Bubba and the Curse of the Boogity
Page 14
Sheriff John got on his shoulder radio and start issuing commands to the 9-1-1 operator. When he was done, he said, “Let’s search this area again. All of the trailers and all of the vehicles and within fifty feet of everything on this mountain. I’ll need everyone here to search. I got some flashlights in my Bronco.”
“I have some flashlights,” Simone offered.
“I got this lantern,” Bubba said, “and I wonder ifin it looks familiar to anyone here?”
No one volunteered their familiarity with the portable light.
Bubba wasn’t surprised.
Two hours later he borrowed Laz’s phone again to tell Willodean he was running later than usual.
She said, “Twitter says the movie director is missing.”
“She ain’t about,” Bubba said succinctly.
“Do you think…?”
“No, I don’t think that,” Bubba said. “I hope she got a ride from someone and is sitting at Grubbo’s drinking Pink Pantie Droppers.”
“You know my father still turns green at the mention of pink lemonade?” Willodean asked before she got back on topic. “There’s a search ongoing?”
“Yep. John’s on top of it. Got most of the deputies out here and Big Joe just showed up with two of his officers. A state trooper came about twenty minutes ago, and they’re expecting someone with some tunnel expertise to come a little later.”
“They think Marquita’s in the tunnels?”
“They’re a lot bigger than I would have thought,” Bubba said.
“Whoa,” Willodean said. “This is serious. I thought she was just messing around. I hope she’s not trapped in a hole somewhere with a broken ankle.”
That wouldn’t be out of the range of possibility, Bubba thought. Mebe Marquita had been playing a specified part and gotten carried away. After all, one dint want to git too close to the person one was scarin’. Then the darkness was all encompassin’ and wham, stuff just happened.
“You just go to sleep and don’t worry none,” Bubba said soothingly. “I got Precious and she’s got my back. Ain’t nothing goin’ to happen to me.”
Famous last words, fool, he told himself.
Chapter 13
Bubba and a Visit Home
Bubba helped search for Marquita Thaddeus for most of the night before Sheriff John officially called it quits. That was regardless of the fact that Risley was yelling that he would contact the FBI, the CIA, the IRS, and anyone else that he could complain to if they stopped searching before they found his sister. Sheriff John was intractable. Everyone had worked for hours before they were on the verge of falling down from exhaustion. They would get some food, sleep, take a shower, and come back later. The search had eliminated pretty much everything outside of the tunnels, with the exclusion of Marquita leaving Foggy Mountain entirely and disappearing elsewhere.
Bubba took his hound and climbed into his truck and made his way home. He took another shower because he smelled like dirt and musk and what might have been bat guano. He fed his dog some of the wet dog food made by Paul Newman’s company. (Willodean’s family still sent care packages to his hound because Precious had once located Willodean when she had been missing. These included Newman’s Own because the Gray family thought it was the best dog food available. Sometimes it was Blue Buffalo but mostly it was Newman’s Own and various organic treats that Precious sniffed and then buried out back next to the oleander bushes.) Then he ate a pint of Häagen-Dazs Peanut Butter Salted Fudge because that was the kind of which they had the most. There were dozens of pints the flavor in the refrigerator’s freezer and the chest unit. He drank a glass of water and wondered if Marquita had water. He didn’t like that much because he liked Marquita. She’d never been mean to him even when she thought he might have killed her husband and she showed a kind of refinement that was missing in half the people that Bubba knew.
Bubba took a moment to stare across the yard at the Snoddy Mansion and saw that the lights were still on despite the fact that it was nearly 4:00 am. He glanced upward at the ceiling and knew that his heavily pregnant wife was sleeping in the bed in the master bedroom all warm and snuggly and that it was just out of his reach.
With a mighty sigh Bubba watched his hound tiredly clamber up the stairs. In precisely sixty seconds Precious was going to have her brown-and-white tuckus parked squarely in the spot that should be Bubba’s. Bubba was going to have to fight the animal for the position, and Precious might very well snarl at Bubba. Bubba didn’t want Precious to snarl and wake up Willodean so the hound might very well keep the favored locale in the bed while Bubba consigned his derriere to the comfort of the Barcalounger downstairs. If he was lucky, there would be a wispy throw made from fleece and a lobster decorated pillow.
