Dragons in the Railyard – Short


Dragon


Locals call it The Graveyard, and in an artistic sense one could easily see the resemblance, if one were so inclined to look upon a place that permeates a smell of age, rust and sadness. Not many do. Most will drive by, seeing only the dead sunburst of rust in their peripheral vision, and those on foot will nary risk a glance, should they be reminded of grander times, or the failing state of the town within which the place is nothing but a blemish. A landfill littered with the orange-brown carcasses of train cars, the haphazardly stacked piles of rail like extinguished matchsticks and seas of vermin-chewed copper wiring, joy had looked upon this place with a wary glance and passed it over. Sadness, on the other hand, took root, with melancholy a constant and unrelenting companion. The locals call it the graveyard because only dead things reside here, but graveyards hold more than the dead. Secrets dwell here too, though they are much harder to see.

However, were you to look closely here, were you mayhap to see through the eyes of a child, eyes full of intrigue and wonder, were you to look beyond the decay and machine death and forgotten industry, you might see dragons.

We did, but that was a long time ago, and all the dragons are dead now. Dead, or hiding.

We played here. I, the older, and he the younger. His name was George, perhaps that’s where all this started. We were young, so very young, and thus possessed the previously stated third eye to see the true beauty of this place. We saw the cracked and desolate remnants of a by-gone age and perceived only a land in which we could roam and explore and live out stories we ourselves created. Every footstep spoke words on a page that we roared with youthful vigour and with hands held aloft, eyes skyward and hearts soaring on the breeze that sang deathrattles through the cracked ironwork that enveloped us, we founds dragons and slew them.

We ran screaming through the twisting paths, ducking low-hanging obstacles and sliding on skinned knees under the bellies of crumbling train cars that spat fire and roared fury at us. Iron poles and splintering wood were shining swords and spears within our hands and the oft torn clothes we ventured in became armour, resplendant in the sun and bearing the heralrdy of our so-called bloodlines. Within our embrace, life breathed anew through the railyard. We were alone, the sole citizens of a kingdom we ruled with nothing but phantom courage and our combined imaginitive power, and we were mighty.

Then, one day, we were no longer alone. Our kingdom was invaded. Each and every time we entered that place we would shed our real lives like raincoats and be reborn on the other side as warriors, rulers, kings. Each time we left, walking side by side, coated in sweat and dirt, skin bearing the signs of our courageous deeds and the spattering of phantom gore our kills had tarnished us with, the cool night air that met us on the other side washed away the spectral guises we wore and we awoke from the dream. together. This day, however, only one of us would leave, although I think…truly, neither of us ever left. The phantom that ran from The Graveyard that day, his screams devoid of courage and bearing only horror, was not George. It was not my friend. It was something else entirely. George, I think, never truly left.

Those cries would soon conjure forth those from that other, oft forgotten world. Policemen, passers by, even the railyard’s errant night watchman, asleep at his post but roused by anger and accusations. Few words left the boy’s mouth that night, so pursed were they against the truth of the world as he stood amongst the ash and rust and shattered remnants of his own perfect existence. Emerald eyes, he would say through quivering lips. Tendrils of smoke. Ripping claws. A dragon.


Dragonspawn


The bindings at his wrists and ankles are tight. Too tight, he cannot move. The groggy figure, sheathed in shadows, struggles against the rope and screams a muffled cry through the oily rag stuffed into his mouth, its pungent smell and taste making him gag and retch uselessly. Through the drunken haze that any other day would be a welcome friend, the tendrils of fear and panic begin to encircle his heart and choke him. He does not know where he is. He lies on his aching side, the throb of bruises across his body sing in unharmonious rapture and he focuses his vision forward, onto the mottled grey surface that faces him. In the distance, an owl hoots, and something metallic and hard rings sweetly, cutting through his drink addled mind like a razor.

