Tales Of The Amulet VI: Trapped

William's life had become ceaseless torrent of bad news. One day, he was gliding high above the clouds; no worries, a happy family, and a comfortable life style. Things looked good on the horizon, and the storm clouds that built into towering, thundering maelstroms were safely in the distance. But then Hell came to William's life, and everything around him fell to pieces.

William Michaels had a lovely wife, Elizabeth, and three amazing children: Marcus, Luke, and, and Olivia. They were never wealthy, but they were happy. The lived in a small house in the outskirts of town just across from a lovely wooded area where they would always see deer, woodchucks, blue jays, and many other animals out in all the seasons. It was beautiful, and they very much enjoyed their lives.

Elizabeth always had the better job -or at least the better paying job- but this fact did little to take away from the love and complacency among them. They were happily married, despite Elizabeth's belief that William had often given up and only taken jobs that would just get them buy rather than improve their situation. But the very much loved each other, and the kids lived relatively stress-free lives as well. In fact, by all accounts, they were as typical an American family as you're likely to ever see.

But Elizabeth had a very dark, and very sinister secret.

William arrived home one day, distraught and very upset. Elizabeth glanced up from the table, past the vegetables she was chopping, and noticed right away that her husband a look of sorrow on his face. She had a cooler sensibility about her -which was quite typical and though it looked snarky and uncaring, it was just her look- and arced an eyebrow with a modicum of concern. William pulled out a chair, and sat heavily with a sigh. He looked at his wife past tear-blurred eyes and explained to her that the job he had grown to love was gone. She set down her knife, wiped her hands on her towel that dangled from the oven door, and walked to William with a mixed look of consternation and concern playing across her face. William sat slumped over in his chair, resting his head on unclenched fists, and breathed worried breaths. Elizabeth knew he needed comfort, but another side of her fought the urge to just melt into him and give him the satisfaction that everything was going to be okay. It wasn't, but she couldn't let him see that. She had to play it safer, and so she tousled his hair, kissed his cheek gently, and told him she lived him. William nodded, replied his love in kind, and shed a tear.

Elizabeth retired to the bedroom after dinner. She said she ad a headache and needed to lie down, and William was more than happy to assist the children with homework and bedtime stories. And soon, as the evening settled in, the house noise ebbed to a dull roar, and the only noise was the family room television. Elizabeth sat up from her bed and looked around at the looming shadows. The moonlight pierced through a thin slat of the window blinds and played a white stripe on Elizabeth's dresser. It was in that top drawer, under her underwear and bras, where she kept it. Secure -she always hoped- and nestled in an old brooch box. But tonight, the calling was as strong as it had ever been... and even stronger. She knew what was inside, and she knew what it could do, but tonight was not a night she wanted it. But it wanted her.

It was 2002. William and Elizabeth had been married for three years and things were getting better every day. In fact, just six months previous, they had welcomed little Marcus into the world. The pregnancy had gone by surprisingly issue-free, especially considering that Elizabeth was predisposed to potential problems. Strangely, it was almost as if that very predisposition was erased completely, and though they worried quite often, nothing ever came of it and the nine-months sped by just as they do for thousands of others. 
But Elizabeth knew something she was told never to let on to her husband.
Four months into her pregnancy, she began experiencing terrible shooting pains up her legs, across her abdomen, and around her lower back. Something inside her told her that these were the precursors to premature and a potentially still birth. She had to do something, but she couldn't tell William. He was far too busy attempting to secure a job, and that, coupled with fearing for Elizabeth far too often would only cause a panic. She had to talk to someone.

-To Be Continued-

Tales Of The Amulet V ("Sometimes When You Wish You Were Anywhere Else)

Taylor leaned languidly on his bent arm, resting his tired head on his hand. In his left, he twiddled and rolled his pencil across his fingers deftly like some kind of magician.
     Come one, come all! marvel at the Terrific Taylor as he wondrously wobbles his precarious pencil twixt his dexterous digits!
Taylor was drifting again. His mind was swimming in and out of the moment as his eyes drooped ever more heavily. He blinked once, twice, attempting to struggle against the inevitable. He began to fall into a more purposeful breathing pattern, and soon, the hand that flitted the pencil began to drop, and the Ticonderoga hit the floor, eraser first, making a dull plip sound.
Taylor was in is own mind. The dull drone of the lecture on Berlin Wall and its ultimate collapse continued unabated, but it sounded as though it it were being taught three classrooms away by a teacher created by Charles Schultz. Taylor's head slid down on his hand and he subconsciously knew that in mere moments, it would make little difference how 'out of it' he was...

He was right.
The lights flicked off and the steady rattle-hum of the movie projector whined to life behind him. As old and worthless as these archaic forms of classroom information were, they were darn good for at least a half hour power nap. And that's just where Taylor was headed.
In the rapidly stretching distance, Taylor heard the warbling diatribe of the host of the film as it trailed off further and further away...

And sprang back into his mind like the return of a boomerang. Taylor was standing among his classroom cadets in the great meeting hall of the Second Infantry, Walking Dead Extermination Division. He loved how the circular patch over his right shoulder showed a skull emblazoned with the letters: WDED, with the DED written in dripping red letters. It was a cheesy acronym, but effective.
The commander stood tall among the ten and eleven-year old students, but he treated each and every one as an equal. For Taylor and his division had proven themselves worthy time and again by infiltrating the enemy lines and sending the zombies back to their former deaths. Each of the twenty-five children had a unique talent that was used with great skill in battle. Some created spit-wads embedded with push pins. Some made rubber band crossbows that launched flaming erasers. Others, like Taylor, used their mastery of deadly sharpened pencils to fight off the hordes. They were all trained to the point of perfection, and the commander knew it, and trusted them.

     "Cadets!" The Commander continued, "Today is a big day for us! For today is the day we shatter the walls that separate us from the zombies, break into their stronghold, and acquire the thing that brought these monsters to life in the first place!"

Cheers rang up from the twenty-five little soldiers as they thrust their fists in the air triumphantly. Taylor was especially excited because among them, he was the only one who had ever actually seen the instrument that was directly responsible for the zombie plague on earth: The dreaded Amulet.

-- To Be Continued --