Shady Bend Road

By James Howerton

Scientists Anton Singer and Heinz Kovalt have worked for years to create specimen #8107, a creature featuring the traits of some of the most savage animal predators on the planet. But with Singer dying from cancer, the cross-species monster, designed to kill American soldiers, is now for sale.

Wendy Nugent, sheriff of Harrison County, Nebraska, grows suspicious when a government lab springs up on an abandoned farmstead near her own farm in the Blue River Valley, in the middle of nowhere. Despite being reassured by a colonel from the Pentagon, a representative of Homeland Security, and a Princeton scientist that it is simply a federal livestock research lab, she doesn't buy it. Nugent tries to investigate, only to be rebuffed by scientist Mark Sterns, with whom she begins a romantic relationship.

Something beyond the normal research is obviously occurring in that compound, which sports its own Marine guards and security fences. She is kept in the dark until a powerful storm destroys the lab and unleashes a real terror that threatens her once-quiet county.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 16, 2008
• ISBN: 9780595619672

James Howerton

James Howerton is a graduate of the University of Nebraska. He is currently living and writing in San Diego. This is his third book in a series.

Book preview

ONE….

The laboratory where Dr. Singer and his team had made all their miracles was more than 20 meters below the earth in a womb of concrete. All things considered, it was a comfortable and modern facility with apartments, recreational areas and a social hall. The lab alone covered a half acre, and in terms of equipment and instruments was probably unmatched anywhere in the world. Only now it was empty of scientists. Dr. Singer sat alone in the great stainless steel and aluminum world he himself had created.

For years it had never mattered to him what went on up there on the surface of the earth. Here he could play with the miracles. How strange that when the world up there falls apart and comes crashing down on you, and when your own body does the same, it still doesn’t seem to matter.

Many years he had lived down here in comfort, a fat mole, a great bio chemist poking and tickling and peering into the secrets of life. Together he and his colleagues had made the miracles, nearly all of them failed miracles to be disposed of. Nature fails a thousand times before one success.

Now all the colleagues were gone, all except Heinz Kovalt, and he too would be gone soon. The money was gone, the great project a failure, the government, the nation suddenly over-run by madmen. All the years of research a failure simply because they had not made a practical weapon. Let the Americans have it. Let them have it all.

The cancer caused him great pain, especially when he moved, but he didn’t want to cloud his mind with medication. He knew better than anyone what was going on inside his body: A cell went mad and began making senseless copies of itself. The process of life went senseless, and there were no brakes. The process of life was destroying him simply because it forgot how to stop growing.

He sat in the dark empty laboratory. The screen was pulled over the entire cage, he didn’t want to see the thing. He never wanted to see it again. Let the Americans have it, and let Heinz Kovalt have his strange dream.

Often the pain was so intense that Dr. Singer felt terror, and he had to grip himself and pull his mind into a narrow hole for a while. He stared at the covered cage in the center of the laboratory. What you gave so many years for.

He heard the elevator click on, way above, and he glanced at the clock. You’re early, Heinz. We still have time. And if you’re not Heinz, then you’re coming down here to shoot me, and maybe that’s just as well. No, it’s not. I hope it’s Heinz, and he gets his American dream. If there is a God, then I pray to Him that it be Heinz. To be a forgotten American high school teacher. Maybe life, like cancer, is truly senseless. Or that we haven’t discovered the sense yet.

The elevator clanked to the bottom, and Dr. Singer looked at the door to the lab. It clicked open, and Heinz Kovalt bustled in. Heinz was dressed in sea clothes, a rubber Macintosh, whalers’ boots and even a wool cap. He looked so outlandish that Singer had to smile.

Look at you, he said.

I still make you smile, Anton.

Heinz stood and looked around at the dark, empty laboratory. His eyes blinked nervously, and Singer could see he was pouring sweat under the heavy sea clothes. You smile when there’s nothing to smile about, Anton, he said.

I smile because I can no longer frown, Singer said. It hurts too much to frown. You look like some sort of troll in that costume.

His assistant looked at him. They say the sea can be a rough place.

Singer nodded. I was at sea once, years ago. We were allowed to follow in Darwin’s wake for a few weeks. The sea is a great machine, like everything else. Extremely complicated, but a machine nonetheless. One day humans will probably get control of it. He studied his friend. Heinz was very afraid. He was pale, shaking with fear. You’re early, Heinz, he said. We have time yet.

