“Oh, you guys,” said Vesta as glasses were raised in her honor. “It was all a big coincidence, really. If I hadn’t been chased by those soldiers who thought I was a zombie and who tried to shoot me, I’d never have hidden in that dumpster and met Clarice, and she would never have shown me the way to Fred Peppard’s place.”
“You saved the day, Gran,” said Odelia. “And I think that calls for a celebration.” She planted a big kiss on her grandmother’s cheek, and it was obvious the old lady was pleased as punch.
“The best thing happened this morning,” said Gran. “When I ran into Scarlett Canyon at Rory Suds’s pharmacy, and I told her that her doctor is a quack and now in jail. You should have seen her face! Turns out Clam had been selling her fertility shots and she’d been injecting herself for months now, believing his lies, same way I did.”
“Injecting herself with what?” asked Marge.
“Snake oil, probably,” said Chase.
“Rory had one of her dosages tested—turns out he gave her an innocent saline solution. Costs cents on the dollar and he sold it to her for three thousand a pop.”
“That man has no shame,” said Marge, shaking her head.
“So do zombies exist or not?” asked Dooley now.
“Pretty sure they don’t,” I said.
“Yeah, pretty sure there are no zombies,” said Brutus.
“At least one good thing has come from all of this,” said Harriet. And she gestured to the bags of cat kibble piled high on a corner of the deck. It was part of a larger shipment. The entire contents of the Peppard Pet Food Company’s warehouse had been distributed free of charge amongst Hampton Cove’s pet owners, since it was their pets who’d suffered most at the hands of the company’s owners, and so now we had pet food for life.
“I don’t think it’s actually for life, though,” I said. “Not really. Those pellets have an expiration date, and if we don’t eat them real quick they’ll just end up in a dumpster.”
“Which is good news for me,” said Clarice. “You can say many things about Fred Peppard, but not that he doesn’t know how to make some really tasty pet food.”
“Yeah, at least in that respect he wasn’t a charlatan,” I agreed.
“But if zombies don’t exist,” said Dooley, still following his own train of thought, “what about vampires? Or elves or leprechauns or gnomes or goblins or gremlins?”
“All these mythical creatures don’t actually exist,” I said.
“Though wouldn’t it be nice if they did?” said Harriet dreamily. “Life would be so much fun!”
“Who cares about fun?” Clarice grumbled. “Just give me a nice juicy rat from time to time, that’s all the fun I need.”
I shivered. Not exactly my idea of fun. Then again, all creatures on God’s green earth are different, and that’s what makes it so fascinating to be alive. This past week alone we’d met zombies and cats and dogs and hamsters and guinea pigs and even turtles, and all of them had enriched our lives in some way. Well, maybe not the zombies. They were a little gruesome to look at. Lucky for us they had proven fake zombies in the end.
Clarice wandered off in the direction of the grill, where grill master Tex could always be relied on to dispense a few patties to anyone who cared to open their mouths, and Harriet and Brutus snuck through the opening in the hedge for a nap—or nookie?
“I still think zombies exist, Max,” said Dooley. “I just don’t think we met the right zombies.”
“And let’s hope we never do, Dooley,” I said. “I don’t think we’d enjoy the experience.”
“Maybe we would. Zombies lead a simple life: all they care about is their next meal. Like cows.”
“I’d rather meet a cow in a dark alley than a zombie, though,” I admitted.
Then again, the chances of meeting a cow in a dark alley were decidedly slim. But then so were the chances of meeting a zombie.
All in all I was glad this adventure was over. And just as I’d closed my eyes and was starting to fall asleep, suddenly a zombie came crashing through the bushes and alarmed us all.
“Save yourselves!” the zombie cried. “Save yourselves from the zombie apocalypse!”
Upon closer inspection, it was Father Reilly, and he didn’t look well.
“Father Reilly!” Marge cried. “My God, what happened to you!”
“I was shot and locked up with a horde of raging zombies!” said the wild-eyed priest, whose clothes were tattered, his face streaked with mud. “But I managed to escape, and have been hiding out in the woods for days! Where are the zombies? Have they gone?”
“They weren’t zombies,” said Tex, watching on as Father Reilly grabbed a patty from the grill and shoved it into his mouth, then spat it out again.
“Hot hot hot!” the man breathed. “What do you mean, no zombies?”
“They were just given some bad drugs,” said Odelia. “That gave them a terrible rash and affected their nervous system and made them lose their minds. They’re fine now.”
“Lies!” the priest cried. “All lies! Save yourselves while you still can!”
And he crashed into those bushes again.
“Father Reilly!” Marge cried. “Come back!”