Lick Your Neighbor (17 page)

“I guess you’re right.” Dale rubbed his eyes. “This has been a ridiculously stressful day. For all of us. I mean, even Tommy thought that the farmer this morning was John Alden, and he’d have to be over
three
-hundred years old to be alive today. How silly is that?”

“Sillier than a blind monkey lassoing a man.”

“Ha.” Dale picked up the magnifying glass and returned to his review of
Freedom from What?
He scanned the painting until the glass passed over the small dark figure standing by the tree in the background. With magnification, the figure’s face became clear.

It was John Ferdue. It was the farmer. It was Sarah Josepha Hale. In the painting he was wearing Pilgrim clothing and clutching a small rifle. The man had a terrified look on his face as he looked down at the ground in front of him.

Dale looked over at the picture of Sarah Josepha Hale and then back at the man in the painting

“I take it back,” he said.

“Take what back?”

“All of it. It’s not silly. Look.” Dale tilted the magnifying glass so Randy could see. “This is the guy who was in my bedroom.”

“By God it really is Sarah Josepha Hale as a man. But how can that be? It’s impossible. It’s…it’s…”

“Chaos.”

“Bingo.” Randy stroked his stubbly chin. “It also means that my Dad knew something about all this. He must have let the chaos in too. And now he’s gone. Maybe he left more clues in the painting. What’s with the spooked expression on that guy’s face? What is he looking at down there?”

Dale followed the painted man’s eyes to the ground with the magnifying glass and saw that by his feet stood a turkey with a black Mohawk.

“He’s looking down at a turkey with a Mohawk.”

Randy gulped. “You mean like the one on my head?”

Dale kept his eyes on the painting. “You mean that dead bird you’re wearing on your head for some stupid reason?”

“No. I mean the live bird who perched on my head against my will.”

“That turkey is deader than Mayflower himsel—”

A loud gobble cut Dale off.

“Did you just
gobble
?” Dale looked up from the painting to see the turkey he thought was stuffed flapping its wings restlessly on top of Randy’s head.

Dale got up and slowly backed away, moving toward the front door as gingerly as possible.

“Dale, wait. Where are you going?”

“That thing. On your head. Is totally alive.”

Dale had dropped the magnifying glass on the painting. It sat directly on top of the Pilgrim Ferdue’s face. Randy glanced down and saw the painted man’s grimace of terror in unnerving detail. Randy went into a bit of a tizzy.

“Dale, don’t leave me here. Please. Look at the farmer’s face. I mean at Sarah Josepha’s face. I mean at…I don’t know what I mean. This bird is bad news man. I tell you it’s gonna tear my lips off! I can feel its talons digging deeper into my scalp. It’ll reach my brain in due time.”

Dale kept backing away. “Just, um, try to stay calm. Animals can sense fear, and fear makes them nervous.”

“What about anger? Can they sense anger?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t think so.”

“Good, then listen very carefully. I want you to go to the car, get the blowgun, and shoot this beast back to hell.”

Dale had his hand on the doorknob. “Good plan. I’ll be right back.”

Randy’s eyes shot from Dale to the bay windows next to the door. “Wait.”

“What now?”

“I don’t think the front door is a good idea.”

“Why not?” Dale asked.

“Our friends are here.”

Huddled together and pressed against the wet glass of the windows stood the four beaked ninjas. Heedless of the rain drizzling down on them, they peered into the house, searching for signs of life. In the distance behind them, the boat they had arrived on rocked on the waves by the dock.

With Dale pressed flat against the door, trying to force his body into two dimensions, and Randy frozen still in the shadows at the other end of the room, trying to look like one of those Native American cigar statues, they could only hope that the house appeared to be empty to the beakmen.

As one of the ninjas cupped his hands around his eyes to get a better look inside, Dale felt a strange warm tingling in his head. It was almost as if his brain was melting, but in a somewhat pleasant way.

At that same moment, Dale’s headache disappeared completely.

“The penicillin,” he said.

“The what?” whispered Randy.

“The penicillin. It’s
working
.”

“Oh good. Glad to hear it. Now your head won’t ache anymore. Until it’s bashed to pieces by the ninjas of course.”

Dale chuckled like a mischievous child. Randy raised an eyebrow.

Dale’s face flushed, his skin broke out in goosebumps, and his pupils expanded to the size of quarters. The walls and floor of the house seemed to ripple like waves. He looked out the window and the heads of the ninjas turned into huge cartoon heads in neon-bright colors, with insanely bulging eyes and elastic expressions that would have made Daffy Duck proud.

Still giggling, Dale slid away from the door and rose to his feet. He stumbled across the floor as if he was in a moon bounce as he made his way to the window. With a big grin on his face, Dale pressed his head against the glass to stare at the funny cartoon men outside.

The beakmen all cocked their heads curiously at the sight of Dale’s face. They took a step back and looked at each other.

Randy whispered tensely from the other side of the room. “What in the name of God’s bunion are you doing?” He then watched in shock as Dale pulled up a chair and sat in front of the window with his head in his hands.

“Watching cartoons,” Dale replied. “What are you doing?”

“Cartoons? Have you lost your melon?”

“I think that maaaaaaybe those mushrooms weren’t aspirin.”

“Mushrooms? What mushrooms?”

“The cute little ones by the willow tree. The ones I gobbled right up.” Dale giggled. “Gobble, gobble, gobble!”

“By the bald head of Saint Alfrick, you’re shroomin’!”

Dale suddenly leaped out of the chair and slammed his body down on the hardwood floor. Lying on his belly, his face flat on the floor, he asked, “Did you just say something?”

“Yes,” Randy said, “I said you’re high on magic mushrooms, you fool.”

“Shhhhhhhhhhhhh. Not you.
Him
.”

