Carpe Librum

By P. A. Thaddeus

During the 1990s, the rural town of Cape Cove, Indiana, is the average heartland community with a small industrial area and a good portion of farmland surrounding the town proper. It’s a quiet place, populated by friendly neighbors who know each other and each other’s business.

People in this small town have a way of finding their own enjoyment, and it’s usually on “the up and up.” The peace can’t last forever, though. A few kids unsatisfied with the boring diversions of Cape Cove deviate from the everyday and discover that their quaint little town hides its fair share of dark secrets.

Very few had an inkling of this until the summer of 1997 when a mysterious book called the Liber Malificous arrives in town and shines light on secrets that should have remained hidden. For fans of Harry Potter and Stranger Things, follow a close-knit group of friends as they encounter characters from fantasy and horror in small-town Indiana … and nobody has a cell phone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665514606

P. A. Thaddeus

Born at West Point Military Academy, P. A. Thaddeus spent most of his life living in the Detroit suburbs. He eventually fell in love with cooking and spent over twenty-five years doing just that, eventually becoming a kitchen manager. He currently lives in Ferndale, Michigan, amidst his own private jungle with his Norwegian Forest cat, Bojangles.

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© 2021 P. A. Thaddeus. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 01/19/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-1461-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-1459-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-1460-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021902775

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

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CHAPTER 1

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R obert Pinn was a good man. Sure, he was a bit young to be classified as a man, but he had always been stern and serious for his age. He was a generally quiet guy who liked to observe more than talk, and it showed in his pointed observations and opinions. He was not unlike a human sponge, always absorbing information on as many levels and with as many senses as he could and sharing little in return. This trait made him seem on the weird side. With his larger library of sensory information, he could deliver rather poignant statements that sometimes missed their mark on the crowd he was delivering to.

He thought that was why so many people close to him got in the habit of calling him Bobby instead of Rob or Bob or his given name Robert. It was in an effort to lighten the mood when he was around since he brought that air of seriousness with him wherever he went. Either that or because, when coupled with his last name, it sounded funny, which would also lend to lightening the mood.

When he passed by elders of the neighborhood, they always called him respectfully by his birth name. This made him feel alienated because he actually valued what they had to share and feel as his was an enlightened and—dare it be said—old soul.

Bobby had a younger sister who was pretty much his polar opposite when it came to personality. Rebecca (or Becky as most people called her) was six years his younger and a sprite of energy and activity with a carefree attitude to match. They would fight sometimes, as siblings do, but it was usually over differences in opinion caused by their different attitudes and personalities. She knew well enough that it got under his skin to call him Bobby, so she engaged in the activity as much as everyone else did.

Not his friends, however. They called him Bobby the Bowler because he was fun to bowl with, not to mention that was when he truly lightened up and let different facets of his personality become visible from where they usually lay dormant. There was something about getting into teams that shifted and varied from one game to the next and hurling a weighted ball down an alley to knock down some plastic-coated, wooden pins that was freeing to Bobby. The sound they made when they were struck down, the vibrations at his feet as the ball made contact with the wood of the lane—he found the whole activity not only cathartic but energizing as well. Maybe it was because it was the closest thing he had to exercising and getting the endorphins and adrenaline pumping that he found so exhilarating.

Bobby had a crew he hung around with, and they were somewhere in between friendship and family. There were usually five of them in a cluster in any given location throughout town whenever the whole herd wasn’t all together. The cluster would move from one place to another over the course of any given day, but it seemed like whenever they relocated, they would lose a member and gain one at the same time, keeping the number at five. It wasn’t a conscious effort but more an organic thing like they were going in shifts or something. Some individuals would have to leave for work or would be getting off an early shift, while others would be returning from school or heading to such for the night.

