Chapter Eight: Under A Bridge

I woke up early the next morning, the others still snoring away soundly. I probably would be too, but I had to pee. Don’t you hate that.

So I crawled out quietly, trying not to wake HHB, although I don’t think that was possible. I looked at WOW, I liked her more now that she was sleeping instead of talking. Chuckles was cuddled up closely to Benny, hopefully just trying to keep warm.

The cool morning air chilled me as I stepped outside into the pale morning light, the sun not yet up over the horizon. That’s when I saw Luke, or at least his body. His light saber laid in his hands, cut off from the torso. Luke’s head and leg’s were also missing. They looked like they had been cut clean off, no blood splatter you would expect from gun fire or an animal mauling.

I decided to pee before alerting the others, also because I didn’t want to pee my pants if I happened to run into the culprit. After letting it fly, I returned back to our hut and stood in the door way.

“Oh what a beautiful morning…” I began to sing loudly. They groaned at my dreadful singing voice. Wow sat up and looked at me, a look of death both in her appearance and on her face.

“Where’s Luke?” said HHB, not moving or opening his eyes.

“He’s not feeling too well this morning,” I answered.

“What do you mean?” asked HHB.

“He’s beside himself,” I answered.

“What does that mean?”

“He’s looking at himself in a new perspective.”

“Huh?”

“He’s gone to pieces.”

“What?”

“He’s branching out.”

“I don’t get it.”

“He went out on a limb.”

“What?”

“He’s reaching beyond his means.”

“What?”

“He’s detached himself from the world.”

“Huh?”

“He is seeing if the grass is greener on the other side.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“He’s falling apart at the seams.”

“ENOUGH!” yelled a cranky WOW, not amused.

“He’s dead,” I finally said, only because I had run out of clever things to say. Everyone jumped up and ran outside to see for themselves. Jimmy and his wives must have heard us, because they rushed out to see too.

“He didn’t make it,” said Chuckles, for some reason checking his pulse.

“He looks like my Mr. Potatohead from when I was kid, after Princess threw it,” I said. I would have continued, but WOW, who was standing behind me, started beating me over the head with her water bottle.

“You don’t make jokes about dead people,” she agitatedly stated, continuing to pulverize me. I waited for her to hit me a few more times, to get the rhythm down. Then I reached back without looking and snatched it from her hands. I chucked it about fifty yards away. Didn’t do any good, she started slapping me instead.

“What happened?” asked Jimmy.

“Oh, Jimmy, you always ask the best questions,” said Shortstuff, sounding weird for someone seeing a dead body.”

“He has the most dreamy eyes,” said Menu, batting her eyelashes at him. Jimmy looked at me and smiled. I found them disturbing.

“I’m not a forensic analyst or a detective, but I think what happened is pretty obvious,” said Chuckles, “Option one, Luke did it to himself in one of his delusions. Which is unlikely. Option two, he was mauled by a wild panda of sorts, which is less likely do to the look of the wounds. Also because pandas are suppose to be cute and cuddly. Option three, there really were Sith spies, which could be possible.” Regardless of why he died, we couldn’t leave his body just laying there.

“I can’t believe it,” said HHB, shaken by the lost of his Jedi master. “There is only one thing we can do.” Chuckles and I looked at him and nodded. We reached into our pockets and put the shades on.

“What are you doing?” asked WOW. Jimmy and his wives were just as confused.

“We are going to drag chubby to a place and burn him,” I said, considering that is what was done in the Star Wars films.

“Oh,” said WOW, relieved. “I thought you were going to shoot him.”

“That would be silly,” I said with a sheepish smile, “He is already dead.” HHB and Jimmy’s squad went to gather sticks. I picked up an arm and handed it to WOW. Ok, maybe I dropped it into her hands. She screamed, dropping it back on the ground, sticking her hands up.

“What’s wrong, sugar cup?” I asked.

“Don’t call me that,” she said, “I’m not touching that. Ewww, that is so gross.” I picked it back up and tried to hand it to her again. She refused.

