Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 2: Chapter Five & Epilogue
The Plunder of Great Price & Comeuppance
Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency
Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 2: Chapter One
Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 2: Chapter Two
Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 2: Chapter Three
Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 2: Chapter Four
Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 2: Chapter Five & Epilogue
Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 2: The Tybee Uranium Killer
Chapter Five: The Plunder of Great Price
The first thing that came into focus in Max’s vision was a shiny golden tooth. The way it sparkled put him in a trance as he studied it. Somehow, the glittering was the promise of a better future. How he could have gazed at it forever, and he would have, if a rotting hand hadn’t disrupted his view. His eyes then went wide as he felt mushy fingers press against his throat.
The hand pulled back, holding something between the rotten flesh hanging on by visible finger bones. Whatever it was, the cemetery’s dim lighting system gave off enough illumination for the dangling object to glisten as it approached the shiny golden tooth. Then, anticlimactically, whatever it was disappeared into the gold-toothed mouth.
“Arrr, delicious,” came out of the mouth.
Max took in what was before him. Rotten flesh not only dominated the hand but the face as well. Besides bits of bone showing through, a black eyepatch and a tricorne hat adorned the crown of the visage before him.
Max screamed. “I’m being eaten by a zombie!”
The zombie before him leaped backward. Its one eye, a sea of white surrounding the pupil, starring back at the lawyer-mistaken-for-a-zombie. He couldn’t tell if the real zombie was shocked to see him or not as there didn’t seem to be any sort of eyelid remaining around the one remaining eye.
The pirate took a step forward and leaned down to eye level with Max. “Whoa, whoa, settle down there, matey. I be enjoying this fried chicken smeared on ye, not yer flesh.”
“What?” Max’s response was more nervous laughter than actual words.
“I, a Creature of Cryptidkind, specifically a zombie pirate, would never harm a Haitian Vodou Zombie-American like yeself. We be practically kin.”
“What the what?!?!”
“Ah, I think the blast from old Oglethorpe might have scrambled yer once delicious brain. Here, let me help ye up.”
The mushy hand grabbed Max’s wrist and pulled him up. Cool Savannah air filled Max’s lungs, though his head still swam in a sea of pain.
“As I be saying, it looks to me that ye got one of Oglethorpe’s nuclear-powered mental blasts. He can project attacks, though he not be harming us zombies, as he be feeling a kindred notion towards us. Tell me, why did he attack ye?”
Shaking his head, Max mentally replayed the events. “He took my colleague. I was trying to save her.”
“What? That does not be sounding like him. Who did he take?”
The notion that she was more than a colleague, despite all that he had been through, crept in through the pounding migraine. He pondered what word choice he wanted to use. Colleague sounded, well, wrong. Partner was too loaded in the twenty-first century. Fellow servant of a golden ghost in heaven sounded too pretentious and opened up way too many questions. He stood there, unable to think of an answer until his migraine came surging back.
“She’s sort of a pain in the neck, though, I feel kind of like the universe set us up together.”
“A friend?”
The zombie’s words cut to the chase.
He was not ready to use that term, though a feeling, whether it was Stockholm Syndrome or something else, nagged at him about that word. “Her name is Debra.”
“Debra?! Debra the Vampiress?! Debra the schemer? Debra the bane of Savannah?”
“I take it you have heard of her.”
“Heard of her? One time she showed up at me place of employment, the Pirate Home Restaurant, after feeding off some druggies. She was so high she thought a child’s drawing of a pirate be real. After trying to buy it from the child, she grabbed it and started yelling that the pirate was trapped in the paper. When the lad’s father got involved, she accidentally ripped the paper and bawled her eyes out, thinking she murdered the pirate before he could be telling her where his treasure was.”
That sounded beyond belief, or at least it would have if Max hadn’t experienced everything he had since his misadventure in Haiti. All he could do was blink.
“Yes, son, ye do not want to be with her. Whatever old Oglethorpe wants to do with that lady, ye want nothing to do with it. Have a good night, lad, and thank ye for the chicken.”
With that, the pirate began limping away with the peg leg that Max only now noticed.
With each step his heart sank further and further. The tune the pirate sang rang in his ears, crushing his hopes even more. Everything had led to this: failure.
The last bit of hope flew off Max’s soul as he uttered, “A friend sent us here. He was- is a ghost in heaven named Fred. He told us to save monsters and people.”
The pirate stopped but did not turn around. Instead, he faced away silently.
“Please help. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. I don’t want to fail this mission,” Max said.
“Ye be telling the truth, boy? An actual saint sent ye here with Debra?”
He gulped and nodded yes to the pirate’s back.
“Well?”
Max realized the pirate zombie couldn’t see his physical response. “Yes, Fred is in heaven, yes. He sent both of us here.”
The pirate sighed. “Did the saint say anything about me?”
