by T L Barrett
“Sir, you can let us in?”
“Yes, son, thank God you came. When the others arrived earlier, I told my sweetheart to lay low so that no harm would come to her.”
“Your sweetheart is inside?” Barry asked.
“Yes, her name is Queen Basatiti, and she better be back in her sarcophagus like I told her to be. You go in there son and save your friends and my lady,” the man said and unlocked the doors. Barry nodded and went to enter.
“Son,” the old man stopped him, “If anything has happened to my love, you be sure to kill them. You got that? You kill those bastards, good.”
“We’ll do our best, sir,” Barry promised and made his way inside.
Inside, the museum was quiet. The crowd of people flooded into the museum. Someone turned on lights and Barry loped down aisles, hoping they hadn’t been too late.
“Glen! Eve! Dakota!” Barry screamed. He ran down one aisle and stopped and listened.
Suddenly, a sarcophagus opened. A female mummy, looked out, gave him a gruesome smile and pointed to the right.
“Thanks!” he said and ran down a few more aisles.
Glen was bent over talking to a pale looking Harpy, when Barry came around the corner.
“Glen!” Barry shouted. Glen looked up and grinned.
Barry ran into Glen’s arms. Glen scooped him up and held him tight against his pungent chest.
“Dude, did you do this? Did you get all these people here! I can’t believe it! You saved all of us! How did you do it?” Glen asked.
“Glen, I—uh—can’t breathe.”
“Sorry, buddy,” Glen said and put Barry back on the ground. “Those evil bastards saw the huge crowd gathering and they just had those three bitches summon some kind of magic mist and they all just skedaddled. How did you get all these people here?”
“Well, I, uh, kind of revealed to the world that monsters exist. I went to the Channel 9 news and revealed everything. I asked people to come and save you guys. I wasn’t sure it would work, but it did!”
“You did what?” Blanche, aka, the Crone, shrieked.
“I kind of outed us. All of us,” Barry said.
“You moronic shit-for-brains!” the Crone hissed. “I have to get out of here!” She leaned forward on her clawed hands and loped away like a beast.
“Don’t mind her,” Sophia, aka The Shady Lady, said. “That old witch will come around. You did the right thing, child.”
“We should get going,” Barry said, as he watched a couple of people stop and point to where the heroes had congregated.
“One cloak of darkness coming right up!” Sophia said. “Where’s Arachne? Back at the base?”
“I’m afraid she didn’t make it, I’m sorry,” Barry said, and then the darkness swallowed them.
* * * *
In the end, Blanche wouldn’t let Barry or Glen back in the house.
“That’s what comes of mixing with the evil sex,” she screeched at the others from a second story window.
“Go take your pills, you old cracker witch!” Sophia yelled at her. “Boys, I’ve asked Morticia to take you out of the city. Do you know where you’re headed next?”
“Well, we still have a quite a while before Comic-con—” Barry started.
“My cousin, Sherwood, lives in Colorado, in the Rockies,” Glen suggested. “He’d probably let us lay low there for a while.”
“You have a cousin in the Rockies?” Barry asked.
“Yes, I’ve got a cousin in the Rockies? What, Sasquatch can’t have extended family, now?”
Dakota swooped from the front stoop and landed on the driveway before them.
“Guys, Barry is all over the internet! You’re famous!”
“Yeah, the Rockies sound good. We are going to lay low for quite a while, I think,” Barry said.
“Well, if you ever get your dander up, and want to have a good time, a special time, you just come and see me. All right, darling?” Sophia came forward wrapped her arms around Barry’s neck and gave him a sensuous kiss.
Glen and Barry said their good-byes and got into Morticia.
“Wow, dude, that broad was all over you!”
“Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on anymore.”
“Barry, you’ve got the heat, man. Doesn’t he, Morticia?”
In answer, the radio turned on with the Pixies crooning out Here Comes Your Man. Barry’s seat reclined itself, and a jet of cool air wafted over his face.
