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Chapter 1.
Ah, summer! You've really gotta love this time of year. Vacation time! No more school until August comes rolling around and a couple of weeks off before we have to get summer jobs. Time to spend that hard earned grant money we've been squirreling away all during the college school year. A week long camp out with a group of my closest friends. We met back in the days over the internet and I still have a tendency to want to call them by their aliases. I don't know how we managed to get everyone into a van and a convertible, but we did. Actually, the real trick was getting our luggage (beer) into the vehicles w/us. Of course, I had to be driving the convertible. Don't leave home w/o it. Back in the van were, Jules - Wilhemina, Immortal Sin - Dante, Zusi - Barbie, Devil's Dance - Henri, and Heart Shine - Penny. Riding in the rag top were, Plohoie Debushka, - Jackie, Rohmer - Pat, Druidic Concoctions - Jose, and Ligeia - Minnie, with me, Ibidis Mortem - Hank, driving. (yuk yuk) We were all heading on the 4 hour trip over to the ole' Clickner place, about an hour's drive from the nearest phone. I had been there when I was a kid, but as far as I know, no one had lived there for 10 years or so. I figured that, even if it was a complete scrap heap, we still had the tents to stay under. It was gonna be great. I hope I still remember how to get there.
We finally make it to the turn off from the major road and start winding our way thru the back woods road. We traveled for about an hour before we crossed a rickety ole' bridge that swayed about 5 feet to the left and right when we crossed it. Man, I hope we don't have to try and cross that in a storm or something. Jose checked the weather before we left, and it is supposed to be sunny all week. Except when it's night, of course. Yeah, real funny Jose.
We finally pull to a stop in a clearing where I remember the cabin being. All I see is a wall of vines. Henri walks up to the vines and reaches out to touch them. "Look out!!!" screams Jackie, and Henri jumps backwards like he had been bit. Poison Ivy. Ah, good call Jackie. She must have been a country girl when she was a kid, or something.
I walk around the back of the vines and see the cabin. Wow! It's in a incredible state of repair after 10 years of no one living here. I wondered if someone did live here. I ask everyone to spread out and look for people tracks while I check the door. The door was unlocked and there was dust all over the place, but no tracks in it. Hmmmm. Penny shouts back that she had found some snipe tracks, but nothing human. She then starts trying to talk Dante into going on a snipe hunt. I smiled. He seemed to be accepting of the idea. He just probably wants to be alone in the woods w/a chick. They don't realize how dangerous snipe can be. Not that there's any such thing as snipe anyway.
There don't appear to be any holes in the roof. That is until Barbie's foot comes crashing thru the ceiling. What're you doing on the roof? She shouts back that she's trying to get a better look. I tell her to get down before the roof crashes in. God knows how many weak spots there are in that thing. The rest of the gang starts lugging in the gear. At least we're not sleeping outside. That is, unless someone wants to. I looked around and didn't see a bathroom or an outhouse. Make sure not to wipe w/the poison ivy. yuk yuk.
It's getting dark outside quickly, so everyone takes advantage of the daylight to get their sleeping gear arranged. Wilhemina comes in the door and announces she found a lake about 50 yards away. Cool! That's our shower. At least it's summer and the water won't be 25 degrees, or some shit.
Jose comes in from the kitchen and says he found a half opened can of peaches that had been there for at least a year. Like someone just left it. Weird. Pat says that the kitchen is fully stocked too. Looks like the expiration date on the perishable products say they expired 3 years ago. Well, it looks like I wasn't the only one to have this idea in the last 10 years. Nice of 'em to leave us a full larder, though.
We are all tired from the long drive, so we lay on our pallets and start to drift off to sleep. I wake up when I hear someone moving around the room. I open one eye and notice Minnie is in the kitchen, muttering to herself. I get up and tip toe over to her so as not to wake the others. As I get closer I notice that she looks fuzzy to me. I figure it's just my eyes, or something and I rub them to clear them up. No dice. Weird lighting or something. Looks like she's frozen in the middle of opening a can of peaches. I tell her that this has already been tried by the last group of people. yuk yuk. No response. All right, maybe I'm too tired to be funny.
