No matter how much they tried to prepare, it never felt like enough. There was always something that could go wrong, and when something could go wrong, it usually did. The boys loaded up Bill Jones’s truck with all of the necessary road trip supplies: deer jerky, light beer (they were driving, after all), pulled pork sandwiches with hot sauce coleslaw, and of course, enough firepower that a Yank* would think they might be terrorists.

  But even with good food, good friends, and a shit-ton of guns, Woodrow was ill at ease. His stomach churned thinking about confronting the Whirling Whimpus — not to mention the Not Deer that would more than likely be there too and itching to get their revenge.

  Meanwhile, Chuck and Bill Jones both spirits were higher than they’d been in months. Bill Jones whistled a little ditty as he tossed cases of ammunition into the truck bed, and Chuck couldn’t stop talking about how much he wanted a rematch with the Not Deer.

  “They got us good last time, but I’m ready for ‘em now,” Chuck said. “They ain’t gonna sneak up on me now that I got these.” He’d went to the Prick’s Sporting Goods the day before and bought himself a pair of thermal binoculars to help him see in the dark. “Now that I think about it, you probably shoulda just got yourself some of these instead of cuttin’ out your eyeballs like a damn lunatic.” He held them up to his face and looked through them at Woodrow despite the fact that it was sunny morning without a cloud in the sky.

  “Boy, how do you think you’re gonna shoot that big gun of yours while you’re holding a pair of binoculars up to your face?” Woodrow replied. “And these eyes give me a lot more ‘n shitty night vision.”

  “Yeah, yeah — a squirrel shittin’ a mile away, I remember. How’re you gonna shoot those big guns of yours that you spent so much on? Probably gonna snap your damn arm off the first time you try.”

  “Don’t matter if he does. He’ll be gettin’ some new ones soon anyway,” Bill Jones said. “Better ones.”

  Woodrow pictured himself with giant, hairy arms, sending bursts of wind at his enemies, spinning so fast that he was near invisible to the naked eye and grinding his enemies into sausage.

  The thought made the cramps in his stomach ease up a little.

  “Damn right,” he said before hopping into the passenger seat. “Let’s get a move on. The Whimpus ain’t gonna kill itself.”

  “Shit, I sure hope not,” Chuck replied. He made Woodrow scoot to the middle seat and sat beside him. Why anyone thought it was a good idea for him to sit in the middle when he was the heaviest one of the three by about fifty pounds, he would never know, but he was too busy daydreaming to argue.

  Not only did visions of turning the Emperor into a smooth pink paste excite him, the thought of hunting down a beast as formidable as the Whirling Whimpus was almost just as tantalizing. Tracking it, stalking it, pouncing on it and killing it — just thinking about it made his heart flutter. Anxiety tried its damndest to creep back into his mind, but as long as he kept that image in his head, it couldn’t get a hold of him.

  Bill Jones climbed into the driver’s seat and put the key in the ignition. Electric guitars and twangy wailing blared from the truck’s speakers. He stomped on the gas and shot down the road with the windows down.

  “Let’s go kill us a motherfucking Whimpus!”

  Their excitement died down about five minutes after they passed through the first town.

  Woodrow groaned as soon as he saw the sign welcoming them to Mount Airy. “Did we really have to go this way? There was no other route?” he asked.

  It was common knowledge that Mount Airy was an odd sort of place, to put it nicely. Long ago, before the Revolution, it was supposedly a nice little country town nestled into the mountains. But the Emperor had turned the entire town to rubble — the entire town except for a bronze statue of a man walking with his son and holding a fishing pole. The man was a TV star in his day, and, being a Mount Airy native, was their biggest claim to fame. When the survivors saw that the statue was all that remained of their town, they didn’t believe that it was an accident. There was something special about that statue and about the man the statue depicted. They loved, revered, worshipped that statue, and as Mount Airy rose from the ashes, the Cult of Andy Griffith rose with it.

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  Most people avoided the place like the plague.

  “Goin’ around would’ve taken an extra hour-and-a-half,” Bill Jones said. “Besides, they’re nice people, I reckon. Just a little odd.”

  They bobbed up and down in their seats as they rode through the crater-covered Main Street. Austere shacks lined the road, and people stopped what they were doing and waved at them with big toothy smiles as they passed.

  “More ‘n just a little,” Chuck muttered. “I heard they won’t let you leave town until you pay your respects to Andy and little Opie.”

  “Nonsense. They’re just people who have a bit of a rough go at things.” But when one cheerful resident took a step closer to the truck, Bill Jones hit the gas to avoid him and hit every pothole on the way to the intersection.

  Shacks were built directly on the road so that they had no choice but to take a right turn and go deeper into town.

  “Shit, we should’ve just plowed through that pile of plywood and been on our merry way,” Chuck said.