And Toby, well, he had his old man to watch out for at home so he would be the random element in the equation, only around for an hour whenever he had the chance to get out of the house. He was the wild card. Mr. Chevalier had lost his wife when Toby was eight years old and lost the use of his lower half in an accident at work about a decade ago. It was fairly destructive to that already tragic family; the dad took out his frustrations at life on the son, and the son dutifully took care of the dad. So when it came to seriousness, Toby was like Bobby on Prozac. He had tremendous highs where he was either super energetic and hyper and usually made rash decisions or tremendously low and sluggish and hardly made any decisions at all in an air of apathy.

Next in the group was Joanna Ching, one of the females of the crew who was a bit of a tomboy and the butt of more than a few jokes—and loving it. She was of Chinese and Syrian descent and could stand up to any of the other members of the crew at any provocation. As for other noncrew members, you can forget about it. She would punch a baby if it made her mad enough. A real piranha, that one, and with teeth and ferocity to match.

Her mom and dad owned and operated a small market that catered to more exotic, ethnic-minded foods and merchandise. This even included an all but extinct video section that was singularly comprised of VHS and DVD formats of movies and television shows sent to them from family connections still in the old countries. Joanna despised the whole stereotype labels that she incurred in the public and at school as a result of this, and it made an already full-tempered girl even angrier.

Rounding out the crew was spooky Seth Ravenspire. This kid was so embracing of the gothic, regal sound of his name he actually leaned into it—hard. He was a good four inches taller than the tallest of the rest and wore almost nothing but the color black. He dyed his hair and eyebrows black and usually had black fingernail polish on, typically in a chipped-away condition. He wore more jewelry than the rest combined in the form of multiple necklaces, earrings, rings, bracelets, pins, buttons—you name it. If it was shiny and metal and it could wrap around or through parts of his body, he wore it.

Seth had an unusual interest in things of a supernatural or paranormal nature. He had more books than everyone else as well since his thirst for knowledge seemed limitless. His bedroom was like a library with 85 percent of the wall space covered by shelves laden with books and magazines on so many various topics he had them arranged by sections. The other 15 percent of his available wall was filled by a giant antique vanity he had modified to be a combination desk and altar with his computer and printer on either side of the kneehole and the mirror adorned with etchings he had made while reading the works of Poe, King, Gaiman, and Barker.

Seth was firmly rooted in the belief and use of the occult; a good part of his beloved library was made up of his tomes of lore as he put it. These special books that he usually obtained at secondhand bookstores or ran across at garage sales had their own special repository: a glass-doored case he kept under lock and key that was between his desk altar and his bed. Whenever he opened that bad boy up, a waft of stale air and musty odor would attack the nostrils of all those present.

Seth was constantly trying to get the rest of the crew interested in the topics he liked, usually to no avail. Every now and then, he could get Shaggy (another of the crew we will discuss later) into something he was talking about, but it was usually after Shaggy had gone and smoked some weed without telling anyone else. Seth regarded these moments of enthusiasm and interest as disingenuous.

Next we come to little Sally Dobremuz, the other female member of the crew. Sally was a very quiet, intelligent, and diminutive young woman who had as much an air of mystery about herself as she was funny. She was constantly joking about things that occurred around her or ribbing someone about things they had failed at doing, and it was so ever-present that it almost seemed to be a defensive mechanism she had adopted to keep people at an arm’s length from her actual thoughts. She very rarely talked about herself or her family home life more than a few sparse words quietly uttered. Everyone had gotten used to her being this way, as it had been so for most of her life. She would tell those stories if and when she felt it was necessary, and that was all there was to it.

Sally came from a Serbian family that immigrated to the country before she was born. Her whole family was very friendly, yet firmly secretive. It’s not that people weren’t allowed to come inside her house. More like they were never around at mealtimes and never overnight. Her father was super protective of his three girls, of which Sally was the middle child.

A couple of years back, Serbia had gotten into conflict with one of its neighboring countries and the genocide committed by both sides was pretty devastating to Sally and her family. As quiet and closed off as she had been before, it doubled after all that happened. Bobby wasn’t sure if it was driven by an embarrassment of the situation or sadness at its conclusion, but he knew better than to ask about it.