I walk up next to her and get ready to reach out to her when I notice I can see the moon out the window THROUGH HER HEAD! Whatinthehell is this!?! She turns and looks at me, and then her face changes. She's got huge sharp teeth, and red eyes! She raises her taloned hands and reaches toward me. Well, I about rupture a spleen trying to get away, yelling my lungs out. I glance back and notice that Minnie is still lying asleep in the main room! What!?! I look back to the front and notice that the ghostly Minnie is gone. This is fucked up! Everyone's up and asking me what's going on. There's no way they'll believe me, so I make up some story about reliving a childhood horror seeing Willie Nelson at a Farm Aid concert that they seem to buy. I've gotta get to the bottom of this. Looks like it's gonna be a long week.
This is Ibidis (Hank) Mortem saying, keep track of your names, or you're gonna get lost. yuk yuk. Chapter 2.
Well that was a sleepless night if I've ever had one! No more sign of any more walking can-opening were-ghosts. That's good. Remind me not to have any of those canned peaches. As everyone gets up and gets around, I decide to go outside and see if there are any clues out there as to last night's incident.
After an hour of searching the area, I decide to go to the lake. Looks like Jackie and Wilhemina are out there in the lake taking a swim. I stop and decide to clear my thoughts, and skip some rocks in the water. (Not at them! Geez!) Wilhemina starts to swim into shore when she suddenly give a yells and starts trashing about in the water. Jackie is there in a flash, and the two of them seem to be struggling w/something. Jackie finally pulls her free from whatever had hold of her and helps her swim the rest of the way to shore. Jackie's got great lifeguarding skills. (Probably from that time she was training at the Baywatch Academy of Acting) When Wilhemina gets to the shore she has a huge laceration on her foot. I get a compress on it and start yelling for Henri to get the first aid kit.
Once Wilhemina is back in the cabin, I decide to see what in that water cut her open. I swim out to about the same spot and start to feel around w/my foot. Why? Because that's the kind of stupid thing people do in horror stories. I feel something metallic w/my foot and I dive under to see what it is. It's a car! What in the Hell? I go back to shore and tell everyone what I saw. Penny comes back and says she found some really old car tracks leading into the water from back on the road. Why would someone do that? I began to wonder if there were any bodies down there in that car, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna go look. (sanitary purposes, you see)
Well, it was gonna be dark soon so Jose and Pat decide to go get some firewood. Minnie is in the kitchen trying to fix some water to eat and not having any luck with it. I guess she's not into cooking. Barbie is out on the back porch dancing around like she is prone to do w/o warning. The dusk was just hitting when the firewood was brought back. Jose swears that he had seen something out in the woods, but could never get a good look at it. Just a flash out of the corner of his eye. Pat said she hadn't seen anything, but she had been distracted by a squirrel chewing on it's nuts. Yeah, that's fascinating all right.
Barbie gives a quick yelp from the back porch and we look and see her collapse in a heap. She's just sitting up when we get to her and she says that she had seen someone in the trees. It looked to her like...Agitha! No way. Not Agitha, also know back in the days as Not A Phase. She had disappeared years ago w/o so much as a word said in good-bye. Some of the others were still very close-mouthed about it too, namely Minnie and Henri. I say that it couldn't have been her. Barbie just glares at me and stalks away in a huff. Hey wait, I'm sorry! The door slams. Oh never mind.
I look around and see nothing moving in the trees. In fact, I don't even hear any insects, any wind, any fish, any mating calls of the Canadian Bull Marmoset, not anything! Very strange. I turn to look and see where everyone is and I notice Penny and Dante are gone! Where'd they go? No one seemed to know. My thoughts traveled back to when I heard Penny talking to Dante about going snipe hunting. Oh no!
I grab a firewood axe and burst out the front door. I start calling out for them, but there's no answer. I dive into the woods frantically calling out their names. I jog along for a couple of minutes that way until I suddenly see something to my right! I turn my head and look right into the eyes of Agitha! Aaaaahhh! I jump backwards about a 10 feet and she just smiles a malicious smile and disappears behind a tree. I cautiously creep after her and... she's not there! Man I hate this disappearing act stuff!
