Fall Leaves and the Black Dragon

By Erik Gustafson

Be scared of the demonic green plastic army men carrying match sticks.

Liam’s formative years were far from normal. When he was six, there was a huge fire that involved his childhood friend, piles of dry leaves and a box of wooden matches. This horrific past won’t leave him alone. Literally.
Secrets that should have burned away long ago have haunted him for years and ruined his childhood.

Demons want him dead.

Voices beckon to him in the night.

At the brink of insanity, Liam heads back to confront the ghosts of his past and gain control of his life.

Every step of the way something evil is trying to stop him.

This dark coming of age journey reveals a truth more horrifying than the huge fire he lived through as a child.

A truth that threatens many lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erik Gustafson
• Release date: Feb 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458022639

Erik Gustafson

I spent 20 years serving in the United States Air Force, and have had the fortune to live all over the world, including Iceland, Germany, and in a tent for a year in Saudi Arabia.Always an artist at heart, I produced many paintings during my adventures. After my service, I settled down with my family (wife, two great daughters, 2 cats and a little white fluff dog) in small town Iowa, where I love to volunteer at the antique carousel. Now, I help people with intellectual disabilities to reach their potential and teach psychology classes at a local college.I switched from a paint brush to a pen and am now a horror writer, by night.I am working on my forth novel. I have been published in The Horror Zine, Horrified Press, Sirens Call Publications, Pleasant Storm Entertainment, Crypto and Co., Death Throes Webzine, and several other horror anthologies.

Book preview

Chapter 2

In the months before we moved our home had indeed become a sad little place to live. My parents didn’t talk as much and hardly ever played music from their album collection. The record player may have been gathering dust but the backyard was even worse.

The corner where the fire occurred was black. Everything was black: the ground, the trees, and what was left of the bushes. Even the grass was burned away leaving behind black stubble. The whole scene seemed as if someone took a huge black eraser and smudged out that corner of our yard.

I alone knew we had been attacked by a huge fire breathing dragon that evening and I was terrified it would come back to finish the job. I kept an eye on the sky for the next attack. Mom also said I had many nightmares that fall, dreaming of fires almost every night. She later told me the fire had a bad effect on her as well. She had trouble sleeping and couldn’t stand to be in the back yard anymore. She even kept the blinds down in the kitchen so she couldn’t even see back there.

I worried about Rich while he recovered in the hospital and I wanted to go visit him. I saw him often in my nightmares covered in flames and screaming. I asked my mom to take me many times to visit Rich but she said he couldn’t have visitors. She suggested that I make him a card or write him a letter instead, so I did. I drew out battle scenes on cards and wrote about all the good times we would have when he got well and returned. Rich never wrote back but I knew that he had to have bandages all over him and in too much pain to write. I imagined his mom sitting there next to his white hospital bed reading my letters to him.

It gave me comfort to know he was reading them and I knew my letters and drawings made him happy. I hoped getting mail from me was something to make his long journey to recovery a little less miserable.

I wrote often because it made me feel better as well.

One time I was drawing pictures of bad guys riding horses in a desert. I drew a stick rendering of Rich on top of a rock with a big gun and bullets flying through the air. With a blue crayon, I started to write something to the effect of that it was no fun playing anymore without him.

Don’t write on there that you are playing! my mom was behind me and her arm reached onto the table and crumbled my art.

Mom! I started to cry.

You can’t tell Rich you are playing and having fun without him. It will make him sad.

She sat down at the kitchen table next to me.

She rubbed my short hair. Oh Willy, you were so lucky you didn’t get hurt but if Rich knew that he might be sad, ok?

Why?

Because it wouldn’t seem fair to him, she said.

Oh, I mumbled although it didn’t make much sense to me then. However, I never did mention to Rich again that I wasn’t burned because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Even as a six year old, I knew it seemed weird that we were both in the same fire and I pretty much got out injury free.

Why don’t you make another drawing now, she handed me a fresh sheet and I redrew my war scene and simply wrote, I hope you get better fast.

I had visions of poor Rich completely wrapped in bandages like he was a mummy. I cringed at the memory of his foot covered in flames and then not being able to see him at all from the massive fire raging around us.

