Bubba and the Curse of the Boogity Read online

  Bubba and the Curse

  of the Boogity-Boo

  By C.L. Bevill

  Published by C.L. Bevill LLC

  Copyright ©2018 by Caren L. Bevill

  Bubba and the Curse of the Boogity-Boo is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The order of the Bubba

  mystery series is as follows:

  Book #1: Bubba and the Dead Woman

  Book #2: Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas

  Book #3: Bubba and the Missing Woman

  Book #3.5: Brownie and the Dame

  Book #4: Bubba and the Mysterious Murder Note

  Book #4.5: The Ransom of Brownie

  Book #5: Bubba and the Zigzaggery Zombies

  Book #6: Bubba and the Ten Little Loonies

  Book #7: Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness

  Book #8: Bubba and the Curious Cadaver

  Book #9: Bubba and the Curse of the Boogity-Boo

  Ideally, they should be read in order or bad things might happen, for example you could try to open a can of coke and the tab breaks off leaving you thirsty and endlessly frustrated. Or maybe you’ll get a MoonPie and it won’t have any marshmallow in it because it was a Wednesday when it was made and they forgot to put it in. Then you’ll want marshmallow but you won’t have it, and you’ll be horribly unfulfilled. That’s what not reading the Bubba series in order is probably like. Just saying.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Other Novels by C.L. Bevill

  Dedication

  In memory of two good women.

  Avelie Boudreaux Laws

  1948 – 2018

  and

  Nancy Musgrave Routen Whitney

  1937 – 2018

  Rest in peace.

  Prologue

  The Curse of the Boogity-Boo

  Previous to the events of the novel…

  “When the moon is as plum-full as a pregnant lady on her way to the hospital, and she’s ready to pop, then it’s time for the Boogity-Boo to come out a-creepin’,” the man said in a voice that foretold of the tall tale to come. The man’s name was Lloyd Goshorn, and he lived in Pegramville, Texas. Sometimes he was the town drunk, but that was a title heavily disputed by Newt Durley, another local resident with many a stint in both jail and recovery center alike. (Newt’s challenge to the town drunk title was specifically related to his family’s operation of a still in Sturgis Woods and the fact that Newt attempted to drink away the profits from the illegal venture on a daily basis.) Other times Lloyd was a fairly competent handyman, which also had robust competition by various peoples in the town because steady work wasn’t falling off the trees like apples in a strong breeze. Regardless of his other titles, Lloyd was a gossip. He adored a good gossiping and gave as good as he got. Sometimes he even added details that weren’t accurate. Sometimes he even lied. On many a sultry evening at the Dew Drop Inn, he was known to tell a good story in exchange for a mug of the cheapest beer available. (Even Newt couldn’t vie with that, as he was wont to repeatedly tell the story of the time a corpse fell on top of him from the heavens. Since Pegramville was a place where corpses were liable to turn up frequently of late, no one was overly impressed, and hearing the same story for the fifth time on the same evening got tremendously boring.)

  On this precise humid evening at the very same previously mentioned inn where the dew and drop abounded, Lloyd had found himself a good mark for scoring free drinks. She was a good-looking woman in her fifties cradling a bottle of Midori in one arm and reclining halfway across the bar on the other. She sprawled drunkenly as she listened to him speak of fiends, mankind, and cadavers that had been located by Bubba Snoddy, furthermore, she was particularly intrigued by Lloyd’s latest story.

  “Boogity-Boo,” she repeated. “I think I need to hear about that one.” She turned to her companion on her left side and grumbled, “Anything to get my mind off my dead freakin’ husband.”

  “Marquita,” the man murmured warningly. He was in his fifties, too, with a receding hairline and very similar brown eyes.

  “Risley,” Marquita said back in very much the same tone of voice. She took a pull of the Midori and placed the bottle on the bar before her, considering its green apple color.

  “Marquita,” Lloyd repeated thoughtfully. “I heard that name before.”

