Excerpt:
Ellen looks over at the manuscript at her side. She picks it up and reads the last page. “Leroy knows the war…
Hearthville Serial: Book 7
Episode 31f
Any Truth, Proper Grammar, or Correct Spelling is totally coincidental if not accidental.
All characters are fiction. This story is fiction. This story makes no claims about any real person.
By Charles Peters
Copyright 2022
All Rights Reserved
Chapter / Episode List of the Heathville Serial
Elliot screams into the microphone. “Yo, Quentin. I am baaaaack.”
“Who is this? My assistant said that Arthur Ramsey is on the phone.”
“I am Elliot Duddley. You remember me. Don’t you?”
“You have your memory back?”
“Victor is in the Outlands and I am fairly sure that he has fallen into the sleep. I have got to get to him.”
“We have been trying to figure out how to get past the magic locks. We can’t.”
“Does Merlin and King Arthur know what is going on?”
“I don’t know. Those two don’t talk to me.”
“Contact them.”
“I don’t know how and even if I did they would not answer my call.”
“The world may be coming to an end and you are acting like some God damn timid little girlie boy. Soldier, that is not acceptable. Arthur, do you know how to contact Merlin and King Arthur?”
“No. Sorry.”
Barnabus says, “Neither do I.”
Joesion says, “Nor I.”
Jossette (Nette) says, “I do.”
Elliot shakes his head and says, “Sure you do. Lying bitch.”
Quentin says, “I will check around. Maybe I can figure out how to contact him.”
“I need a spell that will cloak us while I fly through the fires of hell so as to reach the Outlands.”
“What spaceship are you calling from? My system shows it is a spaceship but it can not identify which spaceship.”
Elliot laughs. “You know what spaceship it is. Use your god damn brain you fucking asshole.”
“You are flying the tanker that Victor stole from Sabian Blackrock when he was ten. Are you insane?”
“Hell yeah. We all are. It is a trip, baby. It is a trip. Start enjoying the ride.
“Oh my God. I remember why I came to hate you so much.”
“Hate me all you want. Make contact with Merlin and King Arthur.”
“I will try.”
Jossette says, “I do know how to contact them. Tiffany Lane is an incarnation of Guinevere.”
Elliot says, “So. Just because she is his wife doesn’t mean she knows how to contact him. I doubt her memory is intact.”
“Although Guinevere asked King Arthur to not watch her every move as Tiffany, he does have people to watch her so that if she is about to die and return to Camelot then he will know. If you go to Tiffany in astral form and call out to King Arthur what is going on, then he might get the message. Now I’ve told you this without asking anything in return, but please let me and Barnabus out of this god damn cage.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“I don’t blame you. I fucked up.”
“Will you release the real Jossette?”
“I can’t. You know can’t. I am the real Jossette.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Oh my God. You are crazy as a squirrel trying to the cross the road.”
“I am pretty sure you are the one who is crazy. But we’ve got to save Victor so I will not hold it against you.”
“Yeah, bitch, mighty gracious. Okay, so I will go find Tiffany.”
Arthur says, “Steed told me that that Tiffany has been real sick. She is at Leroy Bare’s house. Leroy has been frantic to find a cure. I have not heard from Steed lately so I don’t even know if she is still alive.”
“God damn. Let us pray she is. Hell. Let us pray that Leroy has been able to find a cure. If she has had the same sickness as the Otherside Sleeping Sickness that would solve some problems.”
Elliot reaches a point above Leroy’s home. “Okay Arthur, I am going to trust you to not fuck with me. In other words, don’t leave without me. Joesion, you beam down with me to Leroy’s home.”
“Okay. No problem.”
So they beam down into the living room of Leroy’s home. Everyone in that living rooms sees Elliot and Joesion appear from thin air. Ellen stares at her husband. She is confused.
Ellen says, “Elliot! What?”
Elliot says, “Think. You can remember just as I’ve remembered.”
“Remember what? I feel so confused. Am I dreaming?” The room begins to fade. “What is happening? I must be dreaming.”
