Read The Measure of Temperance (The Adventures of Ichabod Temperance Book 6) Online
Authors: Ichabod Temperance
The Measure of Temperance (The Adventures of Ichabod Temperance Book 6) (14 page)
Chateau Sku Le’Bizarre
“Well I must say, Skullzy baby, this is a pretty sweet spread you have here. This expansive wood framed plantation manor is so light and airy it looks like its white washed walls are but a cloud that could blow away in the coastal breeze.”
“Hah, hah, hah, oui, Cross, I am pleased with my fine house. I picked it up cheap after I did away with its previous tenants. It is a satisfying thing to stroll about the porch that encircles the entire manor.”
“Very classy Mr. Sku Le’Bizarre, yes, indeed. I knew I wanted you for a client the moment I set eyes on you. ‘Howie,’ I says to myself, that man needs a lawyer. I am gratified to see my impression of you to be validated. This is a first rate operation, Skullzy baby.”
“Of course, Lawyer Cross, I told you so. You have done well in my employ as Financial Overseer. These many months while I have been cruelly imprisoned in that disgusting, cramped, Los Angelos jail cell, you have shown much competence in the marketing and distribution of my rum.”
“That’s right, S.L.B., why with my legal and management expertise, I’ll make enough wampum to where you and I could go retire to our own private island. Hey, wait, we are already on your own private island. That’s okay with me! The more money the better. You’re sitting on a gold mine here, big guy!”
“Hah, hah, hah. Oui, my wealth and power grow by the day now that I am out of confinement. Notice if you will as we stroll around the four sides of the house, the unending fields of sugar cane extending to distant mountain ranges.”
“The air is filled with a dichotomy of scents, boss. I feel as if two snacking urges are being represented at once in the saltiness of the sea air and the sweet smell of sugar cane as it is being thrashed from its raw essence.”
“Hah, hah, hah. They are both tempting, are they not?”
“I’ll say. It’s a good thing you have this endless staff of dead people walking around to serve your every whim and manage these fields and the accompanying plants. To tell the truth, they kind of creeped me out a little at first, but after awhile, you get used to the ‘life-challenged’ populace. The one thing that does give me the ever-loving heebie-jeebies though, is the occasional earth tremor and intermittent belch of flame and fiery, gooey lava from that over-shadowing volcanoe. Why,
I
may be endangered by such a calamity!”
“Hah, hah, hah! Queen Tempestia is eager to consume her sacrifice! I shall awaken the slumbering dead from around the world to do my bidding and have my revenge on that traitorous holy man, Reverend Dolomite.”
“Ah, yeah, listen Sku Le’Bizarre, about this murder plan. I would appreciate it if you could keep that end of operations to yourself so that I can maintain ‘plausible deniability’.”
“Ah-
No!-
Ah! I do not like the sound of this plan! I say to you, Howard C. Cross and VooDoo Mystique, Sku Le’Bizarre, turn me loose-ah! I have no wish to be a part of your diabolical plots! Hallelujah! Eee-
Yes!
-Ah.”
“Be silent you fool! I shall make you pay dearly for having defied my plans, Reverend Dolomite! Every day and night of my horrible confinement, I dreamed of the torments and vengeance I would heap upon you. The
‘Great Awakening’
that your sacrifice will instigate will help to undo that injustice.”
“Vengeance shall be Mine, sayeth the Lord and I’m with him! Eee-
Yes!
-Ah. You won’t get away with your foul deeds, Sku Le’Bizarre!”
“Hah! Oh, but I will. Have Reverend Dolomite sit down, Slave Smith.”
“I don’t need any help from this outgrown Okie cop you have under your mystic hypnotism... woah! Okay! I’m sitting down already! Back off Smith, don’t you remember me? We used to almost be friends.”
“My zombie slave formerly known as Officer Keefer Smith does not remember you, Dolomite. He is my VooDoo entranced puppet now! He is under orders to never be more than arms’ length away from you. There is no escape for you, Dolomite. My coptic constable will snatch you up before you can take a step.”