“C’mon, its dead,” I said, “Its not going to hurt you.” I turned the arm so the hand was it in the air, and started waving it at her. Only it was stiff as a board, so the fingers were curled.

“No,” she said, in a huffy tone. Then she stormed off before I could throw it at her. Luckily, waving wasn’t the only hand gesture I knew. The finger crackled and popped, like rice crispies, as I raised the middle finger to make an obscene gesture. I don’t know how, but she must have seen it, because as she walked away she stick her arm back to give me the same one. Made me wonder if we were still friends. I guess I would learn the truth if she de-friended me on facebook.

Chuckles and I carried each tree trunk size limb to the pile of brush the others had created. We had to work together to lift the enormous torso. After finally lifting it up, Luke’s blubber bounced with each step we took, making it even more difficult to carry.

We arranged everything in its proper place, except we realized we had forgotten the head. So Chuckles walked back over and picked it up. To our amusement, the jaw was still loose.

“Luke, how are you feeling today?” asked Chuckles to the blank staring face.

“A bit odd,” Chuckles said, answering his own question in a terrible mock Luke voice, “I have a strange feeling something is missing. Like, I’m not all there.”

“Luke, you were never all here,” Chuckles said, continuing the conversation with himself. I laughed, but no one else did. HHB walked over and agitatedly grabbed the head from him.

Using his wilderness survival skills, HHB got a fire going. The dry timbers quickly ignited, soon the fire danced around the lifeless, dismembered body. The smell of burning flesh again filled the air, making me glad I hadn’t eaten breakfast.

“Would this be an appropriate time to roast marshmallows?” asked Chuckles. We all looked at him like he was an idiot, except Jimmy. He was all for it. And of course, once he decided to do it, his wives just had too.

“Hit me,” said Jimmy, after making a few roasting sticks. I walked over and punched him in the arm, not hard but enough to let him know I hit him. “Ow, what was that for?” I realized that was a bad joke as soon as Shortstuff and Menu started hitting me. Some people.

Chuckles reached in his pocket and pulled out three marshmallows. Of course, they had been in his pocket for who knows how long. There looked to be some kind of white, fluffy mold growing on it. Jimmy didn’t care, he roasted it like a boy scout on a camping trip. After it was nice and brown, he ate the thing in one big bite.

“It has the slight taste of Jedi fil…I mean, it tastes funny,” said Jimmy, his mouth still full.

I was a bit disturbed, but it got worse. Princess again appeared, hovering in traditional form in the rising smoke. Only this time, he wasn’t alone. Cheapo was with him, and they were sitting at what appeared to be an interrogation table. But considering they were together and both their faces had signs of bruising, it wasn’t the police or FBI questioning them. This had to be good.

“What’s up, Princess,” I asked.

“Oh,” he began, “In our efforts to rescue you, we have ‘allegedly’ hijacked a Columbian drug lord’s truck, fill of illegal substances, and filled it with explosives before blowing it up.”

“Allegedly?” said Cheapo, in his redneck accent, “I dun it.” He smiled real big.

“Apparently, they aren’t to fond of our supposed work, and our un-cooperation. So they have decided to try and make us talk” said Princess. Whatever they were planning, it wasn’t going to work. Trying to get straight answers from Princess was worse than trying to get Chuckles’ mom to leave a buffet.

“It ain’t going to matter to them a whole lot in a few minutes,” proudly said Cheapo, he waved what looked to be a twelve gage hidden under the table. “I got his answer right hur.” How he smuggled it past the drug lords, I will never know. But on the flip side, neither would they.

“So what is new with you guys?” asked Princess.

“Oh, we just found Luke Skywalker dismembered,” I said, “Any ideas on how to find the culprit?”

“Luke Skywalker? Really?” said Princess. He pondered over the question, before giving his usual unhelpful advice. “Did you know that all of Al Capone’s business cards said he was a used furniture dealer.”

“Who is that? And why does his advice not help us at all?” asked WOW.