  Marquita passed the bottle of Midori to Lloyd, and Lloyd looked at the green liqueur suspiciously. “That be alcohol, right?”

  “That be alcohol,” Marquita agreed. “You drink some and then tell me about the Boogity-Boo.”

  A man to Lloyd’s right said, “Marquita is the wife of that fella, Kristoph Thaddeus, who got killed on that movie set. Think she done took over the whole kit and caboodle. Mebe she’ll hire you to play a drunken zombie.” Guffaws followed in quick response to the mental image of Lloyd playing an inebriated member of the walking dead.

  Lloyd cast a quick eye upon Marquita as if to see if he could identify her for rumor’s sake. However, the lure of liquor overpowered him, and he went for the Midori instead. He simply spilled three fingers worth into an empty beer mug and didn’t notice half a dozen people visibly wincing as the green liqueur mixed with the remnants of a brown lager.

  “Stabbed to death,” Risley said.

  “By Bubba Snoddy,” someone else said.

  “I don’t believe Bubba would stab no one to death,” someone else said. Then another voice said, “But his mama, Miz Demetrice, would. I hear tell she once kilt her husband by stabbing a thousand ice picks into him. At the same time.”

  “How do you stab a thousand ice picks into someone at the same time?”

  “I hear Miz D filleted her husband with meat hooks that she got from the butcher shop. Old rusty ones. Took hours to cut him into pieces a sushi chef would have been jealous over.”

  “No, she strapped him to the end of a bazooka and fired it. Supposedly it belonged to some Snoddy who brought it back from WWII in his ruck sack.”

  “Weren’t piranhas imported and put into that koi pond for that very purpose?”

  “Have you seen the koi in that pond?”

  “Ifin there were piranhas, then the koi prolly ate them.”

  “Boogity-Boo,” Marquita said in a clear effort to redirect the errant conversation then firmly grasped the bottle of Midori. She brought it up to her lips and was ready for another pull when Risley touched her arm.

  “Careful, sweetie,” Risley cautioned. “You’re going to be barfing green stuff up for the next three days at the rate you’re going.”

  Marquita very deliberately took a long drink from the bottle all while staring at Risley in a very rebellious manner. She slammed the bot
tle down on the bar and said again, “Boogity-Boo.”

  Lloyd nodded and began his torrid tale of things that go bump in the night. “On the night of the full moon, the Boogity-Boo comes a-creeping. Folks ain’t for shore ifin the Boo is a fella gone wild or an animal gone spooky. He’s seven feet tall and covered with dark hair from head to toe. He’s got long claws and longer teeth that will scare the ghost out of a haunted house. He blends in with the brush and the thickets, and a fella could be standing next to him without seeing him until he wants you to see him. He ain’t really a man, you see, but a monster in the flesh…”

  “Does the Boo eat anyone?” Marquita asked. “If there’s a monster, it’s got to be the kind that eats people. Or just cuts them open for the hell of it.”

  Lloyd shushed Marquita. He was in the midst of a tall tale and did not wish interruption.

  “Folks have gone out to the Foggy Mountain wilderness, and they ain’t never been seen again,” he said and pulled a pack of Marlboros from his shirt pocket. He tapped two cigarettes out and offered one to Marquita, who took it. He used a battered Bic lighter to light both, and they smoked while everyone in the bar quietly waited.

  “In fact, one night in 1996 the Hovious family was at their house on Foggy Mountain. The next day Old Man Hovious was dead and so was his wife and their six children. And no one knows what happened.”

  “The Boo,” someone whispered. “The Boo got them.”

  “They say the Boo comes out on the full moon and looks for folks too dumb to be inside and behind locked doors, and the good Lord knows, there be lots of dumb folks in Pegram County.” His eyes wrinkled as he considered what he had just said. “It’s a wonder more peoples aren’t missing.”

  Marquita puffed on her cigarette and paused to take another hit off the bottle of Midori.

