Patrick James Anderson Karen Hammond
Student ID# CD10551 Assignment#10
. 1500 words
Title: Bungaladamudge
The road is endless the desert horizon. Nothing but sand and cactus as far as the eye can see. Occasionally a coyote runs across the horizon. That could be a mirage. They say the desert does play tricks on you after awhile.
My car broke down about five miles back. I was driving along when my check engine lights flared red and moments later thick steam issued from under the hood fogging my window. When I pulled over to park on the shoulder, my steering column locked up. I skid into a ditch.
The last sign of civilization I passed was eighty miles back. I know that I must be coming up to a rest stop soon. I've been traveling back and forth in these remote areas for a while now. The rest stops are always placed in a time frame of at least two hours drive; I've been driving for the last hour and a half. I am now walking along the alien terrain that is as vast as it is barren. It doesn't take long for the desert heat to start beating down. I keep fighting the insane urge to blindly run into the rocky terrain of desert around me. The road is my only link to people; I didn't want to lose that. The heat is magnified because of the freshly tarred asphalt. I am on my way to see my family after I don't know how long.
I am a traveling salesman selling kitchen products and I don't have the slightest clue as to why my company assigned me this desert territory. But they did, so I try to make a living at this. Sales are drying up as fast as water in the desert, Ha-ha!
The voice of my wife keeps haunting me. She reminds me that. I was supposed to get my car checked before making the trip. I didn't listened then, and am trying not to listen now.
Her voice is a constant reminder while the sun beats down.
My throat is dry like the dustbowl around me. The wind is stirring, blowing sandy air across my face. Desert kisses I fondly called them in a better frame of mind. Now the harshness smacks me with its hotness, depriving me of moisture. Faintly I hear the desert beckoning me into its embrace.
Finally I decide to follow my instincts and bolt into the vastness of its flowing hills of sand and rock. The sun will set soon, and the desert changes from extreme heat to extreme cold. Plus the night time predators will be out. Occasionally I look back to the area where the road was.
The desert is consuming now. With my bearings gone, I forge north, and south, east, and west. I couldn't have found the highway if I tried. After miles of walking I see the brief outlines of what looks like a cottage.
"Please don't be a mirage!" I say.
The day is fading and I begin to feel the cold dark rolling around me. I run as best I can towards the vision. The cottage appears to be real, growing closer with my advancing pace. It's an adobe house made out of the desert clay. The roof is thatched together with a variety of cactus leaves. I have never seen such a house before. My eyes fasten on a well with a pump towards the rear corner. I prime the pump to get some water going. The freshness of it hits my senses, cooling me in its vitality. I drink, washing the dryness out of my throat. The painful hooks in my throat parched from desert air, slowly ebb away.
"Thank you! Thank you!" I say to the well.
Resting I reserve strength to go to the door to knock. There is a homemade welcome mat. But instead of "welcome," this one has a warning.
"Beware of Bungaladamudge!!!" it reads.
It's probably some kind of joke I think lightly, rapping on the door.
"Hello!"
I shout, looking for a person through the window.
"Hello! Please I need help!" I rest on the door for support. Inside I hear soft footsteps approaching.
A cautious voice sounds from the other side.
"Who's there?"
"My name is Horrace Fenley I am traveling to California, and my car broke down a few miles back. Could I please use your phone?" I say. I wait for a response. A head peers through the window. As a sour looking old Indian man stares at me. The head disappears back into the house. The door cracks open, a polished end of a double barrel shotgun protrudes out of it. The moon gleams off it in deadly radiance. The old man pushes the door open further. His leathery face has bat like features. Waspish eyes peer at me. In them I see a borderline hatred covered with contempt.
"You have five minutes."
He steps back ushering me in. I thank him and enter. The room is a rustic setting of the old west. Furniture made out of wood. An old kettle stove sits in a corner with a small heap of coal at its base. An assortment of animal hides displayed on the walls, along with various heads. I marvel at the authenticity of the room. Everything about it is genuinely historic western. The man sees my look of admiration. Decides that I am not a threat he sits down by a fire, lays his shot gun along side of the chair. The light of the fire depicts him older and wiser than what I had thought.
