We have six inches of snow on the ground, might hit seven by 1pm, at which point the weather people say this will turn to ice. Ice = Complete and Utter Destruction. Last time we had an ice storm, we were without power for three days. I called the power company and told them we have seniors on our street. They could’ve cared less. I called them a day later to tell them we had a live power line down, with people driving over it. They appeared within the hour. I don’t know why I didn’t lead with the live power line.

Anyway, I wanted to get a second Freddy Joe Bedtime Story out into the ether before the Icepocalypse hits. (Ack! As I wrote that sentence the weather changed from white, fluffy flakes to ice! Noooo!!! And it came an hour and a half early!!!!)

This story is dedicated to Kat Owens, as it is entitled, “The Insect Collector.” Please visit Kat’s blog, and also please know she isn’t a sociopath! And in fact is quite a nice lady. : )

Once upon a time, there was a boy who collected insects. It was his all consuming passion. Everyday, he’d harvest as many bugs as he could find. It didn’t matter whether they were a new species, or one he’d already collected. He brought in everything he got his hands on, because what he enjoyed most about insect collecting was pinning the bugs to his display board.

He’d take the day’s haul to his bedroom. The bugs, still alive, would scramble against the glass jars and plastic boxes he’d put them in. But their struggle was all for naught. One by one, the boy would pluck the insects from their clear cages and pin them to the board. Their many legs would wave feebly for a few seconds and then they’d go still, never to move again. The boy liked watching the life leave each insect, and he wouldn’t pin the next until the first had died.

In this way, the boy amassed a giant collection. It was so vast and varied, even scientists were envious. A professor asked if could borrow the boy’s praying mantis collection for a study, but the boy refused. He liked his insects where they were, displayed on his bedroom walls.

The day he denied the professor’s request he suffered a horrible nightmare. In it, he was in darkness, surrounded by clicking. He couldn’t see anything, didn’t know what the clicking was, but it terrified him. In the morning, he noticed his newest praying mantis had fallen from its spot on the display board. He carefully returned the mantis to its spot. Over breakfast, he accused his mother of going into his room and causing the mantis to fall, but she denied it.

The next night he had the same dream. In the morning, two mantises were on the floor. Enraged, the boy yelled at his mother, and demanded she confess to messing with his collection. She said she hadn’t done any such thing. That afternoon, the professor came by the house to ask, in person, one last time to borrow the collection. He told the boy that so much good could come of this simple favor. The professor’s studies would be used to help the insects that the boy obviously loved so much. The boy shut the door in the man’s face.

That night, he had a hard time falling asleep. He was so angry that his mother had messed with his collection, that this man thought he was entitled to it. His collection was his and his alone. He’d killed every one of those insects himself. They belonged to him.

He finally fell into a fitful sleep. No sooner had he drifted off, than the nightmare began again. Pitch black, the boy could see nothing, but there was the sound of clicking, clicking, clicking. A new sound arose, the thrum of insect wings. With a thrill of horror, the boy felt the bristly legs of a cockroach run up his bare arm.

He sat upright, and felt an avalanche of insects roll down his body. He was blanketed in them. He wanted to yell, to scream for his mother, but then he found they were in his mouth, choking him. Wake up! he wanted to yell at himself, Wake up! And that’s when he realized–he was awake.

In one moment, as though on a prearranged cue, the attack came. Those that bit, bit, those that stung, stung, those that had no weapon, smothered the boy, crawling into his eyes and ears and mouth.

The next day, at breakfast, the boy’s mother wondered why he hadn’t come down for his pancakes. She went upstairs, opened the door. The room was in perfect order. The boy’s insect collection hung in straight lines on the walls, his room tidy, his bed so neat it almost looked as though no one was in it.

The only thing amiss was the boy himself–he was dead, his eyes and mouth frozen wide in an expression of sheer horror.

ALTERNATE ENDING

Sometimes, when my dad told this story, the insects attacked the boy with the pins, causing him a million tiny stab wounds. And at times the mother would find all the insects down from their displays, littering the floor and covering the boy. My dad liked to switch it up occasionally.