One summer Bobby and Sally were actually an item. Their mutual intelligence made conversations between the two easy and comforting. They shared similar interests and were always spending so much time together anyway that it seemed like a perfect pairing, but Sally’s father didn’t share her enthusiasm. Whenever Bobby was around her house, her dad would eyeball him with such disdain and distaste on his face that it made Bobby uncomfortable. And in the end, it helped to ruin it all and her father won out. It also didn’t help that as much as the two of them had in common, Sally didn’t enjoy bowling. This didn’t sit well with Bobby the Bowler since he enjoyed that activity almost more than anything else. Whenever the crew went bowling, Sally would join them, but she just sat as they bowled and conversed with those not currently up at the lane. Bobby at first thought it was distrust on her part for the cleanliness of the shoes rented and public balls used, so for her birthday that year he saved up and bought her her own pair of shoes and ball to use on the outings. She didn’t exactly get excited at opening the gift and didn’t jump at the idea of trying them out the next time they went.

Oh well then was his frame of mind at the predicament, and he just let it all go. They didn’t last as a couple much longer after that as it had become obvious to them both that issue was insurmountable. Bobby still cared for her, but in a much lesser degree now that he had moved on to greener pastures, as it were.

Sally and Joanna, with their ethnic variances in upbringing from the rest, were accompanied in this aspect by the enigma that is Shagir Selene Robinson—or Shaggy as damn near everyone knew him. Shagir was quite the character. His mother was Chaldean and a bit of a hippy at heart. And his father was an African American man who was obsessed with cultures and religions of the world and had pursued that love by becoming an anthropologist. Shaggy had a pretty big family with three brothers and two sisters dwelling in the second-biggest house on the nicer side of town. Despite this, Shaggy spent very little time at home because he felt it too crowded and liked to find times to be alone with his thoughts, usually while smoking marijuana in some form. His moniker came not only from his birth name and hobby but also from his appearance: usually unkempt hair with various bobs and baubles tied into it by his sisters or the two girls, loose-fitting clothing that usually looked like it had been crammed into a nook of his bedroom for a couple weeks before he began to wear it, and a hemp satchel he always had on him that was fraying at various spots.

Shaggy was tall, a couple inches shorter than spooky old Seth, and he always seemed to be bouncing. Seriously this kid was constantly bouncing around, and even when standing in one spot for a minute or two, which was about as long as he ever would at one time, he had this constant bounce. His shoulders were the most obvious point of observation of this phenomenon as they never stopped moving up and down.

Shagir suffered from attention deficit hyperactive disorder (or ADHD), and it was thought the bouncing was a side effect from the medications he took for this. But no one knew for sure because he had always just done it. You knew when Shaggy was sick because the bouncing slowed way down, depending on how tired he was and how much the ADHD medication interacted with the meds he was taking for the illness.

Shaggy was not only super outgoing but also friendlier than any one person had a right to be. He knew absolutely everyone in town because he could never hold a job longer than a month or two due to his waning attention to it, but he made friends while there with nearly everyone—excepting the person in charge. He had worked his way through every landscaping company in town and then moved on to cashier at every single store and market. No one ever complained about him when people called on them for references because he was such an agreeable guy; he just never worked out as an employee. He had been a fry cook, a house painter, a dog walker, a busboy, a shopping cart retriever, and even a janitor. If his lack of attention wasn’t what lost him his job, it was the pot smoking because it was a constant thing with him.

Everyone in town knew Shaggy, and Shaggy knew everyone in town unless they had just arrived. Even then it was only a matter of time until their paths crossed with this absolute cartoon character of a human being. He was like that wino martial artist in most animes who gets himself out of nearly constant trouble by clowning or pretending to be a fool.

Bobby felt like Shaggy suffered from what he called a Peter Pan syndrome, namely that Shagir would never truly grow up from a boy into a man. If there ever was truly a fountain of youth somewhere, Shaggy had been baptized in its waters at an early age. Life can throw some curveballs your way and help change your persona by increments as a result of the trials, but some things always remain constant, and one of those constants was good old Shaggy.