However, all things being what they were, Bubba had a more pressing date with his mother. He went outside and nearly tripped over another chest freezer that had been placed in the shadows of the porch. He hadn’t seen it when he’d driven in, but then, he was tired and hadn’t been looking for freezers. Someone had thoughtfully plugged it into the external plug and thrown a tarp over it in case of rain. Bubba paused to look inside and discovered a whole bunch more containers of Häagen-Dazs. Not all the flavors were the correct ones, but he found he was caring less and less if they were.
“What in the name of jumping Jack flash are we goin’ to do with all this here ice cream?” he muttered as he closed the lid and replaced the tarp.
Bubba trudged over to the mansion and let himself into the kitchen entrance. His mother sat at the table drinking a cup of something that smelled like tea. She didn’t look particularly happy as she sat there.
“Nice to see you ain’t bin et up by the Boogity-Boo,” Miz Demetrice said snidely.
“I got lost in the tunnels, and my phone broke,” Bubba said. “I apologized to Willodean. Do I owe you one, too?”
“Mebe,” his mother said. “You want some tea?”
“Is it the black-tea kind or the green-tea kind?”
“Black,” she said.
“Okay then,” he said agreeably and helped himself. When they were both sitting at the table he said, “Let’s discuss this shindig Saturday.” He frowned and thought about it. “It is Saturday, right? What day is this?”
“Yes, Saturday. People showing up around 8:00 pm and you’re back around 8:30 pm, and Willodean is kept occupied by her sisters and her mother. Big surprise. A band. Cake. Ice cream.” Miz Demetrice stopped to titter. “Presents for you and Willodean.” She paused to twirl her teaspoon. “Games. Raffle tickets. Some other stuff.”
“Must we have a party?” he asked sincerely.
“Yes, we must,” she said with determination.
“Marquita Thaddeus is still missing,” Bubba said.
“Mebe she’ll be back by then,” Miz Demetrice said calmly. “After all, she’s invited, too.”
Bubba took a moment to observe his cup. He didn’t really like tea that much, but he was afraid that if he drank coffee, he wouldn’t get any sleep and he needed some sleep in order to be marginally functional. Who would have thought that having a baby was so stressful? And he wasn’t even the one carrying the load.
“Kin you at least stop the loads of ice cream?” Bubba asked politely.
“I could possibly do that,” Miz Demetrice said sagely. “I think it’s a little late, though. Folks thought that if Willodean was happy, then you’d be happy, and that you’d solve the little problem at the film set.”
“I don’t think all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could put that particular Humpty-Dumpty back together,” Bubba said after sipping some tea. The taste of the tea hadn’t improved since the last time he’d drunk it.
His mother threaded her fingers together and observed her only child with an astuteness that still bothered him. “Is there a corpse?”
“I have not found one,” Bubba said.
“Will there be a corpse?”
“I cannot say. Possibly God could say, but
as I am not God and am not likely to become God, I cannot say.”
“Is there a possibility of corpses?” she asked as if she was a meteorologist and she was discussing the possibility of rain in the forecast. (“Okay, eastern Texas, there’s a 20% chance of dead bodies today, with a 40% chance of cadavers tomorrow. So, watch out for those dead people, y’all!”)
“I haven’t a clue,” Bubba said, but that wasn’t true. He had a clue. He’d had several clues. There had been clues abounding. The size of the Boo, the hidden door, the tunnel with the fresh markings, the utensils in the cavity of the wall of the tunnel. All were clues. None of them pointed in the direction of stiffs, but the day was very young.
“I need to know that you’re goin’ to relax up on all this kinda stuff after the baby is born,” Bubba said.
Miz Demetrice said, “It’s for a good cause, Bubba dearest. Trust me on this. As for the future, that’s asking a leopard to change their spots. You’re wanting me to become something I’m not.”
