The Secret Society of The Great Pumpkin Page 5

  Chapter 4 – Snoopy Detail

  “So what’s your plan, Allen?” Cano asked while polishing his boots.

  “Tomorrow morning and for the next couple of mornings, I’m going to confront a couple of cadets in the chow hall during breakfast. After I confront them, you stay close and see what happens next,” Allen said checking his row of medals in the mirror.

  “What are you expecting?”

  “Well, if I rattle the cage just right, the cadets will probably let someone know about it. The cadet or cadets they run to become more names on our list, kind of like finding little spiders on a spider web. If we pluck the right web lines, we’ll hit pay dirt and find a big old ugly hairy spider.”

  “You got a thing for spiders huh?” Cano asked.

  “No. I hate ‘em, hate ‘em with a passion,” Allen said.

  “Okay, so we rattle a few baby spiders, and then what?”

  “We just keep pulling at loose strings and see what unravels.”

  “What if nothing unravels?”

  “How old are you Cano?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “I’m twenty-seven. These are just kids. Not one of them is older than 19 or 20. They’re kids. We’re Marines. They’ll crack if we find the weak link.”

  “You really think this Great Pumpkin bullshit is real, I mean what if it’s just a myth or a hoax? What if we’re on some kind of witch hunt?” Cano asked.

  “It’s real. I’ve seen the pictures and the cleanup bills, not to mention the jars of crap I saw in those cars. Plus, it’s not a witch hunt if you find witches.”

  “Don’t these dumbass kids have anything else better to do?”

  “Apparently no.”

  “Well I sure as shit do,” Cano said.

  “Me too.” Allen adjusted his tie in the mirror. “I can think of a hundred things I’d rather be doing in my free time than this.”

  “And if we can’t stop it?” Cano asked.

  “If we can’t stop The Great Pumpkin then some dorm is going to get shit-bombed on Halloween night. Best thing about that is at least it will be over.”

  “By the way, thanks for bringing me in on this,” Cano said sarcastically.

  “You got it bro. You can say I owe you one.”

  “Good cause there’s a girl I met at church and I could use your help if you go out with her friend. Call it a double date? She’s actually very attractive.”

  “Who, your target or her friend?”

  “Both. You owe me, right? And who knows, maybe after this date you’ll owe me more. What do you have better to do? You don’t have a girlfriend.”

  “Okay. Count me in. What’s the plan?” Allen asked.

  “I’ll let you know as soon as I make one,” Cano said.

  Sergeant Allen walked into the chow hall. “Good morning, Sir,” cadets said as they got out of Allen’s way. Cadets generally tried to avoid their Marine instructors unless they were in class with them. Allen noticed Cano on the other side of the chow hall talking to a small group of cadets. Allen waited.

  He heard a commotion to his left.

  “You fucking dumbass,” a senior cadet wearing senior boots said to a freshman cadet. “That’s not what I ordered you to fetch for me.” The senior slapped the tray of food out of the other’s hands and the tray landed on the floor. “Now you can get down there like a dog and eat it yourself,” the senior cadet said.

  The freshman cadet got down on all fours and started eating the food off the floor. Allen walked over.

  “What’s going on here?” Allen asked.

  “Good morning, Sir,” the cadets there said as they popped to attention.

  “Get off the floor cadet,” Allen said. “Why would treat this cadet like that? You think this is how we treat people in the military? This has got to be one of the most immature things I’ve ever seen. Is this the kind of childish crap that happens in the chow hall? Maybe I need to start coming down here more often.”

  “Sorry Sir,” the senior cadet said.

  “I guess I should make you get down there and eat the food off the floor, but I’m not going to do that, because that’s not how we treat our brothers and sisters in arms. That’s not how we treat people. Do you understand?”

  “Yes Sir, I do.”

