Lick Your Neighbor (12 page)

In those eyes was that disturbingly indifferent look that one normally only finds in lions, mailmen, and the criminally insane. It’s the look that said, “I would just as soon shake your hand as I would chop your head off and use your jugular like a water fountain.”

Randy crossed himself. Then he reached over and crossed Dale. Dale went ahead and crossed himself for good measure, and then crossed Randy as well. In a frenzy, they went back and forth crossing themselves and each other for what seemed like minutes before finally slapping each others hands away.

“God save us,” Randy said.

The beakman opened his beak and let out a long, loud, ferocious gobble.

Randy and Dale screamed.

Their assailant broke into a wild and powerful Native American style dance. He stomped and spun around on the slick, egg-covered hood, never so much as losing his balance.

Dale and Randy had something new to scream at when they heard pounding on the roof. A second man had jumped up there and was also dancing and gobbling.

The only thing missing was a soundtrack, soon supplied by the remaining two men as they pounded on the side windows, using them like tribal drums.

Still screaming his head off, Randy flung the car into reverse, hit the gas, and sent the car screeching backward. The two men on top of the car leapt off the moment it moved, landing gently on the ground with far more ease than should have been possible.

Once the car was a good distance away, Randy gave the wheel a hard turn to the left, sending the car into a screeching 180 degree turn. Shaking, they came to a bumpy rest an egg’s throw from the horror scene at the gate.

Randy and Dale stopped screaming and tried to catch their breath.

“I think I know who they are,” Dale huffed. “The Duxbury Psycho Assassin Hellhounds. The farmer sent them after me.”

“What farmer?”

“There was a strange farmer in my bedroom this morning. He wanted the diary. He threatened to unleash a gang of Hellhounds on me if I didn’t give it to him.”

“A farmer, eh? So there’s another party at work here. Of course! These monsters are just puppets. Someone else is pulling the strings on this so called gang. But what kind of gang are they exactly?”

Randy and Dale turned around and saw the beakmen performing a variety of stylish jumps, flips and cartwheels onto their scooters. As they landed they each brandished a weapon. Swords, knives, nunchucks, and a bo staff.

“Ninjas,” Randy said. “They’re a goddamn gang of bird ninjas.”

Dale turned to Randy, and with stone-cold seriousness said, “Punch it, Chewy.”

Randy threw his head back and let out an impressive Chewbaccian roar. He slammed his foot down hard on the gas and the station wagon went flying through the lot at speeds upwards of forty-five miles an hour. It rattled so violently that Dale was sure the whole thing would fall to pieces, leaving them sitting on the road, Randy still clutching the wheel like something out of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

The ninjas calmly and quietly pursued the car with their scooters in a perfect diamond formation.

Inside the car, chaos reigned. Seeing the scooters gaining on them, Dale hyperventilated in a terrifying wheeze. It wasn’t helping that Randy was swerving the car around like a drunken hobo at a driving test.

“They’re gaining on us, Randy. What are we going to do? We’re dead! Dead, dead, dead!”

“Relax, I have a plan. There’s a gun in the backseat. Reach back and get it.”

Just then Dale realized that maybe he didn’t know Randy as well as he thought.

“You have a gun?”

“Sort of.”

Randy drove around and around the perimeter of the parking lot, pushing the wagon to its limits. Especially on the turns, which he took like an Indy driver.

If the beaked ninjas don’t kill us
, thought Dale,
Randy surely will
.
Something has to be done.

Dale dug through the pile of trash on the backseat. The only thing he found that didn’t look like it belonged in a landfill was a long skinny tube lying across the entire length of the seat. It appeared to be made out of some sort of bamboo. Dale picked it up and looked it over.

“This?” Dale asked.

“Yes, yes, that’s it!”

The scooters broke formation, fanning out to flank their prey.

“You call this a gun? It’s a piece of wood, you idiot.”

“It’s a genuine Cherokee blowgun.”

“Why do you have a blowgun?”

“I used to date a stunningly beautiful woman of Cherokee descent,” Randy explained, “Her name was Lotootonka. It means ‘Rides like Bull.’ I loved her more than anything in this broken, twisted world of ours. That was her great-great-grandfather’s blowgun.”

“So why do you have it?”

“I’m holding it hostage until she returns something she took from me.”

“What?”

“My heart. Now reach back and get the darts too.”

Dale found a bundle of wooden darts in an old shoebox. They had dried white thistle on one end and a very sharp point on the other. He tossed the box onto his lap and grabbed the blowgun, accidentally hitting Randy in the back of the head as he brought it up front.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with this thing? Kill a buffalo?”

“If a primitive people like the Native Americans could learn how to use it, then I see no reason why an educated modern man of tomorrow such as yourself can’t do the same.”

“Educated modern men of tomorrow invented firearms so they wouldn’t have to walk around blowing on huge phallic straws.”

“When you were a child, did you ever shoot spitballs in school?” Randy asked.

“Well, yeah but—”

“It’s the exact same technique! Just drop a dart in there, aim, and blow as hard as you can.”

“Look at this thing,” Dale said, “It’s longer than a broom! It’ll never work.”

One of the men drove up close to Randy’s window. In his hand was a viciously curved blade with a short wooden handle.

“Look out!” Dale shouted, “He’s got a sickle!”

Randy glanced out his window and shook his head. “That’s not a sickle. That’s a Kama.”

“What’s a Kama?”

“It’s basically a sickle. But for ninjas.”

The beakman took off Randy’s side mirror with one clean swipe of his
whatever
.

“Okay.” Dale was trembling. “Maybe I’ll, uh, give the old blowpipe here a go.”

