RETURN TO UKOO

Chapter One

Dragon Dreams

Inside the dream, I searched the sky in controlled apprehension as my grip tightened on the sword handle. On the horizon to my left, out of blue sunlight, flew a magnificent lizard high in my hallucinated lavender sky, huge brownish-red webbed wings spread wide and flexing. I know I’m nothing but groceries to this soaring beast.

I hid behind a massive black tree. It relocated roots and all, leaving me exposed.

The flying reptile turned its long neck and peered towards me. He and I alone—let the battle commence.

The creature’s voice echoed inside my head.

:Mother and father murderer; suffer Hewho Bites revenge!:

"I’m Dale Hern," I called out to the creature. "You use Migolites for food. Your sentence is death...it is so decreed!"

The swoop of its wings stopped and it dove. I understood; it wanted to satisfy its hunger and reap revenge in one fiery blast and inhalation.

Remarkable, when you can cook your dinner and eat it all in the same pass.

Timing would be everything and unless perfect, I would be inside the lizard, cooked and chewed.

:Long remember Mayson and Pillady Bites!: Hewho Bites’ thoughts raged into my brain.

"Hey, He-whom," I called at it. "Say goodbye!"

His mind blasting reverberated in my head.

:Hewho! It’s He-who!:

He dove at me, big as an airborne locomotive and stinking like cabbage and asparagus cooking in the same pot. I jerked the double-edged sword forward, bent my body and sidestepped, the shooting flame singeing my arm hairs. I felt the steel of my blade slice into Hewho’s soft lower-neck and twisted my wrist to follow-through. The crunch of Hewho’s dying carcass plowed through the forest. Huge black trees moved, complete with roots, trunk and bushy limbs, away from the centrifugal force death slide. Strange birds filled the sky yakking at me.

"First of all," I screamed at my winged critics, "Dragons aren’t real. And they cook and eat Migolites!" Remorse gnawed at my guts. Killing a dragon became one life sacrificed to save scores of victims. Me, a hero to the many, serial killer to the flying fire monsters.

:Brother killer! Howhard Bites revenge!:

This new dragon’s charge was announced and upon me before I could ready my weapon. Caught off guard, I ducked and back-swung the blade upward with all the force I possessed in a desperate attempt to save myself. Too late. It had me.

"Nooooooo!" I woke up.

The room laughed at me as I took several deep breaths. My pajamas clung to me from my perspiration. I should be used to this recurring nightmarish visitor.

The alarm clock jangle-buzzed its annoying wake-up. I pushed in the knob on the back, grabbed the clock in both hands and tried to crush it. "I’m awake! Can’t you see that?" What would anybody think if they saw me, talking to an alarm clock in my clinging sweat soaked pajamas? I smiled. If married, I’d give my wife an alarm clock of her own to talk to. That would give me enough time to beat her to the bathroom to shower first.

I figured the dragons were symbolic of dead bodies. People killed people and my job required me to identify and establish motive at crime scenes. I’m homicide Detective Dale Hern, Vistatown Kansas Police Department.

I climbed into the shower, turned on the water and froze until it warmed. I smiled. At least I’m the hero in my dreams. The jet stream felt good. The soap lathered as I scrubbed the fear-induced sweat from my body. This airborne dragon dream haunted me because it felt real. My terror was genuine and always the same. Migolites? Who in God’s creation were Migolites and why did I give a muffled fart?

Who was being murdered today? You would think a city the size of Vistatown wouldn’t have enough murders to have a homicide department. Headlines flashed in my mind. Homicide Detective Dale Hern goes on killing rampage for job security. Killed his victims with a big shiny sword and cremated them with dragon fire.

The realization punched me like a nagging ache having its fun. Today was my birthday, or so my driver’s license claimed. Forty. I could account for my last twenty-two years, but the first eighteen remained a blank and all the paperwork attesting to those years faked. Not married...didn’t even have a girl. Oh, I’d had my share, if four brief encounters turned out to be my split.

I looked at myself in the mirror and patted my paunch. "Guess I’ll be going on diet pretty soon." This resolution would only last until lunchtime. At the police academy, I’d been in magnificent shape. I pulled on my light blue dress shirt and tan trousers. My forty-five felt heavy as I slipped it into the holster on my belt. Could I put my gun on a diet when I went on mine? Perhaps take out a few bullets. I never fired it anyway, except at targets on the qualifying range. I’m one hell of a good shot so I would only need a couple of bullets if I ever shot anyone. Two years in college with a major in police science, six months in the police academy, seven and a half years as a beat cop, twelve as a homicide detective, and not once did I shoot at anyone. I watched police shows on television if I needed cop excitement.

