Bubba and the Curse of the Boogity

by C. L. Bevill

  But both Marquita and Risley had both clearly said no press when McGeorge had suggested that they go to them.

  Perhaps it was a little mysterious.

  Bubba put the item back in the cavity next to its twin and took the remainder of the beef jerky away from his hound because it was far too salty for her to have.

  Precious took the piece she was chewing on and chewed faster while Bubba finally gave up on getting it away from her.

  Bubba rolled his eyes and went to following the tunnel. After a cautious twenty minutes he found a branch and followed the neon-orange arrows. Then he found some more branches and was grateful someone had taken the time to mark them. The place was a veritable maze. Some tunnels were obviously older and had rusted remnants of tracks in them. Some were newer and marked with graffiti from the 60s and the 90s. Old Man Hovious had drawn a picture of the Virgin Mary on one wall and signed it with his name, which happened to be Sampson P. Hovious.

  Bubba didn’t think that he’d ever heard Old Man Hovious’s first name before. Truthfully Old Man Hovious hadn’t been that old. He’d been a little odd and reclusive along with his wife, and he’d spent some time talking about how the world was going to hell in a handbasket. Their deaths had been a tragic accident and nothing more.

  But it didn’t mean that Foggy Mountain didn’t have its secrets.

  Precious began to growl lowly.

  Bubba held the lantern up and couldn’t see anything down any of the tunnels in either direction. Furthermore, he thought he might have missed an arrow. Someone had spent a lot of time down here digging through rock and earth, and he’d been ruminating at why that was.

  Mining? A place to hide their stash of drugs? A bomb shelter? All of the above and then some more?

  “Should we go back?” Bubba asked Precious.

  She growled some more, and Bubba finally perceived that a very large dark shadowed figure was blocking the tunnel farthest away from him.

  “Ma?” Bubba asked before he thought better of making a joke.

  There was another echoing growl that encompassed the entire area and spread out like liquid spilt on a paper towel.

  Bubba couldn’t help the sharp zing of fear that ran down his spine. If he wasn’t mistaken, the Boo was there with him, and the Boo was looking at him in a way that suggested he wasn’t happy with Bubba’s presence.

  “Listen fella,” Bubba said, “I’ll just go back the way I came, and we’ll call it a day.”

  Another growl answered him, and Precious abruptly snarled. She backed up and hid behind Bubba’s legs.

  “Good brave hound,” Bubba said.

  Bubba steeled his shoulders and said, “Dan, ifin that’s you, I’m goin’ to be a mite angry like.”

  The figure growled again, and it rippled through the tunnel.

  Bubba stepped forward, and a ravenous snarl resulted. Precious yipped immediately and went to flee, threading through her master’s legs as if it would save her canine butt, but all it really did was trip him.

  When Bubba finally got to his feet, the shadowy figure had vanished.

  Chapter 12

  Bubba and the Missing Person

  Bubba didn’t know how long it took before he found his way out of the tunnels because he immediately got lost, and he didn’t think to check his watch for the time. He couldn’t find any of the neon-orange arrows or the spring-fed stream again. He did find a half-sized rusted mine cart with bits of granite in it and as he held up a piece to the light of the lantern, he thought he could see the glimmer of tiny bits of gold. He was reminded that gold wasn’t always found in large chunks that could be held up to the daylight and squealed over. Sometimes the earth was processed to get at the precious minerals and there were a few mines in East Texas that had done exactly that no matter what he had said to Laz.

  Bubba trudged through the tunnels and thought about Willodean. He tried his cellphone but it wouldn’t even turn on, and he was certain a signal wouldn’t have been available under the ground even if it had turned on.

  Precious trudged behind him, dragging her oversized ears on the ground.

  “Ifin I die, you kin et me,” Bubba told her. “That’ll git you a few days more before someone thinks to look for us.”

  She didn’t respond, and Bubba’s stomach rumbled. He had eaten at lunch, but now he was wanting something substantial. Miz Adelia’s tuna fish casserole even sounded good. A man of his size couldn’t go far without eating something.

