JMJ

Chapter Eleven

Infuriatingly Corny

It was amazing that the dry field did not lick a flame as though it was somehow flame resistant. Yet it made Matthias double-down on the thought that neither he nor Esther was quite as inflammable. Summer Clause had disappeared in the smoke either to flee or stop his caravan from some different position. Now Matthias was running with Esther in tow just as before the man had appeared.

So much for things not going where they already were, he thought despite himself even though he knew quite well that this was more a rhyme than a repeat.

Now there was no place to retreat to unlike before. Then again the camels on fire could have easily taken down the whole town leaving them and the other inhabitants to hide in that muddy pond under that bridge if even that would have saved them.

He heard the whooping and laughing of the bandits as they slipped in an out like of the maniacal herd like eels. He only looked back once or twice and barely spotted them dressed in black from head to foot. It seemed as though even their eyes were covered, but it was hard to tell. One shot a pistol unless it was the Summer Clause, and that made the camels really scramble. Though they were all the while, when they actually could, drawing out along the train with markers in the most beautiful graffiti: "HELP", "ARG", "WHY MEEEE?!", "CRUEL FATES!", "I HATE TRAINS", "I LOVE TENDERS", and most commonly "!?"

The creatures bellowed like crazed monsters as they rammed and twisted and banged. One suddenly somehow leapt out in front of the Haddlers as from a catapult with a blaring moo-like wail.

Esther screamed and Matthias almost did too as he pulled Esther away. The cloud of dust and smoke consumed them as the body slammed into the ground with the force of a giant walrus. Then the black shapes of the bandits descended like vultures upon their fallen prey. The camel was not dead but very much in a daze. They swung their incense bottles through the shaggy hide, pulled hair, and shaved it with shavers that buzzed like buzz saws over the sound of stamping feet, growling bellows, and grinding, hissing train.

Then there was the sound of something very near however slight. It pricked like needles up Matthias' spine. It was the sound of a cocking pistol.

Still on his knees on the ground with Esther pressed against him, he gently lifted his hands and held them up before he even thought of turning around. It would not matter anyway as it was only one of the ninja bandits with no face to see. Esther looked behind, though, as she clung to Matthias' arm, so Matthias ended up turning too holding onto his hat suddenly with one hand as he saw that the bandit who had cocked the pistol was standing in the opposite direction one would need to properly fire at them.

Matthias looked at Esther and Esther looked at Matthias, her straw hat tilted to one side.

The bandit was female if she was human, and she was aiming at the wild Summer Clause who was grinning from ear to ear with hands above his head. The dust was moving steadily in one direction atmospherically, like a slow mist upon a lake. The stumbling of the camels grew distant and it was almost indecipherable. If Matthias guessed correctly, that was the sound of a train whistle howling like a lost soul on the wind, except the wind was too faint to blow anything hard.

The Clause and the bandit woman took to facing each other as though nothing else existed. They stared without a word as though conversing telepathically. Matthias had to wonder if this woman had once been the old school marm that the old Clause had been speaking of. Quite the opposite of the usual wintry Mrs. Clause, what could be seen of her hair was sleekly black in a such a way that it was almost blue, and her form was like a rattlesnake, but the Clause was just as deadly for he seemed so much more like a jackal than he had before than a bear the way he grinned at her.

"I figured as much," Summer Clause at last pronounced, "that you were the leader of the band."

"I played mean fiddle 'gainst the devil in Georgia, and it was far more than a band," said the woman in an accent matching his as much as her tone did.

Summer Clause twisted his lip and lowered his eyes dangerously so that a strip of shadow covered only his eyes.

"Your brother-in-law, you mean," Summer Clause said.

Her thick black hair seemed to tighten in the wind like dry straw until it rattled like the most brittle portion of the yellow field around them. Between the yellow and the black, she was almost a hornet, if not a hornet's nest.

Summer Clause was not daunted but seemed more pleased than before in a wicked sort of way as though feeling the irony of still loving her in her fiery spirits and hating her all the same.

"So do you mean now to take the camels?"

"I mean to take the train," said the Bandit Queen, "straight through the maze and mow it all down on the tracks of kernels rowed up there."

The Summer Clause tipped his hat. "You were but learnin' the farmers' children there long ago."

"I learned 'em like a lesson book from the hair on their heads to the nails on their little toes," replied the Bandit Queen, "and thus the saplings of the saps are more mine than anyone's."

"As I thought. The bandits."

"Right," said the Bandit Queen. "And now I come to finish what we had."

"The duet?" asked Clause.

"To the death," said the Bandit Queen.

The train was getting nearer again from its seemingly useless looping turn.

"Then get yur fiddle, marm," said Clause.

