MicroHorror

She watched them trudging across the empty lot, climbing over the old wooden fence into the small plot of pasture land on the edge of town. Most years, it had held cattle until well into the fall, but the past few years it had lain fallow. Next year, it would be developed, with a cul-de-sac and a bunch of new homes. She knew that she would miss the picturesque view over her back fence, once it simply looked out onto somebody else’s back yard… but her loss would be nothing compared to that of the children.

For them, the pasture was a playtime paradise, a fantasy kingdom with stands of trees to serve as elven forests and bushes to be fairy circles, concrete feeding troughs for pagan altars and monoliths, huge woodpiles to serve as sleeping giants or evil strongholds, and drainage ditches that could be roaring rivers or troll tunnels. It was really only a few acres, but it could be as big as a child’s imagination.

She envied them, they with a whole afternoon of adventuring ahead of them while she was stuck with the housework and the gardening. Well, the gardening she didn’t mind so much… but she envied those who could be so young and free as to take a plot of empty, supposedly worthless land and turn it into a world of excitement and wonder.

“Hi, Mrs. Letheridge!” the middle child, the girl Jessie, called out to her, seeing her watching them.

“Hi, yourselves!” she called out. “So, where are you lot off to today? Fighting the goblins again?”

“Adam found a dragon,” Jessie said.

“You going to slay it, then?” she asked them, smiling.

“No, it’s only a baby,” Adam, the youngest of the three, said. “I asked mom if I could take some food for it, but she only gave us these apples. I don’t know if dragons like apples.”

“I expect you’d prefer to feed it some chocolate bars,” she said with a wink.

“I think the dragon would like that a lot,” Billy said.

“I don’t know if dragons like…” Adam began, but he hushed up at a look from his sister.

“I’ll just go and get you some, then,” she said. She hurried inside and got some from the bowl she kept in the kitchen, then returned to the children by the fence. “Now, you be sure to let me know how the dragon likes these… and, well, no need to tell your mother, is there?”

She watched them stomping happily through the tall grass towards the trees on the hill, then remembered that she had a load of laundry in that was probably about done. After she’d transferred it to the dryer and started the next load, she sat down to grab a few minutes resting and catch up on a bit of her reading before she headed back into the yard.

As soon as she did, she spied Adam’s sandy-haired head bobbing its way across the pasture land. She immediately felt that there was something badly wrong, and not just because the youngest child was on his own. As he came closer, she could tell that he was limping badly… though moving faster than he had on his way.

“Adam!” she cried. He jumped, but then turned slightly and made a beeline towards her.

“Are you hurt?” she asked as he drew close. “Where’s Billy and Jessie?”

He just looked at her. He looked like he was going to cry, but couldn’t. He had bloody scratches on his face and hands.

“What happened?” she asked him, picturing the children lying at the bottom of a ditch with broken bones, or trapped under a wood pile that shifted when they tried to climb it.

“Dragons… really don’t like apples and chocolate bars,” he said.