For the past few months the Beast had been abducting all the women in town. The Beast had started with the most beautiful woman and had swiftly moved on down the beauty chain.
Bill Price's wife was the first to disappear, as you might expect. "The Beast has good taste," we all agreed. Then Tom Fisher's wife went, which was reasonable enough if you liked redheads, and the Beast certainly did. Dick Powell's wife was next. "The Beast has obviously never heard of implants," we all sniggered.
Meanwhile the abductions continued. Eventually, by mid-September, only Ed Foot's wife and my wife were left. It was unkindly suggested that maybe our wives were not beautiful enough for the Beast.
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I told people.
"Yeah. But the Beast's eye isn't too choosey," they replied.
Ed Foot actually forced his wife to hide in their house and pretend that she had already been abducted. But that fooled nobody. As for my wife, I told everyone that the Beast must be a connoisseur and was saving the best for last.
"Not bothered about scraping the barrel, you mean." They said.
I sometimes saw Ed Foot outside the hardware store on Elm Street. We never spoke, just nodded silently to each other and wondered which of our wives would be the last woman in town to be carried off to the Beast's lair.
Several days passed and there was no sign of the Beast. It seemed the Beast really wasn't interested in my wife or Ed Foot's wife after all.
"Must be too ugly." People said.
"I'm sure the Beast will stop by and abduct her any day now." I told them.
But the Beast never did.
Many guys became pretty smug after the Beast abducted their wives and drove around with bumper stickers bearing slogans such as 'My Wife Was Sixteenth' and 'Proud Husband Of Number Thirty-Seven'. But as time progressed they began to miss little things like home cooked meals and clean bed linens. Consequently, a motion was put forward at a Town Meeting that something should be done. It was proposed and passed that the Beast should be killed and the wives returned to their homes where they belonged.
We had heard eyewitness descriptions of the Beast on local news radio, and everyone knew the Beast wore knee britches, buckled shoes, a frock coat and a powdered wig on his head. "The Beast is a big fag," everyone said. Killing the Beast would be easy, it was agreed.
However, according to the ancient scrolls that were discovered stuffed behind the cistern of Professor Herbert's downstairs toilet, the Beast could only be killed with this root thing that you had to special order from Peru. Apparently you needed to whittle the root down until it became a sharp pointy stick, and then you had to fire the pointy end into the Beast's ear at close-range using a blowpipe or an old-fashioned peashooter. There was also this mystic oil stuff that you needed to anoint the pointy end of the root with, and that was an additional cost.
Bill Price and Dick Powell had been talking pretty big at the Town Meeting before the scrolls were found.
"We are going to find out what kills the Beast and we are going fill a big truck with it." They said. "And then we are going to drive the big truck all over town. And when we find the Beast we are going to unload the big truck. And then we are going to cram two-tons worth of whatever kills the Beast right up the Beast's asshole. That's what we are going to do."
Back then they thought either a simple wooden stake or a flask of holy water would do the trick. A few really gung-ho guys like Tom Fisher even suggested melting down Reverend Miller's silver Jesus to make silver shotgun pellets:
"I'm going to give that Beast both barrels through both his big hairy balls." He boasted.
Of course, when everyone found out about the root and the mail ordering and the postage and the international currency exchange, they all suddenly changed their tune. People stood around with their hands in their pockets muttering to themselves: "I'm gathering a mob brandishing flaming torches and we are going down the post office tomorrow. Or maybe next week. Whenever it is convenient. Soon as I can arrange a day off work I'm going to buy those air-mail stamps and send away for that root and the mystic oil and show that Beast who is the Boss around here. Any of you folks know where I can find the nearest Bureau De Change?"
A few days later it was rumored that the Beast had purchased three hundred and sixty-five tickets for an amateur production of Evita in a nearby town.