The Bandit Queen threw the gun aside.

Matthias cocked his head in thought. One never knew when such a weapon would be necessary in a place as wild as this. Although he was not violent by nature, he was no pacifist either. Slowly he pulled Esther to the ground, and then motioned for Esther to stay behind.

"You're not really going to take it?" Esther mouthed rather than spoke.

Matthias smiled, though with full sympathy. It was a duty to take weapons from the mad, and they were certainly all mad here.

The ex-marm took from her belt as though unsheathing a sword, the most beautiful fiddle, carved exquisitely and as red as blood. The strings glistened like fairy's hair. The bow gleamed like a unicorn's mane. A raven's skull adorned the scroll with an old parchment rolled up between its beak. She threw off her scarf mask to reveal her sun-browned face.

The Clause meanwhile drew from his breast beneath the shaggy camel hair of his coat, a fiddle that was the color of ash with strings blacker than ink and the bow was matching. Upon the scroll was an onyx snake head with eyes made of crimson jewels that glowed piercingly in the western sun.

It was worth noting the way the raven and the snake glared right at each other no matter which way the fiddlers moved their weapons of choice.

Matthias crept along in the grass with an aim for the pistol all the while keeping an ear out for that train that was coming ever closer.

The Clause and Bandit Queen circled each other like war dancers. Then to the sound of the train's howling whistle they both began to play.

For a split second the air was tortured with the screech of their horrible unison note upon the strings. It was the note that read only doom to all who heard it. Matthias was on the ground in a second from the blast as from a canon, but before he could lift his head, the music all came together as for a planned duet instead of a fight between them. With energy like fire and with grace to match, they danced impossibly round each other yet still played in perfect sync.

"Matthias," Esther dared now to breathe.

He jumped to find her right above him as she pulled him gently away.

Despite himself, Matthias consented as they backed up from the duel and the hidden weapon.

The deadly chords reverberated through the ground.

No, it had to be the train, right?

The train came upon invisible rails and was headed right for the duel or the duel was headed straight for it. The camels like a mockery of dolphins abreast a sailing ship, bumbled on either side of the train, keeping up quite well, unless the train was following the camels. They were running so fiercely, that it put any horse derby to shame despite their clumsy gait. The irregularly rammed into the train, but the train never lost its ground. The smoke and fire was like the sparks from the engine itself. The music blared louder than the train as they duel went on like a prehistoric ritual. The woman and man became more and more like two anthropomorphic creatures, one based on a jackal and one based on a rattlesnake. The fiddles became more and more like appendages of their bodies moving of their own accord as their arms seemed to recede.

Matthias and Esther were upon a very low rise, but high enough to see the spectacle as the collision became imminent.

Esther gasped. Matthias stared blankly blinking, and then the train made impact. It was not a blast nor did it run the duelists over. It split with screeching agony right down the middle as though a force-field of a spaceship's laser blast breaking a meteor in two. It spread out in two directions seeming to merge with the camels also on either side. The one closer to the Haddlers was coming upon them now like a tidal wave.

With all the strength, he could muster Matthias broke free from his spell of stupefied awe. He pulled Esther to a ditch before an abrupt hedge sheltered in such a way that Matthias could only hope that the train would ride right over them. The fire should stay above them too, though that did not necessarily mean that they would not get burned.

Bodily as they did painfully, the Haddlers tumbled inelegantly into their cover, and even before they settled even physically, the half-cow catcher caught the hedge, slicing it through the middle, though it took none of the rest of it with it. The camels set it ablaze, but neither Matthias nor Esther knew anything about that. All they saw was sparks like fireworks, smoke like smoke bombs, and fire like a circus fire show ablaze nightmarishly above them in a display that might have cost a pretty penny for those who liked the ugliness of disasters in false control like a genetic beast at a mythical theme park finally come to life.

Perhaps they would go blind, perhaps they could go deaf. Would their ditch hold up from the earthquake-shaking of the leviathan of half a train going on longer than any train either had ever had to wait for at a train crossing impatiently in a car? It went on and on and on and on, until at last Matthias was able to find himself again to notice that there was a tunnel beneath them.

The faintest flicker of fear crossed with a stronger dose of annoyance warned that it would just be their luck if this tunnel led to the cornfield, but the ditch was beginning to cave-in around them. The train may never come to an end. He decided that a few crop circles were worth their risk. As he slowly looked up at Esther, he saw that she felt the same and had seen the hole's invitation quite on time with him.

The fire was getting hotter and sparks were getting nearer. One nearly struck his hat and another singed the edge of Esther's coat. As she let out a shriek, he kicked a pile of dirt upon her arm to put out the teasing flame. Then they pulled themselves into the tunnel and found that it was a solid cement drain. Quickly they followed the light at the other end, and already their eyes were watering. Already their throats were scratchy and their noses burned with pain.

