Riding with – Uh, Nobody is Riding at All!

Cyclops and Young John worked their way along the western path from the pavilion and down the hill toward the caretaker cottage. As they walked, Cyclops moved his light left and right and from tree to tree, causing the shadows to constantly dance around them. In turn, Young John nervously jumped in perfect timing with each shadow movement, certain that each consecutive one was Medusa coming after them.

“Oh my God, what happened here?” questioned Cyclops as they wandered into the front yard of the cottage which was completely littered with stone statues. He shined his light on the John Deere lawnmower – wrapped around a tree with the statue of the driver spilled out on the ground next to it – feet still up inside the mower.

“That’s Melvin, the caretaker. I met him this afternoon,” said Young John. “That’s my pen in his shirt pocket.”

Moving his flashlight to the left, Cyclops illuminated the scene of two bicycles mangled together with a stone cyclist twisted into the framework of both bikes. The other cyclist was belly down, draped across the birdbath.

“Albert and James – gravediggers,” noted Young John out loud as if taking roll call. “I met them a little bit earlier this afternoon.”

“Seems like quite a few people that you met today had a somewhat shortened lifespan,” commented Cyclops.

“Whatever,” said Young John with a look of mock-disgust on his face. “Move your light a little further to the left. There – that’s Melvin’s dog – Max the Cocker Spaniel. My gosh! He doesn’t look like he’s very comfortable at all – what a horrible pose to be stuck in for all eternity.”

“Met him also a little earlier this afternoon, did ya?” queried Cyclops.

“Again – whatever!” replied Young John.

Suddenly, there was a thud on the ground near their feet. They both jumped as Cyclops swung the light around and shined it down on the ground. Then, at about the same moment he realized that he didn’t feel the weight of his duck on his shoulder any more, he cast his light on the little stone statue lying a few feet away in the grass. A split-second later, a brain-piercing shriek coming from the other side of the John Deere mower shattered the stillness of the night and sent chills straight up Young John’s spine, instantly paralyzing him in his tracks. Cyclops just stood there, looking down at his petrified duck. One by one, every muscle in his body tightened. The veins on his forehead started to bulge. His eye, narrowed with the growing urge to kill. The plastic housing of the converted handlebar headlight was on the verge of crumpling like paper in the death-grip of his clinched fist. The anger and tension was building up like the force inside a volcano about to erupt until… 

Cyclops let out a roaring scream as he charged in the direction of Medusa.

Young John Waldenthrottle dropped his staple gun to the ground, turned and charged for cover around the back side of the cottage.

Medusa stepped out from behind the tree near the mangled John Deere and moved directly into the Cyclops’ path. She stood there, her arms slowly rising upward from her sides as if she was summoning reinforcements of evilness from the furthest depths of the planet. She focused her deadly gaze in his direction as he continued to run toward her. Cyclops, wailing like an anguished madman and forsaking all care, tossed the flashlight and then the gun to the ground. Then, defying the very curse that he knew would immediately turn him to stone; he raised his head to stare directly into the eyes of pure evil - and then he ran even faster toward Medusa.



(Next Chapter)

(Previous Chapter)

Riding with Roadkill

Young John Waldenthrottle rode his J.C. Higgins ten-speed bicycle with a fury, westward out of town in route to Resthaven Cemetery. He was aerodynamically tucked in the draft behind Cyclops who was hammering down the road on a bright orange, 42-pound, vintage 1972 Schwinn Varsity.  (Never underestimate the strength and speed of a solid steel frame when you have a seven-foot-two, 348 pound giant spinning the pedals!) The duck was securely strapped into the bolt-on child carrier hovering over the rear wheel – feathers flapping in the breeze.

It was a quarter to midnight when the trio started up the last hill before the entrance to the cemetery. Cyclops had a headlight on his handlebars that lit up the entire road in front of them better than most cars. Young John had a cheap little metal bracket on his handlebars that simply held a regular flashlight powered by D-cell batteries – it wasn’t even bright enough for him to avoid running over the squished armadillo that he’d seen earlier in the day. They topped the hill and made the right turn into the drive… Wait – why were the gates still open? Young John was anticipating that they would have to sneak in through the fence about forty feet to the left of the gate. Over there, behind the row of hedges, were a couple of loose vertical bars that could be lifted up enough to allow a person to crawl through between the adjacent bars. It had been that way since Young John was in high school, back when he and his friends would come out here to drink, smoke and tell ghost stories on Friday and Saturday nights. But for some reason, on this night, the gate wasn’t even shut. They rode on through and headed down the central lane – Cyclops still in the lead, lighting the way.