A gargled scream sounds from the distance behind me. I sprint over the broken ground and come into a clearing to see a trail of blood leading to a tangled brush of thorns. I think about calling the others, but that would be the smart thing to do, so I creep closer to the brush. The axe is in my hands ready to bust some head. I see Pat's shoe lying on the ground next to the bush. As I draw nearer, though, I pick the shoe up and... Oh my God! Her foot's still in it! I throw the shoe to the ground and start to back away, feeling nauseated. Suddenly a monstrous claw reaches from the brush to grab the foot and disappear back into the tangle.
I waste no time in getting the Hell out of Dodge! I try to backtrack the way I came but there's no trail to follow. I stop suddenly when my feet reach the edge of a pit. I look down in the moonlight into the pit and see it's got a bunch of sharpened stakes in it... with Dante's body impaled upon them! Oh no! That's it, I've got to get out of here! I start to edge carefully around the pit, when the side of the pit bursts forth and a dark, bird like creature w/enormous arms and razor sharp claws and a face w/an enormous mouth full of fangs. It must be a real snipe! I thought they were just a myth. It rips Dante's body off the stakes and pulls him into the tunnel.
That's all I have time to see as I sprint for the cabin. The axe in my hand is long since forgotten. I reach the cabin and try to tell the others what had happened. There's a strange glint in Minnie's eyes as I relay my tale, but the other's treat me w/absolute disbelief. If I can't get them to listen to me, I know we'll never last the night.
This is Ibidis "Hank" Mortem saying, I bet you think you know who the killer(s) is(are) don't ya?!?! yuk yuk. Chapter 3.
I'd been trying to get everyone to listen to my story and believe what I was telling them. Although when it came right down to it, I didn't have any evidence to show them. Dammit guys! If I'm not telling the truth, then where the Hell are Dante and Pat, huh? Henri just looks at me and tells me that's what I was supposed to have found out. All right, this is getting frustrating as all get out. The others could tell that I was getting frantic, and they started looking at each other like they do when I start spewing off the Zimbabwe National Anthem at a moments notice.
Jackie and Jose decide to go out and check for Dante and Pat. I tried to persuade them not to go, but it was apparent at that point they thought I was a mental case. Hell, maybe I was. The longer I sit here in the living room, the more I expect I expect Pat and Dante to come walking in the front door. It all starts to seem like a bad dream. I sit down and put my head in my hands trying to figure things out.
Jackie and Jose walk out the door to begin looking. Where did Jose get that gun from? He didn't have one in his bag. Well, I guess it's good that at least one of us has one. Unexpectedly, I get this creepy feeling like someone was touching the back of my neck. I turn my head and look behind me and see Dante and Pat looking at me thru the window. They both smile and blood pours from their mouths. They take their misshapen hands and rake their nails down the window pane, making a screeching noise that pierces my head.
I leap backwards and grab the chair that I was sitting on. I give a yell to the others to look, and I throw the chair thru the window. I grab the axe again and leap thru the window after them, determined to get one of them so that the others will believe me. I land on the ground outside the window and... nothing's there. Shit! I look all around, but there is nothing to hide behind for 150 feet. I see Wilhemina and Penny look at me from the window. I tell them what I saw, they say that they were looking at the window when I threw the chair and they didn't see a thing.
I climb back into the cabin, and everyone seems to be giving me a wide berth. I look into my hands and notice that I still have the axe. I set it next to the wall and look around the cabin. I see Barbie standing in the doorway to the back room she had stormed off to earlier. She seems to be frozen in place starting towards the window w/an ashen look on her face. I walk over to her and stand behind her whispering into her ear. You saw them didn't you? You knew they were there. She nods her head ever so slightly. She seemed to still be focused on something, so I followed her eyes until I saw that she was looking towards the window. I looked over there and saw Agitha looking at us from outside. She smiles that vicious smile and nods her head towards the tree line. I knew then that something bad was going to happen to Jose and Jackie. What to do? I knew the others wouldn't believe that they were in danger. Do I split up the party and thus leave us vulnerable to attack? This is so much like a b-grade horror flick, I've got to follow convention and do the stupid thing. So I grab Barbie and the two of us go outside and head towards the trees.
