I am not big on breakfast, so I was surprised to discover that I had an appetite. I assumed it was because I’d been up for so many hours. I fixed myself scrambled eggs and toast, wondered where Peter could be while I ate it, and then headed downstairs to get the autopsy out of the way. I made a detour to my office to get another syringe with GHB in it as a safety measure.
My hands shook as I inserted the keys into the two padlocks Max insisted on locking the door with. I’d used enough GHB in that syringe to keep him out for some time, but it had been a few hours and he was a big guy. I also wasn’t sure how it affected dead people verses live ones. Was it more
potent, or less?
I slowly pulled the door open far enough to peek in and make sure the body was still on the gurney. I was glad we’d taken the extra measure of strapping it in. He looked still and very dead. I just hoped that was the fa
Exactly ninety minutes later, creepy Zacharias pulled up to the door of the mortuary to fetch the body. I’d managed to put Jacob’s skull back together so that you could barely tell that I’d cut it open, but that still didn’t stop him from fussing about the extra work he had in front of him to camouflage the butcher job I’d done on the poor man. I bit my lip for fear of saying something I knew I’d regret and hustled him out to his hearse. I expected the electrician at any moment and I didn’t want any stark reminders of what went on in the morgue greeting him. Seeing the body being hauled away by the obnoxious undertaker was a sure given.One hour later, Jameson Packson hesitated at the door with tools in hand. “Is the coast clear?”“Clear and clean Mr. Packson. Please, come in.”“You can call me Jamie, doc. Everyone does.”“Alright then,
My brows knit together as I tried to remember if he’d mentioned knowing her. I’d met Angela through her and he was friends with Angela, so it wouldn’t be an odd thing if they were friends. I decided to make it a point to get a bit more information out of my lover before I crawled back into bed with him.It was Megan who spotted me first and waved her greeting. I couldn’t help returning the broad smile she wore as she waddled up the drive. Watching her struggle to get her arthritis riddled legs to walk, I was reminded of how old the woman truly was. Her witty and youthful conversations made it something that was easy to forget.I rushed to spare her more walking than necessary.“What a pleasant surprise, Megan,” I said as I gave her a quick hug. “What brings you here? Is it an official visit or just friendly? Are you well?”Megan’s eyes sparkled in the late afternoon
I sat, expectantly; watching Peter fidget as he gathered his thoughts to share with us.He looked at Megan. “I asked you to stay because it was clear to me that you were holding back while Max was here.” When Megan locked eyes with him and then gave a slight nod, he continued. “You are a wise woman who knows more than you’re letting on.”“Get to the point,” Megan said in a friendly, but firm tone.Peter looked at me. “It’s time for me to share this with you, but I’m not looking forward to it. It might change our relationship. If it does, it will be a sad thing for me.”I couldn’t imagine what it was that he was leading up to, so I guessed. “Does it have to do with why you had to catch a ride with Megan rather than spring for a cab?”Peter grinned and shook his head. “I caught a ride with Megan as a means to get the two of you together t
The county was filled with zombies that passed themselves off as your everyday person and my boyfriend was a vampire. I waited all those years to date and then, when I finally did, he was a blood sucking vampire! Such was my life.I lay on the top of my bed with my fingers to my temples. What was happening? Looking back at my childhood on the farm, I realized what a sheltered life I’d led.While growing up, I’d whine about how boring life was and how I couldn’t wait to get to the big city. Now, what I wouldn’t give for a bit of that boredom.Peter’s quiet knock on my door caught my attention.“Vickie, can I come in?”I rolled onto my side and curled intothe fetal position. “I’d like some alone time, Peter.”“I understand.” There was a sad tone to his voice. “I just want you to know that I’ll leave if you want me to.”
True to her word, Angela returned by the weekend. She was both pleased and surprised to discover that Peter now occupied a room on the second floor. I caught her in quiet conversation with him more than once before the weekend was through, but I made no effort to find out the topic of conversation. I was fairly certain she was making him explain why he’d moved in and why he’d become my lover. I would have said that it wasn’t any of her business, but, considering everything, I guess it was.It took until Monday afternoon to get my phone working again. After checking all the lines in the house, the telephone company was forced to trace their lines. They found the one feeding my office had been cut at a pole further up the block and then taped together so that it looked perfectly normal from a distance. We suspected the zombie queen was behind it -that was Peter and my name for her- but we plead ignorance to the telephone company.&
I’d had a week of relative calm in my life. I was sitting on the front porch in my favorite rocking chair after a meal of delicious and hearty vegetable lasagna that Angela had made for the household. She was still inside clearing things up, but Peter and Evan were with me. There was only light and meaningless conversation flowing between us. It was wonderful, and I wanted it to last forever.Of course, it didn’t.Megan’s panicked phone call brought my world of bliss crashing in around us. She’d narrowly escaped being attacked by someone she was certain was an advanced zombie and she’d gone into hiding as a result. The creature had been so bold as to waltz into her shop in broad daylight!I told her to stay put and then pulled Peter into the house with the pretext of having him help me rustle up a few night caps so thatI could tell him about it. He was furious.To my surprise, he not only
Megan’s reminder of the true matter at hand snapped everyone back into focusing on her dilemma. She was right. Whatever petty issues we had about who was with whom, who rejected whom, and who lied to whom could wait. We needed to come up with a game plan to capture at least three advanced zombies, possibly more.We decided to send the vampires out in search of the zombies while Max and I stay in the cellar with Megan. One of the advantages of working with vampires that Max openly appreciated was the fact that they were able to smell a zombie from a good distance away and were skilled into taking them down and destroying them. There were only a few cases where zombies got the upper hand and that was when the zombie was of a specific strain; which the ones inour area weren’t.We left the education of the different breeds or strains of zombies for a later date and urged them out of the cellar. We’d been a large number of p
I settled Megan into a room not far from the one Peter occupied. Angela made mention, more than once, that she thought both Peter and Megan would be better off on the wing that she and Evan occupied as there was strength in numbers. I found it interesting that she didn’t suggest that anyone be placed on the wing that my room was in, but let it go as it was clearly a ploy of hers to get Peter closer.It saddened me to see this side of her. I was just beginning to consider us friends.“It’s so nice here that I’m tempted to give up my place and move in permanently. I like the commune feel,” Megan teased as she entered the kitchen and grabbed an oatmeal cookie from the plate I’d set in the middle of the table.“You won’t hear me arguing if you do,” I said as I set an oversized pot of tea and a stack of cups next to the cookie plate. “I like my private time, but I also enjoy people. T