Arthur Daigle's Blog - Posts Tagged "butterfly"

Grump the goblin was always in a foul mood, but was now in the foulest mood of his life, having spent the last week kicking squirrels, smashing pixies and dumping trash on passing mimes. His generally poor disposition was known for miles, but matters had recently come to a new low. This prompted mayors of neighboring communities to post bounties on the little goblin. Three bounty hunters had made the mistake of accepting the offer. Two of them returned empty-handed and with liquid manure dripping from their clothes. The third had been found gibbering in the woods by a wandering priest and was currently convalescing in a nearby monastery.

For now the reign of terror was on hold as Grump fumed in a forest glen. The red skinned goblin scowled and sat on the ground, rocking back and forth. His cheap leather clothes were stained and his shoes were long gone, sacrificed to convince a bounty hunter that he’d been hiding in an outhouse. His greasy gray hair stuck out in all directions. Grump cupped his hands together, cradling the only thing that had ever mattered to him.

“And another thing, I don’t like your attitude!” he yelled at a tree. “The silent treatment got old a while ago. And don’t go thinking you’re better than me! You are, but I don’t want you thinking it.”

The tree, unsurprisingly, didn’t answer. Grump was willing to put up with that until he found someone who would respond to his abuse. That was proving to be a difficult task. It was getting so that people ran at the sight of him. He couldn’t even get an angry mob to attack him after what he did to the last one. He’d made camp here because there was a crossroads not far from the glen. In theory that meant people/victims would come to him, but no one had showed up for days. It annoyed him that he didn’t have anyone to bother.

Wind blew the tree’s leaves. Grump pointed at it and said, “It is not me fault! You’d be mad, too!” The goblin got up and marched up to the tree. He kicked it, stubbing his toes in the process and jumping up and down. “You did that on purpose!”

Grump would have done something truly regrettable that likely would have hurt him worse than the tree, but he heard horses coming. Horses were useful sources of manure to throw or trap teapots with. He rubbed his foot with one hand, holding the other close to his chest. Maybe he could convince the horses to make a donation.

The visitors were a man and woman riding two horses. The man was so young he probably still had trouble with acne, a blond haired punk dressed in fancy black linen. On closer inspection the outfit was beginning to fray near the cuffs. The lady’s dress was nice but also looking worn. The horses were study animals, but clearly tired from overuse.

Wind rustled the tree’s branches again, and Grump snorted. “No, they had money. Rich folks turned beggars. I wonder what happened that they’re broke and on the run. Not sure whether to laugh or cry.”

That was when he heard a gurgling noise from the woman. She had a bundle clenched to her chest. A baby! That was too much! He didn’t know what sort of trouble they were in, but you don’t bring babies into dark forests. Indignant, he marched out to confront them on their lack of parenting skills.

The man stopped his horse when he reached the fork in the road. “This doesn’t appear on the map I bought. Three paths, but which one to take?”

“Is there no one living here we could get directions from?” the woman asked.

“I see no houses, Isa, nor fresh tracks on the road. I think this trail’s not been used in weeks or even longer.”

Grump emerged from the dense underbrush along the trail and headed for the man. “Right, pal, let’s see your fatherhood license.”

The man stared at Grump. “My what?”

“Your paperwork.” Grump tapped his foot on the ground and frowned. “Someone should have made you pass a test before getting a kid. Question one on that test was ‘do you bring babies into God forsaken wildernesses’, and the answer was no. So I’m revoking your license and impounding your brain until we can get it working again.”

“Tristan, what’s going on?” Isa asked.

“I have no idea. Goblin, there’s no test for fathering a child.”

Grump rubbed his free hand over his face. “Let me get this straight. You’re lost, you not only don’t have your paperwork but you never even took the test, and is that scabbard empty? It is! You’ve got a baby to protect and you’re unarmed! That does it, let me take a look at those fontal lobes of yours.”

“My sword broke!” Tristan yelled back. “I don’t even have the hilt anymore after I sold the gems on it to buy food and lodging at the last city.”

The man dismounted and walked over to Grump. “You are right that I need to get my wife and daughter to safety, a task easier done if I knew the roads and trails here. If you want to help, tell me which one of these leads to Oceanview Kingdom?”

“You can’t even tell which kingdom you’re in?” Grump ran up and scuffed up the man’s boots with his feet. “Did I do any damage? I can’t tell with the sorry state your shoes are in.”

