Amberly - Story 2 Serpent Slaying

Amberly - Story 2 Serpent Slaying

A Story by Karl Herzog
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Amberly Torden, descendant of Thor now has to tackle life in a conservative boarding school filled with sociopaths and lake monsters.

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Amberly…Descendant of Thor!

Amongst the descendants of Thor, one person inherits his powers.  With this they defend the innocent, rescue those in need and help lost children in the shopping mall.  This generation, Thor’s inheritance falls upon a not-at-all-average girl named Amberly.

by

K.Herzog


story 2 �" serpent slaying

Amberly Torden’s Boarding School year started with bullying, less than inspiring classes, bad grades and incompetent teachers.  Into the third month and Springtime, Amberly contemplated going on adventures.  But Amberly didn’t expect her first adventure to be more than Cat’s from trees…

“yaaaaawn!”

Amberly rolled over in bed and threw off the thick, red, fleecy blanket.  The morning sun shined through the rectangular window that was above her bed.  As Amberly woke up she looked around her room.

‘Looks more like a prison cell in a minimal security facility.’

Amberly thought but she was grateful to have a room to herself.  She crawled out of bed in her red and blue tartan pajamas.  So far boarding school was more like prison, Amberly wasn’t happy at all.

‘This boarding school is nothing like Hogwarts….it feels more like Orange is the New Black but without the occasional witty comments.  Well….It’s a Saturday.  May as well make the most of it.’

Amberly stood in the sunbeam and stretched then dropped to the floor into a pushup position and pumped out like an athlete.  When she stopped and started a planking position she was startled by a sudden voice from her doorway.

“High School sux!”

Amberly burst out laughing as she lay on the floor.  The random comment synchronized with how she was feeling about the place.  She looked up at the short and stocky brunette standing in her threshold wearing red and green stripped pajamas.  Amber’s face was red with laughter.

“It sure does, Luka!  I thought I was the only one.  We need a morale booster, let’s go to Casey’s for breakfast!”

Luka’s face lit up.

“Oh my God, yes!”

Amberly and Luka shared a place that was basically a living room with a small  alcove kitchen and two bedrooms across from each other.  Having their own rooms was nice but considering Amberly left her door open most of it time it meant that Luka would see and pick up on Amberly’s personal quirks.  Luka mumbled as she walked away to her room to get dressed.

“Maybe over breakfast you can tell me what you keep in that old satchel pack that you carry around everywhere.”

Amber’s face dropped.

 

 

 

Casey’s was Amberly’s happy place.  It was a video arcade and café run by a woman who looked like Aunt Jamia from the US pancake TV commercials.  After a day putting up with sociopaths, Amber would go to Casey’s to see her happy face.  Casey’s personality, big round face, bouncy-black curly hair and big brown eyes would raise her spirits.  So far having Casey’s across the road was the only thig about the boarding school Amber liked.  Now, sharing it with Luka was a bonus.

 

They sat at a booth that had a stack of magazines and a newspaper.  The walls were plastered in comic book posters and ads for concerts.  Amber was sipping on a tumbler of iced coffee when Luka blurted out.

“What’s with the mallet in your satchel pack?”

Amber choked on her drink.  Feeling exposed she decide to embellish the truth and give a quick, mundane answer that would normally satisfy.

“It’s a family heirloom….I’m a carpenter…I’m from a line of Carpenters.”

Amber picked up the paper desperately trying to look for a distraction.

“Okay...”

Luka leaned forward, with her face in her hands.  Her exotic Italian looks, and brown eyes stared at Amber with a confident grin on her face.

“Family heirloom…and your last name is Torden,”

Luka spoke as Amberly flicked through the newspaper.

“Where are the funnies in here?”

She said trying to change the subject, but Luka stared through Amber.

“Going by your hair and eye color, complexion, your last name is Scandinavian for Thunder…you carry a hammer in your pack everywhere…I got it!”

Amber’s eyes open wide.

“You’re Thor, God of Thunder in disguise as a teenage girl!”

Ambers face dropped and her eyes were wide open, she had been sprung.  Luka laughed and Amber thought it was about time to share her secret with someone.  She explained her thirteenth birthday and inheritance to Luka.  Luka stared at Amber.  She was worried she had freaked out Luka and would face an awkward year with a roommate too afraid to be associated with her.

“That.is…AWESOME!”

