Monster Slayer and Box Boy

A grubby child maybe 13 or 14 sits on the wooden porch of a trailer home bruised and dejected, ravenous. He has been beaten by a drunken father for eating paint off of his bedroom wall. He is skinny and always hungry though he gets three square meals a day. He eats hair, dirt, paint, and sometimes nails or other bits of metal. His bizarre appetite has left him with an untreated case of tape worms. His hair is dirty, long in patches almost hiding the other patches, patches of raw scalp where the hair has been pulled from. He picks up a stick and begins to walk around the ugly desert that is his back yard. I say an ugly desert because this is not a desert of beautiful saguaro cactus, flitting wrens, and magical sunsets, instead it is a desert of illegal dumping, trailer meth labs, and acres of rusting junk some his fathers some not. The boy picks a few pieces of the remaining, sun faded paint, from the rickety splintered porch railing he stuffs them greedily into his mouth then picks up his stick and plods into the desert. In his mind’s eye he sees himself freed from the trappings of human hood. Wandering an alien landscape scorched and hateful. impossibly tall and gauntly thin where hands once were now dirty augmentations. There is a crude flame thrower on one stump and a forked spear on the other. Something moves a two headed Gila monster or maybe just a one headed rabbit. Lightning fast he stabs it, cremates it and wolfs it down, one back leg still kicking. Back on his ugly piece of earth, he spies a large brown pile something new and he begins to make his way toward it.

Hundreds of years ago a peaceful and hardy people eked out a living in the desert, a time before a million miles of concrete and asphalt held the monsoon rains at bay. In the bustling Nation of Xu-Thi a shadow of terror had come to rest. The people were no stranger to death. Wolves, lions, snakes, and creatures that have eluded modern scientific classification were a constant threat. The new menace was worse than the others as they were cunning and looked like people. There were three of them two males and a female, by their looks and language from a far-off land. They lived in a series of nearby caves from which they were said to fly down and snatch villagers tearing them to pieces and eating them all while hovering in the air before their victims horrified loved ones. One day a village warrior named Big and Strong, shot one from the air using a magic bow, he immediately chopped the fiend up with a stone axe. The other two laughed as they flew off to safety. Within just minutes the monster reformed itself, it spit in Big and Strong’s face while he stood paralyzed with shock then flew off to join his companions. That night Big and Strong died, it was thought to be poison from the creature’s spit.

Other warriors and magicians tried to kill the monsters with similar outcomes. One magician had a flock of trained giant eagles pull all three from the sky. A waiting group of warriors set upon them with axes stone clubs and pitch, the smoke and ash reformed into the three fiends. This went on for more than a year and the people’s numbers were decimated. Many fled to live with kin in other lands. A few tried to reason with or even worship the fiends as gods. A husband and wife built a great altar to them in the desert near the hills wear they were believed to live. The man and woman stole children to offer them as a sacrifice, believing they and their families would be spared. The Man and woman never returned but a few of the children did. One child said that one of the creatures stabbed the man in the eye with a cactus thorn, he went mad then grew into a frightening monster with a face like a coyote, he killed his wife then ran into the desert screaming gibberish and howling as he went. The great leader had a beautiful daughter and a handsome son, the leader sent his messengers in every direction, anyone who could rid his nation of the fiends once and for all could marry his son or daughter and take one magical item from his treasury. Many weeks passed and many more people died. A rule was made, no women or children were to leave their dwellings. Guards were posted at all the farms, fishing and water gathering spots, and accompanied the hunters. These guards did little save serve as sacrifices being devoured while those, they watched over fled.

The great leader, prepared to address his nation, he was going to speak the heads of all the clans and tell them it was time to do the unthinkable, and flee the land. The nation would split up and head in eight different directions. The fiends would not follow all the groups and the people would live on. He laid down to bed with a heavy heart. The next morning, he awoke, and dressed, surrounded by warriors and magicians he went to address the congregation. He stood holding the feathered staff of his position overhead. Just before he began to speak there was a commotion, a stranger had arrived. He rode in an odd cart. The cart was drawn by two large sand lizards and was covered in an unknown hide; it was adorned with all manner of fetishes and talismans. The frame boasted many long-curved spikes covered in skulls some human some of creatures the people of Xi-Thi did not know. The figure driving the cart was huge and covered in metallic armor featuring hundreds of black and grey spikes, a metal helmet and mask also spiked, hid his appearance entirely. The driver did not climb from his position he only sat staring dead ahead. but from the back of the cart a mysterious figure appeared.