Nerves tightened in the lawyer. “No, nothing.”
Silence.
But then, the pirate turned around. “I once be a man named Sir Charles McRaven. I was a captain in service of my cousin King Charles. Then the civil war came, as did me debts. Soon I found meself working from bribe to bribe, attacking all sides. It was all for the gold. But then, the Knights of Malta came out of nowhere, and let me tell ye, they did not like Protestant pirates. They hung me on Saint Croix, dropped me into the sea, and I washed up on shore here years later in a little village called Savannah.
“You see, boy, I be hopin’ and praying that one day, one day a saint like all those other monsters speak of may visit me. But one never come.” Sir Charles’ frame shook as he sighed. “Do ye think that maybe you could introduce me to ye saint friend? Maybe he could give me one more chance, just one, to make things right, like ye can.”
Cricket sounds filled the night. Combined with the gentle breeze, it made for an ambient soundtrack that fit the search for answers.
“I don’t know,” Max said, “but I know you would be helping out my friend Fred – the saint you speak of – and that has to count for something.”
The zombie pirate’s eye dropped. “Aye. Perhaps that be best.” Now the eyes snapped back up. “Come with me. I know where old Oglethorpe does his work, and I know how we can get there fast.”
With a haste that surprised Max, the pirate bobbed up and down as he ran on using his peg leg. Several times he would look to his right through the fence as they passed one gate after the other. When Max tried asking where he was going, Sir Charles yipped that there was no time. Whatever he was in a race for, the pirate didn’t want to lose.
And he didn’t. In a flurry, he bolted right out of a gate and onto the sidewalk. Max had just caught up when an open air trolley-looking bus pulled up. The jolly, sixty-something year old driver with a name tag that said “Van Washington” smiled as Sir Charles boarded.
“And look it, folks,” Washington announced over an intercom via his headset, “it’s our local zombie pirate Sir Charles McRaven and-,” the bus driver looked Max up and down, “apparently one of his Confederate zombie friends have boarded our Monsters of Savannah Tour Bus!”
Passengers laughed and took photos of the grinning Sir Charles as he gave out a long pirate sound and told everyone to “be turnin’ over yer gold!”
For Max, it was all confusing. He turned to ask Washington a question, but the bus jerked forward.
Over the intercom, Washington narrated. “If anyone wants to take a selfie with Sir Charles, be sure to talk like a pirate, and he just may give you a ten percent off coupon to our sponsor partner, the Pirate Home Family Restaurant and Dining Hall. Whether you are looking for some downhome, low country cooking or celebrating a First Communion or Bar Mitzva, the Pirate Home is Savannah’s premiere choice for family fun and get togethers! Be sure to ask Sir Charles about wedding packages, just be sure not to show him your gold engagement ring.”
All the people on the bus laughed except for Max. He waited for Sir Charles to put down a baby he was posing with and then whispered into the pirate's ear, “What the heck is this?”
The pirate whispered back, “This be a tourist bus. They all be thinkin’ it be an act, but the pay we monsters get is all real. Coin, cash, crypto, it all be valid.”
Everyone focused on Sir Charles while Max tried to comprehend the surrounding madness.
Again, Washington’s voice came over the intercom. “And to your right you’ll see the deadly temptresses of the Junior Club of Savannahian Vampires.”
Max turned and saw the vampire women wearing their white, flowy dresses, waving silky white handkerchiefs at the tourist bus.
The bus driver continued speaking. “Be careful, ladies; your man may lose more than your respect if he goes there.”
More laughter roared. They all thought it was some sort of fancy show, Max thought.
“Hey, that’s him! He’s on the bus!”
That got Max’s attention. It wasn’t over the intercom, and none of the passengers seemed to notice. However, when he looked over at the vampire house, he saw the ladies all pointing at him.
“Sir!” one screamed. “That pirate actor is actually a zombie! Stay away from him!”
“But don’t panic! We’re going to get help for you!” another vampiress yelled.
“I’m calling the cops! I’m calling the cops!” a third screeched as she ran inside.
This time the bus passengers all bellowed out laughing as the bus pulled away.
“Oh, what fun,” a gray haired woman told her husband.
Max’s body wanted to scream but his mind was way too discombobulated to comply. Everything was too much. He needed to sit down on a spare seat. People kept laughing, phones kept flashing with each selfie taken, and now Sir Charles was swinging a cutlass around. A child squealed with glee as the blade cut a banana in two.
“Aye, you have been a wonderful audience,” the pirate zombie said to the passengers. “Be sure to tip me friend Van when you arrive safely at yer port of call, and come to the Pirate Home restaurant on Mondays and ask for me, Sir Charles!”
The audience rose and gave him a standing ovation. It took three bows for the passengers to sit back down.
“Here would be good, Van,” Sir Charles told the driver.
