Tales of the Malicious Goose (Vol. 3)

Detective John Franks led a fully armored SWAT team down the hall of an apartment complex in Northgate. Every one of them was hand-picked for their mastery of the high-knee tiptoeing art of stealth. This technique was passed down from intelligence agencies after studying bank robbers who had broken into banks and gotten away with stealing whole dollar sign bags of money with none the wiser. 

Now, with this technique in hand, the SWAT team tiptoed their way down the hall to apprehend the villainous silly doer: Mr. Burglar Man. He has been caught by the Fun Police for the horrid crimes of merriment, revelry, and worst of all, tomfoolery. Detective Franks himself was a member of the Fun Police and was responsible for the majority of Mr. Burglar Man’s Arrests. He was given a tip on another act of merriment Mr. Burglar Man was actively committing from an anonymous source: Sally Bertrund, a neighbor from elsewhere in the building. The team lined up on either side of the door, preparing to breach.

“Three, two, one,” Detective Franks mouthed as he counted down on his fingers.

“Wait!” The man across from him whispered, “What are we doing?”

“It was in the briefing!” Detective Franks whispered back, exasperated.

“He’s new,” said one woman stationed behind him.

“Well, he should have been at the briefing,” Detective Franks told the woman behind him.

“No, he literally just walked into the van with us, but he was enthusiastic, and his tiptoe technique was so good that we just let him in,” the woman explained.

“Oh, that makes sense,” Detective Franks said, “again, three, two, one, NOW!”

The door was slammed open as the SWAT team swarmed in, chanting, “HUT HUT HUT HUT.”

They swarmed into a living room where Mr. Burglar Man shot to his feet, dropping a book he was reading. The SWAT team surrounded him as they kept chanting, readying themselves for the order to tackle. As they got into position, they stopped chanting all at once. The new guy, not knowing the formation, said “HUP HUP” twice before he realized everyone had stopped. He sheepishly stopped chanting, ashamed now that all eyes were on him.

“It’s ‘Hut Hut,’ not ‘Hup Hup!’” Detective Franks corrected with frustration. 

“Sorry, no one told me!” the new guy said defensively. Detective Franks groaned before returning his attention back to the surrounded man. 

“Mr. Burglar Man. You are under arrest for committing acts of merriment and jolly by decorating your…” he trailed off as he looked around the apartment. Aside from a handful of cheap paintings, the apartment was astoundingly sparse. There were no decorations to be seen, and the only furniture in the room was a chair, along with a TV sitting on a milk crate. The TV displayed a video of a fireplace. 

“Where are your decorations? We saw them from outside!” Detective Franks asked. 

“Oh, that would be my neighbor. He put those lights up the day after Halloween, and between those and the blaring music he keeps playing, I haven’t been getting any sleep,” Mr. Burglar Man explained. “And my name is Tom!”

Detective Franks considered Mr. Burglar Man for a moment before saying, “You’re off the hook this time. But we’re watching you. Okay, people, next door! Same thing! And it’s ‘Hut,’ not ‘Hup!’”

*

November 28th. The day after Thanksgiving. It was just after closing hours, and the sky was dark, as it had been since 5 pm. A rainstorm raged outside, which was completely normal for Seattle weather. The doors to the Fred Meyer opened as a new customer entered. A tired employee who was closing down shop came to tell off the customer and get them to leave, but with a dreadful glare from the Goose, the employee was sent running and screaming. His coworkers came to investigate and were similarly chased out of the store. When they were gone, the Goose began hunting the halls. Every soul was to be removed from this place. The Goose could never have witnesses to its plan. 

As the Goose waddled down the clothing aisles, it stopped. A moment later, more employees were fleeing the store after having been chased out from the racks of clothes they were hiding in. The Goose was thorough in its removal of the store staff, but it was on a clock. Surely Detective Franks would hear about this and make its job somewhat more difficult. The detective was strangely motivated to hunt down the Goose, but it was amusing, so the Goose let it happen. Its most recent antic happened only yesterday when the Goose and its good friends from the north (and far east, Goosetave the French Goose was critical) had successfully infiltrated the homes of many Seattleites and taken the places of their turkeys. But the Goose was never idle. Its next task required an enhanced schedule.

The Goose had asked me—your Narrator, hi—to explain to him what these unusual items, foods, and sounds were, as it would only see them appear as the world got cold. It also understood that there was contention between people about these items, but wished to know what it was. Now armed with the knowledge about when Christmas should begin, the Goose had a new plan in mind. Boxes and merchandise of this holiday were piled high in the large empty room in the back of the store, having been thrown there carelessly by the Goose. Then it made its way into the manager's office and began the order to fill the shelves again.

*

The day is December 4th, a day after this edition of The Rambler was handed out. Detective Franks walked into a store that wasn’t the same Fred Meyer as the Goose had struck. Franks was still disappointed. He had failed to catch the Goose yet again, but something didn’t sit right with him. Usually, the Goose’s antics happen after the Rambler article releases for the month, and removing the Christmas items from the store wasn’t a very silly act of maliciousness. Something was wrong. Detective Franks contemplated briefly what could have happened when he saw it: Easter decorations took the place of the Christmas ones! Franks couldn’t have been more frustrated. Not only did he not have a chase sequence with the Goose in this story, but people were buying the Easter decorations in preparation for the holiday! 

Detective Franks fell to his knees and screamed, “I’ll get you one of these days, Malicious Goose!” which concerned many onlookers.