“What is that?” Earl asked. “Looks like Seymour ate a bunch’a eyeballs.”
“Momordica charantia,” Grayson said. “Genus Cucurbitaceae. Class one invasive.”
“Huh?” Earl asked, touching one of the fruits.
“It’s some kind of cucumber, and it’s not native,” I translated.
Grayson eyed me. “Pretty close. It’s also known as bitter melon, bitter pear, and balsam apple.”
“Can you eat it?” Earl asked.
“Sure,” Grayson said.
Earl plucked the fruit and opened his mouth.
“But only when it’s green and cooked,” Grayson said. “Ripe like that, it can cause you to rapidly lose fluids out both ends, and quite possibly expire.”
“Huh?” Earl glanced over at me, the fruit almost on his tongue.
I reached over and swatted it out of his hand.
“It’s poisonous!” I hissed. “Geez, Grayson. You’ve got to dumb things down in situations involving imminent death!”
“Pardon me,” Grayson said. “Earl, for future reference, red and yellow are nature’s warning colors. Didn’t Ronald McDonald teach you anything?”
Earl took a sideways look at the thorny, poisonous fruits, then smiled at me. “Thanks for having my back, Bobbie.”
“Yeah. Okay. Now get going, already!”
We trudged on through a dozen more zigs and zags in the trail. I was about to get seasick when we finally spotted the small clearing in front of Jenkins’ cabin.
The broken front door was half ajar. On the weathered posts holding up the front porch, a second strand of yellow police tape, torn like the first, fluttered below it in the light breeze.
“It seems nobody bothers to heed the rules out here,” I said.
Earl sucked his teeth. “Now what?”
“Let’s go collect some zombie meat,” Grayson said. “Some for Dr. Crum, and some for me.”
I eyed Grayson. “What do you want with it?”
His right eyebrow raised an inch. “Have I taught you nothing?”
I winced. “Sorry. Of course. What was I thinking?” I ambled forward, but truth be told, I didn’t have a clue what Grayson was talking about.
Rain had pooled in depressions in the camouflage tarp that covered the cabin’s broken-down roof. I climbed the damp, rickety stairs and crossed the front porch. Earl took hold of the doorknob and forced the warped door open, nearly taking it off its hinges.
Inside the ramshackle dwelling, the section of tarp covering the large hole in the roof had filled with rainwater like a balloon. It sagged down between the joists like a washtub-sized hernia.
“Who’s the Jenkins’ new designer?” Grayson quipped. “Andy Warthog?”
“Earl, don’t touch that!” I shouted.
My cousin was reaching for a ragged hunk of deer meat still clinging to the clothesline. He pulled his hand back as if he’d touched a hot stove.
“Geez, Earl! Use the tongs!”
“Actually, let me do it,” Grayson said. “I prefer to collect my own specimens.”
Earl grimaced at the moldy meat. “Knock yourself out, Mr. G.”
While Grayson whipped out the baggies and went to work, Earl and I quickly surveyed the rest of the one-room cabin. The radio equipment was gone. However, the empty wrappers from the prepper meals were still strewn about the place.
On the floor by the window, I spied the white brick Grayson and I had discovered on our first visit. Though the deer meat showed signs of being gnawed on, nothing had touched the ugly, square-shaped lump.
“What is that thing, Earl?” I asked, pointing to it. “Grayson thought it was a fire log. I’m thinking it’s a fruitcake.”
Earl scrunched his face as he studied the thing. “Well, nothing’s touched it, so I’m thinking fruitcake.”
I shot him half a smile. “What’s with the white stuff?”
“Lemme see.” Earl leaned over and picked up the bumpy, ashy brick. He grinned and shook his head. “Maybe old Jenkins was into pottery.”
I snorted. “If he was, that’s one butt-ugly ashtray.”
Earl held the lumpy brick up to the broken out window for a better look. He took a sniff. “Whew! Kinda pungent, even for a—”
Suddenly, an arm wielding a board shot through the window and whacked Earl over the head with it. My big, bear of a cousin keeled over onto the floorboards like a felled redneck pine tree.
