Embracing the Stone

     The windshield wipers slapped at the rain, but hardly did it
justice. It was a dark road heading along Parley's Canyon out of
Salt Lake City, to their home in Park City. The funeral had
lasted all day, and both children and father alike were tired. It
was nothing more than a half hour trip, but it was worth it to
have Christine buried beside her mother.
     Ket still cried in the back seat. Mike silently cursed
having to drive. He should be with Ket, now of all times. he
pulled the car to the side of the highway, and shut it off.
Everybody sat in the back seat next to Ket. The night was silent,
except for the cars on the freeway and the pounding of the rain
against the car.
     Mike kept hoping Matthew and Keturah would drift off to
sleep, but somehow it seemed appropriate that tonight none of
them could.
     "Daddy?" Ket asked.
     "Yes, Ket?"
     "Can we go see Christy tomorrow?"
     Mike paused. He should be at the office tomorrow, he thought
automatically. Then, he stopped that thought. The people at work
had given him two weeks paid vacation when they had heard of
Christine's death on the news, and Mike had yet to use it all. He
should take tomorrow off at the very least -- for the children.
Doubtless they would take all of this harder than he... he's been
through this before. Ket had been barely a few months old at the
time her mother Terra had been killed, and Matthew had only been
two. The children still hadn't known what deaths were like until
now.
     Mike wondered if he would ever get used to deaths... he
hoped he would never would or need to.
     "Dad?" Matthew put in quickly.
     "Hmmm?"
     "I don't want to go to school tomorrow."
     "I understand... what would you like to do instead?"
     Matthew shifted in his seat. His usual response would be
that he didn't know, which meant the boy had only been expressing
his feelings, however tonight was so morbidly different that Mike
was not surprised to hear him answer the question.
     "I want to leave."
     "Where do you want to go?"
     "Far away."
     "But we can't leave Christy!" Ket protested. Mike held her
next to his shoulder.
     "Maybe that's exactly why we should go," Mike wondered.
"...to give us time to get used to her being gone... to learn to
live without her."
     Ket bit her lip. Mike hoped she would someday understand,
but Matthew hung his head as though he knew what his father
meant.
     "I'll tell you what. Tomorrow I'll arrange for some plane
tickets so we can go camping like we used to. How do the Sequoias
sound?"
     Normally the children would have jumped in reply, excited
and full of energy and anticipation -- Christine would already
have begun to think about what she would pack. However Christine
was not there, and Matthew and Keturah could only mumble their
responses.


     After the Children had finally drifted off to sleep, Mike
did not want to wake them just yet by his moving to the front of
the car. He wondered what might happen if Christine came home,
and they all had a good laugh about this. However, Mike was a
father and told himself to accept that Christine was buried and
not to be silly.
     She was never coming back.
     The rain had let up for a moment, and the moon was slightly
visible in the night sky. Mike thought for a moment he heard a
cry, the shrill voice of a coyote breaking freshly out after the
rain to howl at the moon -- a voice that seemed to cry with Mike.
Mike couldn't seem to stop himself, he let the tear drip from his
face.
     Almost in the back of his mind he could hear Terra's voice
calling his name in that coyote's cry. "Michael... Michael..."
she seemed to be pleading. Although the words themselves meant
little, they spoke love.
     "Christine..." Mike muttered. "Christine... Why?"
     Why did she have to die on him too? Why did those monsters
have to pick them out of any other family in Utah?
     "Why?..." the whispering voice echoed, quiet as the breeze.

                          *     *     *

     The tour guide showed them the rolling mountains as he drove
them along the twisting road that led to the forest. Once gaining
the top, they passed the entrance, visitor's center, and all the
central attractions of the park, finally fanning out to the
sparser areas where the campgrounds were. They continued past
these to a place where the rocks became jagged, the hillsides
steep, and the cliffs taller and closer together. Here is where
they had chosen to make their camp. They were away from all the
crowds -- out where they would be alone, and all would be
relatively quiet.
     "The only thing going on out here is that they're trying to
clean up a few rock slides. There have been a few tremors and
stuff.." The guide was explaining.
     Mike, in the front seat, listened with seemingly half an
ear. He was still thinking about Christine, just as Matt and
probably were. Young Matthew sat, thinking about how dull it
would be at a softball match in the backyard without Christine to
be the crowd that cheered him on. Keturah stared out the window
into the night, wondering if she and Christine might have gone
hiking together if Christine were still there. Lastly, Mike was
thinking about that graduation present he'd been saving up to get
Christine, and about the fact that there would no longer be the
need to write checks to her at the dorm.
     Mike silently cursed the beings that had seen fit to mail
his daughter to death. Curse them! First they took his wife, now
Christine -- the two most important women in his life. Those
monsters... those so-called gargoyles... why did they have to
come back into his life again?
     The tour guide noticed how distracted they all were, but
decided it might be best to keep talking so that they didn't get
the feeling he was giving them a cold shoulder. The Forest
Service 4X4 had a very long cab, and so Matt and Ket sat in the
back seat, quiet as the night itself.
     As they turned off the main road into the campsite they had
chosen, the guide brought the truck to rest and shut if off --
almost instantly frozen into the night by the onrush of the
darkness of the night to fill the places where the light had
been. Here the overhead canopy of leaves made by the trees was
thick, and no light made it through. Trees competed for the
little sunlight by growing taller and taller until their roots
were thin fibers jutting out from the ground. No stars nor moon
shown here, the air was thick with mist, and the darkness so
thick that you could rub it between your fingers as though the
forest were a cave.
     The remnants of the Shelton family filed out of the vehicle.
Mike pulled a few things out of the back of the truck, as he and
Ket began to go through them. Matthew sat down on the thick matte
of soggy mush made of dirt, twigs, bark shavings, and old leaves
on the forest floor, peeled off his shoes and socks, and left
them by the truck. He began to wander around the campsite for a
few moments, taking in the lay of the area.
     "Don't wander too far, Matt!" Mike called to him.
     "Yeah dad." he replied.