“Stop that!” Tristan went for his sword, his hand stopping halfway to the missing weapon. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Goblin, my journey has been long and hard, and my responsibilities are great with both wife and daughter to care for. I can’t offer payment for your aid, but if you know the answer to my question it would help us greatly.”

“Do I look like a tour guide? Do I look like I care?” Grump marched up to the woman and said, “Lady, dump this loser and take the kid anywhere but here.”

“That is most unkind,” she replied. The baby in her arms smiled and made a gurgling, laughing noise.

“Oh sure, you say that now, but just you wait,” Grump told the baby. “In three years you’ll be swearing like a one eyed, nine fingered carpenter with gout.”

“I—” Tristan began.

“No!” Grump yelled. He poked the man in the chest with his free hand. “I do not have to take this from some down on his luck pretty boy. You have problems? We all have problems, and yours are not my fault! So pack up that sob story of yours and find someone to dump it on other than me! And I’m going to kick you in the shin for getting a baby involved in this.”

“Ow! Cut that out!” Tristan bent down and rubbed his shin where Grump had kicked him.

That should have been enough to send them both back the way they came, but to Grump’s surprise, Isa dismounted her horse. She had some difficulty getting down. Grump figured the woman wasn’t used to riding. She rested the baby against her shoulder and approached Grump slowly. “You’re very upset. What’s the matter?”

Grump’s lip quivered. “None of your business!”

She came closer. “I’d like to help. I think you’re someone who needs help. That’s not a bad thing. Everyone needs help from time to time.”

Grump looked down at his closed hand clutched against his chest. He only did so for a fraction of a second, but Isa saw it.

“What do you have there?”

“Isa, don’t get close to that brute!”

Grump’s eyes teared up. He held his composure for three seconds before he burst out crying and dropped to his knees. Isa put an arm around Grump and kneeled down alongside him. “Shh, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay! My best friend died!” Grump opened his hand to show the shriveled up brown lump he’d held for the last week.

Tristan stood up and came over. “What is that?”

“My friend, Zippy,” Grump explained. “I found him crawling around eating leaves. He was so cool! He had six pairs of legs, and there were big red eyes on his butt. I’d never met someone with eyes on their butt before. We spent weeks together. I’d talk and he’d shovel food down his throat every waking moment. It was bliss, the only time I’ve ever been happy!”

Wiping tears from his eyes, Grump said, “Nothing went right before I met Zippy. I was burned out of three houses. The Pirate Lords torched my first one and everyone else’s in Castle City to send a message to the king in those parts. Then the Fallen King burned down my home in First Light, because he was burning down everything, and hey, why not torch my house, too? And Char the dragon got hiccups and incinerated my third home! All right, he apologized, so that sort of makes it better, but I still lost a house and my entire collection of royal fingernail clippings.”

The goblin looked at Isa through eyes blurred by tears. “I thought everything would be better here with a friend and new home. But one morning Zippy got sick. I tried to make him feel better. Nothing worked. His legs came off and he stopped moving. Now he’s gone and I don’t have anyone to talk to except that tree, and he’s a mean drunk.”

“What?” Tristan asked. “Dearest, I don’t think we can help.”

“I can,” Isa told her husband. “Goblin, your friend is going to be okay.”

“He’s got no legs!”

“Not yet, but he will. I’ve seen the animal you’re talking about. Your friend, uh, Zippy, is a dragonfire butterfly. You met him when he was still a caterpillar. I saw them often when I was a girl.”

Grump stared at her. “There are more like him?”

“Thousands upon thousands,” she promised. “Your friend is growing up in his chrysalis. In a few weeks he’ll be done and fly off. Be patient and you’ll see him again. Show me where you met him.”

Grump took her hand and led her and Tristan to a forest glade a mile away. Isa spotted a vine twined around a tree and pointed at it. “You found him here, right?”

“How’d you know?”

“That’s blood vine, named for the red sap that flows from its wounds.” Isa ran her hands over the vine until she stopped and smiled. “There you are. Your friend wasn’t an only child. Look.”

Grump marveled at the sight. There were four more caterpillars just like Zippy! Each one was chowing down on leaves, red sap running down their chins. He ran ahead and found more vines with more caterpillars on them. “Zippy has a family!”

A butterfly swooped by, and Isa reached out and let it land on her hand. Grump studied the red and purple butterfly, as gorgeous an animal as any he’d seen, a living work of art.

Isa watched the butterfly leave before taking the hard brown chrysalis from Grump. She took a stray thread from her dress and tied the chrysalis to the nearest blood vine. “There we go. Zippy can wait here until he’s ready to come out. Until then you can talk to his brothers and sisters.”

