The Barn Burner
Part 1
The Secret Society
The Southern gentlemen walked under their hoods; the night was hot and muggy. They were headed to the barn, a large, looming monstrosity that could be seen from the Thruway. The two hooded men could, in truth, barely see through the holes cut in their masks and almost stumbled several times making their way onto the farm. Their footsteps and stumbles could not be heard at all over the croaking of thousands of frogs, which sounded like a jungle drumbeat, drowning out everything within a five-mile radius. This was an old-style Southern plantation, though, truth be told, whether it was in Alabama, Georgia, or Louisiana is up to the reader’s imagination. Oh, no, wait, now that I think about it, North Carolina was where Cooper Hadley’s Plantation was located.
“Must be mating season,” said one as the crescendo of frogs seemed to get louder and louder. The hooded Southern gentlemen speeded up their pace and headed toward the back. As they crossed the field, in the distance, the barn loomed like a giant ship. It was at least two stories, and there was a large loft at the top. The men arrived not at a door, but at a strange arch that looked rather out of place on the side of a barn. They knocked not once, but five times on the side of the red barn that belonged to Cooper Hadley. They had to wait a few moments, and then a small slit opened at about eye level, and they could see two eyes peering out at them.
“What’s the password?” said the eyes from the slit.
The two men looked at each other perplexed. The one hooded man looked down at his shoes. “Umm, I can’t seem to recall…” his voice trailed off. The croaking of frogs seemed to drown him out.
“Dammit, Clem,” said the voice from behind the door. “There ain’t no sense having a secret password if its members can’t recall it.”
“Sorry, Bob,” said the hooded man staring at his shoes. The barn door swung open, and the two men went inside. Many of the hooded members were already standing around conversing. Some had beers in hand, and some were smoking what could’ve been either tobacco or marijuana.
“You smell something funky?” one of the hooded men asked another.
“Coop might be curing tobacco in the loft,” answered the other man.
“Smells more like wacky tabacky,” said the first.
The meeting was about to start. A gavel was banged, and all the men began to take their seats.
After everyone was seated, the man in the center, who was still donning his hood, said, “Welcome to the meeting of the non-Jesuits.”
There were probably about 88 men in total, seated in almost a perfect circle.
“I thought we were going to change the name,” said a man in a pink hood sitting to the left of him.
“There already is a Jesuits,” said a third hooded man.
“But we’re the non-Jesuits,” said the man in the center.
“I thought we were going to call ourselves the Society of Zeitgeist,” said a man from the other side of the circle. The men had watched a movie called Zeitgeist which made them think they knew secrets the world was not ready for and did not know, when, in truth, anyone who wanted to could watch the movie.
“That name is dumb,” said another man from the side.
The man in the center slammed the gavel again. “I call this meeting to ORDER!!!”
And with that everyone got silent.
“Although we all agreed to continue to go to church, we agreed the church is one of the major ways the Freemasons attempt to manipulate our society, so we formed this group to fight back,” said the hooded man in the center, whose name was Cooper Hadley. He was a big stocky man, at least six feet in height and weighing over two hundred fifty pounds.
“Who are the Freemasons?” asked a man in a purple hood.
“Don’t know,” replied Cooper Hadley. “They’re a secret society like us.”
“I think that one rapper Jay-something and his luscious wife is one,” said a deep voice from off to the left.
“That would explain why they’re trying to brainwash us,” said Cooper Hadley.
“I thought they was part of the Illuminati,” said another hooded member.
“The Illuminati and the Freemasons are the same thing,” said Cooper Hadley.
There was a murmuring of whether this was so, and then the gavel was banged again.
“Now, we’ve formed several subcommittees, our version of splinter cells, and we’d like each subcommittee to report on its findings,” Cooper Hadley explained.
A stocky man in a black hood stepped forward. His name was Boone Anderson.
