Story 2

Keith Allen

Could it be that we are witness to the end of a legend of Norse mythology? The last victim of the atomic age? Who knows? That is Keith Allen's The Last Troll Boy.

The Last Troll Boy was written in just seven days as a part of the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge and, outside of minor edits, it is exactly as it was submitted. I am honored to be a judge for the competition these days, and I would suggest this competition to all new and seasoned writers, as it really helps flex your creative muscle. -- Keith Allen

Keith Allen is a 36-year-old, sleep-deprived father of two as of just three weeks ago. He has had his work published in Typehouse Literary Magazine and will have a self-published book out soon based on the adventures of a group of Dungeons and Dragons players. He has a B.A. in Creative Writing from Knox College.

The Last Troll Boy

By Keith Allen

Once upon a time, there was a troll boy named Robin who lived in a cave in a vast crater called Barren Cradle. Barren Cradle had not always been called this, but had been given the name by its inhabitants after the humans had dropped “The Great Accord,” a dirty bomb that had erased the trolls' memories of what they'd been, and made it so trolls could no longer be born.

Except for Robin, the lone miracle child who had been born post-bomb and quickly become frustrated with being cooped up in Barren Cradle.

Robin yearned to scale the wall and bask in the sun, free to play in the lands above, beyond the lip of the crater that contained all he had ever seen. But on this day, like every day that had ever come before, Robin was forced by his parents, and the rules whose purpose had been long forgotten, to stay below and cower in fear. But by that night, the night of his 8th birthday, Robin had made up his mind.

“I'm old enough now,” Robin informed his mother, though he thought she would hardly hear it with her ears the size of little mushrooms rather than round saucers like his own. She must not have heard him, in fact, because she beamed down at him and patted his head.

“Sweet little troll boy,” she cooed. “We'll keep ya safe, perfect child.”

And maybe he was perfect, he really didn't know. But he knew he'd been born after the humans attacked and left them all like this: hideous and broken and afraid of things they had forgotten. With pointy noses and rounded teeth, not to mention their soft, wavy hair that stuck to their scalps like useless helmets. Robin's nose was bulbous and his teeth sharp. His hair was coarse and scratchy, shooting straight out from the back of his head, like the branches of a tree.

Even his name was different, less cumbersome than Og'chan or Drarunil or Dezdu, though the very sound of his mother calling “Rooooobiiiiin” from the mouth of their cave set his ears ringing. It sounded almost human, but he guessed his parents, who were undoubtedly older, knew best.

He stamped a foot and pointed out the window at the ledge atop Barren Cradle, angry his mother had succeeded so thoroughly in distracting him. “I'm going and there's nothing you can do.”

“Ya won't get far,” said his father from the other room with a muddy cough. “Asides, ain't nothin' out there but big, fat nothin'.” He scratched his hideous pointy nose as he used his free hand to clear the seat of a boulder he had used as a chair since well before Robin was born. Robin stifled a giggle as his father sat, with emphasis, and was nearly swallowed by the chair. He looked ridiculous, like a shriveled pear still lying in the depression it had made when it had fallen to the ground full grown.

“Nothin' lasts out there, not you a-specially.” Robin's father snorted and leaned sideways to look over his rock collection, where he would surely be until the sun rose, stacking them by size, shape, and color. He raised a finger without looking up. “Troll rule number one.”

Robin shrugged, unsure why his father was his father in the first place, if he were being honest. They didn't look alike, or act alike, and Robin knew he wanted more than a rock collection and to shrivel inside a much larger imprint of his bum.

He went for the door, but was stopped short by his mother's sigh of disapproval.

“Nothin' lasts out there,” she insisted in her hideously high-pitched voice. “Not trolls, leastwise.” Concern riddled her face, but Robin was determined, so he tore his arm away with trollish strength and effortlessly pulled open the oaken door.

“'Let 'im go,” his father mumbled, stacking a rock with satisfaction and waving for Robin's mother to come sit by his side. “Won't get far. Harmless.”

She joined him and that's where they would be until the end of time, far as Robin was concerned. As he left he heard his mother recite words that had been written in stone long before Robin had been born in a place named Barren Cradle: “Beware the light! It will stop you cold in your tracks.”