  “Will you shut up?” Bill Jones snapped. They reached another intersection and it was the same story; all paths were blocked except for the one that brought you closer to the statue. The boys rode in silence as they passed person after person with matching bright eyes and waxy smiles. They scouted the area for any sort of exits, but there were none.

  In their eagerness to find a way out, they weren’t paying attention to the road and hit a particularly deep crater that sent the bumper colliding with the asphalt. When they got back on flat land, the truck leaned to the right.

  “Shit,” Woodrow said. “Looks like we got a flat.”

  “Of fuckin’ course we did,” Chuck replied.

  “Calm down, it’s alright. I got a spare,” Bill Jones said.

  They pulled over onto the curb and reluctantly got out of the truck. Not two seconds later, three men came trundling towards them. They were gaunt, hollow-cheeked and haggard — and the happiest men Woodrow had ever seen in his life.

  “My, would you look at that!” one of the men said. He had greasy red-brown hair that was stuck to his head on one side and jutted out wildly on the other. “Need a hand?”

  The other man was much younger, with thin blond hair and baby fat still in his cheeks. He stood close behind the older gentleman and stared deeply into Woodrow’s eyes, but didn’t say a word.

  “Nah, I think the three of us can manage to change a tire,” Woodrow replied. “Thanks, though.”

  “What? Nonsense! The next town ain’t for another twenty miles on mountain roads. You can’t drive all the way there on a spare! Lucky for you, I’m a mechanic. Gomer Griffith, at your service. And this is my son Goober.” He shook Woodrow’s hand with such gusto that his whole arm wiggled, then did the same for Chuck and Bill Jones. He slapped the boy on the back; he jumped like he’d been woken up from a nap and stepped up to do the same. Their niceties were met with icy stares.

  “Really, I think we can manage,” Woodrow insisted, but the gaunt man would not relent.

  “C’mon, my shop’s right over yonder. We’ll fix you up in a jiffy,” he pressed. “Just follow me. But drive slow, now.”

  Woodrow turned to the boys and whispered.

  “Ya know, he’s probably right. It ain’t safe to drive on a spare through these roads.”

  “We’ll go slow,” Chuck whispered back. Bill Jones jacked the car up to put the spare on and didn’t respond.

  “He’s been nothin’ but nice to us,” Woodrow said. Chuck looked at him like he was stupid.

  “…and if there’s any funny business we can put a hole in his chest.”

  “Now you’re makin’ some sense.” The corner of Chuck’s mouth twitched. “Alright, fine. You’re right. Probably not a good idea to drive all that way on a donut.”

  Bill Jones finished putting the spare tire on and stood up. Chuck looked at him and lifted his shirt to reveal the Glock he had tucked in his waistband.

  “Let’s go to the nice man’s shop,” he smiled.

  The boys sat in a mildewy wooden box with a single light bulb that hung naked from the ceiling and swung back and forth, creaking each time it changed direction. The air in the room felt like recycled breath, and the single window on the far wall only let in enough light to remind them that the outside world was still there. All three of them stared at the door with bated breath, praying that the gaunt man would hurry up and change the tire so they could leave. Woodrow checked his watch, then checked it again. Either the old thing was busted or it had genuinely only been ten minutes since they sat down; he wasn’t sure which.

  Gomer swung the door open and made the boys jump out of their seats.

  “Whelp, it’s a bit worse than we thought. Axle’s busted pretty darn bad,” he said while shaking his head. “Gonna take me the rest of the day and about half of tomorrow to fix ‘er up. We can take the parts off a junker we got layin’ around here, so I won’t bill you out of house and home or nothin’. Gonna have to find a place to stay the night though.”

  The boys exchanged glances.

  “Y’all got any rental cars around here?” Chuck asked. Gomer put his hand on his stomach and laughed.

  “Sir, we ain’t got many vehicles around here period, to tell you the truth. I spend most of my days fixin’ the same cars. No rentals around here, and I don’t imagine anyone’s gonna be willing to sell you their car any time soon, unless you pay out the rear end for it.”

  “Can I just see the truck?” Bill Jones asked. “It couldn’t have been busted that bad. I—”

  “But lucky for y’all, it’s Fife Day!” Gomer interrupted. “Won’t be sittin’ here bored at least. Why don’t y’all head on out to the statue. Everyone’s gonna be there soon. It’ll be a hoot!”

  He put on that waxy smile again and sent shivers down Woodrow’s spine.

  “Well?” Chuck whispered out of the corner of his mouth and flicked his head down towards his gun.

  Woodrow thought about it for a second.

  “Ya know, Gomer, we’d be happier than pigs in shit to join your celebration. Lead the way.”

  The gaunt man beamed as if he was just told Andy Griffith himself was going to be in attendance.