“I am Stars for Eyes, and I have come to rid you of the three shudovishti!” He announced as he climbed from the cart.

The stranger spoke the language of the people but with a different accent they had never heard before. He wore a hooded cloak of scintillating blues and greens that hid all but his shiny eyes. He was a foreigner to be sure but a few of the magicians and wise folk had heard his name in the past but he was believed to be an imposter using the name, as the real Stars for Eyes had died almost a hundred years ago fighting an evil witch and her familiar, a stiff legged bear. Stars for Eyes was said to be a descendant of the last of the sky people that came to enslave humanity. It was agreed upon though that if this were really Stars for Eyes and the legends were true, then he may bring hope to a hopeless nation. That night Stars for Eyes ate with the great leader his son and daughter and his house warrior and magician. Stars for Eyes was quiet and took only vegetables and water. He had a different look about him as if he were of mixed blood, his eyes seemed to glimmer with a peculiar light, but he seemed human enough. Stars for Eyes made it clear he had no room in his life for a spouse, he had traveled from far to the south to procure an item the great leader possessed; it was an obsidian sword called Ticuani. Ticuani was one on the nation’s most valuable treasures but if Stars for Eyes could rid them of the blood thirsty menace then it was a fair trade. Sitting beside Stars for Eyes, was one of his two guards, dressed in his vicious armor of exotic metal and spikes. Stars for Eyes explained that one guard always stayed with the lizards as they were extremely rare, to protect them, the other always stayed with him. Stars for Eyes also admitted he had no Idea what either warrior looked like beneath their armor, or could he tell them apart.

“Is it true that you are a descendant of sky people?” Ghost Talker, the great leader’s head magician intrepidly asked their guest.

I had a father and a mother, both earthlings to the best of my knowledge.” Stars for Eyes responded.

“Aren’t you afraid the fiends will snatch up your lizards or your warrior?” Said Naylyn, the chief’s daughter.

“No, the armor is too heavy and strong, and the spikes are of a magical material that would harm even these fiends though not kill them. And my guardian would defend the prized animals to the death!” Said Stars for Eyes.

“That brings me to the question.” Said the great leader. “How do you intend to kill them?”

After a pause and a sigh Stars for Eyes spoke. “I cannot kill them, almost nothing can.” Sensing a return of desperation in his audience he quickly stated. “But I can banish them. They will be sent far away where they will kill no more.”

Stars for Eyes was offered a bed but refused, he would sleep in his cart to be close to both guards and his prized lizards. The next morning before dawn, the cart headed into the hills that were green from recent rains. For the first several miles soldiers and workers that were out would greet them with cheers and well wishes, but the farther away they got the less people seemed to notice them. The last little settlement they went through the people barely looked up at the travelers or their unusual mode of transportation. Stars for Eyes knew their type, these were the people who always lived on deaths door step, a new monster or a new plague was no different than the last; these were the people who had stopped believing in heroes a long time ago. Stars for Eyes hoped he would not meet the fiends on the road, but instead would catch them unaware in their lair. He was prepared to fight either way. He traced a pattern with his finger across his cloak and it changed in color perfectly matching the land scape around him. He filled a bag with various powders, stones and feathers and took up a long silvery blow gun. His thoughts were focused on banishing these creatures; it would mark three more off his long and seemingly ever-growing list. After he completed this task, he would go to his coastal hide out where he would exchange his prized lizards, for a team of rein dear and head to the far north there he and his two henchmen would face off against a murderous creature called Malntowabe. Malntowabe was a giant rumored to be over 40 ft tall, his body was humanoid covered from head to toe is shaggy hair his head was not that of a human but that of a ferocious three eyed mastodon. He wore a breast plate and girdle made of human bones. His tusks were carved with runes set with magical stones that gave him protection from almost all weapons, Stars for Eyes was quite confident that the Ticuani would be able to slay the fiend. He would thus bring peace to the region and taking the monsters tusks have the weapon he needed to slay the next monster on his list.

