Old Fogy
Summary: With this strange epidemic of lovely young ladies landing in ME, one has to wonder who would really go to ME, certainly not a retiring history teacher, right?
Author's Note: I have to confess, I saw a prompt on another website many moons ago, asking to write a story where an old person took the spot that the typical Mary-sue tenth walker would take. I thought to myself, who would make a really good person to go to Middle-Earth. My old history teacher of course. Why, with his strange and exotic ways, being a retired hippie, obsessive Beatles fan, and totally off color sense of humor, he'd be perfect. One small thing though, Mr. "Grey" if you ever find this, I hope you think well of it, I only based the character loosely on what I got to know of you in your U.S. History classes.
Updated A/N: I have re-re-edited the story, as it wasn't flowing quite as well as I wanted it to, so please feel free to take a gander!
Chapter One: Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!
One of the greatest things about retiring is that the last month of work, you really don't need to do much work. Especially when you're a teacher. You can just show films pertaining to the topic, and everything else takes care of itself. And if your class is a bunch of brown nosing senior honors students. Heck, you don't even need to be there, the kids do it all on their own. Unfortunately for me, it isn't the last month of school, it's the middle of September. And these aren't brown nosing seniors, these are average juniors. That's means I actually have to do my work. June, you can't come soon enough.
"So how can tell me the circumstances leading up to the fall of Rome"
An uncomfortable silence is my answer. Not one of these slackers is willing to pour energy into firing up their woefully smooth brains.
"Sir?"
"Ah, yes, Kender, Heather right?"
"Yes sir."
"Should have known, I've had all five of you. Tell me what the answer is."
"Well sir, I'm not entirely sure. But after the Roman Empire was split, Western Rome began steepley descending in power until the Visigoths were able to actually ransack the city of Rome itself." I pause for a few seconds. In all honesty, sometimes, I really dislike these über nerdy kids who actually like to learn. They inadvertently steal my thunder. And I for one do not like my thunder stolen. Seriously, how many 16 year olds actually know who the Visigoths were?
"Correct, however, I wouldn't say it was just that. It took a couple hundred years for the city of Rome itself to actually fall, it really started back when Emperor Constantine rebuilt the city which is now called Constantinople, the empire itself became to wide spread, so eventually it was split into East and West, you know, like west side story, only without the Jets and the Sharks," I checked to see who got my awesome theater and popculture tie in. (and Mrs. Kisher says I don't know culture.) And all of three students know what I'm talking about, including that brown-noser Kender. What is with that kid.
"Okay, work on your worksheets, page 26, and write down your notes for this chapter, I will be grading them."
A general murmur of annoyance swept through the students as they pulled out their books and attempted to look busy while they talked to their friends. I, meanwhile, was sitting at my desk, pretending to look busy while I daydreamed about my wife. We've been married for 39 years, and I still think she's the hottest woman on the whole planet, granted, I'm older now, and sometimes I need help from my little blue friend, but today I don't think I'll need his help to remind my Pam how much I- was that the bell- Sweet Jesus I'm out of here! Let's see, papers in my backpack, mountain dew, bong. Just kidding, wanting to make sure you were paying attention. I'm about out my classroom door when Matt Thankos, the English teacher across the hall, and my best friend stood in the doorway, meaty arms crossed over his deep, barrel chest.
"And where do you think you're going?"
I give him a quizzical look, then smile and wink at him, "to show Pam just how much I've missed her today." Mark smiled knowingly, then put his meaty arm around me and steered me down the hall, away from the sweet freedom of the door to the back parking lot.
"Matt, where are you taking me?"
"Staff meeting tonight, remember?"
Realization dawns on me, and I groan my complaints to the drop ceiling above.
"Now, now, it'll be alright. I happen to know that Hunter has a game of golf this afternoon, so he'll keep it short."
"Yeah, and Rome was built in a day." I retort at him sarcastically.
"Seventh hour is Ancient History with the Juniors?"
"Well yeah, they only have the best teacher for it."
Alan Aldin, the Algebra and PreCalculus teacher, came up and draped an arm over each of us. Dave Elwood, or as I like to call him, Mr. Cleans' good looking twin, walking behind us. He (Dave) let out a snort and replied,
"that's because he IS ancient history."
"Sure am," I replied, "Ol' Moses still owes me five bars of gold and two wives from our last round of poker."
I chuckled with Matt as we left the young'uns to get their breath back. I have no fear of those young bucks trying to vie for my spot of coolest teacher of the year. I suppose I should explain what I mean before I sound like I'm full of myself or something. Which I'm not, I'm just that awesome.