Heinz glanced up at the clock. I wish you were coming with me, Anton. You may have found happiness in America.

Maybe. It doesn’t matter now. The adventure is for you, Heinz. For you and our troubling child.

Heinz looked at the covered cage. I can’t believe I’m doing this, he said. I can’t believe this is all happening.

You’re doing what I would do if I were you, Dr. Singer said. If science is not beyond politics, then it’s not beyond anything.

Heinz looked at him. Truly? Truly you would do it, Anton?

Yes, truly.

If I’m caught, they’ll torture me and kill me. I’ll die a traitor. I’ll die with a noose around my neck.

No, don’t talk that way, Heinz. I’ve seen to things. The Americans know what they’re doing. They’ll get their delivery, and you with it. I can’t help you, of course, if the noose turns out to be an American one.

Heinz looked at the screened cage. I can’t let it die, not all we’ve done. I won’t. And I won’t let the madmen get it.

It’s strange, Dr. Singer said, staring around him at the glittering lab, the white linoleum floors, the steel and aluminum and plastic instruments staring out with red and blue digital eyes. Red, blue, green white lights glowing under plastic buttons, red numbers on screens, a silver-colored echo chamber of technology to study and manipulate the machine of all.

What’s strange, Doctor?

It’s strange, Heinz; I’m not afraid of dying. I’m not even afraid of suffering. But things are not important to me that once were important to me. That’s what truly makes me afraid.

What we have done is important, Anton, you know this.

Take off that cap, Heinz, you’re sweating all down your face. We have some time yet.

Heinz took off the wool cap and wiped his face with it. We did what they paid us to do, Anton. What they asked us to do. What we agreed to do. But from the beginning you and I both knew that this was more than just creating a weapon.

Maybe. I don’t know. Life is full of maybes. I know that our job was to create a weapon. We did so, and that is why the Americans are paying a great deal of money for it. If we created a Great weapon, Heinz, I’m sorry, I can’t feel proud about that.

Heinz nodded sadly. At the dawn of history some primitive Cro-Magnon fellow created the bow and arrow. Was he good or was he evil? He created the great killing machine of the age, the great weapon of murder and warfare. And where would we be without it?

Dr. Singer looked at the screened cage. Don’t try and stir up pride in me, I’m beyond that. Let your Americans spend their money, I’m sure they’ll find it fascinating.

Heinz looked at the clock. He was drenched in sweat. I wish you could come with me, Anton. You know my dream of America. Now I’m afraid of it. But fanatics have taken our land, Anton. I can’t tolerate that nightmare.

I know your dream, Dr. Singer said. I’m going to make it my own, as long as this cancer allows. When you were young and you saw the illustrations in the American science book.

I don’t know why, Heinz said. But this book—a high school biology book from the 1950’s, this American book and its pictures touched me in such a strange way and changed me in such a strange way, so that it was always in the background of everything I did.

Dr. Singer nodded. Go on. I would smile, but it hurts to do that now.

Heinz looked at the old professor. He looked at the clock. We don’t have a lot of time, Anton. I love you like a father. So many years we worked together, and soon we’ll never see each other again. I want to tell you what you—

Oh, forget that, Singer said. I want to hear about your dream. Go on. You got hold of a biology book from an American high school, circa 1950’s. And you saw the illustration of the biology teacher there in America, and that was your dream. You saw the illustrated American children in the classroom, and birds and trees out the window of the classroom.

Yes, Heinz said. What I saw was—I don’t know….

It always gave me pleasure, Dr. Singer said. Knowing that as we were moving about under the earth, two moles with electron microscopes, that you had that dream inside you, and that you shared it with me.

A foolish dream, Heinz said. And as it turns out, a dangerous one.

No, Heinz, it’s a beautiful dream. Stop looking at the clock, we have time.

They were quiet for awhile. They both would glance over at the hooded cage.

I don’t want to be a traitor, Heinz said. But I can’t let our work fall into the hands of the maniacs.

I’m leaving the earth soon, Singer said. I leave it all up to you.

Well, if you are leaving, you’re leaving at a good time.

Dr. Singer gave him a dry look. We’ve both studied cancer, Doctor. We both know that I Am leaving earth, and soon. How strange, Heinz, that when I was a boy and I discovered the science of biology, my first goal was to cure cancer.

