Raiders of the Dawn

RAIDERS OF THE DAWN

by M. Benjamin Woodall

London’s Emo Kid Publishing

Marietta, GA

© 2016, M. Benjamin Woodall

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews, without the written permission from its publisher or author.

The characters portrayed are fictional. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

CONTENTS

Door to Wonder

We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

Lost and Found

Monsters and Cabbages

Ever Wood

Ever Deeper

The Master of Delcori

Gargoyles at Bay

Sojourn at Crystal Glade

Princes of Old

An Unwelcome Stay

Escape from the Garden Realm

Stories from the Slammer

Wings and Dragons

The Dark Road Ahead

Chance Caving

The Travel’s End

About the Author

Door to Wonder

Because of John’s fascination with fireworks and an over-inflated holiday spirit, we arrive at Jefferson High much later than expected. Cruising past the football stadium, there is no traffic on the road, just the evenly lit lamp lights about the walkways and hedges underneath the overhanging branches of oak and elm. I drive around the corner onto East Academy Drive at the modest fifteen miles per hour speed limit. No one can be seen. Noticing the light gleaming from the Good Doctor’s third floor office window of the school building ends my fears of missing him altogether.

I ease my ten-year-old Chrysler into a parking space just in front of the side entrance and shut off the engine. Glancing around the parking lot, I notice only two other cars. Why isn’t Doctor Lawrence’s one of them? I erase it from my mind as we get out of the car. John smiles at me across the roof. Why don’t you stay in the car? I suggest. I’ll only be a few minutes.

No, I think I’ll just hang around, John says. The gleam of adventure in his eyes gives me a chill. Even though I can hear myself whispering terrible things that happened the last time this sort of thing occurred, I don't answer as I head for the door.

We climb the stairs. Tom, John begins, why is it again we're going to see the Good Doctor in the middle of summer?

It's about summer school, I explain.

Oh, yeah. Forgot that you're going. Stupid notion.

Whatever kind of notion it is, I’m going—so I can maintain my perfect GPA—so I can get that internship at Central Tech after we graduate.

We should live it up—take it easy—like we always said we would. We’re gonna be seniors! Man. College next year is going to be a whole new ball-game for us.

He pelts me in the chest as we turn the steps past the second floor. You’re right. But I’m just thinking about my future after college.

There you go again. Always thinking.

Why is it, again, you're going to college?

I got nothing else to do. This so-called fact seems to occur much in my friend's life, though I seldom believe it.

It doesn’t take long for us to reach the third floor. Leading John, I walk through the squeaky door past the restrooms and rusted water fountain. You know, that guy's so funny, John quips. Remember when he was proving the Law of Gravity by dropping our physics book and a soda can out the window—

You mean Doctor Lawrence? I ask.

Yeah, that guy. Remember? And the book landed on Principal Steinbeck's head? John snickers.

Everybody does, thanks to Mike Preston's video.

That thing went viral. Yes, the Good Doctor was famous for the thirty-two days of his sabbatical. His notoriety ending promptly upon his return.

The steady patting of our sneakers on the linoleum resonates in the silence as we turn the corner, beginning down the long, shadowy hallway lined with lockers and classroom doors. The last door far ahead on the right, the Good Doctor’s office, is ajar, providing a shaft of blue florescence against the dim orange hues. Its presence is daunting. I have a bad feeling about it. Something is wrong.

Approaching the door, I hesitate. John reaches around me and pushes it the rest of the way open. We turn into the office to find scattered papers across the floor, intermixed with splinters of wood, supposedly from the desk which slants down against two broken legs. A bookcase in the back lies face down among broken glass frames of photographs and certificates. Doctor Lawrence! I exclaim.

We walk farther into the office. Hey, Doc! John calls. Doc, is this some sort of joke?

I step away as I look down over the mess and stop when I spot the Good Doctor’s Waterman fountain pen, with its gold clip and worn leather handle—snapped in two. It’s no joke, I say.

What's that? A pen?

Not just any pen, John. It’s his lucky pen, the one he always carries around with him wherever he goes. At least until now.

What are you suggesting?

I’m suggesting that this mess is someone else’s doing.

So, what are we going to do about it? he asks.

About what?

About this. Do you think he’s been robbed?

I’m just wondering if he’s not in some sort of trouble somehow.

Trouble?

Someone’s obviously been looking or something, something in particular. Maybe they've found it, and maybe they haven't.

What does he have in here that anybody would want to get? It looks like they concentrated their search on the desk... Looking for papers of some kind?

I don’t know. Strange, though, isn’t it? I wonder if they’ve gotten him yet.

Maybe he’s invented a time machine and they’re here from the future to stop him from using it.

That doesn’t even make any sense. I find myself wandering toward the desk, searching the rubble under foot. There's a logical explanation to it all, I'm sure. But I'm curious just the same.

What’s this? I turn around to see John pointing at a mark of dirt on some papers. I approach, getting a better look at the stain, which remotely resembles an elongated paw print of some clawed animal. Looks like some kind of footprint, John continues.

