Ridicula Read online

  Yet, they had gotten together because she had found him funny and endearing, and he had found her to be sophisticated and attractive. They had laughed it up at Kenny’s party, where they had met. Why couldn’t they laugh now? Everything since that awkward breakup had been surreal, and these past few days had been outright ridicula. Yet here they were near but still so far apart.

  First out of the balloon—because he had been thrown like a skydiver without a parachute into the bushes—he had just lain there not ready to get up and wanting to stay hidden. He needed to compose himself, and he couldn’t help feeling a tad bit responsible for the mess they were in.

  Thankfully, neither Jade nor the others had found him yet. That left him more time for his heart to stop racing.

  But someone else had. He knew this because he heard a woman yelling his first and last names. At first, he thought it was Jade, but he quickly realized that it could not be her for three reasons: 1) It hadn’t sounded like Jade; 2) The shriek came from the opposite direction than where Jade would be; and most notably, 3) This woman shouted that she loved him. Jade would shout commands, obscenities, and jokes at him but never that word.

  George laughed. He had to be hearing things. The sound must have been that of an eagle overhead, and he had only imagined it to be a woman’s voice. Come on, who would shout that she loved HIM?

  Then he heard even louder, “That’s right. I LOVE George Hemmingway Cramwell!” Who the hell knew his middle name? He was no drunken famous author, so he found no reason to ever use his middle name, not even the H.

  “Who’s there?” Jade yelled. She had heard the other woman’s voice this time, so he couldn’t have imagined it, even if he were Hemmingway drunk.

  “You show yourself first,” said a different, rougher woman’s voice. “You better be just passing by.”

  Jade began to say something but then shut her mouth. She wasn’t about to face off with strangers. She was not much for continued confrontation, just initial mocking, and she certainly wouldn’t show herself without shoes and perfectly combed hair, unless she just wanted to tell off George.

  That ship sailed when a bulky woman came crashing through the brush, just narrowly missing bulldozing George in his hiding place. “You’ve been following us too, woman?” she said, suddenly up close and personal with Jade.

  Jade cowered, and the men froze, watching. They would be too late to help Jade if the large, bulky woman threw a fist, and George was manly enough to admit that he was scared of the broad woman, too. That woman’s a brute!

  Courageous little Maria, however, stepped forward, branch waving in hand, ready to strike. “Step back!” she strongly commanded. “No need for fighting. We had no idea you were around.”

  Surprisingly, the gigantic woman (she looked bigger every time George blinked) did back up. “Sorry. I get headstrong when around my stuff.”

  At that moment, three men fell into George’s view. The first looked more hair than man. The second looked more boy than man and had no hair. The third had hair like Jesus….

  It couldn’t be! No way! Then George recalled that it could really be him since George currently precided in Wyoming.

  It must be Hippie! Ridicula!

  George began to move out of hiding when he received a soft tap on the shoulder. It seemed that Jade had finally found him, so he thought of a quick excuse that would explain why he had been hiding. He whirled around and said, “I was taking a dump!”

  “You still smell good even with your crap somewhere near,” Carolyn said. “Now let’s see if you taste as good.” She bent over, her mouth open, aiming to bite his neck.

  “Bloodshedder! Get away!” George screamed so loud that Faulkner might have heard him in Jersey. He pushed his hands out, swinging them in a slap motion, like a girl on the playground, keeping her mouth at bay until he could stand up and run.

  “From the first minute I saw you walking with that chick over there, I knew I had to make you mine. We could roam the nights together, enjoying each other’s blood, fucking at leisure, never tiring, always free. You see, you are my mate. I felt it instantly as soon as I saw you.” Carolyn had a ravished look on her face, lovelorn, as if he were the only one who could satisfy her.

  “What the hell are you talking about? Is this what you told Jade?” he said, ready to bolt when he realized that his hands were no longer deterring her.

  “Oh, that phony woman over there,” she replied, pointing at Jade as a toddler might to a toy. “No, she wouldn’t understand all that. I just told her the truth: that you and I are in love and that there was nothing she could do about it.”

