Beneath the Nightstand

The small beetle that tried to take refuge in my suitcase ought to have been the first indication that my hotel room would be less than perfect. The sheets and towels looked clean. There were fresh tissues a new roll of toilet paper, and a bed for the night. Those were the priorities of what I required, so I shrugged and thought, 'no big deal.'

I went about my normal nightly routine, freshening up, laying out my clothes for the next day, fetching ice and flipping through the TV channels. My day of travel had been far more trying than I had anticipated; the four hour drive from the airport to my hotel may have significantly contributed to this desire of wanting to tuck in ASAP. As one does these days, I started looking for an outlet near to the bed, so that my phone/alarm clock could benefit from a restful snooze. There was one conveniently located right beneath the shelf-nightstand beside my bed. 'Perfect,' I thought, as it would be in reach of my arm when in the morning I'd be drowsily seeking the button to silence the alarm.

Blindly, for what did I have to fear or to look for,?I reached to plug in the charger and to my absolute horror my unsuspecting digits were entangled in the trap of a villain most foul.

Spider.

Ripping back my hand, I immediately began to shake it as if the motion would purge my mind of the sticky sense-memory that still gives me the chills. After this ritual that was done in vain, I kneeled down to peer at the extent of her kingdom.

It was far worse than I imagined.

Three battalions of eight legged privates lie in wait for graduation day. Their queen and commander lurked in her protected cell, watching me watching her watching me.

Know that I have profound respect for spiders. I understand that they create a balance in nature and that the odds of her troops marching against me in the night were small to none. However, seeing this army and their master thriving in a hotel room implied that there was plenty to eat, enough to propagate not merely one egg sack, but three.

The milk duds beneath their fortress must have been her traps, the lure she used to draw unsuspecting crawlers to their tombs.

Not wanting any part of this war between the eight and the six legged ones, I came to a decision; it was the spider and her children or me.

With great haste, I dialed the desk and though they were less than thrilled with my complaints, they agreed to relinquish me of this post...the next day.

I'd have to endure another seven and a half hours in her lair, with no tooth brush, not that it's relevant to this drama, but it was a pertinent fact to me at the time.

In a flash, all of my scattered belongings were returned to their bags. The spider and her minions would not be throwing their grappling hooks into my trappings if I could help it! Even my shoes were artfully shoved into my suitcase with whom I have shared so many adventures. We have weathered far worse than that spider's glare and we would indeed live to travel another day, leaving our foe in peace after what was a very long night.

Until next week, dear readers,

Your humble author,
S. Faxon

PS - Don't forget to look beneath the nightstands...

"The Red Queen"

I'm at an adorable coffee shop in Temeula called Ryan Bros. I'm enjoying their Earl Grey while writing this week's edition of z blog. I am so sorry for the delay, but I've been preparing a good one. Without further adieu, on to the dark tale of the Red queen...

The Red Queen

The queen stood stalwart, gazing out a window. The attendant that joined her in the otherwise empty dining hall watched her with fear and respect.

"Madam," his shaky, but diligent voice called, "they are here."

The queen barely tilted her head to her knowledge that she was listening. Her eyes never left the window. She inhaled deeply. Everything has been arranged. There was nothing now to be done then to see her last attempt through. "Let them come," her firm, quiet voice commanded.

The attendant that had served the middle aged queen for many years drew his back straight. The last act was bold, terribly so, but there was nothing left to do. Glancing at the table, he verified yet again that all of the nicestest dinnerware had been set. It looked as if the queen was expecting to entertain loved dignitaries, and not despised enemies. "Very well, your Majesty," the attendent bowed and left the queen alone in the hall. 

When the doors on the other side of the hall opened with the unmistakable sound of armored men entering, she remained still as a stone at the window.

"Ah, your worship," a cruel voice that the queen had long dread hearing called to her. "What would your people think to see this lavish spread when most of the men in their families are dead?"

The spread on the table was highly decorated. The queen requested the best be set up for these expected, but unwanted guest. The queen turned to face the war stained men that entered, turning away from the view of her city that lay partially in ruin. "I should think you to be glad to see the set, Lord Lastric,"using his title taste wretched on her tongue. "It is, after all, for you."

The intimidating figure complete with a sword dangling from his belt, strut slowly toward the head of the table opposite from where the queen stood. "Is this your last grab at civility? Now that your short reign is at an end, this certainly can't be a celebtration."

The queen inhaled deeply. She was careful not to greatly insult this poor excuse for a man. "Come, if civility will not appease you and your men, won't you at least allow your men to enjoy a meal?"

