dochermes

"The Golden Ogre"

3/24/2015

I.

From the front passenger seat of the leased Hyundai, Timothy protested half-heartedly, "Haley, you can't park here."

Haley Lawson gave her teammate her most innocent smile. "The signs SAYS, 'Fine For Parking.' So it's fine." Then she undid her seat belt and hopped out into the street just as a black smoke-spewing pickup with a twelve-foot wide American flag on its antennae rolled past. "Phew."

From the back seat, Galvan dropped a huge hand onto Timothy's shoulder. "Let it go, Tim. Arguing with our Windcatcher is like telling leaves what color to turn in the fall." The Melgar looked and dressed like a stereotypical lumberjack, with his giant muscular form squeezed into a red and black-checked flannel shirt and tan work pants. His thick brown beard and curly hair completed the image. Galvan got out on his side of the car while the other KDF member in back exited from her own door.

Not more than an inch over five feet tall, Jocelyn Garimara puzzled many rural Americans with her smooth dark skin, straight black hair and distinctive facial structure. But then, most rural folks had never met an Australian Aboriginal woman from the North West Territory. Jocelyn was dressed a little more formally than her teammates, wearing dress shoes, dark grey slacks and a sleeveless white silk blouse neatly tucked into her narrow waist. She smiled at Haley's sense of humor but said nothing.

Coming around to join his three partners, Timothy Limbo gave up on getting Haley to park somewhere else. "All I can say is, we are not all chipping in to pay for any tickets you accumulate on this adventure, Hales."

At five feet eight, Haley was almost as tall as Timothy himself. Her most striking feature was a pair of lovely lime-green eyes under a full head of auburn hair that shone with health and youth. "Tim, Tim, Tim. Cars are beautiful living things that deserve to roam free and park where they will."

"Yeah, I'm sure the judge will be deeply moved by that sentiment," Timothy said. He picked up his well-worn black leather jacket from inside the car and shrugged it on. His mop of butter-yellow hair hung down perilously close to obstructing his vision. "Anyway, where's the scene of destruction we came to check out?"

Jocelyn pointed down the street where long strips of police tape blocked off access to scattered debris which had evidently been a small bungalow. Beams and broken boards and ruined furniture were strewn all over the yard. Part of the roof was still supported by a single upright, but otherwise the destruction was complete. The four investigators moved closer, taking in their impressions.

"Not caused by an explosive device inside the structure," Jocelyn began. "All the wreckage is pointing inward."

"Look at those two by fours that were snapped neatly," added Tim. "And you notice one of them is stuck up in the branches of that tree twenty feet away. Yikes, I just noticed that upside-down bathtub over by the curb. No skid marks in the grass, so it wasn't dragged there... It was tossed."

It was Galvan who spoke out loud what they were all concluding. "This was the work not of a bomb or a vehicle but a living thing and one which possesses enormous physical strength."

"Like you yourself?" asked Haley. "I mean, you could have smashed up the cottage this way if you wanted to, right?"

"Of course. But flesh and blood beings with my admittedly great prowess are few in number. I dare say neither Sulak nor Valera would come all the way to Red Ridge, Arizona merely to indulge in smashing a building."

Timothy was crouching over a water hydrant that had been kicked over and split open. The water supply had been turned off but a large puddle still covered the yard. "This impresses me no end. I don't think a Gelydra could have done this. Or even a Troll. They're strong all right, but not like this."

From behind them, an old woman's voice broke in. "You know, we saw the monster that did this."

All four KDF members swung around to face a slightly bent lady wrapped in a heavy cardigan and sweatpants. Her hair was pure silver, shining in the afternoon sunlight. "I live across the street in that little brick house there. My sister and I saw the whole thing. So did a dozen other people who stood around staring. The sad thing is it was over so fast that none of us thought to take a picture on our phones."

Galvan's white teeth flashed within his beard as he made his voice less booming and more gentle. "What exactly did you see, ma'am?"

"We've been calling it the Golden Ogre. This is third time that the creature had run wild in town. First time, it flipped a few cars over and threw a motorcycle through the window of the pharmacy. A week ago, the darn thing yanked a street lamp right out of the ground and started smashing the sidewalk up, roaring and chasing people away. That's over on Partition Street, you can see from here where they're just starting to make repairs. Miracle no one's been hurt except for being scared senseless."

Haley let out a long appreciative whistle. "Not something you expect to witness in a nice quiet little mountain town like this, eh?"

"I'll say!" the old woman chortled. "Between five cars being wrecked and the having to replace the street lamp and store window, damages are estimated as real high. And then, last night, the Golden Ogre completely demolished Old Man Saulpaugh's bungalow here for no possible reason. Good thing the family wasn't home!"

"That is fantastic," the young girl called Windcatcher said. "But there's the evidence right there. Throwing a two by four twenty feet up into a tree is not something even a circus strongman could do."

"That's not the worst, missy." The old lady lowered her voice conspiratorily. "The Ogre looks like some sort of monster from an old Hollywood movie. Biggest man you ever saw, he could carry a couple of NFL guys under each arm. Dressed all in rags, enough of his pants left barely enough to be decent, some strips of cloth across his back and hanging off his arms where his shirt should be. The beast has yellow skin like a lion's only brighter and a long shaggy mop of yellow hair... like yours, son."

Timothy Limbo looked down in embarrassment. "Pure coincidence. I can barely get the top unscrewed off a soda bottle on a good day."

"Heh. You should get a look at the Golden Ogre. He's like something out of a nightmare that wakes you up all out of breath. His head is flat across the top. The ledge over his eyes sticks out a good two inches like a caveman. He has tusks sticking up in his lower jaw. And his hands and feet are twice as big as they should be, even for a brute like that. I have to say, those of us who saw him were paralyzed with absolute terror. We froze in place and hoped he wouldn't notice us."

"And that's the sweet little critter we've come here to capture," laughed Haley.

( the )