Lazy Scales, page 8
part #1 of Lazy Scales Series
“They taste delicious,” Lasthope said, whispering in the young dragon’s ear like the devil on his shoulder. “Juicy meat covering thick bones full of sweet, buttery marrow.”
“Marrow?” Lewis whispered. He couldn’t remember ever eating marrow, but the thought suddenly filled him with desire. He wanted to devour those cows, to taste their blood on his tongue, to have their meat filling his belly. His claws instinctively flexed, digging deep scratches on the concrete floor. He wanted them so badly, he could almost taste their scent on the air.
“Everything a growing dragon needs can be found in these fine animals,” Lasthope continued. “All the vitamins and minerals your body needs. Do it, Lewis. You are hungry. I can practically feel your hunger in the air. You need nourishment.”
Lewis licked his chops, a light tingle dancing across his lips as his flaming drool coated them. He barely even noticed the heat as he reached his claws down into the stall and plucked the cow up. She was plump, her udder swaying as he hoisted her into the air. His arms tensed with the effort, but she wasn’t so heavy that he was afraid he would drop her.
“Look at her, how weak she is,” Lasthope continued, grinning as Lewis held her up. “She is prey, Lewis. Food. She is meant to be eaten. If not by you, and if not now, then eventually by another. Go on. You need this.”
He was in too much of a daze to answer. The cow mooed loudly as Lewis took a deep whiff of her scent, filling his nostrils and lungs with the sweet aroma of fresh cow meat. Then Lewis grabbed her by the head and twisted.
There was a sharp crack and then stillness.
The cow fell limp in his hands as he snapped her neck, and he dropped her to the ground. The body bounced before flopping harmlessly on the floor. The other cow began mooing frantically, but Lewis could neither hear her nor care. Only one thing occupied his mind.
Food, glorious food.
Lewis dug in, tearing off a leg with his bare claws. Blood poured from both it and the stump where it had been. He dove first into the stump, tearing off a massive chunk of meat with his teeth and swallowing it. It was delicious. Nowhere near as good as the human he’d sampled the night before, but it was good enough that he wanted more.
He tore into the leg next, tearing off massive chunks of meat before crunching the bone up in his jaws and slurping down the soft, buttery marrow. His tongue tingled with the new, exciting flavor, and he relished it as he sucked the bones dry, then crunched them up more and swallowed them too. The hoof was a bit too hard for his liking, so he tossed it off to the side before diving back in and shredding the cow’s belly with his claws.
Lasthope observed Lewis’s feeding frenzy with mild amusement. He was a dragon nearly starved, so it came as no surprise that Lewis could barely control himself. He should have followed the ghost’s advice and left. Now he would have to explain to his friends why one of their cows was now inside his belly.
It made no actual difference to Lasthope. Dragons ate prey animals, and cows were among their numbers. Still, humans had a sick sense of property that they believed needed to be obeyed. They always got worked up whenever a dragon ate their property animals. Lasthope scoffed at the notion. As if anything gave one creature a right to own another. Preposterous.
Lewis was halfway through digging out the cow’s entrails and slurping up its intestines like a mile-long noodle when suddenly he paused. His ears flicked as he heard footsteps approaching. Frowning, he bit down on the organ, letting a loose end of it drop to the floor. His nostrils flared as he dropped instinctively into a fighting stance and put a claw protectively in front of his meal.
The door to the barn opened, and a small woman in a bright blue sweater peeked inside. She took one look at the shredded remains of the cow, then another up at the large, imposing face of Lewis the dragon, looming above the animal he had just butchered. He raised his ears, opened his wings as wide as they could go in the cramped barn, and bared his bloodstained teeth. Flaming drool sizzled around the corners of his lips, and smoke poured from his nostrils.
The woman screamed.
Lewis stopped growling for a moment as he sniffed the air. The fresh scent of humans was enough to pull him out of his feeding frenzy without putting him back in the mode to hunt. He backed away from the butchered cow, looking down at his bloodstained claws curiously. The woman continued to scream as he raised them up to his eyes and licked them clean.