Chapter Fifty-Two
“WHAT THE HELL?” GRAYSON yelled and dropped one of his baggies.
“Someone’s out there!” I squealed. I knelt by Earl’s side. He had a nasty gash above his right eye, but he was still breathing.
Grayson dropped his other baggie and reached for his Glock, but he didn’t make it. A man burst through the open cabin door and aimed a rifle at his head.
“Put your hands up!” the guy demanded.
Hidden behind a full beard, moustache, sunglasses, and a cowboy hat, it was impossible to make out the man’s face.
“What do you want?” I hissed.
“You!” a woman’s voice shrieked.
For a second, I thought the voice had come from the gunman. Then I caught a movement in the doorway behind him.
“I knew you were cheating with my Lester!”
I stared into the wild eyes of a wigged-out Arlene Jenkins.
She might’ve been going slowly insane, but she still had the presence of mind to get herself to a hairdresser. Her platinum blonde hairdo looked fabulous. Her AK-47, not so much.
“Tie ’em up,” she barked at the man.
“Hold on,” Grayson said. “We just came to collect samples. See?” He started to reach for a baggie on the floor.
“Hands behind your back or your head comes off,” the man said.
Grayson obliged. The man searched around for something to tie us up with. He spied the bloody clothesline drooping with deer meat. He cut it down and stripped the dried venison from it.
“Please, not that,” I said.
“Shut up!” Arlene hissed. “Make it good and tight.”
From the grunts Grayson was making, the man knew how to follow orders. He finished with Grayson and looked over at me. I started to stand.
“Stay down,” he demanded. He knelt beside me. I put my hands behind my back and felt the jagged specks of dried meat on the twine saw into my wrists.
Not good.
“What about him?” the man asked Arlene. He stood up and toed Earl’s body with his boot.
“He’s dying,” I said. “Look, this is all some kind of misunderstanding. All we wanted was—”
“Liars!” Arlene yelled. “You came to steal Lester’s gold!”
“Gold?” Grayson and I asked.
“Don’t play dumb with me, tramp,” Arlene hissed. “Lester told you all about his secret stash, didn’t he? Two-timing jerk! Well, where is it?”
I locked eyes with Grayson, looking for a clue. His face read, “Play along.”
I blew out a breath. “Okay. You got me, Arlene. Untie Grayson and he’ll show you where the gold is.”
“You think we’re idiots?” the man asked.
You really want to know the answer to that?
“Of course not. You see, it’s just that you have to walk the site off in paces,” I said, winging it.
“Man-size paces,” Grayson said, picking up my lead. “I’ve got the treasure map. Untie me and I’ll show you.”
“They’re lying,” Arlene said, and raised her AK-47. “I say we put some bullets in both of ’em.”
“Hold on!” the man said. “Without the gold, we don’t have enough money to get to Georgia, much less the Poconos.”
“I said let’s kill ’em!” Arlene shrieked.
She aimed her gun at Grayson and pulled the trigger. My mouth fell open in horror as the AK-47 blasted out ... a round of hollow clicks.
“What the hell?” Arlene screamed.
The man snatched the AK-47 from her hand. “You reall
y think I’d trust you with a loaded gun?”
Arlene grabbed for the man’s rifle. “Now you listen to me, you two-bit coffin stealer!”
“Why should I? You three-timing, dime-store floozy!”
Arlene screeched and jumped onto the man’s back. As she dug her red nails into his face, he collapsed to his knees, discharging his gun as he fell.
A spray of yellow water squirted from the herniated tarp as the bullet pierced it. A second later, it ripped open and a deluge of rancid rainwater sloshed down over the pair. The unexpected cold shower halted their wrestling match for half a second, then they went right back at it, yanking hair and throwing punches.
Amidst the chaos, I heard Earl snort. I tapped him with my foot. “You okay?”
He didn’t answer.
I glanced over at Grayson. He was struggling with the rope that had him tied to a post.
“What do we do now?” I whispered.
He yanked on the twine around his wrists. “Hope the man wins.” He gave me a hopeful glance, then his eyes darted up and past me.
His mouth fell open.
