What a cool day this was going to be! Mom, Dad, Ronnie, and Daisy—'how gay is that, naming my sister after Pap Pap’s hereditary bee bee gun!'—were all at the gay church. Billy had been left behind by virtue of the fact that he intentionally aged a spoonful of mayonnaise for three days and then ate it on Friday, which gave him actual mud butt on Saturday, and left him with a residual excuse to stay home from church today. This was just his ploy to go play war with the teenagers today. Church was for the birds; Sunday was for football and playing war!

Not everything was cool though. Little Billy Thomas was not called ‘Little’ for nothing. At ten years old he was four foot one and fifty-eight pounds. What was more, while all of the other war players had actual air rifles, he just had a Daisy spring-action bee bee gun. War was a free-for-all with no teams. Each war player armored up and met at the bridge beneath the pavilion at Double Rock Park. Billy began envisioning the lot draw and the dispersal, then stopped himself—‘That comes when it comes. It’s time to arm up.’

He darted down into the garage to Pap Pap’s old army footlocker, where all of his cool war gear was kept. He loaded his Daisy with 100 rounds of brass bee bees, checked the lever action, taped two 100 round reload canisters to the gun butt, and then pumped off three rounds into his prissy sister’s old doll house; another round taking Ken center of mass.

‘When she tries to sell that faɡɡot doll to get money to pay some guy to marry her, he will weigh five pounds he’ll have so many bee bees in his belly.’

He put on Mom’s cream-colored leather jacket that she used to wear when she was young and hot, and stupid like Daisy. This fit him big and baggy and would stop rounds coming down range. He slid on his football pants with pads. Then he pulled on Ronnie’s jeans that he had gotten too fat for. He had cut the jeans off so they fell to the ankle, just above his cleats. Cleats were going to be his big mobility advantage. The teenagers just wore sneakers.

He looked into the mirror that Mom used to check on how fat she was getting before she went out—like her inspection. Billy used the mirror for his pre-war inspection every time. He was so happy that Arnnie Mays, the war organizer, had moved this special session of war from Saturday morning to late Sunday morning. The lots were to be drawn at noon, and the war would begin!

He wore Dad’s old canvas work gloves, with the fingers duct-taped rather than cut out. Finally, there was Ronnie’s old paintball mask that he used to wear at the paintball range before he turned into a big faɡɡot and started dating girls. It was going to be hot in all of this, running around for hours, so he strapped on Pap Pap’s old web gear, took the empty canteen out and poured two bottles of Pap Pap’s Ensure that he had not finished before dying, and strapped that puppy on.

The pouch that balanced out the canteen had Billy’s M-80 grenades, made by layering loose bee bees between two strips of duct tape, and then wrapping those strips around the quarter-stick of dynamite. These were his secret weapon against all of those big teens; a weapon he was saving for the final battle of the war season, when the victor would gain the right to assume command at Piss Palace!

‘Those teenagers are getting old. Soon pretty girls like Daisy will be distracting them and making them weak—and I will swoop in and conquer their big butts!’

There was only one thing left to do: well three actually…

Billy stood before the open footlocker, which would remain open until he returned. If he did not return, actually slain in war, it awaited his body. He had a note taped to the bottom under his retired Shazam Cuddle-buddy, indicating that Pap Pap’s footlocker would be his coffin. Pap Pap’s photo from Vietnam, posing with the bodies of the Vietcong he had shot behind the latrine with Jackson Mason, looked out upon Little Billy Thomas—approvingly he thought. Billy saluted, grabbed the remote to the ‘War Cave’ which is what he had renamed the garage that otherwise housed all of his gay family’s gay stuff, and charged out into the world, screaming “War!”

They stood above the bridge across the five foot stream, downhill from the pavilion. There was only four of them, with no one else in sight: Billy with his underpowered Daisy bee bee gun, War Commander Arnnie Mays with his 760.Crossman pump-action classic; that big fatso Boone Swanson with his compressed air single shot air rifle; and tall lanky Barry Severs with his classic Red Rider bee bee gun.

This was not a big turnout. Only half the war fighters had come. Barry Said, “Hey Arnnie, where is Noll, Liam, and Josh?”

Arnnie meant to speak but seemed to be preoccupied about something up in the trees, so Billy spoke up from beneath his mask [the older boys only wore goggles], “They are cowards, afraid of the final battle!”

The teens all looked down at him and laughed. Then Boone said, “You know Little Billy, you scare me sometimes.”

They all laughed to that, but Billy glared, making a mental note to cut out Boone from the pack first.

Arnnie held out the lots and Billy drew short, which meant he had to head off first. He saluted, and ran off as they gave their calls. He bolted down the path as quickly as possible. As soon as he was out of sight he sprinted uphill under cover to the bathrooms, knowing that fatso Boone would be up there destroying the stall. He was famous for going up there to poop. Only sometimes it wasn’t to poop, as Josh had found out when he stalked up the hill with plans of hosing him down in the stall, only to have Boone pick him off with his famous air rifle. Billy got around back and steadied his breathing.

