Jay Lake and the Last Temple of the Monkey King (2 page)

“Uh,” Jay said, suddenly uncomfortable with the large hands near his feet.

But a sudden wind from the forest behind him interrupted the moment of spiritual adoration. “Jay Lake must die,” a shrill voice shrieked.

The silver spoon took Jay’s left sideburn as he dodged and dropped. The large kneeling man looked up, his face twisted into sudden rage. His voice boomed out as ducks and chickens scattered. “You leave my Little Lord Jesus alone.”

The naked man stopped in mid-thrust. “This isn’t Jesus,” he said. “This is the writer Jay Lake.”

Jay rolled into a crouch, his hands coming up in a Flying Clown Claw posture.

For a moment, no one moved or said anything. The big man glanced from Jay to his assailant, his face either red from anger or blushing from the sudden nudity that confronted him. “You’re not Jesus?”

“Uh,” Jay said again.

The hairless man shifted on his feet, eyes narrowing as he moved his spoon from hand to hand. He started circling Jay. Jay circled as well.

“You that writer fella what as promised me them pictures?”

Jay swallowed and nodded. “And the MoMo recipe.”

“And this naked man intends to do you harm with his little spoon?”

Jay nodded again.

The naked man nodded, too. “Jay Lake must die.”

The large man squinted. “Why is that?”

But before the spoon-wielding fiend could reply, the big redneck had scooped up a squawking chicken and hurled it with practiced precision. As the spoon fell to the ground, Jay launched himself, his hands flapping wildly. “Wagga wagga wagga,” he said.

In full Clown Fu form, Jay danced in, slapping, then danced out. He yanked off his sandal and flung it. The leather missile struck a knee with a satisfying thud. The hairless man went down and Jay dove on him, pinning him to the ground.

“You got any rope?” he asked over his shoulder.

The big man shook his head. “Nope.” Then he dug around in his bib overalls. “But I got me some of this.” He passed a warm, soft roll of duct tape over.

“You must be Trailer Boy,” Jay said, suddenly nervous about where the duct tape had been.

“Yes sir,” Trailer Boy said, returning Jay’s grin. “Yes sir, I am.”

They tied the would-be assassin to a rusted engine block and took their breakfast on an elaborate deck with metal siding, rusted portholes and a green striped awning. Wiping the cream of wheat from his goatee, Jay reached for his satchel. “What can you tell me about the location of the Last Temple of the Monkey King?”

Trailer Boy grinned. “You got my pictures?”

Jay nodded and dug out the sheaf of illustrations. He handed them over, then handed over the MoMo recipe.

Trailer Boy shuffled through the pictures, his face darkening with disappointment. He paused on the picture of the bear and the pig. “Them’s not right,” he said in a sad voice.

“Hell,” Jay said, “I could’ve told you that. But you said you wanted them.” He spooned more of the mush into his mouth and swallowed it.

“I wanted Classic. Not Disney.”

Jay blinked. “Classic?”

Trailer Boy nodded. “I’ll show you.” He dug around in his bib overalls again and pulled out a tattered, stained toy bear, extending it towards Jay.

Jay shook his head at the offering. “I think I’ll pass. Thanks, though.” Then he leaned forward. “Now,” he said, “you named your price and I met it. Tell me the location of the Last Temple of the Monkey King.”

Trailer Boy opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Why do you want to know?”

Jay cast about inside of himself for an answer. Finally, he fell back to the only one he knew. “Look here, do you value the life of every last man, woman and child on this planet?”

Trailer Boy nodded. “I reckon I do.”

“Do you want them to have healthy self-esteem and a respect for the boundaries of others.”

Trailer Boy nodded again, this time more vigorously. “I surely do.”

“Then,” another voice said, soft and sinister and hanging somewhere in the air above them, “tell us the location of the Temple.”

Jay looked up to see a massive, silent zeppelin that filled the sky above them. A knotted silk rope dangled from the zeppelin and a man descended, standing with one foot in the loop at the end of the rope. The man was slender as a willow and his long black hair floated ethereally on the morning wind. He was Asian and his long, wispy mustache and goatee flowed down like spilled ink. He stepped out of the loop to stand over the duct-taped man who stopped struggling as the newcomer smiled down on him.

“Hello, Scotty,” he said. “I am most pleased with your work.”