They approached the round-about in the middle of the cemetery and suddenly their headlights reflected off the rear end of a sedan protruding from the flower bed that surrounded the base of the pavilion. They rode up to the car and Cyclops shined his headlight the best he could in through the passenger’s side window. Young John dismounted to take a closer look. Not being able to make out much through the tinted glass, he pushed some of the shrubbery away and opened the driver’s side door - hoping that maybe the interior light would help them to see inside. The door opened about a foot but no light came on. Battery was probably dead. Then Cyclops went around to the driver’s side of the car, shoved his bicycle through the flowers and shrubs right up to the door opening and illuminated the entire front seat area – along with the two stone statues that were slumped forward and up onto the dashboard.

“I knew it! I told you! I told you!” shouted Young John as he leapt back from the car. “That lady there, behind the steering wheel – she’s the lady that works at the sandwich stand. And that other lady – I’ve seen her before too. I think she works at the convenience store or gas station or something. I told you – Medusa was out here and turned Pegasus to stone – now she’s turning living people into stone! This is bad. This is real bad!”

“Calm down John – quiet,” said Cyclops motioning with his hand for Young John to lower his voice. “She may still be out here somewhere.” Then he reached around and pulled his Remington .357 Magnum out of the rear pouch on his bike.

“Okay. I’m feeling a little better now that I see you brought that along with you,” said Young John. “I mean, all I got in the bag on the back of my bike is office supplies.”

“Gotta staple gun in there?” asked Cyclops.

“I think so,” replied Young John.

“Let’s park our bikes here, walk around and check things out. I can take the headlight off my bike – use it like a flashlight so we can see where we’re going.”

“Whatever you do, if she’s still out here – don’t look at her – don’t look in her eyes!”

Young John and Cyclops leaned their bikes up against the side of the Honda Civic. Cyclops unbuckled the duck from the child-carrier and set him up on his shoulder. He loosened the bracket on his handlebar and removed the headlight. Next, he undid the Velcro straps that held the battery to the top tub of his bike frame. Using the Velcro strap to attach the headlight to the battery pack, Cyclops had a perfect 3500-lumen, high-powered flashlight. With that in his left hand and his .357 in his right, he was ready to get this cemetery patrol started. Young John Waldenthrottle had a staple gun. He was also going to carry his flashlight but as soon as he snapped it out of the metal bracket, the light bulb flickered off and on a couple of times then the batteries completely died. Good thing there was a full moon out.

‘Oh great!’ Young John thought to himself. ‘There’s a full moon tonight. What’s next?’



(Next Chapter)

(Previous Chapter)

Riding with Cyclops and the Duck

Young John Waldenthrottle rode his J.C. Higgins ten-speed bicycle as fast as humanly possible down the tree-lined road and past row after row of assorted headstones as he made his way toward the main gate of Resthaven Cemetery. After passing between the massive stone gate pillars, he turned left on Cypress Road and took off down the hill toward town – never once daring to turn around to check and see if anyone was following him.

Meanwhile, back at the west end of the cemetery, Melvin Curtis was faced with his own issues. He had no clue as to when, or even why, the cemetery had acquired a life-sized statue of Carl Simpson. All he knew was that due to his apparent negligence, he had knocked it over and broke it in half. Along with the dents and scratches he just put in the brand new John Deere riding mower, he knew he probably wasn’t going to be earning any Brownie Points from the cemetery owners over any of this. Looking once again at the John Deere, Melvin figured he could get the mower down to his cottage, pound out the dents and sand the scratches smooth without too much of a problem. A little bit of green touch-up paint and it should be nearly showroom new again. A broken statue on the cemetery lawn would be a completely different story though. He needed to come up with some way to fix or cover this up – and fast.

Melvin walked the short distance over to where James and Albert were just finishing up digging for the next morning’s graveside service. He explained his situation to them with the hopes that maybe they would be able to help him to come up with some sort of a feasible plan. At this point, he was open to any suggestion.

Albert immediately commented, “Hey, didn’t you say that they never found the body that is supposed to be buried here tomorrow?”

“That’s right. Just gonna have a graveside service and bury an empty casket,” replied Melvin. Then, turning his head and pointing toward the chapel with his lips, he said, “Casket’s over there now. Delivered it earlier today.”

Leave it to a couple of odd-ball, grave-digging brothers to help formulate the most bizarre plan imaginable. Without another word spoken and in no time at all, Melvin, James and Albert were carting the broken pieces of the Carl statue over to the chapel where they placed them into the empty casket. Then they locked it - and took the key.

