooth,” affronted Crush.
“You amuse me, cat-man. Much as Andrew Hunter’s wife amused me once,” said the vampire as he laughed. The mayor, though still under the power of the great vampire, seemed to acknowledge the insult to his family. “Pound! Kill him! And take the horseshoe from him!”
Crush winced as Pound flexed his biceps to squeeze the field agent’s internal organs. Pound then body slammed his partner onto the surface of the stone. Crush swung a fist and connected to Pound’s chin, but the monstrous Tory’s mind control kept Pound’s nervous system from acknowledging the stimulus. Pound pressed against his onslaught with a right hook that missed Crush’s skull and connected with the stone. Crush heard the bones crunch, but Pound ignored the pain and continued to lash out in a rage. Pound raised his fists together as a hammer and opened his mouth wide in a blood curdling scream of fury. At that instant, to Crush’s everlasting wonder, a chunk of an unknown substance sailed like a missile into Pound’s ope
n mouth. Pound then fell backward and clutched his throat as he began to choke.
At that instant, Crush heard the gallop of a horse coming from the shadows of the trail. Turning his head, his mouth fell open in surprise as a cloaked rider astride Red Doe fired another outstanding round from a slingshot into the mouth of Andrew Hunter, knocking the mayor off his feet and choking him as well. Getting to his feet, Crush reached out his hand to catch the saddle of the galloping horse as it passed by, and with feline reflexes, he joined the rider on the charging mare. With the valor of a Roman gladiator, the rider aimed his trajectory for David Fanning and hurtled head on toward the undead Loyalist. The horse plowed into the vampire and trod over him with her horseshoes.
“Horseshoe delivery!” Crush yelled as they spun the horse around to go for a second stomping of the traitorous coward. At that instant, the hood fell from the rider’s face, and Crush recognized his savior. “Noel! I thought I told you to stay away from this place until Fanning is destroyed!”
“Just a few seconds ago, you looked like you needed some help,” said Noel as he withdrew a white pellet from his pocket.
“Is that garlic?! You’re shooting them with garlic?!” Crush exclaimed.
“I can’t afford silver. Besides, my dad would kill me if I took his silver dollars,” Noel explained. Crush rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“That makes sense,” he replied and grabbed the reins to steer the horse out of the way just in time as an Eagle Scout nearly struck them with a stone. “What are you waiting for?! Shoot him, too!” Noel reared back on his slingshot and launched another herbal missile that struck the Scout in the forehead. The Scout’s forehead began to smolder, and he rubbed frantically at the juice with his hands, inadvertently spreading the burning herb all over himself.
“Missed!” Noel cried out as he took out another clove. With a steady aim this time, he shot the garlic portion straight into the open maw of the smoldering Scout.
“Nice shot!” Crush said as he watched Pound sit up and shake his head. “Look! Pound is himself again!” The mayor had also stopped his coughing fit, and he too appeared to be free of Fanning’s control. Noel continued his onslaught of garlic cloves as Pound turned to the forest for help. With his one good hand, Pound called forth a sourwood from the dark green gloom, and the small crooked hardwood slowly paced across the stone surface toward the Tory leader. David Fanning rose to his feet and laughed at the stalking hardwood as the hoof prints that covered his body filled back in and faded.
“I have no fear of this forest,” proclaimed Fanning as he turned back to Crush. “Give me that horseshoe . . . ,” he began just as a garlic clove zipped into the opening between his top and bottom teeth. Choking for a moment, he bent over and swallowed hard. Standing up straight once again, Fanning returned an angry frown toward Crush and Noel. “You’ll pay for that insult. Garlic has no effect on me, peasants.”
With his back now turned to Pound, Fanning had failed to pay enough attention to the approaching sourwood, and the tree extended one limb like a baseball pitch. Then the tree whirled with a snap, thrusting the limb into the back of David Fanning, lifting him from the earth and extending out of his chest cavity. Fanning struggled with the wooden branch, but could not extricate it from his body.
