It's where the monster hunter lives.
Didn't you get enough excitement the last time you were out here, Larry?
You gotta have better ways of spending your vacation days.
No, no, no, no. This is business.
My sf fan number one subscribers
are begging me for more info on cletus poffenberger.
So I'm putting together a profile
for this month's e-mail newsletter.
Yeah, well, gotta keep the public happy.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Are you kidding me?
I mean, they are going to be so thrilled
to get into the mind of a real-life mad scientist, you know.
Like lugosi in the phantom creeps
or Lionel atwill in doctor x!
I don't know about those guys.
Cletus isn't mad, he's... he's "different."
All those years out there alone with 4-12...
Whoa, whoa, whoa. 4-12. Okay.
That sounds like the good stuff for the profile.
All right. Tell me everything you know.
You want to know everything? Yeah.
Okay.
All right. Fine.
Shoot.
The way I hear it...
Larry.
It just does that sometimes.
It started with a shortage of blue diamond cholla cactus in the valley.
Cletus was desperate to find some to level out 4 - 12's mood.
No buds.
4-12?
You awake?
I know you want buds, little guy,
but I couldn't find anything.
Must have finally picked the valley clean.
Gotta hang on a little longer, 4-12.
I'll head west first thing tomorrow.
Settle down, 4-12. Settle down.
It's just a rough patch. That's all.
Once we get you fed...
No! 4-12! Come back!
4-12! No, no, no!
Come back! Come back!
I'm glad to see you're still with us.
I've been chasing a monster.
Bad idea. You just antagonize him.
But you don't know what this one's capable of.
I know enough not to chase him.
There'll be the devil to pay if you don't.
I'll keep that in mind. Here, have some water.
Easy does it.
That's good.
Been wandering around out here for a while, I take it.
A day or two. I forget.
Yeah, well, let's... let's see if you can stand, huh?
Can you take my arm here?
Okay.
Come on, easy does it. Up we go.
Upsy-Daisy.
I've seen you before.
Oh, yeah, yeah, well...
With all the publicity, TV guide, national enquirer and such.
Been years since I've seen that wife of yours.
Did you separate as friends?
You know an awful lot for a stranger.
Oh, I'm no stranger.
Been living a couple of valleys over the past 30 years.
Once in a while I get lonely,
so I climb up on diablo mesa
and take a gander at things down here with my binoculars.
Maybe you better tell me your name.
Cletus poffenberger.
And you'd be?
Burt gummer.
Ah.
How about you and I take a ride, cletus?
Where to, Burt?
Perfection.
That's good.
I need to warn those folks about the monster.
Okay.
It's a situation that really needs to be attended to.
Here we go.
Run for it! There's a monster on the loose!
So?
No telling what it'll do. Kill! Maim!
What is wrong with you people?
Found him lying in the desert.
My guess is too much sun. Maybe some bad cactus.
Here. Don't worry about it.
We get along with that thing just fine.
Well, there's nothing we can do about him anyway.
El blanco's an endangered species.
I'm not talking about your worm!
What I'm talking about is a lot worse than that.
Yeah, I'm sure you're right.
We should go compare notes.
But first maybe a nice soothing cup of tea
and a nice relaxing bath.
Guess I am a little whacked at that. Tired, too.
You know, I've always admired that garden of yours.
Well, that concludes today's entertainment.
If you'll excuse me, i got my... stand fast.
Huh?
You haven't noticed anything unusual
over the last few days, have you?
Come on, Burt.
He's just another desert rat with water in his fuel.
No tracks, no carcasses?
You're not slipping, are you, Burt?
You're not saying you missed something?
A simple yes or no will suffice.
Okay, no.
No tracks, no carcasses.
Not that I've been looking that hard.
Vigilans, Tyler, semper vigilans.
So, how does it feel to be all cleaned up?
Can't beat this small town hospitality.
But I feel a little guilty, too,
me in here while I should be out chasing the creature.
We go through this every day.
I guarantee you don't.
Anyway, your clothes are in the wash.