The men looked to their leader. The bellies were rumbling. With no rest, they had been leading the seige against this woman and her well-trained army for over a week. Obtaing this city had proven to be much more of a nightmare than planned. Sitting down and eating even if it was with their sworn enemy, was certainly tempting.

Lord Lastric was not immune to human desires, but he was hyper sensitive to human mischievousness. "This may be of no surprise to you, but being that our two sides have been at war for two years, you will understand if I do not trust you."

The queen scoffed. "Do you think I'm going to poison you?" She made a motion to one of the servants that had entered to bring in the food. Shaking her head the Queen leaned on the back of her chair. Looking straight into the eyes of her enemy she said, "Pour whatever is served into my glass. Serve whatever food you wish to me, so that I may prove that this is a meal of goodwill. A formal acknowledgment of my defeat."

The servers immediately entered bringing in and laying out numerous platters of steaming food. The men uneasily made their way around the table by the orders of their crawling bellies. Their leader was quiet. He knew his men were starved, but he knew the queen was cunning. "Very well," he said, unable to deny his men this comfort after the sacrifices they made for him. "But," he reached across the table to a teacup from the setting where one of his men was to sit. "You will drink from this, so in the event this proves to be lined with more than gold we will all be in the know." He walked the cup to the queen and exchanged it with her own. "Enjoy this, my lady," he growled. He stared at her neck as she calmly took her seat. He imagined running his blade across her pretty thin throat. It would be so easy. Too easy. He chuckled then began to return to where he would sit. "This truly will be your last look at your life as queen."

The queen poured herself a cup of tea as she would on any other day, but she decided not to add sugar or milk as was her country's customary way for taking their teas. It would be a strange break from tradition, but extraordinarily necessary. Clearing her throat, the queen said, "I'm sure your men are capable of serving themselves, so please, gentlmen, eat." Her tone was motherly, which was unexpected. It was as if she was talking to her sons, not her enemies.

The men eagerly reached for the serving utensils, but again their leader stopped them.  "Do not forget your manners, gentlemen. We are in the presence of a lady. She deserves first bite."

The queen smiled. She more than understood this hesitation; she anticipated it. The queen quietly served herself, then took a bite of the flank steak and the mashed potatoes. "So, Lord Lastric, what plans have you for me?" 

Lord Lastric watched her for a moment and after ensuring that she was tasting and swallowing all of the food, he answered, "No more than you would have done to me were our places in history switched."

The queen finished chewing her bite and whille holding her knife and fork in her hands, she mused, "I see, so you will have me destroyed so to make a final mark on your rampage. To show that this crusade you invented has only begun?"

The leader gave his men the long awaited signal to at last endulge in their much needed desire. The men attacked the food like wolves a fresh carcass. The queen watched the men eat without directly looking at them. Instead, she kept her eyes on Lord Lastric who had yet to take a sip or a bite. The queen pulled her tea cup to her lips and sipped as he said, "Here is my plan. Once the bellies of my men are full, they will escort you to the coldest, dampest cell in your prison and hurl you into its keep. We will spread word to your resistence and make them come to the event that we will have tomorrow." As he spoke, he stirred the milk and sugar into his tea. The scene seemed so eerily peaceful. The man's actions were unnervingly unfitting to his words and reputation as a violent, ruthless soldier. Lord Lastric raised his tea cup to the queen. With a smile as cruel as Satan, he said, "And once we present to them your head upon a pike, then they will have a real reason to call you the Red Queen." The leader drew the tea to his mouth and what started as a sip became several mouth fulls. He had not realized the extent of his thirst. As the warm tea, sugar and milk hit his empty belly, he deemed it safe to eat, afterall, the queen was still eating. 

The queen nursed a small bite of potatoes in her mouth as she waited for the right length of time to pass. The men had already cleared their plates and were diving in for seconds, thirds. 

The queen cleared her throat, her stomach was already burning. "Well, you've taken everything else from me, my husband, my sons, my kingdom, why not my life?" 

Lord Lastric ripped into a chicken leg, seasoned so well that his men doubted if they weren't eating plates in heaven. "Maybe I shouldn't have you killed." Lord Lastric said with a mouth full of tea and chicken. He was eating so much and so fast, he was not surprised by the slight burning in his stomach. "I imagine it'd be terribly difficult to live with those demons, knowing, as you do, that this all could have been avoided if only you and your husband had abdicated when I asked."

The queen continued to slowly eat her mashed potatoes as she listened to the increasing amount of throat clearing sounds coming from the men. "I assure you, Lord Lastric, that neither of those options are what I would do to you."

The men continued to eat regardless the growing swelling and burning in their stomachs. They all assumed the same as their leader, that their long empty bellies were angered by the sudden presence of rich, highly seasoned food. 