Meanwhile still, over near the back porch of the caretaker’s cottage, the Manticore was digging through the trash cans looking for some food. He had found himself wishing that he hadn’t raised such a fuss earlier in the day about something as silly as spicy brown mustard in lieu of yellow mustard – for now he was hungry. Luckily for him, Melvin had thrown out half a box of uneaten fried chicken from the Chicken Shack earlier in the day. With the crumpled box of chicken in hand, the Manticore walked over to the lawn chair on the back porch, sat down and was just about to take his first bite when suddenly a woman’s voice shouted out to him from across the lawn.

Startled, the Manticore looked up and there stood Medusa – all at once Resthaven Cemetery had another new statue.

Around on the front side of the cottage, Melvin was riding down the path on the dented John Deere mower. As he drew nearer, Medusa, munching on a fried chicken drumstick, stepped out from behind the juniper bush at the left-hand corner of the cottage. Melvin took one look at her and managed a meager, “What the…“ before he turned to stone and slammed the John Deere into the tree in the middle of the front yard. 

Hearing the commotion, Max came running out of the doggy door, barking loudly and headed toward the toppled statue of Melvin next to the crashed riding lawnmower. Sensing an intruder behind him, Max immediately did a one-eighty and started to attack Medusa. He was mid-way into an airborne lunge for Medusa’s throat before he made eye contact with her. Three loud yelps later, Max thudded to the ground as a finely sculpted statue of a charging Cocker Spaniel.

“What was that?” asked Albert as he craned his neck and peered off into the direction of Melvin’s cottage.

“Sounded like Max,” replied James. “Let’s go check it out.”

Five minutes later, Resthaven Cemetery had two additional statues - grave diggers riding bicycles – or more correctly, statues of two grave diggers who appeared to have been involved in some sort of a weird bicycle accident.

Meanwhile yet again, a dark blue Honda Civic pulled in through the entrance gate of Resthaven Cemetery. Agnes Simons, the driver of the Honda, had just gotten off work from her job operating a Subs-R-Us sandwich wagon at the corner of Louetta and Ella. In the passenger seat next to her was her mother, Vera Simons. Vera works the evening shift at the service station in town and, since she doesn’t have a car, Agnes always drives her mom to and from work. Usually there’s barely enough time from when Agnes gets off work to when Vera has to be at work but on this day, Agnes had closed down early because Vera had asked if they could go out to Resthaven Cemetery. Vera wanted to put fresh flowers on the grave of her husband – Agnes’ father. Due to her mother's request, Agnes had tried to call her manager, Carl, a couple of times to see if it would be okay to close an hour earlier than normal. He didn't answer his phone either time. Hoping that she wouldn't get in too much trouble, she decided that she would just take her chances, left him a message, then went ahead and closed early.

As Agnes rounded the pavilion in the center of the cemetery and was about to make the right turn toward her father’s grave-site, Medusa stepped out in front of the car. Both Agnes and Vera screamed as they saw the horrid figure. Agnes made an abrupt turn to the left and rammed the car into the base of the pavilion. Instantly the Honda’s horn commenced a constant, mono-tonal blare as two stone female figures lay slumped across the dashboard.

------------ooo------------

In town, the Cyclops and his duck were just sitting down at the coffee table in their living room with a couple of beers and a box of fried chicken from the Chicken Shack They were preparing to watch reruns of The Big Bang Theory when suddenly there was a violent knocking on the front door. As Cyclops opened the door, there stood the young man who had given him the can of transmission fluid at the service station a few evenings earlier.

With an alarming urgency, Young John announced, “Cyclops, I really need your help. There’s something horrible going on out at the cemetery!” Then he barged his way in through the front door.

While Cyclops and the duck made quick work of their beer and box of chicken, Young John sat on the edge of the footstool in their living room and, in eerie detail, proceeded to tell the story of Pegasus turning to stone right before his very eyes and assuring them that, beyond a shadow of a doubt in his mind, Medusa was roaming the grounds of the cemetery. No telling who else was in danger.

Within a matter of minutes, Young John Waldenthrottle, Cyclops and the duck, were on their bicycles, riding with a fury out of town and on their way to Resthaven Cemetery.