“I’ve failed, Master.”

The newcomer stroked his beard thoughtfully. “No,” he said, “you have succeeded most competently.”

Yes, Jay realized. It wasn’t the most clever bit of misdirection but it had sufficed.

Then the newcomer leaned closer to the duct-taped man and spoke in a still, small voice. “The woods are lovely, dark and deep.”

Scotty’s eyes went glassy and Jay felt his own doing the same as everything suddenly went out of focus. Both he and the naked man spoke at the same, their voices in perfect unison. “But I have promises to keep.”

“Go home and get some sleep,” the newcomer said, cutting the duct tape with a long curved knife. “You have served me well.”

Jay and the naked man both stood. All he could think about was his bed at home and his cats and the warm blanket that sang his name. He tried to will himself back to the table, tried to will himself to question and challenge, but found himself powerless, held hostage by Frost’s words. As he took the stairs two at a time the slender Asian placed a hand on his shoulder. “Not you, Mr. Lake. Your work is not yet done.” He waited until Scotty had fled the clearing and then snapped his fingers three times and blew a raspberry.

Jay’s focus snapped suddenly into place and his eyes narrowed. “Who are you? How do you have this power over me?”

“My name is Frank,” the man said. “But you can call me...Doctor Wu.” When he smiled this time, it was wide and genuine and warm. “And surely you understand the basic mechanism of post-hypnotic suggestion?”

Jay nodded, eyes still narrow. “But why?”

Wu’s eyes shone and he pointed up slowly. “They told me to.”

“The people in the zeppelin?” Jay asked.

“No. You know who.”

“The Lord God His Ownself?” Trailer Boy asked.

“Not His Ownself,” Wu replied. “But his gray-skinned servants from afar.” He gestured to the card table and the scattering of lawn chairs. “Let us sit together while I explain.”

As they sat, the Doctor leaned forward and cocked his head. “You remember what they told you when they gave you the Device?”

Jay nodded. It had been two years but he remembered it like it was yesterday. The helicopter ride north to the crashsite, the key-lime pies, the bizarre birthday party with the crash survivors and the strange Device they’d given him on which to write his stories and change the world by preparing it to join the ranks of the civilized galaxy out beyond their backwater little blue-green rock. “I remember,” Jay said.

“Thousands of years ago, the Monkey King, too, was chosen for this great work but xenophobia was hardwired into his biology,” the doctor said in a quiet, sing-song voice. “He hid the artifacts of power they provided humanity, refusing to use them, refusing to help usher in a new age of mutual respect and compassion and socialized medicine. He built elaborate temples in which to hide these tools of great purpose and set his guardians to prevent their use and prevent our species’ prophesized coming of age.”

“So let me get this straight,” Jay said, “you’re not really the antagonist in this story?”

Wu chuckled. “No. I am not.”

Jay glanced at Trailer Boy. “What about him?”

Wu shook his head. “No. He’s a mere simpleton with a strange predilection for cartoon pornography.”

Trailer Boy blushed and said nothing but his eyes darted down to the illustrations before him.

“What kind of story has no antagonist?” Jay asked, finding himself uncomfortable now with the lack of structure.

Doctor Wu stroked his beard thoughtfully again. “A literary story,” he finally said.

“I like stories,” Trailer Boy said. “I wrote one once.” He dug around in his bib overalls, didn’t find what he was looking for, and went back to his cream of wheat.

Doctor Wu glanced at the large redneck, then fixed his gaze on Jay. “I have given my life to the restoration of those tools of power. It is my calling. It is the will of the Lord Most High to bring humanity to our next place in the Darwinian process.”

“Healthy self-esteem and boundaries?” Jay asked.

“I want me some of that,” Trailer Boy said.

“And socialized medicine,” Doctor Wu said quietly. Then he turned to Trailer Boy. “So again, where is the Last Temple of the Monkey King.”

Trailer Boy grinned. “You’re sitting on it.”

Jay looked at the aluminum chair with its frayed nylon webbing and Trailer Boy laughed. “Come with me, fellas,” he said, standing up. “I will show you.”

They climbed down from the deck and followed their host as he went to a loose section of the paint-peeled wooden skirting. Pulling it back, he disappeared beneath the trailer. Jay and Frank stood outside, looking nervously at one another.

