by C. L. Bevill
“Naw,” Bubba said to himself. While Brownie was capable of being a Boo, he hadn’t had the time because he wasn’t anywhere around the previous day. (There hadn’t been any explosions, devastating disasters, or obvious portents of doom to come, so he couldn’t have been there.)
Bubba crooked a smile. Now David could launch Brownie into space, which made Bubba smile larger. Then he thought of something really good. Bubba could sic Brownie on the Boo. A considering expression passed over Bubba’s face. Hmm. That don’t sound half bad. That Boo or them Boos don’t stand a Slurpee’s chance in hell.
“HOLY SNICKERDOODLES!” the professor bellowed. “That kid just bent the axiomatic etheric oscillator! Does he know how much an axiomatic etheric oscillator is worth? Do any of you know how much an axiomatic etheric oscillator costs?” He appeared to consider what he had just said. “Do I know what an axiomatic etheric oscillator costs?”
Just as Brownie was about to crest the peak of Mount S.S. Stormspike, Bubba yelled in his most authoritative voice, “RUMFORD SAMUEL SNODDY, JR.!”
Brownie froze in place at the sound of his full true name, and his head slowly swiveled toward Bubba. (It was certainly a Linda Blair-inspired moment in time, although Brownie wasn’t really capable of a full 360-degree rotation.) Then the child grinned broadly and let go. He slid down the curved side of the ship, caught his hand on the door as if he had meant to do it all along, and made a jump that landed him neatly on the platform. It was very nearly an act that a fella from Cirque du Soleil would have done. Bubba had to stop himself from clapping.
“Hey Bubba,” Brownie said as he trotted up to him. Thelda cringed and slunk away.
Jesus forked the sign of the devil at the boy and withdrew hastily, dropping a handful of dandelions in the process.
David settled for a piercing glare.
The professor said, “I cannot work with children traipsing onto the launchpad!”
Then David quickly soothed it over with, “He’s gone. Bubba over there is taking him to a galaxy far, far away. Maybe Tatooine.”
The professor scowled at David and then at Bubba and then at Brownie. Finally, he said, “Thank cheese and crackers we have a spare axiomatic etheric oscillator, that son of a motherless goat!”
“Oh, his mother isn’t a goat,” David said quickly.
Brownie smiled up at Bubba. “We came for the shower, and Ma said to stay out of Willodean’s way or she’d make me scream in three different octaves. I don’t know ifin Ma meant herself or Willodean who’d do that, so I couldn’t take a chance,” he said to Bubba. “And you know those fellas at the junkyard?”
Bubba nodded.
“They ran down the road screaming like little babies when I went over to visit, so I had to find something else to do. And looky, looky here, right here on your property. That’s a genuine rocketship, do you know?”
Bubba couldn’t help the very minute grin that split his face, but it went away just as quickly as it had come. “I got something for us to do, boy. Just up your alley.”
Chapter 21
Bubba and Brownie Together Again
“Oh, I heard about the movie,” Brownie said knowingly as he stared at the sign that announced they had found the film’s setting. “You found that director in your house from the last one. Then you found his wife in the tunnels. That former FBI agent done kidnapped her and was about to sacrifice her to the same satanic force that Old Man Hovious used when he created the Boogity-Boo. Ma would die and poop bricks ifin she knew I was here.” He looked around so that he could see everything he could see. “Cool.”
Bubba pulled up to the bottom lot of Foggy Mountain and observed the area as if he was looking for a random, everyday Boo to appear and wave at them cheerfully. Everyone had cleared out with the exception of two cars. One was a dusty Mercedes Benz he’d seen before and the other was a Toyota Corolla circa early 2000s. The Benz belonged to Risley Risto and the owner of the Toyota was unknown. (Bubba was happy to notice that the media had gone onto more lurid stories elsewhere, possibly delving into that mysterious ice cream shortage.)
For all Bubba knew the Toyota belonged to the Boo. (His other ride was a 2010 Harley-Davidson Road King in wicked red.) Regardless, he parked his truck, and he and Brownie climbed out while Bubba thought about what he could do and what he couldn’t do. A sketchy plan was being established in his head. It involved all things iffy and high levels of muddle-headedness, which was pretty much the substance of all of Bubba’s plans.