He sits there watching me.
"Is there a phone I can use?"
To this he chuckles showing a grin of teeth that are obviously dentures.
"Do you see any phone lines? Do you see any T.V. antennae's?" The contempt briefly flickers in his eyes. "You have four minutes." He says.
"Four minutes for what?"
The man studies me a moment and offers some tea boiling in a kettle. He offers me bowl of dried fruit. Cinnamon spices mixed with apples. I take them gratefully, after drinking and eating he gestures to me with an index finger.
"You have three minutes."
He hands me a pipe. I don't smoke but I did not want to offend my host who is being gracious. The smoke fills me with a light headed euphoria. That clouds my mind and clears it at the same time. The room spins for how long I don't know I feel like a cloud waiting for the wind to push it in a direction. The old man smiling at me a hint of sinister overtones buried under a smile of suspicious contempt. He nods to me and says.
"You have two minutes." He motions waving two fingers in front of my face. They look like serpents coiling in a rhythmic dance hypnotizing me in their fluid motion. I gaze at the pictures hanging on the walls. Depictions of Native Americans in tribal outfits displayed proudly. One of which is the old man, when he was younger.
"You were a shaman?" I guessed.
He pats me on the knee, looking at me he replies.
"When I was a boy I took my first vision quest. Do you know what a vision quest is?" I shook my head in a no fashion.
"Vision quest." He continues.
"Is when a boy or man wants to grow to the next level of life." You have to wander in the desert with no food or water until a vision comes to you." He paused looking out towards the back window. The sound of scratching is heard possibly a cat wanting to be let in.
"You have one minute." He advises
"I was thirteen I wandered in this very desert alone and afraid." I came to the well outside ignored the warning of dead animals lying around. I drank the water knowing it was sacred. Within moments the water refreshed me, and cleansed me. Little did I know I was to face the guardian demon of the well. It only gives you five minutes." That's how long it takes for it to come here from the spirit world. He said.
"I drank just like you did tonight." He thoughtfully muses.
The scratching intensifies followed by a low mulling sound.
"I was ready to die. But I passed its test of bravery. It rewarded me with my life. In return I must be a keeper of the well. Now you must take the test. If you pass you will be my keeper and serve and protect me. As I do the Bungaladamudge."
"Your five minutes are up."
The door cracks open splinters fly around the room. A small three foot hunched over monster dressed in native garb like an Indian warrior. Dirty strands of black hair hang down around its sunken face. Long fingernails protrude from its fingertips; they are a series of sharpened bone knives. The thing scurried its way through the door. It Leers a grotesque smile of razor sharp fangs gleaming yellow.
"Bungaladamudge!" The old man proclaims he bows down in servitude. It runs over eyeing me greedily. Sniffing me up and down it crawls over me gouging bloody furrows. I bite me tongue in pain, and close my eyes. Paralyzed with fear, or the smoke, the old man gave me, whatever it was, I can't bring myself to move.
It licks my blood and takes a dagger sheathed at its waist and cuts a line along the length of my palm. The old man walks over and holds out his palm. The creature cuts the old mans palm, then its own. The old man takes my palm and presses it into his and the demons.
I feel strength flowing out of me. I feel winded and weak as the creature runs out into the desert night.
The old man who does not look as old anymore bows towards it.
"Good hunting to you." He says.
He walks out into the night. I am of no importance to him right now. He disregards me, as if I am not even there. I notice he has the shotgun, I am completely powerless.
I stagger to my feet.
"I feel weak…" I say.
Maybe some water will help. Refresh me again. I crawl out to the well, and grab the bucket next to it. Pump some water into it. Dipping my hands in to splash my face I see my reflection in the water. I am advanced in age my leathery bat like features look up at me hauntingly, as my eyes narrowed down to waspish slits.
Bungaladamudge! The name screams in my head over and over again like a chant. I picture the little imp dancing around a fire with a tribe of its ilk. Bungaladamudge… Bungaladamudge…. The creature and the old man swim before my eyes as I fall into blackness. There was some comfort in sleep I don't see the creature, or the old man.