The Lich

As it turned out, eleven thirty slipped up on us before we knew it, and we were hardly ready.

“It’s eleven thirty!” I said after inspecting my watch by sheer chance. I grabbed my camera and hung it around my neck.

“Mooch, get the hose ready! Nate, gather the paint guns and night goggles. Screw the walkie-talkies. I’m gonna clean off the porch and hook up the toaster.”

We burst into action. Well, at least Nate and I did. Moochy just ambled off toward the hose muttering something about that “Hairy Potter crap.”

After several minutes of scrambling about in the night, we were somewhat back on track.

“Ok Nate, here’s my watch. When Eleven fifty-seven rolls around, apply the glue and just slip in the front door afterward. Make sure and put a lot down. The more you use the longer it will take to dry. Then you can circle around from the back door and flank him like we talked about earlier.”

“Don’t start without me.” Nate was buzzing from beer and excitement. So was I.

We shared a grin.

We were gonna catch a lich!

“I won’t. Mooch, you know what to do.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“All right, lets do it.”

Mooch hid around the side of the house, I took to my spot in the bushes, and Nate slipped with ferret-like grace onto the patio.

From were I was positioned; I could see Mooch through the night vision goggles. He was holding the garden hose and shaking his head in the darkness. Probably wondering how he got caught up in this buffoonery. I chuckled.

I turned the goggles toward Nate He was standing beside the lawn chair holding the tube of glue in one hand and my watch in the other. I panned down at the table and realized we had forgotten something.

“Nate, go inside and get the cookies. Quick!” I fiercely whispered.

“What?”

“The cookies! We forgot the cookies!”

“What?”

“He said get the cookies!” Mooch said in a loud voice. I looked over at him. He was rubbing his brow and shaking his head again.

“Oh.”

Nathan slipped into the house.

What happened immediately afterward I can only speculate on, but when Nathan came back out and tried to put the cookies on the table, he found the plate stuck fast to his hand.

I groaned.

To his credit though, he didn’t panic. He simply shrugged, tossed the cookies in the yard, and looked at the watch.

He then hurriedly grabbed the glue with his free hand, and started applying healthy doses of the stuff to the seat of the chair.

When he was done, however, instead of going back into the front door like we had planned, he took two quick steps with the obvious intention of hopping off of the patio, misgauged his jump, (We had been drinking beer all night,) and violently measured his length in the yard. He was probably afraid he might miss something if he went inside.

On the other hand, it’s sometimes hard to tell why Nate does what he does. I think that’s one of the reasons we are such good friends. He keeps me on my toes.

Nate sprang back up, plate in hand, and scurried around to the side of the house, where he promptly ran head long into Mooch. I struggled for self-control; fighting the manic laughter I sensed building up within me.

Ferret like grace indeed!

Moments later, the lich showed up.

He approached the patio as silently as fog, floating in the same eerie fashion as he had before. Also as before, the creepy bastard took the same route up the stairs, across the patio, and over to the reading table.

He considered the table, looking for his treat, I can only assume.

“Hisss!” he hissed, then reached right out and knocked over one of my flowerpots! On purpose!

Ooh, that lich was really pissing me off.

I grinned evilly when he sat down on the chair. He reached into his robe and pulled out what looked to be a pen and a piece of that stuff he used for stationary. I waited several minutes as he scribbled extensively in the darkness, probably writing me another love letter.

I glanced over to the fellas. Nathan was holding his paintball gun like a TV cop in one hand, while the cookie dish stayed tenaciously glued to the other. The Mooch grasped his garden hose and stood alert with his ear cocked up. They both of course had heard the flowerpot break, and had to be on fire with curiosity and anticipation.

I looked back up on the patio. The lich folded up the note and laid it on the table.
I pushed the button.

The floodlights kicked on and the stereo split the night with the sound of Nazareth at full volume.

“Heart breaker, soul shaker!
I’ve been told about you!
Steamroller, midnight stroller!
What they’ve been saying must be true!”

For a man with a lawn chair glued to his bottom, that lich could really move! Especially after the firecrackers started going off. He cut quite a comical figure up there on the patio, hoping up and down in the glaring light of the floodlights and shaking his butt from side to side in a vain attempt to dislodge that lawn chair. Then, in a fit of instant karma, he tripped on the flowerpot he had just broken, and fell off the patio in a heap, landing on the exact same spot Nathan had just occupied minutes before.

“Red hot mama!
Velvet charmer!
Time’s come to pay your dues!”

When I rose up and took aim, I found him to be a difficult target, mainly because I was laughing so damned hard my eyes were tearing up.

Nate and Mooch jumped out from the shadows and opened fire. I took a shot at the frenetic lich and missed. Nate fired and hit a window. Mooch, however, really hosed the robed figure down as it wallowed about, trying to get away from the chair and stand up.

I shot again and hit the character in the midriff. “Gotcha’ lich!” I taunted.

At the sound of my voice, the lich suddenly stopped struggling. Its hooded visage calmly regarded me from the ground.

The tape player continued to blare.

“Now you’re messin’ with a
A son of a bitch!
Now you’re messin’ with a son of a bitch!”

My blood ran cold and the laughter dried up in my throat as the lich slowly levitated six feet off the ground.

Everyone stopped shooting. The character made a gesture with its hands, and the lawn chair flew from its ass and slammed into the side of the house.

In a voice that seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, the lichdrow laughed maniacally, threw back the cowl from its head, and pointed a long lichy finger directly at me.

“Trick or treat,” he rasped, and everything went dark.

Nathan, the Mooch and I later woke up, dressed in drag, lying on the parking lot of a local gay bar.

It should be said, at this point, that we all three make very ugly women.

Nathan still had a cookie dish glued to his hand.
My brother showed up twenty minutes after I called him from the bar phone.

When he pulled up, he rolled down his window and hailed us. “You ladies need a ride?”

We got into the truck without a word. Mooch had to ride in the back. When we got to my place, we found pictures that the lich had taken of us (with my camera) while we were unconscious.

Terrible things.

Life is pretty much back to normal now. It’s been a year since my run in with the lichdrow, but I can’t help but think about what happened.

I can’t help wondering if he’ll be back.

Make of this story what you will, dear reader, but if a lichdrow ever demands of you a treat, my advice is to comply.