The bus pulled over at what looked like a shuttered and long abandoned theater. All that remained of the marquee was the remaining discoloration of the paint of what perhaps was the letter E or F. Everything up and down the street looked like it was long forgotten; there wasn’t even a car parked along the entire block.
“Hey, boy,” Washington called from behind Max as the lawyer got off the bus, “you may want to work on your zombie makeup. You look like an unemployed lawyer trying to pass off as a rebel soldier.”
A burst of laughter from the bus driver rang even as Sir Charles thanked him and jumped off the bus. Standing next to the lawyer-mistaken-for-a-zombie, the pirate gave off a long arr. After a shift in gears, the bus pulled away, leaving the two on the sidewalk in the middle of what was to Max a dead neighborhood.
“This be Sherman Street. Its name cursed it. No developer would touch it fer decades. Now it is home to a variety of socioeconomically disadvantaged Creatures of Cryptidkind like zombies of non-traditional origins and immigrants like all those Grandmother Tigers, Lamias, and Mothmen.”
Max did a double take. “Mothman is an immigrant?”
“Aye, long story about that. A Grandmother Tiger can tell you about the Monster Immigration Bill of 1962 if you visit one of their restaurants. They all have good chow mein. But there be no time to dwell on that; let us put things right with old Oglethorpe. He will listen to me, and I be thinking of something that can make everyone happy. Yes, sir, I be coming up with something that may get me in good graces with ye saint friend. Come on.”
Sir Charles led the way up to the theater. While humming a sea shanty to himself, he put his cutlass’ tip into the door’s lock. Click. The pirate gave a small laugh as he pulled the door open.
“He be inside,” the zombie pirate said.
“How do you know?”
“I be his landlord since his transformation.”
Those words added what felt like a ton of weight on top of Max’s head. Combined with the migraine, it was all too much. A long, drawn out groan that transformed into a moan droned out of his mouth. To his surprise, from elsewhere in the neighborhood, several zombie-like moans replied.
“No time to talk to the neighbors; old Oglethorpe be inside,” Sir Charles said.
The two stepped into the theater lobby. Fragments of ceiling tile hung from above, with some pieces strewn about and rotting on the dirty carpet. The carpet itself had a pattern that was too covered in dirt to make out. An overwhelming stench filled the room. Following it, Max saw piles of rancid meat with flies flying about in what was the concession stand.
Max lept backwards when he saw what was behind the meat: a humanoid covered with blood red muscles instead of flesh, glowing white eyes, and long flowing white hair that somehow looked like gravity had little effect on it.
“Ah,” the pirate zombie said, “Boo Hag Mayra, how be the residents?”
What responded wasn’t some horrifying screeching that Max feared but rather the most educated, well enunciated, blue blooded-toned American Southern dialect. “Good evening, Sir Charles. All the residents are fine. Concession sales are slow, though, as most of the residents are enjoying Dia de los Muertos festivities back home.”
“Very good, sometimes we need a slower night, though I be fearin’ this isn’t the night. Is our resident in the manager’s office present?”
“Yes, sir. Mr. Bonaventure was dragging in Debra of all Creatures of Cryptidkind. What he sees in her, I will never know.”
After grunting, the zombie pirate moved with purpose down the hall and to the right, with Max following close behind. Various smells pushed through the cracks of the multiple theater room’s doors. Some were pleasant to Max, others horrifying. He preferred the smell of eggs coming from the first theater compared to whatever smelled like burning meat from the second, though he was too timid to comment as Sir Charles might have told him what they were cooking.
At the end of the hall was a door marked “Manager” in faded letters. Though sight couldn’t tell Max what was inside, sound could.
“Hey, how about we stop taking measurements of my face, okay? Hey. Hey! Help!”
It was Debra. Her words sent both the pirate zombie and the lawyer into a rush. Sir Charles made it to the door first and flung it open.
“Arrr, Oglethorpe. Let us be reasonable and-.”
Though Max couldn’t see the Uranium Killer as the pirate zombie was blocking the view, he could hear first Oglethorpe scream, then Sir Charles scream, then Debra scream.
In a flash it was all over. Sir Charles’ zombified body developed a light in its center, and each limb flew apart from the point of light in a different direction. Max now screamed.
“You killed him! He was going to save everyone!”
The Uranium Killer barked at Max to be quiet. “I should have killed you the first time we met. But you wouldn’t learn your lesson.”
From the corner of the room, her face marked up in black magic marker, Debra screamed for Max to run.
He couldn’t pay attention to her; his mission relied on getting the nuclear powered-monster to stop.
“Look,” Max said, “too many people- things- are dying. There has to be another way.”
An unearthly green glow formed around Oglethorpe. “Oh, just shut up!” He raised his arm towards the lawyer.
It all happened so fast. Debra screamed “No!” and leaped towards Max. Light shot out from the killer and shot towards Max. However, Debra’s speed gave her a slight advantage as she embraced the lawyer, forming a protective cover. The radiated light hit her, and then- everything when bright white.