It wasn’t until the woman ran off that Lewis paused what he was doing and realized who that had been. “Jeremy’s mom just saw me!” he said in alarm. “Oh no, that can’t be good!”
“The mother of your friends?” Lasthope rumbled, floating longingly near the remains of the animal. The foolish young dragon that he was, Lewis had left behind the head, the most enjoyable part of the body! What a waste. Lasthope reached down to caress the cow’s skull. He could touch it, but it hadn’t been dead long enough for him to have any manipulation of it. Still, there was something there that he could move. He reached inside the cow’s body and pulled out a wisp of white. A soul, perhaps? He didn’t question it. He swallowed it and felt a sense of satisfaction at having done so.
“Lasthope! Lasthope, what do I do? I didn’t have time to explain who I was to her!” Lewis said in exasperation. “She’ll call the police or-or animal control or something! What do I do? What do I do?”
Lasthope frowned at Lewis, as though the answer should have been obvious. “Burn her house to the ground and eat her body, obviously.”
“No! That’s a terrible idea! I can’t torch Jeremy’s house and eat his mom! He’ll never forgive me!”
“Then what do you expect me to tell you? You are a dragon, Lewis. I will always tell you to act like one.”
Lewis hopped on his front claws as he looked around the barn in a panic. The last remaining cow mooed frantically. He contemplated killing and eating it for a moment, forgetting that there was still half a cow left cooling on the ground.
“I’ve got to run!” Lewis said quickly. “I have to get out of here before some authority types find me!”
“That is something I told you to do many times, yes,” Lasthope said. “I suppose you are true to your word, ignoring my wisdom until it is immediately useful.”
Lewis scrambled with the door to the barn, struggling to push it open and squeeze out. His tail thrashed from side to side, making a wreck of the place. The half-eaten corpse of the cow was thrown aside and splattered all over the place, creating an absolute mess as he absent-mindedly beat it down into a pile of offal.
Lewis took a deep breath of the fresh air to clear his nostrils of the moldy barn stench and then pointed himself directly at the mountains. They weren’t too far away. He could definitely make it before anyone saw him, right?
A sharp pain suddenly shot through his flank. Lewis staggered for a moment, wincing, and looked over his shoulder. There was Jeremy’s mom, Brandon’s rifle in hand, and pointed right at him. She had tears streaming down her face and was cocking the gun again. Lewis instinctively bellowed his fury at her, making her scream and drop the weapon.
With the danger out of the way, Lewis turned tail and broke into a run. He let his body move of its own accord. He pointed where he wanted to go, tucked his wings in tight, and set off at a run.
He silently hoped Jeremy wouldn’t mind the mess too much.
Chapter 11
Jeremy looked up from the math problems he was working on as the teacher approached his desk. The classroom phone was pressed against her ear, and an expression of panicked concern on her face. She barely spoke, just nodding silently along with whatever was being said on the other side of the line, before finally, she pulled the phone away from her ear.
“Jeremy, you need to go down to the principal’s office,” she said.
Jeremy blinked a few times and frowned, glancing momentarily at his math homework. “Right now?” he asked, giving the teacher a nervous glance.
“Immediately,” she said, a sense of urgency in the words.
The class broke out into catcalls and ooohs, and Jeremy’s eyes widened in horror.
“I-I’m not in trouble, am I? I haven’t done anything wrong!” Jeremy stuttered, his glasses slipping down his nose.
“You’re not in trouble, but I don’t feel comfortable discussing it publicly. Please, just pack your things, don’t worry about the homework for tonight,” the teacher said before pressing the phone back to her ear and speaking into the receiver. “Yes, I’m sending him down right now.”
Jeremy blinked in surprise, and the classroom fell deathly quiet. The teacher wouldn’t tell him something like that unless there was something seriously wrong. Jeremy swallowed nervously and packed his things into his bookbag before slinging it over his shoulder. The entire class watched him leave with hushed whispers. As he turned around to close the door, Jeremy cast a nervous glance at the desk that had been empty all day.