Grump stared at the caterpillars in wonder. He sat down, mesmerized by the tiny insects gorging on leaves. “There are so many of them. They’re beautiful.”

Tristan edged forward and took his wife’s hands. He kneeled down next to Grump and asked, “Can you tell me which of those roads we met you by leads to Oceanview Kingdom?”

“Huh? None of them do. The first goes to a mine that closed down years ago when they ran out of copper. You got all sorts of critters living in it now. The second goes to a village abandoned when they found barrow wights nesting nearby. The last road circles around in the forest for thirty miles and ends in the woods without ever going anywhere.”

“But my map shows a road leading to Oceanview.”

Grump pointed back the way they’d come. “That’s an hour’s walk up the road. It goes east first and then south after a while, and will take you to Oceanview in a week, faster with your horses.”

Tristan rubbed his bruised shin. “Thank you. We should be going. Isa, how did you know about those butterflies?”

She smiled and cuddled their daughter. “They’re all over the woods in our homeland. Surely you saw them yourself when you were growing up?”

Looking down, Tristan said, “Father rarely let me leave his house except on business. Such beauty was mere walking distance from my door, and for years I never saw it.”

Before they left, Grump turned to Isa and asked, “Will the same thing happen to me?” Her confused look showed she didn’t understand the question, so he pointed at the caterpillars and asked, “Will I get to be beautiful one day, like Zippy?”

Isa smiled and pressed two fingers against Grump’s chest. “Silly goblin, in here you already are beautiful.”

Too stunned to even open his mouth, Grump stared at Isa as she left with Tristan and their daughter. They were long gone when he finally recovered enough to say, “That woman is stark raving mad.” Smiling, he added, “I like her.”

Returning his attention to the caterpillars, he said, “You need names. You’ll be Zippy #2, and you can be Zippy #3…”
* * * * *

Grump laid on back watching Zippy and his kin fly overhead. He could tell they were happy, and that made him happy. He was content again, a strange feeling, but a welcome one. He’d found more blood vines in the forest. They didn’t have caterpillars on them, but now he knew where to look in the future.

An older man stomped down the dirt road and drew Grump’s attention. His clothes looked a lot like the ones that idiot Tristan had worn when they’d met a week ago, and there was some resemblance in the face, too. But where Tristan had shown concern for his loved ones, this stranger scowled and snarled under his breath. That might be because his right arm was in a sling.

“Wretch!” the man bellowed when he saw Grump. Grump got up and frowned. He was having a good day and had no intention of letting this moron ruin it. “A man and woman came this way. Three men swore to the fact. Where are they? Which way did they go? Speak, or I’ll beat the truth out of you!”

There had been an ever so slight chance that Grump wouldn’t act like, well, Grump. He’d been doing better since meeting Zippy’s family. But the thought of letting that evil old man within a mile of a baby (who already had enough problems with one parent mad and the other unlicensed) closed that door in a hurry.

“Yeah, they were here.” Grump waved a hand at the nearby crossroads. “They took one of those three trails. I don’t know which one.”

Grump smiled at the snarling man. “I guess you’ll have to check them all.”

The rusting hulk loomed like a monster under the moonlight. At one time it had been a bus, but those days were long gone. The front was torn apart and resembled nothing more than the jagged teeth of a predator. The headlights were missing and looked like empty eye sockets. The outer surface of the bus was rusted through and had a pebbly surface like the scales of a lizard. The decaying wreck fit in perfectly with the junkyard it had sat in for the last thirty years.

Detective Owens hated it. He hated the junkyard, the cold humid night, he hated his job, and he hated the fact he had to come here tonight. If there was any justice in this world Owens would he resting his six-foot lanky frame and receding brown hair under a hot shower to work the aches out of his muscles. But Owens knew that justice was at best temporary and at worst nonexistent.

Owens carefully picked his way through the junkyard and headed toward the bus. There was a light on inside, proof that the man he needed to see was there. He worked his way through piles of loose car parts and around stacks of totaled cars, trying not to think about what happened to the people driving them when they crashed. The rest of the junkyard had a sinister look under the pale light of the moon, with jagged bits of steel jutting out like claws or fangs. Owens had a flashlight but didn’t use it. He knew his way around here well enough to avoid tripping, and people lived nearby who might see the light. He didn’t want witnesses for what was going to happen.

