made it out the door, I tell you what.
“So, she just kinda stumbles through the yard, with me an’ Martha followin’ ‘er, until she gets to that big ol’ satellite dish by the driveway, y’know, the one I use to keep a eye on them Commies and their propaganda?”
Earl understood this to mean the dish that LeRoy kept because it was still receiving thirteen adult stations, as well as pirating all the basic channels. “Yeah, I know the one,” he replied.
“Yeah. So, Bobbi Jo gets up to it an’ screams t’beat the band. Then she grabs a-holt of the bottom of it an’ just yanks it up so it’s pointin’ straight up to the sky an’ jumps up in it, like it was a big ol’ bed or somethin’, kicks off all the pointy thangs in the middle of it, an’ lays back on it, just a-rollin’ and moanin’, an’ swellin’ up bigger an’ bigger.
“Then she blowed up.”
“Wha-at?” Earl said. The line was picking up extra static and he wasn’t entirely sure he had LeRoy correctly.
“That’s right, hoss. She just blowed up, like someone done stuck a cherry bomb in a frog. ‘Twas guts everwhere, an’ all was left was her head, shoulders an’ arms. But she was still alive an’ lookin’ ‘round. It were pretty nasty.
“Worst part, though, when she popped, whatever ‘twas inside ‘er makin’ ‘er get all big? Well, it come out, all right, an’ I’m hogtied if I can describe the thang. It was big, though, an’ getting’ bigger by the minute. Broke the satellite in two an’ bent the pole. Now I ain’t got the NASCAR channel no more, nor The Wrestlin’ Network, nor even Fox News. All I can get is PBS an’ I’m damned if I’ma watch one second of Downtown Abbey.”
He broke off again to take another shot at the thing in his yard. “That’s for my CMT!” Earl heard him shout through the blast of pain in his head. “I’ll blast yer ass back to the seventh circle of Hell for that, ya shit-suckin’, bubbly-ass nether sumbitch! Now git!” He fired again, and the world was caught up in expanding ripples as multiple realities crashed into one another.
“Sorry, hoss,” LeRoy said as he picked the phone back up. “Just pisses me off, takin’ a man’s country music television away from ‘im in the middle of a George Jones marathon.”
“I can understand that,” Earl sympathized. He was looking out the window, watching the horizon transform itself over and over in a kaleidoscope of nightmare alien landscapes.
“Anyways, after it busted the satellite, I sicced m’dog on it, but didn’t do no good. Damn thang just swallered Rastus up whole, didn’t even stop to chew. Kep’ on movin’ ‘cross the drive an’ out into the fields, makin’ for m’crops.”
“It didn’t…” Earl started to ask. LeRoy grew the finest cannabis in the Tri-State area; if this thing got loose in the fields…
“Nah, don’t worry none ‘bout the crops, hoss. It hit the minefield before it got anywhere near the sweet stuff. I got enough ordinance buried out there to blast a new asshole in the moon, made it thank twice before it tried again. It’s been a-wafflin’ between the fields and the porch ever since. I reckon I got enough beer and ammo t’keep it busy till it decides to crawl off back to hell or wherever.”
Earl felt a sudden, desperate hope take hold in his chest. Was it possible? Could LeRoy actually stop this intrusion into three-dimensional space? Would it be enough to save the world?
LeRoy’s end was quiet for a moment, then he was back, his voice low and preoccupied.
“Earl, I’ma hafta letcha go,” he said. “It’s gonna make another try for the fields.”
Another blast roared from the shotgun and the mewling became an outright scream that shook the molecules in Earl’s bones. His nose started bleeding, but he was in too much pain to notice.
“What’d I tell ya!” he could just hear LeRoy over the burst of white noise on the line. “Keep yer god-damn pseudy-pods OFF! I got ties to the Klan! I’ll have you strung up an’ flayed so fast it’ll make yer eyestalks swivel, I shit you not! You have no idea who yer messin’ with! Martha! ‘Nother beer over here!”
The line went dead. Earl dropped the phone, ignoring the dull clatter of the plastic handle hitting the floor.
Outside the door, the rats were starting up again. They were scratching at the floor, tearing out long splinters of wood, expanding the space under the door millimeter by millimeter.
Earl pushed himself up from the bed and stood watching the door for long minutes. Then he turned his head slowly, until the closet came into view. With slow steps, he crossed the room to the closet door, opened it, and stepped into the cool dark within. Pulling the door closed behind him, he sank to the floor, stuck his thumb in his mouth, and waited for something to come and find him.
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