“Well, if I’m really stuck, then how about sharing one of those pineapple mugged pina coladas with a doomed man of the cloth.”
“No problem, Alonzo, baby. I was just about to order a refill for myself. Hey, Skullzy, how about ordering one of the silent but deadly help to mix us up a fresh round of island libation, including ‘the Rev’?”
“Oui, I am in a good mood; make it so! Ahhh, to bask in the flickering light of an excited Queen Tempestia, to inhale the smell of the crops, and enjoy the low moan of miserable, tormented zombie slaves gladdens my cruel heart.”
“It is good to be back on the Island of San Monique!”
Rhumme
Chop-chop, rumble-rumble,
skrunch-skrunch, gurgle-gurgle
chop-chop, rumble-rumble,
skrunch-skrunch, gurgle-gurgle
“...pull, pull...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...through factory door...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...across the floor...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...our march does slow...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...and waugons, hough...”
“...waugons, hough...”
“...unload waugons...”
“...unload waugons...”
“...pull waugons...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...pull, pull...”
“...pull, pull...”
Chop-chop, rumble-rumble,
skrunch-skrunch, gurgle-gurgle
chop-chop, rumble-rumble,
skrunch-skrunch, gurgle-gurgle
“I say, I think we are alone, my friends. Let us quietly exit our barrels. If one of you gentlemen would mind assisting me, eh, hem? … I say again, eh, hem?”
“’ey! Somebody come gets me outta ’dis bloody barrel!”
“I say, gentlemen, please answer! Kit, Mr. Temperance, Officer O’Hagan, Are you still in our general vicinity?”
“’ey, Oye don’t hear the boys. That’s it, Oye’m getting outta here! Me shapely and powerful gams have yet to fail me. All right, girls, it’s time to liberate momma. Mollusks! Oi! Oye did it! Oye’ve gotten leggy with the keggy and kicked meself free!”
“I say, well, I am not about to be outdone by this Piccadilly Phillie. My ‘Gung Foo’ trained legs and educated feet shall soon free me from my uncooperative cooperage coop. Wah-Hai-Ee
yiaw
! And
‘At you!’
Yes, there, very good. I say, now that we have each kicked our respective casque to broken staves and hollow hoops and are free of our barrels, let us take stock of ourselves, situation and surroundings, eh, hem?”
Chop-chop, rumble-rumble,
skrunch-skrunch, gurgle-gurgle
chop-chop, rumble-rumble,
skrunch-skrunch, gurgle-gurgle
“Open your eyes you aristocratic buhd brain, we’re in the rum factory, ain’t we?”
“Quite so, Miss Froust. The many pillars and posts of the high ceilinged ramshackle facility provide ready cover that we may investigate the extensive operations without observation nor hindrance from her low-pay, high output employees.”
“Wot’s all the ‘chop, chop’ business Oye hear, eh? It’s coming from over here. Oye’ll just sneak up from behoind this pile of sacks. Eek! It’s a huge room full of the demonic devils! They’re in the throws of a berserker rage and killing frenzy!”
“My word, you are right, Miss Froust! To an extent, in any case. More than a hundred of the unfortunately stricken with life, dead individuals are hacking away with their machetes. The objects of their bloodlust, though, are stalks of sugar cane. These brutes are chopping the produce into little pieces.”
“Well then, Persephone Plumefartt, Oye can see what the ‘rumble, rumble’ is. It’s the turning treadmills of endless conveyor belts. Hundreds and hundreds of cloth belts on spindles convey their rolling energy to other spindles and yet more lengthy spinning cloth belts. These treadmill conveyors are carrying the chopped up stalks to this super ultra jumbo sized extended clothes wringer, only instead of wringing water from clothes, this machine is squeezing and crushing the juice out of the chopped up cane wiff a disconcerting ‘skrunch, skrunch’ accompanying sound. The rollers of this wringer are also turned by means of belt conveyed energies. Oye wouldn’t want to gets me finguhs caught in those terrible flattening rollers. What’s that sound o’ falling rainwater coming from? Oh, it’s the product of all this squeezin’ being gathered in these great wooden funnels wots feeds inta dis pot below.”