Making the place even creepier (yes, that was possible) were the noises. Whenever Owens stopped moving he could hear a multitude of things scuttling around the junkyard, crawling over and through the twisted metal shells that used to be cars. They would move then stop, their feet or hands making scratching noises against the rusted metal. Owens knew damn well that nothing should live in the junkyard since there was nothing an animal could eat, but they were here.

Owens stopped next to the bus’ door. It was open, and painfully bright light shined out of it. From inside he could hear muttering and the clanging of tools against steel.

“The door is open, my good man,” said a soothing voice inside the bus. Owens reluctantly stepped inside. The bus’ seats were gone, and in their place was a makeshift workbench, piles of spare parts, tools hanging off the walls and an almost infinite pile of junk around the inside of the bus. The back of the bus was closed off by a curtain, which almost blocked the light and noise of something clunking away. The roof of the bus was intact enough that rainwater couldn’t get in.

The owner was an old wrinkled man, almost bald, wearing dirty clothes and a smile. “Good heavens, a policeman has come to visit.”

“Evening, Kale,” Owens said. Kale was an old resident of both the town and junkyard. Nobody quite knew when he’d showed up, but they couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t here. He’d managed the junkyard for decades, always old and never seeming to grow older. People who liked him called him Butterfly Man. Those that didn’t like him started out calling him the Garbage Man and eventually call him sir.

“Two visitors in one days, this is surprising,” Kale said. He sat down on an old folding chair and bent over his workbench. “Janet Forth came by earlier today and asked for a butterfly for her daughter’s birthday. It’s a simple thing and I had the parts, so I agreed to provide one for the young lady.”

Owens peered over the old man’s shoulder and looked at the devise. It was six inches long and had orange and black wings that looked exactly like a viceroy butterfly. There was a windup motor in the abdomen that allowed the machine to fly for thirty seconds. Children’s pictures were taped over the workbench, made by the proud owners of Kale’s windup butterflies as their only means of repaying the old man.

Owens frowned and said, “A stainless steel toy for a little girl?”

“It’s stainless steel because she’s so young,” Kale explained. “Children are precious, but they can forget to be gentle with delicate things. I make my toys strong enough they can’t break. I’m guessing you aren’t here for a butterfly.”

Owens snorted. “I came on business. I’m here about what happened to Gavial Staback.”

Kale kept working on the toy. “Hmm, his name does ring a bell.”

“Don’t play smart with me,” Owens said. It was a cliché and not in the least bit appropriate in Kale’s case. Nobody knew where or if Kale got an education, but the old man could fix anything on two, four, or eighteen wheels. He also had a knack for repairing air conditioners, home appliances, and remote control cars. He didn’t do so often and not for just anyone, but if Kale liked you he could work magic with machines.

“He’s dead,” Owens said, “and so is his entire gang.”

“Shocking,” Kale replied. “I suppose it’s a hazard of his occupation.”

Gavial's occupation was producing and dealing crystal meth. What that stuff does to a body disgusted even a veteran cop like Owens. How could anything make a man age twenty years in just four, or make him into such a monster? Meth was spreading across the US, mostly because it could be brewed up in a kitchen instead of being grown in another country and smuggled in. The chemicals used to make it could be explosive if not mixed properly, and no tears were wasted on those who died making such filth.

“It’s how he died that’s upsetting people,” Owens said. “He—”

Something ran across the floor between Owens’s legs. It ducked between two empty oxygen tanks before he could react.

“Oh don’t mind them,” Kale said. “They’re just curious about you. It’s not often visitors come so late.”

“You wouldn’t want me coming early,” Owens said. “Gavial’s death wasn’t accidental.”

Kale looked up from his butterfly. “You don’t say?”

“His crew died when their drug lab blew up,” Owens said. He wanted to pace but their wasn’t room inside the bus with the piles of machine parts, parts that at first glance looked almost like the guts of a car or a microwave. Almost. He also wanted to smoke, but he knew better than to do that here. “Meth labs blow up all the time. Like you said, it’s an occupational hazard. This one blew up with eight of Gavial’s men inside. Killed them all.”

“What a pity,” Kale said in a deadpan voice.

“Damn it, this isn’t a joke!” Owens shouted. “There’s an investigation into how Gavial died.”

Kale looked thoughtfully at Owens. “You mean to tell me that our fine state is spending taxpayer money to investigate the death of that monster?”

“Surprised? You shouldn’t be. They found the cut break line in Gavial’s car. The investigating officer thinks he had an enemy, a rival dealer who wanted him dead. They’re trying to find the guy because they think he’ll try to take over Gavial’s territory and start this nightmare up again.”

