The Tapestry (11 page)

    In one of the fields beyond the line of trees there was a farmer in what appeared to be a ploughing machine or tractor of some sort, and she could actually hear him whistling his happy tune a
s he went about his work without a care in the world it seemed.
(It didn't slip her mind that she shouldn’t have been able to hear anything from this far away, as he was about half a mile in the distance)
. She also noticed that to her left was one of those windy country roads that she always thought were a nightmare to drive down at night as there was no street lighting and you could only rely on your own headlights to light your way. Driving down those roads at night always made her nervous, especially when there was some
idiot
behind wanting her to speed up just because they had no fear for their own lives.

    A little further down the road to the left she could see an old country pub with
a few benches outside and what looked like a car park to the other side of it. There was quite a large beer garden to the back, but what struck Clara most was the symbol or shape that was on the wall facing her. Usually an old English country pub would be called something like “The Red Dragon”
which would have been more apt actually
or “The Nags Head” or something similar but this had a very strange name according to the symbol and Clara couldn’t work out why in her dreamlike state but she felt this was important.

   
The dragon spoke again as she was pondering the name of the pub,

   
‘You have a beautiful land Clara which is now in great peril’. The ball of light under its chin was glowing ever more radiantly as it spoke. Clara felt almost hypnotised as she watched the writhing mass inside the ball, the warmth from the sun was also making her feel a little drowsy and that sweet lavender smell was even more intoxicating the longer it lingered. She wanted her feet on the ground though. It was very dizzying to be up there high above the trees and before the words left her mouth the dragons had responded, this time they spoke as one voice,
or had they always been speaking in one voice? Maybe she was still fine tuning her signal?

    ‘Yes Clara, Keeper of the Tapestry, Guardian
of the dragon fire, we will release you to the soil but first you must see what will become of your world should you fail to
become
yourself.’

    As Clara was trying to determine what becoming
herself
meant she felt the warmth from the sun replaced with a coldness that permeated her very bones as if the sun had suddenly been blocked out. The daylight had turned into sudden night. She could barely see but she could hear howls and terrifying screams from across the fields. There were no longer little rabbits and foxes beneath her but there was some sort of animal down there. She could tell that by the snarling and the grunting. Clara knew these were the sounds of the beasts from the astral plane. The beasts that were in limbo just searching for prey.

   As she looked around and her eyes became more adjusted to the sudden lack of daylight she could make out that the trees no longer had leaves. They were just withered silhouettes of their former selves against the sky. She saw the little man in the tractor, only he was no longer in the tractor. There
was some sort of beast driving the machine.

   
It had the head of a dog and the body of a monkey and it was jumping up and down excitedly in the seat as it chased the farmer. The chase didn't last very long before the farmer was cut down with his own tractor driven by
dog monkey
.

        She winced as she watched this and then turned towards the pub which had become a black and charred ruin of its former self. She looked up and the sky was a deep crimson red and then she heard a bloodcurdling cry as a bird flew by. It took a second for Clara to realise it was not a bird at all. At least not what she would call a bird; this was some sort of winged beast that she could only compare to what she had seen in old dinosaur movies. It looked very much like a pterodactyl and as big as a hang glider.

    It swooped down on some unsuspecting creature and sunk its claws into its flesh before flying off again into the crimson sky
with its victim leaving behind nothing but another bloodcurdling cry.

   
The farmer that had been cut down had got up and was now chasing the dog monkey in the tractor but he was holding his garrotted head in front of him in one hand as he ran so that he could see where the dog monkey had gone while he was shaking his other fist in the air.

    This would actually have been a comical sight to Clara, had it not been so horrid. In another field behind the dragon on the tree there was a picnic area but in this picnic area there were what looked to be a family of pigs. They were
all stood on their hind legs just like humans would. One of them even had a white blood spattered apron on as he was carving meat from the spit roast that was turning above the flames. There were two little pigs running around on their back legs whilst their mother moved from the picnic table and benches to collect the meat from the father of the pig clan.

    Only now Clara could hear the terrifying and saddening screams that came from the “meat” as it seemed these pigs liked their meat rare. On the spit roast was a man and he was still alive as he turned and turned slow
ly above the unforgiving flames, she could hear his skin blistering and popping in the heat as he was begging for his freedom whilst slice after slice of charred skin was taken from his sides and abdomen. The pigs only then... when their plates were full got down onto all fours and began to eat like the pigs they were. The man was still alive as he watched them eating his flesh, he was still screaming but his screams were getting weaker and weaker as Clara watched.

    As the revulsion in her stomach began to raise its ugly head she turned to look away from the macabre sight in front of her only to see the farmer running down the hill with his arms outstretched. His head was rolling before him and she thought it looked as if he had dropped his own head and was now trying to catch it
to replace back onto his neck. But his body actually tripped over the head and went rolling down the hill itself and the head came to a standstill before the giant dragon from the tree settled on the ground before her. Clara wanted to help but didn't see how she could.

