The Three Door Dodge

Not familiar with the Coffee legend, Nathan was confused.  He protested, “Ain’t nobody near.”

Wheaty glowered at Nathan.  “Shut your mouth and don’t touch stuff.”  Turning, his heart skipped a beat at seeing Joe’s movement.  “Stop!”

“Huh?”

“That stove, don’t you see?”

“So?” Joe readied to take a step.

“Dumb skull, look at it!”  Crash!

The stove popped its near legs through the floor the instant Joe stepped toward it.  The chimney pipe went clattering down behind the stove and chunks of black soot and chimney debris plopped into the room.  The stove was a big cast iron range and its weight had carried it through the kitchen floor boards, resting its bottom on the joists.  Besides the soot flopped atop it, they could see a coffee pot that had just overturned, spilling grounds and revealing a blackened interior.  A kettle, a frying pan, and a griddle were also atop.  Some varmint had chewed at the contents, yet dark brittle clinging fragments remained.  A stirring spoon and a fork and flapjack turner were poking from under the soot.  Some one had left right during meal preparation?  “How could this be?” Wheaty breathed.

“They left in a hurry.”

“Yes, never came back?” 

But, had they?  Nathan felt the chill then, right along with the others.  “May . . . be, uh, m . . .aybe.”  They backed from the kitchen.  Turning, they started down the hall.  Their backs felt icy yet Wheaty stopped with his hand on the door in the hallway.  They grouped around him, their eyes huge.

The door opened with no squeak.  A stairway led upwards.  Cautious, they treaded a step.  They looked ahead, they were gripping each other.  Another step up and THEY SAW HIM!

They knew only terror.  They never knew by what route they exited the house.  They ran and ran, sandburs no barrier, until they dived into Nathan’s tool shed.  They sat, saying nothing, their eyes huge, their mouths gaped, their foreheads furrowed.  Their minds held stubbornly to only him, that horrible him in the stairway, that thing indelible.

Misty gray stuff hung all over him.  It hung especially from his hat in front, hiding most of his face except for eyes that were deep sunken black holes! 

Clinking began to arouse them.  Clinking?

“What the?”  Nathan shifted his weight and dragged out his gunny, amazed to see his few bottles inside.  They’d dragged them from near the foundations of yesterday’s Ellington without knowing it.  The event of the bottles lacked explanation yet familiarity dragged them back to reality.  They stood up.

“Time to eat,” Joe said.

“Yes.  Well, uh, well, let’s meet at Joe’s after lunch.”

“Sure, let’s go trade them in.”

“Pop and gum.”

“Yeah.”

The boys each wandered off on their solitary missions, each with a load of digestion to do; and each one knew they’d just begun to unravel some of Ellington’s history.

The phantom was so startled that he nearly back flipped, but held rigid.  The flash of sunlight on the glass of a pair of binoculars had alerted Jack Armstrong in a recent episode and Jack had know just where and how to apprehend the felon.  Not so for Joe. “Momma, hurry, come out!  Hurry!  Come out!” 

The phantom heard that yell from where he crouched behind the bush.  Suddenly the bush was too small.&nbs