Hardcore Twenty-Four (Stephanie Plum #24)(40)

“It’s the cooties. I can feel them on me. They’re zombie cooties. They’re the worst kind.”

“Are you sure they aren’t Johnny Chucci cooties?”

“He had bad breath, too. His breath smelled like dirt and worms.”

“He breathed on you?”

“It was awful.”

The back-porch light flashed on, and Judy stepped out. “What’s happening? Did you catch Johnny?”

“You got any bleach?” Lula asked. “I gotta pour bleach on myself.”

Judy looked at the backyard. “My gnomes! What happened to my gnomes? Where’s Mr. Sunshine Sparkle?”

“We just got here,” I said. “It looks like someone tried to run through your yard.”

“Yeah,” Lula said. “It might have been a pack of wild dogs. Or maybe the zombies.”

Judy blinked. “Zombies?”

“They’re all over town,” Lula said. “Trenton’s lousy with them. They were probably here looking for gnome brains.”

“That’s horrible,” Judy said.

“No shit,” Lula said. “You might want to take your gnomes in the house . . . what’s left of them anyways.”

“You haven’t got any clothes on,” Judy said to Lula.

“My clothes got the cooties,” Lula said.

Judy grimaced, stepped into her house, and closed and locked the door.

“I should have shot him in the head,” Lula said. “It’s that he caught me by surprise.”

“Next time,” I told her.

“Yeah, I’ll be ready next time.”

I looked at her clothes lying on the ground. “What are you going to do about your clothes?”

“I’m not touching them. They can rot there. They been tarnished with zombie juju.”

“You’re only wearing a thong.”

“And?”

“I’m feeling uncomfortable.”

“Maybe because you’ve never been a ’ho. You get used to this when you’re a ’ho. You get comfortable with naked shit.”

“So, you’re going home like that?”

“Is it a problem?”

I blew out a sigh. “No, but if we get stopped by the police you have to hold me at gunpoint and say you forced me to drive you like this.”

“Sure. I could do that.”

I drove Lula across town without incident, and dropped her at her house. I waited until she was safe inside, and then I drove to my apartment. I idled in the lot and looked up at my windows. No lights were on. No flicker from a television screen. Probably no Diesel. I parked, walked into the building, and took the stairs to my apartment. We have an elevator, but it’s unreliable and frequently smells like take-out burrito.

I flipped the kitchen light on and said hello to Rex. I gave him fresh water, filled his cup with hamster food, and gave him a Ritz cracker. I shoved some clean clothes into a tote bag, and debated giving Morelli the notebook I’d lifted from the cemetery. In the end, I decided against it. There was nothing to be gained from the journal, and it would only complicate things.

Diesel’s leather knapsack was still stashed in a corner, so I assumed he’d be back. It didn’t look to me like the bed had been slept in since I departed it, and there were no dirty dishes in the kitchen. I had a squishy feeling in my stomach that something bad might have happened to Diesel. I hoped this wasn’t the case. I hoped he wasn’t a zombie. And I hoped he wasn’t married.

I ignored the squishy stomach, said good night to Rex, and left my apartment.

? ? ?

I parked in front of Morelli’s house, and he pulled in behind me in Ranger’s Lexus NX. He wrapped an arm around me, hugged me close, and kissed me.

“I’m beat,” he said. “And I’m starving, but I think if I could get something to eat I could muster enough energy to get you naked.”

“I brought pulled pork.”

“That’ll do it,” Morelli said.

We sat at the little kitchen table, and Morelli dug in.

“I’m guessing you still haven’t found Slick,” I said.

“No. No head. No brain. No body. I talked to his parents, but they weren’t helpful. I’m waiting for the tech to isolate the zombie frames for me.”

“Did anything interesting turn up at the cemetery?”

“We exhumed the second grave, and everything seemed to be untouched.”

“And the first one?”

“Empty.”

“Excuse me?”

“Not for common knowledge, but it was empty. No casket. Nothing but dirt.”

“Do you think Diggery took it on one of his earlier digs?”

“Diggery doesn’t usually do that. He robs everything on the scene and covers his tracks.”

“Maybe the zombies got rid of the casket, so it was easier to escape through their portal.”

“That would be one theory.”

“Do you have any others?”

“No.” He made himself a second sandwich. “How was your night? Did you catch Johnny?”

“Lula had a run-in with a zombie in Judy Chucci’s backyard. The zombie got away, but Lula was convinced she was contaminated with zombie cooties, and she stripped down to her thong.”