Legacy of the Defender (The Defender Series Book 1)

Legacy of the Defender

Jacob Spadt

Legacy of the Defender

©
Copy right 2015

All characters in this book are fictional.  Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead are coincidental.

This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America.  Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the expressed written authorization of Jacob Spadt or authorized representative.

Made in the U.S.A.

Cover art by Abner Hernandez

Edited by Chad Donohue

First Printing August 2015

Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number:

ISBN-13: 978-1514693261

Visit www.legacyofthedefender.com

I dedicate this book to the idealists in the world.

To those who dare to dream

Make your dreams reality

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank:

Kenneth MacGuffin, you started me down the road of gaming.  You have opened my eyes to so many possibilities.  Your guidance has been critical in my spiritual development. 

Thank you, Chris Anderson, for believing in me and supporting me when things got rough.  Your creative ideas inspire me.

Sean Duval, I could not imagine my life without you my friend.  You supported me from the start. It has been an honor to have you in my games.

My cousin Tami Myers for proofing the content of my story and asking questions that made me explain things better.

Jesse Patton.  You inspired me to stand up for myself in all of our adventures as kids.

Adam Raetz.  You shared your stories with me and kindled the fire inside me to put my own ideas finally to paper.  You are missed my friend.

Trevor Carrol, Todd Forsland.  The two of you influenced my ability to come up with great stories in so many ways.  You both shined a light on my life with your creativity.

Shannon Cheek for providing valuable feedback that allowed me to make the story even better.  You asked the right questions to make me think.

Thank you to my gaming groups through the years that gave me the opportunities to be creative and dove into my story lines.

My editor and sound board Chad Donohue.  You are not last on this list by far but joined my creative team last.  Your concepts and ideas changed the way I approached writing.  Like any good coach or mentor, you made me so frustrated and appreciate you even more when I got over myself.  Because you questioned everything, you made me a better writer.

Abner Hernandez, you made my visual images such a reality.

Lastly, but in no way the least…

Deanna Fallon, you inspired me to finish my journey.  My life will never be the same.  Thank you for being my muse, for without you, I would never have finished.

Prologue

"How did you become a Defender?" 

I panned the clearing.  Many sets of eyes sat transfixed and hanging on my every word.  It was an honest question, which no one ever asked before.  The world knew the existence of someone, or something, like me had turned the tide when it mattered most.

Where to begin?  My mind drifted back.  To answer this question, I had to go back to what defined me as a child.

My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Styles, one day asked the class what we wanted to be when we grew up.  I lived in a small town called Snohomish where nothing very exciting ever happened.  Some of the boys said they wanted to be police officers, others said doctors or firemen.  A few of the girls said they wanted to be ballerinas, which made the boys laugh.  I said nothing.  The teacher responded to all the students as they gleefully spoke of a positive future they openly hoped was in store for them.

The teacher noticed my silence.

“Dieter, how about you?”

She pressed me for an answer, but I did not respond.  There was a feeling inside me that I could not explain.  Words escaped me.  The class was starting to whisper and point fingers at me for being weird.  I did not mind.  My mind probed my depths for the answer that eluded me.  Outside, the proverbial dark cloud had settled over the school.  Leaves blew across the playground grass.  We could see the wind in the trees outside the window.  A storm was coming.  A storm was always coming.

"Dieter Gutermuth you will answer my question,” she repeated as the other kids began to laugh at the mention of my last name.  They played on the words saying gutter mouth for several moments.  “Dieter, what do you want to be when you grow up?  There must be something that sounds interesting to you."

The answer finally found my tongue.  Silence hung like smoke in the room.

"Alive,” I said. 

Part I

I

Sasquatch

Why me?  That is a good question.

I had no way of knowing that my life would lead me down a dark path beyond my wildest dreams.  My fate was to become a Defender.  No one knew what a Defender was, or of their existence.  There were no myths or rumors surrounding it.  No fairy tales told to small children or recorded accounts passed down by word of mouth by the Bards of old.  

Certain people know certain things in life.  Sometimes in a church or a government there are secrets guarded with the pain of death if they ever come to light.  There was no secret military program.  No school or training camp that you could sign up for to see if you had the mettle to be all you could be. 

Sometimes people go through life convinced that aliens abducted them.  They tell the story in a way that makes you certain they cannot be lying.  You know they are.  They have to be because it is too outrageous to believe; but they are not.

So much has changed.  For the person that stands face to face with a creature of myth, a Sasquatch, knowing what they saw…reality is a hard pill to swallow.  Often it is a slap in the face.  Back then, people would laugh at someone and say, "Yah right!"  All those people are crazy, completely nuts.  Nevertheless, some of them are telling the truth.

Now, to answer the question of how they chose me to become a Defender, I was compassionate to a Sasquatch.

Jason Patterson, my close friend, would not admit what we saw until much later.  He claimed it was hallucinations for many years to come, but he knew the truth.  I was on one of my time outs from the “dungeon” – my
room
as my mother referred to it – and found myself at his house.  After a brief negotiation, the lake came to mind, and we were off.  Neither of us imagined the events of that day or where they would take us.  Several hours away from home always did my existence, however meager, some good.