Maybe we have, Heinz said.

You’re an optimist, maybe that’s why I’m so fond of you. You’ll do well in America, it’s a nation of optimists. How strange, Heinz, that I thought then that cancer would be gone soon, like polio, that a cure would surely be found before I got into the game. So I turned my energies in other directions. Now who got the last laugh, me or cancer?

I have a dream from an old American science book. Heinz looked at the clock. That’s all I have now.

Well, a dreamer, an optimist. That’s good in times like these. My last thought on this earth, Heinz, will be you in your American high school biology classroom being the strange and optimistic teacher with the funny accent who everybody grows to love.

Heinz smiled. If you don’t work for a dream, Anton, then why do you work?

And in the dream you’ll meet and fall in love with a pretty blond American English teacher at the high school. You’ll marry her and you’ll have children.

I’m already 41, Heinz said. You’re a bigger dreamer than I am.

And you will name your first child Antonia if it’s a girl, and Anton if it’s a boy. And you’ll open the child’s eyes to science, and maybe one day the child will cure cancer.

A beautiful dream, Heinz said.

They looked over suddenly at the hooded cage, and heard the familiar scuttling sound, the hybrid scuttling across the floor.

Heinz looked at Dr. Singer. It’s supposed to be sedated.

It will be, don’t worry. It’s only relieving itself. Be thankful that it’s going to the bathroom before its long trip.

A poison smell bloomed out of the top of the covered cage, a stench filled the air. Then automatic fans kicked in and swept the smell out of the laboratory.

You have some time, Heinz, relax. No need to over medicate. You don’t want to deliver a dead specimen to the Americans.

The fans kicked off, and they heard the scuttling sound as it returned to its place in the corner of the cage. Number eight one oh seven.

It’s strange to feel death take over your body, Dr. Singer said. I’ve been a scientist all my life. My field was just that, life. I studied the secrets of life. But for every scientist, the very last study is always death.

Heinz looked at the covered cage. If they get this—if they get this, Anton, they will not study it, they will not hesitate, they will unleash it.

I know that. They will unleash it against their own people, against our people. Dr. Singer stared at the covered cage. When I knew my cancer was fatal, I thought about destroying this place, and how it could be done—what kind of explosives and temperatures and force it would take to completely exterminate this place. It’s a contained unit, underground. It wouldn’t take much.

That’s one way to die.

Then all of this would be gone forever. When the crazy fanatics find this place and come swarming down here in the name of their god, that would be the time to do it.

Heinz looked at the covered cage. He felt hollow, drenched in fear. Fear seemed to cover him in a cold wet blanket. Fear made white noise in his ears. He felt that he was looking at the world out of the backs of his eyes.

He looked at the clock. This thing he was doing, this—thing. A plunge into cold black water. Becoming a traitor, a man who sold his country for money and his own selfish dream.

I don’t know what else to do, Anton, he said. I wish you were coming with me.

I know. Dr. Singer stared away at the empty lab. If this were all destroyed, Heinz, then our child would be lost in the dark. We’re primates, and being primates, we can’t stand to have our child lost in the dark. It’s intolerable. It goes against our most powerful instincts.

Lost in the dark, Heinz said. He stared at the covered cage. He remembered it all, the years of microscopes and slides and notes scribbled into a notebook. Diving deeper and ever deeper down into the factory of life, watching the microscopic machines at work, the societies down there operating life. Cells that carry messages, cells that respond to the messages, cells that process the messages, cells that build the messages and create and eat and conquer and survive and expand. Entire cities down there forever expanding and replacing and ejecting and moving.

All gone, this. He felt sweaty fear dribble down his chest, down his back. He looked at the clock. The people will be here soon to take the hybrid, and me, off to a new world. Then I will never see Anton Singer again.

I wish you could come with me, Heinz said.

I wish so too, Heinz, it’s a grand adventure. But the cancer says no.

Heinz looked at the clock. I’ve never been so afraid in my life.

We’re both afraid, Heinz. And now we both have to find courage. I have to find the courage to study the cancer that is reproducing inside me, and then to study the process of death—you must find the courage to face your destiny. I want to die knowing your destiny is to teach science in the American high school, and to meet the pretty blond English teacher.

Or to die a traitor.

Well. Dr. Singer looked around at the empty lab. Many traitors have probably died trying to save humanity.