“Subcommittee one is investigating whether 5G can be used as weapon. Theoretically, if you were to poison someone with radiation, it would look a lot like a virus. Is it possible 5G can be used as a weapon?
Everyone sat there in silence.
“Y’all remember that coronavirus outbreak. Well, 5G started in China and so did the virus,” said a man with a white hood on.
“I dunno,” Cooper Hadley reasoned. “Seems a little far-fetched, even for our group.”
There was a murmuring of whether this was so, and then Cooper Hadley banged the gavel, and everyone sat up straight.
“Subcommittee two?” Cooper announced.
A man stood; he was wearing a green hood. His name was Bromley Richards. “Subcommittee two oversaw investigating the authenticity of Jesus. According to our movie Zeitgeist, Jesus is a mere personification of the sun. On December 21st the son of God dies for three days, then he rises again,” Bromley explained.
“Yeah…yeah, we’re familiar with the movie,” Cooper Hadley interrupted. “Do you have anything to report?”
Bromley continued, “We were thinking we could send someone to the Vatican to investigate whether they have the mummified body of Jesus Christ.”
“You were thinking of sending someone to Italy to investigate the mummified body of Jesus Christ,” Cooper Hadley repeated.
“Yes, sir,” Bromley explained.
“Sweet Jesus, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. And where do you suggest we get the money to send, I presume it’d be you that is going, on a vacation to sunny Italy?”
“Well, that hadn’t been discussed…” Bromley started to say.
“Any other developments?” Cooper Hadley asked.
“Nope,” Bromley said.
“Subcommittee three?” Cooper Hadley announced.
Another hooded man stood up; his name was Bob Witchell. “Subcommittee three was placed in charge of investigating the Rockefeller family, which has been accused of fracking for the purpose of causing earthquakes. We also believe them to be responsible for those chemtrails.”
“And, lemme guess, you want to go to Hawaii to investigate whether Rockefeller’s geothermic plant is causing volcanic eruptions?” Cooper Hadley questioned.
“How’d you know?” Bob Witchell asked.
“Lucky guess,” said Cooper Hadley.
“Is anybody here to actually investigate the mysteries of the unknown, or are y’all looking for free trips to Rome and Hawaii?” Cooper Hadley added.
“I was looking for a free trip to New York City,” said Duncan Myers, the head of subcommittee four, which oversaw finding out whether 9/11 was an inside job.
“I wanna reiterate that although we paid for a bus ticket for Ron to visit Nevada, he paid for all other expenses. This wasn’t no handout, plus he’s always wanted to visit Area 51. We are not in the business of handing out free tickets. We’re an investigatory committee.”
“Ron, eh…Subcommittee five…what say you?” Cooper bellowed, but outside there was a drumming against the barn. It was the frogs. There were thousands of them. They sounded like an entity, a beating heart.
“I’ve been researching a group of aliens called the Nommo,” Ron explained. “Belief in the Nommo has been around for centuries, and there are dozens of books about them. They’re not your traditional aliens with large heads. They’re believed to be more reptilian.”
In truth, it was hard to concentrate; outside, the frogs were making such an infernal racket it sounded as if a storm were approaching.
“I believe they are following me, and I have…” Ron had started to say, but everyone was distracted. The frogs had begun to propel themselves against the side of the barn and were making a beating sound that was as loud as the pounding rain.
“What in Sam Hill is going on out there?” Cooper questioned.
“Coop, it’s the dang frogs,” said the man to the right of him.
“Can’t be the frogs,” said the man to the left. “That’s so eerie.”
The frogs were rhythmically slamming themselves into the side of the barn in a beat that was getting louder. The croaking was getting louder, reaching a crescendo as if someone were opening a door. And then the non-Jesuits, or whatever they called themselves, really opened the barn door. They stumbled out into the darkness, still donning their hoods. The frogs were ankle deep like a snow drift or a rising tide, which made it difficult to walk. Something odd was going on.