  “You’re fucking crazy!” and he bolted from her grasp. George did not look back. His only aim was to escape. Unfortunately, he wasn’t looking ahead either. He smashed hard into a tree and keeled over.

  Carolyn laughed demonically. “I’m coming to get you, my love. I need to suck your sweet blood so that we can live forever in seductive ecstasy! I am your succubus!”

  George could not stand back up. Whether stunned or injured, he wasn’t certain. He tried to roll to freedom, but the ground had a slight incline, so he wound up rolling back toward Carolyn.

  “Rollerboy, no need to hurry to me. I’ll be right there to pleasure you!” And she was right on top of him seconds later.

  “Your blood, honey! Your blood, Sweetie! Your blood, Soulmate!” George saw her red fiery eyes and lush sinful lips—a vampire in heat! When she bit, would he turn into Bloodshedder’s permanent soulmate?

  Holy hell! But he was resigned to his fate.

  Chapter 21

  The Grand Fetcher Escapade: The End of the Ultimate Chase

  MOOC scratched every corner of the crate he found himself in without it budging. It was secure. He could not escape that way.

  But he could escape by going under it. Martens were not known for their digging and tunneling ability, but Rascally Rascal was no ordinary pine marten. He prided himself on burrowing better than a rabbit or gopher and tunneling quicker than a Russell Terrier.

  That dog and his oddball crew had shown some cleverness, but MOOC would outmaneuver them. He clawed the soil, found it soft, and began digging at top speed. He’d be gone before that Rottweiler could bring his clumsy body over to appraise his catch, especially since he had already built an intricate maze of tunnels underneath the Douglas-fir. After all, the tree was one of his favorite hideouts.

  All he had to do was dig to the point where he could intercept one of the tunnels. This turned out to be easier than he had thought; a tunnel presented itself before he had dug a meter deep.

  That dog was in for a surprise. When it opened his trap, it would find that remarkable Rascally Rascal had escaped.

  That dog, Freckles, lumbered underneath Grand Fetcher at that very moment and spotted the box. He had been careful not to become entangled in the tree, and since he was a rather large dog, this had taken some considerable effort.

  But it would be all worth it. His nemesis was caught, thanks to the hummingbirds that had flown through the area at precisely the right moment before moving on. The cat and the man had done their jobs, too, albeit clumsily, which was expected from them anyway.

  Now it was time to mock that marten incessantly. He thought about a cartoon that Harrison liked, involving a coyote and roadrunner. What would Wile E. Coyote say to the roadrunner if he ever caught it? The dog was not sure, but he was ready to say his zinger anyway.

  “Cawabunga!” he barked as he looked in the crate.

  He did not see any marten. Dammit! Had he not caught that marten after all? Then he saw the hole in the ground. That marten had dug himself free. And set a record pace at that.

  What a mischievous, cunning, and resourceful rascal that marten was!

  But Freckles still had a few tricks of his own and was not a dog who gave up. In that way and maybe only in that way, he was like a Chihuahua. Their unwillingness to give up was the reason they yapped so much. Annoying but respectable.

&nb
sp; Now where would the marten go? He knew that rascal would not be far off. It would rather tease him than escape. It was just a matter of where and when he showed up rather than if. Therefore, Freckles decided to wait rather than run around aimlessly searching, which could be a fun activity but not worth his energy at the moment.

  “What’s wrong with you, you mutt?” Harrison yelled crankily. Was it naptime for the old man already? That was usually the time the man called Freckles “mutt,” because normally he knew that the dog that lived in his home was a full-bred Rottweiler—and proud of it.

  “Aren’t you going after that smart-aleck marten in the box?” the man continued. How little did that man observe. The marten would likely be back to scare him. Ridicula! But Freckles would never be scared by a little pine marten.

  “Where did that darn cat go?” Harrison asked. Well, at least he had observed that. That cat was probably meowing her way home. Scaredy cat!