As the road became little more than a goat trail wound towards the hills the driver gave a sharp whistle, Stars for Eyes knew that it meant trouble, he and his other warrior prepared for a fight as he peered out of the coach. In the road stood a tall man, human but for the face of a coyote with one blind eye, the malformed creature had armed itself with a war club spiked with broken bones and cactus thorns. The driver took up a defensive position guarding the lizards, Stars for Eyes and the other warrior quickly jumped from the coach. The thing charged at them snarling and wildly swinging his club. The spiked warrior charged forth with a spear forged from one long piece of metal, he stabbed at his opponent who despite his rage ducked beneath the jabbed weapon and countered with his crude club. The club was no match for the warrior’s armor and it broke. The out raged the coyote man grappled with the warrior impaling hairy clawed hands on vicious spikes, he backed up growling and bleeding, just as Stars for Eyes raised his long blow gun to his lips. A long cruel dart lodged in the creatures one good eye. The creature wailed sounding almost human, the warrior drove the spear through the creature’s heart the wound spewed forth a torrent of black blood. The coyote man slid dead from the end of the spear. Nearby in a tall clump of dry grass the two heard mewling and crying, they went to investigate. Lying in the grass was a she coyote nursing six cubs two were normal pups but two had coyote bodies with almost human faces the other two had hairy human infant bodies with grotesque dog like heads. The warrior lifted a wicked spiked boot over them, but Stars for Eyes lifted his hand to stay the execution, though he knew that someday he would regret it. Stars for Eyes expected resistance from such enemies as these, and he was fairly sure an idiot coyote man would be the least of it. They had not made it more than a few more miles when a loud whistle again came from the driver again, Stars for Eyes and the warrior again prepared for battle. In their path of travel was a large horned toad as tall as a horse with the face of an old woman squarely in its chest.

” Go home fool, you don’t belong in these lands.” Cried the face.

“I have work to do grandmother I cannot.” Replied Stars for Eyes.

“I know your name you impetuous child.”

For a moment he almost wavered, she may know one of his names, but not the one that might give her power over him he hoped.

“Crawl back in your hole before I have my man here come give you a great big hug.” Replied stars for eyes.

“Your name you worm is Jos… She began to say, but as soon as she said the first part of the name the warrior hurled his spear right into her mouth.

Stars for Eyes gave his companion a nod of thanks. The face was silent, but the toad still stood there seeming confused. Stars for Eyes and the warrior approached the creature that seemed docile enough and removed some powder from one of many bags that hung from his cloak, he blew the dust into the creatures’ eyes and it fell into a deep sleep. By now the sun was going down painting the sky behind the hills orange and red. Stars for Eyes worked deftly with a knife cutting around the hideous old woman’s dead visage. It was nearly midnight when he and the warrior began to pull a human corpse from the snoring horny toads’ chest. When they finished extracting it Stars for Eyes patted the sleeping creature on the head, he then applied a salve to the wound.

“You will be better off without the mean old lady in your guts.” Said Stars for Eyes to the giant reptile.