Ron, the man in charge of subcommittee five, researching aliens, reiterated what the narrator just said, “Something odd is going on.”
Part 2
A Lofty Secret
This lofty secret wasn’t aliens. Bo Hadley, Cooper’s son, had been interested in marijuana since the 3rd grade. In fact, he liked to brag to people he didn’t know, “Bo Hadley been smoking since the 2nd grade,” which was a lie. Obviously, as he grew older, he began to partake in using and abusing the drug. Last summer he had started to collect a few seeds, and eventually he decided to plant them in the Hadleys’ abandoned field. He didn’t think much of it, but being a farmer’s son, he did put a lot of fertilizer and compost with the many marijuana seeds he had collected. He watered them regularly, and within a few months he had several dozen plants that were quite valuable. He estimated about $1200 to $1800 a plant.
As soon as Bo knew he had something of value, he began sniffing around town for somewhere to sell the marijuana. He went to the local pool hall and pub. He found a buyer, but the purchaser was curious about the quality and inquired about when he could inspect the merchandise. Bo also had learned some pertinent information; the marijuana would have to be dried or cured. Oh, well, his father had a big barn for that.
Bo had agreed to meet the buyer at the barn after dark on the very same night his father, Cooper Hadley, was having his secret meeting. Whoops, Bo’s silo was a little short on grain, if you know what I mean. The two gentlemen he was scheduled to meet were both packing heat. Little did they know, Bo was also strapped with a revolver. Bo told them to meet him near the back of the farm shortly after 10 PM. Crutch and Razor were both in their mid-twenties and did not consider themselves muscle but entrepreneurs of the marijuana industry, even though both had been arrested for violent crimes. They were both over six feet and built like football linemen.
“You ever seen so many frogs?” Crutch remarked.
Razor did not comment. They were ankle deep in frogs; they covered the ground like a moss. It was nearly impossible to walk without stepping on a few. They squirmed and leaped beneath the giants’ feet.
Bo had harvested the plants about a week ago, and they were curing in the loft of the barn. He met Crutch and Razor with a friendly Southern greeting. However, the two did not reciprocate. The frogs had obviously shaken them up. They were short-spoken and asked to see the weed. Bo lit a joint and made his way to the enormous barn that was over two stories in height.
“These frogs…is this normal?” Crutch asked.
“Can’t say it’s normal…maybe…only…a few times in my life I’ve seen them like this, but it happens from time to time,” Bo explained.
“Why?” Razor asked.
“Can’t say,” Bo shrugged, “probably a combination of a bunch of things. Moon, barometric pressure, humidity, their mating, and all the cycles are lining up tonight like a perfect storm.”
The barn was so tall it reminded most people more of a silo than a barn.
“What the fuck…is this where you store your grain?” Crutch joked.
“It’s where I’m storing the weed you’re trying to buy,” Bo said, smugly hitting the joint.
They entered the barn exactly thirteen minutes before Cooper and his guests arrived.
They climbed the stairs up to the second floor, but it was in the rafters that Bo had hidden the plants.
Less than two hours before, Bo had been up to check on the plants. There were 39 in total, and they were drying, hanging upside down by their stems.
“So, let’s talk price. There are about 30 really nice plants. I’d figure I could get at least a thousand apiece for each plant.”
“If you think the Don gonna pay thirty thousand…” Crutch started to say.
“We need to see ’em first,” Razor interrupted him.
Bo stopped. He was being cautious; he could tell something wasn’t right. He took another pull off the joint. “Hit this,” he said, handing the joint to Crutch. Crutch took it hesitantly, hit it, coughed a bunch of times, and handed it to Razor. Razor hit the joint quickly and handed it back to Bo, who had not moved.
Bo took another drag. “You guys even smokers?”
“My name is Crutch, what do you think?” said Crutch. Some smokers like to put a piece of cardboard or a movie ticket stub on the end of their joint to avoid burning their fingers. This is known as a crutch.