     Matthew bounded through the hilly region around their
campsite, exploring the rocks, bushes, and the trees. There was a
moment when Matthew felt the hair on the back of his neck rise,
and stopped -- almost as if he could feel eyes watching him
closely. He paused in his path through the trail in the bushes.
     Something rustled momentarily in the bushes, and stopped
suddenly when Matthew turned to see it. Whatever it was, it was
dark and blended in well with the shadows.

     THERE! In the shadows of the leaves of the bushes were two
large, glowing red cat-eyes...

     Matthew felt frozen, terrified! His blood suddenly froze,
and he felt sweat break out on his face. He drew in a breath in
terror...

     The eyes suddenly vanished, and a scrambling noise was
heard. There was a hint of a glinting motion as it raced up one
of the trees, followed by the snap of leather and a rush of air
against Matthew's face. He looked about him cautiously.
     Nothing to be seen.
     Matthew sighed -- filled momentarily with a simmering rush
of desire -- wishing he could follow whatever it was. Having had
enough adventure for one night, he continued back to camp.



     Her pulse was racing when she returned to her roost -- she
had been seen! Her mentor would not be pleased. She hoped the
young human would just forget her as a night animal, and not
think to look for her.



     After the sun rose, it was much easier for Matthew to search
for the mysterious night-phantom. Unfortunately, he found
nothing. He even looked for prints of the thing he had seen in
the mud and twigs of the clump of bushed from that night. He once
found a three-toed print the size of his hand that he wanted to
show to Mike and Ket, but something had happened. He'd heard an
owl fluttering over, and he was so entranced by the late roosting
night bird, that he forgot about the print for a moment. When the
owl was gone, Matthew remembered and looked back, but the print
was gone.
     So the days went by, and Matthew found himself constantly
reminded by the fact that Christine wasn't there. Every day
Matthew returned to the spot where he had seen the mysterious
eyes and footprint in the mud. He became puzzled... could it be
even his own tracks were disappearing as the days went by? Could
something be obscuring Matthew's tracks...
     ...or their own?



     She had been out late that night. Morning was nigh, and she
was presently very aware of the need for her to return. She had
allowed herself to become occupied hunting her animal after
loosing it so many times, and her stomach had caused her to
forgot the time.
     All her instincts were telling her that it was coming soon
to the time that the sun would rise, and then it would begin. She
strained her arms and wings, trying to catch updates and breezes
between the trees, but there was very little wind under the
canopy tonight, and she panicked, misjudging and miscalculating.
     Then is began -- the first ray of light touched these hills.
She had to get down, now! Quickly she alighted upon a rock
slide -- surely the rocks would provide her some defense if they
did not move. In any case, there was no time!
     Like a growing ice crystal, she felt it come. From her
insides out, her flesh solidified into stone. Her stricken
expression remained frozen as the first light of day encroached
the eastern rim of the world to the east.
     This was her heritage and her curse, being born a gargoyle.


