Birth of a Monster by Daniel Lawlis

p.m.
     
     
    Harold was now about five hundred feet
above the police station. Righty would have loved to go lower, but
this was as low as he dared go.
     
    Feeling one last bit of self-doubt,
Righty said, “When the history books are written, let them record
that, while I may have struck hardest, I didn’t strike
first.”
     
    Then, attempting a bit of gallows humor
to lighten the unfortunate scene, he said, reading from an
imaginary envelope, “Delivery for Sivingdel Police Headquarters . .
. oh, wait, special instructions: ‘Leave on rooftop.’”
     
    Rancher Tim Sanders had been a busy
beaver last night, and the fruits of his labor were dispersed
between two large sacks, one abutting each side of Harold. Righty
had told him he had to clear some really tough stumps and stubborn
brush on a different ranch.
     
    Righty reached into the bag on his left
and extracted a lantern-like object with an exceptionally large oil
compartment. He then struck a match on a piece of flint he had
ready and then lit the lantern.
     
    The only way is
up , the rock climbing coach assured
him.
     
    “And I sure as heck can’t climb down,”
Righty added.
     
    He let the lantern fall, and its humble
shattering sound belied the large puddle of fire that immediately
spread around it.
     
    Below, inside the station, a swarm of
officers were kicking and pushing against the door. Their combined
force reached a point at which—while the chain itself was in no
danger of breaking—it was becoming a possibility that the handles
might rip off. But before reaching that point, the ever-increasing
number of pushing officers became counterproductive, causing them
to smash and trample one another.
     
    Righty lit another few lanterns and let
them fall.
     
    Meanwhile, Tats’ pursuers were closing
in on him, and one of his gang had already been nabbed.
     
    “FIIIIRE!!!” someone shouted out from
below.
     
    Righty figured that if the fire was now
visible to the people on the ground he could dispense with lighting
the individual lanterns. He took out his compressed sword and
severed the entire bagful.
     
    By this time, the top brass were
beginning to wonder what all the commotion was about down in the
lobby, and so they left behind their windowed rooms, from which
they might have jumped had they known there were around twenty
seconds left within which it would have served any purpose to do
so.
     
    Even from this height, Righty felt a
rush of heat as a fireball leapt up into the sky after the bag of
lanterns made contact with the roof. Knowing this was going to turn
onlookers’ eyes upward, he realized it was time to wrap this
up.
     
    He cut off the other sack, which was
full of sticks of dynamite.
     
    Righty didn’t need to say anything to
Harold. No sooner had the sack left Harold’s side than Harold began
pumping his wings and heading straight towards the sun, hoping to
thereby reduce the likelihood of anyone seeing him below while he
simultaneously increased his and his passenger’s chances of
survival.
     
    BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!
     
    It was a majestic, thunderous sound,
reverberating quickly and rapidly, deafening anyone within a
hundred feet.
     
    Tats’ pursuers stopped to look, but,
while Tats certainly felt curiosity, his desire for freedom was far
stronger. He kept sprinting, and only when he was convinced that he
had successfully blended in with the panicked multitude and left
his pursuer far behind did he dare turn and look at the black smoke
cloud enveloping the entire sky.
     
    Mr. Brass had not said much about what
the purpose was behind chaining the doors shut, but he was emphatic
that after Tats did so he spend a well-deserved three-week vacation
in Sodorf City, to begin immediately. That now sounded like rather
good advice.
     

Chapter 21
     
    As Righty emerged from the woods behind
Ringsetter—as close to the town as he dared tread—he knew he was
really pushing his luck by not heading straight to the Simmers’
home, where