This story was written as part of GWP2, where we had to include 10 things: a broken down car; a stick; Cheez-its; a muddy boot; Trixie's favorite musical group or performer; a cat; fog; a camera; a phone call with just breathing on the line; and a shrunken head with a curse. This story has a mild reference to sexuality. And now, the Time-Life Book Series presents--
The Curse of Naibob
By Diann
Trixie pressed the button to light the luminescent dial on her watch and groaned when she saw it was only midnight. Two more hours until Honey shows up to relieve me, Trixie thought, shifting her weight for the millionth time in the last four hours trying to get some feeling to return to her legs and backside.
This surveillance stuff is booorrrring, but I guess it pays the bills. Trixie thought about her tuition for next quarter. Trixie picked up the binoculars from her lap and looked once again at the shack deep in Wiseman's Forest out Highway 114 north of Sleepyside. Still no activity. She had maneuvered her old but serviceable Jeep Wrangler down an old logging road to get to this vantage point. She still wasn’t quite sure how she was going to get out.
She still had difficulty believing that the Sleepyside Police Department had actually called upon her--Miss Trixie stay-out-of-it-and-let-the-police -handle-it Belden--to help them out. Well, Detective Jon Stephens hasn't been here that long and maybe he didn't tell Chief Molinson who he had contracted with to help out while Detective McGriff was out on sick leave, Trixie thought.
Nonetheless, here she was on the temporary payroll of the Sleepyside Police Department, watching some shack in the middle of the woods for an escapee from Sing Sing Prison.
Trixie needed to log her surveillance notes and turned on her Mini-Maglite flashlight to find her notebook and pencil. She turned to lay down the binoculars and was horrified at the garbage dump that was once the passenger side of the Jeep. An empty Cheez-its box, wadded up napkins, three empty Pepsi cans, a torn cellophane wrapper partially covering three petrified powdered donuts, the carryout box from Chris's Diner that contained some very potent-smelling leftovers of a bean burrito and guacamole salad, and a large Styrofoam cup that still had a few drops of French Vanilla coffee lurking in the bottom.
Speaking of which, Trixie thought, eyeing the Port-a-Jane lying in the floorboard. She hated those things but it was sometimes better than baring one's backside in the dark woods with poison ivy and escaped convicts lurking nearby.
Trixie dug underneath the garbage mound on the seat and retrieved the camera with its infrared telephoto lens and her cell phone--just in case something exciting should happen.
She sighed and leaned over to get the Port-a-Jane. A tap-tap-tapping on her window made Trixie's heart stop. She jerked around and her flashlight illuminated the face of a ghastly looking woman staring in at her--gray matted hair down to her shoulder blades; sunken, black-rimmed eyes; tattered black dress. The woman threw back her head and let out a high-shrilled cackle that gave Trixie's triple-decker goosebumps. Trixie was frozen in horror as the woman raised her arm and swung a shrunken head back and forth. The woman grinned evilly and chanted at Trixie:
The curse of Naibob now you carry
The next man you see you'll love and marry
Is it Larry, is it Gary or is it Harry?
Run, girl, run and don't you tarry!With that, the woman howled and seemed to be sucked back into the treeline, where she totally disappeared. As she flew backwards, Trixie could see that she had a boot on one foot and just a sock on the other.
"Whoa, tha-tha-that's just too much for me to ha-handle!" Trixie stuttered out loud in a trembling voice. She turned the ignition key and, when the Jeep fired, she threw it into reverse. She turned the wheel to the right and stomped the gas, simultaneously praying that no tree was in her path. Fortunately all Trixie mowed down was a stand of bushes choked with blackberry vines. She mashed the brake, jerked the gearshift into Drive, and accelerated out of her hiding place.
The road she had so carefully crept down a few hours earlier now just flew under the Jeep's tires. She hit a hole in the dirt path, which sent her head crashing into the roof and then sitting her hard back down on the seat. "EE-yow!" Trixie shrieked, as she fought to keep control of the nearly airborne Jeep.
She didn't slow down as she hit the pavement of Highway 114. The Jeep rode on its two right tires as Trixie came off the dirt road and pointed her black steed toward Sleepyside. She was trying to calm down by telling herself that it was just some old crone trying to protect her moonshine still, that the hag being sucked back into the woods was just her eyes playing tricks on her.
"Oh, no, it wasn't!" the scary side of Trixie said.
"Oh, come on, you wimp. There's no such thing as a curse," the brave side mockingly replied.