But the words were lost on Robin, the last troll boy of Barren Cradle.

###

Robin had never attempted to climb the sheer wall at the edge of their crater, but he'd imagined it many times. The long-dead roots of trees and other shrubbery hung from the packed dirt and gravel that made the walls of Barren Cradle. While racing ants through the crevices in the rock floor of his family's cave, Robin had imagined reaching up, feeling the dry roots rub against his palms as he rose from this dark place, a new creature from the ashes left behind by The Great Accord.

It must be that easy, Robin resolved as he stood at the bottom looking up. Despite his optimism, he could feel himself sinking into the dirt. Morphing into his father, a dim-witted, obsolete creature rooted in this place like some massive tree. So little grew down here anymore, and trolls were creatures who thrived as their environment thrived; and they just as easily died as the land upon which they had taken root died.

Up above some creature howled, in love or in agony it mattered not, because either way the sound was full of life. Robin, near breathless, strode forth and reached for the end of a dead root, closing his eyes and hoping with every muscle in his body that he had the strength to pull himself up and out of this place.

Robin pulled. Felt his feet rise from the dirt. One inch off the ground, then two, then three, and not even a cramp in his arm!

Robin was reaching for the next decrepit handhold when he heard a thick SNAP! right next to his ear. And even faster than he'd climbed, three inches, two, one –- he fell flat on his back on the ground.

Robin sat upright and looked at the wobbly thing that had come undone, the fragile root from which his dream of escape had hung. His heart leaped into his throat and caught there, tears stinging his eyes. But Robin was nothing if not a persistent troll, so he stood and simply moved his body half-a-foot to the right and reached up to try again.

This time, he was able to reach up to the next root and rise a whole foot-and-a-half from the floor of Barren Cradle, but the end result was the same.

His back and pride bruised, he rose and tried again.

Some of the deformed trolls of Barren Cradle stopped and watched him with mild amusement, like his nosy neighbor Unjari who stood there and giggled for what seemed like hours, but still he kept at it until he could no longer feel his legs from all the falls.

A hundred times he had tried, and a hundred times he had failed. It had taken a good part of the night to get exactly nowhere.

Barely able to stand, he gathered up a hundred snapped roots into his hands and squeezed until he was sure they were broken, then he pressed them to his warty chin and cried.

And would have kept crying, but his stomach grumbled insistently so he plucked the heads off a patch of dandelions nearby and chewed them thoughtfully as he sniffled. When he'd had his fill, he leaned up against the wall that had defeated him, folded his hands over his stomach, and slept.

###

Robin woke to a rustling above his head. A bit of dirt fell onto his nose, and he sneezed reflexively, which caused more rustling.

Robin looked up to see a figure, not much larger than himself, swinging from the wretched roots he'd been bested by earlier in the night.

“Oh bugger,” said the swinging figure, his white shirt billowing in the faint moonlight. “I seem to be caught.”

Robin watched, unsure what to do, as the figure curled into a ball and let go of the wall from thirty feet in the air. It spun, head over feet, and landed only a few feet from the troll boy with perfect posture, its hands raised.

Robin rubbed his eyes. It was a man. A human man.

Though the creature was indeed horrendous, there was something alluring about him too. His shirt flew open to proudly display rippling pectoral muscles, and his jet black hair flowed to his shoulders. Robin wasn't at all intimidated, but nearly jumped out of his green-tinted skin when the man suddenly pointed his finger directly up into the air.

“I am the great Jean Laurent, world-class gymnast, explorer, and...”. He dropped his finger and cleared his throat, “Treasure... procurer.” He waved the words away and leaned in toward Robin. “And who might you be, sweet ch--?”

Jean nearly fell backwards as he stumbled away. “Egad, what are you?”

Robin scratched his hairy stomach, a bit confused. Jean was shaking his head, his back now pressed to the wall of Barren Cradle.

“Away from me, vile beast!” Jean shouted, making a cross of his fingers before Robin's face.

Robin pressed an incredulous hand to his breast. “Me?” Indignant, he furrowed his brow and pressed toward the human. “I'm Robin, the troll. The best looking troll in Barren Cradle, my momma says so herself.” Robin was both proud and a little embarrassed he had added the last bit, but something about the words eased Jean Laurent, whose shoulders relaxed, and he then began to hop up and down.