(Next Chapter)

(Previous Chapter)

Riding with the Speed of Lightning

Young John Waldenthrottle’s  J.C. Higgins ten-speed special was propped up on its kickstand about  twenty feet away from where Young John himself was sitting at the base of an oak tree out at Resthaven Cemetery. He was about three-fourths of the way into eating his cold cut combo on wheat when he found himself engaged in an unexpected conversation with the winged horse, Pegasus, who had explained to Young John that he was on a quest to try and locate his mother.  They exchanged a handful of sentences elaborating on why and how and where and what for and how long and when was the last time and other such stuff before Young John paused to take another bite of his cold cut combo. He chewed the mouthful of sandwich three or four times and then, without swallowing, managed to mumble, “So what does your mother look like?”

As Young John began chewing again, Pegasus replied, “Well, I'm told that she’s kind of an attractive woman – maybe hindered slightly by the fact that she has horrid fangs and her skin is somewhat covered with scales. And uh, well– her hair is basically hundreds of grotesque, venomous snakes hissing and writhing about constantly. She usually complains of having a bad hair day. But other than that, I hear she’s a sweetheart.”

Young John swallowed then said, “You know Peg, I'm not so sure that it's such a good idea that you should be wasting your time searching for her. Now I don't wanna be dissin' your mom or nothin' but... it kinda sounds like to me that she could be one of the Gorgon sisters - maybe even the biggest, baddest Gorgon sister of them all - the one they call Medusa!"

Pegasus’ eyes lit up and he exclaimed, “Medusa! Yes, Medusa! That’s my mother’s name! Have you seen her?”

Young John was about to tell Pegasus that he obviously hadn’t ever seen his mother because he was still a living, breathing, flesh-covered being with squishy internal organs and still-liquid blood traveling through his unseen freeways of veins and arteries and that he was able to talk and walk and think instead of being a big old dumb chunk of solid stone but before he could begin to speak those words, Pegasus’ gaze shifted from looking directly at Young John’s eyes to looking at some point behind Young John.

As Pegasus’s eyes lit up even brighter than before, he shouted, “MOM!”

Young John Waldenthrottle dropped the remaining portion of his cold cut combo and froze. He stared straight at Pegasus – forcing his eyes to not move one fraction of the smallest fraction possible in either direction. Seconds seemed to turn into hours. Young John slowly forced his eyes to lower and look toward Pegasus’ hooves. He could have sworn he heard a faint crackling sound come from that location. A faint crackling sound made by the transformation of hooves and hair-covered legs gradually hardening to sculpted rock. The transformation then moved upward, slowly engulfing the torso of the horse, the neck, the tail, the head and finally the pair of outstretched wings, leaving Pegasus frozen for all eternity in a majestic failed attempt at flight.

Half a second later, Young John Waldenthrottle bolted toward his J.C. Higgins ten-speed and, without the slightest notion of looking over his shoulder, jumped on and rode out of Resthaven Cemetery with the speed of lightning.

No chance at all to Enjoy the Ride!

------------ooo-----------

Out at the western edge of the cemetery where it backs up to the thick woods, Melvin Curtis the groundskeeper was busy mowing the grass. He was driving the cemetery’s brand spanking new, mega-impressive John Deere ZTrak  Z970R, 35-horsepower, 72-inch deck, Zero-Turn riding mower – while texting on his phone, I might add – right up until he came to an abrupt stop that killed the engine and somersaulted him off the front of the mower. As Melvin lay there on the ground, collecting his thoughts and trying to snap back to reality, he found himself staring into a familiar face. ‘How strange,’ he thought.

Melvin sat up. He looked at the mower. He rubbed his eyes a little and then looked down toward the front of the mower. The familiar face belonged to Carl Simpson – Jacob and Margaret Simpson’s boy. Melvin had gone to school with Jacob and Margaret back when they lived in Oklahoma – her name was Barfield back then. After Jacob came back from being in the Army, he and Margaret got married. About nine months later, Carl came along. Several years later, Jacob and Margaret were killed during a robbery at a restaurant. Carl took it pretty hard. He wanted nothing to do with Oklahoma anymore so he moved down to Texas. Also had his parents’ bodies shipped to Texas and buried in Resthaven Cemetery.

And now there lay Carl on the ground – or more precisely, there lay a statue of Carl on the ground. Broken in half at the waist after being rammed into by a John Deere ZTrak 35-horsepower riding lawn mower.



(Next Chapter)

(Previous Chapter)

A Shooting Star

The sky is such a comfort to me
When the stars come out at night.
The moon smiles down,
"My son, you'll see,
Everything will be alright."

A shooting star is seen to glide
Across the sky
And then to hide.

