How they got to the beat down village, of Buras was anyone’s guess. Loomishad blanked awake in time to spy the smacking of dat immense gator’s tail on da water, but Frankie
Daro’s son had tossed not one but TWO live chickens ‘out da wey’ to distract the leviathan as they pulled outa Destrehan. Lydsey kept referring to DAT dreary burg as “Destray-Hamm,” but believe you me, DAT was just plain dumb on her part.
Me Loomis, I am thinkin’ we coulda WALKED on down to here, but maybe not a good idea. As Daro gave his party of three a gentle shoving out of the feathercraft (read “Air-Boat,”once ‘dey, ‘wuz’,”up upon higher ground, read ‘drier and yallerer MUD, y’all,”)
Loomis stomped around a bit, getting his”sea legs” back, as he put it. Lyndsey merely
gazed somewhat admiringly at this gawky dude. Then she sighed and spoke.
“What makes you think we’ll find some satisfaction in this weird little place, Loomis?”
As far as they could spot, up and down the crepuscular, Spanish moss-strewn main drag
of Buras,nothing was stirring, not even a mad dog.
“I..er, sort of mis-encalculated that there might be living kin of mine laying around…
Now, I see, dear Lyn, that I may well have been wrong–DEAD wrong about any such
connections in dis here community. Know what I’m sayin’?”
Lyndsey just nodded, as if she understood this man’s tortuous trains of thought.
Even she, the insightful and well-tested social worker, really wasn’t sure.
Then a massive, freckled and goateed face, shaded by a chewed-up straw sun hat,
blocked Loomis’ view of his new love.
“Doctor Peter Harkelius at your service, monsieur. Come. Come tis way, please.”
Harkelius led the two neophytes into a low, unpainted and ancient slat bungalow.
Brown leghorn roosters, at least three of ’em, were pecking at the dirt around the
burlap-flap protected doorway.
In the distance, Daro and his son’s hydro-craft whirred their adieu and gone!
Loomis rubbed his eyes roughly. “Don’t you peeps believe in HARDWARE
around here?”
Inside the hut, Loomis couldn’t grasp the strangeness of the scene. A sound
system played a continual ominous LAUGH, a sort of “HOOOWHOOHAHAWHOORAHAAHAHAHA,” perhaps like Screamin’ Jay, who knows.
LYNDSEY LAUGHED AND SNUGGLED UP TO THE STUFFED ANTHROMORPHIC CROCA-GATOR WITH THE TULLE SKIRT AND SCARLET GLASS BEAD applique.
Loomis was not amused, neither by the neat litttle crystal dishes set evenly spaced about the straw-matten floor of the dim main room, containing a dark sticky purplish liquid. What could THAT be mayhap?
“Lyndsey, babe. Snap outa yore trance!”
Doctor Peter barked sharply for “SEE-LONCE!” Loomis snapped to attention, ready for a fight. Funny- he couldn’t move, all of a sudden. And where had his girl gone? This was
getting creepier and creepier. Things started to darken and darken, and darker still–
(TO BE CONTINUED)
