Will M.
Richard hurriedly fished in his pocket for his keys. “Come on, where are you keys?” he thought to himself; but try as he might, there was a lack of keys in every pocket of his pants.
“Rats!” Richard breathed. “Must have dropped the keys on my way here,
Great!” He tried the doorbell, thinking that Mark might be home. The bell rang out with its electronic voice but there was no answering sound of feet coming to the door. “Lovely,” he thought sarcastically. Richard turned around and started back down the stairs in a huff, mumbling things to himself as he went. Not only was he worried and annoyed that David was not home, but now his keys were gone! When he reached the bushes he had picked through, he started to look for the familiar form of his keys.
“AW!” Richard yelled as his knee hit a long object buried in the bushes. He looked down to see a long handle sticking out of the ground in front of him. It was wrapped in what looked like a snake, made of some sort of metal that gave off a small glow in the half faded light. Its green, jeweled eyes stared at Richard in an unearthly way. “What is this?” Richard asked himself. He had never seen anything like this here before. He gave the lever a tug and the next thing he knew, the ground
Beneath him disappeared and he was falling down, into nothingness.
---
Cathy turned the thing over in her hands. She had gotten it in the letter from her son, but he had left no explanation as to what it was. The only clue was the two words scribbled on the inside of the envelope: Culver Library. It was odd of David to do something like this. She turned her attention to the thing that had come in the envelope. It was an odd thing and looked very old. It was half a sphere with notches along its side and strange carvings scattered on its surface, it let off a soft glow that was slightly unnerving. “Why would David send something like this to me?” Cathy wondered as she put the thing down.
---
David’s eyes had by now somewhat adjusted to the light of the room, a rather large room, which he was in. Dusty yellow pillars, with countless carvings reached from the floor to the ceiling. The room was lit by a single orb of blue green light that hung, suspended by nothing, in the center of the roof. Pictures of clashing warriors with spears and plumed helms dotted the floor in an endless sea of shapes and faded colors. David wondered if any of those warriors, in their plumes and armor, would have had the heart (and stomach) to face what he was looking at now. He looked at the creature again. Three sets of dark green unfathomable eyes stared back at him, hissing softly to them selves as they thought about what he had just said. The eyes were connected to three long scaly and narrow heads, shimmering and swaying in the low light of the room, two eyes for each head. Its forked tongues flicked in and out slowly, white teeth glistened from the inside of its mouth. Then the heads stop swaying and three hoods of skin and scales flared out like a cobra’s from its neck as it spoke.
“You talk boldly for one so young.” The left most of the three heads whispered. David had to look up now to see the heads. It wasn’t the fact the creature’s body was large, but that each neck must be at least five feet tall, this put the hydra as David now called it, at eight feet tall, very scaly and very spiny.
“I was just asking when you were going to open the gate you talk about,” David stuttered trying to sound calm, it was very hard though with all six of the hydra’s eyes fixed in his direction.
“When the time is right and when we (it always referred to its self as we) have the key.” It started hissing to its self again. David gulped. This was the point that had to have been brought up, and finally it had.
“Where issssssss the key David.” All three heads had spoken. The hydra was slowly advancing towards David; it still hissed softly which he thought could never be a good sign.
“Why are you asking me?” David said in a voice that was just audible, he was past scared, he was past panic, he was even past fainting, all he could do now has stare into the bottomless green eyes of the monster.
“Where is it David? Look in to our eyes, Tell us where it is and you might just live.”
---
Cathy placed the half sphere in her pants pocket, stood up and started walking.
Steve had had no idea as to what the thing was or what David was thinking when he sent it.
“It might be something he picked up at work and thought you would like it; maybe an early Christmas gift,” Steve had joked after he had finished the dishes. The joke didn’t go over well; it was the middle of September. He added that David did tend to pick up stuff in the library from time to time. He had now gone up stairs to work on a project for his job and had left Cathy down stairs to wonder at the thing on the thing in her pocket. “Why would David send this to me,” she asked herself for the fifth time in the last ten minutes. She read again the two words scribbled on the inside of the envelope. Culver Library, she crossed the living room to the closet door and got a jacket.
“I am going to the library, maybe David is working and wants me to meet him there. I’ll be back soon dear,” She called up to her husband.
“Ok, but stay warm, it’s nippy out there and I really don’t want to have to come and pull you out of a block of ice… oh, and say hi to David for me,” Steve called back.
“Will do, Love you honey.” Cathy opened the door and sailed out.
---
Richard landed with a thump as he hit the ground. It was dark and he had a hard time seeing anything. He got up and dusted himself off.
