The Artifact

191 Pages·2016·0.78 MB·English

by  Hoover Gary

Land of Nod, The Artifact
Title Page
Chapter 1:
Chapter 2:
Chapter 3:
Chapter 4:
Chapter 5:
Chapter 6:
Chapter 7:
Chapter 8:
Chapter 9:
Chapter 10:
Chapter 11:
Chapter 12:
Chapter 13:
Chapter 14:
Chapter 15:
Chapter 16:
Chapter 17:
Chapter 18:
Chapter 19:
Chapter 20:
Chapter 21:
Chapter 22:
Chapter 23:
Chapter 24:
Chapter 25:
Chapter 26:
Chapter 27:
Chapter 28:
Chapter 29:
Chapter 30:
Chapter 31:
Chapter 32:
Chapter 33:
Chapter 34:
Chapter 35:
Chapter 36:
Chapter 37:
Chapter 38:
Chapter 39:
Chapter 40:
Chapter 41:
Chapter 42:
Chapter 43:
Chapter 44:
Chapter 45:
Chapter 46:
Chapter 47:
Chapter 48:
Chapter 49:
Chapter 50 :
Chapter 51:
Chapter 52:
Chapter 53:
Chapter 54:
Chapter 55 :
Chapter 56:
Chapter 57:
Chapter 58:
Chapter 59:
Chapter 60:
Chapter 61:
Chapter 62:
Chapter 63:
Chapter 64:
Chapter 65:
Chapter 66:
Land of Nod
The Artifact
Gary Hoover

Edited by Christy Rabe

Published by Gary Hoover at Smashwords.com

Copyright 2010 Gary Hoover

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Two Men Say They’re Jesus
One of Them Must be Wrong
-Mark Knopfler
Chapter 1:

The boredom was almost painful.
Jeff aimed the remote.
Up, up, up . . .
He didn’t pause long enough on any channel to really see what was going on.
He knew there was nothing worth watching. There was NEVER anything worth
watching. Jeff was like a chimpanzee pulling the hairs out of his arm . . . one . . .
by . . . one.
Who was it who said: ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again
and expecting different results’? Jeff wondered to himself. Einstein? Yeah, like
he was one to judge sanity.
‘Faced with evidence that either he was crazy or the universe was crazy,’
Jeff’s father had told him, ‘Einstein decided: ‘It must be the universe.’ . . . And
damned if he wasn’t right.’
Jeff laughed, then shook his head to try to rattle some of the crazy out of it.
It didn’t work.
Could boredom actually lead to madness? Was it possible for one’s brain to
become so disinterested with the mundanity of life that it started dreaming while
the person was still awake?
Up, up, up . . .
His mom had given up on trying to force him to go to bed at a decent hour.
Jeff was deft at playing the ‘I still haven’t gotten over the loss of my father’ card.
He felt like he had to do something . . . anything . . . other than what he was
doing.
Drifting.
Up, up, up . . .
It was the kind of boredom that made Jeff's brain itchy.
. . . Beneath the skull where it was hard to scratch.
. . . Not that he hadn't tried.
Somehow he felt that if he stayed up long enough, the next day wouldn’t
come . . . but it always did . . . and it was always worse when he hadn’t gotten
enough sleep.
And then there were the dreams.
For the last several months, Jeff had been having . . . terrible dreams.
Dreams of a savage creature - somewhat human, but reptilian. It had a
powerful, sinewy body. It had jagged, uneven teeth, but it wasn’t the obvious
physical power and danger that got to Jeff . . . there was something else that
burrowed into Jeff’s soul like a parasitic worm making its way through the flesh
to the vital bits.
Something in the eyes . . .
. . . Evil, red glowing eyes that ate into him . . .
He’d try to get away, but his limbs wouldn’t respond. . .
Push . . . move . . . run . . . scream . . .
. . . Then nothing but the sound of his breathing and the darkness of his
bedroom.
By the light of day, it all seemed so silly.
Monsters?
Jeff was 14 - too old to be afraid of monsters.
It all seemed easy enough to brush off when he was awake, but when he was
asleep, it had almost . . .
. . . A power over him.
Jeff seemed to shift between three different moods - none of them good.
Boredom shifted to fear. Fear shifted to sadness.
Jeff paused on a ‘news’ channel. Jeff was too young to remember when
television actually broadcast news. This was really a ‘Republicans and
Democrats arguing with a healthy dose of celebrity gossip thrown in between’
channel, but as far as Jeff knew it was ‘news’.
A Republican congressman had just been caught in an affair, so, of course,
the left-wing nut was horrified while the right-wing nut thought it was no big
deal. Sometime in the near future – maybe a week, maybe a month – a
Democratic congressman would be caught in an affair and their roles would
switch.
Jeff decided that, if his goal was to fend off madness, this tactic was not
working.
He rubbed his eyes, twisted in his seat and squinted – trying to bring the
clock on the wall into focus.
Damn!
He pushed down on the arms of his chair and . . .
. . . Nothing happened.
He tried again, this time using far more effort than someone as young and
healthy as he was should need. This time he managed to heft himself and started
the long walk to bed.
Chapter 2:

Jeff pulled the door shut behind him and looked up the street. It was still a
little dark, and that wasn’t helping him put the dream behind him. He knew the
whole thing was silly, but he needed the bright light of day for his rational and
irrational sides to come to agreement on that point.
The wind stung his neck. He pulled on the zipper of his jacket, but, he found
it was already as high as it would go.
There was an eerie, uncomfortable quiet at this time of morning. Jeff stood
there for a moment, exhaled loudly, watched his breath swirl and disperse, and
then he headed toward the bus stop.
As he walked, he heard nothing but the sound of his own feet.
It almost seemed that he was the only thing that was real.
He looked down, watching his own feet. He had seen the other students
gathered at the bus stop ahead, but – for just a few more moments – he imagined
there was no one but him.
“Hey, Jeff!”
Jeff smiled. “Hey, Larry.” He paused. As he snapped back to reality, he
remembered that he hadn’t been able to figure out the algebra assignment. “Hey,
did you get that assignment for Martelli’s class?”
Jeff used to be a great student, but ever since he lost his father, he couldn’t
seem to concentrate on anything. He always felt off balance - out of place. It
seemed like . . . he should be doing . . . something.
But he had no idea what that ‘something’ was.
“Yeah, it wasn’t too bad. You just have to get the variables on one side.”
Larry could see the incomprehension on Jeff’s face. “Here, I’ll show you.” He
opened the book and began to explain.
“Yo, dweebo.”
th
Jeff and Larry both cringed. It was Jake - a monster of a 9 grader. At 6’1”
and 220 lbs, he would be big for an adult, but he was HUGE for a 14 year old,
and to make matters worse, he was an absolute ass.
Jeff had once walked into the boy’s room to find Jake peeing on the floor and
laughing as if it was the funniest, most clever joke since Al Gore’s advisors had
told him: ‘Trust us. Nobody will ever fact check it if you claim you invented the
internet.’ snicker, snicker
Jake snatched Larry’s book and tossed it to Todd. Todd wasn’t much bigger
th
than the other 9 graders, but he didn’t need to be. As long as he hung around
Jake, nobody would ever give him any trouble.
Larry reached for the book, but Todd tossed it to Jake who had moved a little
farther away. Larry shifted directions and headed back toward Jake and Jake
tossed it back to Todd.
Jeff felt like he should do something.
He felt like it was his fault.
Jeff got along with most people and was usually not the target of bullies.
And he sort of liked it that way.
He wasn’t sure how far that neutral status would take him in this situation,
but he had to try. “Jake, come on.”
Jake seemed a little surprised that anyone would have the nerve to do
anything other than just stand there uncomfortably. “Jake, come oooooon,” he
said mockingly and then held out his hands for Todd to toss the book back.
Jeff felt an uncomfortable twinge in his stomach and a tingling in his arms
and legs. As Todd tossed the book, Jeff tried to intercept, but as he leaned in,
Jake shoved him angrily. Jeff flailed back awkwardly and off balance as the
book hit the ground with a loud ‘thwap’.
That flipped a switch in Jake’s brain.
He turned toward Jeff, reached out and grabbed two handfuls of Jeff’s jacket.
Jeff reacted instinctively and punched him - hard - in the stomach. Jake let go of
the jacket and stared dumbly for a moment.
Did I actually hurt him? Jeff wondered to himself. Before he could think
much more, Jake exploded in a rage. He grabbed Jeff’s jacket again, lifted him a
couple inches off the ground and then SLAMMED him hard onto his back. Jeff
felt his teeth rattle and pain shot through his kidneys as he hit the frozen lawn.
Jake punched wildly at him and Jeff looped one arm over his face and
another around his chest in an attempt to shield himself. Most of the blows hit
him - painfully but with relatively little damage - in his ribs and arms.
“Jake! Bus is coming,” Todd yelled.
. . . And the pounding stopped.
Jeff felt dizzy and lightheaded.
Everything went silent and blank for a moment, and then Jeff began to see
clouds drift in and out of focus.
As he regained more of his senses, he could see shadows moving around him
as the other students lined up for the bus.
Jeff felt an arm grab his and the next thing he knew, he was standing.
“Thanks,” he mumbled to Larry who looked more shaken than Jeff felt.