Shut up, both of you, Trixie thought. She drove with her left hand while her right hand reached gingerly for the cell phone, hoping it didn't find some unidentifiable goo first. "Better be safe than sorry." She punched in Jim's phone number. As she waited for it to ring, a strange glowing fog spread across the road and the specter of the witch-woman drifted in front of her, giving off its shrill cackle.
"Yeah? Hello?" a voice thick with sleep answered.
"Jim! Jim! It's Trixie!" she screamed over the airwaves.
The urgency in Trixie's voice bolted Jim upright. "Trixie! What is it? Are you hurt?"
"You've got to meet me right away, Jim. You've got to be the one! Meet me in the parking lot of the high school. Hurry!" With that she clicked off the phone and continued to drive like a mad woman toward town.
Jim jumped up and grabbed his jeans off the top of his dresser. He stopped with one leg in and the other poised in mid-air. "I've got to be the one? One what? Guess I'll find out soon enough."
Trixie reached the north end of town where Highway 114 merged with Main Street. She glanced down at the speedometer and saw the needle hovering over 70 mph. Thank goodness this is an early-to-bed town!
When she looked back up from the dash, Trixie saw in terror that a broken down car was parked on the side of the road with its rear end sticking out into her lane. Trixie swerved to the left, just barely avoiding a collision but sending the Jeep into a spin. Trixie maintained her composure and control of the Jeep and soon had it righted and speeding toward the center of town.
"Oh no!" cried Trixie as she saw the tail end of black trench coat disappearing into the bushes in the park. She closed her eyes to avoid looking at anything that could possibly be a man. In doing so, she buzzed right through the red light in the heart of town. At the next intersection, the Jeep slid through the turn onto the street that led down to the high school. The flashing blue light in her rearview mirror spelled trouble with a capital M -- "Molinson! Oh geez!"
The police chief's car came flying up behind Trixie, blue lights spinning dizzily and the siren blaring its warning. Molinson laid down on his horn when Trixie began to pick up more speed.
"Has that girl gone stark raving mad?" Molinson yelled to no one in particular. He picked up the mike to radio for Officer Johnson to come back him up. Officer Johnson was patrolling around the school when the call came in.
"Yes, sir! I see you coming up the road! I'll head her off!" the rookie officer excitedly barked into his radio.
Officer Johnson flipped on his lights and siren and came at Trixie from the opposite end. He cut in front of her, forcing her to turn hard to the right and bump up over the curb. Trixie clipped the edge of the school bus bench, drove over the bicycle rack, and across the wet grass. Her Jeep came to a sliding halt just a few feet from the school's front entrance. Molinson roared up beside her, braking hard to avoid an explosive crash. He leaped out of his car and was at her door in a flash.
Chief Molinson yanked open her door and yelled at a very dazed Trixie, "Are you insane? Do you know you could have killed yourself, not to mention me and whatever innocent citizens you might have mowed down along the way?!"
In the meantime Jim had arrived on the scene just in time to see Trixie's speeding Jeep being cut off at the pass. He jumped out of his truck and sprinted across the schoolyard. He arrived just in time to see Trixie bat her eyes at the Chief, run her finger around his ear, and coo, "Oh, Wendell, darling. You saved me, you gorgeous hunk of cop, you."
It was Molinson's turn to look dazed. She has flipped out for real, he thought to himself. He heard a snicker over his right shoulder and saw Johnson standing there. "Get back on patrol, Johnson," he growled at the rookie.
"Yes, sir!" Officer Johnson spun around and soon had his vehicle headed back toward town.
"What's going on here? Trixie, Chief, what are you doing?" another male voice from the opposite direction demanded.
Molinson looked and saw Jim. He tried to push Trixie away to keep her from slobbering all over his neck.
"What's wrong with this crazy dame, Jim?" the Chief said, exasperated with Trixie and her wandering hands.
"I don't know, Chief. I got an urgent call from Trixie saying I had to be the one and she needed me to meet her here right away. I got here as fast as I could."
"That you were the one what?" inquired Molinson, as Trixie gazed at him, repeating over and over 'Trixie Molinson, Mrs. Wendell Molinson.'
Jim eyed Trixie and the Chief suspiciously. "It looks like you've got some explaining to do to me. You know Trixie's always been my special girl and now she's all over you."