Almost every day, I take a walk with Tom Foolery and Shenanigans, my purebred American Mutt Dogs. (Their father was a blue heeler, their mother a Roughcoated Collie x Great Pyrenees cross [And they even have the extra toes to prove it. {In case you didn’t know, Great Pyrenees have extra toes.}])

Anyway, the point is, I go on a nature walk just about every day with them. Last week, I finally met the man who maintains the trail. His name is Norman, he is retired, and he does it for fun. He liked Tom and Nanigans, and told me about a new trail he’d made. I followed his directions and soon found myself walking along a river. It had flooded into two large pools, thanks to two beaver dams.

On the way home, I was struck by the trail’s aspect. It is sort of the Platonic ideal of a trail–flat, broad, leaf littered, bordered by deciduous forest, now leafless, thanks to winter. It gently arched away from me, disappearing into the forest, hiding whatever lay in wait around the corner.

This image of a trail was innately familiar, and strangely unnerving. Something deep within me raised a warning flag. This beautiful little place held secret dangers. I looked at my dogs. They were fine, and if there’d been anything to be worried about, they would’ve let me know.

And then it came to me, where I’d seen this trail before, and why it made me uneasy.

It looked just like the trail from my imagination, a trail created by one of my father’s favorite bedtime stories. My dad is a world class storyteller. I’ve had people tell me I’m a good storyteller a couple of times, and I always say, “You should see my dad.” I can bring someone into a story if they’re willing to come. With my dad, it’s different. He talks and people listen, no matter who they are. If they’re alpha, ADD, a non-stop talker, impatient, holier-than-thou, it doesn’t matter. They stop what they’re doing and they listen, because that is the special magic my dad has.

And so, once I realized why that trail looked so familiar, I thought, I should really put my dad’s bedtime stories up on the blog. They’re good stories. Also, disturbingly violent. Which really explains a lot, if you think about it. Without further ado, I present, “The Teddy Bear.”

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved her teddy bear with all her heart. She loved her bear so much, she brought him with her wherever she went. She even took him to school.

Her walk to the bus stop was a long one, and she’d found a short cut through the woods. When the little girl told her mother about the short cut, her mother told her not to take it. She needed to take the road all the way to the bus stop.

The little girl and her teddy bear had a rough day at school. The other kids always teased her about her bear, and this day was worse than any before. The little girl had told her classmates that her bear was actually alive. He could see and hear and think and breathe. They mocked the little girl ruthlessly.

When she got off the bus, an idea came to her. She didn’t want to walk the long way home with her tormentors. She decided to take the short cut through the woods. It was winter, and already getting dark. She knew her mother didn’t want her to go this way, but if she hurried, she could get ahead of the other children, and her mother would never be the wiser.

She trotted off into the forest, hustling as fast as she could go. Halfway home, she saw a figure in the deep shadows. A man stepped out into the path. Fear stabbed the little girl right in her heart. “Where’re you going?” he asked. “I’m going home,” said the little girl. The man fell in step beside her. She shifted her teddy bear to her outside arm. She didn’t want him taking her bear. He smelled badly. She knew he was mean, he was a mean man.

The little girl bolted for home. But in three steps, the man caught her. He grabbed her by the ponytail. Her bear flew from her arms, landing in a mud puddle. She spun around and kicked and punched and bit. She did everything she could to fight the man off. She felt his hands close around her throat. He was choking her. As she lost consciousness, she saw a giant shadow loom overhead, she heard a thunderous growl, but it all seemed so far away. She fell to the ground, and knew no more.

The little girl woke up hours later. Her parents were there, and so were policemen. She still lay in the mud. Paradmedics with a stretcher were on their way. She looked up. The dancing beam of a policeman’s flashlight slipped over the body of a man; the little girl’s attacker. He was dead, covered in blood.

“Where’s my Teddy?” the little girl cried. Her stuffed animal was handed to her as she was strapped into the stretcher. He was cold and wet from his time in the mud puddle, but stranger still, all the fur had been ripped from his paws, revealing the white stuffing inside.

As they loaded the girl into the ambulance, she heard a policeman tell her parents,”What are the odds… this man, mauled to death by a bear just before he could do this poor child any serious harm.”