These Old Bones

"We drove up the snowy, winding road towards the cozy A-frame cabin—“

“Aw Gramps, we’ve heard that story a million times. I’m still bored.” The blankets on the top bunk rumpled with his discontent.

“Well Ethan, why don’t you tell your kid brother a bedtime story then if you’re just going to interrupt mine.”

“I will. Let me get my stuff!” The bunkbed ladder’s telltale creak heralded yet another delay to my much-anticipated sandwich.

“Stuff? What stuff? You don’t need ‘stuff’ to tell a story. You just tell it out.”

“Can I have the lava one tonight, Ethan?! Please!” Goob apparently knew what was up, and was all in. I folded, the closet light winking on and plastic bins disgorged key story-making contents. A stack of papers and a book, and some small fiddly things. Well, at least it wasn’t a screen.

“Sure, here you go. Lava rock is yours tonight.” Squeals of delight as our ringmaster vaulted back into his roost, and the half-lit preteen’s face assumed a deadly serious, imperious cast. “Choose your hero, Bertie.”

“Loren the Lightcaster!” A pillow was tossed in the air to land on the floor, quickly recovered by the now-untucked Gil. I sighed, and Ethan’s face turned to me, pen poised over his notebook.

“Uh, Marsha the... Magnificent?” My wife’s name seemed heroic enough. He nodded approvingly, and Goob started prattling about all sorts of things I couldn’t track. I guess they did this a lot.

“Is Marsha a wizard or a warrior, Gramps?”

“A cook?”

Goob dashed over to my lap and tugged on my shirt sleeve. “No! You need to be a warrior to protect Loren the Lightcaster. Loren’s a priest, he can’t defend himself.”

“Ok, ok. A warrior then, but I do the cooking too. Marsha is all about cooking.”

“Great, that’s good character development. Take notes, Goob.” Ethan’s pen was scratching away furiously, his head turning back and forth between his notebook and the strange storybook. “And what villain are the two of you hunting tonight?”

“Kibbles!” Gil threw his pillow again. “We’re going to get him tonight, finally!”

“Sure. That pup used to dig up Marsha’s flowers at least once a week.”

“Have at least a little imagination.” There we go. The classic preteen eyeroll, back already.

“Yeah, Kibbles isn’t a dog, Grandpa. He’s a kobold!”

“Oh, of course. But he can dig up flowers, right?”

“More than flowers,” Ethan’s voice deepened dramatically, “Kibbles digs up the local graveyards and the terrified villagers send you to put a stop to his evil sacrilege! Who knows what he’s planning in his dark lair?”

Goober stood up and rolled something hard along the windowsill. “Tracking... 4. What did Marsha get, Grandpa?”

Ethan shook a small plastic container and consulted it. “Marsha finds the trail of the handcarts and the clawed feet going up into the forest on the slopes of Mount Terrinor. Together she and Loren discover an old elven ruin. Great stone totems of knife-eared warriors loom over you in the growing dark of evening.”

“Where’d you kids learn about totems?” I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.

“So they’re real? Have you seen any Grandpa?!”

“Well yeah they’re real. Back when I lived in Washington I drove by a few every Thursday. There’s a lot of tribal land up there and—“

“Loren, roll religion!” Ethan interrupted, sending Bert’s head to eclipse the small window once more.

“28!”

“The Lightcaster knows that the animal head part of the totems must point to the ritual table. That is surely where Kibbles and his cult will be set up. They need a site of power after all, for their grisly necromancy.”

“Who taught you kids about necromancy?” I threw my arms up in disbelief. “Does your mom even take you to church anymore? What is this?”

“Necromancy’s real too?! Where did you see that? What was it like Grandpa?”

“Not something to mess around with, that’s for sure.”

“Well duh! That’s why we have to stop Kibbles tonight before he animates a zombie army and takes over the valley!”

“Hold on now—“

“Both of you roll stealth!” Ethan giggled, and Goob’s excited pronouncement of 15 precluded continued religious discussion.

“A noiseless shadow crosses the moon as the adventuring pair edges toward the temple arches. Inside, you see torchlight and shadows taller than men...”

Ethan described scene after lurid scene of dog-faced monster-men baying out profane spells, the moaning of the wind under the full moon, and the hulking, hooting shadow of a bear-owl abomination around the elven altar put to dark use.

I’ll never quite be sure what happened that night. Whether my increasingly-hoarse reactions led Loren and Marsha to victory or the inscrutable dice fell in our favor, Kibbles was slain. In the end, the mossy cathedral stones came crashing down on the heels of the heroes after a heart-pounding throwdown.

I was too disturbed to do more than stumble out of the boys’ room sometime after midnight to the comfort of my ham sandwich and now-warm beer. As my shaking hands lifted the bottle to my dry lips, an owl hooted outside.

The bottle flew at the window screen and my sandwich was Fay Wray in King Kong’s hands. My dry old throat squeaked an embarrassingly high yodel of terror.

I looked down at the mustard all over my shirt and suspenders, the broken bottle and its sticky contents redecorating my wallpaper. Just as I comforted my senses with a string of not-quite-forgotten sailor-talk, a creak in the hallway announced a new blood-curdling terror behind me.

I whirled around, alive with primal reflexes and superstition. The boys’ eyes were the size of saucers at their grandfather having a senior moment in the kitchen.

Half an hour later, the pleasant white noise of the tv beheld my last act of the evening. With angry, hooked thumbs I texted my daughter-in-law:

Cheryl, this is the last time I watch your kids while you have a weekend getaway. Take these monsters to church!!!