"I think she's gone nuts, Jim. She drove through town doing at least 70 and bolted right through the red light. We had to use Johnson's car as a roadblock to get her to stop. Now she's acting like some, some sex kitten!" he spewed, horrified as he heard Trixie murmur in his ear, 'I want you, you stud.' "Look, I'm willing to forget her Jeff Gordon imitation through town if you will just take her off my hands and get her straightened out!"
Jim reached in and pulled Trixie out of her Jeep. He watched with a combination of horror and amazement as Trixie bent her head low and looked up with blue cat-eyes at the objection of her affection, which wasn't him. She seductively ran her hands up and down her thighs and slinked toward Molinson.
"Oh, no, you don't!" yelled Molinson as he ran to put his police cruiser in between himself and Lolita Belden, and Jim took hold of her arms to restrain her.
"Wendell! Wendell!" she shrieked. "This beastly man is hurting me!"
Molinson reached in and grabbed a pair of handcuffs from underneath the seat. He pulled the handcuff key out of the lock. He approached the wrestling duo warily and slipped the key into Jim's back pocket. He quickly stepped back. "Push her arms around to her back!"
With a great deal of effort, Jim finally got Trixie into position, somewhat smothering her desperate love cries with the front of his chest. Molinson snapped the cuffs on Trixie's wrists, keeping them as loose as possible without them falling off. Somehow he and Jim managed to get her into Jim's Ford Ranger and fasten the seatbelt securely around her. Through the closed doors they could still hear her declaring her undying love for Molinson.
The Chief just shook his head. "Jim, I wish you luck, old boy. She's not drunk, or at least there was no odor of it on her breath or in her car. I've never known Trixie to use drugs or be connected in a friendly way with anyone who does. You might want to take her to the emergency room or something." With that he patted Jim on the shoulder and gave him a sympathetic, but "boy, I'm glad this is your little problem now", look. He jumped in his car and drove off toward the Sleepyside Police Station.
Jim walked over to Trixie's Jeep to move it off the front steps of the school and into a parking place until someone could come get it. He was getting in when he noticed an object clinging to the luggage rack on top.
What is this? he thought as his hand closed over the article. He looked at it in surprise when he saw what it was. A muddy boot? Now where do you suppose this came from?
Jim sucked in his breath and looked at the sobbing Trixie. He didn't know what to think about her but knew that both of them needed help.
Jim managed to keep the Ranger on the road, keep one eye on Trixie, mentally steel himself from the thoughts of what might be happening, and dial Honey's number on his cell phone.
"Honey, it's Jim. I'm sorry to bother you at this hour but we've got a problem."
"Jim, for heaven's sake, it's almost 2:00 a.m. What's going on and what's that gosh-awful noise in the back?" Honey picked up on a couple of the words and was shocked. "Jim Frayne, have you been down to Olyfant's and picked up one of those women, "she spat out disdainfully.
"No, it's worse. Just meet me at Crabapple Farm. Thank goodness Mr. and Mrs. Belden have gone on vacation with Bobby. Call Mart and Brian and tell them we're on our way. Bring that bottle of painkillers Dr. Robinson gave you when you had that root canal done."
Mart and Honey looked on in horror as Jim and Brian managed to get two of the sedatives down a blubbering Trixie. The put her in Mr. Belden's recliner in the den.
"Wendell, I want my darling Wendell. Oh, pleeeezzzze!" Trixie cried plaintively. Soon the medication took effect. It was not a pretty sight. Trixie looked like a love-struck zombie from the City of the Undead. Moaning and mumbling Molinson's name over and over.
Honey, Mart and Brian listened as Jim recounted every crazy detail of the night's events. They were trying to decide what to do when they heard Trixie chanting.
"What is she saying?" Honey asked as they all moved cautiously toward Trixie.
"Naibobth's curthse, marry Harry, don't tarry," Trixie slobbered, repeating the phrase several times before her head lopped to the side.
"Naibobth's curthse?" repeated Mart. "What in the heck is that?"
"She slurring so much, I wonder if she's saying 'Naibob's curse,' whatever that is," Honey suggested.
"Naibob, Naibob, hmmmmm," Brian said thoughtfully. He perched on the arm of the sofa and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I've heard that. Oh!" With that he jumped up and ran out of the den. They heard him run up the stairs, dash back down and back into the den, triumphantly holding a book aloft.
"This is my text book from the Myths and Legends of the Hudson River Valley course I took last year. Look here in the index is a listing for Naibob." He leafed through the book until coming to the page containing the information on Naibob.