Chapter Twelve
Cousin Sherwood is a Whore
By the time Morticia, the death car, had driven Glen and Barry into Kansas, Barry enjoyed a full defcon fret.
“Oh, man, what have I done?” Barry hissed and clawed at his own receding hairline.
“Once again...” Glen sighed. “You saved your best friend and a group of heroes, foiled the schemes of some classic bad guys, and liberated hundreds of races of folk after centuries of oppression.”
“I know, but, Jesus, what was I thinking?” Barry said. “I said most monsters were just like the rest of humanity!”
“Yeah, well, they are, despite being, in my case, vastly more handsome and totally jacked with muscles.”
“Yes, that’s what scares me!” Barry said.
“Man, I wish we had some weed. You need to seriously mellow. Haven’t you figured out that every time you do anything in the world that doesn’t involve masturbating, you are acting out of your inner-faith that the next guy is decent enough not to stab you in the back or eat you with a bit of lima beans? I mean, I’ve lived my life largely in a cave, but the way I figure, people act as they expect everybody else to act. You just told thousands of folk to stand up for themselves, but also told them that they were at heart decent people.
“Maybe I’m wrong, but maybe this was destined to happen, eventually. Maybe the forces of history or whatever demanded it to happen. I can’t think of a better guy to phone in that call. I can’t. You did the right thing. How many other monsters have been in a farmhouse basement, waiting to be destroyed? You can’t tell me that munchkin Nazis show up every time to take out the tribunals.
“You not only rescued those poor bastards, but you put a spotlight on the wicked ones, too. How many times have mothers let their kids go out thinking that the bogeyman that is rumored to live in some damned old house between theirs and the playground couldn’t probably exist. The way I look at it, you did the whole world a favor, buddy. On top of that, you saved a lot of people, including me. I will never forget that, man, never.” Glen put a huge hand over the seat and patted Barry’s shoulder.
“You really think, so?”
“Yes, I really think so—so shut the hell up already. I hate when you get like this. Jesus, you would think you’re getting paid to whine.”
“Well, maybe, we could just turn on the radio and see what the fallout is,” Barry said.
“No, Morticia babe, don’t turn on the radio! Barry, that’s the one thing you shouldn’t do right now. There is nothing good on the radio that wasn’t recorded in a studio twenty-five years ago,” Glen said.
“Mortica, honey, you’ll tune into some radio, for me, wouldn’t you?” Barry said in a gentle voice.
Talk radio filled the interior of the hearse.
“People, I have something important to say, and you need to listen up,” the radio demagogue spoke to his unseen masses. “I don’t care if you’re a Christian, a Jew—heck I don’t care if you’re a Muslim—it is time we took stock and realized who the real enemy is. The world has changed, and you’re probably afraid I’m going to be telling you that the end times are approaching. I’m not going to tell you that. Folks, the end times are here.
“The house and the senate have realized this, I can tell you that. Why else would they take a break out of the very important work they’ve been doing privatizing the system that has been hanging over the head of every good taxpayer to go into a closed door session? I’ll tell you why: because the end times are here!”
; “That is fucking bullshit! Christ, most of those politicians are snake people just like that cult leader asshole. They’re probably scared shitless! Morticia, turn it off!” Glen growled from the back seat.
“No, wait!” Barry shouted.
“They are walking among you, and now they have taken off their masks, and asked with that little plaintive voice: ‘Don’t fear us, don’t bother to protect yourselves against us! We’re just like you!’ Well, I’ll tell you folks, and here I mean the real folks, the true red blooded human Americans that have poured sweat and tears and blood into this wonderful land, this voice is the same voice that has been whispering the lies to all the bleeding hearts, all the idiots who watch while the traditions of this great country have been thrown into the dirt. Only now, they have revealed their face. The signs are all there, people, they aren’t coming, they’re here, but now we know they’re here.
“Now the anti-Christ has come and revealed himself. He has spoken into the homes and computers from the heartland of this great nation, and his name is Barry Trudeau!” the radio talk man hissed.
