Acolyte

Leslie awoke to a frosty yurt. The Allmother had given him a rather healthy dram of sleepy juice and he had slept well past sunrise. By all accounts, he should have been hungover. He had put down a rather prodigious amount of beer and brown liquor in his parlay with the Vikings, but whatever mix of chemicals the Allmother had dosed him with seemed to be settling up with the piper on his account.

He actually felt surprisingly good, both physically and mentally. It was a crisp bright morning, and he had some business to take care of. He had slept, like the Allmother had dictated, and now he was to see Mr. Drake. He didn’t rush out and jump directly into this task, but spent some time rekindling his fire and warming up his truck.

While he was out of doors, he took a second to do a reality check in his yard to verify whether he had hallucinated his experience last night or not. The snow and wind had done their best to obfuscate the evidence of the Allmother, but a little bit of digging had revealed some blood in the snow from the owl, so at least that part was real.

Whether he was under orders from the Allmother or not, checking in on Mr. Drake would be the neighborly thing to do, so either way he would head up to the old man’s property. He spent a couple of minutes filling his thermos with coffee and double checking his fire, and headed out.

A brief drive of about five minutes brought him to Mr. Dake’s property. He was surprised to find him sitting on the porch apparently waiting for him. Leslie gave a two fingered wave while gripping the steering wheel as he pulled in. Mr. Drake must not have seen him, because he gave no response. The old man couldn’t see him because he was wearing some kind of strange hat. It looked a bit like a flower pot. Definitely ceramic of some kind, and kind of off white in color.

Leslie got out of his truck and voiced a pretty standard greeting. Again, no response. Maybe he couldn’t hear as well because of this bold fashion choice? Leslie made his way to the porch and noticed a note pinned to the old man’s jacket.

Hey Les,

Don’t freak out, I’m probably not dead. If I am, consider this my last will and testament. The house and all my shit is yours now. We’ll deal with the body later. I’m most likely inside.

-Fin.

P.s. don’t look under the hat.

Leslie read the note three times. It was pretty clear about not freaking out, but the tingling numbness of panic was starting to wash over him. Mr. Drake was not breathing, and upon further inspection his pulse was absent. His body was ice cold. He was dead as a doornail. Leslie slid further into panic and decided to disregard the post script of the note. He removed the flower pot looking hat, and began to scream at the top of his lungs.

Under the hat, the top of Mr. Drake’s head had been removed and where the brain should have been, there was only empty space. There was no blood, and the whole thing looked rather neat and surgical. Everything that made Mr. Drake who he was had been carved out with what amounted to a melon baller.

This man had taught Leslie how to drive standard when he showed a passing interest in the technology. He had let him squat on his property off and on over the years. He had been a father figure to him when everybody else had written him off. This man’s obsessive knowledge of ancient video game lore was lost to history. His countless half finished projects would remain so for eternity. Granted, that was the case for a lot of them, but still. He loved this man and now he was reduced to merely a corpse. The space where his soul resided, the dark cave of the skull was exposed to the harsh light and frigid winter morning air.

Leslie began to weep. Before last night, he hadn’t actually cried in about a decade. Now, he seemed to be making up for lost time. Sobs racked his body, and he blubbered forth tears and snot in equal measure. He cried until his throat ached and his spit tasted like old pennies.

“Fuck, that you Les?” Leslie heard from inside the house.

A moment of confusion replaced the gut wrenching sobs that he had been busy executing. He had been kneeling before the body of Mr. Drake, but stood up and had a look around. He had been seeing and hearing a number of things that may or may not have been completely real lately, so hearing Mr. Drake from beyond the grave was not completely out of the question.

“Mr. Drake?” He asked the universe.

“Yeah. In here Les,” the voice answered, “The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

Leslie gave a befuddled frown and went for the door. The voice that summoned him certainly sounded like Mr. Drake, maybe a bit tinny, but it was tough to tell from inside the house. He went inside and stomped the snow off of his boots in the ancient tradition of the Vermont entrance.

“I’m up here in the living room,” Mr. Drake continued, “ironically.”

Leslie made his way up the stairs from the mudroom into the house proper. He looked around and saw nobody.

“Sorry you had to see all that Les,” Mr. Drake said from nowhere, “nasty business, but all’s well that ends well.”

Leslie was still trying to pinpoint where Mr. Drake’s voice was coming from, but couldn’t quite figure it out. His voice sounded kind of odd. Like he was speaking from the underside of a tin roof, or perhaps the inside of a coffee can.

“I’m over by the fireplace,” Mr. Drake gave him a little clue.

By the fireplace, Leslie noticed something very out of place. An artifact dropped into Mr. Drake’s living room from the completely wrong century. Leaning against the whitewashed refractory brick behind his fireplace was a rather large broadsword, complete with a handsome crossguard and a plain silver sheath.

“Mr. Drake?” Leslie tried, brow furrowed in stark confusion.

“Yeah, Les,” said Mr. Drake patiently, “I’m a sword now.”

Leslie had a seat on the couch, he was kind of grasping at straws existentially, and it seemed like a decent idea.

“You’re gonna have to forgive me here Mr. Drake,” Leslie said from between the hands that had made their way to his temples, “But what the fuck is going on here exactly?”