They could not have been more wrong.

One of the men who sat at the right of the queen began to cough violently, as if he was choking. 

A few of the men slowed their eating to see if their comrade was alright. The queen placed a motherly hand on his shoulder and said, "Drink some tea to clear your throat, lad."

The man did as told and took down as much tea as he could, though nothing was stuck in his throat. He was having a difficult time swallowing and it felt as if his esophagus and stomach were being lit on fire.

A few of the men resumed their eating as their comrade appeared to be recovering, but it wasn't a minute more before another and another man began the same coughing spell. 

Lord Lastric stopped eating. His own esophagus was begining to burn wretchedly. "What's going on here?"

No sooner had he said it, the entire table of his men were either coughing or clutching on to their stomachs. For some it felt as if their intestines and stomachs were being violently stabbed from the inside out, for others it felt as if they had swallowed red-hot coals. 

 

One man stood and vomited right on the table, spilling sick everywhere. 

The men were consumed with their sudden onsets of cramping. Two fell out of their chairs in convulsions.

Lord Lastric stood, dumbstruck by what he was witnessing and feeling. His own stomach was cramping so horribly that he was forced to bend forward and lean heavily on the table. His men were falling out of their chairs one by one, crippled and convulsing from the same gruesome pains. Everyone was clearly affected, except the queen. 

She sat stoic, though she was not completely immune. The trace amounts of aresenic that she had consumed were enough to make her stomach hurt and to leave a metallic taste in her mouth, but not nearly enough to render her doomed.

"What have you done?" Lord Lastric growled to her as he fought every urge to vomit.

The queen stood and answered calmly, "I lined every cup of tea with arsen, as well as the meat, essentially everything, sir, that is on the table, except the tea. But none so much as the sugar and milk."

The general's knees crumpled and he fell hard to the floor. Most of his men were barely moving, having consumed enough poison to ensure their deaths in minutes. 

Though she knew that hardly any were listening, the queen walked around the table so that she could see her old foe. "You see, I knew that my chances of surving this afternoon were slim to none, so if I was to die, I would have preferred to go out with dignity and in the style of my choosing. But then I realized, why stop with myself, when I could take down the whole theatre?" She stood directly beside Lord Lastric who could no longer speak from the pains consuming his body. His expression said enough; he could not believe how quickly the tables had turned against him. Grabbing the lord's unfinished cup of tea, the queen looked straight down at this demon of a man. "And that, sir, that is why they call me the red queen." From her towering position, she poured the entirety of the cup onto his face.

And then there was silence. The movement around her had ceased. 

Sighing, the queen used a cloth napkin to wipe her hands and then she returned to her original position by the window, to look out once at her sick kingdom.

Hearing the silence, the kichen staff entered the room. They were surprised at the gruesome scene upon which they entered, but not by the death of the men. The kitchen staff was, afterall, those who were most loyal to the queen desguised for the afternoon to wait however lightly on their enemies. They would do anything for this woman who was willing to die to perserve the sanctity of her people and the kingdom that she loved.

With her eyes still locked on the horizon, the queen said to her loyal group, "It looks dark now, but the seed has been saved." Turning to face her circle, she smiled and concluded, "We may hope again."

~End~

Well folks, I hope you enjoyed the dark story of the Red Queen!

I'm enjoying my day in Temecula and hope that whatever you all are up to, that you're enjoying yourselves too!

Your humble author,

S. Faxon

My view from my favorite winery in Temecula, Miramonte.

"Sent to Save"

Hi All,

As many of you know, October is my FAVORITE time of the year. SIDE BUT IMPORTANT NOTE - It is breast cancer awareness month -  men and ladies, check, check, check! 

October is my favorite month for a number of reasons - the season is changing, the best fruits are fresh, apple cider and Oktoberfest brews are abundant, and of course, my favorite holiday is a mere few weeks away - Halloween!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

I have many a new trick up my sleeve this year to make yours and my Halloween a delightful treat. Like last year, I will be doing a series of short, spooky stories to satisfy you thrill seekers. This first one is based on a dream that I had, so if you are into the extraordinary, you are indeed in for a treat. Curl up with your favorite cider or pumpkin spiced latte, and buckle in dear readers, you're in for a wild ride.

Sent to Save

I must account the strange events that happened to me before time makes the clarity of the details fade, though these events will haunt me to the end of my days.

