“Gleebie simia kranio,” Noach whooped as he loped around in circles. Stoddard tried to make sense of the non sequitur as the room erupted in laughter. ‘Punk’ Mike was there along with Glen Aludo, Brojoe, and Miss Warchalder.
“Ferĉevalo! Ferĉevalo!” someone began chanting and all joined in.
“You have wheels, Ian,” a loud Glen barked at Stoddard. “Let’s do it!”
And so the gang hopped in the Citation and took the Verdurbo road south through the night.
Around midnight, the car pulled off the road to a quiet pasture in the middle of nowhere. The boisterous group leapt through the cornstalk rows hooting like animals as Stoddard stood eyeing the silhouette of the colossus against the moonless starry sky.
Noach and Mike clambered atop the sculpture as the rest of the plastered posse cavorted around in a paganish frenzy.
‘Might be fun if I was in their state of mind’ Stoddard thought but otherwise stared silently in wry amusement.
“Let’s get outta here,” someone muttered once the adrenaline wore off. And with that they piled back into the car and were off into the night.
The crew wandered the dark country roads aimlessly until someone piped up, “I think there’s an old covered bridge down that way — take a right.” The Citation tooled down the forested lane until its headlamps lit up the yawning entrance of an old timber-truss bridge. They passed through it.
“Kinda creepy,” Miss Warchalder said looking over her shoulder. They continued on until the road narrowed and the paving ended in a two-track dirt trail. The vehicle pulled to a stop.
“Look! Can you see that light?” someone in the back seat pointed. Through the pitch black a faint amber glow stood at some distance behind the trees.
“Does someone live back there?” Noach asked.
“This is even more creepy,” Warchalder whispered. “Let’s split.”
There was no place for a U-turn so Stoddard had to manoeuvre the Citation with a five-point turn without toppling off the shoulderless road. The chemically altered state of the passengers fueled a near-panic: “Let’s go!”
“Alright, alright, I got it,” reassured Stoddard as they made their way out of the woods and across the farmland back towards town.
A few days later Glen approached Stoddard at the XCS station.
“Hey, remember the creepy lights in the woods we saw?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Elmore from Pod 7C says occult activities go on out there around some millhouse or something.”
“Really?” Stoddard raised his brow sceptically.
“He’s in the theological programme. He wouldn’t be taking the piss over something like this.”
Stoddard silently weighed the claim.
“Good thing you had a sober babysitter then, right?”
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