TROLL (a sample)
by
Kurt Fillmore
Brighton Middle School stood next to the park. The pipe the caller went on about drained near the foot bridge, where she had ran and played with her friends.
Joan remembered her eighth grade graduation from Brighton. Her favorite subjects had been math and English, she’d even tutored her brother. Her graduation party had been the happiest day she’d ever known. Sister Steeple, who never ever got angry had cried and hugged her at the party, which was a shock from her usual hard as cement personna.
Now something had attacked her childhood, rocking her foundation.
Joan pulled the car into a parallel space and jumped out, flashlight at the ready. She skinnied between the gate posts of the parking lot and hurried past the classrooms. One glance at the creek bottom and she would head back. Even with probable cause, she was still trespassing. Her happy memories didn’t include ominous shapes in the dark, and now evil forms seemed everywhere; trash can, oak tree, wheelbarrow. She moved the beam of the light over the asphalt, keeping an eye out for any cracks that would snag her shoes.
Ahead she saw the iron rails and wooden slats of the bridge. Tree limbs showed in the circle of her light, then faded away into the darkness beyond. Joan paced out to the bridge’s center and leaned over, lighting up the creek bottom.
Stupid rocks and sparkling water, but that was it. Cobwebs beneath the bridge drifted on the breeze. Something black fluttered through the beam and was gone before she could follow it.
She would never tell Castro about this, she had gone and done something stupid.
At the far side of the bank her light revealed the metal drain pipe, the zinc coated ridges gleaming in the dark.
“Great,” she said.
She got her arms off the railing and turned to head back, then yelled and dropped the flashlight. It rolled over the planks and came to rest on a riveted metal beam.
A spot of orange glowed in the darkness, followed by a puff of thin smoke.
“You scared the hell out of me,” Joan said, but the person at the end of the bridge didn’t speak. He also didn’t move.
The smoker ground out the cigarette on the railing and tossed the butt over the side. He then coughed, made a gurgling noise, and spat into the water. Big guy, whoever it was, real big.
Joan pulled her purse around and undid the catch. She also took a step back, towards the spot where her flashlight was hung up.
“Do you want to cross this bridge?,” came a deep voice.
Oh boy. Joan opened the purse and took out her pistol. She swung the purse behind her and thumbed off the safety, then raised the gun in both hands, but not aiming at the guy, not yet.
“You shouldn’t be out here at night scaring people,” she said. “What’s your name?”
The smoker made a noise, a deep growl, that sounded like vocal cords full of gravel.
“Who asks?,” the smoker said.
“Jesus, I’m a cop. Answer the question. What’s your name and what are you doing here?”
“That is two questions.”
The smoker turned and the bridge groaned. Then he took several slow steps forward. Joan brought up the pistol, aimed it into the center of the dark shape.
“Don’t come any closer. I’ve got a gun on your chest.”
Joan could hear the labored breathing, could feel it vibrating through the steel beneath her feet.
“I haven’t played the riddle game in a very long time,” the smoker said. “But you do not ask the questions, I pose the questions to you. To pass over the bridge you must answer my riddle. Do you wish to try?”
“You’re under arrest. Interfering with a police officer, being a threatening jerk, and anything else I can think of.”
“Do you want to play the game?”
“I’m not very good at games.”
“How are you at dying?”
Joan stepped back, saw the flashlight glowing at her feet.
“I’ll empty my clip before you can get ten feet buddy. I said you’re under arrest.”
Her cell phone was in her purse, she’d cuff the guy to the bridge rail and call for backup. Something she should have done before walking onto the school grounds.
“A riddle then.” The smoker cleared his throat. “I roll my secrets safely hid, unfurl from me to thee. I bare the strokes of feathers black, thoughts of antiquity.”
“What the hell are you on?,” she said.
“Answer quickly, or die,” the smoker said.
Her purse gave a ring, the damn cell phone.
The smoker took a step, forcing Joan back. Her purse rang again.
“You’ll never cross this bridge, and you’ll die for nothing. I only eat the little ones.”
Joan shivered, felt all her muscles going soft. Something was wrong with the dark bulk moving towards her, shoulders twisted, legs too short. She started hyperventilating, couldn’t think. Feathers, blackened feathers. Quills.
She fired twice, the muzzle flash burning an image of a bulbous, creased nose, long teeth, and green eyes into her brain.
The bulk turned sideways with a shout, then passed a hand over its eyes and continued towards her.
“Do you know the answer?”
“Parchment scrolls,” she screamed, “writing on parchment scrolls.”
The bulk stopped, made another gravel filled growl. “Too easy. Too long since I played the game.”
Then the bulk leapt the railing and vanished. Joan heard it crash on the rocks and splash through the water. She hit the railing herself, fired three times into the darkness.
“Crap.”
Her purse rang again. Joan dug out the cell phone, hit the button.
“Never,” she yelled, “ever god damn call me again.”
She switched off the phone, then reared back and threw it through the tree branches. The flashlight was still at the edge of the steel beam. She picked it up and ran across the bridge into Kensley Park.
