Dana stopped short and gingerly placed her hand on his shoulder. Looking around the room at the mess, she had to ask, “What the hell happened?” Dana spotted the charred portion of wall, “Was there a fire?”
“I fought back last night. They got in a couple of good shots, but I won. I got rid of them.” Jason rolled over onto his back.
Dana saw the blood on his shirt and bed sheets. “Holy hell! You’re bleeding!”
“Tis but a flesh wound.” Jason smirked.
Dana jumped off the bed and headed out of the room, “Do you have a first aid kit? Where is it?”
“Yeah. It’s under the bathroom sink.”
Dana returned and knelt on the bed next to Jason. She cleaned the wound on his belly with some cotton balls and alcohol. “Well, it doesn’t look deep, but it’s going to take a large dressing to cover it.” She took Jason’s wounded hand in hers and peered closely at the hole, “This hole in your hand is deep.” Dana looked into his eyes, with great concern. “Babe, I think you’re going to have to see the doctor again. You need stitches.”
“NO!” Jason rolled away from Dana and towards the edge of his bed. Holding his stomach and wincing in pain, “I can’t go back to the doctor. He wants to have me committed. He thinks I’m doing this to myself. He doesn’t believe me about the goblins.”
Dana scooted across the bed and carefully hugged her frightened boyfriend, “You have to admit it is pretty hard to accept that some mythical creatures are doing this to you.”
Jason looked up into her face, with tears streaming down his cheeks, “I swear they are real. They are doing this to me.”
She could see the sincerity and terror. Dana decided to do what Jason wanted. She would clean him up and take care of him.
After dressing the wounds, she propped Jason up on the bed with his pillows and got him some water and something for his pain. She bent down to look at the singe marks on the wall, around the socket. She noticed Jason’s hammer lying on the floor and a dent in the carpet next to the tool. Dana ran her hand over the carpet and found a couple more depressions in the floor.
Dana stood up and stared at the destruction, “I hope you can work this out with your landlord.”
“That’s the least of my worries right now.”
She noticed a plastic spool of fishing line hanging from the window, “What’s this?” She opened the window and began to reel in the line.
“I tied one of them up in fishing line and hung him out the window.”
Dana pulled a tangled mess through the screen and dangled it for Jason to see. “There’s nothing here.”
Jason stared at what used to be a tied up goblin, but was nothing more than a ball of knots. “It’s gone.”
Dana dropped the fishing line and sat on the edge of the bed. “What’s going on?”
Jason closed his eyes and leaned his head back.
“Look, I want to help, but there is nothing here that says goblins beat you up.”
He resigned himself that there was nothing he could do to convince Dana or anyone else of what was happening to himself, “Look, I appreciate you taking care of me, but there is nothing else to do. I’m going to rest. How about you head home.”
Regardless if the goblins were real or not, it was clear to Dana that Jason could not be left alone, “I’ll tell you what.” She offered, “I’ll stay here with you for the weekend. We’ll see together what happens.” She caressed the side of his face.
“Thank you.” Jason smiled, comforted that he would not be alone.
~~~~~~~~~~
Dana stayed with Jason for the following week, while his wounds healed. Several times during each day Jason would search the apartment. He would awaken during the night to first search his bed and then the rest of the house. When Dana left to go to work or run errands, Jason kept his hammer in hand and settled into the corner of his bedroom, where he fought Garl and Lank, but the little monsters were never seen.
Jason visited his doctor twice in that week and avoided any conversations about green goblins. Jason’s wounds were healing. The doctor agreed to let Jason return to work the following week, under the condition he started seeing a counselor. Dana made him agree to the counseling.
Jason was very nervous on his first day back to work. He pushed concerns of the goblins to the back of his mind. He was more worried how his co-workers would act towards him and how much work had piled up on his desk.
The first half of the day was uneventful. He dug his way through the files on his desk and deleted most of his e-mails. A couple of his clients stopped in and visited.
Dana stopped by and took him to lunch. They picked up sub sandwiches and went to a park to eat. Jason had not been outside in over a week. He reveled in the feeling of the cool breeze and warm sun on his skin. He vigilantly watched the flitting movement behind trees and on branches. Every movement he spied was simply a squirrel or bird. He tried to convince himself his hunters were gone. They were not coming back.
At his desk for the afternoon, Jason relaxed and settled in. He even threw a couple of paper balls and an airplane at Tiffany. He began to feel confident that his ordeal was over.
Jason was leaning back in his chair, talking on the phone to a counterpart at the Health and Welfare Department main office and swaying back and forth in his chair. Jason swung around to face the phone on his desk. Standing on the phone, just above the buttons was a eight inch tall green goblin, with a pot belly. He leaned against a spear. Leaning against the side of the phone was a slightly shorter goblin, who was wide shouldered and very round. The tall one had long dirty brown hair. The short one was bald. Jason stared at them, trying to tell himself they were not there. Jason clamped his eyes closed and opened them. The phone slid from the side of his head as he stared at the creatures. “Lank, Garl.”