“Where’s Precious?” Brownie asked and went on without waiting for an answer. “I would have brought my dogs, Oscar and Bogie, but Ma said she wasn’t going to be cooped up in the truck with me, the baby, Dad, and two dogs, too, for nigh on two hours, plus Dad won’t drive past Barksdale Air Force Base on account of what I did with the lasers, and did you know that—” Brownie kept talking but Bubba effectively tuned out the boy. Earplugs would have been helpful if he’d had any, but alas, none were to be found in the vicinity.
David had said to look at the film footage. The footage on television was fuzzy, but so was every other bit of footage featuring unknown cryptids in the last fifty years. If there had been a clear segment, then the guesswork would have been over. Bubba was reminded of one of the most famous pictures of the Loch Ness Monster. It had been a model floating in the loch and people had fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker. It was decades before one of the hoaxers had come clean, and even then, people were skeptical of the confession. Make no mistake, folks loved a good story, and if there was some dodgy proof to accompany the story, all the better.
Bubba trudged over to Trailer City and paused to survey the damage that he’d briefly seen on the news.
“Dang, I heard about this,” Brownie said, looking at tents and trailers that were damaged. Someone had yanked, pulled, and pounded. One of the tents was collapsed and the stakes run through the stiff fabric. One of the lighter trailers was tilted at a forty-five-degree angle where someone (the Boo?) had tipped it over. “The Boo was mad. Someone went and ticked that feller off, and he’s out to git his revenge.” Brownie shivered with evident delight and grinned broadly. One of his hands produced a cellphone. “I have to take some pictures. Bubba, kin we see the Boo?”
“I think we kin do better than that, boy,” Bubba said.
“I don’t think we should tell Ma, or yours for that matter,” Brownie said. “Prolly Willodean, either. Can we call Janie? She’s supposed to be coming to the big party, too. She’s got a great mind. She thinks she’s goin’ to be a cop, but I think she would be a better master villain. I just have to git her to think the right way.” He rubbed his hands together as if in exultant anticipation.
Bubba had a brief moment of misgiving. He shouldn’t be involving his cousin’s sometimes delinquent son, but let there be no doubt that Brownie was fully up to the task of wrapping up this matter. Involving Janie, on the other, would be risking the wrath of several licensed and armed law enforcement officials, not to mention that Bubba kind of liked Janie, and he wouldn’t want anything to happen to her. (Truly he didn’t want anything to happen to Brownie, but it was easier to have transitory horror-movie-like fancies about the boy than it was about Janie. It was probably because Brownie could be such a pain in the rump even if he was incredibly useful at times. Go figure.)
“They seen the Boo from the camp at least twice,” Bubba said. “Once down there, and then wrecking the camp.” And someone had been standing around waiting for the Boo to get busy while they filmed him with their cellphone? That didn’t seem likely. The footage he’d seen this morning was doubtless the work of Marquita and Risley trying to ramp up more interest in the movie. Bubba almost couldn’t blame them. “Then the Boo was in the tunnels for shore. Also, he was down by the brook and the bridge.”
Brownie stopped talking for a minute and listened to Bubba. Finally, he asked, “Are you trying to figure out something?”
“Yep,” Bubba said shortly.
“And you think
there’s a real live Boo?”
“Nope.”
“And you think that something could happen real soon like?”
“Mebe.”
“Gotcha,” Brownie said. He rubbed his hands together in obvious glee. “So gotcha.”
Bubba found Risley Risto in one of the remaining tents looking at piles of equipment, clearly trying to determine what was broken and what wasn’t. “Hey Bubba,” he said as Bubba popped through the door. Risley looked at Brownie curiously. “It’s not the best day for visitors.”
“You goin’ to film today?” Bubba asked.
“Depends on Marquita,” Risley said. He appeared a little green around the gills from the day’s previous excesses of alcohol, although that might have something to do with the green liqueur he’d been consuming at Mach speed. “She’s a little worn out. Kidnapping and all. Did I thank you for rescuing her? Well, if I didn’t, thank you. God knows how long it would have taken to find her down there in the tunnels, and she did say the pit she was in was filling up with water because of the storm.”