“Of course not,” Bubba denied. “Just don’t put the baby at risk. Is that too much to ask?”
“I would never put my grandchile at risk,” his mother said heatedly and then she abruptly slackened her stiffened shoulders, “although I kin see how the subject would arise.”
Bubba reached over and patted her hand. “I know you wouldn’t do that, Ma,” he said. “It’s just…it’s just…”
“The last few years,” Miz Demetrice finished. “How kin God keep doing this to us and all that?”
Bubba nodded. “It makes a man fearful for the gifts he’s received.”
“God knows you’re a good man, Bubba,” his mother said. “He’ll take that into account.”
Bubba nodded again. He reached for the cup and finished the tea all the while glowering. “I need to go fight for my side of the bed, Ma, and git some shuteye before more stuff starts happening. I’m back up at Foggy Mountain today because there’s stuff going on.”
Miz Demetrice nodded. “It’s good of you to he’p. Also, gits your mind off all the other things that are plaguing you. Your wife and baby are fine. I pop in several times a day, as does Miz Adelia. Celestine calls from Dallas and Anora, too. I think Hattie might. Mebe that cute little Janie.” Celestine Gray was Willodean’s mother and Anora and Hattie were Willodean’s sisters. Janie was Anora’s daughter and often Brownie’s partner-in-crime. All were involved in law enforcement in some capacity. (Janie was a wannabe, but she was deadly serious about the profession. She could quote police manuals verbatim.) The only exception was Evan Gray, Willodean’s father, who was a university professor of some subject that Bubba couldn’t recall.
“It’s a wonder Willodean gits any rest,” Bubba muttered. He stood up and went for the door, pausing as he reached it. “Do you know anything about the Boo, Ma?”
“The Boogity-Boo?” she asked cagily. “The monster of Foggy Mountain that ets chillen and haunts the swamps near Sturgis Creek? The one who might have bin made from a satanic grimoire and sacrifices made to it by a warlock? The one who makes the unwary hunter and hiker disappear into a foggy night? The one mothers warn their babies about and who stalks the night eternal?”
“Yep.”
“No, I don’t know anything about the Boo,” his mother said quickly.
Bubba glowered as he thought about another neglected topic. “What about the cement pad out in the back pasture? You know the one that got poured without me knowing about it.”
“That,” she said.
“Yeah, that.”
“Do you remember that the foundation on the northeast corner of the mansion started to fall in a few months ago?” she asked instead of answering. “I thought we were goin’ to have a two story instead of a three.”
Bubba scratched his head. “I meant to git some of them house jacks but then you said someone had taken care of it.”
“I got money for allowing David Beathard to use that section of the estate,” Miz Demetrice said. “Enough to shore up the foundation. That isn’t cheap, you know.”
“And you tole David to ask my permission just to do what, cover your sit-upon?”
“Something like that.”
Bubba was a little confused but that could have something to do with the fact that he hadn’t slept yet. “Where is David getting the money for his little, ah, endeavor? No pun intended.”
“His family is rich,” she said. “Plus, I think he just came into some money.”
“He used to be a postman,” Bubba said promptly.
“So he was a rich postman,” she snapped back. “The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“Don’t you feel a tad guilty for taking his money? He believes he’s an astronaut,” Bubba said. “A few months ago, he believed he was an exotic dancer named Bubbles.”
“Snuggles,” she corrected. “He was an exotic dancer named Snuggles. And he had a very good fan dance, too.”
Bubba stared at his mother. “Don’t you feel guilty? Don’t you need to go to church, Ma?”
“He was going to spend that money regardless,” she said. “Go on and git some sleep, boy. Those bags under your eyes could be mistaken for luggage on Southwest Airlines.”
“Don’t take any more money from David,” Bubba admonished his mother. Then he quickly added, “Or from any of the other loonies. It ain’t right.”
Miz Demetrice shrugged delicately.