I can see the light from Jose's flashlight moving around deeper in the woods, but there is no answer when I call out their names. Suddenly the tree line bursts to life, there is an entire row of snipe that emerges from the woods and stands there looking at us. There must be 9 or 10 of them! I stop dead in my tracks, as does Barbie beside me. The snipe stand up on their haunches and begin to sway back and forth, softly crooning. My head begins to feel fuzzy, and I hesitantly take a step forward. I catch myself and shake my head to clear it. When I do, I see Barbie walking in a dreamlike trance towards the snipe! Stop! No, it's too late. The closest creature hops towards her and sinks it's teeth into her neck. A slow smiles crosses Barbie's face as she is lost in the hypnotizing song.
I've got to do something! I pick up a stone and hurl it at the creature's head. It strikes, and the snipe leaps backwards in the air and lands in a tree, snarling at me. Barbie shakes her head free of the trance and reached up to touch the blood streaming down her shirt. She turns to look at me and collapses. No! Not another one! Now the rest of the snipe start to stalk towards me. Suddenly I realize that I left the axe lying against the wall in the cabin. This is gonna suck! I brace myself to suffer the same fate as the others.
The closest snipe is about 15 feet away when it leaps for me. It's body crashes into mine and I fall to the ground, pinned under the creatures weight. It's face is right in mine and I can feel it's fetid breath on my cheeks. Behind it I can hear the other snipe growling as they prowl around. Suddenly, a yelp! Then another! The creature on top of me raises it's head to turn and look when it lets loose a yelp and is thrown 20 yards thru the air and crashes into a tree. It falls to the ground and turns it's baleful eyes to my right side. I turn and look and see Barbie standing there. At least I think it's Barbie. She's got yellow eyes now, and the same nasty claws the snipe have. She somehow bigger too, as if she'd grown a foot. She's turning into a were-snipe! Oh no. She looks over to me and tells me she thought I needed a hand there. At least she's still Barbie.
We turn to look back to the snipe and see them fade back into the forest. I also see a form that looks alot like Agitha disappear in the trees after them. A couple of minutes later we hear gunshots from the woods. Jose! We've got to go get him. I get up to head into the trees and motion Barbie to come along w/me. She shakes her head and her whole body shudders and begins to deform even more. When her eyes meet mine again, I can see nothing of Barbie in them anymore. Oh Hell. I prepare myself to get attacked again, but she turns and speeds into the forest at an amazing pace. She's completely gone by the time I reach the trees. Well, nothing left to do but go on.
I home in on Jackie's light and start to stumble over the broken ground. I know that I must be making enough noise crashing thru the trees like this to wake the dead. I hope that's not some kind of foreshadowing. The noise that I hear from in front that must have been Jose and Jackie suddenly stops. I can still see the light, however, so I continue on.
I reach a spot in the forest where the fallen trees have formed a natural cul-de-sac. I can see Jackie's flashlight beams shining thru the gaps. I start shouting to Jose that I'm coming around to the front. When I get around the corner, I see Jose standing there with his gun pointed at me. Jackie lies there beside him in a pool of blood. Jose doesn't seem to be responding to anything. What happened here, man! He stammeringly starts to tell me when he freezes. His eyes widen and look over my left shoulder. His hand holding the guns begins to shake. I turn to look and see Agitha standing there. Oh yeah, big surprise. She is smiling at Jose until she turns and looks at me. She opens her mouth and throws her head back like she's howling, only there's no sound coming out. She then leaps into the air and then fades into mist.
I hear a muffled grunt behind me, and a ripping sound. I am suddenly drenched by a wave of warm liquid. Blood! I turn and look and see Jose's arms and legs pinned w/stakes to the logs around the cul-de-sac. They had been ripped from his body! The rest of him lay in a crumpled, shapeless heap on the ground. I stood there petrified for a few minutes until I realized that Jackie was still lying there, coated in Jose's and her own blood on the ground.