So let's just hope there's something besides dirt holding them together.
What do I have to do to convince you folks?
Well, it would have helped if you hadn't shown up shouting like a lunatic.
Don't like excitement, eh?
Cletus, I know it's gotta be weird for you,
being thrown in amongst strangers
after being out in the desert alone all these years.
I had 4-12 with me and nobody ever had a better pal.
Yeah. I'm sure.
But what about the human connection?
Living out there with no one to talk to, to share your life with?
Doesn't sound all that much different from your life to me.
I did try to convince my ex-husband to move here with us,
but he said it was another one of my artistic pipe dreams.
Of course, you did have the little girl with you.
Your daughter, I assume.
Well, you have been paying attention.
Oh. I don't want you to think I'm a voyeur, Nancy.
But I'm helpless in the face of beauty.
And you and...
Mindy.
Mindy. Yeah.
Naturally, you've been mistaken for sisters.
Once or twice.
Backstage, perhaps?
Oh. I collected those way before I had mindy.
Glad to see the flying burrito brothers represented.
One of my favorite bands.
But you seem to have been better acquainted with Jethro tull.
Wait a minute. How did we wind up talking about me?
You are the mysterious stranger, cletus.
Yeah. But whenever i try to demystify myself
you refuse to believe me.
I'm sorry if you were offended.
Should I be something else?
Cletus, you have to understand our situation here.
We live with a monster every day.
So when you come here talking about another one,
well, quite frankly, it's hard to get our attention.
Oh. So it's evidence you're seeking.
It would help.
Very well, then.
Let me show you where 4-12 gored me when he was a pup.
See my scar?
Oh, yeah. Oh, oh, I see it. Yes.
Hey, harlow. Going to check on the north 40?
That's my calling in life.
Uh-huh.
Coming on out later, rosalita?
Yes, after Tyler fixes my car.
All right. Talk to you.
You don't think the job's getting to harlow, do you?
Nothing gets to harlow.
You gonna fix my car or what?
Tyler Reed at your service.
Specializing in the replacement of egr valves.
Okay.
This car's never really run the way I want it,
but, you know, they gave me a special deal on it.
I think they liked me or something.
I'd give you a special deal, too.
Do you mind finishing the job before you hit on me?
Don't find mechanic work romantic, huh?
It's all that grease under the guys' nails.
Oh, right. And you're the sophisticated type.
How about your hoochie in bixby or miss dairy queen?
Auto parts turn them on?
Oh, you're tough, rosalita.
But since you're keeping score, she wasn't miss dairy queen,
she was miss pioneer days.
Keeping score?
It's more like every time i turn around someone's telling me
about how you're putting your boots under a new bed.
I don't know how rumors like that get started.
I just don't.
You're good for another 10,000 Miles.
You promise?
Rosalita, have I ever lied to you?
Probably, but thanks just the same.
Anything else I can do for you?
No, nothing I can think of.
I got a couple of cows with hookworm. I need to see how harlow's doing.
I could go with you.
I mean, make sure it's, you know, running good.
You're good, Tyler. Hop in.
Yeah.
Come on.
Easy, boy. Easy, boy.
Come on!
Come on.
Burt. Hey, Burt. You there?
Come in, Tyler. Over.
You gotta get over here. To rosalita's.
We got big trouble.
Was a good horse.
Nothing should ever have to die like that.
Better him than you, harlow.
It had a horn. That's what made all of them there holes.
So vicious. Any one of these wounds would have killed it.
Was it a shrieker?
Negative. They don't have horns.
Besides, they would have eaten the horse.
Then an ass-blaster?
Nope. No scorch marks, no sulfurous fumes.
I would have said if it was either one of them.
I know what they look like.
Well, then, what the hell was it?
I don't know.
Never seen anything like it before.
Kind of a low slung rhinoceros of a farm-dog size.
Its horn was between its eyes.
Red eyes.
Anything else unusual?
Yeah, it was fast.
Practically up my ass before I knew it.
Weird science, Burt. That's all I can say.
Burt, where you headed?
