Times
of Uncle Ernest -
Chesapeake City and Beyond – Ellie, Chapter 6
And so, Nina, while that crazy uncle freshened his drink, I lay
back in a daze, sort of day-dreaming about girls without belly buttons and big
wooden horses. Then I felt something poking me in the ribs, tickling me awake.
"You're not very good company, sleepyhead,” he said, settling in the chair
and crossing his legs. I rubbed my eyes, whacked a cattle fly that had landed
on my neck, and waited for him to continue his story. "Yep, I thought I
had it made—a chauffeur to pilot me home and a gorgeous girl to cuddle with.
But peace of mind ended when we met up with the monster.
“It
happened this way, Moose. We were cruising along the coast, enjoying the sight
of colossal cliffs along the shore, when we came upon an enormous cave, high up
the cliff but with a well-worn path leading up to it. Alongside the cave were
rows of raspberry bushes, with black raspberries so large that even from the
boat they appeared to be the size of golf balls. Ellie and I looked at each
other, and she said, 'Let's pick some Ern; they're my favorite fruit.’ So I
yelled down to Mendy to cut the engines, and in no time we found ourselves
feasting on those berries. After eating our fill we decided to explore the
cave. It was somebody's home, Moose, because there were discarded bones lying
around and an area where someone had built a fire.
“We
walked farther back into the cave and found over-sized spears and other
weapons. Just as I said, 'Let's get out of here!' we heard an insane roar, and
when we turned around, there, guarding the entrance was the biggest, ugliest
giant you could ever imagine. I've never seen anything that ugly, Moose, not
even in Cecil County! He was about twenty feet tall, had sharp teeth the size
of a great white shark's, and one immense eye in the middle of his forehead.
'Haaaarrrrr!' he bellowed. 'You're just in time for dinner.’ As he came after
us we ran back into the cave and hid in the shadows. He went nuts trying to
find us but we were safe for a while. Then he went back to the entrance and
rolled a great boulder in front of it. Moose, we were trapped! He then came
stomping in our direction—still searching for us—and went deeper into the cave.
“We
followed along the edge and came upon a terrible sight. The monster had a big
cage back there, and in it were about a dozen men. Well, Feemus—we knew his
name because every so often he'd yell idiotically, 'I'm Feemus, mightiest of
all creatures'—approached the cage, opened the hatch, and snatched out a man in
each hand. Oh, it was a dreadful thing to see, Moose: those guys waving their
hands and squirming to get free. Feemus then bit the head off one of the men,
but with a loud cry spit it out and heaved the carcass down in the dirt. I
found out later that the man was a Baltimore politician, too contaminated to
eat. Anyhow, the giant grabbed another man from the cage and ate them both
alive.
"Then, laughing insanely, he spread out and went to
sleep, snoring so loudly that we thought our eardrums would burst. Mendy pulled
his sword and would have slit his throat if I hadn't stopped him."
"That's right, Unk; you'd never get out of there
because of that boulder blocking the entrance."
"You got it, Moose, and after I fill this sorry-looking,
empty glass I'll tell you what I decided to do." And with that Uncle
Ernest made his trek to the house, leaving me in suspense once again. So, as I
recall, I zipped out to our lane and started heaving stones at the telephone
pole. [To be continued Tuesday, 6/15/2012]
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