Every year at the homecoming dance, the seniors get together and cast ballots as to who will bear the title of coolest teacher in the school, and for twenty years running, give or take a few years when certain greek English teachers decide to bribe students with lamb roasts to curry their votes, I have been coolest in the school. (and yes, it might be a silly tradition that holds no merit in the real world, but I took the vow of poverty as a teacher, I'll take what I can get.)
The meeting was going on as long as I predicted. Hunter droned on and on about budgets, who got to use the gourd to take students on field trips and when (the gourd, by the way, is one of the school busses) Why we can't use the suggestion box to campaign for a Mexican fiesta/ lamb roast every Friday.(Which I'm pretty sure is Matt's solution for everything) And a reminder that we had pep rally next Friday for the football team. We're currently 5-0. There were of course, the obligatory angry glares from Van Bell and Kisher, the economics and one of the English teachers respectively, probably some off handed sexist comment I supposedly made. I, for the life of me, can't figure out when and where, but I guess I did.
Three hours later, the meeting has ended; Thankos follows me to my car. We live two streets from each other, and his cars' in the shop. We exit at the back of the building near the field house. It's nearly six, and there's still a student here, what the heck. Oh, it's that nerdy student of mine from my last period Ancient History class.
"Heather, what are you still doing here?" Matt says, loud enough to call her attention to us.
"Oh, mom probably forgot to pick me up from practice again. She does that a lot."
Mark turns to me, silently asking me what we should do. I sigh and my shoulders sag. What were we going to do? I would offer to give her a ride home, but that was a HUGE no-no. I planned on retiring, not going to prison, I'm so handsome that I' be in big trouble if I dropped the soap.
"Do you have a cell," Matt asked
"No, we can't afford those yet, maybe in a few years when they're cheaper."
"That's alright," I say, "ten more years and we'll all be beaming around like they do on Star Trek."
"You always say that," Matt said as he handed Heather his cell phone to call her mom to pick her up.
"Well it's true, we'll all get our own P.A.D.S., we'll be beamed from one location to another, wouldn't surprise me at all if we eventually meet Klingons."
"Are Klingons the ones with the pointy ears, like that Spore dude?" Heather pipes up in between the conversation with her mother.
Matt gives me a side long smirk as I feel my ears bypass red and go straight to purple.
"What's that mom? Oh, I'm with Mr. Grey and Mr. Thankos. Well, I guess they had a meeting or something. What? Are you sure? Maybe you should ask. Okay, hold on a second, I'll put 'em on the phone."
"Do you know nothing of pop culture?" I whisper at her with a mock glare as Mark took the phone
"Yes, just not Star Trek."
"Well, Klingons are the ones with the wrinkly foreheads, their really war-like and they generally tend not to be very nice. Spock is a Vulcan, sort of like a space elf."
Matt meanwhile, was giving me an incredulous look while talking to Mrs. Kender.
"Yeah, that's on our way, what? Well, two male teachers in a car with a female student doesn't look very good but-what's that. Well no, but-yeah, I guess we could, is that verbal permission then? Okay, I'll let Bob know, he's driving today."
Matt hung up his phone and pocketed it.
"Mrs. Kender asked if we could bring Heather home, apparently they're having problems with a cow giving birth, they can't spare anyone to come get her right now. She's given us her permission."
Matt took a breath and gives me an incredulous look, "space elves, really Bob."
"What, their tall, pointy eared, only have one expression, and tend to be very stuck up."
"Elves aren't stuck up," Heather pipes up from the back seat.
"Yeah they are, I've read the Lord of the Rings, those guys are way old fashioned. Probably all have sticks shoved up all their-"
"Bob!"
"What!"
"No language. And you so have not read Lord of the Rings."
"I'm reading it right now, since I saw they were making a movie from it."
"Oh, what chapter are you on?"
"A short cut to mushrooms, I've never read it before, it's quite good."
"I don't think I even got that far. I eventually gave up and rented that 70's cartoon by Bakshi."
"Ugh!" Heather and Matt both groaned at once.
"What?" I asked defensively as I started the car.
"That is just a terrible outrage." Matt said, pinching the bridge of his nose. Silence filled the car for a short while as I navigated us to county road 475 N.
"Well, at least there's a real movie being made." Heather adds
"You mentioned that earlier, there's a movie being made?" Matt asks
"A real one, with real actors?" I add.
"Yeah, it's being filmed in New Zealand."
CRASH! BOOM!