Then the season changed and it got colder. The snow started falling and made everything disappear. The early and frequent snowfalls were a blessing.

Snow covers up memories.

By the time Christmas came, I started to forget the things that the snow made disappear. I started to feel human again and the nightmares slowed down. At first, I felt strange when I woke up and found that it was morning and I had slept through the entire night. I wasn’t used to it anymore and it almost felt wrong. I got over that feeling fast though.

I am sure my parents were happy not having to run down to my room almost every night.

Christmas was pretty good that year. I remember getting action figures from my favorite TV show: the Six Million Dollar Man. They were cool action figures because they were big and the Steve Austin doll had a real bionic eye and legs that transformed into bionic legs for super fast running.

Even though the snow had made all the terrible things in the backyard vanish, I still never made any snowmen in the backyard. I made my snowmen either by myself or with my dad. We rolled our snow in the front yard, where I could stare up at the big blue water tower that was across the street.

As spring came, the snow melted and it rained all the time.

Like I mentioned, my dad finally got a job offer around this time. I say finally because even though things were looking up the backyard was still a ghost town: no one ever went back there and all the fun and magic had been sucked right out of my parents. My parents announced that we were putting the house up sale and moving to Delaware as soon as school was over. My Dad hired someone to come out, remove all the trees in the backyard, and replace the space with a wooden privacy fence.

That was bittersweet because there were so many little alcoves to play in and so many hiding places out amongst the remaining shrubbery and trees. Not that I would have ever gone out there to play again anyway. The loss was still sad.

Fences aren’t much fun to play around.

So my first grade year, which had started with such a grim beginning, came to an end. I can remember the joyous feeling of pride as I carried all my accumulated art projects and paperwork that had been crammed in my desk across the parking lot, down the street, past the crossing guard (who wished me a fun summer as he waved his big red stop sign at me), across the back of the high school football stadium, through a very small patch of pine trees, cut through a backyard, jogged down a gravel alley and through the gate in our new privacy fence, across the backyard and into my house. I dumped my sack of art and writings on the table and presented my treasures to my mom. She sat down at the kitchen table and we shared a bowl of chips and a couple of pops while she reviewed my schoolwork with me.

She smiled at each piece and told me how impressive everything was.

A week later, my dad announced that we had sold the house.

Sold the house had an ominous, final sound to it. It occurred to me that technically speaking, as we packed up our belongings and got ready to move, that we were guests in our own home. I pondered the notion for a moment that we no longer owned this house and would soon no longer live here. It meant someone else would be taking over my room soon; it also meant someone else could have our ugly, scarred backyard.

Chapter 3

It didn’t take long for my messy, toy-scattered room to become an empty room. Once empty it didn’t seem like my space any longer and looked so much bigger. I was excited to move and start over.

We drove to Delaware during the hot month of July in 1976. I sat in the way back of our long station wagon and watched the water tower get smaller and smaller until it was gone. The drive from Iowa to Delaware was a long one but I slept a lot and had toys spread out all over the car to play with. We stopped many times to see the sites and eat fast food. I know we stopped for the night in Chicago, or at least somewhere close to it. The hotel had a swimming pool and we ordered pizza that night. The next morning we were back in the car and on the interstate. We stopped again somewhere else- I have no idea still to this day what city- but we visited a zoo and I was able to ride a camel and cruise above the zoo on a ski lift.

I think it took three very long days to get to our final destination: Somerset, Delaware, which was a small town just outside of Dover. Somerset was very green; so many trees. That was good news because I loved exploring wooded areas. My dad told me even better news: the ocean was only an hour away. I was dying to go play in the ocean!

With great eagerness, we made the final turn and drove down the street that would become my neighborhood for the next 12 years. The street was lined with large trees, all stuffed with green leaves. There were kids playing in the yards of almost every home. Our house was pretty much right in the middle of the block. The house was a large, two story home with two tall birch trees standing in the front. The first floor was all bricks and the second floor was an off-yellow colored siding. There was an attached garage and I could see huge trees peeking over the roof from the backyard at us as we pulled up the driveway. I would discover only a few minutes later that the backyard opened up into a forest. Deep in the forest, I would discover only days later, there was a small river. Where else could be a more amazing setting for a young boy like myself to grow up in?

