Weak in Body, Strong in Mind and Spirit

Bill was sitting on his favorite bar stool at the Bleecker Fish and Game Club enjoying his G.E.N.E.S.E.E. Elixer and chatting with his friends J.R. and Gene. Suddenly, the entry portal was violently kicked open. Bill and his friends quickly spun around to come face to face with Disston coming through the door, followed by a half dozen Skunk Apes.

“Oh shit, this ain’t good!” said Bill.

“What are they doing here?” asked Gene.

“Lookin’ for revenge is my guess,” said J.R.

Bill jumped up. Disston shoved Bill and sent him sprawling on the floor. Bill rose at stared at Disston, looking up at him as Disston snarled and barred his fangs.

“We need to get a hold of our Sasquatch buddies,” muttered Bill. “But how? J.R. got your cell phone?”

“Sure,” said J.R. “Why?”

“Dave is online at the Five Brothers. It’s a long shot, but shoot him a message on Facebook,” said Bill.

“There are too many Dave Gibsons on Facebook!” said J.R. after a time.

Bill pulled out his wallet and thumbed through it.

“Here’s his business card,” said Bill. “I kept it from a book he sent me. His Facebook address is on the bottom, https://www.facebook.com/dave.gibson.7355.”

“Got it,” said J.R., who surreptitiously sent David a call for help.

“What are they doing?” asked Gene. “Why aren’t they attacking us?”

“I don’t know what they’re doing,” said Bill. “But we don’t have our guns. They’ll rip us to pieces.”

The barmaid cleared her throat, catching Bill’s attention. Bill turned and looked at her. She discreetly showed Bill the top of the barrel of a shotgun and then lowered it down behind the bar again.

Bill very slowly made his way to the U shaped bar, and sat on a stool facing the door.

“Keep that out of sight, but where I can get it quickly,” he whispered to her.

The barmaid leaned the shotgun up against the bar.

“It’s loaded,” she whispered.

Bill glanced at the gun.

“Mossberg 500 12 gauge pump, nice,” he whispered. “All five rounds loaded?”

The barmaid nodded her head.

“Rifled slugs,” she answered.

Bill looked at Disston and his crew. There were seven Skunk Apes in the bar. He glanced out the window and saw what looked like a sea of black Skunk Apes.

“What are they doing?” asked J.R. “Why don’t they get this over with?”

“I have no idea,” said Bill.

Disston turned and walked to the doorway and looked about.

“I think they’re using us as bait,” said Bill. “They must have figured that we’d call the Tribes for help, and the Skunk Apes would then surprise and overwhelm them.”

“Bill? Are you there? This is Madu.”

“Madu! Be careful, buddy. We have a sea of Skunk Apes here at the club waiting for you,” projected Bill. “We only have one gun among us.”

“We’re hidden in the wood line behind your club,” I said. “We wasted no time when David notified us about what was happening. I see them. We’re waiting for reinforcements.”

“Who?” asked Bill.

“I am unsure,” I said. “David arranged it.”

“Oh that’s just great,” said Bill. “Uh oh...”

“What?” I asked.

“Two of the Skunk Apes in the club are coming towards me, and they look mean!”

“Can you stall them?” I asked.

“I’ll try,” said Bill.

Bill lunged for the Mossberg. He flipped it and pointed it at the two Skunk Apes. They stopped.

“Remember this? Come any closer and I’ll put a hole in you the size of your fist!” asserted Bill with authority.

The Skunk Apes couldn’t understand Bill’s words, of course. The other Skunk Apes joined the two.

Uh oh, thought Bill. Six Skunk Apes and I have five rounds. Great. Of course, they don’t know that.

The Skunk Apes charged. Bill pumped off his five rounds, stopping five Skunk Apes. The sixth stopped and glared at Bill, but then smiled an evil smile. He somehow knew Bill couldn’t shoot anymore. He slowly approached Bill. Bill flipped the gun, grabbed it by the barrel, and broke the stock over the Ape’s head, knocking him to his knees.

“Bill!” yelled the barmaid. “Catch! Baseball bat!”

Bill caught the club and walloped the Ape across the back of his head.

Bill heard our shouting from outside.

When I heard the weapon, I knew the fighting had begun. Ouragan led our Warriors into battle. We were badly outnumbered, but we fought ferociously. On my left was Puyallup, and to my right Ouragan.

I watched as Bill and his friends ran from their club to behind it. They entered their conveyances through portals. Bill was the first to arrive in his conveyance. Was he leaving? I watched as he stopped, surveyed the situation, and then I heard a loud squealing noise from the back of his conveyance as it drove into the melee. Ape bodies were scattered in all directions.

Next two more appeared, Bill’s two friends, J.R. and Gene. They did the same. The conveyances would back up and drive forward into the fight, over and over.

Disston screamed in rage!

“Regroup! Everyone, regroup!” Disston yelled.

As they gathered their forces, we heard a wailing sound coming from the black trail with stripes. There were conveyances approaching, a good dozen of them. They emitted blue and red lights. The first one stopped and the portals opened. Emerging were Pamela and Kimberly.