Soon he heard Boone trudging uphill with Arnnie and Barry laughing down below. The door opened and shut. He could hear Arnnie heading off next, down the streambed toward Piss Palace, three miles distant. He pressed his ear to the block and heard the stall door shut and the wall vibrate when that big fatso sat down. He waited for Barry’s ‘last call’ which the last man who drew had to give out to signal the official beginning of the war. He gave Barry some time to get clear, and then crept around front.

He then eased the door open and crept in. To his astonishment Boone knew, “That must be you, you little shit! Barely let any light in. Here, this is for you!”

Boone then fired off the most grotesque mud butt salvo of war play history, and Billy was never so glad to have his paintball mask on.

Boone then made an ‘ah’ sound and said, “I’m goin’ to shatter that mask with a pellet and then use your Mom’s jacket to wipe my butt!”

‘Oh no he didn’t! Mom might be a ditz, but she is still my Mom!’

Billy cocked his lever so that Boone would suspect a shot. He then reached into his pouch and pulled out his liter—well he had stolen it from Daisy, but she wasn’t supposed to smoke anyhow—and an M-80 grenade. He also decided to break out his tear gas weapon: the Raid room defogger that he had duct-taped up and signed with red marker, ‘sarin-ar-a mo-fo’.

He let off the fogger and threw it under the stall, its poison gas hissing out and Boone screaming curses. He then lit his M-80 grenade, held it until the last instant, and slid it under the stall as Boone stood up, so he would take some bee bees in the balls, not just the ankles.

The explosion echoed throughout the bathroom.

“You little evil bastard—my balls! My balls!”

Billy left the enemy to be finished off by his ‘sarin’ gas device and darted out into the war zone, on the hunt!

As he headed downhill he heard a bee bee ricochet off of his butt stock and saw Barry to the left, uphill, in ambush. He ducked low, afraid to pop up for a shot here, and lose the battle in the first leg. He reached for another M-80 grenade, hoping he could heft it far enough. He pulled out his liter and then heard a skitter. When he looked up he saw this intelligent looking grasshopper, a huge grasshopper, like from dinosaur times, regarding him from the bush branch just in front of his face.

He pointed his gun and blew that big gross thing to ‘Kingdom Come’ as Pap Pap used to say. He levered another round into the spring chamber and returned to his grenade. He lit the grenade and through caution to the wind, as he could hear Barry coughing uphill. He was dodge-running uphill before the grenade even exploded.

The grenade punched a hole in the silent Sunday air.

He screamed his battle cry and came over the hill between the tree and the trash can and there was Barry limping off with his gun, the smell of cordite in the air, and some bug latched on to Barry’s leg. Barry was paying no attention to Billy, and was just using his gun to swat at the bug as he limped off. Barry had also not called himself out, so, according to War Play Clause 16, it was Billy’s duty to take the shot. He put a bee bee right in the back of Barry’s neck and the fifteen-year-old fell face first into the turf, just past first base.

Instead of trying to get up Barry was coughing, and turned to waive Billy away—waived him back into the woods. He then started swatting at a spricket dancing about his head and screamed, “Get to Piss Palace—tell Arnnie what happened—go!”

Billy saluted his fallen foe and knew now what he had to do; skirt the woods and run flat out to cut off Arnnie. Billy could never beat Arnnie to Piss Palace without a lead, so he was going to sprint across the table land up here and let the War Commander toil along the path below in the woods, wary for ambush. Billy raised his gun in victory as he ran off, leaving Barry behind with his cough and the bee bees in his legs, swatting that pesky out-of-season bug.

‘What a badass story he will have to tell when we meet back here.’

Billy ran, climbed, waded, leaped, rock-hopped, log-ran, tucked and rolled and hopped from tree to tree, without a sign of Arnnie. Eventually he made it to Piss Palace, the hallowed War Play Hangout where only winners and runner-ups were allowed to meet after the battle, and where only the winner, the new War Commander, could piss in the pool of green water that spilled into the slimy culvert that ran beneath the next big road ahead. He was still only ten and was not real good with roads. But it occurred to him that his family crossed this big road in the minivan every Sunday when they went to church—and that he was being spared that gay preacher poop for the day.

He just knew he had beat Arnnie here, so stepped out above the water to survey the site for an ambush, “Crack!”

He felt a stinging in his head where a pellet from Arnnie’s 7.60 Crossman smacked him in the side of the head, getting right through the reversed baseball cap he wore under his mask. Billy was pissed, “Arrrrrgggggghhhhhh!”

Annie was now standing proudly on the other side of the Piss Pool, pushing his goggles back on top of his ball cap, “Good run kid. We all figured Boone would murder you in the shitter.”

Billy was still so mad his ears were ringing. He did not reply, just nodded and saluted. Arnnie then set aside his weapon, and whipped out his big teenage wiener and began to consecrate next year’s War Play Reign, with a conciliatory speech, “Don’t worry kid some day you will be the best. I won’t be able to do this forever. Next year I start college.”

Billy nodded reluctantly and then Arnnie’s face lit up in horror as something—one of the sprickets—landed on his wiener. The thing seemed to latch onto the teen’s organ with two hind claws, as it’s foreclaws waived hideously and it leaned back, exposing some kind of whirling needle aiming into…, “Oh gross!”