He begins to wriggle. The ground beneath him is littered with errant discarded items and soon tears begin to carve swathes through the dirt and grime that coats his face as the sharper of the stones and shards that dot the floor punch and stab into his side. He feels a warm pooling and thinks he is bleeding. He wriggles faster, his movements more erratic, and begins to groan and sob through the pain as the stone and metal underneath his form is joined with glass. The panic that soon overcomes him cleanses the drunken haze like water and his mind is focused enough to jump to a fro between possibilities regarding his current unfortunate state. He owes money. Lots of money, and holds an itemised list in his head of the order in which he favours each of his many vices, all of which he satiates through illicit means. He has enemies too, and has changed his name so many times he is beginning to forget who he ever truly was. The view over his shoulder is the theatre in which his life plays out. He wonders, then, which of his past lives, his many faces, has finally caught up with him.

He does not expect it to be the one he dared to forget.

A boot tip plants itself roughly in his upper back and electric pain courses through him. He screams through the gag and chokes on the oily spit that fills his mouth. A fist grasps his hair and another his leg and he is thrown onto his back roughly, colliding with more errant waste and he feels the warm seep from his side grow greater. He looks up at a cloudy, polluted sky, a single star crying resistance through it’s glistening shine that permeates a gap in the cloud cover. Then, the star is shrouded by two more. Two more that glisten in the head that his eyes eventually come to make out in the gloom. Brighter, even, these two are, and infinitely more striking. He makes out hair, a shaggy and unwashed mop atop a face that, were he paying attention, would bear the stains and weathering of a face that has not borne happiness in a long, long time. A sharp, flat mouth sits unmoving above an unshaven jawline and below that, the body of the man who has brought him here.

The shadowy figure says nothing. He does nothing, He simply stares, as if oblivious to the nature of the sight. As if he is simply regarding another. There is no hate upon this face, nor is their love. Intrigue perhaps, or insatiable scrutiny. He would never know that this look, this look that inspires in him such terror and panic, is nought but the gaze of a man searching for another of his kind. A kindred spirit, who seeks only understanding. One of them is simply unable to see it. The other is madly oblivious, so lost in the rapturous stupor of his final, much craved victory, or at least what he perceives as such.

The gagged man tries to speak. He begs, pleads for his life, but no such words survive the rag. The rope at his wrists rubs agonisingly against the already sore and bloody flesh there and the pain makes it difficult to focus. He wants to move his legs. He wants to run, his eyes speak these truths and only then does a wry, razor sharp smile break out onto the younger man’s face and the sobbing man’s terror increases tenfold, so lost is he within it’s cold prison. He expects the boot again, or something worse. The sweet, metallic ringing sound he heard upon waking rushes through his erratic mind again and he pictures a knife, shining under the moonlight and already painted with the phantom blood it will sound unleash from his body. His bladder fails him. The warmth runs down his legs and the smell fills his nostrils like vinegar.

The younger, however, simply walks away. Seven steps, the sobbing man counts, and hears him groan gently into a sitting position. He has to move. The ground under his back is excruciating and his head feels swollen. With a pained, agonising grunt he forces himself up, leaning back into his tied fists and wincing as his knuckles find something sharp between them and he rolls his eyes. He sees the figure more clearly now, illuminated against the moonlight. He does not recognise him, which only serves to stir the dread within him. He glances around at the area, the landfill-esque scene feels curiously familiar, but he cannot ever remember being here before. The large shards of ironwork and shadows of larger, gloomy constructions only seek to further his confusion. Meanwhile, his captor, the shaggy haired man with the sparkling eyes, begins to mutter to himself.

Only, he isn’t muttering to himself. Though the two are alone in this place, amongst the ruin and rust and blood and urine, he is not talking to himself. He is talking to me. He tells me many things, in hushed toned beyond earshot of the sobbing and piss-soaked creature he has captured. First, he tells me of his happiness, Of the insurmountable joy that fills him now that he has tracked and made thrall his quarry. He tells me that he did this for me. He tells me that there is no finer chapter in his life than this. He tells me that he has caught the dragon, the great beast, that slew me, for within that fractured patchwork mind there is only the game…the story, the great fantasy of knights and dragons that was, for nights beyond number, his only reprieve from the world that had so thoroughly broken him. At some point, who knows when, it became a fantasy no longer. It became a false but welcome alternative reality, and he immersed himself in it.