I move over to her, and check her pulse. Weak, but steady. Good.At least someone's not dead around here. She appears to have a gunshot wound in the right shoulder, but she should make it. If I can get her back to the cabin, that is. I pick her up and begin clumsily carrying her thru the underbrush. The others have got to believe me now! That is, if I can get there before the creatures around here follow the scent of the blood were covered in straight to us!
This is Ibidis Mortem saying, the difference between life and death is a slip of the finger on a keyboard. yuk yuk. Chapter 4.
I tripped, stumbled, and fumbled my way thru the woods w/very little light. Man, I hope I don't sprain an ankle or something. Not to mention it seems like Jackie's body is getting heavier by the second. I know that if I fall now, I'll probably never get back up in time. I can't hear, see, or smell anyone behind me, but I know they're there. Waiting. Following.
Mercifully, the cabin comes w/in view as I burst into the clearing. Almost there. A shadow passes between me and the light from the cabin window, too fast to make out clearly. Another follows it. Wait! That's no snipe. Who's there? No answer. I feel a chill cover my body as I resume my broken pace until I get close to the window. I feel Jackie stirring in my arms. She opens her eyes and makes me set her down. Curiously I look at her arm and didn't seem to see the bullet wound anymore. Must not be enough light, or something like that. Are her eyes glowing in the lamplight? Oh no! Surely she's not like Barbie! No, it must be my imagination. She's not changing or anything, she's just... different.
She walks to the front door and goes inside, calm as can be. I wait for a moment to see if I can spot that shadowy form again. This time, with the light to my back, I might be able to make it out. No luck. I go inside and see that everyone there is fretting over Jackie. Asking her where she had been and where had that blood come from? She says that she just remembers Jose shouting all the sudden firing his pistol and her feeling a tremendous pain before passing out. She woke up again when I was carrying her to the cabin, and that's all she knows. She didn't know where the blood had come from.
I looked over at Henri to gauge his reaction to her story, but he seemed as concerned as everyone else. Wilhemina limps over to Jackie, says something about trying to clean her up, and they disappear in the bathroom. About this time, Henri and Penny look aver to me, and their eyes get suspicious. They ask me where Jose and Barbie are. I relay the story to them as best as I could, but I knew that my worst fears would be realized. They were having nothing of this little tale. Minnie appears to be a bit more receptive. I noticed both her and Henri flinched at the part where I mentioned Agitha's appearance. There's some kind of shared secret between the two of them about her.
Wilhemina and Jackie come back out of the bathroom, and both of them seem to be in perfect spirits. Why are they so damned cheerful? Can't they see what's going on around here? It takes me a moment, but I notice that Wilhemina isn't limping anymore. Was she limping going into the bathroom? I couldn't remember. I ask her about it, and she shrugs it off by saying she's always been a quick healer.
I go into the bathroom myself and wash Jose's blood off me. My mind is racing as I attempt to make some sense out of what is happening. I think back about the car that we had found in the lake. Had someone been here before and been killed off one by one like is happening to us? I occurred to me that when I saw that vision of Minnie standing there in the kitchen last night, she was opening a can of peaches. Jose had found a can of peaches that had been sitting on the counter for years. It had been partially opened. Surely there's millions of peaches, peaches for me. Millions of peaches, peaches for free.
I'm brought out of my reverie by the sound of something scraping the door. I go over and attempt to open it. Someone has wedged something behind it! All right guys, this is real funny. Now open the damned door! I hear a muffled sound and then I hear Henri's voice outside the door. He's telling me that it's for my own good. They're just gonna keep me here until he comes back with the police. I start pounding on the door. No! You can't take the van! We need it to get everyone out of here. He tells me I'm not going anywhere until they find out where everyone is, and who's blood was all over us.
All right Hank, think! What to do? The window! I turn and head over to the window and see that it's too small for me to fit thru. Damn! I look for something to possible help me batter down the door. Nothing but a plunger. Suddenly that eerie feeling hits me again and I look up and see Agitha there. She's about a foot away and is just watching me. She's got a pensive expression on her face. I don't even feel any fear from her anymore. In fact, it's almost comforting to see here there. At least every time she shows up, something happens. As if she could read my thoughts, she smiles and leaps straight for me. I reflexively raise my hands up to shield me face. What a futile gesture as she passes completely thru my body. I feel as if someone has packed my insides full of ice. I can feel a drifting sensation. Then... clarification. I know what's going on around here. It all makes perfect sense. Then just as quickly as it came, the sensation disappears. There was something... something I was just thinking of. It's just a tickling at the back of my mind now. I'm sure it was important.