Lank, the tall one on top of the phone reached over with his foot and pushed the button in the phone cradle to disconnect the call. “I love this,” Lank giggled and looked at Garl, “He actually thought he got rid of us, because we left him alone for a while.”
Jason slowly placed the receiver back in the phone cradle, the entire time not taking his eyes off of Lank. Once the phone was down, he snatched Lank off the phone.
“Hey!” Garl yelled.
Jason grabbed a heavy office manual from the side of his desk and dropped it on Garl. Turning his attention back to Lank, he squeezed the creature with both hands as hard as he could.
Lank held his spear above his head, “I learned something from you.”
“Yeah, what?”
“Don’t let your arms get trapped.” Lank rammed the spear into Jason’s hand, between his thumb and forefinger.
Jason yelped, but tried to muffle it. With his good hand, he grabbed the spear away from Lank, turning it around in his hand and pointing it at the little monster. He did not look at Lank’s face. He stared at the center of the goblin. Jason pulled back and shoved the little spear through the center of Lank. The green creature gasped. Bright green blood spurted from the chest. The same bright green blood oozed down Jason’s hand, where the spear had pierced through the back of Lank. Jason yanked the spear out and held it over Lank, to see if the limp body would move.
“Holy Crap!”
Jason swiveled around to see his supervisor, Mara, peering over the top of his cubicle. She could see the red blood and the cut on Jason’s hand. She could see the sharp stick he was holding. Mara could not see the dead limp body of Lank.
“Jason, what the hell is your problem?!”
“It’s OK. I got him. I actually killed one of the goblins.” Jason held his hand high, grasping at empty air, for Mara to see. Red blood slowly streaming down his hand from the wound Lank made.
“That’s it. You are gone!”
“No. It’s OK.” Jason stood, trying to reassure his supervisor, “Everything will be alright now. See?” Jason held his bleeding hand a little higher.
“I’m getting security.”
~~~~
~~~~~~
It had been a full week since Jason was admitted to the mental health wing of the hospital. He had been deemed a risk to himself and was on a suicide watch. As a result he wore white scrubs with slippers. He was given a bed, a mattress, a pillow, but no sheets or blankets. He had a small room to himself, but no privacy because of the camera at the top corner of the room.
There was a day room where the other patients mingled. They played games, did crafts, read books, and met with friends and family. Jason tried to spend as little time as possible in the dayroom. He preferred the enclosed space of his room.
Dana visited him every day and brought him some of his comic books. With permission from his psychiatrist, Jason was allowed to keep the books in his room. He was glad for the daily visit. It comforted him to have the care and support.
It took some time, but Jason’s parents finally visited. They lived several hours away and they had to take time off from their jobs. They stayed at Jason’s apartment, even though he pleaded with them it was not safe and to stay in a hotel.
Jason was not sure why the Goblins had not visited him. He thought one reason might be they got what they wanted, everyone thinks he is crazy. It did not matter to him. The green torturers were not hurting him anymore. He was happy to stay right where he was provided the goblins came around no more.
After another week Jason settled into a routine. Dana and his parents still visited him daily. Every day he ate at the same time. He sat in the dayroom in the same spot every day and read one comic book then he would return to his room where he spent the rest of the day reading more comic books and taking naps. He met with a counselor every other day, where he discover he did have some issues, but disregarded it as everyone has issues.
In the meetings with his counselor, Jason learned it was best to stop talking about little green creatures. He talked about the issues the counselor found in him, just to appease her.
“So Jason, you’ve been here for almost a month now, how do you feel your stress level is doing?” The counselor asked, relaxing back in the couch.
Jason sat up in the couch opposite of her. He did not make eye contact. It was very difficult to. Instead he scratched and picked at the arm of the couch. “I think it’s pretty good. I don’t think I could get more relaxed in this place.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah, but that’ll all change when I get out of here. I’ve lost everything. I don’t have a job. Friends won’t talk to me. My apartment is gone. My folks have put all of my stuff in storage. Without my job, I don’t know how I’m going to pay for my time here.”
“That’s not anything you need to worry about.” The counselor waved her hand, as if magically dispersing Jason’s cloud of worries, “Your parents on your behalf got you approved for long term disability. That will cover your medical expenses and your living expenses. You will have plenty of time to get back on your feet and find a job that doesn’t cause you so much stress and you will make new friends.”
Jason continued to concentrate on the arm of the couch and nodded his head at her. He knew she was right and it was comforting to know he had the financial support, but it bothered him to think the life he had had been destroyed. Jason had to rebuild everything. He did not even know if he could rebuild any of it.
The counselor leaned forward on the couch, “Jason, talk to me about the Goblins.”