     Just after dawn, Matthew climbed out of the tent before Mike
and Ket were awake, and decide to go for a walk on his own again.
He went walking along the top of one of the cliffs, just to watch
the morning light grow. There was a moist fog in the air, hanging
in between the trees.
     There was a pleasant view of a valley from here. Below him
was a slide of rocks -- hundreds of feet high in some places.
Here and there were spots of lichen and moss. No trees could take
root here except the old ones that were stronger than the rocks
before the rocks slid against it, so there were shafts of
sunlight in the mist, making little pool of sunlight on the
rocks. It was like an odd assortment of wooden blocks of a
thousand shapes and sized, just thrown down a high embankment.
     Matthew sighed. The fog continued grew thick, and he
couldn't see the valley below any more. All he could see were the
rocks now. He began to explore them, climbing around on this
enormous jungle-gym, careful to avoid the large drops.
     There was nothing really wonderful here to look at... all
grew and beige... except that one over there...
     That odd rock suddenly caught Matthew's attention -- a
definite break from the sameness of the assorted boulders around
him. There, carefully hidden among the boulders was a large stone
atop another of a deep grey, and almost blue shade. Matthew felt
strangely drawn to it... intrigued and fascinated.
     It was no ordinary piece of stone shale! It was a statue of
a little girl! she was crouched down, hiding on the rock face,
with an expression of horror toward the east. Her hands and feet
had three large, sharp talons on each, with a jagged edged thumb
on each hand and a sharply pointed fetlock on each heel. She had
small horns growing from either side of her brow, and her hair
appeared to be frozen in large, uncut waves that seemed to have
seldom ever seen brushing. There was a filament of stone filling
out like wings between her arms and the sides of her body, with a
single thickening ridge running along it's center. Lastly,
Matthew wondered at the long tail that attached at the base of
her back, running along the stone, and hanging down over the edge
of the rock face.
     Matthew admired the stone figure for many long moments... it
was his size... and there was something magical and wonderful
about her he simply couldn't name... something beautiful...

     A gunshot rang out across the forest.

     Birds and crows in the early morning air had taken to
flight, and were calling in the distance, as the echoes of the
gunshot died away.
     Matthew blinked. Weren't guns illegal here? It didn't
matter, no doubt the forest rangers would catch the shooter.
Matthew didn't worry about it.
     Turning back to the stone statue, he realized that there was
still a sound in the air... a dull rumble growing in the rocks
beneath his feet. Matthew began to be pelted by pebbles and small
debris rolling down the side of the mountain. There was a large
cracking sound, followed by more pebbles. Suddenly alarmed, he
looked up.
     A large boulder had been jarred loose, and was grinding
across the smaller rocks like they were ball bearing, coming this
way!
     Matthew instantly reacted, jumping up, about to bound out of
harm's way, when he suddenly remembered the stone figure he had
found. It might be crushed! Matthew looked around with
desperation. No one in sight! With no time to think about it, he
raced over and threw his arms around the stone statue and heaved
with all the strength he possessed.
     The stone remained solidly against the rock face.
     The boulder crashed against the rocks just above his head.
     Matthew tried once again with no result. HE HAD TO MOVE NOW!
Matthew heaved again sideways, when the adrenaline rush hit him.
It was just enough. Once slid off the rock face, the boulder hit
the rock face where they had just been, splitting it.
     However, Matthew couldn't hold the massive weight of the
quarter-ton statue, slipped on some small stones under his feet,
full against the rock, winding up with the statue atop his chest.
Something gave way underneath him, and he found the weight of the
stone figure pushing him down the slide. Matthew cried out, it
was pushing into his chest, breaking his ribs, pressing against
his heart! Struggling with all his might, Matthew wrestled the
stone figure from crushing into his chest like he were a mere
cushion, and it gently rolled off onto another, more secure rock
face. With tears of blood stinging his eyes, Matthew moved away
from the stone girl, but why couldn't his feet find the stone
beneath him?...
     Matthew unknowingly stepped off the edge of on of a dozen
cliff faces, and plummeted down the eighty one foot drop that
awaited him. He screamed once again, in terror -- a sound lost in
the morning air to the cry of the eagle soaring overhead.




     Mike's fury made his eyes flame. When the ranchers could not
find his boy that night, the police were brought in the following
morning. There had been no witnesses. Young Matthew had only
stepped out of bed early in the morning, and something had
happened to him. The police found what they thought was a well
hidden blood mark beneath an eighty-foot stone terrace on a
nearby hillside -- only hours old. When Mike found the site, he
found something far more important. Atop that drop were small
shards of bluestone.
     Mike's fists clenched. Those monsters again! Mike ground the
pieces of stone under the heel of his boot. THOSE CREATURES HAD
KILLED HIS ONLY SON! THOSE MONSTERS HAD TAKEN EVERYTHING FROM
HIM! THEY WOULD PAY FOR THIS! HE WOULD GO OUT AND HUNT EVERY LAST
ONE OF THEM DOWN! His wife, his oldest daughter, and now his only
son. Those GARGOYLES would pay for what they had done, if it was
the last thing Michael Erasmus Shelton ever did!


     This left Keturah, the youngest, to wait for hours in the
back of the squad car with only her tears as comfort.



                                        Dasha Ariel DeMeredith



     (An excerpt from the fourth chapter of the Disney's
Gargoyles fan-novel "The Phantom of the Night".)