  If Bubba was trapped under the ground, Willodean would have to visit him and drop food down one of the larger mine shafts. He could live at the bottom in a patch of sunlight that only came at high noon. Then he could start becoming one of the cave people when his skin bleached white and he went blind. Likewise, Precious would whiten up, and she would become the ghostly facsimile of a Basset hound. Folks would stop to see the infamous mole man and his mole dog of Foggy Mountain, and the Boogity-Boo would be promptly forgotten. Of course, the Boogity-Boo would become jealous and start throwing hissy fits. He would start a Boo Blog and tell people that the mole man and the mole dog were just made-up and folks should go to the Boogity-Boo museum that Pegramville spent $432 on when they renovated the old Sears and Roebuck catalog store. No one would ever love Bubba or his hound again.

  Bubba stopped, and Precious bumped into his legs. Wait, what was I thinking? A man of my size cain’t go far without eting something. A man of my size. Size.

  The Boo had stood on the other side of the tunnel in an opening that was small enough that Bubba had to duck. The Boo hadn’t been crouched in half. That opening was less than six feet, and the Boo didn’t look like his head was anywhere near the top of the opening. So if that Boo was about what, five feet eight inches, and the Boo that was near the stream threatening Tandy was about eight feet tall, that presented another interesting question.

  How does a Boo shrink?

  Does one put him out in the sun and he shrivels up? Does he get popped into the dryer and he withers because of the heat?

  Precious suddenly perked up. One of her ears flopped, and she surged forward into a tunnel that was hidden in the shadows.

  Bubba groaned and followed her. After two turns and a slight incline up, he came to a roughly hewn staircase leading up steeply. Precious scrambled upward with a howl. As soon as she vanished into the darkness, he heard the cries of something that had been severely surprised. He dove after his hound and discovered her standing on top of another person who was actively struggling to get away from his fifty-pound pet.

  “Don’t let her et me!” the person wailed. “I don’t wanna be pooped out of a dog’s hindquarters! Tell her I was rooting for Cujo! Old Yeller got a bum deal! Hooch should have lived! Pavlov should have never bin allowed to experiment on his dogs!”

  Precious snarled once and nuzzled the person’s shirt. A moment later she brought out a snack-size bag of Cheetos. She withdrew with her booty and tried to escape, but Bubba snatched the bag out of her mouth. She looked up at him in a way that indicated later retribution in the form of soggy slippers and sat down with an audible plop.

  “Good,” Bubba said. “Laz. Which way is out?”

  Laz Berryhill lay on the tunnel floor and panted. He put a hand over his heart as if he was checking to see if it was still beating. “When she came through the opening, I thought it was the Boo, and then I thought it was some kind of cave beast. You ever seen that movie The Descent? All these gals go spelunking and—”

  “Exit now,” Bubba interrupted.

  Laz pointed to a tunnel behind him. “Just go up that way about a hundred feet, then a left, and I bin marking the main legs with chalk X’s.”

  “You ain’t bin using neon-orange paint?” Bubba asked.

  “Ain’t got no paint,” Laz said. “Kin I git up, or will she et me?”

  Bubba held the Cheetos by one ripped corner and considered if his hound would rather eat Laz or them. Finally, he relented and said, “Yes, get the heck up and show me the way ou
t. You ain’t seen anyone else down here, have you? Or anything?”

  “You mean like the Boo?” Laz asked as he struggled to his feet. “No, I ain’t seen nothing like that. There was something makin’ noises about an hour ago. Wails and such that gave me the shivering creepy-crawlies up and down my spine, but noise carries oddly down here. I cain’t tell ifin it was left or right. I just took my flashlight and went back the way I came until the sounds went away. You know what I mean?”

  Bubba did not know what Laz meant, but Bubba could extrapolate information when he was so motivated. Something had scared the other man, and he’d fled to safer locales, which was where Bubba, er, Precious had found him.

  Bubba set off in the direction that Laz had indicated. “You coming?” he asked Laz.

