Skunk Hunt (67 page)

After a moment's reflection, I gave a prudent
shake of my head. The inference that my health was a given if I
played along offered some comfort. Which brought up a new worry.
What if Skunk had been kidding? What if the treasure had already
been spent, and I was on a wild skunk hunt?

I was the kind of chump for whom cautionary
labels were invented. I didn't need to be told that it was against
Federal regulations to insert air freshener up my rectum, but only
because I read the warnings, first.

Still, every warning detracts from your
freedom, and I was as resentful as any freewheeling poodle yanked
short by a chain. Maybe my captors were feeling the same way. I'm
pretty sure they didn't like dragging after me, dependent on my
every whim and dubious memory. Meanwhile, Mom was scrolling her
light slowly across the silver screen, lost in its rusty blankness.
Was she focusing on fact or fiction? Clark Gable or Skunk
McPherson?

"Mom's lost it," Jeremy said.

"I'm not so sure," said Todd.

The same doubt crossed my mind. What was she
looking for? What would she find? Mom had rarely shown much
imaginative propulsion in the years I knew her. But imagination,
for the average guy, is silent and unproductive. Staring at my
blank TV screen would not have generated this much nostalgia. I
wondered if I was imagining a false premise. Maybe Mom had
dementia. Not that anyone who showed no interest in instant riches
was necessarily mentally impaired. My presence here was strictly
involuntary, the result of a brutal kick-start. But Mom seemed to
be going all gelatinous on us. Could it be she foresaw the imminent
demise of one of her sons? And which son might that be, ha-ha?

Crap. I might be leading these clowns
nowhere, but it was getting me nowhere fast. If I dicked around too
long the sun would catch us in the open. The vampires surrounding
me were well aware of this. The psychic pressure on me increased
pounds per second.

"A20," Uncle Vern read from the pole I had
stopped next to. Beside it was a wrecked Camaro—pre-seatbelt, or I
was misinterpreting the pair of outward-bulging starbursts in the
windshield. What had happened to the driver and passenger didn't
bear thinking about, so I didn't. Besides, judging from the nearby
heaps revealed in Uncle Vern's light, half of the other drivers had
suffered a similar fate. The non-seatbelt age was a long time back.
A lot of these cars must have been relocated here after sitting for
decades in various yards and driveways. It was a graveyard of hope,
the communal confession that Junior's GTO and Dad's DeSoto were
beyond redemption. What better place for dead cars than a dead
drive-in in a dead town? Whatever spare parts that could be
scavenged had been shipped to Cuba. The rest was silence.

We were all sweating heavily. We could have
been in the Great Dismal Swamp. The valley funk drew gasps from
Yvonne, the intricacies of whose personal geography grew more
pronounced as she sopped around in her jogging suit. For a moment,
I found her curiously attractive, in a wet and wild Brontosaurian
way. Maybe we're drawn to the people who look like they might eat
us. In which case (taking note of all the eyes focused in my
direction), I was about to become the centerpiece of a regular love
feast.

"You really planning to hand over the jewels
to the insurance company?" Jeremy asked his twin in a joking voice.
He balled his fist, as if preparing the type of arm-punch he had
subjected me to whenever he felt clever. I thought it an
interesting twist on priorities. He should have asked if Michael
had been sticking his identical cock in Yvonne singular twitch. But
Michael was having none of his brother's nonsense, whatever topic
he chose. He was not going to be sucker punched again.

"Or else what?"

Jeremy's eyes widened. "What did you
say?"

He was reacting like an actor whose best line
had been stolen in the middle of a premiere performance. I checked
out Todd, to see if he appreciated the irony of the moment. He was
blandly oblivious. There were key signature lines missing from his
upbringing. The reverse was true, too, of course. With a name like
'Todd', he must be chockfull of ghastly biff-esque argot that would
pass miles over my peasant head. That should have been a relief,
yet I felt I had somehow missed out—on modernity, if nothing
else.

I began to shuffle slowly between the woods
and the lot, roughly knowing where I was headed.

"If you drag your feet any harder you'll bury
yourself," said Marvin.

I wished his choice of words was less
apt.

