Chapter Nine: The Bubba Joe Plan

 

Chapter Nine: The Bubba Joe Plan

            The Time War began to feel more appeasing to Penz. The hillbillies Lucius Malfoy hired to keep all the black men working in the catacombs were as ruthless as the Daleks back in the war. There were very few breaks (water only, no food) and not a single day given to rest. Penz could take it for as long as he could manage – his Time Lord biology allotted him a level of endurance extended past typical human limitations. But that’s not to say he was without his own.

            Still in his original incarnation, Penz had yet to experience the blessing (or curse, depending how one looks at it) of regeneration. In his default form, his body – that of what Earth humans would perceive as a 33-year-old African American male – was virtually made out of stone. Even the most fit among the slaves he worked with questioned where he got such a physique. “Workin’ hard…dat’s all,” he told them.

            He hated talking like an illiterate. It was part of his cover as “Harris,” one of the poor black men recruited to dig beneath Malfoy Manor…dig beneath the congregation of the high-class white folk of Baton Rouge that were invited to the Malfoys’ evening party. He could hear them up there, laughing and conversing while black men were working themselves to death…literally.

            All these slaves, young and short, were just working as food for Cthulhu.

            It was the entire reason Penz and his big brother, Aznavorian the Tinkerer, came to Louisiana of 1929: to investigate the possibility of Cthulhu itself living somewhere under the foundation of Malfoy Manor. The surge of energy they detected from Aznavorian’s TARDIS had to have come from the “Great Old One” of Lovecraftian legend. They just didn’t count on it coming from the one time and place that wasn’t exactly friendly to black men like themselves.

            Neither did they count on one of the regenerations of Neas, Aznavorian’s daughter (and Penz’s niece), coming to the same time and place. She called herself “Alicia” in this form, a black woman with skin slightly lighter than Penz’s (much lighter than Aznavorian’s “Skeeta” incarnation). Bubba Joe and his posse did a number on her, prior to throwing her into the pit with them. Her face and body was bruised and scarred. Penz could see the mark left on her throat from where they hanged her – not long enough to kill her, but long enough to beat her close to death.

            They broke her body, yet they didn’t break her resolve.

            While “working” there in the catacombs, Alicia rallied the enslaved men during the water breaks. Penz only found out what she had planned when she came to him last. “After our next break, I want you to pick a fight with Rufus over there,” she pointed to one heavyset man who stood close to seven feet tall. Next to Penz (and recently Alicia), Rufus was the tallest and strongest worker there in the catacombs. He would carry rocks twice the size of regular men and load them into the wheelbarrows.

            A man of his size and strength could’ve broken out of there anytime; but Malfoy’s guardsmen had their guns and clubs fixed on him at all times, ready to strike if Rufus so much as sneezed.

            Penz didn’t know what Alicia had in mind overall in her plan. Nonetheless, he followed through with it, purposely bumping into Rufus as they returned to work. “You watch where you goin’, boy!” Rufus roared to him.

            “I would, if yo’ big behind weren’t in my way,” Penz screamed back.

            Their shouting transpired into shoving, prompting the guards to try and break them up. It was exactly what they wanted them to do. Rufus landed one mighty punch across the face of a rifle-armed guard, knocking him out cold. Penz followed by laying out the other that moved in on them. Soon, all the other guards retaliated, only to have been overpowered by all the other slaves Alicia rallied to her escape plan.

            They freed themselves from the cavern, following a specific path Penz directed them to that would take them to a clearing in the woods and lead them back home to the boonies. Skeeta patrolled near the clearing every few hours, just in case a slave or two managed to escape the catacombs. He’s gonna have his hands full, once he sees the load he’ll have to guide, Penz thought as he ensured every man was out through the secret tunnel.

            All except for Alicia (and Samuel, who was somewhere upstairs in the manor, fetching more water) fled from their enslavement. Penz found her staring down a tunnel that led much further underground. “Watchu doin’, gurl?” he asked her. “Ain’t you wanna be free?”

            “It wasn’t my intention to come down here, Harris, but I’m kinda glad that I did,” Alicia said. “What you told me about Henry Dobbins and the monster that he saw…it’s gotta be the thing that I’ve been looking for…Cthulhu.”

            In that moment, Penz wanted so desperately to drop his cover and tell this brave woman – his niece – that he was there for the same reason. All that held him back were the freed men who would need his help in getting back home. He could only keep playing the “dumb, illiterate colored man” act and tell Alicia, “I dunno watchu lookin’ fo’, gurl, but I bettah see you later up top.”

            He left her after that, praying in his thoughts that she wouldn’t find Cthulhu before he and Skeeta did.

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            Lucius Malfoy’s shindig sickened Maureen more and more with every second. It was 1929 and black slaves were serving a bunch of fat, happy white people. Maureen didn’t eat or drink the entire time she was there, no matter how many gentle waiters approached her with a tray of Malfoy’s “finest” champagne.