Arnnie was frozen in terror as Billy did what only a war player could do, shoot. He calmly drew a bead on the bug, wishing he had lifted Boone’s sniper air rifle, and squeezed off a bee bee. Arnnie and he both followed the path of the bee bee, as it moved that slow. The bee bee sailed for the spricket in an arc and blasted off its butt end.

Arnnie gave a lock of shocked relief, and then to their horror, the nasty thumb-sized bug dragged itself up into Arnnie’s wiener and the teen screamed to the sky above, out of which dropped numerous sprickets into his mouth.

Sprickets were dropping left and right and, even as Arnnie threw himself into the pool in a desperate attempt to drown himself and his attackers, Billy was hopping and popping, blasting sprickets at point-blank range like Pap Pap in the Iron Triangle. He did not neglect the butt stroke either, but smashed many a little foe with it.

He was working his way up the hill, ready to break through the trees, to the grass and the road above, when he spared one final look for Arnnie, who was now just floating into the base of the drainage tunnel. He then caught a glimpse of Arnnie’s prized weapon laying on the far bank—‘Oh heck yeah!’

Billy sprinted around the top of the drainage tunnel so fast that he did not fall in despite being almost perpendicular with the concrete bound stream below.

‘Cleats rock!’

He stomped, smashed and shot a swarm of spickets to pieces and then shoulder slung his Daisy spring action. He pumped the Crossman up 15 times, enough for a sniper shot, but not too much to blow the seals, and then darted for the road above.

He could hear the rumble of enemy armor above—just knew this was War of the Worlds. He hand-loaded a dart into the breach: the same kind of dart that Arnnie had used to hunt crows. He then scurried uphill, ready to take up a firing position and pick off enemy tank commanders popping their heads out of the turrets.

He got to the top and used the guardrail for a firing rest and—‘Darn, it’s just a bus.’

Then to his left he noticed a pickup truck with some Mexican people in it racing past the on ramp and then, and then, some douche-bag on a crotch rocket came off the interstate doing about a hundred and ripped through the cab of the truck. The bike and the truck tumbled off the other side of the road and Billy was already on it, sprinting across the road in the wake of the bus.

‘These sprickets are attacking people. I should at least get over there and pick off some sprickets as they attack the wounded.’

Billy made it to the other side of the road just as the bus stopped to his right and he heard someone get off and begin to yell. He was now kneeling behind the other guardrail, on the roadside, and looking at a scene of horror. This Mexican lady, with nothing to cover her boobies, had a head in her hands and was screaming at a spricket that was perched on her nose, about ready to stick her with its whirling needle.

He took a deep breath and let it out. As he did he squeezed the trigger and darted that sucker!

No sooner had he made the shot then he was charging the crash site. The lady was now looking at the head in her hands, screaming, and throwing it away, and another spricket landed on her head, and one on her arm, and more all around. He dropped the Crossman, un slung the lever action, and just hosed down the enemy. Little wings, and arms, and claws, and needles, and weird-shaped eyes, and scales were flying everywhere.

He shoved the lady’s head into the grass and spun to meet the onrushing footsteps as he cocked and leveled his weapon, “Woah son wooah—cease fire!”

It was a big muscleman in a nurse’s outfit and a doctor mask. He could hear the bus and see it as it backed up. Then the man was just tossing the lady over his shoulder like she was a stuffed animal, “Come on kid, cover me—to the bus.”

Billy had trouble keeping up with the man even though he was carrying a screaming adult. As they hit the guardrail a bunch of sprickets landed there to bar their path and Billy cut them down like Pap Pap popping Charlies in Nam. A spricket then landed on Billy’s breathing port and the man’s hand darted out and crushed it.

The man ran around the front of the bus with Billy backing up behind him laying down fire—not really hitting anything, just looking like the war fighter for the people on the bus. When he got to the door it closed behind him as a semi-circle of sprickets landed in front of him. He then recalled Pap Pap’s favorite show and went all ‘Rifleman’ on these nasty bugs, shooting and levering as one, testing that old spring to the max, hosing down the enemy!

He was then lifting off his feet and flying back into a bus where people screamed. The man had grabbed him by his collar and was checking him for sprickets, commenting to a bigheaded black man toward the back, “A new species Tweet. They are adapting, so we will adapt!”

‘Cool, it’s not a game anymore, but a real war; an alien invasion slobber-knocker gross-out mad-blasting war!’

Billy saluted, and realized with a chill that he had dropped his Crossman—Arnnie’s Crossman. Then he saw that the man had picked it up along with the lady, “Billy Thomas reporting for duty Sir: a Spricket War Veteran—at least fifty kills Sir.”

The Mexican lady was whimpering in some big fat lady’s arms, and an old black man who was driving the bus was saluting him, “Welcome aboard Billy Thomas, we could use the help. This here is Mister Jackie Spam, our rescuer. Talk to Miss Betty back there for your assignment.”

The man nodded, indicating the old fat lady, and the bus jerked to a start and they were off, on the biggest, baddest, best adventure a boy could even dream up.

To be continued with Into the Hood: First Contact #12