Lewis’s desk.
Had something gone wrong with Lewis? Had he burned down Jeremy’s home? Eaten his mother? Jeremy realized that they really didn’t understand nearly enough about his condition. Stories about dragons were as diverse as any mythology could get; there’s no telling precisely what Lewis would be capable of now that he was one! They shouldn’t have left him alone like that!
As Jeremy briskly walked down the hall, he bumped into Brandon’s imposing form. His brother grabbed him by the shoulder to keep him from falling down and gave him a worried look.
“I think something might be wrong with Lewis,” Jeremy whispered as he continued heading towards the principal’s office. “Did you get called down, too?”
Brandon nodded. “Yup.”
Jeremy swallowed nervously. That couldn’t be good. The last time the boys were called down together, their father had just passed away…
As they stepped into the office, Mister McNally offered each of them a seat on one of the enormous guest chairs. They each dropped their bags to the ground and took a chair. With both of them seated, the principal sat behind his desk. His face was grim, as though he’d just received terrible news.
Oh no, Jeremy thought.
“I’m sorry to drop this on you boys, especially considering what happened to you yesterday, Jeremy,” the principal began giving both boys an apologetic smile.
It took Jeremy a moment to realize he must have been talking about Lewis’s stroke. Nobody else knew that he’d turned into a dragon. He wondered for a second if perhaps he should let Becca know about what had happened.
“Did something happen?” Brandon asked, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair.
“Your mother was just admitted to the hospital,” Mister McNally explained, his eyes meeting Brandon’s. “She was having a bit of a neurotic episode, and the authorities felt it was prudent that she be admitted, for her own safety if not yours. She is currently drugged and under observation.”
Both brothers exchanged a look. Neurotic episode? Their mother had had nothing of the sort before. She wasn’t the calmest person in the world, but that often came with being a farmer’s widow and not knowing how to operate the farm. She was just their mom: loving, attentive, and careful. She made cheese; she took care of the cows—
Jeremy’s eyes widened. The cows! Neither he nor Brandon had milked the cows that morning! Their mother must have noticed and gone to do it herself and encountered Lewis!
“What exactly did she say?” Brandon asked, coming to the same conclusion as Jeremy.
“That there was a giant metal monster in the barn eating one of your cows,” Mister McNally explained. “It was dripping what she claimed was gasoline everywhere, and there was a shredded cow corpse in the barn. The authorities did, in fact, confirm there was a dead cow in the barn and a trail of blood leading away. Authorities suspect it was a pack of coyotes that got in, and your mother freaked out. She kept saying bronze repeatedly.”
Jeremy swallowed loudly, catching Brandon’s gaze. It had to be Lewis. Lewis had eaten one of their cows before scaring their mother half to death. He supposed he should be grateful Lewis hadn’t tried to eat his mother, especially after calling him breakfast.
“Anyway, boys, we felt it best to let you know of what was happening and to send you home for the day,” the principal continued. “The two of you are no doubt under a lot of stress, between Lewis having a stroke and your mother having some sort of episode. The authorities are investigating to see if maybe they both ate something that would cause them to be sick like this.”
Brandon looked to Jeremy and cocked an eyebrow. Jeremy nodded.
“I guess we’ll be leaving,” Jeremy said, as both he and his brother stood up. “Unless there is anything else you want to tell us?”
“Do you have a way to get home? You’re not going to take an Uber, right?”
Brandon chuckled. “I drove my truck today.”
“Do you have anyone at home to take care of you? I know your father passed away a couple years ago and—”
“Brandon is 18,” Jeremy blurted before Mister McNally could dive further into that touchy subject. “We’ll probably give our aunt a call when we get home, just to let her know we’re okay.”
Mister McNally stopped and rose from his seat behind the desk. “All right, boys,” he said, first offering a hand out to Brandon. After the older brother gripped and shook it, he turned it to Jeremy. The principal’s grip was tight and firm, and it reminded Jeremy of his father’s grasp. “Be safe, the two of you. Check your home for any expired foodstuffs. Or maybe something a parasite could survive in. Maybe mold. It’s hard to say.”
