Gnome Coming: A humorous paranormal novel (Freaky Florida Book 4)

by Ward Parker

  “Yeah, I can’t believe our luck,” Missy said. “We never would have found out about her son otherwise.”

  “Okay, so he and his buddies run around in the woods with guns,” Matt said. “We still have to prove they were there on the night in question. And that they use silver bullets.”

  “Or,” Missy said, “if we can show that they have been there in the past, the police might be interested and can find the proof themselves.”

  “I’ll see if I can come across a trail on social media or the dark web,” Matt said. “You never know, I might get lucky.”

  “If not, you might have to join their militia,” Josie said.

  “Me?”

  “Who else? I’m eighty-seven and a woman. Missy is a woman, too. These boys don’t seem like the types who let girls into their club.”

  “You’re looking at a guy who doesn’t know which end of a gun the bullets come out of,” Matt said. “My dad was a dentist who collected stamps for a hobby, so I didn’t grow up with guns. I’m not part of their tribe.”

  “I know a couple of guys who are very into guns,” Missy said. “The problem is, they’re seniors. And they’re vampires. They can only take part in nighttime activities.”

  “I know a bunch of werewolves who own firearms,” Josie said, “but they have the same problem with their age. I doubt these militia boys recruit seniors.”

  “First, we need to learn more about the group,” Matt said. “We don’t even have a way of contacting them.”

  12

  Do You Boogaloo?

  Three nights later, Matt strolled into a tavern and scanned the crowd. Jeremy was standing at the end of the bar. This was the only way they could think of contacting Jeremy’s group, and, much against his will, Matt was enlisted to do it.

  Earlier, he’d found a little information about the militia on the internet. He learned that “boogaloo” did not refer to the Latin music and dance style from the sixties. Nowadays, it was an insider term extremists used for an anti-government, anti-law-enforcement uprising. That’s what Jeremy’s group, the Boogaloo Brigade, was preparing for.

  They didn’t have a website, of course. But he found them on watchdog lists of hate groups. Searching the rancid depths of extremist message boards, he came across some postings by or about them. He tried to connect with the users, but they were justifiably suspicious of him.

  So, he used the pre-internet, pre-conspiracy-theory way of investigating: Go out into the real world and talk to people.

  His tactics included parking near the Unger house and following Jeremy’s truck. It wasn’t hard to follow, with the giant Nazi flag fluttering from a flagpole on the bed of the truck. Jeremy drove to the tavern on a nearby highway. Matt parked in the dirt lot and waited a short while before he went inside.

  Jeremy Unger stood at the end of the bar speaking with a guy with a giant gray beard who looked like an adjutant of Stonewall Jackson. As fat and out of shape as Jeremy was, his friend was lean and muscular. Hopefully that meant they had broad recruitment standards.

  “Evening, boys,” Matt said as he approached. He realized he was putting on a Southern accent. Exactly why he had no idea.

  The two men looked at him suspiciously.

  Then Jeremy’s eyes flashed in recognition.

  “You were at my house the other day,” he said.

  “My mother was interviewing your mother for some article about charity,” Matt said. “Our mothers are friends. I recognized you when I came in here and wanted to say hi.”

  Jeremy nodded. He looked a little confused, but that might be the way he always looked.

  “Can I ask you a question? I was curious when you mentioned the Boogaloo Brigade. I think we share some similar beliefs,” Matt said.

  “You’re not supposed to be talking about our outfit,” the bearded guy said angrily to Jeremy.

  “He’s a family friend,” Jeremy said. “He’s all right.”

  “Any way I can help y’all with your cause?” Matt said, appalled at how fake the Southern twang in his voice sounded. “Do you need any extra manpower?”

  “How do we know you’re not with the FBI?” The bearded one asked belligerently.

  “I’m too stupid to pass the entrance exam.”

  Bearded One smiled, showing stained teeth. “I like this guy.”

  “What weapons do you own?” Jeremy asked.