  “Old Man Hovious was a warlock, you see. An old one from an old family that dabbled in deals with Satan hisself, and he knew what he was doin’ when he came to settle on Foggy Mountain,” Lloyd said. “He built that house on top in that very place and kept building on it with money no one done knew where he got it. It had ten bedrooms and a ballroom and they say there’s tunnels into the mountain, too, so he could escape from the threat of witch hunters.”

  Someone made a disbelieving noise. “Old Man Hovious thought a communist horde was going to invade, so he bought that place from a hippie commune and made himself some bomb shelters. It had ten bedrooms because they had twenty or thirty folks living up there.” The voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “They used to run around necked. My daddy used to tell me about it. That’s why he had those binoculars in the back seat.”

  “No naysayers,” Lloyd interrupted. “Chillen disappeared the summer of ‘98. So did animals. Also, some mannequins from the department store.”

  “‘96,” someone corrected him, “and you took the mannequins. In fact, they’re still in front of your shack.”

  “Not in my version,” Lloyd muttered. “When the chillen disappeared, a mob formed fueled by rage and heartbreak.”

  “What are…chillen?” Risley asked.

  “Children,” Marquita answered. She took another tug of the Midori and wiped a green drip away from her chin.

  “So, with pitchforks and torches, the mob advanced on Foggy Mountain,” Lloyd went on as if no one had said a word. “It was a dangerous time. Folks were angry and scared. They knew Old Man Hovious was up to no-goodnik on Foggy Mountain. Blood sacrifices and spell casting and definitely some cheating on his income taxes, too.” His voice lowered to a brief whisper. “He used to claim ten chillen on his taxes, don’t you know.” He coughed and went on, “It was frightenin’ and folks were ready to jump like a mule done kicked them on their sit-upons.”

  Risley chuckled. “I love this town!” Marquita looked at him sharply and he frowned, adding, “Except the whole dead Kristoph thing, of course.”

  “Knowing that death was coming for him and his own, Old Man Hovious cast a spell, a supreme terrible spell that brought the very earth to life in the form of…the Boogity-Boo,” Lloyd trailed off to take a deep drink of the Midori in his beer mug and then he stuck his cigarette in the corner of his mouth as he swallowed. “The old man said he would have his revenge ifin they came up the hill to threaten him and his own. They wouldn’t be happy ever again, and they would always be lookin’ over their shoulders in case something large and tall came creepin’ up behind them.” He paused for a good ten seconds and then added, “It was the curse of the Boogity-Boo.”

  “The curse of the Boogity-Boo,” someone whispered and then there was an echo. “Boo.” “Boo.” “Boo.”

  “Stop that echoing,” Lloyd said shortly. “You’re killing my buzz.” He cleared his throat and looked at his mark. Marquita was enthralled, and that was just as Lloyd wanted her to be. Let the flow of free alcohol continue unabated.

  “Old Man Hovious had an ancient witch’s grimoire, the grimmest grimoire that was ever, well, grimmed, and was passed down in his family ever since they came over from wherever it was that they came.” Lloyd turned slightly and pointed with his beer mug. Greenish-brown liquid sloshed. It was a shame there wasn’t a spotlight in the inn so that he could have the proper moment in the limelight. “He said the words and sacrificed his own family for it. Six chillen and two dogs. One cat. Three goldfish. Mebe a pygmy hamster. Also a chicken. I think one of the goats got away and was found three miles away with all its fur white, and it had been a black goat before that.” He shook his head. “Anyway, Old Man Hovious did them all in, and no one knows how the deed was done because when they was found, it was as if they had just fallen over in their tracks. No stab wounds. No choking bruises. No signs of poison. Just dead. D-E-A-D.”

  Lloyd paused for effect because he couldn’t not pause for effect. A toddler would have paused for effect. A rock, even, would have gone silent, although a rock was probably already silent.

  “And Old Man Hovious was torn asunder,” he went on in a sonorous voice. “Fifty-seven pieces of him on every corner of the property. FIFTY-SEVEN! They say the psychedelic bus that was left there will never be the same on account of all the blood that was spilled on it.”