Trailer Boy’s head re-appeared. “Come on,” he said.

Jay nodded to the dark opening. “After you.”

Frank shrugged.

The loose, cool earth beneath the trailer was scattered with empty Yoohoo bottles and candy wrappers. It smelled damp and Jay wrinkled his nose.

“I like it down here,” Trailer Boy said. “It’s my Most Special Place.”

Jay bit his tongue and said nothing.

They crawled to a wide piece of dirt-strewn plywood and Trailer Boy shoved it aside. Ancient stone steps disappeared into blackness. Jay found a pebble and tossed it in. It clattered away until sound faded.

This time, Frank smiled and gestured to the stairs. “After you,” he told Jay.

Shrugging Jay started down the stairs and Frank followed. They both paused when Trailer Boy did not join them.

“I don’t like monkeys,” he said. “They scare me something fierce.” He paused, then offered a smile. “But I’ll pray for you.” He dug a battered flashlight out of his overalls and handed it over.

“Thanks,” Jay said.

Then, clutching his satchel tightly to his side, he descended into earth.

They walked for hours that felt like days, down the stairs and into the deep tunnels, past underground rivers with white-eyed, pale fish and mushrooms that glowed faintly green as the flashlight swept over them. They walked until their feet hurt and the sweat rolled off them despite the cool air. They slipped past traps, ducking cob-web coated blades that fell and iron spikes that thrust upward from the ground and outward from the walls. They took turns dismantling them and complimented one another’s work.

“We work well together,” Jay observed.

“Yes,” Frank said, “but our best work is yet to come.”

Finally, as the light from the flashlight guttered and waned, they entered the throne room of the Last Temple of the Monkey King. It was a massive room divided by a broad chasm and at the edge of the chasm stood an equally massive throne and in the throne sat a massive iron monkey, its wings folded back. Jay played the beam of light over the iron monkey with its jeweled eyes and jagged teeth. Then, he shined the light out over the chasm. Something glistened and sparkled on the far side and he squinted at it.

“It is a chest,” Frank whispered. “And in it,” he said, his voice even lower now, “is the last tool of power.”

“You’ve never told me,” Jay said, “where the others have gone.”

“They’re safe,” Frank said.

Jay scratched his head. “How exactly do you propose we get to it?”

Frank walked the length of the chasm’s edge, measuring with his eyes. Finally, he went to the throne to study the monkey. “There is a crank here, between its wings.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Frank nodded, stroking his beard and mustache. “We wind it up. It asks us a riddle or two—”

Now Jay chimed in. “We defeat it easily with our combined intellect—”

Frank interrupted. “And we bid it fetch us the tool of power.”

They both nodded.

Jay paused. “So which of us is going to do it?”

“You must do it, Jay Lake. It is written.”

Jay frowned. “Written where?”

Frank waved his question away. “That is not important. What
is
important is that you must crank the monkey.”

Sighing, Jay climbed up into the lap of the iron monkey and reached around its neck to the iron handle set into its back. At first, the metal creaked and whined as he put his weight into turning it. Finally it gave and a deep groan emanated from deep inside the beast as gears ground to life and joints shuddered. A dull light grew behind the glassy, jeweled eyes and the wings trembled.

Jay cranked the monkey until he could crank it no more and then hopped down.

Frank drew himself up and spread out his arms cruciform. “O Great Monkey King,” he said, “ask us what riddles you will that we may answer them and receive the gift of thy favor.”

Laughter bellowed across the room as the iron monkey took flight. A gigantic hand lashed out, tossing Frank easily across the room. The tail whipped around, dropping Jay like a bag of mail and sending the flashlight and satchel spinning across the stone floor. Chortling and shrieking its metal rage, the Flying Iron Monkey soared high above them. Its green and sparking eyes danced in the darkness and behind them, a thick wooden door dropped into place.

Scrambling like over-caffeinated hamsters, Frank and Jay crawled beneath the throne as the monkey dived and struck at the cave floor with its feet.

“Perhaps,” Frank said, “we were wrong about the riddles.”

Jay rolled his eyes and glanced longingly at the leather satchel that lay out of reach, near the door that had sealed them in.

As the flashlight gave up the last of its battery, Jay Lake pined for clean undershorts and gave himself over to despair and poor personal hygiene.