Read the Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 1
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Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 3
“I know what you are thinking,” Debra said while huffing, “you’re thinking that I did this before, that this shows a lack of originality. Well, my zombie friend,” she caught her breath, “I think what isn’t broken shouldn’t be fixed. If using you as bait worked against the Uranium Killer, who am I to change perfection?”
“Umphrphphfpfpumpfphpm,” Max said. What he wanted to say was a protest against Debra’s latest impressment of him in her plans, but three layers of bike chains made sure he couldn’t.
She laughed. “Okay, maybe you are thinking something more basic. In your zombie voice you are saying, ‘brains, brains, brains.’ I guess that is better than something Fred would say. He would say something like remember death. Well, guess what, bucko? You proved there is indeed life after undeath, so I’m never dying.” She paused. “Huh, that opens up a lot of questions. Oh, well.”
Forsyth Park at night was a beautiful sight to behold. There was something about the soft light from the lampposts filtered through Spanish moss hanging off the oaks that Max typically found calming. And he would have, if he wasn’t tied to the fence circling the park’s fountain. Now, the familiar sight of light-muffling Spanish moss spelled in his soul a sense of danger. The sound of shooting and splashing water became cruel laughter.
What made things worse was that no one was helping him. The park even at this hour had a night exercise runner or two, a senior citizen taking a stroll, young tourists taking a romantic post-midnight walk, and even a ghost tour stopping at the Confederate Monument. Surely, he thought, at least a few of them had to have seen him, yet no one acted like the least thing was amiss.
“Umphpfhpfhphf,” he pleaded. It was no use.
Debra put her finger on his chin like an artist admiring her greatest work. “Yes, yes, I know, Max. Brains, delicious brains. Don’t worry, it will all be over soon. Your decaying undead state will end as that Bigfoot rips you apart limb from limb, buying me enough time to shoot him with the tranquilizer pistol I- umm- borrowed from the zoo.”
Then, bending down to her bag, she pulled out a couple copies of Monster Monthly with her face on the cover and tossed them at him. Each magazine bounced off at a different angle. They laid spewed about nearby.
“You see, besides being ultra-traditionalists, Bigfeet are environmental activists. And I don’t mean they plant trees on Arbor Day, no. Nor do they throw paint on artwork and wait to be arrested. These eight feet tall ape-men of rage savagely maim RV campers and eat litterers as a matter of principle. Man, when this monster sees you - my best friend forever - and this trash by your feet, you gonna get beat, Max.”
Max gave off a muffled scream. It was long and loud, surpassing the epicness of the one he did when going to Oz and when Fred implied the possibility that he was indeed a zombie. The pain not only of his misadventures since Haiti but from his time in the law firm, law school, and life since he left his childhood home all came out.
After taking a moment, despite the gag, he moaned a prayer to God, his first true one since before he could remember.
The crimson hue of Debra’s eyes became one shade lighter. Behind them, he could see a tempest, but not of anger; no, something else.
The edges of her sharp smile softened.
“Max,” she breathed. The vampiress took a step back, looked at the stars in the night sky, and returned her gaze to him; this time with tears forming at the edges. “What am I doing? You’ve been the only monster who hasn’t left me, and here I am-.” She wiped away tears with her arm. “I didn’t even want to make a detective agency. All I have ever wanted to do is to be a hotshot reporter.” Going silent, she put her hands on her hips and took a moment before speaking again. “There’s not even money in this. Wow. What have I become?”
Spraying and falling water from the fountain no longer sounded like laughter. As it joined the chorus of insects singing their night songs, the atmosphere of the park lightened. To Max, it finally seemed like a beautiful night.
Her hands were cold as they always were, but as she removed the chains from his mouth, there was something in them that expressed not a physical warmth but a spiritual awareness. He could see her eyes shifting from the vampiric red to the brown he had seen in them when she was temporarily human in their last adventure. Then, he couldn’t be sure if it was his imagination or the Spanish Moss-affected light, but a faint golden glow appeared to form around her.
Then her eyes went wide and she gasped. “That’s a mummy! They’re buried with all sorts of treasure!”