I'm gonna talk to cletus.
To who?
Some desert rat Burt dragged in.
He was babbling on about a monster on the loose.
You're kidding, right, Burt?
Not about this.
There's a new threat in the valley
and I'm betting cletus knows what it is.
This is unacceptable. I cannot accept this.
Afraid you don't get a vote.
Burt, when I moved here, you said that I should only worry
about El blanco, maybe some shriekers, ass-blasters...
Only three.
I am tired of these...
Do you hear me? Yes, I hear you.
Hmm.
They miniaturized it, huh?
Computers?
Oh, come on. You knew that.
I want to know.
I'll tell you why I'm sleeping with your husband.
Because your husband don't love you.
He don't be with you.
Go ahead!
Come on!
They're cousins.
Those two girls?
And the guy they're both sleeping with.
Are you sure about that?
It's a rerun.
Well, TV's changed.
The saltiest woman i remember is miss kitty.
Tide rolls in, tide rolls out, if you know what I mean.
Yeah, but this world you're living in
looks to me like it's rolling in the wrong direction.
Hello to you, too, Burt.
Okay, friend. Point made.
About the world?
No, about your creature.
Did 4-12 hurt somebody?
A horse, which is bad enough. Punched full of holes.
That's definitely within 4-12's capability.
Are you saying that there really is something else after us?
Affirmative.
But I just declared open season on it.
There.
Cletus, get back here.
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes. Yes.
No buds anywhere.
Then stay in formation.
The buds smooth 4-12's moods right out.
I've got the cure for his damn moods.
.375 h&h mag.
You wouldn't need that damn elephant gun
if I could just find some blue diamond cholla.
Well, fat chance. There's less of it every year.
He needs its buds just the same.
They're heavy with Melatonin and ssrls.
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.
They keep the serotonin in the synaptic cleft
until 4-12 forgets what got him out of sorts.
You don't sound like any desert rat I ever met.
What were you before you went native?
Biochemist.
Biochemist?
Worked right out here a ways, in fact.
Oh, the hell you did.
Well, not that you'd know.
It was a secret lab.
Hidden inside one of these mountains out there somewhere.
Not in this valley. No secret labs here.
Oh, I was right about the monster, wasn't I?
Yes, you were. And we're gonna find it.
Come on.
Here! Stop! This is it!
What?
Back up. Stop. Stop. Turn in there.
What are you talking about?
The road to the lab. This is where it was.
I've lived in this valley for 20 years.
There's nothing here, never has been.
Well, maybe you haven't looked hard enough.
Come on, cletus. Come on. You're wasting my...
What the hell?
Road to the lab.
Told you.
Where's the rest of it?
It gets complicated, Burt.
The government tore it up
so no one would go snooping around what was left of it.
What do you mean, "what was left of it?"
They blew it all to hell!
Tried to bury everything we were doing.
Who, the government? No, no.
The folks that ran the lab.
These folks you're talking about have a name?
The proud foot corporation.
Hell of a time to lay this on me, cletus.
I got pressing business with this damn creation of yours.
Well, I didn't mean to get you all worked up.
Well, you did. Get in the truck.
I'm getting!
Is that where you want them?
Yeah. Thanks.
They're some good old boys in nascar'd say,
"you're no bigger than a ham biscuit."
What's that supposed to mean?
It means you're petite.
Oh, someone on a harley.
How can you tell?
It's the most distinctive sound in engineering.
Hell, they wanna trademark it.
Hmm.
Nice bike.
I need beer.
Domestic or imported?
Wet.
You must be thirsty.
What the hell are you looking at?
Come on, man. You can do better than that, can't you?
You're not the only one who doesn't like proud foot.
A known tool of government oppression.
Probably has ties to the trilateral commission.
What was proud foot doing out here?
Wasn't like the shifty bastards told me.
They were too busy keeping us scientists away from each other.
We each had our project.
That was it. Mine was 4-12.
If they were so shifty, how come they had to close up shop?
The government.
Not likely.
Yes, it was.