Forty and my life consisted of dead bodies and dragon dreams. I did have my house, somehow acquired during those missing years. I should be happy, yet, something in my life seemed wrong, and I didn’t have to be the greatest detective in the world to know it had to do with those missing eighteen years.

***

I walked into the office. My partner worked on paperwork at his desk. "Hi Gus." He gave me his customary grunt. Gus Elfsayer taught me everything I knew about being a homicide detective. "Anything going on?"

"Nope."

We passed the morning catching up on reports, under the oversight of Chief Donald Hawthorne. The big Irishman sat in his windowed office behind the department’s largest desk. About forty tons of documentation accompanied every murder. Movies and television didn’t show the paperwork part of the job. Guess they wanted their audiences to stay awake.

For lunch, Gus pulled out his customary brown bag. Like me, he’s not married. He tried it once and she left him for a laundry delivery guy. Poor Gus, short and a bit pudgy, looks like he’s standing in a hole; but that wasn’t the reason his wife left him. He could look down on the shorter wife-stealing delivery guy. Figure that. Gus, never talked much, and no doubt ran her off because of non-communication. I didn’t care to know about such things. Everyone had a life to live, and I tried to keep busy living mine.

I often went home to eat lunch, but the pleasant weather persuaded me to celebrate my fortieth. The sun high and spring warm, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to mingle with the lunch crowd in the nearby cafe.

My stomach full, I stepped from the café, and took a deep breath. I thanked the universe for being in Vistatown, Kansas, on such a pleasant day, happy to be alive and feeling gloriously hamburger full. Across the street, I noticed a beautiful brunette. She smiled and motioned me toward her. My heart and mind divided. Part of me wanted to walk across the street and introduce myself while the other part felt married. It made no sense, a confirmed bachelor being loyal to what? A non-existent marriage? It would remain my secret craziness, as the police force might not want a lunatic on their staff. I thought about the diet I planned to go on the next day when my cell phone vibrated.

"Dale Hern. You buzzed?"

Fifteen minutes later, I parked my white Chevy police coupe beside a law enforcement light show. Blue and red rotating beacons arced in the afternoon air celebrating Vistatown’s police presence. My basic unmarked police vehicle looked like an orphan among the black and whites. I pressed the glove compartment button, and grabbed a set of plastic shoe and hand covers. As I walked toward the dirty white cottage, curiosity seekers’ stares followed my every move.

Stand back, Detective Dale Hern has arrived.

The feeling of importance vanished as the young officer at the door held up his hand. "Whoa there, buddy. This is a police crime scene."

I heard they had a rookie cop on the homicide detail. It took every bit of my training to hold my ego in check.

Gosh, I wondered what all those lights were for. I thought maybe it was a carnival. Perhaps a disco.

"Dale Hern, homicide." I flashed my badge and ID. "It’s all right, I kind of snuck up on you." It felt good to let him off the hook. I needed to feel good on my birthday after my dragon slaughter nightmare. I shuffled and hopped as I slipped the plastic covers over my shoes in a little dance. "First homicide?"

"First one!" His energetic voice bounced off the walls.

I remembered my earlier days on the force. I’m sure the same enthusiasm permeated my voice then. A momentary wave of nostalgia washed over me.

Gus stood holding a white handkerchief to his pug nose. He talked to me like I’d never been on a homicide before, in the distorted nasal voice of one breathing through his mouth.

"Don’t take a big one, you’ll pass out."

I pulled the handkerchief from my front pocket and breathed through my mouth. No matter how many times I’d been on a homicide scene, I’ve never gotten used to the foul air that collects after the first day. Face down on the carpet in front of a cheap, worn couch lay what was once a human being. Female, young and perhaps once attractive, her life had long since seeped into the rug. The body had to be a week old.

"This gal has seen better days," Gus said.

I didn’t laugh. Gus wouldn’t understand why what he said would be funny. He and humor were like the negative ends of magnets coming together. Breathing through our mouths made our voices sound like cartoon characters, something I found funny, yet not once in all the years I’d known Gus had we talked about the humor aspect of it. He turned to me and squinted as if he felt a momentary pain.

"Well, do your thing."

I crouched, shut my eyes and waited for my mind to go into its trance...into that special place I used to solve crimes. The two cops first called onto the scene knew I wouldn’t go through the same routine as Gus. I wouldn’t eyeball the position of the corpse, search for fibers and hairs, patterns of blood splatter or for something under the body. Gus and the other Vistatown Police crime scene experts did that. The officers expected what I’d done for the last twelve years, a recitation of what happened and who was involved.

Not a general description, but an exact account of the moment of death and surrounding circumstances, second by second. My matter-of-fact voice would describe my inner movie frame by frame. It was my gift and I used it well. I knew the cops loved it and Gus hated it.

Return To UKOO
by Don Hurst

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