He stopped picking at the arm and looked up at the counselor, “They’re gone. They’re nothing.”
“Do you still believe these Goblins were the ones that hurt you?”
Jason had been here before. He knew the counselor did not believe his stories. No one did. It was just easier to agree with them, “No. I don’t believe in the Goblins. They didn’t do this stuff to me.”
The counselor scooted up to the edge of the couch. With a show of concern she asked, “Then why do you still search your room every time you go in there? Why do search the area around you in the dayroom every so often?”
Hanging his head, Jason did not know what to do. It was pointless to lie, but telling the truth just kept him here longer. Taking a deep breath, Jason prepared himself for a long talk about his delusions.
~~~~~~~~~~
After a month and a half, Jason walked out of the mental health building on a local medical campus. He stopped just outside the front door and looked up to the clear skies. Taking a deep breath and holding it, he looked around the campus. It became his habit to always check his surroundings.
In the middle of the concrete open area was a large oval garden. It was raised up chest high from the ground. Ivy hung down the sides. Going into the garden the plants and flowers became shrubs, which became small trees. Circling the garden were benches. Sitting on a bench waiting for Jason was Dana. She saw Jason come out and stood up. The couple crossed the open area to each other.
Dana wrapped her arms around Jason, “So, do you get to come home?”
“Yeah.”
Dana noticed the defeated tone, “What’s wrong.”
“They believe I am no longer a threat to myself, so I can go home. But, I still have delusions, so I will continue twice a week visits and daily check ins.”
Dana swung around to his side and kept her arm around him. “Hey, this is progress.”
“I guess.” Jason hung his head. “I just don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve lost my job. My folks still talk to me, but they act weird when they are around and everyone else I know has cut me out of their lives.”
Dana slapped him playfully on the tummy, “Hey! You still have me.”
Jason smiled at her, “Don’t let me forget that.” Jason threw his head back and sighed, “It’s just that I know what I saw and what was done to me.” He scratched his head, “I don’t know. Maybe I am nuts.”
“Whether the goblins are real or not, it has been six weeks since you have seen them. This is probably over.”
“Yeah. Maybe you’re right.”
“Of course I am. Now I got really hungry waiting out here for you. Let’s find a place to eat.”
“OK.”
They started walking towards the chest high garden area. After a few steps Jason looked at the garden, following the ivy up the edge to some ferns that were bunched together. He noticed some of the fern branches rustle. Jason disregarded it as a squirrel. He stopped dead in his tracks. Squirrels are not green. Surely he must be seeing things. That is what everyone has been saying. Jason concentrated on the moving fern.
“What is it?” Dana asked.
It came into Jason’s view. It was not brown and it did not have fur. It was the size of a squirrel and it was green. Jason immediately recognized it as a goblin. It was the goblin Garl. Jason turned gray.
“What’s wrong?” Dana prompted again.
Jason raised his arm and pointed at the ferns. “I know you won’t believe me, but it’s Garl.”
Dana stared at the garden, “Where?”
“In the Ferns. He has something.”
Garl heaved a crossbow almost as big as himself out of the vegetation and prop it on the concrete edge of the garden.
“No.” Jason pleaded as he took a step back. He felt a punch to his chest. Instinctively he put his hand to his front and looked down. Embedded in his chest was an arrow. Jason stumbled.
Garl pushed the crossbow to the side and pulled another one from under the ferns. He again propped the large weapon on the edge of the garden.
Jason concentrated desperately to keep upright. Another sharp punch to his chest and he dropped to his knees.
“Jason! What’s going on?!” Dana was frantic. She was shaking his limp shoulder.
Jason could say nothing. All his strength was gone. He fell over on his side.
Dana started screaming, “Someone! Help! Someone get some help!” She bent over Jason’s still body.
A man ran over and dropped to his knees next to the fallen man. He rolled Jason over on his back and listened to his heart. “His heart stopped. He’s
had a heart attack.” The man straightened up and started pumping his hands hard into Jason’s chest.
Jason rolled his head to the side to see Garl walk around Dana’s legs. The little green monster stood inches from Jason’s nose and spat in his face. “It took me a long time to convince the club, but I finally got permission to get revenge for Lank.”
Jason could say nothing. He could not move. He only felt the rhythmic pressure on his chest. His eyesight faded as he watched Garl lumber away.
####
About the Author
I guess that would be me.
I’m just some geek in a big scary world.
>_<
I wish I had more of my work to offer right now.
I can tell you I am working on a lot of ideas.
Here are just a few of those ideas:
~Tribes of werewolves in modern day society that are being hunted by the government.
~A young man can see the evil a person does when he touches them.
~A man travels back in time repeatedly to protect a younger version of himself.
Thanks To
My wife for the support and love
My folks for support and lots of editing
Mary for telling me to publish this
Bob for the awesome artwork
KooKoo88 for showing me how to publish this
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