“Where am I,” he thought dazed. He got up and started walking until the hallway or tunnel, he could not tell which it was, turned, and he stopped. Up ahead he saw six glowing orbs of green light that looked like eyes, and they hissed softly. Richard froze.
---
David was now backed completely against a wall and the hydra was still hissing and walking towards him. David had run out of options and he knew it, the hydra had increased the volume and the speed of its hissing. Then, David caught sight of the large door, at the end of the room, which he had somehow missed in his last two encounters with the hydra. It was a round door, inscribed with ancient and evil looking figures and runes, which danced along the surface, and he remembered the thing in his pocket. A spark of courage swelled in his chest.
“I have what you want, but only half of it.” David said with the spark in his voice.
“What, what isssssss this!” Screeched the hydra’s middle head.
“Quiet you fool!” Snapped the left head with a low and foreboding tone.
“I’ll prove it!” David said, as he pulled the thing out of his pocket. It was a half of a sphere, riddled with strange carvings and notched on the straight side, and it gave off a small glow.
“And, I am the only person who knows where the other half is.” David stated, with a firm voice born of the fact the he was now in control of the situation. “So, if you want to open your gate and release who-knows-what then forget it, ‘cuz there is no-way I am telling you where the other half is.”
“NO, NO, NO!” Screeched all three heads in unison. David felt like his plan had finally worked, until the sound of soft hissing filtered into the room from the passage David had just come in from; three sets of dark green eyes shown from the passage and a new voice spoke out of the dark.
“we’re back, and we found something in the tunnel.”
---
Cathy opened the front door to Culver Library and swept up to the front desk, it was a round desk, one where you had to stand on tiptoes to see the top. She had to knock to get the clerks attention.
“Excuse me, is David in today?” Cathy asked in a polite tone.
“He might be in Mrs. Setter, buy I haven’t seen him.” Replied the clerk, and then taking on in a bright tone in her voice she said. “Do you like the color of my nails? I thought it would look nice with my dress, but then I saw this cute pair of shoes in the next window and I just had to get them, they had the brightest pink sparkles….” The clerk rambled on and Cathy slipped away quickly, still hearing the clerk talking to the air about how she had to go back to the store and get nail polish to match her sparkles and how she loved her shoes.
“People today have no common sense,” Cathy muttered to herself as she walked into the main body of the library. The library was a tall dome filled with shelf upon shelf of books and other reading materials. The shelves were carved and sanded with care, and the old purple carpet smelled of ink and wood. People sat in chairs and at tables reading an assortment of books on every subject known to man. Cathy floated from aisle to aisle, whispering David’s name, and getting no answerer.
“Where could that boy be?” Cathy wondered as she checked the last aisle in the library. She walked over to a fully stuffed blue armchair and sank down into it, as she thought over her dilemma. She took the half sphere out of her pocket and turned it in the light, letting it play over the sphere’s face. She got up and was about to walk to the door when she saw the entrance to the basement.
“Maybe David had to get cleaning supplies down there,” Cathy thought, as she headed to the entrance.
---
Richard was thrown to the floor with a thunk as he hit the ground(for the second time that day) and collapsing in a shapeless heap with a groan. He looked up and saw David standing a little to the right of him and the four green feet and long tail of the same thing that had just dragged him into the room.
“So there are two of them?” Richard asked David.
“How did you get here!?” David said, for the time ignoring the two hydras.
“Well you see I saw this lever in the bushes and…”
“SILENCE,” Yelled the middle head of the second hydra. David and Richard froze. David knew it was a stalemate; he couldn’t leave now that there were two hydras, it would be too hard for them to slip out, and they couldn’t hurt him since he knew the hiding place of the other half of the key.
Richard was beyond confused, all he knew was that he was being help captive by a pair of large and smelly lizards, and that David was here for some reason that who-knows-why.
The hydras started to hiss again and sway their heads, thinking, most likely about what to do now, but always keeping one head fixed on David and Richard.
---
Cathy descended the stairs, holding on to the cold banister for guidance. As she got farther down the light slowly faded until at the bottom the only light was from the dim lights on the wall. She wound her way through the hallways and passages until she found herself facing a room, that look almost like a Greek temple, great arches and columns held the ceiling up. And there stood sat David and Richard!
“David, there you are, what are you doing here, and why did you give me this?” Cathy asked as she fished the half orb out of her pocket and ran towards David. To her shock David’s eyes enlarged and filled with horror and he started to mouth the word “Run.” Cathy had no idea what he was doing, as she continued to run towards him. When she reached the room she stepped in and looked at David again asking,
“What is this, Oh I see you have the other half so…” Cathy stopped when she looked to her left to see two green three-headed things staring at her with six sets of eyes.