Bubba shrugged. “Glad she’s okay. That Hornbuckle gal definitely is a bean short of a cappuccino. Say, y’all have coffee around here?”
“The gut truck is running,” Risley said. “Knock yourself out.” He stared at Brownie. “Do I know you?”
“Mebe,” Brownie said. “I rescued folks from the Christmas Killer by using a homemade stun gun. Also, I used the same stun gun on Matt Lauer. He’s still got a restraining order on me, you know.” He glanced at Bubba. “Some other stuff I cain’t mention in certain company.”
“Brownie Snoddy,” Risley said. “If we get things back on track, you could do a cameo in the movie. Someone said you were kidnapped.”
Brownie glanced at Bubba then said, “Oh, you know about rumors and all.”
“Did Tandy come back?” Bubba asked.
“Well, she packed to leave and then stayed at the Ramada Inn instead,” Risley said. “Wanted to support Marquita and the production and all. So, she’s back today on our makeshift sound stage. I think we might be able to get some more work done. I think we can cobble together enough footage to make a shorter flick. I’m working on it, now.”
Look at the footage, Bubba thought. “Was David here today?”
“Yep,” Risley said. “Bright and shiny. He was looking at the footage and suggested a few ways to get it done. For someone of his…persuasion, he’s got a pretty good mind. Who would have thought?”
“You know he’s an astronaut lately,” Bubba said.
“And you should see the size of his rocketship,” Brownie interjected and then giggled.
“And the clip from the news this morning,” Bubba went on, “where did that come from?”
“There’s this kid who’s been up here filming with a digital camera,” Risley said. “Normally I don’t permit that, but Lord, we need all the buzz we can get. His name is Mack, no, Mick, something.”
“Mike Holmgreen,” Bubba said. Mike was the grandson of one of Miz Demetrice’s cronies and had once tried to burn the high school down because of a failing grade in algebra, although lately he focused on his YouTube channel. “Mike filmed the Boo doing this damage?”
Risley nodded doubtfully. “Certainly was fortunate for him. I looked at the full clip. He tripped and ran when the beast came in his direction. I think his hands were shaking too much to keep the camera in focus. He said he was lucky the Boo didn’t eat him. Except he said et instead of eat. What the heck does that mean?”
Bubba looked at Brownie. “Boy, kin you git me a coffee? There’s a truck three tents down. Mebe they’ll have something for you, too.” He passed the boy a twenty-dollar bill. “Don’t forget the change.”
Brownie snagged the bill saying, “Yoink,” and disappeared out the tent.
“Was that Boo from the footage you, Marquita, or Simone?” Bubba asked in all seriousness.
“No.”
“Anyone else who works for you or anyone you know?”
“No,” Risley frowned. “I told you there’s more than one.”
Bubba crossed his arms over his chest and said, “Let’s see it. All the shots you have of the Boo.”
Risley frowned again and then frowned a little harder. “Where are you going with this, Bubba?”
“Not for shore,” Bubba said. “Let’s see it.”
It took Risley about ten minutes, but they had six different scenes from the movie and then Mark’s footage was pulled up on Risley’s cellphone. Then they used a laptop to see another one of the nights the Boo had wandered within view of the film crew’s tent and trailer area.
“There’s the eight-foot-tall one,” Bubba said. “That’s someone on the drywall stilts.”
Risley had the grace to look ashamed. “Hollywood’s a finicky business,” he said, “and you’ve got to use every edge you can get.”
“Then you’ve got this one,” Bubba said of the one on the smartphone. “Look at this shot where the Boo is next to the trailer.”
Risley looked. “Trailer’s got to be about seven feet and that’s a six-foot Boo.” His face wrinkled. “Plus, that costume looks more like the one from the 60s.”
“And the one I saw in the tunnels was about five foot eight or thereabouts. I can’t be shore on account that I didn’t have measuring tape and he wasn’t bein’ accommodating.”
Risley grimaced.
“How many costumes did y’all make?”