It happened when I was visiting a national monument, one of those natural 8th wonders of the world places that I had visited countless times. The extensive sight is known as the White Caves, an underground network of rooms and caverns thought to be carved out from the workings of a nearby lake. A long, downward path leads you to the impressive sight that you can see from the parking lot a quarter of a mile away. The entrance, or the atrium as we locals call it, sits like a valley that a recent earthquake unveiled after several thousand years of being hidden from man's eye. But, we contemporary visitors were not the first to these white walled caves. On the tall wall at the back of the entrance, there are ancient petroglyphs depicting tales and legends unknown to any local or global cultural experts. The conclusion of the specialists, determined that this collection of pre-modern people were extremely intelligent, resourceful, and detached from interaction with the rest of the world.

The site was naturally a highly sought after place to see, and as a researcher and journalist I had been here more times than I can recall. Just this summer, it was determined that the historical aspects of the site were strictly limited to the entrance and that the standing cavern walls were sound. This was great news for outdoor-activity junkies, such as myself, as it meant that the caves were open to hikers and explorers, along with swimmers who were now allowed to dip in the highly rich mineral waters.

The site that spaned two miles underground was well lit. The salt and minerals in the walls obsorbed the sunlight and sent a warm glow throughout the underground caverns. Being that the site was within a decent biking distance from my suburb condo, I made at least three visits a week to the pools within the caverns. I'd peddle over, lock up my bike, change out from my biking sweats, dawn my suit and submerse myself in the thick, rich waters. By the end of September, there was not a crevice nor a slip in the smooth caverns that I did not know. So it was to my great surprise when I found a cylindrical opening in a quiet corner of one of the caves farthest from the entrance. Tourist season had ended and it was early enough in the day that I was alone in this cave. Now, I've been on journalist missions around the world where we women are respected about as much as dirt, but my calm heart and analytical head have always gotten me out of trouble and helped me to see clearly through danger. In other words, being alone in this environment was about the equivalency of having breakfast alone on my patio in the morning. 

Being able to investigate this new detail by myself was satisfying nearly every thrill seeking bone in my body. This new cylindrical tunnel was fascinating to me. The water that filled these caves to about four feet deep came in slowly, gradually from a source a mile away from where I was, but here I was staring through a tunnel that clearly was feeding water into this cave. The incoming stream was not rapid by any means. It was calm, and from what I could tell, there was naturaland direct sunlight on the otherside of the tunnel. Now, this was another surprise. The only source of direct sunlight into these caverns was in the entrance. It simply did not make sense to be seeing sun rays, forgive the pun, as clear as day on the other side of the tunnel. Every inch of this site both above ground and below had been documented by researchers, quite often with me jotting down notes a mile a minute at their side. This was something new and I had to see what it was. I hate to use this phrase, but little did I know what I was stepping, or in this case swimmig in to.

The tunnel was small, but large enough for me to half swim, half crawl in a squatted position through. It was filled about half way, but I could see as I progressed by the markings on the wall, that the tide in there did not vary either way. That was comforting, but what was increasingly peculiar was the unmistakable sound of gentle waves rolling onto a beach. This made no sense. The lake was miles away and the nearest ocean was over a hundred miles away. And yet, once I made it to the other side, I could not believe what I saw. 

I emerged from the tunnel, slowly, carefully. There was sunlight alright, but no direct source of water feeding into the cave. My mind was so overwhelmed with the vision before me that my body operated automatically to remove itself from the tunnel and out onto the moist, coarse sand of a beach. My eyes scanned my surroundings, absorbing every detail but unable yet to process what had happened. I stood on a long beach that led out to an ocean a quick walk away. To my right were tall, steep cliffs, with light colored sand stone towering above me. To my left was a long band of sand with pine trees leading up a hill, with numerous plateaus. This was not an unoccupied place. I could see numerous stuctures on the hill, and they looked like maintained beach shacks.

I suddenly came to realize, although it continues to completely baffle me, that I had stepped through some sort of rabbit hole. For a moment I thought that maybe I knocked my head going through the cave and had passed out, slipping into a dream, but that couldn't be true. This was too real. Every one off my senses was being stimulated. I could smell the pines on the hill acrosss the thin bay. I was squinting from the sun reflecting off the glittering waters. I could feel the sand scraping between my toes. I could hear the waves splashing. I could taste the salt on the air.

Whatever had brought me here, wanted me to stay. I knew this, I can't exaclty explain why, but a sense of purpose and knowing filled my body, like I was being possessed by a mission I had no prior knowledge of: there was a boy here that I was sent to save.

At first this seemed ludicrous - here I was soaking in a swimming suit in a land I did not know on some hell-bent mission to save a boy I also had no idea about. And yet, somehow, my heart knew. It was the  strangest sensation of my life. There was a feeling of energy pounding from my heart, that commanded and forced my actions, with which my head would struggle to keep up. 