  Matt had to think quickly. “AR-15s. Handguns. A Samurai sword. Um, and an anti-tank missile launcher.”

  “Anti-tank missile?” Both militia men asked at the same time.

  “Yep. Got it at an auction.” Matt instantly regretted his lies.

  “Man, I’d love to check that out,” Jeremy said. “What kind is it? A Javelin?”

  “Sure is,” Matt lied.

  “Can you take us to see it?”

  “Not tonight,” Matt said. “It’s locked up in a friend’s warehouse. Maybe I can bring it by next time you guys have a drill.”

  “Non-members aren’t allowed at our drills,” Bearded One said.

  “Maybe he can come to our next meeting,” Jeremy said. “And bring the anti-tank missile.”

  Bearded One gave Matt a stern look.

  “You must meet three strict requirements to attend a meeting,” he said. “First, no phone or recording devices allowed in the room. Second, you must, and I cannot emphasize this enough, you must bring a covered dish. Preferably a dessert. We always come up short with desserts.”

  “What’s the third?”

  “No Jell-O.”

  “Gotcha,” Matt said.

  “Gluten-free will win you extra points.”

  “Okay. When can I come?”

  “Seven o’clock, the night after tomorrow. At the bunker.”

  “Where’s the bunker?”

  “My mom’s garage,” Jeremy said.

  Matt showed up at the bunker filled with trepidation. He didn’t have an anti-tank missile. And, even worse, his homemade brownies were not gluten free. He wondered if he would make it through the night alive.

  His car rolled slowly along the gravel driveway until his headlights picked up a row of pickups parked along the edge of the drive. He turned around and parked at the beginning of the driveway, nose out, in case he had to make a quick getaway. He walked to the garage from which death-metal music was blaring. He noticed a side door and gave it a knock.

  It opened a crack. Jeremy’s face peered out at him. A cloud of marijuana smoke billowed out around his head.

  “Hey, what’s up? Did you bring the anti-tank missile?” Jeremy asked.

  “Dude, I’m really sorry but I couldn’t bring it tonight. My buddy needed to use it.”

  “For what?”

  “To bring down one of the government’s black helicopters.”

  “Good for your friend.”

  “I did bring some brownies,” Matt added.

  Jeremy smiled. “Okay, you can come in, but I’ll need to pat you down.”

  He opened the door and gave Matt a half-hearted patting of his pockets, then signaled for him to come in.

  It looked like a high-school party at your friend’s house when his parents are out of town. Not counting Matt, there were seven men, including Stonewall Jackson’s adjutant on the couch. Matt wasn’t a military expert, but he was certain seven men didn’t constitute a brigade. The militia men sprawled about on couches and chairs in the garage turned into a man-cave. They ranged in age from early twenties to mid-fifties, a motley crew with nothing in common except T-shirts and ball caps with racist or anti-government slogans. Some caps had a crude logo for the Boogaloo Brigade.

  The men all drank from plastic cups of beer. There was a keg fridge in the corner. A bong sat on a side table.

  “This dude is Matt Smith,” Jeremy said to the group. “He’s a potential recruit.”

  Some men waved to him, but most were too busy talking and drinking to give him much notice. Matt wasn’t sure when the meeting would begin, or if the meeting
was just a bunch of guys sitting around getting wasted.

  “Go get yourself a beer,” Jeremy said.

  Matt crossed the room and filled a cup from the keg.

  “Do you prefer Four-chan or Eight-kun?” Asked a voice behind him. It was a bald guy with a potbelly and a T-shirt that said, “The earth is flat, and you know I’m right.”

  “I’m an Eight-kun guy,” Matt said, referring to the message board filled with hate speech and conspiracy theories.

  “Have you seen my posts? I go by the handle of ‘Fatcat.’”

  “Sure,” Matt lied. “Very astute posts. You should be proud.”

  Fatcat smiled. He had badly botched his most recent attempt at shaving, leaving nicks all over his face.

