Musings From A Demented Mind (19 page)

“We shall see,” he said as he sat down next to her.  “He’s heading for my land.  You know I will have to stop him.”

“He will defeat you.”

“Maybe, maybe not.  Alzina, to my victory,” Tyles said arrogantly and disappeared.

“Arrogance will be your downfall.”

The End

The adventures of Rastus will continue in the novel “Beast Within” by Derek Ailes coming in 2016.

                 
SHELANA’S QUEST

Shelana stared out the window of her hut watching a unicorn drinking out of the pond by the large tree.  It was beautiful with its white fur and the golden horn on its head.  She didn’t want to venture outside because she was afraid she would startle it into running away.  Her sister, Melody, walked over to her curious about what had caught her attention.

“She’s magnificent,” Melody said while braiding her long, black hair.  Once finished, she put her hands on Shelana’s reddish hair.

“I don’t want my hair tied up today,” Shelana said as she moved her hair away from her.

“You have the most beautiful hair in the world.  Why must you go about with it so messy?”

“Melody, I love the way it flows in the wind.”

“You are a warrior, remember?”

“Just because I’m an elf, doesn’t mean I have to be a warrior,” she said, pointing at her pointed ears.

“Even warriors must look their best.  We never know who we will encounter.”

“Hoping to find an elf prince?  Not too many venture this far into the forest.  At least, I have never seen one here.”

“Shelana, you never know.”

“Face it, we are isolated out here as the guardians of the forest.  Our only friends are the animals and the butterflies.  Occasionally, we encounter a fairy, but that’s it.”

“Shelana, your unicorn just ran away.  Want to go outside where that wind of yours is?” 

She moved her hand toward her hair again.

“Melody, stop!”

“I’m just playing with you,” she said with a big smile.  “The last one out must kiss a frog.”

“Probably turn me into a frog instead.”

Shelana walked over to the pond and admired her reflection.  The wind caused her hair to flow backward.  The sound of the birds chirping calmed her. 

Melody walked over to her holding something hidden in her hand.  “I found your frog prince.” 

“Put him down.”

“Fine.  That’s probably the only chance you’ll…”

A tiger roared in the distance.

“There’s danger nearby,” Shelana said as she ran into the hut to retrieve her bow and arrow.  Melody followed her and grabbed her sword.

The tiger continued to roar.

“Sounds like it’s coming from the middle of the forest.  Melody, prepare yourself.”

“I’m always prepared.”

They ventured farther into the forest.  The only sounds they heard was from the tiger warning them of imminent danger. 

“Do you smell that?  Could it be?”

“Shelana, I can smell something rotten.  Definitely a reptilian.  I suggest an aerial assault.”

Melody climbed a thick, green vine up the side of the nearest tree.  Once she was at the top, Shelana grabbed the vine and climbed.  Melody grabbed another vine and swung across and landed on a large branch of the tree several feet away.  Shelana waited for the vine to return and then swung across.

Melody pointed at Shelana’s hair.  “Maybe you should have let me tie it.”

“I wasn’t expecting to be tree hopping today.  Can you see anything?”

“Not from here.” 

Melody grabbed another vine and swung over to another tree.  She released the vine and kneeled down on the large branch and surveyed the forest below.  She could see the tiger locked in a large wooden cage surrounded by several reptilian warriors.  They were all dressed in thick metal armor with helmets aligned with animal bones.  Their leader stood taller than the rest and, unlike the skinny, grey skeletal appearance of the other reptilians, was muscular.  He held a large club made out of an elephant’s ivory tusk.

“How many?”  Shelana asked as she landed on the branch.

“I see eight including their leader.”

“What do they want with the tiger?”

“Whatever the reason, it can’t be good.”  Melody grabbed a dagger from her left leather boot.  “Prepare for battle.”

  She threw the dagger and it embedded itself into one of the reptilian’s necks.  It fell forward dead.

“Who threw that?  Show yourselves!”  the reptilian leader commanded.

“Take out the smaller ones and I’ll get their leader,” Melody ordered.

She grabbed a vine and swung toward the leader.  He deflected her sword attack with his club causing her to lose her grip on the vine.  She fell to the ground hard.

“An attack from a girl!  Now that’s hilarious!”

The leader swung his club toward her.  She rolled out of the way avoiding its impact.

Three of the reptilians fell dead from Shelana’s arrows.

Melody jumped up from the ground and swung her sword toward the leader who deflected it with his club.  The other three remaining reptilians fell dead from Shelana’s arrow attack.

“Give up.  All your friend’s are dead,” Melody ordered.