“So thisssss is where you hid the key, in your mother’s pocket. Not very creative we think.” Chuckled the right head of the first hydra.
“David, Richard what are they?” Cathy asked with a panicked voice.
“Don’t ask me this is all over my head, and really don’t care any more,” Richard said, as he waved his hand over his head. Out of all of them, he was the only one that was not about to scream. The hydras moved forward and snatched the halves of the orbs out of David and Cathy’s hands to the horror of both, and a scream from Cathy.
“At last, we have the two halves of the key. Now we can open this gate.” Pointing to the large door at the end of the room. “And release our dark master so he may cover the world in darkness, hahahahahahahahahahaahah!” Laughed the two hydras. They loped to the door and shoved the two halves of the key together. The orb glowed bright and the carvings lit up and filled the area with an eerie glow. The first hydra then pushed the orb into a small hole in the door and turned. The runes in the door turned black and glowed, the door rumbled and slowly moved open to reveal a swirl of black energy that crackled and fizzed with electricity. The sound of rushing wind filled the air like a wave of noise.
“The VOID opens, awake master. Your long imprisonment is over, awaken and join your servants. Guide us to VICTORY!” The hydras howled as a long black streak of lighting arched out of the door and ended in a shower of sparks.
“We have to do some thing!” Richard yelled.
“But what?” Cathy wailed.
“Ok, when I say go, run in to them so they fall in to that void, got it?” David commanded, with a feeling that this was their last chance of ever stopping the inevitable.
“Ok,” Richard and Cathy said.
“One, two, three GO!” David yelled. He, Cathy and Richard ran head long down the room and collided with one of the hydras, making it stumble back and fall with a scream down into the void. But, just as its body melted in to the black one of its heads shot out from the Void and latched on to the tail of the second hydra, causing that hydra to scream in pain.
“Fool, get off of our tail!” howled the right head of the second hydra. It leaned down to try to bite the head of its attacker of its tail.
“I have had it up to here with this!” Richard yelled, and in that moment when the hydra was off balance, he put his shoulder to it and shoved with all his frustration and annoyance. He pushed it and its “friend” in to the Void with a loud crackle of electricity as they melted in to the pit of blackness.
“Get the key out of the door!” David yelled. Cathy ran over and yanked the orb out of its hole in the half open door. Instantly, the door slid shut and the glowing runes increased in brightness, then the door seemed to shimmer and shake. The runes glowed brighter and a bolt of lightning shot from the door and into the orb in Cathy’s hand, making her stagger back, and all that was left of the door was a blank wall. The door and the void had returned to the orb. Then, the room started to shake and the yellow pillars started to crumble.
“You forgot to the turn the key!” David yelled. “And this place is crumbling, RUN!” All three of them ran thru the passage, back to the library, as the walls and pillars fell around them. They just cleared the threshold as the last pillar fell and the roof caved in releasing a cloud of dust. They sat, panting, as the dust cleared around them. David looked over his shoulder at the pile of rubble and stone in the room he had been in just seconds ago. Then, seeing he did not have the key, he turned to his Mother.
“Mom, do you have the orb?”
“No sweetie, I don’t. But it’s fine, it was probably crushed in the cave-in of the room.” Cathy said. They all got up and started to walk the long way back to the surface, when Richard stopped and looked at David.
“What in the name of ice cream made you go back to that room, and why were you there in the first place?” Richard question David.
“Well,” David started. He then launched into the story of how he had been in the basement looking for something, when he found the room they had just left. He had found the orb, and had started to leave with it to ask the librarians what it was, when the hydra had found him and how he had ran to the door in fright. Then the hydra told had him if he did not bring back the key it would destroy the town and every one in it.
“And so I had to come back, and the police would have thought me crazy if I had told them.”
“Your nuts David, nuts, and brave all at the same time.” Said Richard. “What I still don’t get is why the hydra did not open the gate sooner?”
“Probably because they had to wait a certain amount of time before they could open it, maybe a time lock?”
“That works.”
“Well this has been a big day. David, Richard why don’t you come over to my house and we can have the left over hamburgers.” Cathy stated.
“I would love to, I am starving.” Richard announced as they started to climb the stairs to the front door.
---
The orb lay in a small circle of clear space in the demolished room, it glowed softly. A small crack appeared on its surface and a low hissing sound emitted from it.
“We will be back to claim our revenge.” Hissed the voice that was familiar and sinister.
THE END