“Him who?”

“Him, him. What did you say, Mr. Ant?”

A few inches from Dale’s eyeball stood a common house ant.

“I said,” said the ant to Dale in a deep baritone, “How doth the little turkey improve his shaking tail. And make gentle love, to his good friend Dale. How cheerfully he seems to grin, how neatly spreads his legs. And welcomes the dinky prick of flesh in, with a crotch that smells like autumn dew.”

Dale stared at the ant for a moment with a furrowed brow, running through the poem in his head.

“Dinky prick of flesh,” he echoed. He looked up at Randy. “Does that sound like an insult to you?”

“I suppose.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Dale pointed a stern finger at the ant. “Just who the hell do you think you are, Mr. Ant? Eh? Some kind of tough guy?”

The ant nonchalantly picked up a white crumb that was twenty times its own body weight, lifted it over his head, and said, “Who am I? Who are you? Who are we?”

“Me? I’m the guy who’s gonna kick your thorax in, pal.”

“Now, now,” said the ant, “keep your temper.”

Meanwhile, the ninjas had disappeared from the window. Although Dale’s antics were worrisome, to be sure, impending violence is always more terrifying than temporary insanity, and Randy was far more troubled by this new development than by Dale’s conversation.

Randy took a few ginger steps closer to Dale, trying not to disturb the turkey on his head.

“Dale, listen to me. Listen to me, goddammit! We need to get out of here. Those ninjas out there, the ones you think are cartoons, are going to come in here and jab extremely pointy objects into our faces.”

Dale sat up and with a faraway look in his eyes said, “Oooooooooo that sounds baaaaaaad.”

“That’s because it is bad!”

With a crack and a thud, the front door shot off its hinges and hit the floor. Standing in the doorway was one of the ninjas, his leg still raised in a kick. As the dust from the door settled, the other three beakmen slid in beside him.

There was a moment of indecision on all sides.

Randy wanted to run, but he was worried that the turkey on his head would freak out and dig its feet further into his skull.

Dale was too terrified to move. The once goofy cartoon heads had turned menacing, with gnashing teeth, burning red eyes, and foaming drool pouring between razor-sharp teeth.

The turkey ninjas, for once, seemed taken aback. Their eyes were glued to the Mohawk turkey.

It was the ant who broke the silence by clearing his throat. “Ahem, ahem.”

Dale looked down.

The ant was standing on top of the crumb, rolling it around in circles with its feet, like a circus bear on a ball. “Behold the fat dodo,” it said, “sitting there like a fool. With his mouth hanging open, I could swim in this nincompoop’s drool. Does he not realize, his sad life will soon be done? Unless his Lilliputian brain tells him that the time has come…”

The ant hopped off the crumb, jumped up onto Dale’s leg, and then onto his nose. With Dale looking at him cross-eyed, the ant shouted with the power of an earth-rattling sonic boom.

“TO RUN!”

Dale shot up onto his feet like a soldier at attention. The sudden movement caught the attention of the already edgy beakmen. They turned to look at Dale with their fists raised. Dale snapped his arms into a running position and lifted one knee high into the air. He held this position for a moment, as if winding up. Then with a burst he was off, sprinting for the back door, and past Randy, with the quickness.

Now Randy was alone with the ninjas. As they pulled out their weapons, he decided that ninjas removing his entire head were a bigger threat than a turkey gouging his eyes out. Whistling a happy tune in an attempt to lull the ninjas into a false sense of ease, Randy grabbed the desk with both hands and flipped it over, sending books and papers flying everywhere.

Huffing and puffing, Randy bolted down the hall toward the back door. The turkey, after nearly tumbling off in the initial burst of speed, grabbed on tight to Randy’s greasy wet hair and held on for dear life.

The back door burst open and Dale galloped through. Randy came out soon after, and they both ran for the trees.

Randy risked a quick look over his shoulder and saw the beakmen pour through the backdoor. They ran single file, moving like a long serpent, and at a much greater speed than Randy and Dale could ever hope to match.

Between huffs and puffs, Randy called out, “Dale! They’re gaining on us! Prepare to defend yourself!”

“I’d love to help you, but I’m kind of busy at the moment!”

Dale zigzagged, hurdled, and dodged his way through the forest, even though there was nothing for him to zigzag, hurdle, or dodge away from.

“What in God’s name are you doing?” Randy asked.

“Trying not to get eaten by these tree monsters! What the hell do you
think
I’m doing?”

“There are no tree monsters!” Randy shouted. “It’s the schrooms! They’re making you hallucinate!”

Just then a tree monster’s hand brushed through Dale’s hair as it missed grabbing him by inches. Dale jumped up and grabbed onto the monster’s finger, breaking it off. The monster howled in pain.

“What do you call this then?” Dale asked as he threw the monster’s finger at Randy.

“A twig!”

“It’s a finger!”

While Dale and Randy argued about whether it was a finger or a twig, the sword-carrying ninja had managed to get within striking distance of Randy. He held up his sword and leapt high into the air.

Just as Randy was about to be sliced in half from head to crotch, the Mohawk turkey shot off his head like a cannonball and slammed into the ninja’s stomach. The ninja went flying backward, passing over his three friends, who gaped up at him. The furious bird drove the ninja into a tree, slamming him against the trunk with a loud thud.

The thud got Randy’s attention. He stopped running and turned around in time to see the ninja slide down the tree and hit the ground. It was then that he noticed that the turkey was no longer on his head. The bird was now on the ground, surrounded by the other three ninjas.

Randy’s turkey extended its long neck toward the sky and trumpeted a booming gobble that echoed through the trees.

The three ninjas slowly circled around the bird, none of them seemed willing to make the first move. The bird had its eyes closed and appeared to be either sleeping or meditating.