I wish you could come with me.

I wish—

They both jumped when the elevator kicked on. They looked at one another as the hum echoed down the lab, the elevator coming down. Dr. Singer looked at the clock.

The men are here. He looked at his assistant. It’s time, Heinz.

Heinz sat there in fear. I wish you could come with me, Anton, he said.

Don’t be afraid, Heinz. Matters have been settled. You’ll get safely to America. I know this, because you are as valuable to them as our hybrid here. Dr. Singer rose painfully from his chair. He extended his hand. Well, Heinz, good luck.

The time was here. A dream begins, or a nightmare. Heinz took hold of the old professor’s bone hand. He looked into Dr. Singer’s face. Only the eyes seemed alive.

I wish— Heinz said.

Goodbye, Dr. Kovalt. I wish you luck. I have things to study.

Dr. Singer turned and hobbled out of the laboratory, down to his private apartment. Heinz watched him lurch painfully as he walked. Now Heinz was truly alone. He looked at the covered cage. Not truly alone.

He heard the elevator clank to the bottom; the Americans and life, or the fanatics and death.

A primate can’t tolerate its child being lost in the dark—it’s intolerable.

TWO….

Harrison County, Nebraska.

Wendy Nugent, the sheriff of Harrison County, drove her patrol car slowly past the construction site out in the pasture of the old Stubbmeyer farm. You could still see the foundation of the tall house that had long ago been torn down. Now a government building was being constructed there, about a quarter mile off Shady Bend Road. Before construction began, a crew of soldiers had quickly erected a ten foot tall chain link fence around the three acre farm site, and big red signs said that this was now a federal facility and unauthorized entry was strictly prohibited.

She blatantly stopped her patrol car on the road, attracting the attention of the two marine guards who stood at the gate. She waved to them and they nodded back. She studied the construction site, a federal livestock research facility, she had been told, by a Colonel Elston and a Mr. Jones. A military crew was putting up the building in record time, a steel pre-fab thing, one story. She had never seen a building go up so quickly.

Finally, one of the marine guards crossed the ditch and walked over to her patrol car. About my son’s age, she thought.

Excuse me, Ma’am, he said. I’m going to have to ask you to please drive on.

She looked at him. It’s not Ma’am, she said. It’s Sheriff.

Excuse me, Sheriff, but I’m going to have to ask you to please drive on. These premises are for authorized personnel only.

I’m not on the premises, I’m on a county road. And I’m the County Sheriff.

The young marine nodded. Sheriff, please, you can’t park here. I don’t want to have to contact my superior.

I’ve already talked to your superior, Colonel Elston?

Ma’am, please—

All right. Have a good day, soldier.

She drove the patrol car on down Shady Bend Road, north toward Highway 281. This place was a good twenty miles from the highway, on a narrow and primitive gravel road. Walnut Hill, the tallest point in the county, was two miles south, and Wendy’s own farmhouse only a half mile south of that. The Blue River was a few miles west of here. The nearest community was Shady Bend, a good four miles to the southwest. No paved roads, supply stores or conveniences anywhere near this place. They were putting up a government research facility in the wind blown middle of nowhere.

She drove north to 281, then turned west and headed toward Mars City. She was finishing up one of her meth lab prowls, driving the back roads and sniffing around abandoned farmhouses, old hay barns and under wooden bridges, wherever a skinny, toothless farm kid might cook up the drug.

It was a warm, sunny afternoon, May 18th, the cornfields and pastures folded into the distance. Cresting a tall hill, she could see the small towns, the tall white grain elevators, water towers and the church steeples of Rose and Chamberton and Dexter and Shady Bend. The wind was out of the south, the sun blazed out of a bright blue sky. You should feel good on a day like this.

She waved at the farmers she passed. The election’s coming up, Vote for me! Vote for me! The first female county sheriff in Harrison County history, and see what happened!

You should feel good on a day like this, warm sun and sweet wind. Summer is here, hot luscious summer.

She was free now. She had gotten her freedom papers in the mail just this morning, and had spent the entire day in a foul mood and feeling sorry for herself. Twenty-five years of marriage all coming down to an ugly little stack of papers. Her husband of 25 years had fallen in love with a girl young enough, of course, to be his daughter, and Bob and Jennifer were now in Omaha. The sheer cliché was enough to puke her.

