Another Exterminator’s Fate (Over The Hedge)
Several months had passed since the events of Over The Hedge. The house which Gladys Sharp lived in had been empty since she got arrested for her illegal possession of the Depelter Turbo. She never returned to the house, which was a big relief to the woodland animals she had targeted.
RJ, a raccoon had now joined their family along with Tiger, a cat who previously belonged to Gladys who was now in a relationship with Stella the skunk.
One day, they were all sleeping peacefully when they were all woken up by the sudden breaking of a vehicle and banging of a car door.
“What the hell was that?” Verne cried almost being jerked out of his shell.
“I’ll check, wait here,” RJ replied as he walked towards the hedge the animals were now frequently using.
RJ peeped through the hedge and his mouth dropped with shock as he recognised the vehicle as well as the man who gave such an evil smile as he looked from side to side at the hedge. Dwayne LaFontant was back.
“Oh no, this is bad. I better go and tell the others and fast,” RJ said as he quickly ran back to the rest of the animals. They were concerned at the look on RJ’s face.
“Hey what’s up RJ, you don’t look too good,” Leo a porcupine asked.
“You look like you seen a ghost, what happened?” Hammy the squirrel asked.
“It’s him, h-he’s back,” RJ said.
“Who’s back?” Ozzie an opossum asked.
Verne the turtle walked up to RJ and then asked. “What did you see RJ? Please tell us.”
“That exterminator who tried to kill us several months back. And he’s back to finish the job,” RJ said.
“Are you sure? Didn’t he get arrested?” Stella the skunk asked.
“Either he got away or they let him go. But I know what I saw,” RJ said.
“Let’s have a look then. We must be careful not to be seen though,” Leo said.
“I will stay here and look after the children,” Penny who was Leo’s wife said. They had three little children who were now scared.
“Thank you Penny, okay lets see what’s going on,” Leo said as the other animals walked up to the hedge.
They all gasped when they saw Dwayne’s van and turned slightly to see Dwayne taking out a gun from the passenger seat.
“Oh my god, he’s got a gun, he intends to shoot us all. Quick we need to get back. Don’t let him see us,” RJ said as they all returned to their previous spot where Penny and her children were and they were told of what they saw.
Dwayne had now jumped the hedge and was now in the woods and was determined to destroy the animals he had previously encountered. They saw him coming from afar and hid in their hibernation spot where they were out of sight and earshot.
“I’m scared mommy,” Quillo said.
“Me too,” Bucky said as they and the third son, Spike all got in close to Penny who huddled them close.
“Where are you, you dumb animals. Come out so I can end your miserable lives once and for all. You may have beaten me last time but I will destroy you all if it’s the last thing I do,” Dwayne said.
“What should we do now?” Hammy asked.
“With someone like that. Only one thing we can do, we should instigate a full takedown. And it’s not something we should take lightly,” Stella said.
“You don’t mean…” Ozzie replied knowing what Stella meant.
“That’s right. We can’t have someone like that coming into our homes trying to destroy our way of life,” Stella added.
“But we haven’t done anything like that for about four years when that hunter tried to murder us all back then. Boy, did we teach him a lesson,” Ozzie replied.
“I don’t really like the sound of this. Taking on a man with a gun, we were barely lucky last time,” Verne replied.
“We have no choice. Humans like that need to be shown we will not allow them to destroy us or our home. We must fight back,” Leo added.
“We’ll be fine if we all work together,” Stella said.
RJ and Tiger were quite confused as they were quite new to the group so didn’t know what the others were talking about when referring to a “last time”.
“Hey, what you guys talking about. What do you have in mind?” RJ asked.
“Oh yeah, you wasn’t with us back then, basically what my dad and Stella meant was we set a trap for that human, capture him and imprison him for a while until he promises to leave us alone,” Heather, Ozzie’s daughter said.
“We’ll show this creep just like that last creep,” Hammy said.
“Basically that, we’ve done it once before as we already stated and we can do it again,” Stella said.
“Sounds interesting, I’ll be glad to help if it means protecting us all,” RJ replied.
“Right then, we’ll begin right away,” Stella replied as they began discussing how they will capture Dwayne.
After they finished, Ozzie went up to the entrance of their hibernation spot but was careful to make sure he would not be spotted. He peeped out to check if Dwayne was still around but didn’t see him.
“The coast looks clear, he seems to have left for now,” Ozzie said to the other animals.