Bo hadn’t moved. “You guys being straight with me? You here to buy my weed or rob me?”
Razor flashed some cash. “We’ll give you a couple hundred right now, just to sample the weed.” He dropped two hundred-dollar bills on a bale of hay.
Bo scooped up the two bills. “You already sampled it,” he chuckled, “but check this out, follow me.”
They climbed the ladder up into the loft, but things turned really sour after that. The reader must understand that the loft was cluttered with lots of rusted junk and things hanging. Plus there wasn’t really a floor, just beams to stand on, so that made things even more confusing. As Bo got to the top, he realized that the 39 plants he had hung up to dry were no longer there. He walked about ten feet down one of the beams just to make sure whoever had touched his plants hadn’t just moved them, then he pulled his revolver. Crutch and Razor, who had no idea what was happening, saw Bo pull his gun, stumbled to their feet, and immediately pulled their guns. There the three stood, guns pointed at each other, each in shock.
“Where’re my plants?” Bo demanded, shifting the gun back and forth between Crutch and Razor.
“Do you really think we would have come to meet you and given you two hundred dollars if we had robbed you earlier?” Crutch asked, his gun pointed directly at Bo’s forehead. “Don’t shoot,” Razor yelled at the same time, his gun pointed at Bo’s chest.
At that moment, Cooper Hadley came in through the secret door with a bunch of hooded men.
“What the fuck?” Crutch mouthed.
“I didn’t know they was gonna be here…honest,” Bo said, his gun still pointed between Crutch and Razor.
“Why are they wearing hoods?” Razor asked. “Is your Daddy in the Klan? Mine is.”
Bo pointed the gun at Razor. “Shut it,” he whispered.
Cooper went to a side fridge and pulled out a handful of beers, and the men cracked them open and were clinking them and toasting each other. There was a comical moment when they all tried to drink them and realized they were wearing hoods. Most of the men just pulled their hoods up a little bit so they could see the frothy beverage.
Cooper and the rest of the clan headed into the back room while one man stayed behind to watch the door.
“Are you sure your associate didn’t move the plants or something?” Crutch asked, still aiming the gun at Bo’s head.
Bo thought about who else knew the plants were up there. Well, truth be told, there were more than a few people he had bragged to about the plants, but he kept his mouth shut.
“Where’re my plants?” Bo demanded again. He cocked the gun.
“We already told you, we didn’t touch ’em,” Razor explained.
Each was about to fire. It is a good guess Bo would have been killed and possibly Crutch or Razor, but then something strange happened. Out of the corner of their eyes, they could see two men were up in the loft with them. They were dressed in strange camouflage costumes, so it was hard to see them, but they were up in the loft with Bo, Crutch, and Razor. They were so quiet and concealed, they were almost invisible. Who were they, and what were they doing here? Bo was about to yell out, when he felt something cold hit him. It felt like a cold, wet sponge on his back, but then it spread throughout his whole body in waves and ripples. He shivered. He didn’t know what had hit him, but he was suddenly unable to move a muscle. He told his arms to function, but it was as if he were asleep in some night terror. Looking across the beam, Bo could see that Crutch and Razor also appeared to be frozen, unable to budge an inch. How was this happening? What was happening? As the men in camouflage costumes got closer, Bo’s blood started to run even colder. The men, were they men, moved very disjointedly, sort of the way a bird moves, or, maybe even more accurately, the way a machine moves. Were they robots or some kind of androids? They hadn’t made a sound. Bo could feel a lump in his throat as he tried to swallow, but since he was frozen, he couldn’t. For a minute he almost passed out, as he had trouble breathing.
Part 3
The Nommo
Bo Hadley struggled to move, but he could only feel his muscles tense. He had a lighter in his pocket. With all his might, he attempted to move his arm so he could grab the lighter from his pocket. After tensing his muscles again and again, he struggled to breathe, and he eventually slumped to the floor. Within minutes, he was unconscious, as were the other two males that had come to make the drug deal.