  “Good. Ten demerits for this dumbassery. Five demerits for you senior cadet Tipton for acting like a jerk and five demerits for you freshman cadet Smith for following the orders of a jerk. You will clean up this mess yourself senior and if I hear about this happening again, you’ll be hearing from me again. Understood?”

  “Yes Sir.”

  “Good. Now get this cleaned up and think about what real respect looks like, both of you.”

  Allen looked around the chow hall. It had gone quiet all of a sudden. He grabbed a glass and filled it with red juice. He walked calmly through the chow hall, nodded at Cano and then sat down at the table across from three cadets.

  “Good morning, Sir,” they said.

  “Cadets, I need to speak to Cadet Schroeder, alone.”

  “Yes Sir,” the cadets said. They stood and left.

  Allen sipped his juice and then slowly leaned in close and whispered, “Tell me Cadet Schroeder, tell me about the jar of shit you had in your car.”

  Cadet Schroeder sat at attention and swallowed his last bite. He said nothing. Allen watched for several seconds as beads of sweat formed at his temples.

  Allen whispered again, “You want to play fucking games with me Schroeder? Do I look like someone who wants to play fucking games? Tell me about the jars of shit you cadets are collecting.”

  Schroeder jutted out his bottom lip into a classic Aggie cadet smirk and said nothing.

  “You keep that tight lip,” Allen whispered. “If I find out you had something to do with this Great Pumpkin shit, I swear I’m going to ride your ass like the fucking Headless Horseman.”

  Allen stood up and left the chow hall stomping his dress shoes on the floor tiles with extra heat, making a loud resonating sound as he crossed the floor. Every cadet in the chow hall noticed.

  “What did we get?” Allen asked later, back in the Marine’s training room.

  Cano reported, “Two cadets sat down in front of Schroeder seeming to ask what happened. After the two left, Schroeder left the chow hall and went to the cadet morning formation. After the formation, another cadet spent about five minutes talking alone to Schroeder. The two of them then walked across campus and ran into another cadet and talked for about ten minutes. Schroeder was late to his first class by 30 minutes.

  “We need names.”

  Cano pulled a small green notebook from his pocket. The two cadets were Adams and Phillips. The cadet at the formation was Fontenot. The cadet they spoke to after that was Cadet Franklin. Do any of these names ring a bell?” Cano asked.

  “No, but good work. I’ll pull their files. You remember the food on the floor at the chow hall this morning?”

  “Yeah. I like the way you handled it,” Cano said.

  “It gave me an idea. I looked in Schroeder’s file and he’s been getting a lot of merits lately, more merits last month and this time last year than any other time. You mind looking at the rest of these files for a minute while I get these new files?”

  “Sure, what am I looking for?” Cano asked.

  “Jot down any September or October merits and demerits and the dates.”

  Cano looked through a file and made notes in his green notebook. Allen returned from the admin office with the four new files and sat across from Cano.

  “Every one of these files shows all the merits and demerits the cadets earned going back to their first day as a cadet. Schroeder’s a sophomore. Franklin’s a junior. See here in his file… Lots of merits in September and October going back two years.”

  “What about this year?” Cano asked.

  “He hasn’t earned any merits this time around, not this year, but oddly enough he’s issued a bunch.”

  “Same
trend here in Fontenot’s file. He’s a junior also,” Cano said. “Looks like the two juniors and the senior we’ve pulled give out merits to sophomores and freshmen like candy in September and October, but not in November.”

  “And here is freshman Cadet Patterson’s file. No merits,” Allen said.

  “Is that unusual?”

  “I don’t know. Patterson had a jar in his car and I watched him take it back to the dorm.”

  “Well in any case, it seems like you had a good idea,” Cano said. “So, now what do we do next?”

  “I’ll keep looking through files. I’ll be at the chow hall tomorrow morning for round two.”

  “I have an early class tomorrow. Can we make it lunch time?” Cano asked.

  “Yeah. That works. Gracias hermano,” Allen said.

  “De nada.”

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