However, before I learned about the forest in my backyard, my father gave me a tour of the empty house. We paraded through large open rooms that echoed our footfalls, marched across barren, hardwood floors and up a flight of stairs. There were doors along a hallway upstairs. My dad directed me down the hall and presented my new bedroom to me. My room was at the back of the house and it seemed much larger than my previous bedroom. This new room had a window (through which was how I discovered the forest) and a closet. I opened the closet door and peered inside the small storage room. It was empty except for a bar for hanging clothes and a string that hung down from a bare light bulb.

I pulled the cord and the room lit up.

Back in the corner, I saw something and knelt down to check it out. I realized I was staring at a single green plastic Army radioman, the one with a large antenna coming out of his backpack and a phone up to his mouth.

A chill raced through my body.

I had a minute flash of Rich standing in the backyard amongst the fall leaves, gripping his bucket of Army men and smiling. Then the vision was gone. I picked up the solider and presented it for my dad to see.

Neat! Guess a boy had this bedroom before you, that’s perfect!

The vision didn’t leave me with a feeling of dread or fear; instead, it made me sad. It made me ask about Rich’s status again. My dad told me to ask my mother because he hadn’t heard from Carl, which was Rich’s father, in a long time.

I wanted to ask more questions but the loud halting wail of air brakes squealed through the house. I whirled my head around but didn’t have a clue what made that sound.

The moving van is here, my dad announced. Right on time!

My stuff was in that van! I was all for getting my stuff back.

Let’s go unload some boxes, Willy! my dad said with a smile and ran his large hand through my messy hair. He chased me out of the room and down the hall.

Before I knew it, there were boxes, dollies, ramps, and moving men everywhere. By the end of the day I was pumped up and excited about my new room and had completely forgotten about the Army soldier I found.

The first night in our new house was fun. We all slept in the living room, surrounded by boxes and unplaced furniture. It was almost as if we were sleeping in a cave made out of moving boxes. We unrolled sleeping bags right on the living room floor. I had previously only used sleeping bags on camping trips and it never occurred to me to use them in a house! My dad even said we were camping in the living room! The walls in the living room were covered with wood paneling and looked really neat. It was exciting getting to sleep in the front room with all of us together like we did. My dad even went out and bought some Dominos pizzas and bottles of pop. There was no TV. The only light came from a table lamp that was sitting on a cardboard box. The overhead light didn’t have any light bulbs in it yet. My parents were not happy that the previous owners took all the light bulbs.

That night, the house made all sorts of weird noises and there were strange shadows coming in from the windows and shifting around corners and doorways. Luckily, my dad had a flashlight out in the station wagon and he let me hold it. It took me awhile to fall asleep but snuggling with the flashlight helped.

I woke the next morning with the bright sun blasting through the bare windows making it almost feel like we had been camping outside. That second day was another day of unpacking boxes, which was boring and a very slow process. Up in my room my bed was set up and the dresser and red toy box was in place. All the boxes with my name written on them were in my room but they were still full. My parents told me to start going through them.

I think I started with a box of clothes to refill my dresser but only got about halfway through the first box before I got bored and made other plans. I wanted to go explore the forest behind the house!

As it turned out, it was going to be a very bad day.

Chapter 4

I seriously doubted I was being much help anyway and besides there was a whole forest practically right in our new backyard! How was a boy to resist that? I ran up to my dad to ask and my dad said ask your mother and my mother said don’t go far. I took off for the trees with my Steve Austin action figure in hand.

I ran through our backyard for the first time, which was nothing more than a field of grass clear to the edge of the forest. I paused at this edge and looked back at our new house. For a brief instant, I thought of Rich and me playing in the bushes in old backyard and then it faded away. This was a new place. It didn’t remind me of our old backyard at all. My new home looked a little smaller from the edge of the forest and not very familiar to me. I felt like I was standing in somebody else’s yard, but I had a whole day of adventure ahead of me and no time to get used to my new house—or worry about getting lost.

I stepped into the forest to begin my exploration of this new frontier. I just knew it was going to be haunted or full of angry Indians assaulting me volleys of arrows or something amazing like that.

