Free Troll Or Derby, A Fairy Wicked Tale by Red Tash Page A

rode farther into the night, I saw flashes of a small river through the trees, and I thought it was probably the Wabash—not that it mattered. It was dark and cold, and I felt certain I was getting farther and farther from Gennifer, but I needed time to think—needed inspiration, I suppose, to figure out how to get past Dave and his thugs, preferably with my life and my virginity intact.
    What was he doing with Gennifer? Was she still alive?
    My head went to crazy places—white slavery, the tattooed seats of Dave’s car—but I had trouble believing anyone could be sick enough to destroy a girl as beautiful as my sister. Then again, we were talking about Dave.
    We turned off the two-lane highway and headed down a rough road. The pavement worsened, and the motorcycles slowed until we were crunching over gravel in a single-file line of rumbling night hogs.
    “You’ll like this place. It’s real homey,” Moe said, slinging his head sideways to chat. Tusks, red in the taillights of the bike before us. Did everyone have them now, or was I suffering some mass hallucination? “Try not to get your wings clipped,” he said.
    “My what?” I was sure I hadn’t heard him correctly.
    We rolled past a weather-beaten whitewashed sign with a faded cartoon frog in mid-leap, across the top. Beneath it burned orange-pink neon. Clearly, it used to say “The Rustic Frog, All You Can Eat FROG LEGS! Most Saturday Nights.” The “r” in “Frog” had burned out, and it now read “The Rustic Fog.” How fitting. My hair and clothes were getting soaked from it, and I could barely see beyond Moe’s front tire.
    We came to a stop on a patch of soggy grass, and Moe killed the bike. His friends moved about in the mist, gruffly laughing and stumbling into one another like they’d already had too much to drink. I hopped off the bike and checked the phone—no calls.
    I followed Moe and the sounds of a crowd toward the bar. Vertical beams of light spilled out from between cracks in the plank wall, into the night. Neon beer signs lit the front porch. A tin roof damp with moisture reflected a neon green frog hopping along the roofline toward the word “Open” in enormous flickering letters. I did a double-take, and realized that the letters “OPEN” were the teeth in the mouth of a gruesome metal sculpture mounted to the roof.
    Cigarette butts and beer bottles completely littered the front porch of the bar—there were a few benches and bar stools pulled out onto it, with less-than-welcoming types glaring into the darkness.
    “What, Cracker Barrel wasn’t open?” I asked Moe.
    The bar was packed. A guy about seven feet tall with glowing blonde dreadlocks screamed into a microphone that he obviously didn’t need, and the band behind him beat their instruments so hard I thought they’d break their guitars in half.
    A ferocious drummer lurked behind a midnight black drum kit, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Everything about him was dark—his clothes, his long, scraggly hair, his teeth, his eyes—watching him was like looking into a black hole.
    When I finally tore my eyes away, the singer was pointing at me, his eyes wild as his voice soared in what I thought was probably an Ozzy Osborne cover. The language was odd, though. Not exactly English, but a few English words thrown in, here and there.
    Moe grabbed me by the elbow and dragged me to a table. “Have a seat, kid. I’ll get us some beers.”
    I’m not much of a drinker—I mean, I’m fifteen, you know? But I’ve had a beer every once in a while, sure. After the bonfire from hell, I wasn’t really up for drinking again.
    “Is there any way I could get some food?” I asked.
    “Frog legs is always good,” Moe said. He smiled, and his tongue peeked out between the gaps in his teeth. He might have been making fun of me, but I was too hungry to argue. I just nodded. He motioned to a willow-thin waitress, and she slid a basket of toad legs across the table, wrapped in