Barry turned white and clutched at his own neck.
“Jesus!”
“I’ll tell you what this madman, this devil, thinks. He thinks that the time has come, that his time has come. He thinks that Americans are so weak, so lulled into a complacency that they won’t put up a fuss. Well, I have real and abiding faith, folks, that he is wrong. I know that a real strength resides in the American people. We won’t just sit back while monsters eat our children, or worse than that, make our children into demons like them. So, wake up America, you are being called out. It is time to stand up and shout out these demons, to act and know that your nation, your very God has called on you to do this thing.
“We’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors folk, but stay tuned. When we return, I’ll let you in on some truths about this Mister Barry Trudeau, a real wolf in sheep clothing; and apparently his attack on the family began long ago. We’ll talk to some of the people who knew him in college and they can attest to many things—including, get this ladies in gentlemen, he was an outspoken socialist and a homosexual.”
Barry began to sob and rock back and forth in the front seat.
“Morticia!” Glen screamed. “You turn the fucking shit off, or I swear—”
The radio switched off. The only sounds in the Hearse were Barry’s sobs and the gritting of Glen’s giant teeth.
* * * *
“What am I going to do?” Barry asked some time later. “Everybody in the world knows my face. How am I going to live in the world?”
“Well, I’d let you borrow the woman’s gardening hat, but I think I left it in your car,” Glen said.
“Glen, I’m serious, I don’t know how we’re going to go anywhere, now. I can’t see how we’re possibly going to go to Comic Con.”
“We’re going to Comic Con. We’ll just take it easy for a while, you know, get to my cousins, spend some time in the Rockies, let things chill out. We’ll get you a hat, you can grow a beard. It’ll be cool. Anyways, people will forget about this.”
“People are not going to forget about this!” Barry moaned.
“Are you telling me the government is going to let people think they don’t have a handle on the whole thing? They will, and then they’ll send out one of their trained movie-star succubi to show her punta in public or some damned thing. Dude, it won’t matter. You’ll see, in a few months, Jay Leno will be sporting his real skin color.”
“Comic Con isn’t a few months away, Glen.”
“We’re going to Comic Con. I’ll go as fucking Chewbacca if I have to. Nobody’s going to bat an eye. Anyway, you think the kind of idiots that listen to freaks like that radio guy go to Comic Con? Fuck, no. They are nerds, they’re our people, man. Everything is going to be fine. Listen, why don’t we have Morticia pull over and get some beer. You can buy a baseball cap and sunglasses, all right? We ought to get royally fucked up, you know. We have the world’s coolest DD, right?”
“You know that doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Now, we’re talking!” Glen said.
The monsters got royally drunk, sobered, skipped a hang over by starting in a whole new round of twelve packs by the time Morticia sped through Colorado.
* * * *
“Life’s been good to me so far!” Glen and Barry sang out heartily with Joe Walsh on the radio.
Morticia rolled to a stop. Outside, the mountain road disappeared around the bend ahead. Behind them was a little bait shop and up, through the woods, a trail led.
“Are you sure this is the spot, buddy?” Barry slurred.
“Pretty damned sure. Sasquatch have this internal instinct that hones them in on another Sasquatch lair. It has to do with magneto-psychism.”
“That smells like a total load of bullshit,” Barry said. Glen opened the door, pulled himself half out and started pissing on the ground.
“Yeah, well, that it is buddy, the whole piss-and-kaboodle,” Glen said.
A minivan full of children on their way to swimming lessons passed by. Glen waved. The minivan swerved and sped away. Glen lost his grip on the door frame and fell forward.
“Oh, Jesus—my own piss. I fell in my own piss!” Glen shouted. Then he laughed.
“Don’t worry, Mortie-baby, I won’t let the big stinky Sasquatch back inside you. You know you have been wicked sweet to us brutes. I hope you can find your way back to your lady friends all right. Thank you,” Barry said and leaned forward and left a slobbery kiss on her dashboard.
The radio broke blared out: “Thank you for letting me be myself again!”