Amber breathed a sigh of relief and felt impressed with Luka managing to figure it out.

“It’s refreshing being able to talk to someone about this, most people are as thick as dog s**t and don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.”

Luka laughed.  Amberly glanced at the newspaper, she glimpsed an article about a missing children near Lake Georgio.  Kids living in a small town over the hills of the northside would ride past the lake on the way home from school.

Amber’s hometown was weirdly set up with rural mixed in with suburbs, the industrial area with schools and the upper-class district by the river that led to Lake Georgio.  To the north were the hills that went all around the west to the south.  There were small satellite villages scattered around Ambers town.

“You know what?”

Amber’s attention from the article was broken by Luka’s random question.

“you’ve got the blood of a monster slayer in your veins…lets go kill something!”

Amber laughed but at the same time a little disturbed.  Sometimes Luka’s random comments and abrupt attitude would come across as psychopathic.  Amber had an idea.

“How about we go fishing?  I used to like going fishing with my dad when I was a child.”

Luka’s eyes light up which surprised Amber, she wasn’t used to anyone else showing any enthusiasm for her ideas.

“That’s perfect, my folks own a little fishing boat they keep at Lake Georgio.”

Amber glimpsed back at the article and noticed a smaller one on the bottom right page about ‘Lake Georgio Monster’.  The tiny white hairs on her neck raised and goosebumps formed on her arm.  She got a feeling the universe was leading her somewhere.

“Sure, let’s do that.”

She cheerfully agreed to Luka’s plan despite feeling that there was a connection between the missing children, mystery of Lake Georgio and now they were going fishing there.

 

Next thing you know it was midday with Amber and Luka on a little boat out on the lake with life jackets on and rods in the water.

‘This is all happening so fast.  First we’re having breakfast at Casey’s and now we’re fishing on Lake Georgio….site of missing children and a lake monster.’

Amber stared at the deep, black water and tried not to think of what lurks beneath.  That’s when she saw a large, black, tadpole shape wiggling through the water right underneath their boat.  Her eyes opened wide, a chill came over body and Amber’s heart skipped a bit.

“L-L-Lu-Luka?”

She nervously stuttered like a frightened child as Luka’s attention broke away from her fishing rod, she turned around to the back of the boat where Amber was.

“What…?”

Ripples emerged from the side of the boat and it started to rock backwards and forwards.  The boat suddenly moved towards the shore with speed as if with a mind of its own.

Amber grabbed hold of the sides, completely forgetting about the fishing rod and hunched down low so not to fall into the water.

“What the!?”

Luka exclaimed as she did the same.  Amber was brave on land but conflicted with water.  She loved going for a swim but wouldn’t swim in the middle of lake.  It was almost like agoraphobia.  Amber looked up a bit and was relieved in some way that they were being led towards the shore but then she saw they were being led towards a cave in the hillsides.

‘Guess we’re about to find out why those children went missing.’

The canal leading into the cave got narrower and shallow as the boat would occasionally bounce on the rocky bottom.  The light from outside shined into the entrance revealing a brownish-grey cavern with a black stream of water leading from the lake, into the mouth and finally to a wet, sandy embankment.  The boat started to raise a bit and tilt as if it was on the back of a giant log.

“Get out….get out now!”

Amber yelled as Luka turned to look at her.  They both jumped out the left side but not without grabbing their packs.  Struggling with packs and life jackets they climbed the rocks to the left, cautious not to be s by whatever was dragging the boat.  They climbed the highest peak, got behind a rock and peaked over the top. 

What towed the boat had a long body like an eel.  It was black and glossy, the head was shaped like a tadpole and they could hear it slithering over sand and rocks but also the wet thud, thud, thud of large flippers as its tail end wriggled side to side like a snake.

Luka noticed that Amber’s quick instincts made her grab Mjollnir from her pack.  Luka dropped her black pack to get a long, black torch and switched it on pointing at her feet.

Amber noticed the torch and Luka nervously spoke.

“Yeah not bad hey.  Security guards use this.  It’s a torch and a baton!”

Amber raised Mjollnir and it glowed, illuminating their surroundings in soft light.

“But…yours is nicer.”

Amber grinned.

“Yeah and I can also hit people with it.”

Luka giggled but their moment of amusement broke with a child’s whimper.

“What was that?”

Asked Luka.  Amber paused, she could her it too.  Luka started nervously chatting.