I'd say so too—but look at it. Have you ever seen a foot like that? John shakes his head. It's just dirt, put there somehow in all the activity. Just chance, I’m sure, that it's shaped like it is.

Maybe.

This is all very odd.

So, what should we do?

I suppose we should do something, I say. I stand contemplating the mess. John looks away as if frozen in thought.

Tom, his house is just a few miles down the road, John says finally. Why don’t we go check it out?

This time, John, I'm inclined to agree.

I drive my car into the driveway beside the Good Doctor’s ten-year-old Ford Focus and switch it off. Looking across the small, one story house, I don’t know what to think about the lights still being on. Then I notice the front door, which is unlocked—not by the usual means, but torn right off its hinges. I turn to John. This is spooky, I say. Maybe we shouldn’t go in.

Maybe you're right, John replies. But what if he's in some kind of danger?

I don't think it would be up to us to get him out of it.

What if we wait in the car an hour or two.

What if we call the police?

No. Just listen. We wait in the car, and if anything happens, we leave. But if nothing happens, then nobody's around. Aren't you curious to see what's inside?

All right. Keep an eye on the windows and everything. If there's someone in there, we'll see them.

And so, we wait. All the while I keep staring back at the door frame, awaiting some bulky figure, carrying his cache of stolen goods, to emerge. I force myself, however, to visualize the Good Doctor making an appearance, possibly looking disoriented with his hand to a bruised forehead. But somehow, I know I won’t see my friend at all this night. I can feel my heartbeat rapidly with bated anticipation as I strain to catch a breath of air to calm my nerves. But it is no use. I turn back to John, who seems more anxious than worried, also staring at the door.

Eventually John reaches down to pick up his short, high-powered flashlight. Gripping it confidently, he speaks, just in case. I won’t move. John steps out of the car, and I reluctantly do the same. One vehicle passes by down the otherwise quiet neighborhood street. The songs of crickets follow.

John walks over the broken remains of the door into a short hallway. I am right behind him. Just as the Good Doctor’s office, we find a complete mess inside—clothes, paperwork, and broken picture frames. We turn a corner into the living room. I can just make out my car through the corner of a nearby window frame above a large couch which has been tossed upside down as if it were made of cardboard. John steps around the scattered remains of a wooden bookshelf or desk toward a closed closet door at the far end of the room while I stop to stare at a photo on the floor. It is a picture of the Good Doctor and me, a year ago at the science fair. I smile. Underneath the broken glass of the frame is a vision into an innocent past so sweet, myself with my arm around the Doctor’s shoulders, and it touches me that that moment was chosen by my friend to put on display.

Tom! John calls. There’s something strange about the closet.

I turn. What do you mean?

Just look at it!

I step closer to see what John is pointing at, a very peculiar light emerging from underneath the door—an eerie light the color of the magic hour when the sun slips from the world just before nightfall. I find myself almost hypnotized as I watch it. What the hell?

There’s something in there.

I have a really bad feeling about this.

I say let’s open it! John announces, stepping up with his flashlight in one hand to grab the doorknob.

No, wait! I run up beside him but stop in amazement to find John twisting the knob, struggling to get it open. It is unlatched but won’t open as if someone or something is holding it shut on the other side.

It’s like it’s being sucked back.

Let me see here. I reach over John’s hand to pull on the door as well. It jerks open but there is some mysterious vacuum holding it back. John lets go and I pull back with all the force I can muster. The door cracks open an inch, allowing the hazy light to cast shadows across the room. John grabs the door’s edge and pushes it open as I pull. Soon we manage to counter the force and swing it out against the wall.

We look inside into the dim brilliance as a wind suddenly rushes against our backs into the lighted void—nothing of the actual closet can be seen. The light swirls around itself, into itself, as if it were somehow liquid energy sinking into a drain. John reaches forward but catches himself as he is jerked toward it, losing his balance for a second. Whoa! he cries. That was close.

We back. By now the wind has gotten stronger—papers and rubble fly past us into the spinning vortex. I struggle to lift my leg just to step back even an inch farther away. But it is too late. The force has us. We are lifted into the air and sucked into the light as the door slams shut behind us. Surrounding us is a brilliant energy, strangely dim so that I have trouble making out John’s shape beside me, floating as I am in a seeming vacuum of light. Wait. The sucking force stops, and we float weightless.

Suddenly a rush of energy shoves us backward. We are hurled into the open air.

We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

My feet hit solid ground, a very unfamiliar ground—cold, uneven stone covered in a lair of soil and plant debris, illuminated by diffused sunlight. I come to my senses and straighten my back to have a look around. John is just beside me, rising from the floor, reaching down to pick up his flashlight from among papers and wooden splinters. Day already? Am I, was I, dreaming? I look up across the ancient stone structure surrounding us to a hole in the ceiling through which the sunlight enters and where tree branches can be seen. The space about us is enormous, part of some long-forgotten castle, left vacant in a distant past. Plant life grows between the cracked stone of the floor. Huge stone segments lie nearby, probably of the fallen ceiling, just