Newsgroups: gweepnet.yarn
Path: hotblack!truss
From: truss@hotblack.gweep.net (Tom Russell)
Subject: Re: Okay, who put him up to this?
Message-ID: 
Organization: ThreadMaster Corp.
References:    
Date: Sun, 4 Sep 1994 21:53:07 GMT

>"Yo, Joe-ster!" called Tubs. "Come check out this thing we found!"
>
>"Yeah, man," added Gates, "it's way cool."
>
>"What is it?" asked Joey, cycling up to where they waited. 
>
>"I have no idea," said Tubs, "but it does the coolest things..."


  ...you gotta see it."

  So Joey pushed off on his bicycle and rode out with Tubs and Gates.  Down 
back side streets they went and soon left town.  The blacktop turned to gravel
which slowed them down a bit but years of country biking had given them all
the stamina they'd need.  Still, Joey's curiosity was getting the better of
him after riding over a mile past the town dump.

  "Hey guys, where is this thing anyways?"

  "Not too much farther.  It's by the lake, but we'll have to get out and
walk around in a pasture.  The pasture belongs to Gate's uncle and we were
out walking around in it looking for places to set up duck blinds when we
came across this thing."

  As the trio, neared the lake, Gates lived up to his name and crashed into
the gate surrounding his uncle's pastures.  Being a gate to a barbed wire
fence, the result was slightly more spectacular than usual.  Still, Gates
had a thick hide and a surprising amount of presence despite a lack of
obstacle avoidance capabilities, so he came through with only a few scrapes
and scratches like he always did.

  The three boys dumped their bikes and headed off into the pasture.  Joey
had been there a few times before and was still somewhat doubtful that
anything *that* interesting could be located here.  Still, as he crested the
hill, he had to admit, he was impressed.

  The pasture encompassed a small valley (or "holler" as it's referred to
locally) and floating over a hundred feet above the "holler" floor was a
long, silver, cigar-shaped -- thing. 

  "What....what is it?" asked a stunned Joey.

  "Never seen one afore," said Tubs, "maybe it's a U-F-O."

  "Or a zeppelin filled with godless Commie bastards," chimed in Gates. 
Gates had always been the conspiracy freak of the three.

  "It isn't doing anything cool," said Joey.

  "Just wait," answered Tubs.

  Sure enough, a few minutes of patient waiting was rewarded by a shower of
small furry things, vaguely animal-shaped, from the thing followed by some
distant shouting from the thing followed by a sickening thud and plaintive
wailing from the furry things.

  "I've got a bad feeling about this," said Joey.

  Just then there was a rustling in the bushes and James Burke strode up
next to the boys.

  "It's kind of funny how science and technology work sometimes isn't it?"
began Mr. Burke, "I mean as recently as two posts ago, you may have thought
you'd seen the last of the zeppelin with it's rocket men and sadistic
captain.  As recently as one post ago, you may have heaved a sigh of relief
thinking I was out of the picture.  The power of modern technology had taken
unpleasant and sucky threads away and replaced them with shinny new threads
containing slice-of-life, fun and adventure for young people kinds of
stories.  No more silliness right?  Wrong."

  "In fact, the very science and technology we depend on to let us do away
with threads we don't like depends entirely on zeppelins like that, James
Watt, Thomas Edison (or rather, Edison's nameless assistants) and my own
personal twisted limey worldview.  In this episode we're going to show...."

  Joey's mind whirled.  The zeppelin, James Burke.  It was all some kind of
nightmare, some kind of nightmare he had to stop.  But what should he do?
What could he do?  He didn't have a .45 on him.  Gramps knew what to do, but 
he wasn't here to help him.  Oh if only he'd suffered through Gramp's
stories for a little bit longer he wouldn't be deeply embroiled in the
trouble he was now.

  There was a bright flash from the side of the zeppelin and four rocket men
shot out and streaked towards their position.

  Joey was going to have to do something.


later
Truss
(Carolyn, Trish, Limey, I'm Tom, remember?)
 



83.html
Go back to the previous chapter

Children: 

84.html
104.html


Mail your comments or continuations to Jer.