Free Brass Monkeys by Terry Caszatt Page A

with, “Cut it out, Frank.”
    “You stupid kid, I’m not Frank,” he hissed in my ear. “It’s me, Webster. I’m not going to hurt you, but we’ve got visitors coming this way who will. So shut up.”
    He leaned around and the outside light revealed his green cap and the bushy gray beard that framed his iron-gray eyes. There was a wild look to them, but also something so urgent and truthful that I stopped struggling.
    He took his hand away from my mouth and yanked me down behind a stack of boxes. “What’s the matter with you?” he rasped out angrily. “Why were you kicking and screeching like that? I told you I’d be looking you up tonight.”
    “Whaat?” I stammered out. I tried to twist around to see him better.
    “Sit still,” he rasped out. “If they spot us, we’re dead ducks.” He pulled out his sword and laid the blade across my shoulder. I could see the sharp edge and it sure wasn’t plastic.
    I could hear clearly the jing jing jing of bells now, and I was struck by the fact that they sounded like the bells in the “March” we’d played at school.
    “Those stupid bells,” snorted my companion. “They think the sound scares their quarry, but I’ve got news for them.”
    Guttural voices floated in on the wind.
    “Listen to ‘em jabber,” said Webster. “I’ve been leading them all over town, and the Stormies hate it when they lose the hunt.”
    “Stormies?” I said.
    “Storm Teachers,” he snapped. “Just like I explained in my letters. The worst of the worst.” He laughed in a low, crazy way. “People think bad teachers retire and play shuffleboard in Florida. Not hardly! Mingley hires them all!”
    “Mingley? You mean my Eng—?”
    “Shhh!” Webster grabbed my arm in a painful grip. The guttural voices and the jingling bells drew closer, then suddenly ceased. For a few seconds all I could hear was the wind. Then with a high chinkling of bells, a column of figures lurched by the garage window. I counted six of them. They had on flowing black cloaks with small silver bells sewn to the fringes. I couldn’t see their faces clearly because they were looking toward the house, but their gray hair certainly caught my attention. Each figure wore a crazy, swirled hairdo as if the stormy wind had combed it, but it was the last detail that really made my eyes widen: the wicked-looking, curved swords they carried.
    A few tense seconds ticked away and the bells faded into the distance. I expelled my breath. Webster gave me a crack-brained smile.
    “Scary aren’t they? Wait until you see them up close.”
    “What are they, zombies or something?”
    “Zombies? They’re not zombies! They’re humans! It’s just the way they look after thirty years of being bad teachers, working in bad schools with bad administrators, and then getting a final dose of
her.”
    He yanked me up and dragged me toward his bike. “All that poison and hate for the kids is right there in their faces. Real pretty characters. And now, since you’ve accepted the mission, they’ll be after you.” He chuckled as if this were the funniest joke in the world. “What’s worse, old Mingley will be after you.”
    “Okay, hold it,” I said. I was in a total daze. “I think we need to talk.”
    “Talk?” He barked out a laugh. “Way too late for that, sonny. Just hold the light and stop whining.” He snapped on a flashlight and handed it to me. Then he bent over the suitcase, undid the clasps, and began rummaging through what looked like dirty laundry. At this point I could have made a run for it, but I was so dumbfounded, I just stood there holding the flashlight.
    He began tossing clothes left and right and grumbling. “What a generation! I explained everything in the letters, and what’s the first thing you blat out? ‘We need to talk.’ That takes the cake!”
    Some red long johns went flying past me. “I went over and over it,” he continued, “right down to the smallest detail. I told you how