Cry all you want, you were as much to blame as he was. Bob had never adjusted to this thing, this ridiculous thing she had wanted to do when the last kid was out the door. He supported her when she applied for a deputy position in the Harrison County Sheriffs Department, five years ago, Wendy’s life-long fantasy now grown into a middle-aged wild hair.

He patted my hand and smiled. I remember. But when I got the job the smile crumbled. I remember. His friends started calling him Mr. Deputy Sheriff. It didn’t make him proud, it embarrassed him that his wife, at the age of forty, with stretch marks,was suddenly a police officer.

Then the Sheriffs race. After that, things fell apart quickly.

It had all seemed unreal until she checked her mail and found the final papers. Now she had to somehow get the image out of her brain, Bob and his little 23 year old Jennifer living happily in Omaha, and also the desire to stomp on Planet Earth and grind it under her boot heel. She had been married longer than Jennifer had been alive. It had not sweetened Wendy’s day having the young marine send her down the road as if she were a nosey yokel.

What was going on there? Marines in Harrison County, Nebraska? Animal Research Facility, that sounded good. Bring some of that federal money into the county. She could understand the chain link fence, but a marine guard?

She drove into Mars City, past the fiberglass Martian statue that stood at the gateway to the city, a twelve foot tall purple and apple green cartoon that wore antennae and a goofy smile. WELCOME TO MARS CITY! It said under the statue. HOME OF THE MARS CITY MARTIANS!

The city did a fair postcard business, and people would drive the five miles from Highway 281 just to snap pictures of the Martian, which was perhaps the stupidest statue in history. There were the tired old alien jokes, and red planets on the high school football uniforms, but the name had nothing to do with the planet, nor for the record was it a city. Reginald Mars, a stern minister from Ohio, had bought land here along the Blue in 1865 and moved his entire congregation here to form a perfect community of God where everyone shared and all were equal and so forth. Reginald Mars turned out to be an insufferable tyrant, of course, and finally everyone rose up against him and chased him out. They would have changed the name of the town, but luckily it had already been registered on the county census and map.

She drove into the courthouse and parked beside her deputy’s big 4-wheel drive monster truck, one of those modified Blutos with tires so gigantic it looked stupid, a box on huge balloons of black rubber. Larry Koso had put some nitro engine under the hood that made it sound like a jackhammer, and big silver exhaust pipes flowed under its mammoth springs. There had to be something illegal about it.

It had turned into a blustery evening. The wind had come up from the west and the maple trees around the courthouse whipped around and caught the dust. Clouds flowed over the sun. Six o’clock or so, another beautiful May evening blowing away in the wind.

Around the town square businesses were closing for the day. Pickup trucks passed by, folks wandered down the sidewalks toward home. The flag over the courthouse snapped and wriggled in the wind. Wendy sat in her patrol car and stared at the small town, her domain. The middle of nowhere. No wonder Bob wanted to leave this and find a new life. At the age of fifty-two maybe he got scared and went looking for life and excitement while he still could. Now the kids are finally grown the plan was to buy a Winnebago and go out and see the country and have some adventure. But Wendy didn’t want to see the country, she wanted to stay here and be county sheriff. It was maybe this same old place and these same old friggin gravel roads, and the empty prairie. It wasn’t the pretty 23 year old waitress with the big tits—no, it couldn’t be that.

She got out of her patrol car and the wind caught her. She tried to hold her hair down as she walked up the steps to the county courthouse. The courthouse doors were ancient glass and brass things, and for a moment it was her against the wind. She finally got them open and she squeezed inside, catching her breath and smoothing down her hair.

The courthouse had an old sour smell to it. The oak floor squeaked and sighed and cursed as she walked on it. Big pregnant lights hung from the ceiling, black at the bottom from bugs that had died maybe a century ago. Wendy walked down their yellowy glow to her office, where Larry Koso was slouched back in her chair, his huge cowboy boots on her desk. He swung them off when she came in, and sat up.

Sheriff. The deputy gave her a cautious nod. In a good mood? No, Super Bitch.

Larry. Wendy went for the coffeepot. The coffee didn’t look more than eight hours old, so she poured a cup. You look real busy, she said.

Law officers can’t be busy all the time, Sheriff, he said. Sometimes you’re more effective if you just sit back and do some thinking.

