The Scrapyard Dunggeon Chapter 2: Boggles and Cold Iron (Patreon)

Stayed up late reading odd stuff and looking for a quote about Iron and ended up reading Kipling until 6 am and writing most of this chapter. I'm not really meaning to write a third story, but if I can't write the other two, I putter with what Huck is up to. And Kipling.  I had to find the poem about "Iron, Cold Iron, is the master of them all."

I have writing and non-writing nights. Doing a chapter or editing on Non-writing nights feels like getting ahead of the game, but sometimes leads to only 3 hours of sleep before work. But it was fun.

I have vague ideas about where the story is going. It's going to be dark in some places and weird in others. Magic is leaking into the real world in some places, and there are Powerful creatures on the other side, stealing from some people and tempting others.

Welcome to Rust Town, a crappy bit of Allentown, PA, down on the banks of the Lehigh River, where the old steel mill sits rotting like the carcass of some primordial beast

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Huck reacted without thinking as the creature rushed at him, kicking it hard in the belly as it got close and knocking it to the floor. The irony of what he had done wasn't lost on him. Before, he was the one who always got kicked. The mop bucket was nearby, and he grabbed the mop out of it. It was a poor weapon, but better than nothing. The creature rolled onto its back, laughing.

"Oh, lucky little hucky, you always amuse us. Kicky licky hucky lucky." It got to its feet and glared at Huck. "You won't be so lucky when we beat you black and blue, leave you at the bottom of the stairs, and leave you with a memory of slipping. Won't that be fun? Pain in and memories out."

It lunged forward again, and Huck hit it hard with the wooden handle of the mop. The creature didn't seem to notice as its charge made him stumble backward and trip over the mop bucket that had somehow got behind him. The beast was on top of him, fists flailing at his face. Huck hit it back, but it felt like punching a mattress; the black flesh of the creature bent, and it laughed at him. He heaved, and they rolled across the floor, knocking over the small table where he'd put the crowbar the night before. It took three tries, but his fingers finally wrapped around the 18" steel bar. He slammed the curved end into the creature's head, and it howled in pain and tumbled off of him.

Huck and the creature regained their feet; both battered now. It was bleeding hard from the wound to its head, black blood dripping to the floor. The wound got worse as he watched, the skin splitting and tearing where he'd hit it. It glared at him, hissing. "Cheating now, lucky hucky? Not fighting fair? Too bad." The creature's eyes flicked behind Huck, and it smiled. He turned his head as he saw another of the things creeping up on him. Distracted by the second assailant, the first leaped at him, grabbing his arm and biting down hard. He screamed, and the crowbar fell from his fingers. The second creature kicked it away from him as he slammed the first into the wall twice to get it off his arm.

"No more cheating Hucky, back to your mop." Both of them laughed at him and made rude gestures. "Will you run, Huck? Leave poor Uncle to us? We'll take what's left of him and drain him dry. No one will believe you, and your despair will be sweet on our tongues. Or will you be brave, swing your mop, and take your lumps?"

Huck threw the mop at them and then raced to the kitchen. There were knives there, weapons! But also a third creature who was busy jumping up on apples and smashing them all over the floor. The others were right behind. The only thing he could grab was the skillet off the stove. He didn't pause, bringing it down with both hands on the handle, smashing the head of the thing smashing apples. There was a sickening crunch. Huck remembered when he and a friend had got in trouble throwing jack-o-lanterns after Halloween one year. The rotten pumpkins made a funny noise when they threw them at the brick wall of a house. That's the sound Huck heard now as the thing's head exploded and sprayed black and grey goo all over. Its body fell to the side, and Huck turned on his original two assailants.

"Bad lad, unlucky hucky. No Boggle-slaying; that's a rule. Now you have to go downstairs. She doesn't like you anymore." No more sing-song voices, just malice in their eyes. But the injured one wasn't moving fast and was looking worse. He charged at them, rather than wait, and swung the eight-pound cast iron frying pan at them, hitting the uninjured one and knocking it down. The boggle with the head wound tried to wrap itself around his left leg and bite. It hurt but made it easy to kill it, hitting it twice. The third and last one got up. It was bigger than the others and looked meaner. It hissed, wiped the blood from its eyes, and then decided to run. It slipped on a smashed apple and went sprawling. Huck put his foot on its back to hold it still and brought the pan down on its head until it quit moving.