  Before Freckles heard any more complaints from his so-called owner, the marten came from out of the ground right below Harrison’s feet, which caused him to drop the weed whacker as he yelped in surprise. The whacker had whacked its last weed, for it broke in half on a rock.

  Freckles saw the smirk. That marten was laughing it up. The old man may be a clumsy bumbler, but he did not deserve that treatment. Freckles charged after that smartass marten.

  The race and chase was on again. Bring it on, marten!

  They skirted through brush and bramble, tree and branch, rock and crevice. They never tired, and the marten egged the dog on. Harrison, on the other hand, gave chase for only a few steps and then already winded, said, “Fuck this damn chase. Don’t like ‘em in action movies so not gonna do it now,” he muttered, but Freckles heard him with his uncanny hearing. “I’m going home. Maybe get me some lox and herring and perhaps take an early nap—” The man muttered some more, but Freckles became intent on the chase and left Harrison to his own blundering ways.

  The marten ran up a hill. As he reached higher ground he climbed toward the edge, where the area was unstable for Freckle’s four feet and large frame. The dog did not immediately see a hanging ledge and nearly tumbled over it. One paw already dropping, he recovered his hind legs enough to keep traction and remain climbing. That marten was trying to make him fall and had almost succeeded. That devilish scoundrel!

  When they reached the summit and ran down on the other side, Freckles gained on the smaller marten. As the terrain levelled, he nearly had his nemesis, inches from him. The Rottweiler nipped at the marten’s tail, teeth expecting to nab the marten, but instead he bit air. And his teeth grinding hurt!

  The marten had whipped his tail away and then zagged to the right, narrowly missing an old stump of a tree. Freckles could not stop in time but could jump the stump. He did so, but the marten had gained a lead once more.

  In midair, Freckles realized just how much fun he was having. And the marten had given this delight to him. That marten might be a fiendish pain in the butt and had tried to injure and mock him over and over again, but he sure was good for some good ole entertainment.

  The race and chase persisted. They must have covered many kilometers, so Freckles no longer knew where in Yellowstone he traveled. The terrain was completely unfamiliar to him. Perhaps it was time to give up and find his way home before he became too lost to even guess where to go. He began to slow.

  The marten looked back at him and gave him a wry smile. This did what it had intended; it incited the Rottweiler. Freckles’ pace quickened. He would catch this rascal even if he needed to run to Colorado. At one point, he didn’t notice when he instinctively skirted by a woman, not seeing her lose her balance.

  The sun was up in the sky, dawn left behind, when he saw his next chance to grab hold of the marten’s tail, but this time he did not nip haphazardly. He watched the tail’s movement instead, focusing, trying to strike and not miss. He recognized the motion; he had it timed. His nemesis was caught!

  Except just as he struck, a different woman somehow appeared out of nowhere between the marten and Freckles. He had been so intent on catching the marten he had not seen her at all. He had no choice but to slam into her, and the result would not be pretty.

  Boom! She screamed and fell hard one way while Freckles flew the other. He landed in a heap right next to a man sprawled out on the ground.

  Needless to say, the marten escaped, and Freckles could imagine him chuckling with his mocking grin in doing so. Yet, the dog was not upset or angry about it.

  Because that chase had been so much fun, and the dog knew that the marten would be waiting for more fun.

  Chapter 22

  Seventies or Eighties Music

  Hippie looked at the lunacy around him. He saw new faces and animals and nature but could not be certain whether any of it was reality or just a cartoon in his imagination. The peyote, possibly made more potent because of the niacin in his system, made him see things. What he saw was all with nature, of course, but he never realized that the branches of oaks and maple trees could be so long. They seemed to be reaching out to him, inviting him to join them in harmonious tree singing, but he knew better. He had seen the movies and read the books: they wanted to capture and squeeze his bones dry. And those dogwoods wished to cover him with pretty white flowers to suffocate him. And those Redwoods—forget about it!

  “Dogwood, dogwood,” he began to sing, remembering an old childhood song that had always calmed him, and as he sang, his paranoia faded. The dogwood trees were beautiful once more, their leaves no longer threatening. However, his hallucinations resumed; he tripped hard!