And why not? In this reality the pain he feels within his heart is a curable ailment, a razor is a gleaming greatsword fit for a worthy knight and the scars that crisscross at his wrists are nothing but the remnants of bygone duels with mythical beasts and hedge knights. These false truths shield him from the world, while corrupting him from within. In his world, nothing is eternal, nothing is forever. He can always rewrite the story, after all.

He pulls a cigarette from behind his ear. The slightly crooked thing smoulders and burns under the match that he strikes upon his jacket and he draws deep, so satisfied is he. He exhales through his nose, twin tendrils of smoke shooting skyward in long, wide plumes that drift skyward and disappear. His prey watches all this with wide eyes and a twitching nose. The smell is familiar to him, like an old friend. As the scent drifts lazily into his burnt nostrils his wind swims in familiarity and misplaced comfort. He knows that is his brand, a brand he has smoked his entire life, or at least as far back as he remembers. What he does not know is that this boy has smoked every brand of cigarette he has ever come across, only stopping when he discovered this one. The smell was, at first overwhelming. The smell ripped him from the filthy one bedroom apartment he lived in when he first lit one of this particular brand and deposited him roughly in a place that is, in his mind, the only true home he has ever known. He has smoked them religiously ever since. They are his only ritual.

He tells me it is time. He tells me that tonight, he will slay the last dragon, the one that has haunted his dreams. The dragon that killed me that night. He tells me he is so happy that I am here with him. He purses his lips against the half-smoked cigarette and smiles at nothing. He tells me that in this place, we are invincible, and once this is done, he hopes we can play again. He stands, taking another deep draw on the cigarette and blowing twin plumes skyward in a ritualistic salute. Then he turns, and draws the knife that rests in a sheath at his hip. In another time, a plank of wood would have served him just as well, but those times are long dead. The games are nothing but memory now, all the magic of this place is long dead. He exhales again through his nose, brandishes the knife before him like a sword, and looks into the bright emerald eyes that have brought him here, to this forever wretched place. The thing that was George, my friend, looks down at the last dragon.

I see two, but I cannot tell him that, nor do I think he would listen, such is the madness that has pierced the shell of his mind and ensorcelled him like a parasite.

The other, urine-stained and sobbing unrelenting through the rag in his mouth, watches all this in abstract shock. The plumes of smoke the boy blows creature a fragmented picture in his mind, like a cracked mirror, only showing what remains, leaving the rest invisible and out of reach. His eyes flicker to each and every item in his vision. Rust. Scrap. Long lengths of stacked metal that resemble railway lines and…

The moment of clarity is like a knife through the last remaining thread of his trembling sanity. It kills any lingering hope of escape, of freedom, of finding his ankles unbound and running with every last ounce of life that exists within him far, far away from this place. The railyard, the locals called it The Graveyard. After, from what he read in the papers, he realised he’d make that more real than ever. He tries to remember the name he had used back then. All he remembers are the screams. The blood. The torn clothing as the older boy struggled against him, his ragged, sharp nails tearing into the already torn shirt he wore. The insane, unending wailing of the younger as he fled…

His eyes grow wide again as the man who was once called George, who once dreamed of slaying dragons and who once ruled the place the locals called The Graveyard, advances on him, a sickening smile painted upon his face, a sharp knife gripped tight in his hand, it’s blade twinkling under the moon’s gentle kiss.


Dragon Slayer


His back aches. It always aches at this time of night. He stands from his chair within the shed that is as much an office as it is a tomb and groans as he arches his back and lets out a pained groan. He reaches down and takes a sip of the lukewarm coffee that sits within a cracked mug on his desk and grimaces at the taste. Such a minor thing, and certainly not out of the ordinary for him, but he cannot help but think on better times. So many of us do.