Risley counted them off. “Two for the actor, Armand. One for Marquita. One for me. The one for Marquita fits Simone okay so she used that one when she took a turn. Then there was one for a future display. So that’s five.”
“How many are accounted for?”
“Marquita’s is ruined and mine is in my hotel room. The one Simone made for display is in Hollywood, so that leaves the two for Armand which are locked in the travel trailer Simone uses. It’s been locked, and we’ve had security until last night.” Risley sighed heavily. “That taxi guy ran off when the Boo came. He texted me saying penguins would be skiing in hell before he’d come back. Then those other guys Marquita hired kind of flaked out. Last night I had the county police drive past a few times.”
Bubba looked at the one shot of the Boo from when he/she/it had walked past the trailer area. “This one looks more red than brown and that’s full daylight. Ours are brown. And that doesn’t look like the head on ours nor does it look like the 60s head, either.”
Risley peered at the screen. He was obviously dumbfounded. “I think we have more Boos than we know what to do with.”
“I think you’re right.”
Brownie came in holding a tall cup of coffee and handed it to Bubba. “They have ice cream,” he announced. “I had two Klondike bars and a Nutty Buddy. I tipped the guy three dollars, so you have no change.” He looked at all the screens they had up. “Look, Boogity-Boos. This one is fake. Look, there’s a fold line there for the zipper. That one looks fake. Look at how long the legs are. What is he, a grasshopper in a bigfoot suit? Have you seen the Patterson-Gimlin film from the 60s? That’s some creepy badass stuff. Did you know there was a guy in Washington state who carved bigfoot feet and strapped them to his feet and ran around leaving footprints wherever? I should do that.”
Risley looked at Brownie with some alarm. “You’re not going to let him roam around, are you, Bubba? We have an insurance rider, but I don’t know how high it goes.”
Risley’s cellphone rang, and he answered while Bubba looked at some of the things that Brownie had pointed out. After Risley said goodbye and hung up, he turned to Bubba and said, “Okay, we’re closing this set for today. Back to work tomorrow. Marquita said her ass hurts from fielding phone calls. Plus, we have some calls out to investors.”
“Who’s goin’ to watch the place?” Bubba asked.
“Dunno,” Risley said. “I’ll put some calls out to security companies, but the closest is in Dallas, so I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“I’ll watch th
e place for a few hours,” Bubba said. Brownie said, “Me, too. The Boo don’t dare come close to us.”
Risley looked at Brownie in a doubtful fashion.
“It’ll be fine,” Bubba said.
Risley offered to give Bubba a cellphone but ended up sharing numbers with Brownie. They both watched as the man walked down the hill toward his Mercedes-Benz. A minute later both listened as the car started up (diesel engine, puttered like a Volkswagen) and drove away.
Brownie looked around. “There goes the guy running the food truck.”
Sure enough, the man in an apron waved at them as he walked down the same path as Risley. A minute later there was the sound of a car starting. (The Toyota Corolla doubtless.) Then the sound faded away as he drove off.
Brownie crossed his skinny arms over his chest. Bubba noticed he was wearing a t-shirt that said “Cool guys don’t look at explosions.” Bubba furrowed his face as he thought about what that meant.
Bubba drank his coffee and surveyed the empty site. They could go up to the Hovious place and look around. They could wander into the tunnels and see if anything popped out. They could search all the trailers and tents for clues. “Phone, Brownie,” Bubba said.
Brownie unlocked his iPhone and handed it over. Bubba found that his mother’s number was in Brownie’s contacts. He pushed a button and put the phone to his ear.
Miz Demetrice answered three rings later. “Brownie,” she said immediately. “Your mama is wondering where to what depth you’ve sunk. You should call her. Or text her. Don’t send photos. For the love of St. Barbara don’t send a selfie with yourself next to a bomb, a cannon, a weapon, or a serial killer.”
Bubba waited for his mother to take a breath. “It’s me, Ma. Brownie’s with me. No bombs, cannons, weapons, or serial killers about.” Actually, he wasn’t certain about weapons because everything could be used as a weapon if someone was creative enough. He could use a carrot to stab someone if he was so inclined, but Bubba didn’t really roll that way.