  Laz said, “Hell yes! I don’t care to be down here by myself. Tom had to meet up with our parole officer, Rodney Fosdick, you know him? He’s stepping out with Rosa Granado.” He caught up with Bubba and led the way into the next passage. “Rosa done used to go with your old boss, George Bufford, but he wouldn’t divorce his wife, so Rosa kicked him to the curb. Anyway, then Jasper went to meet up with his girlfriend. She left him for a plumber but then the plumber left her for an electrician from Tyler, so she went back to Jasper. I don’t know why Jasper wants her back but—” Laz stopped when there was an eerie howl emanating from somewhere deep in the tunnels. “Oh, cruddy crumcakes on a side cart,” he said somberly.

  Bubba paused as Precious growled lowly. “You know all the tunnels, Laz?”

  “No, I surely do not,” Laz answered with a visible shudder. “I had no idear there were so many down under the Hovious place. A fella could git lost down here and never find his way into the aboveground again.”

  “And you’re just looking to capture the Boo,” Bubba said.

  Laz held up the animal tranquilizer gun. It looked suspiciously like something someone would have gotten from Toys “R” Us. It was the size of a short rifle with a squarish body. There was a place for the CO2 cartridge that would power the weapon, and Laz had a belt with extra darts on it. The darts should have been filled with some kind of drug that would sedate the animal it hit. How might one guess how much drug to use? Bubba supposed they guesstimated the Boo’s weight and went with that.

  “I suppose you got that legally?” Bubba asked supposing silently that Laz and his compatriots hadn’t gotten it legally at all.

  “My cousin is friends with the sister of a veterinarian,” Laz said proudly. “They’re goin’ to git a cut of the million dollars.”

  “Right,” Bubba agreed dryly. “Make certain you don’t shoot Armand LaPoo by mistake.”

  Laz chuckled darkly. “That fella don’t scare me.”

  “You do know who Armand is, don’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Armand is a stage name for Daniel Lewis Gollihugh,” Bubba said without contriteness when Laz appeared to swallow his tongue.

  Laz choked for a moment and then collected himself. “For real?”

  “On my mother’s grave,” Bubba swore.

  “But your ma ain’t dead,” Laz said. “And last week she tole me she done kilt your pa by training carrier pigeons to poop on him until he expired.” He shuddered again. “Does Miz Demetrice know about the whole Brownie incident?”

  “Pa had a heart attack, and Ma ain’t spoken about that time,” Bubba said. He turned back and slowly made his way to the next tunnel as both Laz and Precious followed him.

  “You tell her we’re sorry, won’t you?”

  Bubba shrugged noncommittally. Personally, he thought that both Laz and Tom Bledsoe had paid for their acts against Brownie, but it couldn’t hurt to have the pair a little more scared.

  Finally, they reached the hewn cellar with its racks of long forgotten familial paraphernalia. Bubba sighed as he reached the short stairs that led to the double doors. He thought for a moment that they were closed, but they weren’t, and it was full dark outside. He said a nasty word because he realized he’d missed supper. Furthermore, Willodean might very well be concerned about his absence. She might take it into her mind to come down personally even when she shouldn’t.

  Precious chuffed in a satisfactory manner when she breached the doors. She straightaway began to sniff around the ground and found a tree to water.

  Bubba looked at the lantern and thought about the little cache of stuff inside the tunnel closest to where the Boo had appeared that morning. He wanted to get himself a drink of water and one for his hound and then find a cellphone to call his wife and follow that up by talking to both Tandy North and Simone Sheats.

  A string of lights had been erected to show people the way from the house to the clearing where the trucks were located. Bubba followed the string while Laz lagged behind him talking about how he was never going back into the tunnels alone again. Bubba stopped at the gut truck and obtained a bottle of water for himself and another one for Precious. Laz reached around him to snag a dripping Mountain Dew. “Ain’t like I’m goin’ to sleep tonight anyway,” he explained to Bubba.

  Once Bubba and Precious were through with the water, Bubba said, “Cellphone,” to Laz.

  Laz frowned and handed his cellphone to Bubba.

  It was at that precise moment that a Pegram County Sheriff’s Department official vehicle pulled up with its lights flashing.

  “I dint do it,” Laz said immediately.

  “What?”

  “I dunno, but I dint,” he added.

  It was only the sheriff. John Headrick stepped out of the Bronco and eyed Bubba carefully while Bubba looked around the sheriff to see if his wife was inside the official vehicle. Fortunately for all involved it was only Sheriff John. Bubba would have been mad if Willodean had broken her enforced bed rest to come looking for him.

