Chapter 2

 

Bubba and the Fetid Filmmakers

Friday, March 8^th

 

“CUT! For the love of God and all that’s Frank Capra, CUT! CUT! CUUUUUT!” someone yelled. A man wearing riding pants, a short wool coat, and a felt beret came striding out of the tombstones. He also wore tall leather boots and held a megaphone up to his face. He stared at the army of zombies and loudly asked, “By Cecil B. DeMille’s ghost, there’s no sheriff’s deputy in this shot, is there?”

“No, Kristoph,” a young woman with a clipboard answered promptly, appearing from another stand of towering markers. “‘Scene XXVII - Zombies moaning as they move through the cemetery,’” she read from the clipboard. “This is just stock footage for the cemetery scenes. You!” she yelled at Bubba and Willodean. “Yes, I mean you two with the picnic basket! Who said for the costume people to bring a frigging picnic basket?”

Willodean looked at Bubba. “I can shoot them, right?”

“You’re the deputy,” Bubba said, “and I would say I dint see nothing.”

The zombie nearest them moaned. Two men with large camera sets fiddled with their equipment and one lowered the gear to the ground with a deep breath.

“And did anyone tell the zombies to moan, ‘Braiiiiinnnnnsssss!’?” Kristoph demanded irately. He waved the megaphone around imperiously. “Really. Braiiiiinnnnnsssss. How Avant-guard. Do you see George Romero hiding in the shadows around here?”

“Sorry, dude,” the zombie said. “It was just the look on the guy’s face.” The zombie giggled as he gestured at Bubba. “He thought we were real. Braiiiiinnnnnsssss.”

“I did not.” Bubba frowned. There had been a brief moment. A very brief moment. Perhaps a nanosecond or less. He would never admit it. In fact, it would be like he had suddenly caught a case of selective amnesia.

“He probably sharted!” the zombie added.

Bubba hadn’t sharted. He didn’t know what sharted meant and he wasn’t going to ask.

“Seriously, Bubba, you didn’t know?” Willodean said. “It’s been all over town about the filming. They went in the sheriff’s department. Sheriff John nearly had apoplexy. The director over there—,” she pointed at Kristoph and they both watched as he managed to flip his shoulder length silver hair over his shoulder without losing his beret in the process,“—wanted John to play the gruff yet golden hearted sheriff in the movie. You can probably guess what John said about that.”

“I kin guess,” Bubba admitted. Sheriff John didn’t like any kind of media, even the mundane kind. Threats of bodily harm had probably taken place. Bubba was just sorry he hadn’t gotten to hear all the minute details.

The girl with the clipboard trip-trip-trapped up to them. “I was talking to you,” she said to Bubba and Willodean. “You’re totally in the wrong place. This kind of ineptitude costs the film thousands of dollars. You’re just getting paid scale and you don’t even have a line. So can you just toe the line?”

Bubba glanced at the half-eaten plate of food. Then he looked at the picnic basket. He should have gotten the sky writer. Zombies couldn’t have messed that up. Neither could Hollywood types.

Willodean got up and slung her Sam Browne belt around her waist. “We don’t work for you,” Willodean said slowly to the clipboard girl, as if she was speaking to someone with a mental deficiency, which was possible considering that the girl was working in the film industry.

“I’ll have you fired,” the girl threatened. “That uniform just sucks anyway. It looks about as real as a meter maid’s. A Sam Browne belt and a police baton. Please. What’s in the mace cans anyway? Spray cheese? Don’t the costume designers do any research?” She peered closer at Willodean. “Green contacts, really? We’re totally not going to need you today.”

Bubba saw Willodean’s hand twitch toward the mace on her belt and his eyes widened. He clambered to his feet, ready to prevent an incident.

“Not in your movie,” Willodean gritted. “Do you not speak English? And I am a sheriff’s deputy.”

The clipboard girl poked Willodean in the sternum. Willodean’s shoulders straightened as the girl said, “We’ve got permits to film in the cemetery today, and we don’t need the hired help ruining our takes.” Clipboard Girl looked heavenward. “And people wonder why we want to shoot on a soundstage.”

Bubba stepped up and put a hand on Willodean’s shoulder. “Ifin I had known the cemetery was booked, we wouldn’t have come here. It was an honest mistake.”