“Right, yes, sir,” Jeremy said, shaking the pain out of his hand.
As Mister McNally ushered the two brothers out of his office, they shared a glance of concern with each other. They had screwed up big time. By letting Lewis stay in their barn unattended, they had risked letting him eat their mother. The notion hadn’t occurred to them. At the time, they were just so shocked to see that Lewis had turned into a dragon! A dragon!! The shock of the situation had overwritten the fear of it.
They should have been more careful than to allow a giant, potentially fire breathing, possibly man-eating monster anywhere near their home and livelihood.
What if Lewis had eaten their mother? What would they do then?
Jeremy realized what he would do. He would hunt Lewis down and kill him. He’d already lost one parent; he refused to lose another, especially not to somebody that was supposed to be his friend.
As Brandon and Jeremy neared the front of the school, the imposing figure of Becca suddenly stopped them. She stepped in front of the door to block their exit. Her eyeliner had been running again, judging by the streaks running down her cheeks. Lucy was nearby, too, cowering in a corner.
“Jeremy, we need to talk. Like right now,” Becca said, her voice hoarse. Jeremy figured she must have been crying. He risked a glance at Lucy and noticed her eyes were red and puffy too. Had both of them been crying?
“Sure, what’s up?” Jeremy asked.
“I’ll go get the truck,” Brandon mumbled, stepping around the younger kids and through the door.
All three watched as Brandon left and waited for the doors to shut again before Becca cleared her throat and spoke. “Lewis is dead.”
Jeremy paused for a moment and thought about the corpse of the enormous dragon lying dead on the side of the road. Just like that? Lewis is a dragon, and now he’s gone? Jeremy thought with a frown. Wait, Becca doesn’t know that Lewis is a dragon!
“Dead? What do you mean dead?” He asked in confusion.
“I mean, we went to go visit the hospital during our free period. The entire place is crawling with cops. Apparently, there was some kind of explosion in Lewis’s room last night. It killed him and a nurse, some girl named Jen Cravalho. All that’s left of our friend is some blood splatters,” Becca said, choking on her tears again. “I wish I hadn’t seen it… I wish I could wash it from my mind… It was like he’d exploded… I hate that cop for showing it to us…”
Lucy rushed forward to wrap her girlfriend in her arms. Becca buried her face into Lucy’s bright blonde hair and sobbed loudly. They stood like that for a minute until Lucy pushed Becca away and signed quickly.
“Right, sorry, forgot about that,” Becca coughed and nodded. “Thanks, babe.”
“What? What did she say?” Jeremy asked, looking between the two of them.
“The cop who showed us the room, Detective Martha Smith,” Becca explained, “she thinks Lewis might have been responsible for the explosion. She might come by to question you about him, okay?”
Jeremy blanched. “What!? She thinks Lewis blew himself up!?”
“I know, right? The dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Becca tried to laugh, but all that came out was a pained sob. “Just thought I ought to warn you, Jer.”
“Thanks,” Jeremy mumbled, his brows knitting in a frown.
He looked up and met Becca’s gaze again. She was watching him intently, as though trying to gauge whether he would say something dumb. If he told them now that Lewis was a dragon, that would play into the notion.
There was nothing for it. Jeremy had to show them what Lewis had become. There was no other way.
“You two had better come with us,” Jeremy grumbled, shaking his head. “I have some stuff that I need to explain to you. It’s probably easier to understand if you see it, though.”
Becca gave Jeremy a confused look, and Lucy signed something quickly. “What kind of crack are you smoking,” Becca translated, “your best friend is dead! Why aren’t you in a puddle of tears?”
Jeremy looked out the doors to the school as Brandon pulled up with his truck. “The rumors of Lewis’s death have been greatly exaggerated,” he said, glancing back at Becca.
Becca blinked slowly before shaking her head. “You weren’t there, Jeremy. You didn’t see the room. There’s no way Lewis survived that.”