  “Bubba,” Sheriff John rumbled in his grated stone voice, “I ain’t happy to have to come up here. Your wife ain’t happy, neither. I don’t think your mama is happy by the by. Miz Demetrice was talking to a caving expert out of Houston went I left your house, and I don’t believe he was happy, either. My wife ain’t happy, too, but that’s because I dented her Volkswagen yesterday, so that don’t count.”

  Bubba immediately unlocked Laz’s phone, a bare-bones model, and dialed Willodean’s number. She answered just as immediately. “I’m all right,” he said. “I got lost in them tunnels under the Hovious place. I’m sorry I got lost, but it couldn’t be he’ped.”

  Willodean didn’t say anything for a moment. “And there’s no service under there?”

  “Mebe there is, but I broke my phone,” Bubba said, “and you remember I tole you I was going to the phone store but I got…derailed. Are you all right, snookums?”

  “Miz Adelia brought me casserole and ice cream, but not together,” she said, “although that doesn’t sound bad. There was a serving for you but I ate it. Sorry.”

  Bubba wasn’t sure, but Willodean didn’t sound mad, just perturbed.

  “I’m sorry, but I just now walked out of that place,” Bubba said. “You wouldn’t believe how many tunnels are down there. Also, there’s a stream running through it.”

  “I guess you know I called John,” she said.

  Bubba looked at Sheriff John who was looking at Laz while Laz was taking turns looking at the ground and then at the skies.

  “I’ll be home in about an hour,” he said. “No more than two.”

  “Okay,” Willodean said doubtfully. “You don’t want me calling up the National Guard again.”

  “No, I don’t want that,” Bubba said. “Ain’t bin any explosions from the back acreage has there?”

  “You mean have David and the astronuts done anything really bad?” Willodean giggled. “Not yet, but Daniel took a selfie with the rocket and posted it on Facebook. It’s starting to look like a real rocketship. There’s a guy out there calling himself a professor, too. You don’t suppose that he could...” she trailed off tentatively.

  “No, of course not,
” Bubba said, and he couldn’t help the little bit of doubt contained in the four words.

  Several other people appeared out of the darkness. There was Bert Mullahully who rubbed his hands anxiously together. “Bubba, oh thank God,” he said. “I thought I was goin’ to have to go down in them tunnels, and that ain’t something I care to do.”

  Then there was Risley Risto and Simone Sheats, both of whom appeared visibly worried. McGeorge also came into sight and looked relieved at the sight of Bubba who was clearly well and not dead.

  “Have you found Marquita?” Risley asked quickly.

  “I dint see her down there,” Bubba said.

  Risley glanced at Simone. Simone rubbed the side of her mouth. “Did you see anything down there?” she asked Bubba.

  “Did I see the Boo, do you mean?” Bubba asked.

  Sheriff John’s attention snapped back to Bubba. “What do you mean, did you see the Boo?” He looked at the others. “Is all that nonsense on Facebook and Instagram true?”

  Bubba rolled his eyes.

  “There was a wailin’ in the tunnels,” Laz said immediately. “Gave me the shivers somethin’ fierce. I thought it was goin’ to et me and then my mama wouldn’t have no one to count on exceptin’ mebe Tom, and you know how he gits with stealin’. It’s like he cain’t he’p himself and—”

  Laz cut himself off when he saw the look on Bubba’s face.

  “Marquita Thaddeus is missing,” Bubba told Sheriff John. Both Risley and Simone winced.

  Sheriff John looked around the film encampment. “All y’all looked around here for her?”

  “Her Rover is still in the parking lot on the other side,” Risley said. “Her purse is in her RV. So is her cellphone. You should know she doesn’t go anywhere without her cellphone, so when I found it I really started to get worried.”

  “Bubba, you ain’t found anything…like a deceased person, by any chance,” Sheriff John ventured solemnly.

  “No, I ain’t found a dead body,” Bubba snapped. “I don’t find them all the dang time, you know. Sometimes other people find them.” He glanced at Risley and Simone and he grimaced. “And that don’t mean that I think Marquita is dead.”