"Let's see...Naibob...ancient legend...made love potions...made some of the local Indians mad...they shrunk his head..put a curse on it…stolen by an old witch dah, duh, dah…Aha!" cried Brian, slamming the book shut.
"Hey, wait, I wasn't through reading!" Mart said, trying to grab the book back.
"I've read enough to know that we are dealing with a powerful ancient curse," Brian said darkly.
Mart hooted. "You're kidding me, right?"
"No, he's serious and I believe it too," Jim responded. "Just look at her. Trixie's acted pretty dopey in her day but nothing like this. How else can you explain her sudden craving for Mol--well you-know-who?"
Trixie started making sounds like they heard in Iowa when the calf got separated from his mother.
"Oh, man," said Mart, covering his ears, "I don't know how much more of this I can take."
Honey looked at Jim and Brian thoughtfully, secretly wishing she had some of Naibob's love potions to sprinkle on Brian. "Curse, huh? Well, you know who've we got to call."
The four sane Bob-Whites in the room looked at each other and said in unison, "Willow."
Mart looked at the clock on the fireplace mantel. "It's almost four o'clock now. That means in California it's just 1 a.m. Do you think we should wait a couple of hours before we call?"
Jim shook his head vigorously. "Absolutely not! Willow won't mind at all. She'll be honored we need her help."
Brian agreed and looked up Willow's phone number in the address book Mrs. Belden kept in the table drawer. "Hi, Willow, sorry to bother you. This is Brian Belden from Sleepyside, New York. Do you remember me?"
He waited and then smiled and nodded at the others, indicating he was getting a positive feedback from Willow. They listened in to Brian's end of the conversation.
"We've got a problem here, Wil, and we need your help." Brian explained the situation thoroughly, answering a few questions. "Oh, okay, sure, no problem." He looked up and explained that Willow had gone to get one of her Wicca books.
"Hi, yes, this is Brian. Oh, Buffy, hey! You're at Willow's, huh? She tell you what's going on? Yeah, it is weird. Buffy says Hi, Gang. They said Hi back. Okay, thanks.
"Yes, Willow, I'm here. Okay, hold on," Brian said signaling to Honey to hand him a pad and a pen. "Okay, I'm ready. It was the Naibob curse, not the JimBob curse." Brian began to write down Willow's directions. "Yeah, I understand there's a big difference but we're sure it was Naibob. Okay, thanks Willow, you're the greatest. We'll call you later and let you know."
Brian hung up the phone and rubbed his eyes.
"What with the Naibob-JimBob thing?" Mart asked.
"Well, with a Naibob curse you use the legs of a black widow spider to make the antidote. With the JimBob curse you have to use Red Man chewing tobacco. A minor but very important difference," Brian explained.
Trixie let out a banshee wail that scared the noo-noo out of all of them.
"Holy smokes, we gotta' do something fast or I'm going to be out of clean underwear!" Mart declared.
"Okay this is what we need. I'll divide up the tasks as I go along. Jim, we need the legs of a black widow spider and the slime from a bullfrog. You're our woodsman. You get those," Brian instructed.
"Right!"
"Honey, next we need the tail of a cat."
Honey paled. "Just the tail? Oh, Brian, I guess so, for Trixie's sake."
"No, no, it can still be attached. We just need it to stir the potion with."
Honey was visibly relieved. "Oh, okay, no problem. I'll just run up and get Tabby from the stable."
"Mart, we need a stick from a tree Trixie played in as a child, three chicken feathers, and a quart of water from the creek."
"Check!"
"Okay, scat all of you. I've got to study the incantation. Willow says if I mess that up we may never get her back."
"Will Trixie be okay by herself?" Honey said anxiously, using a tissue to wipe the drool off Trixie chin.
"I think so. I'll be up in my room and I'll check on her from time to time. It looks like she's finally knocked out," Brian said.
"Well, at least let's take the handcuffs off," pleaded Honey.
"I don't think that would be a good idea," Jim spoke up. "You didn't see the way she was acting. I thing for her own safety we need to leave them on for a while.
Trixie thought she was still in the weird-colored fog when she roused around. Then she realized those traitors had drugged her. "Wen'l, Wen'l, I luf u."
Trixie saw the phone. The Hallelujah Chorus began playing the in concert hall in her mind. Trixie began undulating like an upside down dolphin until her feet slid over the end of the footrest of the recliner and touched the floor. She then began heaving on her shoulders until she got enough momentum to clear the arms of the chair.