Seizing the opportunity, Crush kicked the hindquarters of the mare, and the two riders bolted past the Eagle Scouts and the Tory villain. Within seconds, they were at the edge of the trail where the mare screeched to a halt at the hole that had recently been filled. Crush and Noel dismounted Red Doe and began to dig the hole to return the horseshoe to its final resting place.
In the meantime, two of the Eagle Scouts climbed onto the sourwood sentinel, and with a labored effort, they broke the limb off and freed their leader from the piercing wooden stake. Fanning then reached behind him with his hand and extracted the wooden stake from his body, throwing it down onto Faith Rock in anger. The opening in his chest cavity quickly sealed over, and the vampire was whole once again. He screamed aloud in his wrath, and the Eagle Scouts returned their attention to Crush and Noel while Pound tried to direct the slowly moving sourwood to protect them. David Fanning himself chose to confront Pound for his treachery, and he grabbed the desperate hero by the collar, lifting him from the ground. Striking him once, Fanning knocked Pound several feet into the air.
Before the Scouts could stop them, Crush and Noel had dug the hole in the earth, buried the horseshoe, and covered it over once again. To their dismay, Fanning was still on his feet and was now terrorizing Pound. Crush thought to himself that once he had returned the horseshoe to its former resting place, David Fanning would have lost his power, and with any luck, his existence. But that had not happened.
All hope seemed to have fallen by the wayside until an unexpected event occurred. Mayor Andrew Hunter wrapped one arm around Fanning’s throat from behind, and then thrust the sourwood stake through Fanning’s heart. The vampire gasped a final breath as he elbowed Hunter in the ribs. Hunter released the Tory leader, and David Fanning grabbed the stake with both hands in an effort to pull the wooden stake from his heart. To his alarm, his hands began to fade into ash, pouring over the surface of the stone, and within seconds his body followed in the disintegration. Suddenly, a cold chill wind blew across the surface of Faith Rock, and the vampire’s ashes lifted from the stone to be carried over the swirling waters of Deep River, never to be united at Faith Rock again.
**********
The next morning, representatives from the Randolph County Sheriff’s department and a reporter from the local newspaper convened a formal press conference at the Franklinville Town Hall with Mayor Andrew Hunter presiding. Noel and the Eagle Scouts were in attendance, cleaned up and dressed in their best Sunday clothes. Crush and Pound were present as well, each one enjoying fresh pancakes and hot coffee from the neighboring diner. Crush had recovered sufficiently from his last pancake experience, and he was ready to get back on the wagon. Pound was a different story altogether. Upon defeating the vampire earlier that morning, Pound’s right hand was found to be broken, and after an emergency visit to the local orthopedist, his bones had been set in a temporary cast.
“This cast itches already,” Pound complained as he inserted a coffee stirrer between the fiberglass and his skin to address the itch.
“I hope you’re not going to stir your coffee with that,” Crush added with a snicker. Pound just grinned as he scratched the itch away.
“And I guess I’ll have to pull back on the video games for a couple of weeks, too,” Pound added reluctantly.
“Well, Dr. Tatum will be able to get more work out of you, then,” chided Crush before quieting down to listen to the press conference. Mayor Andrew Hunter stood behind the podium and raised his hands in a call for silence.
“Let me begin by saying, we are glad to have you boys home, safe and sound,” said the mayor to the Eagle Scouts as he began the press conference. “With help from the DAM, the missing Eagle Scouts were found last night near Faith Rock. They had lost their way while orienteering, and Agents Shakespeare Crush and I. M. Pound along with native son Noel Brandy helped them to find their way.” The speech continued in this manner for another thirty minutes, in which time, Noel was awarded a medal of valor by the Sheriff’s Department. The Eagle Scouts even made Noel an honorary member for his bravery and leadership.
The survivors of the battle against David Fanning made a pact that morning never to reveal to the general public what actually happened at Faith Rock the previous night. A full record however can be found in the files of the DAM.
For More Adventure!
Follow the exciting further adventures of Crush, Pound, and the DAM in the titles below available at ebook retailers:
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 1
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 2
About the Author
Christopher Carter is an engineer by day, and transforms into a wri
ter and artist by night. He lives with his wife and two cats in central North Carolina.
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