Ellen hears a voice. It is distant at first. She can barely hear the voice. It is Victor’s voice. “Mom. Don’t worry about me. Being dead isn’t bad.”
Ellen cries. “Victor, you can’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.”
And Ellen hears another voice. “Mom. Are you coming out of it. Please be coming out.” She recognizes the voice as Judy’s voice. Her daughter’s voice. “Please wake up.”
Then Ellen hears Elliot’s voice. “Nurse. Nurse. Get the doctor. I think Ellen is coming out of the coma.”
A male nurse comes into the room and then leaves the room.
“Coma?” Ellen opens her eyes. She stares at Elliot, Stewart, and Judy. She looks for Victor. “Where is Victor?”
Elliot takes Ellen’s hand. “I don’t know how to tell you.”
Ellen cries, “Please don’t tell me that Victor is dead. I beg you. It can’t be true. He can’t be dead.”
Elliot says, “On your phone it showed that Victor had called you. My phone showed that he had tried to call me, but I had misplaced my phone when he had been trying to call.”
“I drove to the Smith Junkyard and I yelled out for Victor. He heard me. He started screaming, ‘Mama, Mama.” And I followed the sound. He was in the boot of an old car. I found a set of keys laying on the ground. I reached down to pick the keys up and I heard a noise. Then something hit hard against my head.”
“Sam Smith found you laying there. You were unconscious. You’ve been in a coma for going on a month.”
“And Victor.”
“Victor was found dead in the boot of the car. We don’t know how he had ended up there. We don’t know who hit you over the head. Before he was put in the boot of the car, he had already been badly beaten. Did he tell you who had done that to him.”
“No. He told me that I couldn’t trust the police but he didn’t say they are the ones who did it to him. He didn’t know he was dying. I didn’t know he was dying. Oh my God. My baby’s dead. He told me not to call 911 but I should have. I should have.”
Stewart says, “So someone in the police department did that to him.”
Elliot says, “We don’t know that.”
Judy says, “We know he didn’t call 911. We know he told mom not to call 911.”
Elliot says, “Victor didn’t know he was dying. He could have been involved in something illegal and that is why he did not want the police brought in to it.”
The male nurse walks back into the room. “The doctor will be here soon.”
“My son was not a criminal.” There is silence.
Ellen stares at the male nurse. “Leroy Bare?”
Leroy shakes his head no.
Then Ellen says, “I had such weird dreams. There were human witches and space alien witches and Victor was like a god of some kind. And he was trying to save the world. At the same time he was messed up. He had an alter called George and there was Caelous. Such weird dreams.”
Leroy smiles a strange smile and does his eyes weird.
Stewart smiles. “That sounds like something Victor would have written. He loved to write. He would write some weird shit though. I tell you what. Weird stuff.”
Judy nods. “It wasn’t all weird. I liked his character Jossette and also Steed.” Judy tries to fight back her tears. She starts crying. She runs from the hospital room as the doctor enters.
The doctor asks Ellen’s family to leave the room. He closes the door. Leroy freezes the doctor and walks over to talk to Ellen. “I don’t know how much of this you will understand. Maybe none of it.”
“You are Leroy Bare?”
“I am. We lost.”
“What do you mean, we lost?”
“Think about your dream. Belial has taken over. Many people have been caged. Not only have memories been changed but time itself has been changed. We lost. Many souls have been caged. Some are in the sleep. We lost.”
“And Victor?”
“He fell into the sleep. Captain Crayon, Carp, and Dresden did their best to save them but they just managed to escape being caged themselves. I talked to Merlin and King Arthur and they told me what Dresden had told them as well as explained what Belial had done. Victor isn’t dead. There is no death. But he is in the sleep and he has been caged.”
“This does not make any sense to me.”
“Remember your dream.”
“It is so confusing.”
“There was an event in Victor’s past that was greatly altered and moved to the future.”
“Who killed Victor?”