I was tied up facing the opposite direction. I couldn’t see what Grayson was looking at. But something told me things were about to get a whole lot worse.
Chapter Fifty-Three
“WHAT IS IT, GRAYSON?” I whimpered, not wanting to know.
He didn’t answer. He just stared, mouth agape, at something moving behind me. I winced, set my jaw to determined, and craned my head slowly to the right.
A mere three feet away stood the most hideous creature I’d ever seen. Its eyes bobbled and pulsed in its toad-spotted skull.
It was old man Rexel.
High as a kite.
And naked.
Again.
“Where be the fine wench?” he asked, drool dripping from his leering mouth.
A thin strip of leather crossed his boney, hairless chest. It supported a quiver of arrows, their pointy heads poking up from behind his back. In his right hand was an archery bow.
“Rexel!” I yelled.
He looked my way, his eyes spinning like whirligigs.
“Hurry! Untie us!” I nodded toward the soggy pair still wrangling around amongst the foil wrappers and filth littering the floor. “They think we know where Jenkins kept his gold. Help us before they kill us!”
Rexel’s eyebrow shot up, along with something else I wish I hadn’t seen.
“Do ye now?” Rexel said.
“Yes, m’ lord,” Grayson answered.
I turned toward Grayson. His face was dead serious. He shot me a subtle wink and nodded toward Rexel. I turned my head back toward the naked avenger, just in time to see him bend over and pick up the rifle.
Ugh. Shoot me now.
Rexel aimed the gun at Arlene and the mystery man. I closed my eyes, for a myriad of reasons.
“Enough of your tomfoolery,” I heard Rexel say. “Untie them, you scoundrels!”
I opened my eyes. Arlene and her accomplice were sitting on the floor, arms crossed, glaring at each other like pissed-off brats. Arlene’s hairdo was in ruins. So was the man’s disguise. Minus his sunglasses and false beard, I recognized him right away. It was rat-faced Samuel Simpson, the coffin peddler with the black pickup truck.
“Hold it right there,” a man’s groggy voice sounded. Earl had come to. He had the AK-47 trained on Rexel.
Rexel laughed like a deranged schoolgirl. He thrust out his boney, bare chest and said, “Go ahead, ye puny human! Take your best shot. You can’t kill me. I’m immortal!”
Rexel swiveled the shotgun toward Earl. Earl ducked, then squeezed the trigger on the AK-47. A series of rapid, hollow clicks rattled through the cabin.
Earl’s eyes doubled. “Good golly! You really are immortal!”
“See?” Rexel laughed maniacally. “Told you!”
He dropped his bow and danced around like a frog on a hot stove. During his performance, a gold coin fell from somewhere on his person. I didn’t want to know where. It hit the floor with a plink and rolled to my feet.
“Well, now,” Rexel said, “I’m really sorry you all had to go and see that.”
“What? The dancing or the coin?” Grayson asked.
He nodded over at Earl. “You. Chewbacca. Tie up those two.”
“Why?” Earl asked.
“’Cause I said so. You’ve seen my lucky coin. I can’t have you knowing the secret to my charms! Nope. Looks like you’re gonna have to go on a little rampage and eliminate the witnesses! Then commit suicide. Now get busy.”
Rexel kept the rifle aimed at Earl as my cousin tied up an endlessly babbling Arlene Jenkins and her creepy, comb-over sidekick, Samuel Simpson.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
Rexel’s face registered sanity for a moment. “You ever try to live on Social Security?”
“I thought you had a military pension,” Grayson said.
Good one, Grayson. As if that might bring Rexel to his senses.
“War don’t pay like it used to,” Rexel said, scratching his naked butt cheek as his eyes glazed over again.
“Now you,” Rexel said to Earl. “Get over there by the stove. One false move out of you and I’ll fire my gun into that propane canister. Send the bulk of us to Timbuktu.”
Rexel laughed as if he’d made a joke, then he tied Earl to the stove. He stripped off his quiver and walked over to the cabin door. Using the rifle for support, he bent over and reached for something.
I shook my head.
Rexel’s scrawny butt is the last thing I’ll ever see. Good one, universe.
