Tree Rats! Or, The Crepuscular Hobbyhorse

Prose story by E. J. Barnes. Cover illustration by E. J. Barnes. Fiction.

Bob's long-retired Uncle Alec has taken up a hobby, one of which the neighbors take a dim view: Shooting at the squirrels in the back yard tree with his childhood BB gun.

Now Bob's Aunt Meryl is in the nursing home for good, and it's clear that Uncle Alec can't care for himself in her absence. Cousin Beth has headed to her parents' house to take matters in hand, and now she needs Bob's help to get her father into an assisted-living facility before he hurts somebody, possibly himself.

There's one problem with Bob being there to help: They're nearly a third of the country away, and Bob's best means of getting there is bumming a ride from his notoriously flaky ex-roommate, "Big Bird" Featherstone. And Big Bird has some ideas of his own about what the trip is for....

36pp, prose. Content warnings: Gun violence, bad language, scatological references, sexual references, animal cruelty. Recommended for readers age 14 and up.