She dropped the mouth chains and ran off behind Max before she could untied the rest of his body.
The Doppler effect had minimal impact on her loud voice as Max could hear her yelling, “Sir! Sir! Have you thought about Paranormal Detective Agency Insurance to ensure the power of your curses while you are away from Egypt? Sir!”
Max was too tired to scream for help, there was nothing to laugh at in this situation, and he was too whiplashed with emotions to cry in pity. Instead, the vampire’s two one hundred eighty degree mental turns left him dizzy. All he could do was stand still.
It could have been an hour, it could have been two, it could have been merely moments until dawn would first hint at the horizon, when someone finally came. Approaching him down the long sidewalk was the silhouette of a man carrying an old style lantern. As he approached, a tri-corner hat and a yellow colonial coat became visible.
Max’s heart leaped for joy thinking it was a zombie pirate. He had previous good luck with those. It wasn’t; however, he was still elated when he saw the name tag which read “Michael Kroese: Savannah and Tybee Island Paranormal & Ghost Tours.”
“Ha,” the college aged Michael laughed. “Let me guess, you tried sneaking into Sally’s nightly tour without paying. Usually, she ties people up at the Spanish-American War Volunteer Memorial, but I guess the fountain works, too. If you say sorry, I’ll let you go. I think you got more than your punishment if she left you here all night.”
“No, no,” Max replied. “I would never steal from the tourism industry. Back home, I represent, well- represented a trolley tour company once. My name is Max. I don’t know a Sally, but if you let me down, you’ll have my eternal gratitude.”
The smile Michael had flipped upside down in a nanosecond, with the shifting muscles pulling down his eyebrows to make a perfect glower on his face.
“Wait a minute, I know you. My girlfriend won’t stop watching true crime videos about you. You killed like, what, a whole community booster organization, a bunch of tourists at a crappy inn at the edge of town, and didn’t all the gangs get together in Haiti to form a functioning judicial system just to put out a warrant for your arrest?”
“No!” Max’s eyes went wild with pleading. “That wasn’t me! That was Debra! She’s a vampire! Well, okay, Haiti wasn’t her fault, but I swear I didn’t think I killed him! I just threw candles on oily rags!” When those words hit his ears, he stopped and realized how crazy everything sounded.
Michael’s head turned left and then right in a slow shake. “I hope you get the chair, man.”
A sudden punch that stopped a mere inch from Max’s face caused him to flinch. The tour guide cruelly laughed and walked past Max.
Suddenly, the tour guide’s footsteps stopped.
“What is that?” Michael’s voice asked.
The next sound was something smacking against the concrete sidewalk. A sickening sensation hit Max’s gut, but then everything in him froze as he imagined a Bigfoot right behind him.
But what he heard wasn’t the heavy breathing of a fierce primate; no, it was the rapid, high pitched breathing of something small.
A sharp, cutting sensation raced across his face as a blur of black and white flew past his left cheek and landed on the concrete in front of him. Little tap-taps implied what cut him were sharp claws adjusting on the sidewalk.
He ignored the blood trickling down his face to study what was before him. It was like a cat but not a feline. It had big eyes like some nocturnal monkey, tall standing ears, rows of black spots on its white fur, and a tail that would more appropriately belong on a raccoon than a cat.
Before he could say anything, the creature jerked its neck and transformed into a woman who rose from the ground and stood upright. What had been fur became an elegant sweater of the same pattern and horizontal black and white striped pants. She could have been a runway model, and the mascara and eyeliner only added to her beauty.
Max decided this was a time to embrace de facto dual citizenship in humanity and monsterdom. “Hey, help a zombie out?”
The woman swiped her sharp fingernails across his right cheek, cutting him.
“Max,” she seethed, “I hate you. I hate everything about you and Debra and that detective agency of yours. I am going to take revenge on that harpy, and I’m starting with you.”
Max gulped.
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Next time, we are speeding things up. Chapter 3 comes out October 23! Chapter 4 on October 28! And I will publish the finale on October 30!
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