“Alas, our original impression abit…that they were becoming more intelligent abit…was dead wrong…they’re not…We might as well pack up abit, the end is near.” He spoke in pauses and an intonation that did not sound like English, and he said “abit” after almost every phrase like some kind of proverbial hiccup. The camouflaged being paused, almost frozen in time for a moment, he was invisible, then he pressed a button on a contraption that looked an awful lot like a smart phone. The instant he pressed the button, the frogs got noticeably louder and started propelling themselves into the side of the barn.
“The end? We’ve got nearly a century. Besides, you don’t think they’ve evolved even a little?” asked Dave, the second camouflaged being.
“Not abit…They think they’ve made progress, that they’re more civilized…They have abit better technology, but it’s just an illusion. They’re the same as their ancestors wearing metal armor and living in castles a thousand years ago abit,” Pete chirped.
“When I created the major religions like Buddhism and Christianity, I thought that would help them, but, sheesh, all it did was seem to confuse them more. They really don’t get enlightenment or inner peace. They’d rather fill their homes with possessions. And some of them are just more like cheerleaders than worshippers. Go Jesus,” Dave joked.
“True abit,” Pete confirmed.
“But why take the frogs?” Dave asked. “Won’t that just cause their ecosystems to collapse more quickly?”
“I’m not taking the frogs. They asked to leave abit,” Pete explained.
“The frogs asked?” Dave questioned, chirping. “Did they call you on the smart phone?”
“They have sent word abit that the water on this planet is near toxic levels,” Pete explained. “Their young are dying by the billions.”
“Their young? Tadpoles? Gross, they’re just like giant sperm, so who cares?” Dave chirped.
“The sea crabs are dying from too much acidity in the seawater abit,” Pete explained.
“Why do the freshwater frogs care about the sea crabs?” Dave asked.
“The frogs care abit. Frogs are a wise and ancient species abit…Frogs are the barometer for the living, and they want off abit,” Pete explained.
They tagged the three males: Bo, Crutch, and Razor.
“Should we take the males? We could just leave them here; they probably won’t even remember seeing us.”
The camouflaged beings moved with a stealth and quickness that made them almost unable to be detected with the naked human eye. The camouflaged beings called themselves the Nommo, and it would not be unfair to say they had a connection to frogs, though what the connection is remains a mystery to this narrator. What I can tell you about the Nommo is that they are not your typical aliens in that they do not move around in flying saucers and are not green and do not have bulb-shaped heads. The Nommo are invisible to the naked human eye when they remain motionless. So, for the most part, the Nommo walk around Earth like alien-ghosts. They might be watching you right now. They have been monitoring Earth for over 6,000 years and are responsible for all of Earth’s major religions. Why the hell the two known as Pete and Dave were monitoring these yahoos on the Hadley farm is beyond me. It seems like a waste of resources. Also understand, the Nommo do not need to monitor humans from above. They can monitor humans by being right there in the room. They do not even need spaceships to travel. They are pan-dimensional beings that can move through space infinitely. The Nommo were about to transport Bo, Crutch, and Razor to the other side of the gate along with all the frogs, when all the men in hoods rushed back through the door.
“Open del porte,” Dave whispered.
“We’ll wait till they leave abit,” Pete explained.
Part 4
The Main Event
The hooded men stumbled around in the moonlight outside the barn, tripping and slipping over frogs. One of the men, Bob Riley, fell on the ground and thus crushed and ended the lives of more than a few frogs. In the melee, Cooper Hadley finally realized they were forgetting they had, well, not more business to attend to, but about the main event. The gambling. The drinking. The comradery.