I tried to tell you before, but you were too busy talking.
The government brought the hammer down
because proud foot went off the reservation.
I hear they sold all kinds
of devilish inventions out the back door.
A rogue operation.
Sons of Judas are worse than I thought.
Two days after we got word about the feds,
the lab was gone.
It was all I could do
to put 4-12 in my satchel and make a run for it.
He was just a pup.
He was...
Didn't want him to die before he'd had a chance to live.
And you and that thing have been hiding out ever since?
He's not a thing.
He's my pal.
Some pal.
Well, how about you and that big worm?
El blanco to you.
And I happen to view him as a worthy adversary,
much the way patton saw rommel.
He's more than that.
You're like captain ahab and his whale.
El blanco is your Moby dick.
We're not talking about me. We're talking about you and that...
You and 4-12 hiding out in the desert.
It was the only place we had to go.
Government agents staked out my apartment in bixby.
A man's worst nightmare.
You see, Burt,
all your life you thought somebody was out to get you.
Me, I knew it.
Help! Help!
It's Nancy!
It's that thing! It's coming!
We gotta call Burt!
Hold your horses, I can handle this.
You're missing!
No, I'm not!
Watch out.
Oh, mama!
Tyler, come on! Move it!
Let's get the hell out of here, Tyler! It's coming!
Can't this piece of junk go any faster?
It's still after us!
Hang on!
All points, come in.
All points, come in. Over.
Burt. Crazy stuff, man.
That ugly mother damn near killed us!
Slow down.
Jodi, Nancy, me, we saw him kill a biker.
I'm looking at him.
You're in town?
You better be heads-up, man.
That thing's got one mean sense of smell or something.
Roger that. Where are you?
Well, I was putting some distance between us and town.
Go get rosalita and harlow.
I want the bunch of you back here, pronto.
I'm not gonna promise you anything.
You know how rosalita is.
Tell her we're at war.
It's that bad, huh?
Trust us. You do not want to stay here by yourself.
You driving, lead foot?
Don't forget to buckle your seatbelt.
Harlow's coming, too, isn't he?
Yeah, he's right there.
You don't have to convince me.
It killed harlow's horse at point x.
A javelina at point y.
A burro at point z.
Collateral damage, I'd say.
What about that poor devil outside?
He look like collateral damage?
It's a terrible thing.
Too bad there wasn't any blue diamond cholla.
Well, there wasn't. So your problem becomes the valley's problem,
which makes it Burt gummer's problem!
The way I see it, this creature of yours is sweeping the valley
in a classic grid pattern, north to South, South to north.
Feel free to chime in.
There's a wrong time for silence, cletus. You created the thing.
Why, yes, yes, I did.
It was my job to breed 4-12 for combat.
Vietnam.
Seemed like everybody had given up on the war
except the hardliners in the military and at proud foot.
They thought 4-12 could track down.
North vietnamese soldiers in the jungle at night.
Maybe even root the vc out of the tunnels
in cu chi province.
Hell, 4-12 is expendable.
Kill one, they'd send a dozen more just like him.
Flesh and blood killing machine.
Well, the strongest thing i ever called it was a hybrid.
The combination of a rhino,
switchback spider and a Wolverine.
Impossible.
You're wrong, Burt. We made a big breakthrough in the lab.
Enormous, to tell you the truth.
What kind of breakthrough?
We created a compound that allowed us
to blend DNA from different species.
Called it mixmaster.
Mixmaster?
30 years ago there wasn't a gene-splicing tool
that could come close to it.
And, of course, the government kept it a secret.
What's wrong with you, Burt?
You haven't moved him yet?
For God's sake, Burt, he's not roadkill!
I'm just trying to make sure the rest of us don't end up dead!
Tyler, harlow, heads up.
Well, while they're doing that, come on, Jodi.
Me? Why?
Well, we're not going to let him lay out in the sun!
Come on.
You're even better looking up close.
Do I know you?
Cletus poffenberger.
Mmm-mmm.
I've admired you from afar. But, you know,
you really ought to wear some clothes
when you're out taking the sun.