I don’t even want to imagine what you were thinking, Larry.

She swatted him out of her chair, and Larry got up and planted himself on the edge of the desk, causing it to buckle and whine. Larry was a cornfed giant, six foot six and 300 pounds of solid farmboy, an unbelievable, Biblical giant. He wasn’t the smartest deputy in the world, but he did well when the snapping of bones was called for.

You should probably kick back and do some relaxing yourself, Sheriff, he suggested. Take some time off, do some fishing or something.

She looked at him. Fishing.

Or something. Go out and have some fun or something.

I’m too pissed off to have fun.

Pissed off over what, Sheriff?

She frowned out her office window at Mars City, the windy summer evening. Everything, actually.

I got chased away from that research lab again, she muttered.

Larry nodded. I give them flat heads the grim eyeball when I drive past there. They need to know we’re keeping an eye on them and won’t take any shit.

Well, I don’t like it, Wendy said. They come swooping down here like this? This is our county, and we shouldn’t be ordered around in our county.

It’s the strangest thing I ever saw, Larry said. But you don’t want to let things get to you and stress you out more than you are.

Than I are?

Oh, come on, Sheriff.

What are you looking at?

Larry shook his head at her. No need to snap at me, Sheriff. You’re going through a bad time, we all know that. Bob’s a stupid asshole for divorcing you, we all know that. There, I said it.

Thank you, Larry—I think.

I don’t mean to get into your business, Sheriff, but the advice I can give you is this: get right back on the horse.

What?

Get right back on the horse. Bob left you for a little gold digger who put out for half the football team, that’s his loss. Look at it this way, Sheriff, now you’re free and clear. You can go out and find somebody new and start dating again!—push it right back in Bob’s face.

Maybe I don’t want to push it into his face, Larry. Maybe I’m just sick of it all.

No, you ain’t. That’s the wrong mode of thinking. Remember when I broke up with Debbie, how it hit me?

I remember, Wendy said.

I was low and heartsick and depressed. And I never thought I’d find anybody again. So what did I do, Sheriff?

If I remember correctly, you tried to bang every girl in the county.

I put it right back in her face is what I did. No need to get all sarcastic, Sheriff, I’m trying to help you out here. You’re depressed, we all know that. But a lot of that has to do with…you know.

That change of life thing, Wendy said.

I was going to say with smoking a pack of cigarettes a day and drinking a gallon of coffee.

Larry, if I ever feel the need to get back on the horse, you’ll be the first to know. In the meantime, shut the hell up!

You don’t want to stay lonely, Sheriff. I warn you, you’re a 45 year old female.

What the hell is that supposed to mean!

It doesn’t mean nothing, Sheriff. I try to help you, give you some advice and you want to tear my head off. Okay, the fact is, women have a biological clock inside them. It’s a scientific fact, you know that.

Wendy stared at him.

And men don’t, Larry said. You can look at me as hateful as you want, Sheriff, but men don’t have that particular clock inside them. What you need to do now, Sheriff, is go out and start dating and throwing it right back in Bob’s face. Find a good guy, 40 to 50, who’s stable and has money and goes to church—

No, that’s exactly what I don’t want, Larry. Thank you for the counseling, but you can shut up now.

Okay, then don’t blame me if you’re depressed. Jesus, Sheriff, at least you should go on a few revenge dates. Not to be inappropriate or anything, but for a middle aged woman who smokes and drinks coffee, you look pretty good, Sheriff.

Wendy stared out her office window. She couldn’t very well snap at him for that. Mars City out there, in green warm sunshine. You should feel good on an evening like this, summer in the air and all that.

There’s plenty of old boys in the county, Sheriff, Larry said. Who perked up when they heard you and Bob were divorcing.

Are you trying to make me puke? Wendy said. What the hell is a revenge date?"

A revenge date is when you take your self respect back, Larry said. Remember when I broke up with Debbie?

I remember!

Okay. So she starts going out with Kyle Shepard. She makes sure that everywhere I like to go she shows up there hugging on Kyle Shepard, the puss of the year.

So, you show up—

Hell, Sheriff, I show up with a different chick each night. I don’t need Debbie. She wants the puss of the year, she can have him, I got the pick of the litter. See how it works, Sheriff? She wants revenge, well she’ll get revenge. And it’s the same with old Bob.

"Old Bob’s shacking up with