Page 18 of Merry Christmas, You Filthy Animal
Max:Robbed of our privacy, of our farm, of... of my sanity.
Cole:The only correct statement you’ve made in the last seventy-two hours is your sanity being robbed, but it’s not by anyone else; it’s by you.
Max:You need to learn to be more supportive, compassionate. Especially in a time of crisis.
Cole:I am. This is a time of crisis. You are losing it, and I’m attempting to tell you to stop. Pack up the crowbar, for the love of God, and go back home. Investigating will only get you in trouble.
Max:It won’t. I know what I’m doing.
Cole:You don’t. Go back home.
Max:Never!
I stuff my phone in my pocket, ready to take charge. Flashlight in hand, I move closer to the house, bouncing behind tree after tree to avoid getting caught. And as I get closer, the building becomes more visible until I’m two trees away, taking in a small cottage-type house that looks like an oversize child’s playhouse.
I remove my phone from my pocket and snap a picture for reference. Cole might not want to talk about it now, but tomorrow, when he’s in the barn, I can tell himI told you so.
Now the question is who is living here? And how the fuck was it built so quickly?
Knowing this is risky, I skirt up to the tree that’s right in front of the cottage and lean over, taking a peek inside the house, but the curtains are shut, blocking my view.
Damn it.
I assess my next move and notice that the window near the door isn’t covered by a curtain. That’s my only option to get to the bottom of this. There isn’t a tree to shield me from view, but there is a flower box. I can be stealthy and go undetected behind that shrubbery.
Narrator: Spoiler alert: Max will not go undetected. In fact, this plan is about to very much blow up in his face...
Keeping my flashlight low, I duckwalk toward the cottage, keeping my six-foot-four body out of sight and off the snow until I reach the porch. I fall to my knees and then shuffle on them all the way up to the flower box. Smiling to myself about how I was able to channel my inner Tom Cruise, I reach for my crowbar, pull back the branches of the shrub in the flower box with the curved end, and slowly start to raise my head to garner a peek.
I hold my breath, raising . . . raising . . .
Almost there . . .
Enemy, be prepared to be found out.
And just as my eyes peek over the shrubs, the front door opens, startling the ever-living shit out of me.
“Ahhh!” I scream out of pure reaction just as a feral warrior cry sounds through the silent night air as five words are screamed into existence by a female voice.
“Take that, you filthy animal!”
And then like a rocket being blasted through a cannon, a two-liter bottle of Pepsi flies right at my head, knocking me out cold.
Chapter Five
Max
Narrator: Poor Max. What he thought was a mission accomplished turned into a night of disaster, because our dear friend Betty is smarter than he expected. For she saw his flashlight moving through the woods. She heard the crunching of the snow, and she was prepared for when the intruder snuck up on her cottage.
She was aware of his approach, and when the moment was right, she busted out of her front door and nailed him dead between the eyes with the only weapon she could find.
And the hardheaded Max—pun intended—broke the bottle open, causing Pepsi to be sprayed all over. And as he lay there on the ground, dripping in the fizzy drink, knocked out, she called the cops, who cuffed him—looks like they would arrest him after all—and drove him to the small community jail, where he had one call... and one call only.
“I hate you,” Cole says as he stares at me through the cell bars.
I grip my forehead, the massive headache throbbing, making it unbearable to deal with anything at the moment.
“Please,” I beg of him. “I can’t take it right now. It feels like I was hit in the head with an iron.”