The day had been a blast.  We met two girls at the lake.  One girl named Sandra and I looked at each other nonstop, and somehow my confidence allowed me to kiss her.  Not knowing what had come over me, I went with it.  In my younger years, I used to think girls fixated on kissing.  As a fascinated boy, I remember hearing them discuss it.  Experiencing it was mind blowing.  I was floating.

That afternoon we all went swimming, and the fun continued.  Nothing went past playful kisses, and a few that lingered.  Our comfort with each other grew steadily.  I was really into Sandra and Jason was into the other girl, although her name slips my mind due to what I had been doing most of that day.  A good portion of the day passed. Plans to meet formed as the light faded.  The grin I wore must have compared to what was plastered all over Jason’s face.  A silly grin.

The trip home was cloud nine.  It was the first time a girl had shown real interest in me.  I was not a jock or a great looking guy, and to say average looking was amongst the least of my qualities.  She saw something in me she liked, and I saw many things in her that I liked, and everything felt good.  The kids at school the following year would be surprised if the mystery of a girl I met over the summer clouded my return.  A smile tattooed itself on my face permanently.  The dark cloud ceased its downpour on my life.  I felt the warmth of the sun at that moment, even in the dark.

As we rode home, a somber silence hung gently about both of us.  Inner conversations and sweet remembrances gave way to the recognition that the light had faded to the ambient glow of the moon growing in its luminance by the moment.  We took the long way home because we escorted the ladies most of the way to their houses.

Usually, there was a bit more of a twilight effect, because one's vision had to re-adjust as the setting sun’s rays became more powerful due to the mountains shearing them off like jagged teeth.  There was a pause; an inhale, before the moon would appear as a beacon.  That night, not only was it brighter than usual, but it continued to get even lighter.  Had it been any less, we might have missed an event that changed us forever.  My thoughts turned as we progressed towards Jason’s house.  Growing up, I heard stories and rumors about Sasquatch, more commonly known as Bigfoot.  The tales had been that they attacked people way out in the logging camps clearing the forest.  Sometimes there were stories, almost like old wives tales, that would circulate through town.  My step father had told me once that they were responsible for taking large tires from worksites; tires that weighed over a ton.  That very concept scared the hell out of me, but their existence fascinated me.

Occasionally, television shows talked about strange things that go bump in the night.  With luck, I would find one about the Sasquatch.  The accounts ranged from what people saw to how they smelled; often the odor of rotten eggs.  On one show, a guy spoke to some reporters on the back deck of his home.  He was explaining a noise he had heard coming from the woods on more than one occasion.  Suddenly, off in the woods, came a strange jabbering sound.  The man stated that this was the Sasquatch communicating.  This reverberation sent chills down my spine because it sounded guttural…if you knew what
guttural
sounded like, that is.  Nothing in my life compared to those sounds. 

The memory of sitting in front of the television, and the fear rolling over me, gave me goose bumps.  That night the fear followed the sensation of eyes peaking in at me.  I remembered turning the lights out and becoming the hunter as I looked outside and watched.  The eerie feeling soon passed, but never forgotten and, on occasion, it revisited.

Another story a friend of mine heard involved a local sheriff who hunted.  He saw what appeared to be a large rotten stump dark brown or blackish blend of colors.  Upon bending down and touching it, the peculiar shape and size became apparent.  It crumbled in his fingers and broke apart, not like a rotting stump.  It was no stump!  It was dung.  He could see rivulets where the urine ran down away from the pile.  Animals did not return to one place to defecate or urinate.  Fear hit him, and he looked up and froze.  Thirty feet from him, crouching beneath a branch was a Sasquatch.  It stared at him with darkened eyes.  The bough hunched beneath stood seven or eight feet high, and the creature crouched under it; its head touched the bough above it.  Their eyes locked. 

The sheriff sat there frozen, unable to move.  Even with a rifle and camera on hand, he was unable to act.  Fear took hold of him.  I imagine it was much like a deer in headlights, he was surprised and flatfooted.  The Sasquatch left after about five minutes leaving the sheriff paralyzed with fear for a half an hour.  Upon returning to camp, he asked a few of the loggers about it.  They denied nothing.

The loggers said it was no big deal to see a Bigfoot.  The company they worked for told them to hold their silence.  Speaking of it was bad for any and all’s health that were involved as they usually turned up dead.  Cut break lines coming down a mountain bought a lot of silence.  In short, they lived with the fact that their workplace was hostile on both sides from the environment and the company.

As we rode, my thoughts turned again to the sound of the Sasquatch speaking.  To this day, I remember that sound as if it was yesterday.  A lolling sound repeatedly vocalized with different pitches like words on an untrained tongue.  It was both beautiful and scary.  Anyone hearing that would be both mystified and probably scared, as was I the day of the show.  This thought was actually on my mind when I saw one standing downhill from us as we approached on our bikes.  It stepped onto the road at least one hundred yards away, illuminated by the moon is such a way there was no question what it was.