You need a bodyguard, I'm your man.
Ladies,
what we have here is a severe lack of time.
Now, I've plotted the creature's movements
and according to my calculations...
It's coming back!
Right on his grid pattern. Just like I thought.
Tyler, get them into the store.
All right, you heard the man. Let's go.
Everyone inside. Let's go. Step on it.
Cletus, cletus. Come on, come on. Huh?
We're not safe.
Get serious, cletus.
It's Burt that's not safe.
It's destroying everything!
Jodi, get to your vehicle. I want all of you out of here. Now!
We need backup on this one.
We'll find out, won't we?
No, no, no, no, no, no! He can see you! He can see you!
I tried to warn you!
It's coming back!
Let's get in the quonset hut.
The steel walls are a better bet.
Don't move, cletus. Freeze!
Freeze!
El blanco now?
We don't make the rules.
Take that, you big ugly!
I'll see your 4-12 and raise you.
El blanco just upchucked that thing.
Get out of here, you damn worm.
Hundred yards, go, go!
Come on, cletus!
Come on, come on!
What did I just see out there?
That can't be the same El blanco that ate my car.
Spitting up that overgrown groundhog?
No. No way.
Enlighten us.
4-12 secretes a chemical
that, in layman's terms, is a mixture of skunk entrails,
panther urine and cougar excrement.
The smell is intended to nauseate the enemy.
Well, I guess El blanco bit off more than he could chew, didn't he?
Never mind that.
What were you yelling at Tyler and me out there?
Yeah, about how that thing could...
Could see through the store?
Well, I just tried to tell Nancy earlier.
4-12 has X-ray vision.
X-ray vision?
Well, like superman!
There's nothing wrong with stealing a good idea from a comic book.
What were you yelling at Tyler?
How we gonna fight? We have no guns.
We've got all the weapons we need right here.
In the eye of the beholder, right, Burt?
Roger. Let's each take a pile and dig in.
Sound off if you find something that could be lethal.
Burt, how come that thing's not knocking down the walls?
You want to explain or should I?
Take your best shot.
Cletus' damn pet is most likely circling the building
while we waste time talking!
Knock it out with a minimum number of blows
and send us all to our maker.
That about cover it?
An assessment worthy of a war college.
Let's go! That thing waits for no man.
Cleaning solvent?
Acetone. Flammable. Save it.
What about this?
Hang on to that.
Hey, Burt. Check it out.
Yeah, yeah, might be just the ticket.
Won't hold out much longer!
Who's side are you on?
He's my baby boy!
Yeah. Well, be that as it may,
Tyler, fill that thing with cleaning solvent.
Now for a cigarette lighter.
Flame thrower?
Uh-huh.
Come on, can you speed it up, Burt?
No.
Give me a moment with him before you do anything drastic.
I can calm him down. I know I can.
This is 30 years we're talking about here, Burt,
my life and 4-12's.
Fine, you talk to him. But we're gonna keep doing what we're doing.
4-12. It's me, buddy.
It's cletus.
You've got to settle down.
Hear me, 4-12?
You gotta simmer down,
so I can get you out of here in one piece.
Then we can go home. You and me, hmm?
We'll live just like we used to.
That's what you want, isn't it?
Cletus.
Harlow, the doors!
Not in my valley, you don't.
Cletus, we didn't have a choice.
I know 4-12 was up to no good,
but he was the best...
Cletus?
It's time to go.
I'll never forget you, little guy.
Time for me to head back home.
And this lady is driving me as far as she can.
Your scientist friends,
they didn't come up with any more pets like yours, did they?
Well, that lab was a busy place.
Yeah, an answer like that, I gotta figure they have more secrets out there.
I guess we'll all find out.
Vaya con dios.
And Burt's been searching for the lab
ever since cletus mentioned it.
Hey, do you think he has any other creatures
from the old lab hidden up there with him?
You know, a pandora's box of freakish and devilish creations?
Creations? He only told us about 4-12.
But around here, you can never tell.