Regardless the madness and the hesitation and any sense of security that was on the other side of the tunnel from which I emerged, I had to move now and fast. 

My feet made an abrupt turn to the right and I was bounding up a set of stone steps that my eyes had not seen. As I climbed, I saw that my feet were no longer bare, but in boots. My entire outfit had been changed! In an outfit like one would see in steam-punk movies, I was able to comortably make my agile climb to the top of the cliffs. Once I reached the flat apex, I instantly locked onto a white light house at the edge of the cliff. That was where the boy was, the boy I was sent to save. To the day I die, I will never be able to explan "how" or "why" any of this happened, only what transpired.

For a moment, I hesitated to see my surroundings. From the top of the cliffs, I could see that this was a coastal area. A long strip of beach went for miles to the north, and to the east through a thin haze I could see mountains. This area was populated, but largely undeveloped. I took a deep breath of the clear air as my eyes continued to scan eastward. And then, a sudden, dire sense of urgency and dread filled me before I even saw it. Far off in the distance, yet still only a few miles from where I stood, I could see a structure that I knew had a supremely dark purpose, one that spelled out an apocalypse for all of the people in this area. The dread was not for mysellf, but for the boy.

My feet again bolted, this time in the direction of the house. Without any greeting or announcement, I threw open the front door. There in front of me was the young boy and his father. The man looked to be about my age and a lightness, like hope from familiarity passed between us. 

"Come on," I directed, taking hold of the boy's hand. "We'v got to get him to the shelter."

With nothing but the clothes on their backs, the father and the ten year old boy, raced with me across the cliff tops and down a short hillside past the beach where I had emerged. As we ran, I realized that we were headed to the area that in the reality I left, were directly over the caves. We ran on solid ground that in my reality was where the wide-mouthed entrance of the cave should have been. 

Our trail raced down a short slope where a thick half circle door stood agape. There were a small number of people in this entrance to what was a well fortified shelter, hidden in the hillside. It was clear that the people were unwilling guinea pigs for the government that was about to unleash hellfire on its own. I pushed the young boy and his father into this shelter and they turned to look at me as if I was killing them by not staying. For whatever reason, I knew that there was another shelter entrance that I had to go to. I would enter the safety zone from there. 

"I have to go," I said to these strangers who knew me enough to trust me with their lives.

Their looks were hurt, but they understood. They clearly knew more about my role in this society than I yet did. 

My feet once again began to bolt down farther down the hill where I spotted yet another shelter entrance, but this one had a long line of school aged children waiting to go inside. It was immediately apparent that there was a disproportionately small amount of adults to the children. 

The bone chilling and unmistakable sound of sirens began to wail. These were the screams that anyone who had lived through the Cold War in the 1950s would recognize that doom was on its way. I bolted to the front of the line where a small number of administers were clearly processing the children before letting them enter.

"We have to get them inside now!" I commanded, hearing the authoritativeness in my voice like never before. The idea of these children being outside when the package dropped from that devious blacktower was not something I would stand for in this reality or my own.

"Ma'am, we don't know where half of their parents are, we have to ensure we know who they are!" the female administrator with a large hand written list replied. 

"There will be plenty of time for that!" I yelled, the sirens were so loud and the imperativeness of the situation dire. "Get out of their way and get them inside!" Without waiting for any response I threw up my arms and motioned the children to rush forward as fast as possible. The children needed little incentive to escape. They rushed into the shelter as orderly as could be expected given the circumstances. As I watched them run into the shelter, I thought of all the horror movies I had seen in my reality where someone always falls when some monster is coming after them. As the last of the children made it into the cave, I felt hugely relieved that luckily in this world, that sort of nonsense did not occur. However, right after the last of the children passed by the sirens stopped.

The silence that followed was the deepest sense of terror I have ever known. There were still a small number of people running out from the surrounding forest and towards the door when it happened.

The initial shock wave came rolling through the trees, like a blast of wind that nearly knocked the wind out from me. It felt as if the entire right side of my body had been slapped by a fiery hand. A person running fell foward and a man who was nearly at the entrance and struggling to help his aged mother make it to the caves bent forward dramatically from the hit. There was nothing I could do for the   majority of the people pressing forward, but I could not close the door knowing that these two were so close. I bolted out from the cave and helped to carry the elder woman with her son into the solid edifice of the shelter. Right behind us was the second wave, one more powerful and far more deadly. Three of us grasped our hands onto the four foot thick led door to close it. The extra push from the second blast sealed shut the door, locking us inside the caverns.

~*~*~

What will happen next????? Tune in next week to read the exciting conclusion of "Sent to Save."

Until then,

Your humble author,

S. Faxon