The creature stood at
least
eight feet tall.  No exaggerating because it stood next to a sign posted on the side of the road.  Jason referred to it jokingly as a real life Wookie, but the broadness of its shoulders dwarfed even that image.  I was transfixed on it, almost paralyzed, that the reference did not even catch at first.  My mind simply could not believe what I saw.  Wrapped with long, dark fur covering a powerful frame walked this creature of legend.  The head was conical shaped with human but dark features.  Fur ran along its face but did not fully cover all of its features.  Lines of the face were still distinguishable, much like a human would be.  It was amazing. 

I paused in my thoughts for a fraction of a second as this vision unfolded.  Its long stride took it halfway into the lane as we were rolling towards as it.  As we neared the creature, we noticed the detail was magnificent.  In those few moments, I found it strange that the Sasquatch did not hear the approaching car or notice us until it was almost too late. 

It all happened so fast...

“Look out!”  I yelled towards the beast, not considering its linguistic skills. 

It was weird; there I was, seeing a being that had eluded capture for God knows how long, and all I could think about was its safety.  Stopping on the road, it turned its head.  Maybe I should not have yelled because the creature paused to look.  The oncoming car swerved.  Without my warning, the beast might have cleared the road.  The car missed the creature; Jason and I were thirty or so feet from it in the other lane going with traffic.  That was the last thing I had remembered before the pain hit. 

The car struck both of us.  The impact threw me about forty feet backwards and knocked me out cold.  When I talked to the doctors, they let me read the police report that described the missing pieces of the puzzle.  It did fill in some holes, yet part of me felt as if I had already seen it from afar.  I somehow recalled poor Jason’s plight.  He was not so fortunate.  His bike folded around the front of the car, and there he stayed while the driver lost control of the vehicle.  Flying off the road the car rolled over, taking Jason, the new hood ornament, with it.  How he managed to end up under it is still a mystery. 

When my eyes opened, what I saw was even more amazing, our new friend was helping Jason.  It gently lifted the car with ease as if made out of paper.  The stories of humans being able to lift cars off someone did not compare to what I saw.  I had always imagined the great effort involved.  There was no noise, not even a grunt or groan besides the creaking of metal, falling glass and the ringing in my head. 

Jason does not remember anything.  The accident knocked him out.  The driver died instantly when the vehicle rolled because part of a tree came through the windshield and impaled his face.  I was the only witness to this heroic event by a fabled creature.  Bigfoot carried Jason over to me, who was unconscious, setting him down next to me.  My body was propped against a tree with my bike folded around me.  With ease, he removed the bike folded around me and straightened out my broken femur.  Things began to go blurry from my cracked melon. 

I looked at it rather curiously.  It felt like a gift.  Moisture ran down my cheeks onto my shirt.  The large furry beast seemed to melt away before my eyes.  There were many lights flashing.  I could hear cars stopping and then there were people.  Those first arrivals probably never thought twice about the story that I was rambling about, other than the fact that a car hit two boys.  I did not know this until much later.

Trauma does funny things to your body, especially head.  Medical personnel could not stop the internal bleeding or the severe swelling that led to my coma.  Miraculously it stopped on its own.  They said Jason was the lucky one even though he had a car sitting on him for only a few seconds, crushing the life out of him.  No one knew this fact, and I sure did not move it with a compound fracture.  I always wondered what one of those was.  Your curiosity wavers when you are looking at your bone poking through your skin, and it is looking back at you for the first time.  That image stapled itself to that moment in time.

My rambling was brief. 

The Tullenbrooks seemed like nice people if memory serves.  Silence should have been golden.  I really hated that I told them what happened in retrospect.  With the pressure forming behind my eyes and the redness appearing, my lips moved on their own.  That is all I could see for a blood vessel had burst in my head and came out my eyes, nose and ears.  I tried to get all the words out because it was obvious something was wrong and time was short.  My slurred speech sounded like English to me.  To others, it might have sounded like gibberish and incoherent words.  Much of the story was most likely lost in translation.

In hindsight, they probably did not understand a word I said.

The young couple was busy trying to calm me down.  My words made no sense I am sure.  The sight of me covered in blood must have been a bit much.  I do not know when my eyelids went heavy for the last time, and the blackness came.  Apparently the paramedics pronounced me dead when they arrived on the scene much later, then suddenly detected a faint heartbeat.  I hovered near death for a long time but remained technically alive. 

In sleep, I traveled.

*     *     *

I spiraled into a dark fog. 

The sense of falling was present but felt more like floating on a tube in a river.  My mind turned in all directions, and a gentle breeze caressed my face.  Faint images greeted me at first, but little by little became clear.  It made no sense why I could see everything all around me, but none of it was in focus.  I heard once or twice when you pass out…you are out.  If you were lucky, you would dream about something cryptic and wonder for the rest of your days what it meant.  I probably would have taken the opportunity, had the chance been available.  Moments turned in to minutes; minutes turned into longer still.  Ghostly images formed all around me, and yet I could not tell if I was asleep or awake.