There was an obvious path worn straight back from my yard so I started out by walking along that trail, wondering what treasures I was about to discover. I was careful to keep an eye to the ground for dinosaur bones, arrowheads, and fossils! Things like that turned up all the time, especially in remote areas like I was exploring. These relics from past civilizations were the most common indicators of a hostile environment; warning signs signaling violent secrets concealed in the woods tucked behind the tall tree trunks and thick underbrush.

I sure hoped I found something!

The woods started out thin; a few pines spiraling toward the clouds and wild grass, thick and wavy with seedy tassels, spreading over the ground. Most of the trees were spaced apart and bursting with green leaves. Some of the trees were dead and leafless, which made them stand out among the living trees. A few of the dead trees had cracked apart and toppled over. Those fallen trees were the gems of the forest because they make fun ramps and lookout posts. I found a long stick, picked it up, and slung it over my shoulder like a soldier marching in formation.

A boy needed a weapon for protection.

The path made a sharp turn to the left, away from the sun, and I looked back toward my house. I saw a long line of small houses that stretched along the outskirts of the forest. They all looked the same from where I was. For the first time, I felt some concern about getting lost but I was pretty sure my house was the brick house with the yellow siding covering the second story. Since at that point I had only lived here a day I wasn’t completely sure. Just stick to the path, I reminded myself. I shrugged and started walking again; there was too much fun to have.

I realized that as far out as I was the path was less obvious and branched off in several directions all at once. A path that went up a small incline to my right and several others meandered in various directions through the underbrush. Rotting logs, broken sticks, and branches seemed to be scattered all over the place out here. One trail seemed more trampled than the other trails so I picked that one. I tried to see which direction the path went and I noticed the charred remains of a small campfire up ahead in a small clearing.

I kept walking and staring up at the tall trees, looking around in awe. Some of the trees had white, flaky bark and others had thick brown bark. There were acorns all over the ground; some with their fringed crowns broken off. I saw some walnuts and pine cones. Still no bones or arrowheads though.

Having my own private forest was a pretty nice benefit to moving to Delaware.

After some time, I noticed that my thighs were burning and realized I must be walking uphill. I looked back and could only see trees, no houses. The trees were standing motionless but they seemed to be watching me. They didn’t seem fun or friendly any more. I felt way out in nature and alone. The forest was getting thicker and I didn’t know how long I had been walking but at least I was still on a path.

I saw another huge tree that had fallen into the underbrush. I imagined that this huge tree was struck by lightning and the bolt tore the tree down the middle because part of the trunk was still clinging to its stump like a very loose tooth. The collapsed tree lying at that angle made a wonderful ramp. I scrambled up through the thick spider web of twigs and branches, climbed over a fat limb, and made my way up toward the base of the tree. I sat up on the highest point with my feet dangling off the trunk looking around. It seemed high off the ground!

From my new vantage point, I could make out little patches of white, red and brown that I knew had to be houses. In the other direction, I could see an obvious break in the trees so I decided to walk that way and see what lay ahead.

After a few minutes, the path seemed to disappear and I was stomping through underbrush. The forest was thinning out again. There was another moss-covered hollow log up ahead. I remember hearing the rushing sound of water from somewhere over the hill I was climbing! I got excited and started running.

I crested the incline and found myself standing before the bank of a narrow river. I guess it was more of a wide stream than a river but it was open enough for a canoe or something!

The bank on my side was sandy and peppered with smooth rocks and the occasional broken shell. Shells were fun to find but not as fun to find as arrowheads. I knew Indians always lived near the water and I figured my odds of finding arrowheads along this river were pretty good! The water on the far side lapped up against an overhang of exposed tree roots. The tangled mess of uncovered roots looked like intestines spilling out of a giant. Above the steep cliff, thin trees jutted and rose into the air.

I knew right then that this was going to be my new favorite spot.

I stood on the shore of the stream and tossed rocks into the water. Watching the rocks splash and vanish, I wondered what the name of this river was. I reminded myself to ask my dad later. If he didn’t know, I told myself, I would make up a name. I knelt down and drank a few handfuls of the cool, refreshing water.

The water didn’t look that deep and it was so hot out that day I just couldn’t resist taking a quick dip! I knew my mom would be upset if