“That’s my brother, Princess.”

“Oh, that explains everything.” I sensed a jab at me in that statement, so I thought the witch should stick to making sandwiches. But I didn’t say it out loud, I had already dug myself in a hole, no sense in making it deeper.

“Well, love to stay and chat, but our friends are coming in,” said Princess. Just then I saw a big fellow step into the picture, talking in Spanish. Made me wish I had paid more attention in the three years I spent in that class.

“Say adios amigo,” said Cheapo. The last thing I saw was the fire of the shotgun and the man dropping to the ground with a gaping whole in his back.

With Luke reduced to a pile of ashes, we said our farewells and allowed Jimmy to lead us toward the castle. His wives annoying the crap out of us the whole time. They continually sang Jimmy’s praises for being so wonderful. I just figured they had smoked to much of the golden barley and their mind’s were gone.

After walking through the forest for a while, we finally came to a river. It was fairly wide, so I was glad to see an old stone bridge. As we started toward it, Jimmy stopped us.

“No, it would be better to swim across,” said Jimmy, “Trolls guard the bridges…and there is no reasoning with them.” I reached for my gun, to show him there were always ways to reason, but then decided maybe it would be better to take his advice.

So we walked down to the river’s edge, standing back a few feet.

“Check that out,” said Chuckles, pointing to a sign nearby. It said beware of crocodiles. I looked at the water, then at the sign, then at the water again. I didn’t see any crocs swimming, so I thought might be a bluff by the troll.

“Menu,” said Jimmy, “Why don’t you go first.” Blinded by her love for him, Menu did as she was told. It was a good thing she went first, because as soon as she got next to the water, a huge monster leapt out of the water and grabbed hold of Menu. It hit so fast, we all watched stunned, included Menu who was helpless trapped inside its powerful jaws. Her head and arms the only parts free from the beast’s mouth. The croc thrashed on the bank, before dragging Menu into the water. A murky mix of blood and rippling water were the only things leaving evidence to what had happened.

“I think we should try the bridge,” said HHB. Seconding that motion, I made my way over to Jimmy and patted him on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry about your wife,” I said.

“Its okay,” began Jimmy, holding up awfully well, “The only downside is now instead of nagging each other, Shortstuff only has me.”

Collecting what was left of our marry little band, we made our way to the edge of the bridge. Sure enough, a troll greeted us, blocking the way to the other side. It looked human like, two eyes, a patch of short dark hair on top its head. Its skin was pale green, like you would expect. In its hands was a large club.

“Hello there,” I said. The troll just looked at me, didn’t say anything. But it had an odd on smile on its face. “May we cross your bridge?”

“No.” It still smiled at us.

“Please, sir,” I decided to tell him the situation, “We are trying to get to a castle, and the lives of everyone depend on it.”

“Ok.”

“So we can pass?”

“No.” I don’t know what was more annoying. The fact he wouldn’t let us pass, or it smiling with each answer. I was about to wipe the smirk from his face when WOW stepped forward. She started to try the same routine that she used on Larry.

“I like men,” said the troll. WOW walked back with a can’t believe that didn’t work look on her face as the rest of us laughed hysterically. The troll laughed too. If he was serious or not, I decided to keep a closer eye on HHB.

I looked at Chuckles. We went for our shades and pulled out our guns. The troll kept on smiling, even with two barrels aimed at him.

“If you don’t move, we will shoot you,” I said.

“He will move,” said Chuckles, only this time in his batman voice. He dropped his gun, and placed a round house kick to the troll’s chin. The troll gave a deep childish giggle and then swung his club. It nailed Chuckles upside the head, knocking him unconscious. Then returned to his previous position, still with that gay smile.

“As, I was saying, if you don’t move, I will shoot you in the face,” I said.

“Ok.”

“So you will move?”

“No.”

Having enough of his words, I went to pull the trigger, only I never got the chance. I really can’t tell you what happened. Something hit me in the back of the head, and it was moving fast enough to knock me out.