Ninja Nights by John Stormm (chapter books to read to 5 year olds .txt) 📕

van was rocking sporadically and the muffled sounds of a struggle could be heard from within. Seth and Jon looked at each other and Seth whispered he could bet what they were doing inside.

     Jon could taste and smell blood and fear on the breeze coming from the direction of the rocking van. He motioned the men to stay put, as he stealthily made his way to the van to investigate. The smell was certainly stronger near the van. Mimicking moves he had seen his father do, Jon pressed the palms of his hands to the side of the van, closed his eyes and projected his consciousness within. The sensations shocked him like a plunge into an icy lake.

A young redheaded woman, was bound naked, and gagged with duct tape. The smell of fear, sweat and human blood were coming from her. A heavy set, middle aged man was ecstatic, as he had just finished carving a large “M” on each cheek, above the gag. He was currently carving a valentine in her soft abdomen. The smell of manly musk and sexual arousal came from him. The man was feeling that it was much too long since he last had this pleasure.

Jonathan’s awareness suddenly snapped to his position outside the van. To his companions surprise, Jon started pummeling on the walls of the van with his fists.

“Go away,” the man called out. “You’re not wanted here.” The desperate muffled scream of the tortured girl could be heard faintly from Jon’s position. Seth jumped up and grabbed Jon’s elbow.

“Hey, bro,” Seth whispered hoarsely, “It’s just a pair of young lovers, seeking a little privacy. Be cool, huh?” Jon pushed Seth away hard, and punched through the passenger side window of the van and unlocked the door. He nearly ripped the door off its hinges as he jumped into the front of the van and pushed his way through the curtains to the back.

* * *

     It all happened so fast, as Seth was regaining his feet. The side door of the van burst open and a middle aged fat man came tumbling out, gripping a tire iron in one hand and a bloody hunting knife in the other. Seth put his hands up to calm the man down.

“Take it easy,” Seth pleaded. “It’s just a misunderstanding.” To which, the man swiped viciously at him with the tire iron, striking him on the forearm. Seth was sure the arm was broken. At this point, Jonathan came flying out of the van, as if launched by a catapult, knocking the fat man sprawling. He tossed Seth a cell phone he had wrapped in a sandwich bag in his pouch for emergencies.

“Balrog, Goldberg,” Jon barked orders. “Get lively and get this woman an ambulance. PRONTO! The maniac is MY project.” The fellow in question had bolted for the woods, and Jon was hot on his trail. Seth and Goldberg peered into the van to see the bloody mess. Goldberg used his ninja-to, to cut the bindings on the woman, and tore down the curtains to cover her and staunch the bleeding.. Seth began unwrapping the cell phone with one hand to make the call, while looking for something to splint his arm with. He was wondering how Jonathan knew what was really going on in the van.

* * *

     Jon’s whole world, narrowed down to a warm body, moving away from him about thirty yards ahead in the benighted woods. He could smell the woman’s blood and the man’s sweat coming at him as a warm, pungent miasma trail in the cool night air of the forest. The man was crashing blindly through the trees and underbrush like an enraged bull. Jon would not lose his trail. His senses were all focused keenly on his prey, and he was on the hunt. In the distance, he could hear the unmistakable howls of the white wolves. The White Lady was coming from the other direction. Jon was hoping he’d get to the man first, but it was not out of any sense of mercy. His whole being was lost in this hunt, whatever humanity was in him, was not responding at this time. Jon could feel the body heat of the man ahead of him, now by only twenty yards, the sound of that heart laboring under a layer of fat came to his ears, louder than his own footsteps. He knew there was a trail at the bottom of this hill, that bordered the pond they swam in earlier this day. The man could sense Jon was closing in on him and ran all the harder, picking up momentum down the hill, crashing through branches of hawthorn that tore at his skin. Jon could smell the fresh blood, and the fear in the man’s sweat as he too, picked up speed.

