Part Five

The Creepers of McCall Ridge

Part Five

            The brothers had spent the night in the safety of their childhood treehouse as small bands of creepers shambled under them to their burning home. They had watched with amusement throughout the night as one by one, each creeper walked mindlessly into the fire as if it were prey to be consumed, only to be consumed by the fire themselves. The sun rose over the rolling hills to the east, rays of warming light darting through the fall leaves to let the world know that another day was beginning.

“Hey Ernie?”

“What.”

“You ‘member that time you fell out of this treehouse tryin’ to impress your cousin Jackie?” Grover started giggling and then held his side as he laughed even harder. Ernie’s face flushed red at the accusation of being in love with his cousin but more because he remembered the real reason he fell from the treehouse.

“You pushed me out of this here treehouse you peckerwood. You’re lucky I broke my arm when I fell out or I would have given you some lumps on that lopsided head of yours.”

Grover kept laughing and shouted, “See! You just admitted it! You fell!”

“Shut up before you get them creepers attention.”

The two brothers spent the morning sifting through the remains of their home and found little that they could salvage. Ernie was able to find his .45 caliber pistol and 11 rounds that had not burned in the fire. Gleefully he had held it over his head and then began to dance around in a circle as Grover made a comment about how Ernie probably had been dropped a few to many times when he was a baby by their mother.

“Well little brother, what do you think we should do?”  Ernie said with his hands on his hips facing the sun as if he was a super hero.

“Well, as the brains of this outfit I suggest we kill them government psycho’s that stole your useless dog and my freakin’ sweet records. Then we come back up here and rebuild mom and dad’s home.”

“We gonna do that with a hand full of bullets and two guns?” Ernie said laughing.

“And a machine gun.” Grover said matter-of-factly as he spit a stream of tobacco juice into the gravel.

“We don’t have a machine gun dingle berry.”

“They do. On them trucks. Can’t be too hard to get one. We get us a truck. Light them boogers up, get our stuff, your no count dog, and boogie back up here and live happily ever after. The end.”

Ernie stared at his little brother as if he was speaking French. “And how in the world are we going to get one of them armored trucks from them well armed, well trained, government troops?”

“I ain’t going to do all the thinking for this gang. You have to do some too! You got a flamethrower in your pocket? You have a bomb? You have some magical voodoo wizard wand that you can wave around and change these trees into ancient warriors that will fight for us?”

“Wait.” Ernie said as an idea struck him. “I do.”

“You got a magic wand brother?”

“No you idiot! I got something we can use!”

Ernie began running to the end of the gravel driveway to a tilting shed as a dumbfounded Ernie followed close behind shouting, “If you got a magic wand you have to tell me! It's in the Geneva Convention!”