Was it the smoke or allergies of the field beyond? Surely that was the smell of corn-syrup pulsing in the kernels of all that was highly fructose enough to burst asunder like water balloons ready to pop!

"Maybe we should go back!" Esther had to speak loudly to be heard above the sound of the train, but as Matthias looked he could see their entrance buried-in. They only had to move faster now. With all their strength, they scrambled like rats until at last they burst out as from an oceanic blast into the vast cavern made of greens, browns, and yellows.

With a burst as from a train engine's furnace out of control, the Haddlers rolled right into a great green tarp the feel of smooth cool plastic. They soon realized that it was a giant leaf. Only barely did the recognition ignite before the flames from their recent hole displayed the fruits of its disaster in the raining down of huge white balls.

The pair cried out and ducked within their green shelter as giant popcorn balls hurtled from unknown heights, the apparent debris of the explosion.

Had the smell of high fructose corn syrup shrunk them to the size of rats or had the cornfield grown from the excess of genetic modification since the Summer Clause had showed them the field from afar? Perhaps though Matthias was usually very good a depth perception, it had always been this large, and Wonderlandian proportions had deceived him.

"At least we know why he laughed at the notion of the corn being knee high," Matthias heaved.

Esther answered with a fit of coughing as she collapsed into the dirt exhausted.

Although weary himself, Matthias took up his hat from the ground and popped it onto his head as usual; though feeling somewhat like he had fallen into the latest Indiana Jones sequel. For encouragement, all he could do for Esther at the moment was to brush off the little straw hat he had bought and give it back to her.

"We survived at least," he said as candidly as he could muster; he still sounded discouraged.

"Mph," moaned Esther but she nodded readily. "If…"

"If what?" asked Matthias.

"If we can die in Wonderland at all," she croaked.

Matthias was quite startled; for it was he felt the first time that he had been the one thinking of the real world more than Esther had. This was Wonderland. It was truer than anything else around here despite how "grown up" it was, now even in the pun-tastic manner of this infernal corn field.

Esther pulled herself up now to her knees. "Are you okay, Matthias? You look sick. I'm sorry if that was…"

Her voice trailed off.

"No, I feel it, I think," said Matthias.

"What?"

"That the trail is wearing thin— at least for those from mortal origins," Matthias explained. "Even as we finally are changing size in the true spirit of Wonderland while through at least a dozen Looking Glasses, I feel that it's all stretched out to its limit, like the limit of drunkenness before passing out."

"The death of Wonderland?" asked Esther quite concerned, but there was no ball to look at now as they lifted their heads to see only further cornhusks and leaves the size of forest trees.

"No," Matthias quickly shook his head. "The death of a dream."

"Whose?" asked Esther.

"That remains to be seen," said Matthias, "but I know it is not mine even if some of me is being dreamed about."

Esther wrinkled her nose. Then she tried to smile. "Wonderland-ish is a pretty hard accent to shake, isn't it?

"Indubitably," remarked Matthias. "Is it weird, though, that I don't mind?"

"I don't mind," said Esther. "I know it well enough, and I know what you mean, but… now what?"

"We watch out for crop circles," said Matthias musing a little at the surroundings.

"And for giants locusts, I wouldn't be surprised," said Esther looking around with distaste and she withheld another cough.

Matthias cleared his throat form a coming scratch. "And try to get out of here quickly before we pass out from allergic reaction."

"Really," agreed Esther.

Thus began their slow meandering. One could hardly call it a maze so much as a deep dark jungle. Beetles chirped and ants hurried busily about. There were very roly-poly mice who literally rolled on their middles like pool balls when they had a mind including crashing into each other or stalks with great precision to knock kernels out of cobs and gobs alike. Despite the business, despite the near frenetic sugar rush about the place, there was an ominous hush all the same.

"The Monstrous Crow?" suggested Esther suddenly after wiping her watery eyes with the backs of her hands.

Matthias blinked his swollen eyes and swallowed on his swollen throat. "Mmph, or a genetically modified scarecrow."

"Really?" asked Esther blinking queasily.

Matthias chuckled rather drunkenly as he pushed a giant leaf out of the way like a swinging door; though it only led to more of the same surroundings even if it did not surprise him that the makeshift door squeaked like its hinges needed oiling. "Cottage-core on steroids."

"Well, I always considered that its core beginning was an American sanitized 'goth' without the creepy 'ick'," remarked Esther trying to keep her mind off the misery of the moment.

"You mean American Gothic after a visit through fairy-kei land."