“You know this is the area where children go missing and fisherman’s boats have been capsized on this lake with the fishermen missing.”

 


Amber’s eyes opened wide.

“And you decide to come fishing here!?”
Luka had a quick peak over the rock they were hiding behind.

“Look, the boat sill there and in good nick.  We’ll rescue the child and my boat then paddle away.  When we get to a safe distance then use the motor…”

Luka had a quick glance over the rock to see the paddles were still clinging to the boat.

“…yep!  The paddles are still there!  We can do this.”

Amber held up Mjolnir and looked towards the sound of the child’s crying.  It was across the sandy pathway, up the back corner of the cave.  She could just make out the glistening reflection of black, snake like skin, coiled up amongst a pile of bones with something like a rag doll amongst the debris.  The creature was obviously curled up asleep and the rag doll was the source of the whimpering.  Amber shuddered.  The creature had saved the child for later or the little girl had managed to hide in amongst the bones.  Luka gave a quick peak and said.

“Why didn’t it eat the girl?”

“I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense but we gotta’ do something.”

Respond Amber.

The duo squat and did a commando style walk, hunched over with one fist and the rocky ground to support themselves, the other hand holding up their torches just high enough to see the ground ahead.  They curved up over the rocks at the back of the cave and could clearly see the girl sitting with her arms crossed, looking cold, dirty and afraid.  Amber moved to Luka’s left and held Mjollnir up like a baseball bat, ready to swing.  Luka crept ahead and managed to convince the child to move to her.  When in range she grabbed the child and held her tightly to her torso while shinning the torch to the ground  She quickly turned and moved the best she could without falling over back the way they came.  Amber stood staring at the monster a bit longer then followed Luka.  Once they got back near the entrance they hunched down by the same rock from before.  Both were catching their breath.  Luka, still clutching the child looked over Amber’s shoulders to the back of the cave.  When she caught her breath.

“Good…that plan worked….but I didn’t factor in doing this while holding a child.”

There was a sound of something wet and long slithering followed by a slight splash of water.

“What was that?”

 

 

Whispered Amber until she could see the child shivering with fear and Luka’s brown eyes wide with fright.  Right arm cocked and hammer ready, like a martial artist Amber bent her knees slightly, moved her left foot behind her right heal and quickly twist around leaping forward just as the giant eel like creature lunged at her with jaws open, revealing rows of thin dagger like teeth.  With a leap she managed to miss getting into its jaws as it twists its head to grab her sideways like a Shark.  Staring into its fishy eye she brought her hammer down.  It missed the eye but got the bottom edge of it.  The creature hissed in pain and arched its head up in agony, writhing around like a cut snake,  as it writhed around Amber was ready to swing again.  Luka walked back looking for a safe way to climb down to the boat.  Amber swung her hammer from her right shoulder to the creature’s side hitting it with a thud.  It was like hitting a meat carcass with a mallet.  The creature gasped and its body arched forward as if winded.  Amber took the opportunity and jumped then swung Mjollnir down onto the Serpents head, smashing in its skull.  There was no way it could survive that blow but she frantically hit it another three times until realizing it was dead.  She fell to the ground, exhausted.  Breathing heavily as if she had just been for a run.  Luka peaked around the corner of the rock.

“Amber….It’s dead right!?”

Amber caught her breath.

“Yeaaaaah.”

Amber sounded exhausted.  She staggered onto her feet and climbed down to the sandy pathway that led to the mouth of the cave.  Going up to the boat she placed Mjollnir back into satchel.  Looking at the shivering and disheveled girl already in the boat and eager to leave, Amber said.

“You can talk about the….giant snake just don’t mention about this hammer.”

 

They rowed the boat out of the cave moving far away as possible then started the engine and moved closer to the where the business ports were.  It was a busy place, especially with the markets on Saturday.  It didn’t take long to get help.  Luka and Amber told their story as best as possible without revealing Amber’s hereditary powers or Mjollnir.  A search was done of the cave and the evidence of a giant creature was their but the tide had gone in and managed to wash the carcass away, but not the remains of some of its victims.

 

THE END

© 2020 Karl Herzog


Author's Note

Karl Herzog
I type this on Microsoft Word, edit, spell check than I have to copy and past to this site. Sorry if the font is out of wack. They've changed the format and it's been a while.

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Added on August 10, 2020
Last Updated on August 10, 2020