More conveyances arrived and more portals opened. Uniformed Little People emerged with weapons. One had a device that he held to his mouth. It made his voice very loud.

“Police! Stop fighting!” he commanded.

No one but other Little People understood his words and the fighting continued.

“Everyone, stop fighting!” yelled Pamela in mindspeak. “Back away!”

We Forest People did as Pamela demanded, as did Bill and his friends. The Skunk Apes looked confused and looked to Disston for guidance.

“Attack them!” yelled Disston.

The Apes charged, and were met with thunderous weapons and invisible rocks. They were dropping, one after the other. There were Ape bodies scattered all about. There were only a dozen or so left, including Disston. The Little People lowered their weapons. We all stood staring at each other.

“I shall summon our entire Ape Army,” snarled Disston. “Many thousands of us will arrive and annihilate you all, both Forest People and Little People!”

Suddenly, many Apes started appearing, soon numbering in the hundreds.”

A familiar conveyance arrived and turned in from the black trail. A Little Person emerged. It was Dick. We watched as he opened a portal and wheeled out Kathryn in her odd sitting contraption. Dick wheeled Kathryn up to Disston.

“Is this a joke?” sneered Disston.

Ouragan walked up and stood next to Kathryn and glared at Disston.

“This is no joke!” mind screamed Kathryn at him. “David called me. Why are you here!”

“We are here to kill the Forest People! And now all of you Little People!” answered Disston.

“You are to leave this place and never to return!” Kathryn commanded.

“Says who? You?!” snarled Disston.

Ouragan reached for Disston.

“Wait Ouragan! I’ll handle this!” said Kathryn.

Disston laughed. But suddenly he felt himself rising in the air. He went higher and higher as we all watched in wonder. Disston was soon almost out of sight, and then Kathryn lowered him back down, stopping when he was a few feet off the ground.

“You WILL leave!” said Kathryn, “Or else I will send you back high in the air and then drop you like a bad habit!”

“OK OK!” said Disston. “We’ll leave!”

“And never to return!”

“Never, no!” cried Disston.

“And Apes will kill no more! Forest People or Little People! Because if I find out you do, I’ll come looking for you!” projected Kathryn. “I’ll hunt you down, and drop you so hard, your grandchildren will hurt!”

“No more! Put me down! We’ll go!”

Kathryn lowered him to the ground. Sprites appeared and the Skunk Apes were gone in an instant. All eyes fell on Kathryn.

“I didn’t know you could do that, Kathryn,” said Ouragan.

“I didn’t know I could either,” laughed Kathryn. “But I felt there was something in me, something powerful that I didn’t understand.”

“Aurora said you are perhaps weak of body, but your mind and spirit is amazingly strong,” said Pamela.

Aurora, Windago, and Nakani stepped from the wood line.

“That is true, Kathryn,” said Aurora.

“How long have you been there?” asked Kimberly.

“The whole time,” said Aurora. “Kathryn, you have suffered a terrible disability, but as your body grows weaker, your spirit grows stronger. You may yet have other surprises.”

“Kathryn is always surprising me,” laughed her mate Dick.

“So these are Sasquatches?” asked a Little Person in uniform.

“Oh, I’m sorry, how rude of me!” laughed Pamela. “I was so taken aback by Kathryn that I forgot about you! Everyone, these brave men and women are from the Fulton County Sheriff’s Department and the New York State Police. When David got the message of what was happening, Kimberly and I decided we needed help and we drove to the Sheriff’s Office to persuade them to come. They called the State Police for reinforcements. We wanted the law involved for this.”

“Damn they’re big!” said a deputy. “Especially that guy!”

“That’s Ouragan,” said Kimberly. “Is anyone hurt?”

“Well, my truck is pretty beat up,” laughed Bill.

“I’m a nurse, not a mechanic,” smiled Kimberly.

“Well, it don’t hurt the runnin’ of it none,” said David. “My dad loved that line from the movie Tobacco Road.”

“So what was this ruckus all about?” asked a Trooper.

“Our Sasquatches welcomed a tribe from Florida that was decimated by Skunk Apes,” said Pamela. “We brought that tribe here where they were invited by our local Forest People. The Skunk Apes followed them here.”

“For what purpose?” asked the Trooper.

“Just to kill them. That’s just what they do,” said Pamela.

“Well, if they come back around, you let us know, OK?”

“We will,” said Pamela. “And thank you for coming.”

“It’s what we do, ma’am,” said the Trooper.

“Hey Frank, we’ve gotta run!” yelled a deputy from his conveyance. “We just got a call. We have a little girl lost in the woods.”

“I’m coming!” said Frank.

“Wait!” yelled Kimberly. “Where?”

“She wandered off from her parents campsite at Northampton State Campground.” said the deputy.

“Who better to find a person in the forest than a Forest Person?” asked Kimberly.

“Hey, if these folks can help, we could use it!”

The Troopers and Deputies jumped into their conveyances and were whisked away down the black trail, lights flashing and wailing.