Bobby was walking up on Shaggy at the old, abandoned fish market and knew he was there not based on the fact he could see him but on the plumes of pot smoke that were wafting out from behind the fence that ran around the outside of the lot.

This fish market was one of the many congregating spots of the crew. It was a funny aspect of the town they lived in that someone thought a fish market—a market solely devoted to fish and fish-related foodstuffs—would do well in this town they lived in: Cape Cove, Indiana. It was an incredibly weird name for a city that was landlocked and had no bodies of water of any kind anywhere near it. Rumor had it that it was originally a town in the 1800s that was off one of the Great Lakes that didn’t do well due to the bad soil it had been built on that was conducive to farming, so the whole town moved south and rebuilt in this area while keeping the name. Another similarly astute individual had decided the name of the town would be great for opening a fish market, so the Cape Cove Fish Market was built to accommodate. It did well for over a decade because of its novelty, but once that prestige had worn off, the costs of importing fish from so far away to process and sell was too great to provide the products to a dwindling demand. It had shuttered its doors some time ago and lay vacant up to the present year of 1997.

Hootie hoo! said Bobby in the direction of the fence. It was the crew’s advance warning to other crew members that one of them approached.

Hootie hay! said Shaggy, the appropriate response.

Bobby rounded the end of the fence, and there was Shaggy in all his bouncy glory leaning on the backside of it, the ever-present shaggy bag hanging across his chest and down at his side. He was about three quarters through a joint that he attempted to hand off to Bobby, but he deferred to sobriety this early in the day.

What’s good? asked Bobby of the taller, mop-headed boy before him.

Oh, you know me. Just chillin’ like a villain. Heard you and Fall had another lovely encounter. When are you gonna wake up and smell those dandelions for what they are and not the roses you think? replied Shaggy with a grin the Cheshire cat would be jealous of.

Oh, they are roses I assure you. The day she decides they are worth smelling is the day I prove you all wrong.

Bobby had it really badly for Fall Truth Freedom-Crowe since he and Sally had called it off. He had always admired Fall for her semisunny disposition, and when he was suddenly available again, he started to grow his fondness even more. Some had accused him of being obsessed with her, but he was just so nervous around Fall when those rare times cropped up that he found himself alone with her. He had never really been nervous around Sally, so he took the feeling as an indication that it was fate they had chemistry.

She was just in a hurry. That’s why she was running away from me. Who told you? Joanna?

Nah. Old man Hoskins was sweeping out front of his barber shop. He saw the whole thing. Said youz was throwing yourself at her again and she ran from you.

Well, old man Hoskins needs to mind his own business. What the heck were you doing at his barbershop anyway? Certainly not getting a haircut. And your baby face don’t grow any hair to be shaved. Bobby felt the anger rise up inside at the thought of the two gossiping about him.

You wha? Shaggy was a big fan of British sitcoms and adopted some of their idioms and vernacular in his own speech. He was actually saying, What did you just say to me?

Just don’t talk about me, all right? There are enough people in this town who have nothing better to do than worry about what’s going on my life, Bobby growled.

S’okay mate. People just care about you is all, but if it makes you feel better, I’ll cool it, Shaggy replied sheepishly.

Bobby’s love for Fall was quite contested by everyone, no less so than by Clint Frewer, her current boyfriend and resident town pain in the ass. Clint was a walking stereotype if there ever was one: quarterback on the football team in high school, president of student council, and voted most likely to succeed by most of his classmates. He was about Shagir’s height but a good twenty-five pounds heavier with muscle and a big slab of granite inside his skull. Bobby reflected for a moment on how he had helped Clint all through high school with his geometry and history classes only to lose this fantastic girl to him down the road. The anger started to well up inside him during that moment so he pushed the thought from his head and squelched the feeling down inside. It wasn’t Shaggy’s fault he was gossiping. After all, he was just that friendly with people who anything could come up in conversation.

Well, anyway, where is everyone? Bobby asked.

I dunno. Toby called me about an hour ago and said he’d be here. I guess Seth found another old book that he’s all bunched up about. Shaggy looked off in the distance over Bobby’s shoulder and then said, Wait. Here comes Seth now.