  “I’m a thought leader on contrails,” Fatcat said. “I’ve proven that the government is sending jets to spray chemicals that turn the population gay. It’s important to get the word out.”

  “Thank you for your service,” Matt said.

  “It’s the least I can do for my country. I’m a patriot.”

  “We all are,” Matt said. “That’s why we’re here. Say, do you guys do a lot of field exercises?”

  “Not really,” Fatcat said. “We’re too busy and rarely have the time.”

  Matt glanced at the room of guys busy sitting around getting drunk and stoned.

  “You ever do night exercises?” Matt asked. “I’ve got some awesome night-vision goggles that I rarely get the chance to use.”

  “We have done those. But not during mosquito season.”

  “With live ammo?”

  “Sure.”

  “I live down in Crab County,” Matt said. “Do y’all ever conduct any ops there? That would be mighty convenient for me.”

  “We did once, not too long ago. There are more cops down that way, though.”

  Matt was trying to find a non-suspicious way of asking the exact date of this event, when the music turned off.

  “Let’s get some business out of the way,” Jeremy said to the group. Matt wasn’t sure if Jeremy was their leader, or if he got to act like it because this was his mom’s garage.

  “All in favor of an uprising if the government tries to take our guns say ‘aye.’”

  “Aye!” the group said in unison.

  “All in favor of an uprising if the government forces us to become gay?”

  The group shouted, “aye!”

  “All in favor of an uprising if they don’t bring back ‘The A Team’ to TV?”

  “Aye!”

  “Okay, meeting adjourned. Let’s all make a toast to the Boogaloo. But please drink responsibly. To the Boogaloo!”

  “To the Boogaloo!” the men shouted before chugging their beers.

  And that was that. Matt faked his way through a discussion with a couple of members about firearms. He asked them if they or other members ever used silver bullets. They laughed at him. There are some things even conspiracy theorists find impossible to believe, and it seemed lycanthropy was one of them.

  He then chatted with an older gentleman with a swastika tattooed on his forehead about recipes for baking bread. Try as he may, he couldn’t get anyone to confirm if they had been on the Unger Tract on the night of the murder.

  When the first member left for the night, Matt used that as his opportunity to escape. He handed Jeremy a slip of paper with his phone number.

  “Thanks so much for having me,” Matt said. “Call me when you have another event. And when I can pick up my brownie platter.”

  “And I still want to see that anti-tank missile,” Jeremy said.

  “You got it.”

  After the long drive home, Matt called Missy. He knew she’d be up at this late hour. He gave her a synopsis of his evening.

  “It’s good to know they don’t sound like they’re on the verge of starting the civil war,” Missy said.

  “They’re not on the verge of doing anything. I don’t know if they’re our best suspects for the shooting. And I’m not sure if we have enough information to get the police interested.”

  “And definitely not enough to satisfy Josie,” Missy said. “She’s out for blood.”

  “I hope you don’t mean blood literally.”

  “I do.”

  “I wish we could keep her out of this,” Matt said, “but I promised her a report on the militia. I don’t want her werewolves to attack these guys unless there’s proof they killed her friend. To me, they seem dangerous only in their own minds.”

  “Not if they were shooting werewolves with silver bullets.”

  “A couple of them denied that anyone used silver bullets.”

  “It only takes one guy,” Missy said.

  Josie loped through the pines and oaks of Ocala National Forest in wolf form. She hadn’t told the other members of the Werewolf Women’s Club about her mission. They weren’t good about following her commands and this mission had to be stealthy and done right.

  Matt had tipped her off about the Boogaloo Brigade’s planned practice operation in a remote part of the forest, far from where any ranger or other law enforcement would come across them. Matt didn’t want to go himself; he said there was a problem with a missile launcher or something.

  The tricky part for Josie was that the operation was during daytime. Matt had said these guys didn’t enjoy nighttime ops very much. That gave Josie doubts that one of them was the killer she sought, but she had to be sure. Werewolves can voluntarily shift during the day, but she would have to be extra careful to stay out of sight.