Riding with Max the Cocker Spaniel

Young John Waldenthrottle rode his J.C Higgins ten-speed bicycle down the road with his new friends Albert and James, the gravediggers. He had originally planned to go home to eat his cold cut combo on wheat with pepper jack cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, black olives, banana peppers and healthy helping of spicy brown mustard but he had met up with Albert and James and found them to be a quite interesting pair of gents, to say the least, and so decided to alter his previous agenda. After all, the afternoon was early and there really wasn’t much he felt like doing around his apartment anyway. His television was broken, which really didn’t matter because his power was turned off two days ago and he couldn’t plug in his extension cord at his next door neighbor’s apartment until she got home around five thirty. Besides, Albert and James had suggested that he might enjoy riding out with them to the cemetery and see how they go about digging a grave. He gladly agreed to their kind invitation as he rode right on past the entrance to his apartment complex.

Resthaven Cemetery was a forty-five minute bike ride past Young John’s apartment. He figured he could hang out with Albert and James for a couple of hours then have plenty of time to ride back home before it got dark. The journey was fairly uneventful and Albert and James weren’t either one much on conversation – minimal verbiage, basic fact, to the point, men of very few words. But Young John found them kind of cool. (He started to say to himself, “in a creepy sort of way” – but he didn’t.) So he just rode along behind the brothers riding two abreast in front of him – predominantly in silence.

As they rode up the slight incline about a quarter of a mile from the cemetery entrance, James veered closer to the right edge of the shoulder while Albert simultaneously veered to the left, almost into the actual traffic lane. They both pointed down and slightly ahead into the now widen space between them and in unison called out, “Road kill!” Young John also veered to the right as all three of them rode past the armadillo squished on the pavement then on up to the entrance to Resthaven Cemetery. The trio made the right turn through the gates and then took the first turn to the left to head down the hill toward the caretaker cottage. Melvin Curtis, the groundskeeper, having already seen the approaching bike riders through his office window, grabbed his clipboard off the hook behind his desk. He then walked out onto the cottage porch and a few steps down the sidewalk to greet them.

“Lovely afternoon,” Melvin called out as Albert, James and Young John brought their bikes to a halt.

“Yep. Sure is.” (The minimal verbiage, basic fact, to the point, in unison reply from the brothers.)

“I suppose you’re here to dig the grave for the nine o’clock burial service tomorrow morning?” inquired Melvin.

“Yep.” (The brothers once more in unison.)

 “Sad thing about that one,” he said as he shook his head. “Never did find the body you know. Here – I need one of you to sign this form – as usual.”  He handed the clipboard to Albert and with his other hand patted his shirt pocket a couple of times. “Aw heck!  I don’t have a pen. Any of you got a pen?”

Young John piped up, “Oh hey! I’ve got a pen. I got a whole box of pens here in this paper sack on the back of my bike.” Then he reached into his bag of office supplies, retrieved a pen and handed it to Albert, who, in turned, signed the form on the clipboard and handed it back to Melvin.

Melvin took the clipboard, gave it a quick glance then said, “Looks good. It’s plot K174. Back up the hill and then to the left six rows. It’s not too far.” He put the pen in his shirt pocket.

James, Albert and Young John turned their bikes around and started back up the hill. About that time, a Cocker Spaniel darted out of the cottage door and went chasing after the bicycles.

“Max! Get back in that house!” commanded Melvin. The dog abandoned the pursuit, turned and ran back into the house. Melvin followed him in and shut the door.

The trio continued on up the drive, turned left at the main road, went the six rows over, then got off of their bikes and walked them down the row of headstones until they got to plot K174. James and Albert unhooked their pickaxes and shovels from their rear racks then started outlining in the grass where they were going to dig. Meanwhile, Young John opened the sack on the back of his bike, extracted the cold cut combo on wheat, walked over to the large oak tree about twenty feet away and sat down to eat his sandwich as he watched the brothers go about their work.

Young John was about three-fourths of the way through his cold cut combo when a voice called out from behind him saying, “Hey, young man! Do you think you could help me?”

Young John stood up, turned around and found himself looking straight into the eyes of the winged white horse, Pegasus.  He replied, “Uh, help you with what?”

“I am trying to find my mother. I heard that she might be around here somewhere.”

“To quote Norman Bates,” replied Young John Waldenthrottle. “Well, uh - a boy's best friend is his mother!”

Enjoy the Ride!