"Oof!" Trixie mumbled as she rolled off the chair and hit the floor. Slowly she was able to stand up and wobbled her way toward the door. She pushed it shut with her shoulder. The open top of the CD player on the bookcase beside the door caught Trixie's eye. Tears sprang to Trixie's eyes as she saw in the player was a single-cut CD from UB40, her favorite group. Trixie pushed the top down with her chin and pressed the Play button with her nose.
Wise men say, only fools rush in, but I can't help, falling in love with you.
"Owwwooooooo," Trixie wailed sadly. "I can't help it either!"
Trixie staggered through blinding tears to the phone on the desk. She kicked the chair out from underneath the desk. She bent over and picked up the handset with her teeth and dropped it on the table. Trixie sat down on the chair and pushed the speed-dial button labeled "Police." She was exhausted and lay her head by the phone.
The strong male voice that answered made Trixie's heart beat wildly. "Sleepyside Police. Chief Molinson speaking."
Trixie was too drained to make even a peep. All she could do was just breathe into the mouthpiece.
"Hello? Hello? Crazy nuts." With that the connection was cut.
Happy to hear her Destiny's voice but somewhat saddened that he did not proclaim his eternal love and devotion to her. Trixie managed to get back into the recliner and ride off to Happily Ever After Land in a police cruiser with her ever-faithful, ever-loving Chief.
"Okay, we've got everything, right?" Brian asked, double checking for the tenth time. "You guys have got Trixie in the chair moved outside to the porch?"
"Yes, Brian, let's get on with it," Mart said, becoming impatient.
"This is serious stuff here. I just don't want to mess up. Okay, Jim, you bring the bucket with everything in it. Honey, when we get beside Trixie, you've got to take the cat's tail and stir the potion for three complete turns clockwise while I start reciting the words to the antidote spell. Mart will then take the bucket and pour the mixture slowly over Trixie, starting with her head down to her feet. Let's go."
Trixie was snoring as they approached her and Jim was wondering about how it would be to wake up next to this lady every morning. For the time being, the thoughts gave Jim double wimble-quivers.
Brian stood at the head of the chair. Honey, Tabby and Jim with the bucket on the right side and Mart on the left.
Honey, Tabby, Jim, and Mart performed their tasks while Brian intoned:
Curses from the darkest night
We command you now to take flight
Return this girl to her former state
Let not this chaos be her fateGo back, go back, never to return
So that her soul will not burn
For love should be a willing thing
Not a curse from a head on a stringAhmmmm, Ohmmmm,
Lux et pax
Ahmmmm, Ohmmmm,
Lux et paxTrixie's first coherent thought was, "Ohmigosh! I fell asleep on the job and I wet my pants."
But as she came too she realized she was no longer in the woods in her Jeep but out on the back porch in her father's recliner. She was still too much in a fog to comprehend her surroundings or how she got there. She blinked and shook her head and then realized that Honey, Brian, Mart, and Jim were all hovering over her. Honey was holding her right hand, stroking it so much she thought the skin might be worn off. Jim was holding her left in a deadlock squeeze.
"Uh, guys, mind telling me what's going on?" Trixie asked.
The cacophony that followed made Trixie withdraw her hands and put them over her ears. "Whoa, whoa! One at a time. Brian, you're usually the calm, sensible one. Why don't you tell me? And would somebody get me a towel, please."
Brian smiled lovingly down at his kid sister. "Well, it's a good thing you're sitting down. This is what happened."
Brian went on to explain but without mentioning any specific names. Trixie just kept shaking her head incredulously and looking from one Bob-White to the next. They just nodded in agreement.
"So, I was apparently cursed by some old hag with a shrunken head to fall in love with the first man I saw?" Trixie asked, still being unable to grasp what had happened to her.
"Yes, that's right, Trixie," said Jim, now fully understanding what Trixie had meant by 'you've got to be the one.'
"But now thanks to Willow's antidote spell, I'm okay?"
They all nodded lovingly at her.
"Okay, just one question. Who was the first man I saw?"
Brian took a deep breath before answering, "Well, Trixie, it was…"
Yes, children, that's the legend of the Curse of Naibob. They say that sometimes when the wind is still and the moon is bright you can still hear that shrieking voice resonating all over the Hudson River Valley, "AAAIIIEEEEE! NOT MOLINSON!"
Julie Campbell IV
June 3, 2053
The End