Exhausted, he leaned back against the wall, panting hard. All of the bodies and blood and the floor were smoking and dissolving. The one nearest to him was gone as he watched, but it left something. Huck kneeled and looked at the small pile of coins on the floor, and a glittering, shiny pyramid sat on top. He saw more coins where the other two had died. What was going on? The coins were an odd mix with lots of silver dollars and fifty-cent pieces. The first pile had ten dollars and eighty-two cents in it. And the little pyramid. It was less than an inch tall and had numbers on it. He grabbed a bowl and put the coins into it. He remembered Tim and Joe, and Sam talking about their DnD games. This was like the dice they rolled; he put it in the bowl.

A wave of dizziness hit him. Washing his face in the sink and drinking a glass of water and three aspirin made him feel better. He was going to be so sore tomorrow. As his head cleared, he suddenly worried about Charlie. Stumbling upstairs as fast as he could, he found his Uncle still in bed, snoring and oblivious to what had just gone on downstairs. Huck checked his bedroom and the bathroom, but nothing was there. He checked closets and under the beds to be sure. Fething Boggles! Where had they come from? He needed to check the basement door. Downstairs, he saw nothing. The basement door was unlocked again and partly open. He closed and locked it, then jammed a chair under the nob to secure it and some plates on the chair. If they forced their way in, they'd wake him up this time.

He started cleaning up. The boggles were gone, but the piss puddle was still there and needed to be cleaned, and the room straightened. He didn't want Charlie to see it this way. The other two piles of coins were 20.89 and 12.16, bringing his bowl of coins to forty dollars. That was a hell of a lot of money to Huck. There were also two more of the glittering dice. He lined them up and looked at them. The first had a bright blue glow to it. The second was a bright red in color but not much glow and the third looked more like shiny, clear plastic. Yeah, these were the dice the guys used in their game. They had more of them, though, like normal dice you used in Monopoly and big round ones with lots of numbers. Huck had never understood the funny dice. He flipped the red dice in the air and caught it, then sent it rolling across the table. It stopped quickly, showing a 3. The glow faded, followed by the color, until the little pyramid looked like ordinary, dull, grey plastic with faded numbers on the edges.

Huck stared at it, then looked at the bite wound on his arm. It had stopped bleeding but still hurt like hell. The wound closed and went away as if it had never happened, and he felt a hell of a lot better than he had a moment before. All of his bruises were gone, all the pain, and he was barely tired. He checked everywhere that had hurt a moment before and found no welts or scrapes. The swelling in his battered face had gone down. Hesitantly, he picked up another dice. This was the clear and sparkly one. He flipped it to the table, and it rolled to a stop on the 4. It flashed a brilliant blue, looking for a second like the remaining die, then faded to grey plastic.

Instantly, a thought forced its way into Huck's brain, and he understood: Clarity of thought was bright blue, intellect, and cunning. He looked at the remaining die, confident that it was the same color as the quick flare of the clear die. He grabbed it and ran upstairs to shake his uncle awake. "Charlie, wake up; this is important." Charlie woke up, and Huck breathed a sigh of relief as he smiled at him.

"Huck, I had the best dream. Ginny and I were at this little Bed and Breakfast once and went canoeing. I haven't thought of that in years." Huck put the die in his Uncles hand.

"Let's play a game, Unc. Roll this dice next to the lamp and tell me what you get." Charlie looked amused and went along with the game. The glowing blue die rolled and wobbled before settling down to a 3. Like the others, its color and glow faded away to grey plastic. Charlie put his hands to his head in pain. "Oh, I've got such a headache. Can you get me my painkillers, Huck? I think the bottle rolled under my dresser."

Huck didn't remember Charlie having pain pills, but he looked. Sure enough, a bottle was there, hidden in the dust and cobwebs. The prescription label was a decade old. "I'll get some from downstairs, Uncle Charlie; these might be old."

Charlie leaned back in bed. "Actually, don't bother Huck; I'm feeling a lot better. I haven't felt this good in ages, but I'm tired, very tired. I think I need to sleep a lot and let the blue glow help me some." He closed his eyes, and Huck tucked him back into bed. He checked under the furniture again for boggles, in the closets, and even the bathtub. Then he searched downstairs. He needed sleep too. He sat in the recliner with the skillet next to him and the crowbar on his lap, just in case.

Tomorrow, after some sleep, he needed to figure out what the hell was going on.