“Never.  Your sword is no match for my club.”

As he held the club upward, an arrow penetrated his hand causing him to drop it.  Melody swung her sword across his neck.  He grabbed his neck as he fell to the ground.  She pulled his helmet off and swung her sword downward slicing his head off.

Shelana swung down from the tree and landed on her feet.  She walked over to the wooden cage and released the tiger.  It stared at her as she put her hand on its head. 

“You are free now.”

It raised its head in acknowledgment and walked away.

“Thank you for saving my tiger,” a voice from behind them said.

They both turned around startled.  Standing before them was a tall female with long, flowing, red hair dressed in a glowing yellow garb.  She held a silver harp in her hand that played without her plucking any strings.

“Who are you?”  Shelana asked.

“My name is Alzina.”

“My name is Shelana and this is my sister, Melody.  We are the guardians of this forest.  How come we have never encountered you before?”

“I’ve never had a reason to reveal myself to you until now.  The world is changing.  The reptilians are advancing farther into the forest and extinction now faces my animals.  As you can see from the animal bones aligning their armor and the club made from one of my elephant’s ivory tusks, how much of a threat they are.  As their numbers grow, my animals diminish.  This has to stop before it’s too late.  I may be one of great magic, but my magic is useless to the animals that have perished.  I can heal those that are injured, but it is forbidden for me to use my magic to resurrect the dead.”

“How can we help?”  Shelana asked.

“There is a magic crystal which can save my forest.  Find it and place it on top of the oldest tree in the forest.  Once the task is completed, the reptilians will never be able to venture in here again.”

“What about the animals that don’t live in the forest?” Melody asked.

“There is another chosen for that task.  A warrior named Rastus.  Your task is protection of this forest.  Find the magic crystal for me.  There is an artifact hidden in the ancient ruins of Klytrinxs that will guide you on your quest.”

Alzina vanished.  Melody stared at Shelana in shock. 

“We better head back home to pack supplies.  We have a long journey ahead of us,” Shelana advised.

“Klytrinxs.  I heard legends about that place.  They say a great warrior was born there centuries ago, but still lives.”

“He was the warrior she was talking about.”

“So the legend is true.”

“I hope all of the legends about Klytrinxs aren’t true.”

“Shelana, why not?”

“They say the place is guarded by a monster. One that can’t be killed.”

The adventures of Shelana and Melody will continue in the novel “Beast Within” by Derek Ailes coming in 2016.

    
The Stories Behind The Demented Mind

I hope everyone enjoyed the musings from the demented minds of James Coon and me, Derek Ailes.   I was sitting in the office at work when I found out about JC’s passing.  Even though no autopsy was performed, his death was ruled complications from diabetes.  Five days later, I met with his sister, Linda, and his niece, Amber.  I asked them if they could locate a couple of notebooks filled with stories he had been writing from the 1990’s until a week before he passed away.  To my surprise, not only did they find the two notebooks; they found his whole school writing file that included stories going all the way back to the 1960s.

I had already decided minutes after finding out about his passing that I was going to write a collection of short stories based on all of the conversations we’ve had over the past fifteen years.  He had a lot of interesting stories to tell.  I wanted to include his story “Sirens of Lake Station” and I wanted to finish the story he started a week before ─ “Travelers”.  With receiving his writing file, I found several other stories that I decided to also include in this anthology.  There are a lot more stories of his in the file, but these were the ones that fit this anthology perfectly.

Here’s a little background on James Coon:

He was born on July 5, 1952 in Connersville, Indiana to Lloyd Coon & Mary Phyllis Teller.  He was preceded in death by his parents and infant brother, Danny.

He graduated from Wheeler High School in 1972.  He had been working overnights in the produce department of Strack & Van Til and Wiseway Foods in Valparaiso, IN for twenty years and had previously served as an insurance representative.  He enjoyed bowling in leagues, but relished the challenge of searching genealogy records.  He was a diehard White Sox fan.  He was a serious reader and I mean serious reader.  Everywhere you turned in his house were stacks and stacks of books.  He loved mysteries, science fiction and books on haunted houses and alien abductions.  He was also one of the biggest DC comic book fans I have ever met.  He spent a lot of time at Galactic Greg’s Comic Book Shop along with Barnes & Noble in Valparaiso, IN.  He would have me order numerous books through Amazon for him on a regular basis.  Back when I used to sell used books on eBay, he would give me a long list of books to look for him when I was out hunting the resale shops for rare and out of print books.