Afterword they drug the corpse off into the dark and burned it. The three camped with the warriors taking turns guarding through the night. The night was quiet except for the howling of coyotes and the constant chirping of crickets. The next morning, they headed off and around mid-day using a curious looking glass Stars for Eyes spotted a cave in the hills. He and his companion began to plod up the hill toward the cave. Just inside the cave he took a deep whiff of the air, he smelled death and evil on the cool currents drifting out of the cave. With the spiked warrior watching over him he began to draw a circle full of intricate lines and symbols he drew it large enough so that anyone rushing into or out of the cave would most likely pass through the circle. The plan was they would look for them in the cave and if they were there get them to give chase, then the two would avoid the circle and run out, if all went to plan the fiends would run through the circle and be banished back to the dimension whence their creators came came. With his blow gun in one hand and a glowing stone in the other, Stars for Eyes led the pair into the cave. Stars for Eyes knew he could not kill the creatures, but they could wound them and slow them down. It was not hard to locate the three, they sat around a large opaque and perfectly round crystal. Inside the crystal a rainbow of colors and a blood red mist roiled about. They seemed entranced in the imagery, and completely unaware they were being stocked. The lair stank of decay and the faint cry of a woman could be heard somewhere in the caves. Stars for Eyes made a few gestures which was all his companion needed to understand the plan. Stars for Eyes Would quickly fire darts at the three of them that would slow them down, he would the project his image to be a few feet closer, this would give them a moment or two head start. They would bolt for the cave entrance Eyes for Stars to the right of the circle and the other to the left. He raised his blowgun to his lips, before he could blow the dart through the tube, he heard a snarl a massive cave dog appeared from the chamber behind them. The dog bolted forth the warrior stabbed at it, but it had already done its job and alerted the three fiends, who flew across the room with lightning speed. The warrior quickly dispatched the dog but before he could spin around one of the fiends had grabbed him, they reeled back with clawed hands covered in blood. Two tried to grab Stars for Eyes but the grabbed air targeting his illusion instead of him. The warrior did not hesitate and proceeded with the plan. Stars for Eyes and his companion waited outside of the cave, they watched the three creatures fly toward them claws out shrieking and snarling as they went. They watched the three vanish in a flash of black light one after another. After they were sure the fiends were gone, they went through the cave looking for prisoners. They found room after room with strange crystals, blood-stained altars, and carved sigils. Stars for Eyes gathered the things he found relevant and destroyed the things that he thought should be destroyed. Eventually they found a young woman chained to a wall there we others, but they were dead. They carried her back to the cart and headed back to the village, one of the warriors slept the other drove the cart. Stars for Eyes gave the woman a bit of a potion so that she might forget and sleep for a little while. He worked scribbling in one book while consulting another one, he compared notes to a letter written on a fine parchment as well.

“The shudovishti almost always will be found in multiples of three. There will be an unofficial leader a fighter and a magician. There will be at least one female, the groups will copulate with each other, but we believe they are sterile and cannot breed but there may be more trapped in the mountains that might be released. They are descendants of the Ku-Thall tribe. One of many tribes that became corrupted in the service of the sky people. This tribe attached itself to a battalion of Laican-Unaki who came in the portal ship Zigall Teng 09. The Ku-Thall betrayed neighboring tribes capturing their members and trading them to the invaders for food and mercy. The force put off by the ship is what began the corruption, it warped their genetic code binding their cells to a kind of center point they can move that center point at will to anywhere in their line of sight, this is what allows them to fly. To the best of our knowledge there are only three packs left two made their way across the ocean, one hunts in the mountains of Europe the other in Asia. The final group Is in the south western part of the great continent Oros.”

Stars for Eyes agreed to stay on a few weeks until it could be confirmed the three fiends were gone. They were celebrated and maidens came and hung flowers on the spiked warriors laughing and asking what they looked like under their armor, they stood in stoic tolerance seemingly oblivious to the attention. Eventually the group headed toward the coastal north west and the desert gave way to lush forests and almost constant rain.

