White House Down

Carl’s boys snapped our American flag off the front of the garage when they wrenched it open around 3AM. I noticed only because I was pouring a brandy in the kitchen. I opened the door to shout,  “Hey!” but  the shorter one, pushed past me,  lugging a 10-point buck across my tile floor. A Browning slung over his shoulder. The taller one shoved me into a chair.

“Listen,” he says calmly, tapping the Magnum on his belt  “We’re going up to the attic to process these. Don’t bother us.”

He climbs the back stairs with a bucket and assortment of knives. I’m left scratching my head.

“What’s going on?” my wife, clutching both a bathrobe and my son to her chest, asks, “Tell them to leave.”

“Well, I. Umm. Ha.” I state definitively, gulping the brandy and taking up lance—née splintered flagpole—from the corner, “Let me try that.”