often bestowed upon those who did not believe the same kindred, oddball things. Feeling a familial tie with all wild things, even that creature, it was impossible for him to experience the sick horror that assailed IllaryHay at the sight of the brute’s ferocity with that golf ball.
He sat watching it tranquilly and pointed out the various changes that were taking place in its barks and actions. No longer was the cur glaring at the two interlopers with such concentration and fury, that beast was playing.
"Well, at least that thing is playing with a bombshell and doesn’t yet know it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“That golf ball has a liquid center," the President communicated with conviction, “and under some extreme pressure. With any luck it will blow up in that mutts face and scare it off.”
"I don't fucking believe it!" To IllaryHay it seemed preposterous to suppose that anything that small could have any effect on that bundle of muscle and fury. “That’s your terrific plan!”
"Oh look there,” BamaOay said, pointing, “there is now joy in the dogs barking. First, that dog was very aggressive, but now see how happy it looks, almost like a puppy. Look, it’s wagging its stubby tail! We might even be able to go pet that mutt in a half-hour.”
IllaryHay trembled with recklessness as she drew her pepper spray. She had enough of this nonsense...she was hungry enough to eat a horse and she would do anything, even rip that creature’s head off to get to some ribs.
“What...what are you doing?"
“I am going to go kill that goddamn mutt, that’s what!”
Great Escape
The Bahama Post-Times-Chronicle-Journal - Excavations have uncovered a further important clue surrounding the Trianglodylian Culture, one that could rewrite history. The map-like pictograph depicts a fourth point outside the original three points of the Bermuda Triangle. Located on part of the southeastern coast of the United States, a place called Cumberland Island. If true the new revelation would force cartologists to redraw the Bermuda Triangle into a Bermuda Quadrangle.
All of a sudden something sounded off in the distance. The cur stopped playing, stood stationary and alert, intently listening. The noise of a distant whistle now made its presence heard over the crashing surf. With harsh, grating barks the canine went plowing off through the bushes, soon disappearing from view.
"He’s running away!" she exclaimed, jumping with joy.
"He is making for that whistle!" shouted the President as he jumped to his feet, galvanized into swift action. "The call of his owner leads him away, come on!"
"Where?" she asked, aghast and unsure.
"We will make for that cookout! Those folk may be knuckle draggers with bad breath, but they might be our only chance to get back to the lodge. Come on, before that bastard starts coming back!”
She hesitated for some odd reason.
“Come on IllaryHay, it’s sure craziness to stay here!”
She still did not stir.
“There is no time for this bullshit!"
She persisted in her hesitation. . .
“What about those barbecue ribs?”
That broke the spell.
The President took long lanky strides through the surf not quite reaching the beach and looking like a stork, he paused only to aid his less agile companion who, until she saw his odd clambering had fancied herself the equal of any man in the tanglement of Washington.
They labored through the shallow surf leaving neigh a hair of a trail for the bulldog to follow, just far enough to throw the beast off their trail and then raced into the gloom of the forest.
A noisy howling and yapping to the north in the dense thicket indicated that the damnable canine was on its way back.
With a scorching oath, “Mother fucker,” she stumbled bewilderedly after the President, but blundered into the dolt when he unexpectedly stopped in his tracks. BamaOay reeled from the impact as from a freight train getting knocked a clear yard away to the mossy turf. Gasping from the blow he let out a whimper, “Owww, that smarted.” Picking himself up the President quickly regained his voice adding, “We will wait here till it leaves.”
"He leaves!" she mumbled, unbelievingly. She felt as if the pounding of her heart must surely be heard from far away. "That could take hours you numbskull!"
"I don't think he’s picked up our trail, but we can’t take any chances of it hearing you plodding around like a..."
“Watch it buster, unless you want a knuckle sandwich.”
BamaOay thought better of calling her a cow. "I meant to say if the wind doesn’t change direction."
"That’s better you dork."
IllaryHay’s face was a pallid sphere in the wooded gloom. She tightened her grip on the pepper spray with a free hand, but the feel of the unsheathed dispenser inspired little confidence.