Clipboard Girl looked at Bubba derogatorily. Then she looked back at Willodean and poked the deputy again as she started to say, “And I’ll tell you another—” A moment later Clipboard Girl was on her knees and Willodean was gripping the other woman’s index finger so that it was twisted at an awkward angle. She had the younger girl’s whole arm bent behind her and was only touching the finger with her fist. It had looked practically effortless. Willodean wasn’t even breathing heavy.

The very sight made Bubba very nearly blurt out the words he’d practicing blurting all week long. But it wasn’t right and it most certainly wasn’t the right time. No, if he did, Willodean would probably do that to his finger and she wouldn’t talk to him anymore and he would sit on the ground and cry and eat dirt. That would be bad for everyone.

“That’s felony assault on a law enforcement officer,” Willodean informed the girl in a voice that sounded gentle but really wasn’t, “but I’ll let it go today on account that you’re uninformed. Regrettably woefully uninformed.”

“Uninformed,” Clipboard Girl agreed. Sadly, she had dropped her clipboard.

The scene had instantly made everyone else in the area go silent. Even the zombies had ceased their moaning.

Kristoph swept his hair over his shoulder and came closer. “Her name is McGeorge,” he said regally. “She doesn’t understand about honest mistakes.” He made a motion with his megaphone that indicated that the whole sorry affair would be swept under the rug, or in this case, under the gravestones. He looked down at Clipboard Girl, AKA McGeorge. “McGeorge, you should go get some lattes. You know how I like mine. Take your clipboard.” He wiggled his fingers in the direction all the zombies had originally come from. “Shoo, fly.”

Willodean paused significantly before letting go of McGeorge’s index finger. McGeorge snatched up her clipboard and cradled it to her chest and walked jerkily away, muttering under her breath.

Kristoph turned his attention to Willodean and the man smiled winningly at the deputy. (The man’s teeth glinted. Really they did.) Bubba growled. Kristoph turned toward Bubba and brightened. He tucked the megaphone under one arm and made a frame with his hands, centering it on Bubba’s face. “Square jaw. Muscles upon muscles. Broad corn fed shoulders. Button down shirt. Levi’s. Lord have mercy, are those real cowboy boots?” His eyes traveled back up to Bubba’s face. “And blue eyes, oh my.” The director smirked at Bubba in a way that made Bubba shudder inwardly. “How would you like to be in a movie?” The question was asked in the same manner that a questionable individual would ask a child if they wanted some candy.

Willodean shook her head just as they all clearly heard her radio go off with a request for deputies for a domestic dispute. “Got to go, Bubba,” she said. “Try not to succumb to them.” She jerked her head at the director. The zombies and the two cameramen milled about. One of the zombies picked idly at loose skin on his forehead and another one said, “Don’t pick on that. It’s going to all fall off and then you’re hosed, dude.”

Willodean pressed a kiss on the side of Bubba’s mouth, which made him sigh wistfully and he watched her trot to the Bronco. Abruptly he realized that all the men in the immediate neighborhood were watching her trot, as well.

“I never got arrested by anyone who looked like that,” one zombie said.

Bubba began to pack up the picnic.

“Everyone take five,” Kristoph announced. The first zombie took a pack of cigarettes out and inserted one in between his rotted lips. He lit it with a disposable lighter and drew in the first lungful with obvious pleasure.

Kristoph adjusted the megaphone and looked at Bubba. “Seriously, a big good looking fellow like you could make a few bucks and impress a few girls.”

Bubba snorted. He put the chicken back in the Tupperware box and popped the lid in place. He was still hungry, but he didn’t think he was going to be able to eat with all the fake dead people around. Wasn’t that just like the Pegramville Murder Mystery Festival, except they were still walking around, pretending to be dead? God, I know I asked for a sign, but this isn’t funny. Mebe it’s funny to you, God, and I accept that, really I do, but couldn’t you have given me a few more minutes? I was almost…

Wait. Did that man say something about money? Bubba wasn’t impressed with the movie making business in general. He didn’t want to be a star. In fact, he didn’t care for the publicity he’d received in the recent past at all. If put into a film, he would doubtless do something awful like knock over an entire movie set by accident, but there was a little rule that had been bouncing around his head of late. The owner of the jewelry store had said, “The standard is two months’ pay.” But two months’ pay for Bubba wasn’t all that much. Roscoe Stinedurf was his next door neighbor and since he had more than one of what Bubba wanted, Bubba had asked his opinion on the matter. Roscoe said, “The standard of two months’ pay is somethin’ done writ by jewelry companies. Besides you got to go to the horse’s mouth.” Since Roscoe hadn’t been more forthcoming, nothing else had been added. The brief words hadn’t been particularly helpful.