“I am sorry,” Jean said, laughing. He held two hands up in surrender in the pale moonlight. “It's just that everyone knows trolls do not exist.” He rolled his hand, as if the obvious fact of what he said hung in the air. “After The Great Accord.” He flicked his fingers up into the air, tossing the very notion of trollhood aside. “It turned them human, yeah?”

Robin did not understand, and when Robin did not understand, he usually felt a very trollish heat in his chest that made him want to snap something in two. Whatever might be closest, and just now that happened to be Jean Laurent.

“Well, I am a troll,” he responded, flashing his pointed teeth and cracking the tree branches of his hair with a pass of his hand. “And if that's what humans think, I'm going to go up there and eat one to prove them wrong!” He pointed up at the top of the wall behind Jean.

Jean's eyes suddenly sparkled in the dark and, to Robin's great surprise, the human reached out and placed a hand lovingly on Robin's arm. Robin softened, the trollish heat in his chest extinguished, and for once he wasn't so much a troll as a little boy beneath the man's touch.

“You know,” said Jean, whispering into Robin's saucer-like ears. “I did not know what treasures I might find in these caves.” He rubbed the young boy's head gently. “But here the treasure finds me.” He stepped back with his arms open, as if presenting the young Robin. “Robin, troll boy of Barren Table.”

“Barren Cradle,” corrected Robin.

Jean Laurent extended a hand. “And my friend?”

Robin's heart fluttered. He knew this creature should be his enemy, but in Jean's glowing smile he felt safe and important. Perhaps, given time, he could even get over how ugly Jean was. Robin could feel his crooked smile spreading from massive ear to massive ear, and he didn't even mind that Jean seemed to shudder at the sight of it.

He took Jean's hand.

Jean Laurent grimaced. “Troll or not, you have a troll's strength! I'd bet people would come from miles around just to arm wrestle you.” He lowered one eyebrow. “Let Jean help in your great escape.”

Without another word, Jean leapt, grabbed a root, and started swinging. When he had built momentum, he let go, shooting up to the next root which he grabbed with almost no disruption to his swing. Robin watched his friend, mouth agape, as the spry creature summited the wall as easily as if he were walking to the other side of a room, finishing with a back flip and raising his arms in triumph.

Robin clapped, delighted in the showmanship of his new friend, as Jean backed away from the ledge and re-emerged with a tall piece of wood that he slipped down beside the wall.

“Climb the ladder, quickly!” shouted Jean, but not too loudly, which further delighted Robin, who believed now that the world was just the two of them and that anything might be possible if Jean Laurent could so quickly solve the escape he had planned for years.

Robin placed one foot up on the ladder and paused, unable to believe the moment had finally come. And like this, one step towards freedom. Barren Cradle, which had been silent for all 8 years of his life, decided to whisper to him. A secret, maybe, or a truth.

Nothing lasts, the dark place whispered.

But Robin shook his head, because Jean was beckoning, and if Jean had no fear for him, Jean would be the one he would trust. Jean was a friend.

The way up seemed endless, but at the top Jean grabbed his hand to raise him. Robin found his footing and was so ecstatic he nearly collapsed laughing at how ridiculous his friend Jean Laurent looked: all mud-stained and sweaty in his frilly garments.

Jean laughed too, patting the troll boy on the back and holding him steady so he did not teeter back into the dim caves from which he had just emerged. And Robin was thankful for the support, more sure now than ever that he was exactly where he belonged forever: with Jean Laurent.

“You are a troll, after all,” said Jean with amazement in his eyes. He was breathing heavy, but his breath caught as his eyes glazed over, remembering. “You are a troll after all, Robin. A troll in daylight...”.

Jean turned his head toward the sky and was gesturing and shouting something, but Robin suddenly did not feel well. His body felt so cold, so heavy. It took all his strength to turn to where Jean was pointing and see a glorious light beginning to spill from the horizon. And in the following moments, a brilliant flash, as a ball of fire rose. So beautiful, Robin wished it would last forever, as his ears and throat began to feel filled with wax, and a thankful tear escaped his eye only to turn to stone.

And so it was that half-forgotten rules, and all the blind trust in an 8-year-old boy's heart, ended the troll race for good.

END

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