Jesse James and the Dragon's Egg

Yammoneffer

The first thing Jesse realized was a horrible, overwhelming ringing in his ears. That and he couldn't see. More to the point, all he could see was a blinding light, a painful, brain searing, blinding light. Too painful to keep them open, he squeezed his eyes tight.

Moments ago he had taken the small brown chip from Jag, it was strangely warm between his fingers and seemed to hum or vibrate the more he squeezed it. Jag was yelling for the children to hurry as Kate stepped up to the window. She had turned to say something but Jag had grabbed her by the shirt and pitched her into the window. She disappeared just as Brad had. He grabbed Jake by the shirt and he too was gone.

Something new was going on outside. There was a rumbling. Not like thunder but a roar, like a train. And it was growing louder. Blinding flashes strobed through the window and Jag was screaming at the children to hurry when the roof flew off. The entire thing simply lifted up and flew away into the stormy night.

Jesse looked into the stormy blackness where the roof should have been and saw many strange things. Backlit against strobes of lightning, the boy saw a giant, funnel-shaped cloud whipping around. He saw what looked like a small car flying through the air. Quickly behind that he saw what was definitely a tractor-trailer. The huge truck sailed end over end across the stormy night. He also saw, soaring through the impossibly foul weather above the little convenience store, two more great winged beasts, two more dragons.

"Go now!" Jag screamed as he raised his blade and ran back out into the storm.

Jesse, John, and Lamar stood and stared at each other. Each one waited for the other to make some kind of move when something caught their eye. Something was at the back of the little store, lying there in the dark. It was something that hadn't been there before. Rain was coming in hard, the wind was making an epic mess of the place and there was chaos all over and this thing, this inky black thing, moved. It crawled from the shadows at the back of the store. No, that was wrong. It was the shadows themselves. They were crawling, crawling toward the boys.

The three ran in screaming unison for the window and leapt.

~

Muffled sounds worked their way through the intense ringing in Jesse's ears. The completely unrecognizable burbling slowly resolved itself, and Jesse realized he was hearing Brad's angry voice. He was hurling insults and obscenities at full volume. Jesse then felt heat. It was intense but comforting, inviting, and suddenly his senses opened up completely, overwhelming him with sensation.

His head swam in scents and smells, sights, and sounds. People and animals and perfumes and foods. There was a sharp salty tang to the air that swirled with a myriad of herbal scents. Strangely accented voices rang out, mixing with vaguely familiar ones. He heard music, strange, alien music with bizarre, spiraling rhythms, the shrill cry of stringed instruments ringing out against the crisp clarity of brass horns. The raucous crash of surf caught his ear, and he realized he was feeling sand under his hands, tiny grains sticking to the skin between his fingers, and sun on that skin.

And then there were the sights. As Jesse's eyes adjusted to the light, he saw a dark-skinned people around him. Dressed in blazing whites, intense yellows, and reds so deep and beautiful they actually invoked emotion in the boy. There were great white horses stomping in paddocks and multi colored tents with magnificently decorated banners flying in the wind. Between the tents he watched the purest white sand he had ever seen reach out into an ocean so blue that it was hard to discern it from the sky. And then he saw freckles sprinkled across cheeks and a mane of flaming red hair framing an exuberant smile. Kate had his little brother, Jake, in tow.

"Isn't it amazing?" Kate grabbed him by the hand, helping the bewildered boy stand and steady himself. That crisp salt air bit Jesse's nose and a cool sea breeze washed over him and found he had been laying in front of a large, ornately carved mirror.