Lightning hit the road in front of us, and the rain started coming down in torrents. That's Indiana in the fall for you. Unpredictable weather. Then again, Weather on the south shore of Lake Michigan is always unpredictable, no matter the time of year. I put my brights on as well as my wipers. Slowing down for the water on the road.
We remain in silence as we make our way down 625 E. This seems to be a road straight out of a horror film, steep hills, woods right up to the road. We come around a hairpin turn and I have to hit the brakes, there's a river rainwater runoff running across the road, and just as I hit the water, a strange blue light shines from the back seat and lighting hits the car. When we open our eyes, we're off the road and about to hit the mother of all trees. We all yell as I hit the breaks. Stopping inches from the big tree.
"Holy Shit!" Matt ejaculates. I have a vague idea in my head of telling HIM off for actually swearing, but I'm too busy holding onto the steering wheel for dear life as I try, in vain, to return my heart rate to normal, and to think I left my blood pressure medicine at home today.
"How did we get off the road?" Heather asks quietly from the back seat after a few minutes of silence, "there was a ten foot hill going down on our right and a twenty foot one going up on our left?"
"Honestly," I start, but then, lighting flashes again and there is something in the group of trees in front of us. I turn on my Brights, and for a moment, dead silence fills the car. Then Heather screams. There, not twenty feet away, is the ugliest, creepiest thing I've ever seen on God's green earth. It's probably about six foot tall, with mottled grey skin, bald, long pointy ears and teeth, wearing a strange assortment of what looks to be armor, and holding a nasty looking…sword? It brings a hand up to shield its' eyes against the bright light and-wait, did it just hiss.
There's a bump on the rear passenger side door, another one of those icky things is hitting the car experimentally. Heather screams again. Matt is yelling, about to open his door to see what he can do to fight these things. Since, honestly, I don't think they're friendly; they don't exactly give off that kind of vibe. Suddenly, an idea hits me, and I act.
I slam my palms on the steering wheel, right on the horn, and give out the loudest, longest blast of my car horns life. The creatures, since I honestly don't think their human, shriek and run off back into the woods, disappearing into the night. Silence fills the car once again.
"What the hell was that?" Matt's question, the one that we're all asking, breaks the silence.
"I don't know," I say as I start the car up-it had somehow been turned off-and put it in reverse, "but I ain't sticking around to find out." I turn to see where I'm backing up and find that there is a tree not three feet from the back bumper.
"The hell?" Matt and Heather both turn around to see what I see.
"What the?"
"We must have slid sideways down the embankment before almost hitting that tree," Matt reasons, as he opens his door to the storm still going on, "do you have a flashlight in your trunk Bob?"
"Better, I have a 10 million candle watt power Black and Decker portable spotlight, fully charged."
"Really Bob?"
"What, I packed for the Feast of the Hunter's Moon early this year, so sue me."
"Feast of the Hunter's Moon," Heather asks from the backseat, as she undid her seat belt and got out of the car with Matt.
"It's a historical reenactment of the fur trapper period down in West Laffeyette, and no way, you stay in the car. Matt-I mean- Mr. Thankos and I will figure out how to get us out of here," I say as I get out of the car, flipping out my cell phone to see if I can get a signal. The police sure would be handy right now with those things on the loose, if they were even there to begin with.
"If it's all the same to you sir, I'd rather keep busy by keeping an eye out, we don't know if those things will be coming back," Heather replied as she got into the front passenger seat and turned the radio on.
"What are you doing?" Matt asked
"Checking to see what radio stations we can get, if we can get any stations, we might get an idea of where we are." We waited for a few minutes as Heather tuned through nothing but static, not even on the AM channels. We let out a collective sigh of defeat. Matt changed the subject.
"Were those even real, or were we just hit a little hard by that lightning?" Mark hauled out the spotlight and began shinning it around. We look around us for a minute or two, and then give each other a questioning glance. Mark voices the question I'm sure we were all thinking.
"The only tire tracks start three feet behind us, almost straight out of that tree, and there are no tire tracks to either side of the vehicle. How did we get here?"
"That's not the only question we should be asking," Heather said from the right front of the car, looking out into the darkness with her flashlight. We both go over to her and stand on either side of her. Up ahead is a shocking sight none of us ever expected to see. Twenty yards away, into the trees, is a forty foot rock face, grey, probably granite. We don't have granite in northwest Indiana, only limestone. Looking up with the spotlight, the cliffs go even higher, and then, lighting cracked, and a mountain became visible in its brief moment of luminescence. There are no mountains in Indiana. I voiced the frightening thought we all had in our minds.
"Where the hell are we?"