Uncle Vern made a sound that was almost
sympathetic to my plight, unless it was just gas.

"Why doesn't he go ahead and tell us
where it is?" Marvin continued. He had begun to limp, as if he had
been shot in the leg instead of the stomach. Even in the poor light
I could see his complexion was going bad. A part of me resigned
itself to empathy. Life with Skunk could be bad, even if you only
knew him for a few seconds. I was still recovering from the wounds
my father had given me over the years, and those were only psychic.
Not to downplay psychic wounds, but have
you
ever been shot?

In deference to the sicko kid, I picked
up my pace. Uncle Vern, not anticipating energetic action on my
part, quickly fell behind. Before I knew it, I was out of sight. A
shout of dismay rose from the group. It had never occurred to them
that I might try to escape. For that matter, it had not occurred
to
me
. They were as aware as I
was that, if I took off into the woods, I would undoubtedly
encounter Ur-Skunks and their super-inbred descendents. (Though one
thing you could say for Skunk and Mom: they didn't
look
alike.) Instead of finding a
comfy cinematic grave in the confines of a defunct drive-in, I
would be eaten alive, limb by toasted limb, my bones gnawed by dogs
even more genetically thorny than that found in my
(
urp
!) ancestors' barfology.
But a dead bird in the hand was less alluring than still-living
chirpers in the bush. I found my steps quickening in anticipation
of a few extra minutes of life.

"I told you we should have leashed him!"
Jeremy bellowed as I dodged behind a car that was more tree than
vehicle.

"Wait!" Uncle Vern called out. "A20! That was
his first thought! I'm sure it's there!"

If ol' Vern thought I had any thought in my
head beyond saving my skin, he was seriously deluded. Seeing as the
poles were still in place (for the most part) and still legible
(for the less part), I could have probably pinpointed the stash in
a few minutes. My agenda had changed, though. Life might not be
sweet, but sweet and sour had its own appeal. I limbered up my
slack muscles and made a powerful turn between two heaps. What I
had taken for a gap turned out to be a door—a closed door. I
whacked into it hard, but got back to my feet and churned my
legs.

If it had been Uncle Vern's aim to remain
unobtrusive, he was aiming high and hitting low. Way low. The
shouting was bad enough, but toss in the powerful lamps being waved
back and forth (Mom's doubly bright as it reflected off the
drive-in screen) and the receptors at Green Bank must have been
recording some palpable hits. Alien alert!

More problematic were the locals, who
were bound to hear and see the commotion and conclude the Feds were
out in force.
Which
Feds
didn't matter. FBI, CIA, ATF—they were all the same, outsiders
intent on destroying their freewheeling way of life and death.
Their dialectic was simple: shoot first, shoot again—shoot as many
times as it took to get the job done—and leave the questions to any
survivors dumb enough to raise them. My bullet-riddled corpse was a
foregone conclusion. If they didn't eat me, first.

I ducked and turned as best as I could, using
the odd thorn of light from Uncle Vern's direction to guide me
further into the dark. Fortunately, the clown posse couldn't spread
out and search without losing sight of their own legs. But a minute
later the light intensified. Either Mom had joined in the chase (I
wouldn't put it past her) or someone had yanked the flashlight out
of her hands. So now there were two clown posses after me. Still, I
had a good head start. When I reached the back of the lot I could,
if push came to shove (and it undoubtedly would) keep going and
lose myself in the woods.

Whank
!

I had gone head-first into something a lot
harder than my cranium. Down I went again. I pursued the lights in
my brain until something hissed and darted across my body. Time to
get up, no matter what. I rolled over and crawled a few feet, until
I encountered—shit! Broken glass. I got to my feet and tried to
gauge the direction of the light, then lit out the opposite
way.

A voice cried out: "If you ever expect to see
my pussy again, you'd better get your ass back here!"

Certainly a product of the heat of the
moment, which Yvonne must be generating in megawatts as she rolled
her big turbine through the automotive jungle. Since she couldn't
run me down, she had decided on the spur to lure me back. Pretty
counterproductive. There were incredulous shouts and the light
suddenly dimmed as everyone swung in her direction. I was too dazed
and bothered to imagine the looks on Jeremy's and Michael's faces.
But the thought of Todd's smirk of disgust was too vivid to
ignore.