His father would take him to the movies when he was a child and that is where his love for classic movies began.  Film noir was one of his favorite movie styles.  We would sit for hours discussing all the movie classics, and he would tell me about all the behind the scenes details of each film he watched.  
http://www.imdb.com
was one of his favorite websites, and he would visit the website after watching each film.  When he was in the retirement home, he would watch all the classics on Turner Classic Movies.  I was always amazed at how he could recite every little detail about each movie.  I gained a new respect for the classics over the years thanks to him, and my classic movie DVD collection has been steadily growing ever since.

JC went to a school for the hearing impaired where he learned to read lips and to use sign language.   He was misunderstood by most people and they never realized how brilliant he really was.  It wasn’t until I began reading all of his writings that I realized he was more brilliant than I ever realized.  Then again, we are talking about a guy who would read anything he got his hands on.  In the months he was in the nursing home, he read over forty books.

His ability to read lips came in handy at work.  I heard a lot of interesting tidbits about my co-workers from when he read their lips when they were gossiping back and forth. 

He had been living at his mother’s house all of his life and inherited it several years back after her death.  He was a very private man and only a select few of us had the honor of being a part of his social circle.

I first met him in 1999 when I started working at Wiseway Foods.  I would work as the dairy assistant and on Sundays I would also sweep and mop the floors since my buddy, Jim Butler, would be off that night.  I would go over to produce, mop the floors, and talk with JC.  We immediately hit it off thanks to both of our love of the Beatles.  Neither of us took George Harrison’s death too well.  JC and I were both comic book geeks and avid readers.  We had endless amount of things we could talk about and JC found it easier to talk to me about his personal life than anyone he knew. 

JC and I would talk for hours about music, haunted houses, alien abductions, his experiences with haunted houses and cemeteries, his family and his genealogy research.  After my brother, Mark Cusco Ailes, published his first book, JC brought me a yellow notebook that had his story “Sirens of Lake Station” in it and told me he wanted to one day write a whole novel out of it.  He also told me several story ideas he had and, luckily for this anthology, he went into detail on how the stories would go.

Over the years, we had many adventures playing tricks on unsuspecting co-workers, our late friend, Jim Hampson, being one of the main ones.  I remember one time, Hampson was in produce mopping the floors and JC ran to his CD player and put a Native American Chanting CD on.  The moment the CD started, Hampson jumped back in fear.  We never laughed so hard after watching Hampson almost hit the ceiling because he jumped so high.

JC and Jim Butler, (we just called him Butler at work.  There was a time when we had five Jims working at Wiseway and that is why we called everybody by nicknames) possessed a strange relationship.  JC would go out of his way to antagonize him on a nightly basis.  Besides the normal arguing with him over comic book trivia and which was better DC or Marvel (Marvel in my opinion, but I like both), JC would wait for Butler to bring his scrubber into his department to clean the floors, and he would deliberately move things into his path.  I spent way too much time refereeing the two of them.  Butler knew he was doing it on purpose. 

JC’s health had always been poor.  His diabetes was way out of control and one of his legs was so black from the diabetes that his doctor wanted to have it amputated.  JC was a very stubborn individual and didn’t want to have his leg amputated.  He searched for a doctor until he found one that was willing to treat his diabetes without an amputation being an option.  This was a mistake he lived to regret for years to come.  After having a heart attack two years back, his health was on a downward spiral until he ended up in the hospital and his current doctor told him that if he didn’t have the leg amputated, he would be dead within a month.

Finally, he had the amputation which he should have had decades before.  He ended up in a retirement and rehabilitation center.  He was fitted for a prosthetic leg.  Once he was released from the retirement center, he went back to work.  He was healthier and moved around with a speed and determination that I had not seen before.  He had major plans for 2015.  He was going to officially retire this summer and finally write a book.  I told him if he wrote the book, I would make sure it would get published.  He began writing “Travelers”.  The Saturday before he passed, he brought me the first page to see what my opinion of it was.  He wanted to write the book and then have a comic book made out of it, as well.  He was no longer saying he would write and publish someday; he was serious now.  I don’t know if it had to do with the fact I had three published books by that time and was planning a fourth one, but he wanted to see his name on a book.

It does sadden me to think that this didn’t happen until after his passing.  This whole project is me keeping a promise to help him get published and show the world the side of him no one else had a chance to see.

Part of this project is me saying goodbye to a friend in a way only I can do.

Before meeting with his family, I began writing the first story for this anthology at the time titled “James Coon Ebook”.  I had a lot of stories to tell.   This section is a sneak peek into the stories behind the stories.  I will try to explain the true stories that go along with each of the stories.  There are details of his life spread out throughout the first part of the anthology.