“I don’t, I ain’t, I never heard them dang frogs bang into the barn like that, but I have seen ’em this way before, once in a blue moon. We should get back inside. The Unicorn is here, so are the Splash Brothers. We still have the main event,” Cooper informed the group that had gathered outside the barn to witness the frog monsoon that had now descended upon the Hadleys’ farm. They stumbled back in, and it was clear by the way they were clearing the floor that they were setting up for some sporting event or concert. They even brought out a big board and were taking bets. Men were exchanging money, and they were writing the bets on the big board. Bleachers were being wheeled out, unfolded, and assembled. Spotlights were turned on and blared from the ceiling, and if one were looking closely, he might have seen something moving around up there, but no one was looking closely. Back on the floor, a giant had appeared out of nowhere, he looked to be Russian or possibly Latvian, along with two other creole men who were tall but not nearly as tall as the foreigner. Men in hoods were setting up peach baskets, and they appeared to be getting ready for a game of basketball. There was an amplifier being set up, and a man seemed as if he were warming up. “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN…OOPS…NO LADIES HERE TONIGHT…GENTLEMEN AND PHILISTINES, PLACE YOUR BETS…IN JUST A FEW MOMENTS…GET READY FOR WHAT IS SURE TO BE A VERY EXCITING EVENT.”
A man in a yellow hood was sweeping hay from the floor. The amplifier rang again, “Without further ado, tonight, we have here the Unicorn, all seven foot four of him.” The large Latvian man raised his hand as though he were a boxer in a ring. “And he’ll be teaming up with local legend Slim Skywalker in what is sure to be a barn burner. They’ll be up against two of the greatest three-point shooters I’ve ever had the privilege of witnessing, the Splash Brothers.” The two creole boys raised their hands.
“PLACE YOUR BETS…WE GOT NO NETS…SLIM SKYWALKER AND THE UNICORN VERSUS THE SPLASH BROTHERS, COMING UP NEXT.” It was true they were using no nets; apparently, they were using the old-school throwback, peach baskets, that Naismith had used when he created the game.
A whistle was blowing as the floor cleared. “All right,” Cooper Hadley shouted out. “Who’s gonna call this one? Duncan? And none of that skullduggery like we had two years ago.”
A comparatively short African American about six feet tall was dribbling a faded leather ball between his legs at what was about center court. This was Slim Skywalker, and he had what they refer to as handles, meaning he was very skilled at dribbling the basketball.
“That Slim Skywalker dribbles more than my mistress’s baby,” Bob Witchell commented.
The taller Splash Brother was probably 6’8, but still the Unicorn towered over him. They faced each other for the jump ball. The Unicorn smiled at the crowd; they were getting ready for tip-off. People were scrambling, placing bets, grabbing beers; money was being flashed everywhere and carelessly dropped to the floor.
The game hit the ground running. Duncan threw the ball in the air, and the Unicorn easily won and tipped it back to Slim Skywalker, who darted down the court. Slim did his patented crossover dribble a few times, mesmerizing the crowd, then threw the ball toward the rim, and the Unicorn caught it and dunked it home. The Splash Brothers responded immediately. The shorter one, who was known as the Baby-Faced Assassin, took a pass and pulled up and gunned a three-pointer from downtown. The ball hit the peach basket and dropped straight down, and the crowd of about eighty-eight men, most of whom had taken off their hoods, erupted.
“WHOOOOOWEEEEE...WE got ourselves a barn burner here!!!” Bromley Richards yelled out. The crowd cheered and more money changed hands.
“I say the Unicorn hits the next three-pointer,” Clem Dawkins yelled, flashing a twenty-dollar bill.
Slim Skywalker dribbled downcourt, passing the ball behind the back to the Unicorn, who stood on the perimeter of the 3-point line.
“SHOOT IT,” the crowd yelled.
The Unicorn did not hesitate; he put the shot up. For a moment it could be seen up in the rafters with the spotlights, then it dropped down to floor level, bouncing off the peach basket twice before it dropped through, making the score 5-3.
“Hot Damn, gimmie my money,” Clem yelled.
