Keebler had had enough. Patrick was in the corner attempting to play darts, but only succeeding at making holes in the tavern wall. Margaret was sipping on her tall ale that she stole from behind the counter when the bartender was distracted. They had traveled with him across the Belegaer Sea and were the best friends that he had. But they were still elves. They reminded him of his life at home, sitting at his desk in Chemical Fudge Analysis, learning how to perform a Fourier Transform. Supposedly, the transform could be used to filter bitterness out of the fudge, but they had only performed simulations. That is, whenever Dr. Debbie wasn't droning on through notes about Chebyshev something or another. Not to say that cookie making was all bad, but Keebler had no real experience. He only ate two cookies in his life, but that's a story for later. Now was time for adventure. Ever since he turned two hundred years old, he longed to travel into the wild by himself and discover what it meant to truly live. Sitting across the table from him, a dwarf whispered of a lone cabin in the wilderness. It sounded perfect: a place miles from any civilization, somewhere he could truly be alone. In a matter of minutes it was settled. He swung his pack, filled only with a few pounds of rice and a container of spice, over his shoulder and quietly slipped out the door.
Keebler headed due South. Initially, the going was easy. The ground was flat and even after dark the sunflowers lit his path through the meadow. However, it wasn't long until he was trudging uphill in the black of night. On his right, he saw a gnarled tree. Its leafless branches juxtaposed the boughs of the others. It left him with a sickening feeling in his stomach, but he pressed on. Soon, he found a clump of three trees and decided to make camp for the night. He pulled the spice jar out of his bag to make dinner, but he realized was too tired to cook, so the little elf swept up pine needles to form a bed, curled up, and was quickly asleep.
As an elf, Keebler had an astute sense of hearing. Had he been paying attention, he would have noticed a cacophony of screeches, occasionally broken up by the last screams of tortured men. Yet, Keebler's thoughts were only on the little house in the woods and the freedom of finally being alone.
The screeching gradually became louder and louder, but Keebler was in a dreamless sleep. He would soon awake inside a nightmare. The vampire bats surrounded him. Nearly two thousand in number, the trees would have appeared black instead green in the light. All at once they enveloped him, claws grabbing every hold on his body. The bats lifted him off the ground and began to carry him away. Despite his thrashing, there was nothing that Keebler could do. After about five minutes Keebler saw a building in the distance. Alit by strikes of lightning, he could see monsters who looked like pieced together men with their heads held in place by pins through the neck. The building looked like it used to be a great place of science. Now, it was a decrepit laboratory of an evil genius.
Keebler knew he had to escape now or never. In a flash he yanked off the lid of the spice jar that was still in his hands and tossed the spice into the fray of bats. Instantly immobilized by the garlic powder in the spice, the vampire bats dropped Keebler to the ground. He sprinted away to the Southwest and kept running until dawn when he finally stopped to eat some flavorless rice.
After his meal, Keebler continued South. This time, he was paying attention and heard shouting in the distance. It was a group of penguins who were arguing about which color of rocks should line their nests. One group liked blue, the other wanted red. Keebler just shook his head and left the angry birds to their quarrel.
Two hours later, he was finally there. He opened the door to the cabin in the woods and sat down. He ate all three bowls of porridge that someone had graciously laid out for him. Now full, he trotted upstairs and laid down in the smallest of
three beds. Overcome by postprandial somnolence, Keebler quickly fell asleep.
Author's Note:
This story takes place in the
Map of the Area Surrounding our Holiday Home by Tom Gauld. Keebler travels South in the middle of the map, encountering a spooky tree, vampire bats, an abandoned laboratory, and angry birds before he arrives at the cabin. Keebler is a character I invented for a game of
Dungeons and Dragons (I must admit). I tossed elements from other stories including
The Lord of the Rings,
Frankenstein,
Into the Wild, and
Goldilocks into his world.