Bobby turned to see Seth on his skateboard as usual, his great big hiker’s backpack undoubtedly filled with books and notebooks slung on his back and black tails from his duster trailing in the breeze. That kid always wore the duster, even if it was a summer day in full sun. He usually had a hat on at all times as well, his long, curly, dyed-black hair flowing out from under a backward driving cap, a black felt fedora, or a black backward ballcap.

Hootie hoooo! Seth shouted as he drew nearer the two.

Hootie hay, replied both in near unison.

What are you two dogfuckers up to today? Seth was always proud of his genius, self-created swear words. They were a constant thing with him, and it surprised most of them that they were hardly ever used twice, just spontaneously generating from his mouth at unique discretionless intervals.

Waiting on Toby, I guess. I hear you found something, Bobby said inquisitively.

I’m here. Hootie hi. Toby stepped out from around the same fence Bobby had moments before and made the others jump a bit in surprise.

Ha! Totally doing it wrong, mate, exclaimed Shaggy whimsically.

"Shaggy’s right. You did it backward, man. The hootie comes first and then you approach; otherwise, there’s no point to doing it at all." Bobby said this with a smile; he really liked Toby and actually felt most of it was a bit of pity for what the kid had to endure in his life. He couldn’t work because he had to be at the beck and call of his old man, so he was kind of trapped in life at a young age. These times when he got to break away were the best he had, so Bobby was determined to make them enjoyable for him. He suddenly realized his own anger from moments ago was now completely gone.

Seth popped his skateboard up into his hand and deftly slung the backpack off and the skateboard through the shoulder straps in one smooth movement. So check this out, he said as he rummaged inside the pack and came out with a book wrapped within a towel. Unfolding the towel, he said, "I present to you fine gentlemen Liber Malificous, written in blood by a supposedly insane monk and bound with the skin of a sacrificed deer. I can’t believe I came across this, just lying in a trash can no less."

What the ’ell, Seth? said Shaggy incredulously at the description he was just given.

Dude was all that Toby could muster to say in his stunned state.

Seth, that’s ridiculous. An insane monk? What? Did he have to keep a vow of silence so long it tossed his brain? That’s just some urban legend type stuff you have fallen prey to. No way it’s real. Bobby couldn’t believe this. Seth was super into the weird and all, but he was smarter than this. He could see the looks on the faces of those others around him that they felt similar feelings about this new development.

Seth stood straight and resolute in his posture before them. I assure you it is not only real but in fact the very thing I am now holding in my hand. It has some wicked shit in it too, like talking to spirits, putting death curses on people, calling forth demons from dark dimensions, and raising the dead and shit. I can’t believe how lucky I was to find it. Not only that but it was also free. You’re just jealous. Seth defended himself the same way he always did when he felt he was being attacked or ridiculed. It was always on account of another’s jealousy. He was clutching the book across his forearms in a way that formed a podium so the others could flip through the pages. It was full of strange handwritten words and phrases that filled the spots left empty by equally strange drawings throughout it. The written parts were in red, but most likely red ink was used and not the blood Seth was claiming.

After a few moments, the boys got bored with it and stopped turning the pages.

Well, keep it safe in that glass box of yours, Seth. You might not want to tell too many people about it either, if you get my drift, Toby cautioned.

Oh, you know it, Tobes. This is premium shit right here. I might need to get a gun to protect it from Satanists and cults and shit. The biggest smile spread across Seth’s face as he said this, and it made Bobby uncomfortable.

So we saw your stupid book. Now what is the plan? Look for one of the girls? Bobby tried hard to change the subject, and Seth took the bait. He started to almost lovingly swaddle the book in its towel and place it back in the pack as he said, Joanna’s working at the shop right now as usual. I’m not sure what Sal is up to. Let’s swing by the prison. Seth joked about her domicile that had so many rules.

Sure, let’s off. Shaggy put the now unlit roach of his joint into an old, black, plastic film container he had procured from his dad’s darkroom and then placed that into his bag at his side.