At the bottom of the hill, where Jon expected the man to go either right or left, the man kept going as though he couldn’t stop and plowed noisily into the pond. Jon stopped at the edge and watched as the man tried to swim across. He was deciding whether to run around the pond to catch him or swim after him. From the opposite direction the White Lady was gliding slowly across the surface of the water towards the man, her arms were upraised and her mouth moving, as if she were singing. Jon thought he could hear her voice in his head, albeit faintly. It sounded like an ancient dirge. The man was watching Jon, over his shoulder and paddling for all he was worth. In the moonlight, Jon could see what appeared to be the wakes of two submerged Volkswagens, converging on the corpulent swimmer. Damn, those snappers get big, Jon thought. The fresh blood in the water, drew the carnivores to a ready meal. The man screamed and then gurgled for help, while Jon and the White Lady remorselessly watched him going under, still thrashing. When the pond was calm again, Jon looked up to the Lady on the pond, and made the gesture his father had made the night before with his fist to his heart, and then held out, palm upwards to the White Lady. As before, she gestured as if taking the gift to her own bosom, and then vanished in the mist forming on the water. Jon ran back to the van to assist the team.

Upon returning, Jon found Goldberg tending the young woman and Seth working a splint around his forearm with some of the duct tape in the van. Seth indicated that an ambulance from the local volunteers would be there shortly. Jon gave Goldberg his weapons and any gear the police might find questionable, and told the men to make their way back to camp. Jon would stay to meet with the police. The men melted into the darkness of the forest as the first cars pulled up. Jon was standing in the road waiting for them with his mask and hood off. His father was on good terms with the local police, and known for his night time nature hikes in the woods, so Jonathan wasn’t too concerned about what they might make of him. He gave the police a report of what he found while hiking along the trail near the road and how the man had run westward, into the woods, towards the pond before Jonathan lost track of him. The ambulance crew were already enroute to Rochester General Hospital, only five minutes away. The woman would survive, but she would be scarred for life. When the officer was satisfied that he had all the information Jon could give him, Jonathan faded into the forest like a ghost.

The men debriefed around the small campfire that night. Some hot sassafras tea and a chance to talk about what they had seen and how they would deal with it, seemed to settle everyone. The master was looking long and hard at Jonathan, his concern written plainly on his features. Jonathan stared long in to the dark of the forest, alone with his thoughts. Balrog and Goldberg went to sleep feeling like heroes. Jon wasn’t sure what he felt like, but it wasn’t human. He was trying to define all the new emotions he was feeling, like the fierce joy of flying, the wild hunt, and cold passion, all of which defied human terms.

They broke camp by nine a.m., Sunday morning. All traces of the campsite were made to vanish. They even erased their trail out of the woods. They all met for coffee and showers at the master’s apartment near the southwestern boundary of the park.

The police divers found part of the badly chewed remains of “Mad Mike” Mimsy, in the pond Sunday afternoon. He wasn’t all there, but then, his lengthy rap sheet claimed he was never “all there,” as he was in and out of mental institutions all of his adult life. Jon couldn’t help but feel it was a fitting end to a bloody career, but was at odds with himself.

Jon’s human side, tried to argue pity for the deranged and deceased man. His fae side had none to give. Any creature that fed on the fear and pain of others, was evil, and evil was always insane. The man did not die directly, by his hand, but Jon felt close kinship to the forces that sealed his fate. He felt the world was just a tiny bit better for it, but his own world had expanded uncomfortably. He had always loved and looked up to his father, and wanted to be just like him. Until now, Jon never knew what that might entail. He loathed himself as a heartless monster, but his father was anything, but heartless. He could seem so at times, but usually the goal he was pushing to, required that extra effort… which may have seemed cruel, but needed “heart” to pull it off. Jon was finding the balance he needed to survive as a mixed species. No matter what species you were, there was always another to keep your numbers in check. When the wolves were hunted out and chased out of the west, and the rattlesnakes hunted to near extinction in certain areas, the rabbits, prairie dogs and rodent populations grew to epoch proportions. Cattle and horses were going lame from stumbling into the multitude of burrows to house the critters. Swarms of mice and rats plagued various areas in New Mexico, and Arizona and carried the hanta virus. One might try to label a creature like a wolf or a pit viper as evil, but the truth was, they were never meant to harm man, but keep the food chain below them healthy, and in turn, feed their own. Their own numbers would never exceed the amount of food available to feed them. The natural world maintains balance, so does the universe at large. Jonathan was becoming an adult who knew he belonged to a bigger world than his friends ever imagined.

Once it was fun to imagine his father as “eccentric.” It made him shiver to realize how much sense the old wizard actually made. Whether the world thought him mad or no, the old man knew what he needed to do. Jonathan understood that patient look in his father’s eyes at times, he was looking at his children and waiting for help. The witch clan served a purpose bigger than itself. His father once quoted to him from someone’s literary work.

“Evil prevails when good men do nothing.” Jon thought, “Not on MY watch.”