Let’s Begin.

Yes, Mother!:   This story is based on an experience JC had in his house after his mother had passed away.  JC claimed to be able to sense spirits who hadn’t passed on.  He believed he could still sense his mother’s presence in the house.  One night while he was sleeping, he felt something heavy pushing down on his chest.  When he awoke, he was paralyzed and a black spirit was hovering over his bed.  When the spirit vanished, he was able to move around.  He claimed that the spirit was of his mother.

I described his house in the story with the stacks of books all over the place.  Potatoes were his favorite food, and I thought it was fitting that he would be eating one in the story.

Golden Age Retirement and Rehabilitation Center:

This is based on his time he was recovering from his amputation.  I visited him several times during his stay and witnessed a lot of things while I was there.  Twilight Zone was one of his favorite shows and the Roddy McDowell episode was one of his favorite episodes.  JC had several prescriptions and carried a bag with him everywhere filled with them and several books.  He would always have me bring him Lipton Ice Tea and butter flavored microwave popcorn.  One day when I was there, the person in the bed next to him stopped breathing and the nurses and doctor rushed in.  He was taken away by ambulance. 

The two nurses in the story, Breanne and Christine, are the names of two African American women who he knew from Gary.  He always claimed Christine was his daughter and Breanne was his granddaughter.  His sister and family talked to Christine and she denied it.  She said they were just friends, and she would help him out when she could.

Kenner is based on one of the patients there who sat in his wheelchair in the hallway and waited for anyone to pass him so he could start a conversation.  I bumped into him and his wife a few weeks back at the Goodwill in Portage.  While he was looking at the DVDs, I talked with his wife.  She would pick him up, take him out for a while, and then take him back to the nursing home.  He really is a nice guy. 

During the time JC stayed there, a patient walked out the back door after one of the nurses forgot to lock it.  The patient was found walking down the middle of Willowcreek Rd by the police. 

A severe storm hit the Portage area during his stay.  A large branch snapped off the top of the tree behind my house.  It landed on my car and my truck.  Luckily it only did minor damage to both of my vehicles.  My car was in perfect condition before that.  Ironically, a few weeks later we were leaving JC’s house.  He has a telephone pole right there adjacent to the very narrow driveway on the right.  There is a tree where branches have overgrown over the driveway that made it impossible to see pulling out of the driveway.  I went into reverse and my passenger side mirror hit the telephone poll.  Smack!  Now the mirror is permanently wrapped in black duct tape.  I refer to it as the result of one of my adventures with JC.

You can tell from the story that JC had a strange sense of humor.  Even when he felt his worst, he couldn’t pass up on playing a joke or being sarcastic.

There are elements from the movies “Cocoon”, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and “Alien” in this story.

Sirens of Lake Station:  This was written by JC sometime in the 1990s.  I took the original story and modernized it.  Scott Drugs was the original store in the story, but they went out of business a long time ago.   This was the story I wanted to get my hands on.  I wanted people to have a chance to read this one.  This is my favorite of all his stories.  I’m glad his sister was able to find it.

Alien Town:  This story is my tribute to JC’s obsession with alien encounters and abductions.  Alice and Tara are the names of two Russian porn stars who came to the United States to meet up with American men who JC would correspond with back and forth on the internet.  He actually went to Chicago to meet them in person.  While they were in California they had a problem with someone (let’s call him a fan) getting out of hand and Alice had to pull a gun out on him.  The backstory of them witnessing the Russian mob killing some of their clients, is based on a story JC told me about.  I used both of these incidents as inspiration to write this story.

The name of the gas station is Superman’s father and the names of the police officers are variations of different DC comic book characters.  Dean, obviously based on JC, is named after Dean Koontz.  Being clairvoyant is a theme throughout some of these stories.  JC claimed to have this ability and it was also the theme throughout a lot of the stories in his writing file.

Haunted Attractions:  One day while doing his genealogical research, JC was at a cemetery photographing the tombstone of one of his ancestors.  After having the pictures developed, yes this was before digital cameras became the norm, he discovered that he had photographed an image of a ghost in the corner of each of the images.  People argued with him saying there must have been a flaw in the film.  He believed it was in fact a ghost. All the pictures before the cemetery and after on the roll came out with no suspicious white image in the corner.  This story was about that day in the cemetery.  People familiar with haunted houses in Indiana and throughout America will know what house in Gary I am referring to.  There was an article in a British magazine about the unexplained published a couple years back about that house in Gary, IN.