Just as the group started to head the way of Sally’s house, another voice cried out spectacularly from the next street over.

Hootie hoo! It was JimJim running their way.

Where we going, fellas? JimJim asked excitedly.

Heading to Sally’s to see what’s what with her today. Nothing else planned. What’s going on in little JimJim’s world? Shaggy queried.

I mowed our lawn and did the breakfast dishes so I am free until dinnertime, JimJim enthusiastically replied.

Well, good for you, said Toby somewhat under his breath. Toby was sometimes short with JimJim because the kid had a great life comparatively. It wasn’t JimJim’s fault he had it made. It was the bitter, unjust hand of fate that gave him everything and Toby nothing. But fate had no form to be effectively short with, so JimJim got the brunt of the frustrations instead. Toby was paying how his own dad treated him forward onto JimJim.

James Kimberly Jameford was a small, sensitive, young man Bobby had befriended back in the days of kindergarten, all those years ago. He had three older sisters, and his parents were so convinced he was also destined to be a girl they had to quickly choose a different name for him once he arrived as a man-child into this world. His dad was so excited and surprised he decided James would be a great name, and they just moved Kimberly to his middle name, not realizing the ridicule that would bring little baby James down the road at school once people found out. Bobby was the first to coin the nickname JimJim, which minimized the female part to almost nothing, and James loved it. After a few years, it stuck with everyone else to the point they actually forgot his middle name entirely. JimJim’s sisters were overly protective of their little brother, and that only exacerbated his plight with his classmates. Don’t mess with little JimJim or feel the wrath of the sisters of Jim, they would tease. Mr. Jameford wasn’t the best at butching JimJim up either; he himself wasn’t into very manly hobbies so there was no tossing around the football out front or working on the car in the driveway. JimJim’s idea of a good time was reading comic books, building airplane models, or drawing lavish space oddities that he dreamed up in his imaginative little mind.

The crew were heading down the street with Bobby, Toby, and JimJim in the forefront on foot with Seth on his skateboard and Shaggy on his bike slowly trailing behind, and they were discussing the days of middle school when the crew had officially formed. Back then, it was Bobby and JimJim spending a lot of time at school with Toby in the days before his dad’s accident, and Seth was more of a fringe member who sometimes hung out with some book club kids as well. Over time, Shaggy’s over-the-top personality wound up alienating him from those cliques he ran with, so the crew took him under their wing and decided to call themselves the crew because it sounded better than a gang in Bobby’s eyes. In eighth grade, they absorbed their first female member, Joanna, who in turn advocated Sally for membership. By the time they all got to high school, the crew had grown to ten members total, but then came graduation and they lost a few who went off to college. Those who remained became tighter than ever with each other, especially upon the realization they were also the original members in the first place.

A bit farther along the street, the crew ran afoul of Clint Frewer and his pack of Neanderthals seemingly bashing the hell out of a trash can for no reason with bats and other improvised tools of destruction. They were circling the poor, disadvantaged can and whooping and hollering like primates as they bashed the living daylights out of it. Bobby was reminded of a scene in the film 2001 with violence immediately following the discovery of implemented tools. Here was evolution at its most basic being portrayed by a smattering of supposed human beings who should be above such raw displays.

Little JimJim became noticeably apprehensive of the two paths crossing and secretly hoped the rest of the crew wouldn’t engage them in conversation, but then Bobby decided to stick his nose in at the proceedings.

Clint! What the hell are you dumbshits doing? Bobby yelled ferociously like he had his own beast inside him trying to get out.

Move along, losers. This ain’t none of your guys’ business, Clint snapped as he pointed his bat at Bobby.

You guys suck! A bunch of stupid titsniffers! yelled Seth with a proud smile on his face at his brand-new creation.

