Brandon thought that he could take a swig of beer safely. But when he lifted the bottle of Miller to his still-grinning lips, he caught a glimpse of Chester, whose fat face was also grinning like a kid’s Halloween jack o’ lantern, and that happened just when the swallow of beer was going down Brandon’s throat. The result was a loud choke, gurgle and spray of beer across a table already littered with bottles, caps, cigarette butts, and spoiling pretzels. "Ah, *censored*!" Chester yelled, jumping quickly out of his chair to avoid the sticky shower. "C’mon, Bran. You gotta wear a god damn bib or something’?"On the other side of the table, Henry laughed uproariously, turning a particularly beetlike shade of red. Brandon wiped beer and spittle from his face and let more laughter flow unabridged. "The—look—on his face!" His ribs began to ache. That caused Chester to break up again, and Henry to plead soundlessly for air, begging them to stop."The look," Brandon said when he could catch a breath, "of the mighty warrior – the mighty gremlin hunter, off to bag his fine catch!"Chester held his stomach as if afraid his intestines would leap away from the hysterical body that contained them. "Poking him full of those stories about these woods. That was the best part."Henry beamed proudly. It was he who had told them all—including Georgie—about the wooded area called Peach Cove on Lake Fausse Point. The headless woman, the squirrel that screams like a man, the six-foot hog...all the local nonsense that he had heard when he purchased the camp along that deserted canal deep in the swamps of south Louisiana. The fact that the French, from whom Henry and the rest were descended, had learned about the local area from the Indians from whom Georgie was descended only made things all the funnier. They were all city folks, Georgie included. He had been put up for adoption when he was a child...