            Thankfully, there were two faces in the crowd she knew that she could trust: Newt Scamander and his little friend, Benjamin. She didn’t buy that ridiculous “uncle and nephew” cover story for a second. She knew the truth: they were companions to one of her future incarnations – which one, she didn’t have time to discern. She only needed answers to the Malfoys’ dealings in 1929 Louisiana.

            She caught Newt and Ben as they stood along one corner of the ballroom, conversing with each other over their next plan of action in rescuing someone by the name of “Alicia” (possibly that poor black woman the one called “Bubba Joe” dragged in by a noose, beaten).

            “I know your lil’ secret,” she nosed right in, spooking them.

            “W-W-What s-secret?” Newt stammered.

            “Oh, drop the bloody act, Newt,” Maureen demanded. “I know you two are not from this dimension. You’re here with another version of me, spying on the Malfoys, just like I presumably told you to.”

            Ben looked on her suspiciously. “Another version of you?” He then started to put two and two together. “Wait a sec! Are you…?”

            “Alicia?” Newt had also figured it out.

            Maureen frowned. “So that black girl they dragged in was me…or a future version of me.” She felt more disconcerted of the fact than before. “Where did they take her?”

            “That’s what we were tryin’ to figure out,” Ben said. “The only one who’d know is that fat guy with the mustache who brought her in.”

            “Bubba Joe,” Maureen identified.

            “So that’s the ruffian’s name.” There was a hint of scorn in the usually meek tone of Newt Scamander’s voice.

            “I’m ready to go on Four-Arms on that caterpillar face,” an aggressive Ben proclaimed, slamming his right hand against his left fist. Maureen fleetingly caught a glimpse of an unusual wristwatch he wore, alien in design.

            Seeing how determined Newt and Ben were to get some payback for Bubba Joe’s foul treatment of her future successor, Maureen let them in on her plan. “Alright. Here’s what we’re gonna do. I need to lure that hillbilly out of the manor and knock him out, so we can bring him to my TARDIS to get some answers. The only way we can do this is if Ben gets his attention and leads him to a private area where I’ll…” She tried not to vomit after uttering the next detail. “…seduce him.”

            “Lucky you,” Newt jested, though Maureen wasn’t laughing.

            “Anyway,” she continued, “as soon as Bubba Joe and I are outside, Newt will enchant him with a spell that’ll leave him unconscious.”

            It was a sound plan. Newt and Ben wouldn’t have expected any less from a past incarnation of their Time Lord friend. They put it into action right away, with Ben making loud, rude noises in the middle of the gathering and attracting the attention of all the aristocratic guests…and Bubba Joe, who stood at a corner, sipping on his flask.

            Bubba Joe gave chase for the mischievous boy, who looked as if he didn’t belong at the high-class get-together in the first place. He chased him around several corners of the manor, until he ended up bumping into a small, shirtless black child with large bushy hair and a potbelly. He was hauling a pail of water that looked twice his size, splashing bits of it over the floor and a little on Bubba Joe’s leg.

            It went without saying how furious Bubba Joe was by the harmless accident. “Watch where you goin’, you lil’ monkey!” he roared to the child, who was visibly frightened by the unruly hillbilly.

            Meanwhile, Maureen was prepared for her role in the plan, taking position in the study, when she heard Bubba Joe’s shouting outside. Figuring it was Ben he was shouting at, she peeked just to see Bubba Joe verbally and physically abusing the shirtless black child in the middle of the hallway.

            Disgust transfixed into rage within Maureen. She had seen enough.

            “Forget magic,” she muttered. “We’ll go old school.”

            She stormed right up to the scene and tapped Bubba Joe on the shoulder. When he turned back to her, he was met with a fist that swung directly towards his face. It was the last thing he saw before everything went black.

            Bubba Joe went down like a sack of potatoes, collapsing right near the small child he kicked down not a moment ago. Maureen stood over the unconscious hillbilly, marginally nursing the hand she used to do the job. “Bloody crap,” she griped. “That hurt like a—”

            She stopped when she saw the still-frightening child, glimpsing back-and-forth between her and the fallen Bubba Joe. Maureen could understand his fear and confusion, watching as a tall, skinny Englishwoman managed to knock-out a redneck degenerate way bigger than her.

            “Hey,” she softly said to him. “It’s alright, sweetheart. There’s nothin’ to be afraid of anymore.” She knelt down to comfort him, rubbing her fingers through his bushy black hair, a gesture that he seemed to enjoy.

            Suddenly, she heard approaching footsteps. It was Newt and Ben, arriving to find Bubba Joe already rendered unconscious. “What the heck happened?!” Ben questioned. “I thought we were gonna knock him out with magic.”

            “Change of plans,” Maureen assertively said. She gestured to Bubba Joe’s body and instructed, “Let’s get this sorry excuse back to my TARDIS and get some answers.” She then looked to the child she just befriended and added, “He’s coming with us, too.” She smiled at him, and he smiled back at her. She was grateful to have brought some light into whatever dark life this poor child had been forced into.