Esther smiled and laughed through a short gasping breath. "Kawaii autumn through eighties cartoon-retro? So we'll be looking forward to a very happy endearing genetically modified scarecrow, at least."

"Who'll hug us to death in sickly sweet horror of kimo-kawaii," added Matthias.

"And turn our skin green?" offered Esther.

"Only in a green rash before the cancer years later."

"Then we'll be yami-kawaii," Esther pointed out giddily.

"Yummy chemotherapy," Matthias muttered.

"A contradiction in terms."

"Always."

"But is that all what cottage-core leads to in the end?" Esther teased.

"Grandma-core," Matthias garbled.

"They grow up to be grandmothers despite it all?"

"Well, it is mostly a woman's thing, but I don't know. Are you into Grandma-core? But all cores, I think mostly lead to corecore, which will galvanize everything into the same core for five minutes or less."

"I'm not into any core except my own," Esther said.

"Esther-core," Matthias nodded with a great big cough and a sneeze almost together. "A little bit of vintage, fermented gothic novel, finely chopped sci-fi mixed in a glaze of high-fantasy, some admiration for realistic tech and deep roots of cultural arts, only the most potent of cartoon sophistication grown in a healthy amount of philosophical balance with more soul than scientific psychology, and lastly sprinkled with peppermint and Anaheim after everything's been nicely steeped in an soup bowl sized teacup."

Burning rather red, either from the flush of embarrassment or the swollenness of another coming bout of nausea, Esther threw her head into Matthias' shoulder more aggressively than snuggly. Matthias threw his arm about her shoulder.

"Well, at least we know that in Esther-core there is an actual medium between dark academia and light academia," Matthias pushed all the more, and he rubbed his temple as he felt fairly lightheaded.

"I want a little bit of Matthias-core, though, you know," whispered Esther sweetly even if a little sadly.

The lightheadedness continued without reprieve, and by the way Esther stumbled Matthias knew she was about the same. She seemed to forgive him for having no lighthearted quip in return. He was stumbling too before long, and as he looked behind him, it seemed as though they had passed through a hazy yellow veil of air.

In his foggy state of mind, he could not help but think of a new craze for corn-core instead of a core of his own deeper interests. He was already selling it off at his old store— that store seemed prehistoric from this moment in time— as a way to have a sale on cheap useless Midwestern knickknacks or farm-themed kitsch and a downright diabolical way a person might profit from glorifying high-fructose corn syrup. The clothing styles all based on the kernels of yellow and white corn and flaring green leaves flashed before his eyes.

An evil genius he could very well have become, and he laughed giddily to himself. All the laughter was suddenly gone, though, as he noticed something about the shape of the veil and returned to his better senses.

It was curved in what appeared to be quite mathematically circular if not downright spherical. He suddenly recalled the idea of crop circles. Now a part of his joking mind was still sluggish in its ideas about making crop circles part of the craze for corn-core along with eating candy corn and selling candy corn out of the Halloween season, but he fought it, broke free, and just in time before he realized the he was stepping on nothing. As he put his foot down, he realized that he had already been walking quite on nothing for some time without much of a problem.

No ground, no air, nothing. It was not a circle in the corn. Not a hole in the ground. Not a laser of light sucking one into a flying saucer. It was nothing. Nothing but the haze itself. And Esther?

He looked.

She looked back with full concern. At him? No, past him, certainly. It was fear, confusion, and misery all at once, and a feeling of full dread came upon him too.

But as he blinked in his turn to follow her gaze, he was suddenly in a black-blue room the opposite of the sickly yellow blindness. He was no longer coughing or feeling nauseous but was shivering with a sudden chill in the dry lifeless air. He felt stiff but not necessarily tired however weak but not sick.

Then he noticed that he was wearing a jumpsuit as though he really had been suddenly abducted by aliens. He was lying upon a cold slab of a science fiction gurney. Cold and hard but only in a modern cushioned-bench sort of way. Ergonomic, possibly, but not really all that cozy even if fine on his spine. He almost wanted to curl up against the chill without a blanket as though he was a little baby animal suddenly pulled out of his burrow for illegal experimentation.

A terror like lightning struck him through the heart as he suddenly recalled his nightmares. His past? The reflection of that creature that had hovered above him that night he had been captured before all this nonsense, before his amnesia-like state, and before he knew anything about this madness more than the man who was making his "patients" disappear into the night. He had become numbered among them for snooping about where he knew his nose might get snapped off.

There was a figure above him now; though it was hard to focus and the light was behind the figure. Matthias leapt up. Unlike last time he was lying in this manner he had fight left for at least a punch in the jaw, and he would figure out what to do after that.