  She parked in a space near a remote trailhead deep in the forest and shifted in the back seat of The Boat. She had memorized the trail map to find her way to where the militia planned to be, but once she got closer, she would leave the trails and rely on scent alone to guide her.

  As she ran along the trail, she totally freaked out the birds and small animals along the way. They rarely saw wolves during the day. This is a nice forest, she thought. The club would have to make a special road trip up here someday to go hunting. They could combine it with shopping in Ocala.

  She traveled four miles—easy for a wolf, unlikely for Josie in human form even with sensible shoes. That’s when she picked up the first scents: unwashed human males, gun oil, and lots and lots of ammunition. She had to be very careful. Regular bullets couldn’t kill her, but they still hurt like you-know-what.

  They were just up ahead. Josie crawled through a bed of ferns and looked over the crest of a hill. Down below was a large clearing. Seven humans decked out in military uniforms were setting up wooden targets on posts. The targets were human-shaped.

  For the next hour all the humans did was take turns firing at the targets with a huge selection of weaponry. Would any rangers hear this? she wondered. Then they formed a line and ran past the targets while shooting at them. Next, they entered the trees at the edge of the clearing, low-crawled out of the woods, and shot at the targets while lying down. This was getting boring.

  By this point, they had shot the wooden targets to pieces. The men, no longer organized, began taking potshots at bottles they placed on fallen logs. Even they soon grew bored with this.

  Finally, they called it a day and opened a cooler of beer.

  Josie had been sampling scents the entire time, trying to detect if silver bullets were present. She didn’t smell any. So with the men’s alertness down, she crept closer to them in search of stronger scents. Soon, she was close enough to hear them.

  “What do y’all got planned for the rest of the weekend?” a gruff voice asked.

  “Wife’s got a long list of chores for me.”

  “I’m going to open-carry with my rifle at the playground,” another voice said. “Everywhere else I go, no one pays attention to me.”

  “I’m gonna bake bread,” said another.

  She drank in their repulsive man-scents and didn’t smell any silver except for a ring and a tiny cross on a chain. It didn’t rule them out; perhaps they brought silver bullets with them
only when doing their war games at night. But these guys just didn’t feel like the killers to her.

  She crawled away silently, then raced back to the trailhead.

  “I think I saw a wolf!” she heard behind her.

  “Don’t be an idiot. Ain’t no wolves in this forest.”

  13

  Florida Man vs. Garden Gnomes

  Kenny was a Florida man. He was also a veritable “Florida Man,” as in how the term appeared in news headlines. Kenny wouldn’t think of himself in that way, but his arrest record said otherwise. It included the kind of judgement-lacking stunts that end up in the news and go viral.

  His most recent stunt, accidentally crashing his truck through the fence of an electrical substation, proved he was also competing for the Darwin Awards. These dishonorable honors go to idiots who die and remove their idiot genes from our gene pool, thus inching our collective intelligence up a fraction of a notch from where it is now: far below where it ought to be. If Kenny’s truck had hit the transformer, a few feet to the right, he would have been an award winner.

  Only a week after that, how and why Kenny ended up with a chainsaw, a box of rattlesnakes, and a bottle of cheap bourbon was anyone’s guess. Oh, and don’t forget the bottle of prescription anti-depressants. So far, he only needed to get naked, and he would cover most of the tropes of the Florida Man legend.

  The explanation for why he had the cheap bourbon was simple: He always had cheap bourbon on hand, at least until it invariably ran out around 9:30 p.m. That was the case tonight, at 9:45.

  The anti-depressants he stole from his mother-in-law. He preferred tranquilizers or painkillers, but these were the only meds left unlocked in the bathroom she used in their house.

  The chainsaw he borrowed from his neighbor. A dead tree, long neglected, had finally fallen in their backyard, crushing the storage shed and enraging Vicky. She ordered him to cut the tree into manageable pieces, but he hadn’t gotten around to it yet on account of watching NASCAR on TV all afternoon. And because of the liquor. And the medication.