He peers out the window, into the sea of rusted train cards and wreckage that makes up the railyard, The locals, including himself, used to call this place The Graveyard. No one calls it that anymore. No one else remembers it anymore. No one but him, for he can never truly forget. He believes that’s why he took this post. He believes it may be his penance. He fingers the clasp on the torch holster that hangs at his hip and pulls it into his hand, testing the light. It flickers to life. He checks the clock on the wall. He knows it’s time once again. His hands do not so much as brush the pistol that hangs unused against his other hip. He hopes he never has to again.

The shed door creaks and slams behind him as he enters the railyard proper. He knows each and every inch of this place now, such is the ritualistic nature of his work. Each errant shard of metal jutting from the carcass of a train car, each item of litter too stubborn to be carried aloft in the ghostly breeze that sings through the metal corridors of the place, the faded but still visible numbers of each train that sits long dead, surrounded by it’s companions. Jokingly, he sees this place as a sort of home, as did we all, at some time or another. I am not the only soul who has ever perceived the Railyard as a living being, some otherworldly sentient being, and like every other living thing, it hungers…and it consumes.

The night air is quiet and mercilessly still, and he is grateful for that. Should the railyard remain dead in perpetuity, he believes he could continue this sad existence he has chosen for himself. He believes that would be fair, for reasons he would never share, should anyone ever dare to ask. An owl hoots somewhere close by and he is curiously unnerved by the sound, wondering why any living creature would deign to reside here, even for a time. Then he hears the ringing sound.

Metallic, sweet, high pitched and repeated. He freezes, and in his old and well interred paranoia his hand moves to his weapon. He hears the sound again, and moves towards it, feet silent on the well trodden dirt path he takes every night. He moves towards the sound, until it is joined by a voice he feels deep down he has heard before. Within a deep, dark part of his being, he jokes. He’d know the voice of insanity anywhere.

Closer now. Louder, words permeating the skin of the steel walls and finding his ears, increasing his pace and finding unnervingly that the clasp on his gun holster is undone, and his hand is on the weapon. He does not remember doing so, though he did, practiced and elegantly. He is afraid. He pleads within himself that it not happen again. He does not believe he has the strength. He is old, tired, and pitiful, and he prays to a God long abandoned.

He spies the scene through the window of a train carriage, and he freezes. The younger, filthy looking man brandishing the knife. The elder, trussed like a pig and whimpering in soiled jeans. The knife gleams in the moonlight and the boy crouches next to his prey, a sobbing wretch of a man who screams and no doubt pleads through a dirty rag that has been forced into his mouth. The night watchman draws the weapon, and takes aim. He does not know if he will fire, he does not know if he has the strength, or the resolve. In the back of his mind, a voice asks instead if it is not these qualities he lacks, but the sympathy with which to make him care, and with this, he considers simply walking away.

He knows he cannot. He knows this because for so long he has hated the man he suceeded. The fat, lazy creature who had allowed that crime to occur under his watch. Though he knows he lacks the strength and resolve and even the sympathy, he still had pride. Some men can never abandon it, for all the pain is unleashes upon them. He aims at the younger man, feeling the old familiarity, and wonders if he should shout a warning, force the younger man to flee, avoid bloodshed, avoid giving the place the locals used to call The Graveyard yet another innocent life. He does not get the chance.

The boy roars, and lunges. The knife above him in both hands, it’s curve wicked and it’s point towards the ground, and the near lifeless body below. The old man, his back aching, his skin cold and his heart empty, fires a single bullet. His aim is perfect.