“Good man.”

While Randy swerved to avoid a second swing of the Kama, Dale rolled down his window and poked his head out. After Randy’s maneuvering, the scooters were all now behind the car.

“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”

“More like the most awesomest thing you’ve ever done,” Randy said.

Hanging out the window from his waist up, Dale lifted the tube to his lips. He picked the closest one, aimed at his head, and then closed his eyes and imagined he was twelve years old again. He was sitting in a desk at school and held a straw to his lips. He aimed the straw at the cutest girl in the class and blew. In his mind, out came a spitball. In reality, out came a dart.

Dale opened his eyes as he heard the fwoomp sound of the dart flying out of the gun. Amazingly, it was headed straight for the ninja’s back. But just as it was about to make contact, another one of the other ninjas came flying sideways through the air all Crouching Tiger style, grabbed the dart with one hand, and while still airborne, he threw a three-point metal projectile at Dale with his other hand.

Dale watched helplessly as the thing sliced through the air toward him. Surely it would hit him right between the eyes, leaving him cross-eyed, staring at the blood trickling down his nose. He couldn’t move, his fate unfolding in slow motion.

Through some miracle, the weapon hit the tip of the blowgun instead of Dale, lodging itself in the opening. With his lips still on the tube, Dale stared down the barrel at the object that missed killing him by about an inch. It looked like the kind of star a ninja would use, but this one was in the shape of an arrow…or a bird’s foot.

Dale ducked back inside the car.

“Get us out of here,” he said.

“What happened?” Randy asked, “Did you take them out?”

Dale shook his head and showed Randy the blowgun.

Randy slammed on the brakes. As the wagon came to a screeching halt, he grabbed the blowgun, peering at the metal thing stuck in its opening.

“They really
are
ninjas.”

“But they have
beaks
,” Dale said, “Do ninjas have beaks?”

“Ninjas are sworn to the three S’s,” Randy said. “Secrecy, silence, and slaughter. They stalk through life like shadows, striking fear into the hearts of peasants and emperors alike.”

“But we’re not emperors. Or peasants. We’re just…middle people. Can’t they just ignore us like everybody else does?”

Randy pointed out the windshield. “Why don’t you ask them that yourself?”

A few feet in front of the car stood all four men, armed with weapons and in battle-ready stances. One held nunchucks, one held two small daggers, one held a long bo, and the fourth one had a short sword.

If there were tumbleweeds in Duxbury now would be the perfect time for a couple of them to bounce between the station wagon and the men. But Duxbury didn’t have tumbleweeds. Some fallen leaves rattled by instead, but it just wasn’t the same, and even the leaves knew it.

A tense silence filled the car. And then…the Super Mario Brother’s theme song. Dale glanced down at his cell phone. Andie.

“Hello.”

“
Dale? Are you OK? You voice is all trembly.”

“I’m, you know…
fine
.”

The ninja with the bo stepped forward and broke into a quick demonstration. There was much flipping and slashing about. It was clear he was well-trained, and had used the bo in combat many times before.

“This really isn’t a good time for me to talk, Andie.”

“Why not? What’s going on?”

“Oh you know…
stuff
.”

The man with the sword stepped forward next. One of the others threw a large rock at his head, as hard as he could. With one quick, almost effortless motion the man used his sword to slice through the rock as if it were butter.

Dale and Randy looked at each other and let their bulging eyes do the talking.

“Listen, Andie, how about I call you when we get to the school?”

“Why are you going to the school?”

“To talk to Mayflower.”

“Don’t waste your time.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s not there. He’s here. Well, sort of. Dale? Are you still there?”

Dale was having a hard time concentrating on his wife while watching a man with a beak spin nunchucks so fast he could no longer see the actual chucks. They were just a blur.

“Dale, if you can hear me, Mayflower is dead.”

That got Dale’s attention.

“Wait, what did you say?”

“That’s why I called. Mayflower’s body is in our backyard, Dale. I nearly tripped over it. What should I do?”

Dale paled. “God’s miserable teeth.”

“What is it?” Randy asked.

“Should I call the cops?”
Andie asked.

“Hold on.” Dale cupped his hand over the phone and turned to Randy. “It’s Mayflower. He’s…dead. Andie says his body is in our yard.”

Randy slapped his forehead. “Of course! He’s the one who really knew about the Auwaog, not you. So they went after him first. You must be next on their list.”

“What list?” Dale asked.

“What do you mean, ‘what list?’ The list of enemies to kill. To ruthlessly hunt down and murder one by one, crossing them off and laughing manically as you go. Are there any other kinds of lists?”

“Please don’t tell me you have a list like that.”

“I don’t.”

“Thank God.”

“Anymore.”

“Randy!”

“Could we please just focus on the ninjas at hand for now?”

“Right. Fine. You think they’re behind all this chaos stuff?”

Randy shook his head. “Unlikely. They are merely errand boys, sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill. We need to find the grocery clerks and ask them a few questions about this here bill. The price they’re asking us to pay for a few of these items seems a bit high. First things first. We need to find the grocery store. And while we’re there, we should pick up some groceries. Because there’s a storm a-comin’, and we need to stock up on canned goods. If you catch my meaning.”

“I don’t,” Dale said. “No one does. Why? Because you’re a moron, Randy. And you know what, I don’t think these here errand boys are capable of killing anything. That farmer and his buddies are trying to scare me, that’s all. Mayflower probably just had a heart attack or something. He was almost seventy years old, and he smoked like a chimney. I’ll bet these clowns are just trying to scare us with all their circus tricks and whatnot. Bah. Bah I say!”