Chapter 4: Dingdang Cobblywobber Hee Haw

(December 27, 2015)

Whatever the source of the weird sound, it spurred on both the sheep and the goat—they came trotting up to Wendy and Dipper, passed them, and Mabel ran puffing behind them. "What's that?" she asked, her voice panicky.

"Maybe a killbilly," Dipper said. "Can you herd Gompers to the car?"

"I don't think I can stop them!"

Dipper and Wendy let Mabel get ahead of them. Gompers and his sheep companion were already down the trail, and they all hurried to catch up.

They made it to the car a lot faster than they had hiked to the mountain. Wendy opened the back door on the driver's side. "Get 'em inside the car!" she said.

From closer than before came the bizarre laugh, plus a strange gibbering: "Dingdang! Cobblywobber! Reet toot! Aw haw!" The voice rasped Dipper's nerves, a high, screechy sound like fingernails on a blackboard.

"I thought they didn't come out in the daytime," Dipper said.

Wendy had her axe ready. "Man, I didn't think so, either! But that sure sounds like one!"

"Get—ugh—in!" Mabel urged. Gompers set his hoofs firmly and locked his knees, refusing to budge. Mabel tried but failed to pick him up. "Guys!" she said, "I don't think he'll get inside unless the sheep's there first! And she's scared of the car!"

"Hang on," Dipper said. "I think I know how to coax her in. Can you hold onto the sheep?"

Mabel put her arms around the pygbig's neck. "She's trembling so hard! She's scared out of her wits!"

Dipper was dragging Gompers around to the far side of the Dodge Dart. "I don't think sheep have wits," he panted. Holding onto Gompers's stubby left horn with his right hand, he opened the far-side rear door with his left. "Look, Gompers! There's your girlfriend!"

Gompers tried to shake loose, but Dipper held on and forced the goat's head around to make him stare across the back seat at the far door, where Mabel held onto the sheep. Finally, Gompers did glimpse his beloved.

And at the same instant, the sheep saw him. Gompers scrambled into the back seat of the car, trying to reach the sheep of his dreams, but Dipper held onto his rear hoofs. "See—if—she'll—go to him!" Dipper said, grunting with effort.

"Yeehaw goshagolly!" Now the creature was very close, somewhere in the underbrush.

The sheep, seeing Gompers ahead and hearing the killbilly behind, climbed into the car, and Mabel slammed the door behind her. Dipper let go of Gompers's legs and yelled, "Everybody, get in!" He slammed the rear door as the goat and sheep nuzzled each other and bleated.

Mabel tore open the driver's door and clambered into the middle of the front seat. Dipper opened the passenger door and said, "Wendy, go!"

She didn't even look around—she had crouched, axe ready, just in front of the left headlight. "You first—it's too close!"

Dipper closed the door and ran round to the front of the car. "I won't leave you out here alone!"

Wendy was tense, breathing hard. "Sweet, dude, but I got the axe!"

"I don't care!"

From inside the car, Mabel wailed, "Guys!"

"Shh!" Wendy said.

Dipper heard it, very close—slaps and stamps, the unmistakable sound of hamboning.

"I see it!" Dipper shouted. "There it is! It's—wearing overalls?"

"They steal 'em," Wendy said. "Out in the country, no clothesline is safe!"

The killbilly looked nearly human but at the same time, not at all human. It had a crazed scrunched, wrinkled yellow monkey-face above a scraggly beard that resembled the Spanish moss Dipper remembered from the time his parents had taken the twins to Orlando, Florida—gray-green, rotted-looking, tangled.

The beard looked like that, but messier. The creature was not just skinny, but emaciated, the forelimbs—arms, Dipper supposed—looking like rawhide wrapped around bones. The feet were huge and flappy, the big toe separate from the others, almost like you see on a gorilla foot. Yellow-brown toenails curved over the ends of the toes, ending in sharp points.

"Gah!" Wendy said. "I can smell it from here!"

The killbilly stopped slapping itself. "Garnsnoggle pashoo winchamuck!"

Dipper nearly gaggled on the foul odor. "Is it talking?"

"Think it's just sounds, like a turkey makes. Don't know if they have a language. What's it doing?"

"I think it's trying to find a way to get at us."

The creature edged out of the woods and sidestepped. Its gait was as inhuman as its looks—with arms out at its sides, elbows bent, long bony fingers pointed down at the ground, it swung its bony knees and then slapped its big feet down hard. The feet were filthy, caked with mud and crossed with fresh and old scars.

Dipper, standing beside Wendy, started to slap his chest and knees.

"Dude!" Wendy said between her clenched teeth.

"Trying to hambone," Dipper said.

"What are you telling it?"

"No idea! But maybe it'll understand we mean it no harm."

The creature's deep-set eyes glared at them. It kept up a low chuckling sound. Then it began to growl and snarl, and strings of gooey pale-green saliva drooled down into its beard. Its breath was even worse than its body odor.