Even the slightest mistake when drawing a banishing sigil can make a vast difference in where a target will be sent. It was not Stars for Eyes who had errored, but the ancients who had provided the symbols, or perhaps it was not an error at all. Millions of miles out into space the three creatures silently shrieked as they starved. Like rats they turned on one another devouring each other only to be torn apart as the other reformed. With each reformation they would lose some of their form a bit of skin here a few drops of blood there they would also pick-up dust and radiation which warped them further eventually they drifted off from one another at this point mad from starvation they has spent a hundred years trying to find some place to land and feed. In two hundred more years the female who was the leader was pulled through a wormhole she landed on a planet thousands of years in the past in a faraway galaxy. The planet was populated with a humanoid species, she conquered the planet and became its ruler. She became known as empress Zyntaina. The warrior of the group became trapped in a black hole. Only the magician continued. Rather than relying on his eyes to travel he conjured images of the earth in his head dreaming of his homeland, a terrible city beneath the Carpathian Mountains where his kind was neither born nor died but simply awoke. As terrible as they were, they were not the alpha predators of their realm. Powerful vampires ruled over a dark nation below the mountains, they had ways of capturing the shudovishti and would farm them for blood. The vampires had to be careful as they could not always tell which one was a magician, and a magician could control anyone who tasted their blood, even a vampire. There were also a few remaining giant winged lizards who had their own powers and defenses, their flames were hot enough to burn their core so that it might take a shudovishti years to reform. As the centuries rolled on the magician was molded by the cruel forces of space, cosmic radiation and debris changed him, he felt his core weaken, he was more of a mass than a humanoid, a twisted lump of flesh and rock. He spent his days scanning and dreaming always trying to find his way home. In one such dream he saw a woman sick from chemicals, a self-poisoning, and poisoning by others. He saw she was with child, also poisoned its tiny mind altered, turned into a kind of antenna, tuned into all manner of shadowy realms and sinister intelligence. The magician realized he could see through the child’s eyes and he set his course for earth. The baby was born, his mother did not survive. Sheila Gross had been a subject in a program called MK Ultra. Erick Gross her husband received an anonymous 200 dollars cash, it was her final payment. For the next several years the magician focused on the mind of Alek Gross, it was often hard to do as dreams would try and intrude after 14 years, he reentered the earth’s atmosphere, he had thought he would burn up and be reformed but his new form shielded him, he then planned to dash himself into a mountain of stone and did so but when he reformed it was as the stony blob space had molded him into; his core was all but destroyed by the horrors of space. He spent little time cursing his fate and went on the hunt. Flying low over the desert in the dark of night he came upon a group around a dilapidated trailer they were drinking beer and shooting guns off into the dark. As the creature flew into the light of their bonfire their minds could barely fathom what they were seeing, they reeled in horror as the thing snatched up one of their friends with a single boney appendage and began to chew through his shoulder, their friend died, quickly, mercifully bleeding out. The monster cast the lifeless half eaten remains aside. A few of the men ran screaming into the night but one of them emboldened by whiskey and amphetamine stood his ground and unloaded a pistol into the horror. The creature felt the hot lead strike its body, but only one round found even the slightest chink the rest struck iron rich deposits embedded in the creature’s flesh and ricocheted harmlessly off. The malformed magician found this new weapon fascinating but wasted no time in eviscerating its wielder tearing him open eating his innards in great greedy gulps, then casting his lifeless husk aside. He then sped through the air he came across another one of the men, he had tried to hide himself in a metal box, he had heard the boy call it a car and he had seen that it could travel quite fast with no visible creature drawing it. The magician flew into the side of the car, he barely rocked it, but it scared the man out of it. The man ran off across the desert screaming, the monster pursued. The flying mass decided to have a little fun with the man and test his telekinetic powers; he lifted a stone into the air with his mind and cast it striking the man in his hip, the force shattered it. The man fell to the ground too breathless to scream. The monster hovered over him, he was not sure, but he thought the creature was begging for its life. He focused his will on the whimpering human and raised him into the air, the broken man was surprised at first but as he rose higher and higher, surprise became a new level of terror and he again found the strength to scream. The creature grew bored and tired of playing with the broken human and let him fall. The man screamed as he plummeted through the air then smashed into the desert floor, he splashed several feet around the crater his corpse made. On a hilltop near by a man in a black military like outfit watched the events below through the scope of a high-powered rifle. The monster let out an ear-piercing shriek as something ripped through his body, he was hurt, even the brutal forge that was space did not feel like this. The monster spun around in circles, he tried to get his bearings but could not focus. He heard another crack like thunder, but he still could not will himself forward and he tumbled to the ground. As his eyes closed, he saw an image, even in his injured state he knew he was seeing through the eyes of the boy he used all of his might to move himself in that direction lifting up into the air and tumbling through it, he kept his eyes closed and watched through the boys eyes, the boy’s vision suddenly changed he was somewhere else someone else, the creature recognized faintly the world the boy now walked in. It was the world those who inadvertently created his kind came from. The monster hit the ground and rolled for several feet in a cloud of dust. As he lay there his eyes flickered, he knew that whatever missile he had been hit with had to have been made from the hull of an ancient spaceship it was one of just a few things that could kill his kind. He thought maybe he might survive if he had time maybe weeks maybe years to recover. The boy, he would command the boy to drag him to a safe hollow, a dark and shadowy place to recover, will the boy to bring him victims yes that was it. He closed his eyes in concentration, after what seemed like an eternity, he forced them open to see the boy walking toward him. It was working he thought, once again the boy would be his source of salvation. His eyes closed then shot wide open a strange sensation had overcome him, he looked up through milky dying eyes to see the boy eating something slurping and gnawing, putrid black blood running down his chin, staining his frail hands and dirty tee shirt. The monster almost laughed at the irony as his eyes flitted shut for the last time.