  First, he thought he saw his old buddy, George Cramwell, appear out of thin air only to trip in front of one of the aforementioned dogwood trees. Then he witnessed Carolyn change into a bloodthirsty, lovelorn succubus whose only wish was to abduct George and make him her plaything. Before she could reach him, though, a dog chasing some smaller critter came barreling through, causing Carolyn to lose her balance. As she fell, time seemed to stand still for a moment. Hippie saw every inch of her body collapse, split apart, and then reform into a woman’s figure once more, suddenly looking like an angel rather than a succubus, woman rather than spawn, normal rather than crazy. Hippie knew he must still be tripping, for Carolyn was certainly not normal by any means. He had known that fact from when they first met all those days ago. Still, he liked her no matter what lunacy she stirred up. That’s why he liked Maude and Bearman and George, too, although he still could not be certain this was George and not a hallucination that lay before him.

  Slapping George lightly on the cheek brought him to his senses.

  “Oww!” he said.

  Hippie guessed that the slap had been harder than he had thought, for the red mark persisted many seconds afterward. Of course, this was against his nonviolent nature. He wasn’t Maude, after all.

  Before he apologized, though, George (he was reasonably sure that it was indeed him) said. “Is that you? The great man himself and my friend?”

  At first Hippie thought that he had knocked George into Bearman’s way of thinking or that the real Jesus was standing behind him. Then he realized that George’s adoring look was strictly for him, Hippie. George had always worshipped him just a little bit, although his friend knew him not to be anything like Jesus. Hippie did have that effect on people, although he could not fathom why.

  But George’s expression quickly changed. “Look out!”

  A small weasel (for Hippie was one of the few that knew that martens were not rodents) raced by his feet. He skipped out of its way just to almost be pummeled over by the return of the Rottweiler. At that moment, Hippie had to be a little more athletic, so he became Sportsman Aspen. Diving out of the way, skidding on the flowers of the dogwood and jumping back to his feet unhurt and unblemished, took all of Aspen’s dexterity. The funny thing was that for an instant he still saw his Hippie self, attempting to reason with the dog instead of leaping out of the way. Had the peyote truly made h
im two people: Hippie and Aspen finally escaping the one body? Was he now in his spiritual body? But then his view of his other self-dissolved from his perception, and he was one person again, although even in his current state, he was pretty sure his two selves had never really separated. He would have to test his perspective with some meditation, but right now he had to figure out what the hell was going on.

  Because he saw flying zombies approaching!

  First, Hippie (for now his Aspen spirit had returned to his Hippie body) saw a mustache on an Italian body moving dizzily toward him, like a tired zombie walking nearly sideways rather than forward, and the mustache seemed to be leading the way. His hair was disheveled, his face looked thin and gaunt, and he reeked. Hippie could smell him from where he stood. Yet, his mustache was immaculate.

  Behind him bowed a half man, for he was facing the ground as he walked, looking as if he would belch at any moment. He was either hungover, still drunk, extremely seasick on land, drugged out, or a zombie. Then Hippie noticed the wreck of a deflated hot air balloon nearby, which made him realize that none of the above was true. This man was airsick on land.

  In his condition and because he had seen these two men first, Hippie understood why he had truly thought them zombies, but the two women he now saw certainly looked human. Except that one of them had just survived a hot air balloon crash but still looked flawless. Not one tress of hair was out of place, and while she may not have been wearing makeup, she might as well have been. The only evidence that she had been in an accident was that her feet were scratched up because she wore no shoes. Hippie noticed that immediately. Shoes and feet could tell a lot about a person, but in this case, this lady was so out of her element that her banged up feet told him nothing.

  The Latin lady looked more comfortable, perhaps because she wore shoes, or rather, upscale New Yorker sneakers. Immediately, Hippie could tell that she was the cool one of the group. She held this ragtag team together, for none of these others could be leaders. They could barely be assistants to this suave woman. And if George came with this group, he would fit in with the followers. George was a great guy, but he was no leader.