"Back to back!" Wendy said. "It may be distracting us. Could be more behind us!"

Dipper pressed against her, his anxious eyes scanning the edge of the woods. "Don't see any."

"Might be a bluff—look out!"

"Yeehaw!"

Wendy jerked Dipper down just in time. The killbilly had leaped, launching itself in an impossibly high arc, and overshooting the two teens, it hit the hood of the Dart. Wendy rolled to her feet and swung the axe. Dipper got up a half-second after her—

"Yeehee! Haw!"

The killbilly had caught Wendy's axe just below the head, and the two tugged hard, fighting for it. With a grunt, Wendy leaned back, levering the axe handle, and forced the killbilly off the car hood—but it seemed to have greater strength than even the lumberjack girl, and as it leaped down, it wrenched the axe out of her hands and swung it.

Backward. It held onto the head and swung the handle. Wendy turned with the blow, but the butt of the handle hit her on the side of her hip.

"Hey!" Dipper yelled. "That's my girl!"

He charged. Despite the stench, he grappled with the killbilly. It snapped the heavy axe handle in two and dropped the pieces. Grinning with horrible snaggle teeth through its beard, it turned on him and seized Dipper in a crushing grip. He couldn't breathe—

"Hah!" Wendy delivered a flying kick to the thing's head, which produced a dull sound, like a watermelon being dropped from forty-two feet in the air and striking a slumbering hippo right between the ears. Its head lolled to the side, and Dipper kneed it where, if it had been human, the blow would have hurt.

Instead it snarled and hurled him away, evidently identifying Wendy as the greater threat. Dipper crashed into the passenger door of the Dodge Dart hard, the breath whooshing out of his lungs. He fell half-stunned to the ground.

The killbilly, gibbering, sidestepped, seemingly looking for an opening. Wendy was on her feet, crouched in a defensive position. "Get in the car, Dipper!"

"No," he croaked, pushing himself to his knees. He got up and stumbled toward the thing's back, thinking If I can get a chokehold—

Without even looking around, it backhanded him, striking him hard across the chest, knocking him to the ground again. He saw spinning lights and fought not to lose consciousness.

At the same moment, Wendy crouched and kicked, sweeping its legs from under it. The killbilly hit, rolled right over Dipper, and sprang up, roaring, spreading its arms.

And then something went thunk!

Dipper, dazed, saw the thing's eyes cross. It seemed to smile and dreamily muttered, "Dingdang cobblywobber hee haw," and then it fell backward.

"Now get into the car!" Wendy screamed, yanking him to his feet, dragging him to the car, wrenching the door open, and throwing him into the front seat. She grabbed something from the ground, leaped over the hood, and got into the driver's seat, slamming the door so hard the car shook. Wendy reached across Mabel. "Hold this!"

Dipper discovered he was gripping the axe head and a few inches of the broken handle. "What happened?"

"Roll up your window!" Mabel yelled. "Grappling hook, Brobro!"

The killbilly was stirring, rubbing the back of its head. Wendy turned the key in the ignition, and the engine caught at once. Dipper frantically wound the window up. The Dodge Dart tore dirt and grass loose as it spun in a tight turn. "Look out!" Wendy yelled.

The killbilly was on its feet again and swiped at them, like a bullfighter thrusting a lance at the charging bull. Its hook-fingered hand smashed the windshield on Wendy's side, cracking it in a spiderweb pattern. Wendy didn't slow down, but sped up.

In the back seat, Gompers and his sheep friend were bleating. Mabel turned backward to look past them and out the rear window. "Go, go, go!" she said. "It's still coming!"

"Seatbelt, Dip!" Wendy yelled.

"Oh, yeah. Thank you, Wendy," Dipper said from somewhere in his private daze. "Sweet of you."

"Yeah, well, hang on, this is gonna be rough!"

The Dart bucketed along. Then they reached the paved road and screeched in a tight turn. The engine roared. Dipper said mildly, "I think you're speeding."

"Damn straight," Wendy said. "Eighty. I think that's about six times as fast as a killbilly can run!"

They didn't slow until they had gone four miles, and then Wendy asked, "Everybody all right?"

"I think so," Dipper muttered, starting to emerge from his mental fog. "My chest hurts. Bruised, I think."

"You got a black eye, too," Mabel said. "Wendy, how're you?"

"I'm a little scratched up, but mainly mad. That was my favorite axe!"

"I got part of it," Dipper said, holding up the head.

"Yeah, thanks," Wendy said. "I can carve a new handle. Shoot, I had my car all beautiful. Now I gotta replace the windshield, and I think there's about three dents I'll have to take out of the side door and the hood!"

"I'm sorry I slammed into the door," Dipper said.

Wendy's voice took on an edge of concern: "Dude, are you OK?"

"Been better," he admitted.

Mabel had been looking backward again. "The important thing," she said, "the really important thing—is that Gompers and his girlfriend are fine."