They were still some distance from the edge of the beach when they heard a snapping and crashing behind them.
She bit her lip to check a cry, "Shit, it’s on our trail!"
BamaOay shook his head, "No, it hasn’t picked us up on the beach, it is just blundering about through the woods trying to pick up our scent. Come on! It is now, or nothing! If only the wind stays down..."
The President gripped her wrist and guided her away from the hide. He made less noise with the rising breeze blowing among the tree trunks, however, for her part IllaryHay’s sandaled feet seemed to be breaking branches with every step. They stole on until the trees began to thin out ahead! From the other side of them the forest was a black impenetrable ocean of darkness. The ominous crashing still sounded behind them as the creature blundered in his erratic course to find the two.
"There,” the President pointed, “there is the path up ahead."
"Thank God, a little more of these bullshit shrubs and I’m not sure I would have..."
"Hell!" swore the President, turning pale.
"Goddamnit!" she cursed, grimacing with fear.
The wind was changing direction, it now was blowing directly over them and into the dark woods. Instantly, a horrible screeching shook the woods. The aimless snapping and cracking of the brush changed to a sustained crashing as the critter came like a hurricane straight toward the spot from which the scent of its prey wafted.
"High tail it!" snarled the President, his eyes blazing like those of a trapped wolf. "It’s all we can do!"
Golf shoes are not made for sprinting and the life of a golfer does not train one to be a runner. Within a hundred yards the President was panting and reeling in his gait and behind them the crashing gave way to a rolling trot as the monster broke out of the thickets and onto the trail behind them.
He pushed her on. “Keep going!”
“What...”
“I’ve got an idea!”
“What the...!”
Her feet scarcely left anything untouched as she bounded on; she was borne along at a speed she never thought possible.
BamaOay stopped, slipping into cover and quickly pulled another golf ball from his belly bag as he watched the rabbit, which was IllaryHay, trundling away before dropping it for a halfway decent lie.
A quick glance over her shoulder showed her that the monster was closing in on her, coming like a tidal wave after an earthquake.
Screaming she ran as fast as her sandaled feet would carry her.
“That’s it IllaryHay,” he whispered, “keep holding that bastards attention.”
The mongrel ran past him as planned focused only on the lumbering fair-haired maiden in the oversized pantsuit.
“If I can get just one lucky shot off,” he mumbled, concentration etched upon his features.
Putting his head down, lining up the shot, looking up momentarily to take aim at the bastards tail end, the President pulled back with that oversized driver of his and was about to strike.
IllaryHay unwittingly did her part. Convinced that injury was upon her she acted according to her most basic animal instincts and t
urned on the fiend, pepper spray in hand. Her wide-eyed gaze was fixed in agonized intensity, which caused pause for the mongrel just long enough for her to spray the thing in the face.
Yipe!
The canine yelped in pain from the spritzing.
BamaOay now swung his driver, only the duffer got the club stuck on the backswing in some branches. Struggling momentarily to dislodge his weapon the President pulled it free from the catch only to watch as the driver, not the golf ball, went sailing at the beasts rear end.
Yipe!
The double whammy of both pepper spray and now getting slammed in the balls by a flying driver…it was too much.
YIPE!
The cur cut out with pain searing cries.
He had done it!
She had done it!
Just how they had pulled it off not even they could venture to guess, but both would exaggerate the telling of this tale...a heroic tale that was all but guaranteed to show up in high school history books.
Anyhow, now the only thought that filled his mind was that of the babe standing agape and motionless on the path. She stood where she had stopped, then dropped unceremoniously to her knees. Neither those bucktooth incisors, nor trampling paws had touched her; and that canine, it had rushed on forgetting them completely, taking a headlong course into the darkness wailing all the way. The crashing noise of the creature’s spirited flight grew fainter and fainter. The two thought they had made it, that they were in the clear of danger, but unbeknownst to them something far more sinister and dangerous was approaching.
BamaOay came upon her after picking up his driver, “You must get to your feet, we need to get going. Come on," the