He waits, and then exhales slowly, his heart thumping a vicious beat within his chest. He watches the scene for a time, savouring again the perfect stillness of the place, the blissful normality that quiet and the night brings. Then the captive man begins to sob, and he awakes from his short lived tranquility, and looks upon the corpse. Lifeless, bleeding heavily from the chest wound the bullet inflicted, and he is devoid of emotion. He flicks the safety on his pistol and reholsters it, before rounding the train car on trembling legs. The sobbing man’s eyes are closed tightly, allowing only tears to pierce their veil, and he shakes uncontrollably. The smell of human waste is strong on the night air and the scene is a twisted sort of peaceful for all but muffled sobs and whimpers. The old man approached the body and with little pause grabs an arm, using it to lift and flip the younger man onto his back. Does he do this to check to see if he still lives? Or does he simply wish to see the face of the kill which he hopes might offer some vindication or salvation. I do not know, nor do I believe he does.

The sight, however, offers neither. There is no hope in that dead, lifeless face, nor is there a primal, vicious satisfaction is serving good upon their world. There is only the face of a boy, scarred with one final smile and a pair of lifeless yet impossibly bright eyes that remove him from the horror-ridden reality he currently resides in, and onto the steps of the hospital where he believes his hope for the world truly, and irrevocably died.

He is younger then. The weathering of age and time have yet to inflict their inevitable harm upon his handsome features, though his expression is that of solemnity. He is speaking with a doctor, a fine young woman in a white coat and glasses. She also bears no smile, as she tells him of the boy’s nature. His damaged, and ultimately shattered mind. How she does not believe he will ever leave that place, for even were he to be miraculously cured of the wounds in his mind, he has nowhere else to go. They both know he has no home. They both know, now, that he has nothing. The boy who witnessed the murder in the railyard, which some still, at the time, called The Graveyard.

He turns to the one remaining figure in the tragic scene, his heart heavy in his chest, and falls to his hands and knees, retching. He tries to call out to the man. He knows he should tell him that he is safe now, that he is in no danger, but words fail him. There is only pain, and I truly pity him for that. Then the tied figure opens his eyes to look upon the man who is his saviour. He looks at the man with bright, tear filled emerald green eyes.

The old man looks into those eyes and is overcome with a feeling he does not believe has a name. His heart is a maelstrom of hate and sorrow and anger and melancholy. He looks deep into those bright, fearful eyes and grits his teeth as the scene comes full circle. He knows. He remembers. He recalls every painful detail of talking to a sobbing, ruined young boy in a police station room. He remembers the scalding hot coffee in his hands, the knot of pain in his stomach as the boy relayed every word with perfect anguish. Tendrils of smoke, he’d said. Ripping claws, too. Emerald eyes. That was the one he said the most, over and over. He believed that image was seared into the boys brain, and he wasn’t half wrong. The thing that left the railyard that fateful day could nary close his eyes without seeing them, irises burning two holes through the fragile shell of his innocence until the flames took hold and left only ashes. The wretched, shit stained creature that struggles pathetically against it’s bindings sobs again, and tries to speak through the rag. The old man hears nothing.

The night watchman of the graveyard, who was once a proud police detective and believer in justice in its truest form, makes a choice. He makes a choice, as we all do at some point in our lives, never knowing if we chose the correct path. The path of the knight, the protector the hero, or that of an malevolent villain, the evil wizard at the end of the maze, cackling among the bones of the innocent townsfolk, a paragon of all that ails the world. The old guard has long since stopped believing in such a black and white sort of world. He exists in the grey, and is content with it. He is no knight. He brandishes no shining sword with which to ward away the darkness. He is no gallant hero. None of us are, none of us ever will be. All of us, in the end, are nothing but children swinging sticks at shadows. He makes a choice, and the railyard is quiet once again.

The dragons are all dead now. Dead, or hiding. The dead ones wander no blissful dreams for life no longer courses through their veins like liquid fire, pulsing and singing with a primal fury. They dream of only the void, the empty nothingness within which they reside, for they are truly dead, and they are never coming back.

The others hide. Amongst the rust, and the death and the secrets that litter this place. They wait, and pray to never be discovered.