“I say, what a peculiar green hue these vast vats of gooey sugar juice have. Let us maintain our stealth as we follow our industrious guides to the next part of the process. Good show. Nothing is allowed to go to waste as the depleted stalks are now used as fuel to fire the great pots, that bring our juices to a suitable boil, eh, hem? This then, it would seem is our ‘gurgle, gurgle’, as it were. Yes, eh, hem.”
“What are these fiends doing wiff these bubblin’ pits o’ pitch? You could tar the hull of a thousand ships wiff all this gloop!”
“Perhaps I can gain a sample of a cooler section of this potent pudding. Mmm, yes, as I suspected; molasses. The process of boiling and distilling of the blackstrap eventually yields the product of ‘pyrate drink’, or, rhumme.”
“Oye guess that’s wot all these boiler furnaces are about den, eh? Generating steam to run the vapors through these twirley copper tubings.”
“Yes, Miss Froust, all the energies are being driven in that one primary focus. There is no steam being diverted for the purpose of turning our spindles, belts, conveyors, and most importantly, the wringer rollers of implacable pulverization.”
“Oye thinks there’s a engine of some kind in the center of the building, wots animates the trolleys throughout the works. Oye can hears it as it toils in its inhuman labour. That’s funny, Oye don’t smell any fires or hear a hiss of steam from this area. Oye don’t thinks this motorvator is fueled by cane or coal. What brute force could drive this energetic production?”
“Let us continue to take care as not to be seen as we look into that question. My word, look there! A three level, slave driven, capstan perpetually turns under the straining efforts of a hundred zombie slaves! A central beam is pierced by many perpendicular logs. These are each lined with many condemned souls, laboring as beasts of burden. Their unceasing efforts turn dozens of spindled belts that in turn connect to dozens more.”
“The constant thud of their doomed footfalls match the cadence of their melancholy duhge.”
“...push..
thud. thud. thud.
“...push...”
thud. thud. thud.
“...push...”
thud. thud. thud.
“...push...”
thud. thud. thud.
“...push...”
thud. thud. thud.
“...we are accursed...”
thud. thud.
“...with eternal walk...”
thud. thud.
“...our will has burst...”
thud. thud.
“...minds turned to chalk...”
thud. thud.
“...this endless wheel...”
thud. thud.
“...perpetual motion...”
thud. thud.
“...we've lost our zeal...”
thud. thud.
“...oblivion ocean...”
thud. thud.
“...no journeys end...”
thud. thud.
“...we march on and on...”
thud. thud.
“...our backs do bend...”
thud. thud.
“...until we're gone...”
thud. thud.
“...push...”
thud. thud. thud.
“...push...”
thud. thud. thud.
“...push...”
thud. thud. thud.
“...push...”
thud. thud. thud.
“...push...”
thud. thud. thud.
. .
.
“What a deplorable situation we have discovered, Miss Froust. This is obviously an operation of evil. I cannot sit idly by and not work to save these poor wretches from their miserable torments.”
“Oye’m wiff ya’s on that, sistuh. This ain’t roight, but Oye’m not keen on the idea of having to get along wiff a blue-blooded blowhard loikes you to remedy this terrible situation.”
“Eh, hem, yes, well, let’s not go and get hasty, now, shall we, for it is equally difficult for myself to envision enlisting assistance from you. Fortune, it would seem, has deemed to thrust the two of us together in common circumstances, and cooperation may, no matter how distasteful, be necessary. However, I am curious to know the disposition of our male companions before we proceed with our own tentative, temporary, entwined task team, Miss Froust.”
“Oh, Oye ain’t worried about that lot none, whoi, they’re prob...”
“Mon Dieu, Sacre Bleu and Lafayette too! To what do my disbelieving eyes are the appearings? Two white women? You have no business here!
Seize
them!”