“Be careful, he could still be out there somewhere,” Verne replied. Ozzie nodded and took another look in all directions.
“Come out wherever you are, I know you’re in here somewhere,” Dwayne’s voice said in a taunting tone.
“Oh shit, he’s still here,” Ozzie whispered and quickly popped his head back down out of sight as Dwayne walked past and stopped and took a big sniff.
“Yes, they’re here, I can smell them, now where are they?” Dwayne said.
“Quickly, out the other way before he finds us,” Hammy said as they ran out the other way just as Dwayne looked down near to the spot where they just were and saw nothing.
“Phew, that was too close. Quickly, lets get to work before he finds and kills us all,” Verne said as they all took up different positions.
Dwayne was angry now and turned around. He walked a bit through the leaves and saw what appeared to be the dead body of an opposum. This was of course Ozzie pretending to be dead what was a big skill of his.
He walked over to inspect and nearby he saw Heather also pretending to be dead.
“Two dead opossums, how come I never saw these before?” Dwayne said to himself.
“Or are they even dead, this one looks like the same opposum who I dealt with before,” Dwayne said.
Ozzie gulped quietly but not enough for Dwayne to notice. Dwayne switched his eyes between Ozzie and Heather and was about to pick up Ozzie when he was alerted by a voice from behind.
“Hey, leave them alone,” Hammy said from a tree branch as he started to throw nuts at Dwayne. Ozzie and Heather now got back up and bit on his legs causing him to cry in pain.
“AAAH, You’ve given me rabies. Now you’ll pay,” Dwayne cried.
Tiger jumped on his head and Dwayne recognised him as Glady’s former cat.
“Take this, you nasty human,” Tiger said while slashing his face making him drop his gun. Tiger then jumped off him onto the floor.
“Quick, grab the gun. Don’t let him pick it up again,” RJ said. Verne retrieved it and pointed it at Dwayne who had now regained his composure.
“Give me that gun back, you don’t know how to use that thing,” Dwayne said nervously. Verne just sneered at him.
“Do you want to make a bet on that?” Verne replied. He didn’t know how to use it but didn’t want Dwayne to know that plus he at least knew what pulling the trigger would do and so did Dwayne who was now in a difficult position. .
“What is this? Animals aren’t supposed to talk and be organised and stuff, you’re all just dumb animals,” Dwayne then said. But the tone of his voice was now totally changed from how he was before.
The rest of the animals had now come together all giving Dwayne angry looks.
“Is that right? There is so much you don’t know about us. You come in here and think you can just wipe us all out. We are so much smarter than you or any other human like you think,” Ozzie said.
“The traps in his van have now all been destroyed. And look what else I found while scooting around in there,” Lou said who showed the animals some ropes and a cloth.
Some of the animals looked down at them and then back at Dwayne who was now smirking at him.
“Eh-heh, you wouldn’t. You couldn’t,” Dwayne just said realising what their intentions were.
“Now why would an exterminator need use of these,” Stella said.
“Look, I think I’ll be leaving now,” Dwayne said and was about to leave when he heard the cocking of his gun.
“I would stay put if I were you,” Verne replied now ready to pull the trigger. The animals had no qualms about getting rid of an animal murderer but wanted to teach him a lesson instead.
“Okay, I uh surrender. Do what you must,” Dwayne said feeling as he had no other choice. There was no way he would be able to live this down.
The animals accepted his surrender and got him down to the floor and proceeded to tie him up with his own ropes; hands, legs, arms and feet while then gagging him with the cloth. Once he had been fully subdued, they disposed of the gun.
“Say cheese,” Hammy said taking a picture of Dwayne’s tied up form who just looked wide eyed.
“Any more animal abuse from you and these pictures will be all over the net,” Hammy laughed.
Being tied up by a bunch of little animals was bad enough but to have it spread all over the internet would be embarrassing.
“How does it feel to be defeated by a bunch of “dumb animals”?” Hammy added.
“Who’s the dumb one now, eh?” RJ said.
“Come on, lets go. Lets leave this scumbag to think about his actions and crimes against the animal kingdom, it’s not like he’ll be able to escape from those bonds anyway,” Lou said.
“One more thing, here is a parting gift. See you around loser,” Stella said as she let off her stink in Dwayne’s face knocking him out.
The animals then left Dwayne alone unconscious on the ground.