“Looky what I found.” Rexel straightened up and turned to face us. He grinned and waved a loaded AK-47 clip.
We all stared, slack-jawed. But it wasn’t the scrawny, naked man who’d made our jaws drop. It was the creature behind him.
The one lurking in the doorway.
It struck like a blur of lightning.
Rexel fired the rifle, but by then it was already a pointless gesture.
He didn’t stand a chance.
Chapter Fifty-Four
WE WATCHED IN HORROR as, in one quick strike, Rexel’s leathery bald head was entirely engulfed in the mouth of the biggest damned snake I’d ever laid eyes on.
Tied to the cabin’s posts with bloody twine, we were a captive audience to the grotesque drama playing out before us. With Rexel’s head firmly in its jaws, the snake slowly wound its thick, thigh-sized body around Rexel’s scrawny torso.
Rexel’s body twitched at first, then gave up. The sickening crunch of his bones as they crushed made me nearly lose my lunch.
Arlene screamed. I closed my eyes and turned away. Unfortunately, Earl kept me up to date with a blow-by-blow account, right up until the snake had swallowed Rexel whole and slithered off into the woods.
“How’s that possible?” Earl asked.
“Rexel was a small man,” Grayson said. “There’ve been reports—”
“No,” Earl said, shaking his head. “That man was immortal. That’s why I didn’t fight back. So how is it that snake was able to kill him?”
My face went slack. Good thing my hands were tied, or I’d have throttled Earl to death myself.
Grayson stared out the cabin door. “I hope somebody finds us before that thing comes back for dessert.”
“Dessert!” Earl said. “The fruitcake!”
I cringed. “How can you think about food at a time like this?”
Grayson sneered. “Especially fruitcake.”
“Nah!” Earl said. “That log thing on the floor over there.” He nodded toward the ashy brick. “That ain’t no fruitcake.”
“What is it, then?” I asked.
“It’s snake poop! I got a friend who’s a herpes a’tologist. You wouldn’t think it, but when them big old snakes take a dump, it can come out all square like a brick.”
“Well, that solves that mystery,” I said.
“It certainly does,” Grayson said. “I always
wondered where fruitcakes came from.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
IT WAS NEARLY DUSK when we heard Officer Wells and his brother, Gary, aka Operative Garth, calling our names.
“Mr. Gray! Pandora!”
“In here!” Grayson yelled back.
The brothers’ silhouettes appeared in the doorway of the cabin.
“You’re okay!” Garth said with a happy, buck-toothed grin.
His brother didn’t look quite so cheerful. Pale and sweaty, it appeared as if Jimmy Wells might faint. “Thank goodness,” he whispered breathlessly.
The brothers looked us over for a moment. “Sheesh. Who all’s in here?” Wells asked. “Is everybody all right?”
“Yes. Pardon us if we don’t give you a hug,” Grayson said.
Wells blanched. “Oh. Sorry. Gary, don’t just stand there. Help me untie them.” He nodded over at Arlene and Simpson. “But save those two for last.”
“Use gloves if you’ve got them,” Grayson said. “The twine is covered in deer blood. It might be infected.”
Wells glanced at Grayson’s raw wrists. “Crap.” He handed his brother some rubber gloves. Garth attended to Grayson. Wells knelt by my side.
“Can you explain to me how all of you ended up tied to posts?” he asked.
“It’s a long story,” I said. “But it all ends with Rexel.”
Wells’ eyebrow shot up. “You found Rexel? Where is he?”
“In the belly of the beast,” Grayson said.
“A ginormous snake came and swallowed him up whole,” Earl said, filling in the details.
Wells shook his head. “Not again.”
“Again?” we said in unison.
Wells pursed his lips. “Well, nothing’s been confirmed yet, but more than a few free-ranging pets have gone missing around the area. And animal control just caught an eighteen-foot python in a sewer drain yesterday.”
I cringed. “You mean there’s more than one of those things slithering around?”
Grayson sighed. “Invasive species are called invasive for a reason, Drex.”
Freaky Florida Mystery Adventures Box Set Page 42
