Mariska opened the mouth of the bag as wide as she could and held it out, her head turned away. “If one hair on that thing touches my hands, I will kill you.”
Darla tensed, feeling as if she were playing high-stakes Operation. Touch the edges of the bag with the Frisbee-like raccoon and instead of a buzzer and glowing red nose assaulting her senses, Mariska would kick in her shins.
She raised the shovel, the raccoon’s leg dangling over the edge as if it were waving goodbye. Holding her breath, she slid the body inside the trash bag.
Mariska heaved a sigh of relief and gathered the top tight. She tested the weight, seeming pleased. “It hardly weighs a thing.”
“He’s on the new vulture diet,” muttered Darla, eyeing her shovel and considering leaving it in the middle of the road. She’d have to buy a new one.
Darla felt lightheaded as they wandered away from the scene of the crime, though she couldn’t tell if it was her mood lifting or her brain breaking over the horror of shoveling dead critter.
Gloria marched toward Silver Lake, the other two ladies following, Mariska holding the trash bag as far away from her body as possible.
“Did you see the way its arm was waving?” Mariska whispered.
Darla heard the giggle in Mariska’s voice and it set her off.
Yep. Broke my damn brain.
Soon, both of them were cackling.
“Shh.” Standing outside Silver Lake, Gloria pointed to a gap in the hedge before the guard gate.
“I noticed this earlier. We can slide through here instead of passing the guard.”
Mariska stopped and eyed the gap. “Maybe you can slide through there. You’re built like a bird.”
Gloria disappeared through the hedge and Darla followed, sucking in a breath and cursing as a branch tore at her arms.
“Take this,” said Mariska, thrusting the bag through first.
Darla took it and winced as Mariska pushed herself between the bushes.
“Ow, ow, ow, ow.”
Safe on the other side, they hustled through the grass, unsure what might be hiding in there at night. Finding the sidewalk, they headed for the hoarder’s house.
Mariska leaned toward Gloria and did her best to whisper. “What are you going to do? Put it in her car?”
Gloria opened the canvas tote bag she’d brought with her and retrieved what looked like a family-pack of ground beef.
“Where’d you get that?” asked Darla, worried she knew.
“From your freezer.”
“That’s my pack of backup beef?” Darla frowned. She’d bought the family pack for the hurricane. It had been the last big pack available after the hoarders picked everything clean, and snatching it from the case, she’d felt like she won the lottery.
Gloria picked up her pace and made hard right into the hoarder’s side yard. Darla and Mariska followed.
“That’s fifteen dollars’ worth of hamburger,” hissed Darla at the back of Mariska’s head.
Mariska spoke over her shoulder. “This was your stupid idea. I told you we never should have let this crazy lady back into the neighborhood.”
“But I was so mad—”
“And look where that got us.”
They joined Gloria in the hoarder’s back yard, the little woman staring up at the tightly woven metal grid of the pool cage as if she were about to leap on it like a squirrel and scurry to the top.
Gloria poked holes in the clear beef wrapping with her fingernail and thrust the package at Mariska.
“You look strong. Throw this up there.”
“What?” Mariska looked at Darla for help.
“Give it to me.” Darla took the beef and felt her mood darken again. She didn’t know which was worse—shoveling raccoon or throwing away good beef.
She peeled back the plastic and gave the pack a quick mental eulogy. Like a human catapult, she cocked back her arm with the Styrofoam tray of burger balanced in her palm, and flung it into the air.
It sailed straight up and tilted to rain hamburger on her head.
“Incoming!” Darla scream-whispered. She covered her head to duck and run, only to smack directly into Mariska. Her head bounced off of Mariska’s bosom and she bounced back on her butt in the grass as the package of meat sideswiped Mariska’s head and landed in her lap.
“Ow.”
The center was apparently still frozen.
Gloria, who’d been smart enough to take a few steps back, remained unmoving, her arms crossed against her chest.
“Did it spill?”
Darla picked a piece of hamburger out of her hair and glared at the package, surprised to find it largely intact.
“It didn’t lose much.”
Gloria heaved a breath. “Good. Pick up what you can and try again.”
Darla took the pack in one hand and held up the other to Mariska, who pulled her to her feet.
“I think you broke my boob,” said Mariska, rubbing her chest.
“Sorry. It’s been a while since I last threw a pack of beef.”
Darla prepared her human catapult again as Mariska wandered off to stand next to Gloria, safely out of the Hamburger Zone.
Concentrating, she heaved the package skyward again. This time, the package traveled in a beautiful meaty arc to land with a thud-rattle on the cage. It bounced once, though it wasn’t half as loud as Darla feared it would be. A little spilled through the grate and into the woman’s pool.
Darla grinned, pleased with her throw. She looked at Gloria.
“How about that?” she asked Gloria.
Gloria remained emotionless. “Fling the racoon up there,” she said, as if asking Darla to slide a plate into the dishwasher.
Darla gaped in horror.
“How in the name of Paul Bunyan’s bunions am I supposed to do that?”
Gloria shrugged. “It’s part of the plan.”
“No one cleared this plan with me,” said Darla through clenched teeth.
Mariska picked up the trash bag. “It is sort of shaped like a Frisbee now.”
“Are you suggesting I touch it?”
Mariska