Bubba took that to mean that the conversation was over and went home to kick his hound out of his bed. However, he discovered that he didn’t have the heart to move Precious, so he slept in the Barcalounger.
* * *
The next morning, or several hours later as the case was, Bubba was up. He showered, shaved, and made breakfast for Willodean and his hound. His wife was naturally curious about the events upon Foggy Mountain and made interested noises as he related the previous day’s occurrences. “Is that right?” “A miniature mine cart?” “Precious ate Laz’s Cheetos?”
“Well, I dint actually let her et the Cheetos. I don’t know ifin Cheetos are something a hound should et. Prolly not.” In fact, Bubba couldn’t remember what had happened to the snack bag of Cheetos. Maybe the Boo had eaten them.
Bubba beckoned to his hound and kissed his wife on her cheeks and on her lips and once on the very bulgiest part of her belly while she giggled. Then he made his way outside and ignored the people setting up for what appeared to be a raucous party event. How much crap does Ma need to throw a baby shower? he asked himself and then became suspicious. Why, the answer is obvious. This is no ordinary baby shower. This is a Snoddy baby shower. Anything could and probably would happen. Aliens, meteors, and an Ebola virus outbreak are all within the realm of probability.
The best thing to do was to ignore the entire proceedings unless they happened to bite Bubba on his hindquarters, which was also a manifest likelihood.
Bubba drove off to the back part of the Snoddy Estate to see what David and his motley crew were doing. He stopped by a recently erected chain-link fence and gawked at the rocketship that was being constructed. It looked like a rocketship. It probably smelled like a rocketship. In fact, it likely walked, flew, and quacked like a rocketship. And if one compared those statements to the proverbial duck test, then the rocketship was a rocketship.
Bubba tore his gaze away for a moment and saw all of the loonies working in concert with the professor. Unfortunately, Bubba hadn’t had the chance to call up Dogley and ask if the professor was really another laissez-faire patient who happened to be wandering willy-nilly over hill and dale doing God alone knew what.
“But…” Bubba said to Precious as his stare swung back to the rocketship already mounted on what appeared to be a fixed service structure for maintaining the vessel for the actual event, “look at that. It looks like a dadgummed rocketship. I mean, that’s a launching pad. And are those trucks full of rocket fuel? How kin anyone but the gov’ment buy rocket fuel? Do you know how to buy rocket fuel, Precious?”
Prec
ious whined nervously.
Bubba shook his head. It couldn’t be rocket fuel and the rocketship couldn’t be operational. At the very worst, it would likely explode as soon as they tried to ignite the engines. He was going to have to put his foot down about that. It was far too close to where his pregnant and beauteous wife was resting in a bed binge watching a show about nerdlets in the 1980s involved with lots of paranormal flimflammery.
Bubba shook his head again.
Someone stepped up to his window. Bubba glanced over and saw a man in a blue polo shirt and black pants. A blue ball cap announced he was security. “Sir, this is an access road with clearance only available to project members.”
“I own the land,” he said.
“I understand that, sir, but this is a location only accessible to project members.”
“Tell David Beathard that I need to speak to him,” Bubba said.
“If you’ll park at the end of this road, I’ll walkie Astronaut Beathard with your demand,” the man said politely.
“Never mind,” Bubba said. “Here he comes now.”
The security guy glanced over his shoulder and saw David leading his merry band of misfits over to Ol’ Green.
“BUBBA!” David yelled. “We’re close! We’re so close!” He waved at the rocketship. “It looks so pretty! You should touch it!” He shivered with evident delight. “You cain’t appreciate it until you touch it. Touch it.”
“David,” Bubba said quickly, “don’t you have a movie to work on?”
“Oh, we got a call from Risley a while back,” David said. “Movie’s on hold for the day. Did you know Marquita is missing? I’m sending some of the crew over later to help with the search. Can you believe this?”
“I cain’t,” Bubba said flatly.
“Thou art a pernicious hag-seed,” Thelda said knowingly.
“I’m a what?” Bubba asked. “Is that bad?”