I hear another noise around the door and it opens. Penny is standing there with the axe in her hand. She tells me she doesn't know if I killed the others or not, but Henri got in the van and started to drive away, then the van had turned and driven straight into the lake. Oh shit! I get out of the bathroom, and see Wilhemina and Jackie looking out the back window towards the lake. Well, it was down to just the 4 of us. Penny was the only one left who I hadn't seen anything weird happen to yet. I'm glad I still had the keys to my car on me. I didn't want it to end up in the watery graveyard w/the other one. Oh man, we've got to hang on 'til daylight.
The door bursts open as Henri comes in, his clothes had been all torn and his face was ripped. He sees us and starts to stumble forward. Minnie just turns her back on him, like she doesn't even acknowledge he's there. Penny raises her axe as if to defend herself, but Henri is heading for Wilhemina and Jackie. He glances at me as if to apologize, and then leaps for the other two. Suddenly he is frozen in mid leap, hovering in the air. He appears to be struggling w/something, then he is forced into a ball. Tucked up in a fetal position. Minnie turns see what has happened, and moves backwards towards the wall. Wilhemina and Jackie get a feral grin on the faces and then Henri is hurtling backwards out the door. The door slams after him. A wet ripping sound is heard and we hear something splat against the outside walls. I don't even want to see what just happened.
We all hear a howling all around the place outside of the cabin. We look out that windows and see the snipe running all around the place. Every now and then one of them will arch it's back and howl, prompting the others to do the same. They're gonna storm the place. There's no way we can stop them all. Jackie and Wilhemina hunch over in a defensive crouch and begin growling low in their throats. They're not afraid, like Penny and I, they're angry. I can see it in their eyes, the hate they feel for the snipe. It's barely being held in check. They're acting almost primal. I keep expecting them to pull a Barbie and snipe out on me at any minute, but they don't. They just stand there, watching.
Penny and I exchange a quick glance and stand beside each other. I look all over the room for Minnie, but it looks like she has disappeared. I can see out the window well enough to see a snipe out there wearing the shreds of a shirt. Barbie! The Barbie-creature stands on it's haunches and howls, pointing it's clawed hand towards the cabin. They're attacking! That's it, we're doomed.
This is Ibidis Mortem saying, I have not yet begun to fright. Chapter 5.
Wilhemina and Jackie are frenzying themselves out at a feverous pitch when the first of the snipe crashes into the wall. Whoops! It looks like the snipes don't have very good vision when the window light is shining in their eyes. I keep thinking those two are going to explode or something.
I see what's left of Henri poke his head thru a hole in the door and start to chew his way in. Aw man! It looks like he went snipey on us too! A snipe finally makes it thru the window and lands right in front of Penny and I. It turns it's head slowly and starts to advance towards us. Suddenly Wilhemina is on it's back, ripping out chucks of flesh. Her eyes have gone golden the way that Jackie's did earlier. That strikes a familiar chord w/me. Something that happened to me in the bathroom. I can't remember what, though.
Jackie comes up and grabs the snipe, throwing it out of the window and into another snipe. Jackie and Wilhemina turn both sets of golden eyes towards us. Penny and I edge backwards towards the bathroom door. The wall next to us shatters as Pat and Dante come striding thru it. Their disfigured bodies only emphasizing their glowing gold eyes. Penny swings her axe at Pat and lops off the hand that Pat was reaching out to us with. I'm looking for an escape route, when the front door finally gives way and Henri's were-snipe form charges into the room. Behind him is the Barbie/creature and she is followed by a were-sniped Jose.
We are immediately forgotten as the glowing eyed undead friends of ours turn to square off with the lycanthropy stricken friends of ours. Penny and I edge to the side of the room and crawl out the window just as all Hell breaks loose in the cabin.