I had run through enough rows to know I was
near the alleged treasure. It tickled my fancy. It tickled my fancy
sphincter.

That was a hard hit to the head.

I didn't pause, I didn't so much as chance a
passing glance. There was no way I could have read the pole number.
My head throbbed with the evidence that I couldn't see the big, let
alone the small.

I had not gone far before realizing if I
didn't voluntarily pee I would end up involuntarily peeing in my
pants. I stopped and unzipped. There was no sense aiming. The new
puddle was as invisible to me as pudding on the Moon. I wondered if
human urine would keep skunks at bay.

I finished my business and was hitching my
fly when a hand thumped down on my shoulder.

"Oh Jesus shit!" I exclaimed rhetorically. It
was a good thing I had just emptied my bladder.

"Keep it down, Mute! It's just me!"

"Sweet Tooth!"

"Shhhhhh!"

"Shut him up!" a different voice hissed. I
didn't know who it belonged to, but the scent of her orange juice
depilatory should have clued me.

There was a curious sucking-metallic sound.
"What's that?"

"Night vision goggles," Barbara complained.
"They're a pain!"

"Put them back on!" the other woman
ordered.

"But—"

"There'll be a lot more pain if they catch
us!"

"Monique?" I said, almost instantly
threatened by a nocturnal emission. Now that's power.

"They hurt my head," Barbara said, but from
the dull clink I knew she was putting the goggles back on.

"I can't see…" I reached out in the direction
of Monique's voice, hoping to be rewarded with a proper grope. I
was, and that reward was rewarded with a sharp slap. She could see
where she was aiming.

"Hey, don't hit him!" I was gratified by
Barbara's defense.

"Why not?"

My sister could not come up with a good
reason. I could almost hear her shrug.

The voices at the front of the lot were
moving again, the shock of Yvonne's verbal bomb having temporarily
worn off. They weren't so much chasing me as much as sifting
drearily through the wrecks. They knew finding me in this
wilderness/junkyard matrix was losing feasibility fast. They were
balancing their fear of losing the million against getting chomped
in the dismal wilds of Deliverance-land. Then, faintly, out of the
chaos of shouting, I heard Mom's voice:

"Mute, boy, you have a good life, you
hear?"

I was touched. I didn't know if she was
sincerely wishing me a happy, luxurious early retirement or if she
was resigning herself to losing me a second time. Either way, her
voice was so wan and free of bloodlust I was tempted to offer a
fond farewell.

"Who's that?" Barbara asked tightly.

"Mom. Yeah. You didn't know she was still
alive? Isn't that freak—"

"
Moooooommmm
!"

"Holy shit-o-rhea!" I yelled, my hair
standing on end. Hearing a McPherson emote was weird enough. But a
real cry from the heart made me want to duck for cover. Which,
under the circumstances, wasn't a bad idea.

"You want to get us killed?" Monique was
swirling the air with her wrath, which would have been a sight to
behold if I could have beheld it.

"Sweet Tooth?" Mom called out. "Is that
you?"

"You idiot, they shot Carl and Dog!" There
was a tussle in the dark. Monique must have been trying to drag
Barbara away.

"But it's
Mom
!" my sister protested. "I thought she was
dead!"

"We'll all be dead if we don't get out of
here!"

I would have protested if I hadn't gone
bust in the head. The Congreve brothers had killed Dog and Carl
Ksnip. Of that I
had
been
certain. Or was I? Who was to say it wasn't Michael or Jeremy or
even Yvonne Kendle with her butch automatic? I tried to sort out
who was where after Dog and Carl had left Todd's house. Only then
did I realize how groggy I was. When was the last time I had slept?
But wait—this was no time for a nap. I was going to be shot. We
were all going to be shot. Sweet Tooth, Monique and me by the
posse, the posse by the locals, the locals by the Feds, the Feds by
the terrorists, the terrorists by the Martians, the Martians by
the…they would have to shoot themselves.