“We must rescue the survivors and protect ourselves against future invaders… Furthermore, we had a sacred tablet which had been stolen and hidden in these very woods. We must find it and plan our rescue. Colonist’s comrades, hurry, we have no time to waste!”
We were mesmerized. The story sounded real. Each and every one of us, even Mary Ellen who was now quietly giggling to herself, was similarly enthralled with every word comin’ out of Rick’s mouth. Funny thing, we could actually see his words floating in the sky in addition to hearing them.
Suddenly, out of the woods staggered clumsy Stevie Bird, laughing hysterically, while awkwardly tripping over every tree stump in the place. We hadn’t even realized he was missing. Apparently he had wandered off some time ago to take a whiz.
“We were attacked while you were out sightseeing,” Mary Ellen scolded him. “They captured about fifty of us. Pirates! We have to split up in teams and go rescue them right now!”
“Was it Captain Samuel Bellamy and the Whydah Gally, believed lost at sea off the coast of Cape Cod during a violent nor’easter?” Stevie, ever the historian, asked through his spastic giggles.
Everybody looked at everybody else, and then nodded their agreement.
“Probably. Yeah, that! A whole bunch of them. They’ve now sailed up the canal with bad intentions, right, Patrick?” Ken looked around warily.
“Ahoy, Mateys! Shiver me timbers! I definitely heard pirates chanting “Death to the Colonists!” Patrick insisted. We all laughed. I think. Or maybe it was just me.
“That might have just been Crazy Eddie puking up that liquid crap he passed around,” Mary Ellen volunteered.
“Nah...” said Sir Stick. “That wasn’t a puking sound; that was an attack sound.”
We were on pins and needles.
Suddenly there was the sound of something in the bushes just outside our wetu, and everybody froze, a look of abject terror on their faces, swashbucklers?!
Crazy Eddie shoved the door-blanket aside and stumbled into the wetu.
“Whippoorwill…!” Crazy Eddie howled.
Admittedly, and concurrently, we were also being way too loud and careless about our cover, and since we had chosen to spike Mary Ellen’s nasty wine with just a tad of Ed’s grandiose evil concoction, she was in no condition to be telling anyone what not to do about anything. Actually I think being relieved of that role, no matter how temporary, was a freeing experience for her. We’d never seen her so carefree and all-out giddy!
“Whippoorwill…!” Mary Ellen yelled back, rising unsteadily to her feet and laughing hysterically.
It was now around midnight and nearly pitch dark, the overtaxed spot lights at the entrance unable to cast their yellowed glow at this distance, even a faded one, and the street was too far away. A slice of the moon gave some light, but that was all, and we were careful not to expose our flashlights, albeit a couple of quick flashes were deemed necessary when someone needed to take a leak.
The night had taken on an eerie, even menacing texture, and everything looked like it was out to get us. Add the nighttime symphony of crickets and katydids and great horned owls and the distant howl of a coyote and who-knows-what, and you’d have the makings for a seriously spooky night on the cape, especially as more and more fog swept in, as it tends to do. I think surreal would be the best description, real but sort of not.
Just then Ken, who had apparently slipped away, emerged from the woods carrying a bunch of clothes in his arms. What the what?
“Hey, guys, the back door to the gift shop was unlocked so I grabbed some costumes for us to wear. Looks like real colonist outfits; now everyone suit up! I’ve got hats and shirts. If we’re gonna play the part, we’re gonna look it!”
“Then, off to fight pirates!” Or whoever…
The world was spinning, but we had our orders, so high as kites, we arose and set off to find pirates. Or ghosts. Or whatever else was out there. “I think they’re all after us! And by gawd, we’re gonna rescue the fifty members of our group who were captured! Damn those pirates! Maybe we’ll steal their gold!”
Ok, we had our orders, we were brave and daring, and we were gonna kick some Blackbeard-loving pirate ass! Just like in the movies. Or... something like that.
So off we went, heading out into the pitch dark surroundings to aimlessly roam the strictly off-limit governmental grounds of an historic open-air museum in search of who knows what, at uncertain risk and peril.
So yeah, it made sense to us.
Chapter 43
Crackle
It’s happened to all of us, at one time or another.
We watch an action flick and walk out of the movie throwing karate chops and side thrusts into the air at invisible opponents, often accompanied by various grunted sound effects. Or we go to a football game cloaked in team attire, then can’t wait to get home to beat the crap out of your little brother in a one-on-one front-lawn scrimmage. Or you leave a Broadway play or concert, singing, or perhaps dancing your way down the streets toward your car. Or you turn into a frightening menace on Halloween and take liberties with eggs and shaving cream. Or maybe you’re a bit-actor in your high-school play, portraying something as simple as a tree or shrub. When the curtain rises you feel the role, you live the role, in fact, you are the tree!
The point is, with the help of the strange elixir, we had all morphed into our colonist’s “characters!”
How freeing. How exhilarating.
How mystical. How magical. How powerful. How formidable.
How awesome.
Now multiply that times one thousand.
And tonight, dammit, we WERE our roles.
I headed off with Mary Ellen at my side so she could “keep you from getting killed out there, Jimmyrocket.” I appreciated that and didn’t mind the company, or brainpower, temporarily distorted or not. The biggest issue was keeping her from giggling, she being a notorious giggle-fest, and having no problem finding plenty of humor tonight, judging from the incessant heaving of her still-developing chest and threats to pee her pants. Fortunately, I was able to redirect her excess jubilation into low-grade humming which kept her in check as we meandered through the grounds, ducking down and swaying to avoid low-hanging branches, some visible, most not.
The various members of our squad kept in touch by poorly veiled “bird” calls and other nonsense. We had all agreed to meet back at our camp in two hours, but who even knew what two hours was, or for that matter, where our camp was. We ventured deeper, me shushing Mary Ellen from time to time, her throwing up twice.
“Mary Ellen, you’re leaving a trail of puke tracks for the bad guys!” I worried aloud.
Onward we ventured, both intently memorized by the particularly bright arrangement of stars overhead, featuring an array of shooting stars not only overhead, but at our feet as well, flickering and sparkling and lighting our path. At least that’s what we saw, and frankly, it was getting harder to tell up from down by the minute, not that we were complaining. We continued our way around the area, twice almost bumping smack into each other and another three or four times almost trampling over our own comrades, their silhouettes disappearing into a dark mist which had thickened and settled around the twelve-acre plot of land.
Being the ever-savvy proposed rescuers that we were and needing to stay on the down-low, we used a series of ridiculous-sounding animal sounds, focusing primarily on a wide variety of birds and owls which served quite nicely as the soundtrack to our bizarre adventure. I, for one, was a screech owl, and judging from the sounds, Crazy Ed was a dying vulture, and Stevie Bird was a blind bat, ’cause guess what—yup, he lost his flippin’ glasses again! Moron.