  “Wait, didn’t he say Old Man Hovious built it, not the hippies? So why was there a psychedelic bus?”

  “Shh.”

  “And when the mob showed up, ready to string Old Man Hovious up by his gonads, they found the remains, and no one could say what really happened except one lone ranch hand who muttered the words the very first time. He said the Boogity-Boo had come. Old Man Hovious had created the monster from the dust of the earth and from the bones of his victims, and the monster had wreaked havoc. He came on the full moon and brought deadity-dead deadness with him.” There was another dramatic pause and then came, “Ain’t no one sees the Boo and lives to tell the story.”

  “Didn’t the ranch hand live?” asked someone. “Wait, was it a commune or was it a ranch?”

  “And if folks don’t live after seeing the Boo, then how do they keep telling the story?”

  “The Boo leaves one person alive to tell the story,” Lloyd added quickly, “so that folks will know of him. The Boo is tied to the ground where the blood was spilt, and he cain’t leave there, so he waits for people to forget about him and come exploring.”

  “If he wants folks to forget, then why does he leave one alive?” someone asked.

  “The Boo is borne of magic and black soullessness,” Lloyd said, “and who kin say what his intent is or isn’t. All I knows is that I won’t go up on Foggy Mountain, not for a million billion gazillion dollars, because that curse is still about, and a man would have to be a fool to try to poke a grizzly bear in the family jewels and stand there asking why no one was laughing.”

  Marquita took a long drink of Midori and passed the bottle back to Lloyd who emptied it into the beer mug and shook it just to make certain it was empty.

  “The curse of the Boogity-Boo,” Marquita said. “Sounds like a horror movie,
doesn’t it?”

  “Sounds like a recipe for disaster,” Risley said ominously.

  “Maybe both,” Marquita said and laughed uproariously.

  Chapter 1

  Bubba and the Curse of the

  Lack of a Certain Something

  Bubba Snoddy wasn’t happy. It was a state of being to which folks in Pegram County could relate because of its frequency of late. Bubba = unhappy = everyone is unhappy = the world might be unhappy, too. It wasn’t that Bubba was mad at people or that he was angry at anything in particular. It was that he was unhappy. His unhappiness was a black cloud that flowed over the landscape and immersed everyone in it. “This is the last place on my list before I’m going to the Super Walmart,” he announced with a distinctly sour tone.

  “Surely not,” said Herbert Longboom, owner and proprietor of the local five-and-dime store. “Don’t even say that. I hate people who go to the Super Walmart. Super Walmart ain’t done us a lick of good. All these folks drive up there and skip here and I got things marked at ninety-nine cents. I’m goin’ to go out of bizness on account of folks goin’ to Super Walmart. Those people in Arkansas are all billionaires because of peoples goin’ to Super Walmart. I wish I could open a Super Walmart.”

  “I went to the BuyMeQuik,” Bubba said prosaically, “and alls they got is Blue Bell and some other kind that sounds like it’s from central Asia.” He made a face. “I cain’t even pronounce the name even ifin I wanted to try.”

  “Hmm, did you try—”

  “The Flying W Truck Stop and Grocery Store, but Mrs. Peabody ain’t pleased to see me on account of all those gov’ment people setting up shop in her parking lot a few months ago,” Bubba said and rubbed his chin.

  Bubba glanced in the mirror that was centered on the wall behind the appliance he stood in front of and considered his appearance. He was still six four in his stocking feet, and his hair was dark brown. His eyes were blue, the same cornflower blue as his mother’s. Normally he weighed in at a solid two forty, but he was confident that weight had dropped off him like a bird depositing a smelly load on a statue’s head. Those cornflower blue eyes had some black rings around them and not in an emo teenager’s facial makeup kind of way. He was tired and he was worried and he was not happy and it all showed in his reflection. “Why in the name of peaches and cream do you have a mirror behind the freezer?”