Now that we were on the outside, I looked around for more snipe, but it appears that they have all gone round to the front door. I look over at Penny to make sure she isn't wounded. God knows how these things are managing to infect us. We creep off to the boat house, hoping against hope that no one is watching us. We make it to the door and edge slowly inside, closing the door behind us. We've got to wait it out 'til morning, then we can drive home.
Penny pulls close to me, shivering, and the thought crosses my mind of how to pass the time 'til morning. Hmmmmm. I start to think about what happens in the horror movies again. It seems like no one ever gets killed unless they were doing something wrong. Like having sex instead of watching out around them for bad guys. Well, might as well stick with what works. I look at Penny and I start to...... well Hell! There's Agitha watching me with her eyes wide. I can almost hear her say, what the Hell do you think you're doing? Suddenly, it all comes back. The encounter w/Agitha in the bathroom, and the things I couldn't remember.
The snipe were natural creatures that lived around here, but they weren't violent. They thought that we were responsible for all of the killing going on around here. So they attacked. The undead here were just spirit's possessing the bodies of the living to exact revenge on those who had killed them long ago. These spirits thought the snipe were responsible. Both of these were going to crush each other w/o even knowing who was responsible.
Well since they aren't responsible for the murdering around here, who is? I think back and it occurs to me that I never actually had seen anyone get killed. I just saw the remains. Then who had done it!?! I look at Agitha and she winks and looks out to the water front. I see there, Minnie and some type of... thing rolling around on the ground.
Penny and I burst from the boat house and rush to the shore. The thing that's on Minnie, what is it? It's soft, squishy, seems to be wet and... fruity? Oh my god! It's the legend made flesh! It's the thing that you're parent warned you about. The thing that can tear apart a human being in less than a second and fit thru almost any opening. They told you not to let your peaches go bad! This is what happens. It's... it's... The Peachy-Keene! Minnie is screaming at the top of her lungs that she'll get revenge for this bastard creature killing Agitha so long ago.
I take the axe away from Penny and start to take hacks at it's peachy substance. As soon as the blade strikes, it sticks to the monster's flesh and gets sucked out of my hands. Damn! What could possible hurt this thing? Other than making it into a pie. Wait! That's it! I tell Penny I have a plan and for her to help Minnie as much as possible.
I sprint back to the cabin and see the undead and the were-snipes still going at it tooth and claw. I shout at them that the real killer is out on the water front attacking Minnie and Penny. Or Moneypenny if you're a Bond fan. If they can get out there and hold it down for just a minute I've got a way to beat this thing. The monsters take off thru the door and I rush to the kitchen. I start digging thru the drawers looking for what I want. Aha! There it is. Now I've got to get back before it's too late.
I leap out of the window to see the others have the pile of slimy preserve makins' pinned to the beach, but it wont stay there long. I make it over to them and tell the other's to avert their eyes. You don't want this stuff getting into them. I then pull the egg-beater from behind my back and stick it in the creatures chest. This is for the unexplained picnic murders everywhere you bastard! I grab the handle, turn my eyes away, and start beating. I can hear the ripping of the monster's soft flesh and feel it thrashing in agony. I keep spinning the handle until Penny reaches over and tells me it's over. I look back and see the juicy sonofabitch has been scattered to the 4 winds.
I look over at Minnie and... oh no. She's not gonna make it. No one can stand that much exposure to peaches and hope to live. She looks up at me and smiles weakly asking if we got him. Yeah, we got him all right. She laughs once and then her eyes go blank.
The undead take a look at the remains of The Peachy-Keene and shamble off to the forest. They are followed by the were-snipe. Good-bye my friends. I hope your lives here are happy ones. I look and see Agitha's spirit standing there with Minnie's beside her. The sun finally shows itself over the lake and everything seems like a dream that's starting to fade.
A short time later, Penny and I are in the car, heading back home. How are we gonna explain this to everyone? She tells me not to worry about it. She tells me to have some cherries. She reaches down and picks up a jar of maraschinos and opens it. I look down and see the expiration date on them. Too late! No!!!! I hear a loud explosion, and then the world turns red.....
This is Ibidis Mortem saying, your mama warned you about The Cherry Picker, didn't she? yuk yuk. © 1997 C A Lutke