“I got a hundred on the Unicorn and Slim Skywalker,” Boone Anderson declared.
The Splash Brothers scored the next seven points, including a three-pointer by the taller Splash Brother, who most of the crowd called Clay. The score was 5-10.
Normally, the Nommo, who again had been monitoring humans for 6000 years, did not find humans fascinating. Most of the time they were bored with human behavior. They had seen it all. However, there was something about this game and the atmosphere inside the barn that seemed to suck in their attention. Instead of preparing for departure, say, the way an airline captain might, the Nommo began speculating about the humans who were playing basketball inside a barn.
“That Latvian is a hell of a specimen; did you see the way he shot the round ball through that basket?” Dave stated.
“Perhaps we take him abit…instead of these lumps of excrement,” Pete considered. Bo was in truth awake; he was only playing dead like a possum.
Below, the game continued. Slim Skywalker continued to utilize the Unicorn’s height by passing to him down low near the basket. The Unicorn made two more dunks almost ripping the basket off the backboard in the process, and the score was 9-10.
The barn was heating up because of the spotlights and all the body temperature and the basketball game, which caused the serum that was keeping Bo paralyzed to wear off. The hotter it got, the more Bo found he was able to start to flex his muscles and eventually move his extremities.
The Baby-Faced Assassin took a pass from his brother and hit another three-pointer from the end line, far in the corner of the court, and the crowd exploded. The score was 9-13.
Slim Skywalker dribbled the ball between his legs three to four times, and then drove to the hoop and laid it in making the score 11-13.
The game moved rather rapidly. The Splash Brothers barely took any shots that weren’t three-pointers, and the reason the Latvian was called the Unicorn is that he was as rare as a unicorn in that he was 7’4, yet he could shoot like a point guard. The Splash Brothers hit five more three-pointers; the Unicorn responded with three three-pointers of his own, and Slim added two layups. The score was 24-28.
The temperature in the barn was starting to become sweltering as the game heated up. Bo found that the hotter it got, the easier it was for him to move. Pete and Dave were still assessing the basketball game and had temporarily turned their back on Bo.
“We should take the brothers, too,” Dave suggested. “Those three would be far better than these wastes of space.” He looked back toward Bo, who was still playing dead.
“The zoo on Tralfamadore abit…We could take the four abit,” Pete concurred.
Out of the corner of his eye, Bo saw an aerosol can of lacquer sitting in the corner of the loft. As a teen he had learned how to make a flamethrower using a lighter and an aerosol can of lacquer. He fiddled near his pocket, checking for the lighter. He slowly started crawling toward the aerosol can, hoping to make no noise. Bo was almost to the aerosol can when, in the darkness, he bumped into a ladder, which made a noise and alerted the Nommo.
Bo reasoned they would try to freeze him again, so he knew he had to move quickly. He sprinted toward the can, doing a forward roll and quickly grabbing the lighter. He flicked the lighter and sprayed in the direction of the Nommo. The result was a large flame cloud which missed the Nommo but did catch the roof of the barn.
Bo flicked the lighter again, holding the flame up for the Nommo to see. “Where the hell are my plants? And take off those ridiculous costumes. I can’t even see where you at.”
“Is he that unintelligent that he doesn’t realize that’s the point?” Dave commented.
“Your puny weapons will not harm us abit,” Pete explained to Bo.
The truth is that the Nommo had not stolen Bo’s plants. They had little use for several pounds of marijuana. The plants had been stolen by two of Bo’s friends about an hour before, and they had already made a few thousand dollars selling it all around town.
“You cost me fifty thousand dollars, so unless you’re gonna cough up the money, I’ma take it out of your ass,” Bo said, shooting the flame into the darkness of the loft. He did this incessantly, catching more of the barn on fire.
“Why is the human burning down his own shelter?” Dave questioned.
“He believes we stole his plants abit and he wants 50 thousand green pieces of paper in reimbursement abit,” Pete explained.