When the light faded, Max found himself standing outside the theater with Debra, golden-rimmed Fred, and Sir Charles, now looking very much human in a fine seventeenth century captain’s outfit.
“Fred!” Max and Debra declared in unison.
“Well done, good and faithful servants. Despite temptations and setbacks, you have completed the stated and unstated tasks.”
Cool summer air descended upon Max, helping to form a sense of calm, though as he looked at his friend, he couldn’t find the words to ask for an explanation.
Debra did. “Two tasks?”
“Yes, you stopped the Uranium Killer. As you know, that was the stated task. You managed, too, to do the more important thing; you brought one of the lost home.”
“What?” Max asked.
“Sir Charles lived his life in the pursuit of money. Even in his undead state, it was all about tourism gigs and real estate. However, you brought him out of his search for money to seek the common good for all.”
“Aye, thank ye for that, fair saint. Is it possible that I could have a second chance, a chance to live a good life, and perhaps, see my loved ones again?”
Fred's golden glow grew. “This was your second chance, and now it is time to go home.”
The glow expanded and consumed Sir Charles. His perfected form dissolved into the golden light until it was no more.
Fred looked up at the night sky and smiled.
“Wait a minute,” Max said. That got the attention of his two partners. “How did we defeat the Uranium Killer?”
The saint’s smile grew larger. “His atomic attacks could only work on monsters. He would have killed you. However, Debra, without knowing it, offered herself as a sacrifice to protect you. Since she is human now, the attack backfired and destroyed Oglethorpe. ‘Those who live by the sword, will die by the sword.’”
Blushing, the former vampire offered a bashful smile at Max. “Well, without you, I would be alone and- I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. Despite my being difficult, you haven’t walked away. You’re the closest thing I have to a- a- friend.”
Another glow grew from Fred. “Because of your willing sacrifice, Debra, you may be a vampire again-.”
“Yes!”
The glow consumed Debra as she celebrated with a dance and yelling out her plans for the Junior Club.
Fred began where he had left off. “-though you will live off the blood of cattle. You will never again be able to feed off humans again.”
From the glow consuming Debra came a long series of protests with a non-stop flow of angry swear words.
Above the roar of remonstrations, Max raised his voice to a yell to speak to Fred. “But I don’t understand! How could the atomic attacks only affect monsters when it flung me yards through the air in the cemetery! I’m not a zombie!”
“Oh,” Fred said with a wry smile, “aren’t you?”
Max screamed as police sirens approached.
Epilogue: Comeuppance
the house was Debra and possibly the cameraman, who was getting “difficulty pay” for this night’s work. He was being paid well. Max stood against the wall, taking in the vampiress’ modeling shoot for Monsters Monthly. Sitting in the other chairs spread throughout the room were the members of the Junior Club of Savannahian Vampires, all doing their bishop-mandated best to suffer through Debra's pride.
Debra’s red eyes glistened in the camera’s flash. Several times they darted over at the wine glasses full of blood that the other vampires were holding. Max wasn’t sure, but he thought she had a tinge of sadness in her appearance as she watched them drink.
He felt a tap on his right shoulder. Twisting his head, he saw standing there the freckled face vampire wearing the club’s white nightgown. Her raven black hair was now in a French braid, and she had way too much pink makeup rubbed on her cheeks. But her smile with the thin fangs that left a gap on each side of them was still the same one Max remembered.
“Hi,” the vampire said with a Southern belle accent. “My name is Isabelle Mercer- and your name is Max.” She giggled.
“Yes, it is,” he said, unsure of how to follow up on that quasi-introduction.
“Oh!” She giggled again. “Umm- yeah. I should have let you introduce yourself.” Even more giggling. “Steady there, calm down.” She closed her eyes and counted to five. “Umm, I did some extra chores around the house and was rewarded with some coins. Would you, umm, be interested in going to a nickelodeon together and seeing some funnies? I haven’t been to one in the longest time and, well, umm, umm, umm.”
Another vampiress turned away from her hate-watching of Debra and addressed Max. “She is too nervous to say she thinks you are a handsome gentleman. She has been up all day practicing asking you out.”
Two clapping hands grabbed Max’s attention. It was Debra, and there was fire in her eyes.
“Max, get back to the phones! I need you handling client inquiries, not talking to these harpies!”
One month later
The evening call to prayer filled the Moroccan air. Though a mile away, it filled the haunted castle ruins, long thought by locals to be inhabited by jinn. But there were no jinn in it. Instead, a lone, feline-like genet glowered at the recently arrived Monster Weekly cover. It, really a she, read the cover. “We are mandated by our bishop to publish this article about Savannah’s Debra” Her heart filled with hate. She had finally found Debra, and she would make her pay for her sins.
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