Clint got decidedly infuriated at that. Even though he didn’t understand it, he sensed it was meant as a put-down and must be immediately addressed. He stalked with all his brutes well in tow toward the crew. Bobby whistled a particular note, and JimJim ran behind Seth. Toby hitched up his belt a notch, and Shaggy dropped his bike to the ground and took off his bag. The crew was now ready to rumble, and it had obviously been rehearsed in some form or another for the circumstance that now confronted them.

Bobby let his frustrated hatred for Clint bubble back up to the surface again and clenched his fists and teeth in a snarl he didn’t even realize he was manifesting. This was gonna be some good catharsis right here, and there were no two ways about it. It was a long overdue confrontation, and Bobby had never been more ready for it than he was at this very instant; unfortunately, he was letting his rage dictate his actions without concern for his friends.

"Bobby, you pervert, you just can’t mind your own business, can you? Fall told me you were fucking around with her again, and I just need to beat her answer into your thick skull I guess. You wanna go and call me a dumbshit, but you are too stupid to recognize when a girl just ain’t into you?" Clint was hopping mad now, and for that matter so was Bobby. He felt like he had pressure behind his eyes trying to push them out to get at Clint’s face. He decided it was probably his blood pressure elevating.

Bobby heard Shaggy whisper somewhere behind him softly, Told ya.

With weapons in their hands, Clint’s brute squad had the advantage, but when the trash can they had been bashing suddenly toppled over behind them to reveal some strange little dog had been inside and was now running for its life, Clint was distracted and Bobby took full advantage. With his left hand, he grabbed the bat Clint was holding while his right swung for the face with a fist clenched from weeks of frustrated fury. He landed a better blow than he had expected and Clint went down hard, no longer holding onto the bat now firmly in Bobby’s grasp.

Toby was beside him with a similar strategy, albeit involving his right foot which firmly planted into the groin of the attacker before him. Shaggy had his goon in a headlock he had gained through quickness and superior reach with his stringy alien arms, while Seth was keeping his opponent at bay with fake martial arts moves and sounds to match, JimJim hiding behind him.

As Clint got his bearings, Bobby brought the bat down on his head with such ferocity he immediately thought he might just have killed him when the blood started to flow from his scalp. This was not like Bobby, this violent beast that was reveling in pain, but it proved a game changer. Clint slumped down motionless on the ground next to the one Toby crotch-kicked and was currently gasping for air, and the rest of the goons backed off their targets reluctantly with uncertainty of what to do next. The sound of the bat hitting the ground echoed off the walls of the houses and buildings that surrounded the area as Bobby let it slip from his grasp.

Bobby’s anger turned quickly to fear, and he looked around at the rest of the crew with apologetic and frightened eyes. It’s okay, man. Let’s get out of here. Gonna be okay. Hey! Titsniffers, grab your boy! We’re outta here! Toby yelled at the confused gaggle as he kicked the one groaning at his feet for good measure. The crew gathered up their belongings and quickly headed back toward Sally’s house a few blocks over. Bobby was very quiet and plodded along, head bowed in embarrassment at what had just transpired, and the rest of the crew surrounded him almost as if protecting him from the entire world.

Seth on his skateboard was glancing back at Clint and his goons, giving updates on their progress. They couldn’t seem to wake Clint up so they grabbed him and carried him off to find help.

That wasn’t like me, not at all, Bobby protested with a soft, bemoaned voice.

Dude, they asked for it so don’t be so hard on yourself, Toby stated. "You can’t fix dumb. All you can do is fight it, which is what just happened. How short was that whole thing anyway?" Toby laughed. "It was over in like three hits! And they wanna call us losers. Well, don’t mess with these losers because we’ll tear your ass up even before the sisters of Jim have a chance at it!" He cast a glance and a warm smile toward JimJim, who looked terrified, probably because he didn’t want to be here anymore but was too afraid to leave the security of the rest of the crew.

As they rounded the street corner opposite Sally’s house, they saw her sitting on the porch with her sister playing cat’s cradle with a length of yarn. Hootie hoo! Toby yelled out, nailing the execution this time around.

Hootie hay! What’s going on, boys? You look off today, Sally queried, a bit startled as she pulled her fingers out of the