“We should go,” Dave explained.
The Nommo realized they had been seen, which was sort of against their code, and they pressed a button and instantly dissolved, reappearing miles from the barn.
Below, the game continued; it was 33-30. The Unicorn was starting to play defense, and the Splash Brothers missed a few threes in a row. Meanwhile, the roof was on fire, but by that point everyone was so liquored up they didn’t notice. Bo didn’t say a word because he still believed the Nommo were somewhere in the loft, so he remained hidden behind a beam that was holding up the entire barn. Clay bombed another three and the game was tied at 33.
“20 bucks say the Unicorn matches him,” Clem Dawkins yelled out. The Latvian knew what he had to do. He took the ball, but the Splash Brother Clay was playing tight defense and he had to give it up. Slim passed it back to him, but Clay was still playing tight defense. Eventually he put up a tightly contested three-pointer, but it bounced off the peach basket and went out of bounds.
“Never bet against the Splash Brothers,” Boone Anderson explained. “I’ve seen them come back, down by twenty, in under a minute.”
“That’s not possible,” Clem said.
“Wouldn’t think so either, ’cept I seen it with my own eyes,” Boone said, gulping his beer.
The Baby-Faced Assassin came right down the court and drained another three and the score was 33-36.
“Damn, that boy can shoot,” Clem said handing his money over.
“I declare it’s getting a bit stuffy in here,” Bob Riley commented.
Of course, it was getting stuffy; there was a five-alarm fire ablaze above their heads, yet no one seemed to notice. Smoke was starting to waft from the top of the barn, as the entire ceiling was pretty much ablaze. Bo was unsure of what to do; he knew at some point he’d have to make a break for it, but he also wasn’t sure where those two camouflaged thieves were hiding.
Slim Skywalker darted down the court, splitting the defenders for an easy layup. The score was 35-36.
It was the Splash Brothers’ turn. The Baby-Faced Assassin came off a screen and was being covered by the Unicorn; he dished the ball off to Clay who was all alone against Slim Skywalker. Clay was at least eight inches taller than Slim Skywalker and used his height advantage. Clay backed Slim Skywalker in and hit an easy bank shot. The score was 35-38. The Unicorn responded with another three-pointer. The score was 38-38.
As the rafters burned around them, the crowd refused to stop watching the game. They might all well have perished, except the game got interrupted by the fire. The taller Splash Brother, Clay, took a high arching shot, and as the ball came down, it was on fire. The flaming, smoking ball went through the peach basket and the score was 48-48.
“Dare I say, en fuego,” Bromley Richards commented.
“The barn…. the barn…it’s burning up,” Bob Riley yelled.
At that point, wreckage started to fall and people started to flee as flaming beams collapsed to the floor. Thus ends this crazy spectacle known as the barn burner. It’s hard to know what to make of it all. All that was left of Cooper Hadley’s barn was a pile of ashes. Never again would it host a secret meeting of the non-Jesuits. None of the eighty-eight men that belonged to the group were badly hurt, though Luke Hayes had most of his hair singed off and a few others suffered from some first-degree burns. Bo did manage to escape along with Crutch and Razor, although the two muscle men would be traumatized by the events of that night and barely speak of them again.
From the hospital where he was getting treated for burns, Bromley Richard declared, “The lesson here is: we all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.”
“Ain’t that a Tennessee Williams quote?” Clem Dawkins interrupted.
“That actually don’t make no sense in the context of this story,” Boone Anderson retorted.
“I think it makes perfect sense,” Bromley said.
“That ain’t the moral; the moral is actually pretty simple,” Clem explained. “Don’t gamble while your house is on fire.”
“Oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense,” Bromley reiterated.
The gentlemen, and I use the term loosely, continued to argue while the nurse bandaged them up.
And, in the end, perhaps there is no moral, or perhaps the narrator should leave the reader free to assess the rising action on his own; this is, after all, the barn burner.