   As she was watching the body of the farmer pick itself up and feel its way towards its head two plain white doves flew down from the trees and landed on the head. They picked at the eyeballs with what looked to be razor sharp teeth until they had their prize and flew off into the crimson sky with their ill gotten trophies trailing behind them in their vicious claws.

    The head was wailing as blood poured from its empty eye sockets but still seemed to look towards Clara as so did the body which had now given up the chase and was lay on the floor with its hands reaching out towards its head, although it would be of no use anymore.

                                                
CHAPTER FIFTEEN

    When the dragons finally gave up their hold on Clara and let her down to the earth, she was in a state of such despair. Although she had thought some of the sights in front of her were comical, such as the pig family on their hind legs as if they were on a family outing. All they needed to complete the scene was a camper van parked nearby or for the little piggy’s to be throwing a frisby or such between them. And then of course there was the farmer tripping over his own head
. Yes it did look comical
she thought, but is that what will become of the world?

    As her feet touched the ground finally she could not tear her gaze away from the l
iberated head. It was just slightly to the right of her but she could not stop herself from watching it as the blood ran in fresh rivulets down its cheeks whilst the imploring head questioned its very existence.

    “Clara... walk straight towards me and do not stop for anything” she heard the voice in her head command. It was the voice of Tien-Lung she knew and decided to follow its command but as she did the hand grabbed hold of her trouser leg and she froze
in fear knowing before she even lowered her head to question what had touched her. It was of course the hand of the farmer. It had somehow managed to crawl over to her although, she imagined that the head had somehow guided it, but then again realised the head no longer had eyes to guide with. The first instinct was to kick the hand away and run. Run towards Tien-lung  which she did, and the smell of the lavender as she got closer to the behemoth on the ground in front of her was so intoxicating that she swooned onto one of the disproportionate legs of Tien-lung and slept.

    Clara slept for what felt to her lik
e an eternity and while she did, the two dragons spoke to her and told her what must be done. As they spoke, the breath from their mouths formed clouds which floated up to the sky and became part of the clouds formed by their brethren.

    She was safe in the arms of the dragons, there was no evil on earth that could have touched her at that moment, in that magical protective ring that the dragons’ arms gave to her. Not the dog monkey, nor the gargantuan bird from above, or even the creatures from the very depths of hell itself. At that moment in time
Clara was in the safest of hands that anyone could ever be. She was in the hands of Mother Nature’s divine power itself. And if Mother Nature wants it to be, no matter what it is... then so shall it be.

   The first thing she sees when she comes round is the tapestry. She is still staring into the dragonfire but her legs feel as if they are about to betray her as she sta
ggers backwards into the empty chair with the picture of her Stanley to the side. She sinks deep into the chair and doesn’t take her eyes off the tapestry in front of her. She sat there for almost an hour, maybe more, she couldn’t tell anymore. Time was irrelevant to her, but she sat with her hands clasped on her stomach just looking at the two dragons and it was now evident that they were not fighting at all but they were holding the talisman, or the dragonfire in their flames as this was how they protected it.

    She then saw that
the talisman still sat at the bottom of the picture frame. It sat there denying her wish that in some vain hope that somehow this could still be a very strange dream. She knew it wasn’t, but seeing that little disc in front of her shot all hopes of that out of the water.

    ‘
Well Stan my love, I may be joining you sooner than I thought’ she said out loud to nobody as she walked towards the now glowing talisman.

                   
                                
CHAPTER SIXTEEN

   
What a result
thought Pinky as he led the girl to the waiting taxi.
What was her name? Well fuck it; she would be screaming his name soon enough anyway
he thought as he opened the door for her.

   
‘Yeah I’m a real gent, long as I’m gettin’ you outa that dress later babe’

   
‘Well I was hoping you would help hun’ she said with the sexiest smile Pinky had ever seen. He closed the door on her and ran round the other side of the silver Astra with the yellow “United Taxis” stickers emblazoned all over it, barely able to contain his excitement. He felt as if his zipper would burst open any second under the strain.

    He had been in 21’s club
in Manchester town centre, which really is nothing more than a cattle market and most of the clientele were actually under the age that the name of the club suggested you should be, which is just the way he liked it.

    He and the lads had
an unspoken rule that,
ya gotta look after the priorities
. And priority number one when out with the lads was getting laid... nothing else mattered. You only left the group if you had a dead cert on your arm, and then you were free to fuck off at a moments notice,
and give ‘er one for us. 

   
He’d been at one of the many bars surrounding the dance floor which at 1am was now starting to smell just like the sweat pit it resembled. He was leant back with both his elbows resting on the bar behind him watching the club dancers on the podiums, teasing the drunks that couldn’t do anything with it if they got it, when she appeared next to him and asked if she could get
him
a drink. The first thing that went through his head
(after he noticed the dark eyes above those sensual, perfect blow job lips with the dark wavy hair cascading all around the face that framed them, and the most perfect set of chest weapons he’d ever seen barely held in by the little pink top that looked stretched to its limit, with such a cute little stomach and legs that really needed to be wrapped around something... hopefully him)
was the fact that she had offered to get
him
a drink?