Owens heard things scuttling around outside the bus. There were more things moving around inside it, too. He lowered his voice and spoke again.

“I’m still on the case. I was investigating Gavial before he died, so they’re asking for my help finding the killer.”

“I see,” Kale said. The scuttling noise died away. “What have you learned?”

Owens shifted his weight from one foot to another. “Gavial and his gang were working out of an old factory. He may have been a damn drug dealer, but he was smart enough to put his lab in an out of the way place. There were some complaints about the smell, but nobody took notice since it was next to lots of factories. Two days ago the place blew up. Eight of Gavial’s men were inside at the time, almost the whole gang. It was a nice piece of work. The investigators still think it was an accident.”

There was more scuttling noises as feet and claws scratched their way across the junkyard. Owens was sure they were watching him.

“Do go on, it was getting interesting,” Kale said. “This factory was where a certain police detective tried to get a warrant to enter and search the building, correct?”

“Yeah, that’s the place,” Kale said. Tired, he added, “Wasn’t enough evidence. Nobody’s much worried about that part of the case. The thing is, one of Gavial’s men disappeared before the explosion. Nobody’s found him yet.”

“Nor are they likely to, at least in any condition they might recognize him,” Kale said.

Owens tried not to show how much that bothered him. “Then there’s Gavial himself. Our good friend Mr. Gavial heard about the explosion on the news. He tried to run for it. Witnesses saw him drive away and said his car was working fine. Then all of a sudden he couldn’t stop and crashed into a tree.”

At the back of the bus, a timer rang behind the curtain. Kale got up and pulled the curtain aside. Owens saw what looked like a still, but stills make liquor, not the bright green stuff flowing through a confusing mess of coiled glass tubes. The liquid dripped into a small flask. If you looked closely at the flask you could see something moving inside it. Kale turned a knob on the still, picked up the flask, and sat back down.

“His breaks failed,” Kale said.

“They were cut while he was driving,” Owens said.

Kale shrugged. “If they were cut before he started, he would have noticed while still at a low speed. A crash at twenty miles an hour would do little to hurt him.”

“Then his gas tank exploded,” Owens said. “Our mechanics don’t know how that happened. I was the first officer on the scene, Kale. I knew he’d run so I went after him the second I heard about the explosion. That’s how I found this.”

Owens reached into his coat pocket and took out a small, charred hunk of metal. It was partially melted, but the thing’s legs and head were identifiable. The six inch long machine looked like a rat, but a rat with stainless steel skin, inch long claws and jaws made from pruning shears. Owens held up the broken machine and placed it on the workbench.

“Oh,” Kale said.

The scurrying noise intensified. There were dozens of things moving around outside the bus and at least ten more inside. Some of them got close enough for Owens to see. They were based off animals, mammals mostly. There were hordes of stainless steel rats, raccoons, opossums, ferrets and skunks. Mechanical spiders, stag beetles and lobsters joined the crowd. A larger machine that looked like a pit bull rounded out the collection. They were constantly moving, watching Owens as they ran about. Three of the things climbed up onto the workbench and studied their dead companion.

Kale used a knife to pry open a panel on the dead machine’s back. He took out a small vial, broken and scorched. “I thought this might have happened when I lost contact with him. The vita formula is gone. Boiled away, I suppose. The parts I could fix, but my pets die without the formula. Thank you for bringing him back. I can at least give him a proper burial.”

Owens watched Kale handle the dead machine. Softly, the police detective said, “I grabbed it before anyone else saw it. That was a big risk.”

Kale reached up and took one of the children’s drawings off the wall. It had a stick figure drawn in crayon, surrounded by purple butterflies and the words ‘Thank you Butterfly Man’ scrawled on it. Kale looked at the picture for a few moments before speaking.

“He survived the crash. I had to do something. Allowing him to go on ruining lives was not an option. Owens, when you can create life, even temporarily, you realize how rare and precious it really is. Life is something to be protected at all costs and from all enemies. I believe you understand this.”

“I do,” Owens said. He reached into his coat pocket. The horde of machines braced themselves, ready to lash out. Owens pulled an envelope from his coat and dropped it on the workbench. The machines relaxed.

“Five thousand dollars, same as always,” Owens said.

“Your business is appreciated,” Kale replied. He poured the green liquid into tiny vials, then plug them into the waiting machines. His creations gathered around to receive the fuel that would keep them alive for a few more days.

Owens left the bus and called back, “Next time, Kale, nothing so obvious.”