“How does she do that?” Barry wondered out loud. “Right back at you, baby.”
They got out and waved goodbye as Morticia beeped and pulled away.
“Well, we’re on our own again,” Glen said. “I’m going to miss that car.”
“Yeah, I don’t suppose your cousin has a van or anything we can steal,” Barry asked.
“I don’t know. Let’s go check,” Glen said and they sauntered up through the woods.
At the top of the path was a little clearing in front of a cave. Candy bar wrappers and cigarette butts littered the ground.
“I see the family resemblance already,” Barry drawled.
“Fuck you very much,” Glen muttered. “Hey, Sherwood, you home?” he called.
No one answered. Barry went to the cave entrance and sniffed.
“Jesus it stinks. Maybe he’s dead?” Barry said.
“He’s not dead. I’d know if he was dead.”
“That’s another one of your vaunted Sasquatch powers, eh?” Barry asked.
Glen led the way into the cave. They found an old stained mattress and some weathered porno mags. There was a little Sterno stove set up and some burnt spoons, as well as used needles.
“I think your cousin is a junkie,” Barry said.
“Jesus, you think? This isn’t good. How the heck did he get the stuff, though? Someone had to be supplying them. Why don’t you sniff the mattress or something and get a scent, will ya?” Glen asked.
Barry sighed, transformed into his wolf-face and bent over the mattress. He led the way out of the cave and back into the clearing. He turned about, sniffing and pointed at a well beaten path that led to the left.
They walked down the path for about a quarter of a mile until they heard people laughing. They crept down low in the bushes until they came to the back lot of the little bait stand they had passed earlier.
Men dressed in fancy and new-looking hunting gear chatted and smoked by the back door to the stand. A bunch of hunting rifles lay propped against the bait shack. A truck had been pulled up beside a huge old tree. A rope led from where it was tied to the back of the truck over a thick branch of the tree and down to the ground.
At the base of the tree, a skinny and sunken-eyed Sasquatch sat on the ground. A man with a moustache and an old fishing hat had the end of the rope and stooped down beside
the Sasquatch.
“You ready, Sherwood?” the man asked. He wrinkled his rat like face and fidgeted with his nostrils.
Sherwood nodded his head, scooted sideways, lay down and lifted his legs. After the third try, he got them high enough and the man threaded the rope around his legs and deftly tied them tight.
The man went to the cab of his truck and got in. He started the engine, put it in gear and drove the slowly forward. Sherwood was dragged for a few feet, then his feet lifted into the air. He came up rather quickly, then the truck stopped. Sherwood swung like an upside down pendulum and struck his head against a little rock.
“Oh, fuck. Every time, man!” Sherwood whined in a surprisingly high voice.
When Sherwood was four feet off the ground, the man stopped the truck, turned off the engine and came back.
“All right men, we’re about ready!” he said. The men put out their cigarettes and stooped to lift their rifles.
“Oh, shit. We got to get them now!” Glen said and started to rise. Barry grabbed him by his main of hair and pulled him back.
“Hold on, I don’t think they’re going to kill him,” Barry said.
“I think I’m going to kill them.”
“Yeah, just wait for a minute, okay? I don’t feel like getting shot again, right now, okay?” Barry whispered.
In the clearing, the men approached the hanging Sasquatch hesitantly.
“They don’t bite, do they?” a thin man in a ridiculous looking hunting cap asked.
“I don’t know. Probably not,” one of his fatter compatriots said. “Hey, Len! Joe here wants to know if your pet here has had his shots.” This question was followed with shared hilarity among the men.
“Yeah, he won’t bother you, unless you’ve got any sugar on you. I swear the bastard’s going diabetic on me, I do.” More laughter followed this admonition. The men seemed more at ease as they gathered around the hanging Sasquatch.
Len got out a professional model digital camera. He gave the men directions, as they tried out ridiculous poses. Finally, they settled down, some kneeling other standing proudly beside their supposed “catch”. Sherwood hung down, his mouth open, his face slack.