“The event is a total fabrication from a much earlier event. If you want to say anyone killed Victor, which is misleading in that there is no death, I would say Belial. Now I am going to unfreeze the doctor and I am going to leave. You may or may not remember me telling you any of this, but I wanted you to know. The dreams you dreamed while in the coma are more than dreams. They are as real as the air you breathe and the life you live.”
Ellen nods. “The dreams are a part of who Victor was and is and I will never forget my beautiful son, Victor.”
The doctor becomes unfrozen.
Ellen feels weird as she hears a sudden silence that would be loud if but it had a sound. She watches the doctor vanish into thin air and she interrupts that weird, loud, silence with a desperate whimper. She moans, “What is happening?” Her eyes had felt agape, but now her eyes feel closed, shut. The deafening silence returns. She desperately fights to open her eyes but they feel glued, sealed. They are so tightly closed she thinks that she must be dead. She attempts to wiggle her fingers to prove to herself that she is not dead. She can not manage to move even one finger. The fear of death torments her and she imagines herself laying in an open pine box–butt naked. “Pine box? Naked? Those cheap skates,” she silently thinks. Then out of the haunting silence a peculiar noise grows. At first she thinks it is the most weird sound she has ever heard. Am I hearing a sound that comes with death? To no avail she continues her attempt to wiggle her fingers to prove to herself that she is not deceased. Then she realizes what the hideous sound is that is driving her to the point of near insanity. With her realization she considers that though it is an unpleasant sound, it is also the most amazing and glorious sound that she might ever hear. She is hearing the sound of herself snoring. Now she feels her fingers move as she wiggles each finger up and down.
Ellen feels a great comfort in the realization that she has not died. “I am not dead,” she says in her sleep.
Then she hears Victor’s voice. “Mom. Wake up. Wake up. What did you think of my story?”
Ellen opens her eyes and she stares with love at Victor. “Oh thank God, thank God. No one has murdered you.”
“No, neither of us is mortuus. What were you dreaming?”
She grabs Victor and hugs him. “I had such a terrible nightmare but I am awake now. Thank God I am awake now. Victor, please know that I love you. I am sorry we fought. Victor, I don’t care what Jossette’s Aunt Rachel says or her mom Terence says, you insist on talking to Jossette.”
“She won’t talk to me. Roger won’t talk to Stewart. I don’t know why but they seem to hate us.”
“Oh bullshit. Terence is lying to you. Talk to Jossette. Tell Stewart to talk to Roger. Stay friends. I am sorry to hell I went along with that crazy Rachel. Terence is probably sorry as well.”
Victor smiles as he continues to feel the loving embrace of his mom. “I love you mom.” He pulls out of the hug which feels to be lasting a little bit too long. “So what did you think of my story?”
Ellen looks over at the manuscript at her side. She picks it up and reads the last page. “Leroy knows the war has been lost and earth’s future will be grim until the gods awaken and free themselves from the cages. Until then, the future will seem hopeless but still, we must never lose hope. We must hope for a cure to free us from the evil and the sickness that is Belial. The End”
Ellen looks up at Victor. Was it all just a nightmare she’d had from reading Victor’s manuscript? Ellen knows the idea that any of it was real seems crazy but still, Ellen isn’t sure. Regardless, she knows she must believe it was Victor’s story that caused her to have one of the strangest dreams she’s ever had in her life. She knows she must believe that it was just a dream.
“So what did you think of my book?”
Ellen says, “I loved it. But I must tell you, it caused me to have one hell of a nightmare.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Can I keep this copy and read the story again?”
“Sure. I have other copies and it is on my computer. I am going to tell Stewart what you said about Jossette and Roger. If it is okay and he is agreed, we are going to drive to Atlanta to visit the Ogelby’s. We are going to insist on seeing them.”
“Good. Good. Just be careful.”
“We will be.”
“And also when talking to Terence, don’t throw in latin words in an attempt to sound smart. That is really irritating.”
“I don’t do that?”
“Mortuus. Seriously.”
“Oh. Sorry.”