(Next Chapter)

(Previous Chapter)

Riding with Grave Diggers

Young John Waldenthrottle rode his J.C. Higgins ten-speed bicycle down Louetta Road, headed toward his house after having just left the roadside submarine sandwich wagon at Ella Boulevard. About half a mile into his homeward journey, two other gentlemen, dressed all in black and riding bicycles, exited from a side street and ended up riding abreast in front of him. Each of the two riders had shovels and pickaxes on the racks on the back of their bikes. Young John was quick to catch up with them and strike up a conversation.

“Hello,” he began, “My name is John Waldenthrottle. Most people refer to me as Young John. Not that I’m really all that young any more – but I used to be.”

The two gentlemen turned in unison, glanced back at Young John Waldenthrottle, nodded their heads, and likewise in unison said, “Good afternoon Young John - pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Then they turned back around to pay attention to the road before them.

Young John continued, “So what kind of uniforms are those that you are wearing? I’ve never seen uniforms like that.”

Without turning to look back at Young John, the man on the left replied, “Well Young John, these really aren’t uniforms. We just choose to wear matching black slacks and matching black long-sleeved shirts with black neckties. We think it makes us look kind of cool – in an almost creepy sort of way.”

Then the one on the right chimed in, “My name is James. That’s my brother Albert. We’re grave diggers. And Albert's right, we think we look cool dressed like this – in an almost creepy sort of way.”

“Wow,” replied Young John. “I’ve never ridden with grave diggers before. It’s sort of cool…”

Then, as if on cue, all three of them said, “In an almost creepy sort of way.” Then they all laughed together and pedaled on down the road.

Enjoy the Ride!

-----------ooo-----------

Meanwhile, out on the west side of town, Carl was enjoying the early-afternoon sunshine of his day off. Carl had been among the first group of employees to be hired by Subs-R-Us, a mobile submarine sandwich wagon company formed back in the late 90’s. He had started out kneading the dough for the bread at the downtown kitchen and then gradually worked his way up through the ranks to his current position – North Houston / Spring / Woodlands District Manager. Occasionally, once a month at the most, one of the normal wagon workers under his charge would need an emergency day off or something and Carl would typically take their place running their wagon in their absence.  

But this particular day happened to not be one of those days. In fact, it happened to be one of those weekdays that Carl didn’t have to even go to work at all because he had decided to take a personal day off. And he had taken a personal day off for two reasons. Reason Number One: He had his annual checkup scheduled for that morning – which he had gone to – and in which he was declared as being in exceptional health for a man of his age although he was told that he could stand to lose a few pounds. (But don’t they almost always give that advice?)  Reason Number Two: He wanted to visit his parents’ grave-site out at Resthaven Cemetery in the afternoon.

Carl drove to the cemetery in his classic 1956 Ford Country Squire station wagon. (Or as he liked to call it: his inheritance. He called it that because that’s all his parents left him when they died during a fast food establishment robbery gone wrong back in 1991. No, they weren’t the ones robbing the place. They were just the ones unfortunate enough to be the actual customers next in line behind the would-be robber who was holding his gun against the forehead of the clerk standing at the cash register when the bumbling, near-sighted cook came bursting through the double-swing kitchen doors firing his automatic rifle in a fit of anxiety or heightened adrenaline levels or something, and mowed all four of them down in a matter of seconds. It was in the news for weeks - cook kills robber along with co-worker and two innocent bystanders - the most exciting thing to happen in Marietta, Oklahoma in decades.) Carl parked alongside the road at the end of the row where his parents were buried and then walked the short distance to their graves. Standing in front of their headstones, he knelt down and replaced the weeks-old, withered flowers with the fresh ones that he had brought. He paused there a few minutes – not saying a word – just being an only-child visiting his parents and silently recollecting the good times of years long past.

After a few minutes, Carl stood up and headed back toward his car. He was about twenty feet from the Country Squire when he heard a strange noise coming from the woods off to his right. He stopped, turned his gaze to the tree line approximately a hundred yards away, and then began walking that direction to check it out.  As Carl drew nearer, the noise became a combination of demonic laughter, high-pitched shrieking, guttural growling and indecipherable babbling. Becoming more than a little too eerie for Carl, he stopped. He was about to turn around and head back to his car when all of the sudden he sensed movement from behind the trees. Before Carl could even think another thought, three women emerged from the woods. Three hideous women with horrid fangs, skin of scales and grotesque, venomous snakes instead of hair. It was the Gorgon sisters – Stheno, Euryale and Medusa.

Carl took one look at the three sisters... and turned into solid stone before he hit the ground.

So much for a clean bill of health from the doctor.  

So much for losing weight.



(Next Chapter)

(Previous Chapter)