Kristoph smiled fetchingly at Bubba and turned away to bum a cigarette from the zombie. They immediately began talking about “aerial shots” and “cinema verite” and something about “David O. Selznick.” Bubba stood up and flapped the checked blanket, dislodging the last of the hopeful ants. He checked his watch before he began to fold the blanket.

Someone said, “Hey, Bubba,” and Bubba turned to see a zombie with blonde dreadlocks standing beside him. The dreadlocks were askew and sticks and leaves protruded from them. Bubba jerked backward at the sight of the hazy, solid white-blue eyes staring interestedly at him.

“Kiki?” he asked.

Kiki Rutkowski was a college student who lived next door to Willodean. She had helped Bubba on several occasions with information on the various evil whatnots that had happened in Pegram County. She had even helped Bubba when Willodean had mysteriously vanished. She liked to wear t-shirts with names of rock bands on them and sometimes she didn’t like to wear underwear, but Bubba thought she was a good person.

Brushing some dreads over her shoulder, she smiled at Bubba, showing a mouthful of black and red teeth. Bubba winced as he took in her ripped t-shirt (Rolling Stones) and begrimed capris. Even her pink Crocs were splattered with dried blood.

“I always wanted to be in a movie,” Kiki said. “We haven’t had this much fun since the Murder Festival.” She reconsidered. “Well, some of it was fun, except for that guy who really got murdered. I guess he didn’t have a good time. I’ve never seen so many people with knives and weapons before. Are we going to do it again this year?”

Another zombie shambled up and Bubba determined it was Dougie, who was Kiki’s roommate and, Bubba thought, her boyfriend. It was kind of hard to say since Dougie didn’t say a lot.

“Mrgenvennopd,” Dougie said.

“Don’t mind him,” Kiki said. “They’ve got the thing on his face so that it looks like his jaw is falling off from decomposition, so he can’t talk.”

“Derph,” Dougie agreed. Bubba eyed his face and silently agreed that it looked like his jaw was about to fall off from decomposition. It looked realistic enough that Bubba almost expected the man to smell bad, but all Bubba could smell was Givenchy. His aunt Caressa had given him a bottle of toilette water the previous Christmas.

“So how long has all this nonsense bin goin’ on?” Bubba asked, folding the blanket three times.

“The last week or so,” Kiki said. “Kristoph Thaddeus rode in with all the vans and a meager cast, ready to throw money at the town. The mayor was so happy he nearly tinkled. The Red Door Inn is completely booked. They’ve got people staying all over the town. Folks rented rooms to the crew. They’re shooting on a budget and should be finished in about three weeks. They’re filming all over town. In fact, they’re shooting—”

“Mrdut,” Dougie said.

“Oh, yeah,” Kiki nodded at Dougie. “Kristoph shot Mutant Vampire Zombies a few years ago. He’s won a Saturn award for…what was it?”

“Rwqurt mna Zippels,” Dougie said.

“I don’t remember that one,” Kiki said. “This makeup itches like a sonuva…oh, hey, there’s the assistant director. He’s been nominated for an Oscar. Back in the nineties. His name is Risley Risto. Doesn’t that sound made up, dude?”

Bubba wasn’t sure if he was actually supposed to answer or not. He’d heard worse names.

“That girl who was poking Wills is Kristoph’s go-to girl. Her name is Liz McGeorge. She comes from some old Hollywood family. Used to work in special effects before she became his executive assistant. She thinks her kaka doesn’t smell. I suspect it does smell. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t be poking Wills. Wills practically broke the McGeorge’s finger. I would break the McGeorge’s finger if I had the chance. You know she is the McGeorge, don’t you?”

Dougie chuckled but it didn’t exactly sound like a chuckle. Then he said, “Lapprew.”

“You should totally go get a latte, Dougie,” Kiki said. “You can drink it with a straw. I’ve got to hit the porta-potty before Kristoph calls action again.” She shrugged at Bubba. “He says five minutes but that’s really like thirty minutes in Hollywood time.”

“Okay,” Bubba said agreeably. The pair shambled off, clearly still partially in character.

The man that Kiki said was Risley Risto spoke briefly to Kristoph and then Kristoph pointed at Bubba. Bubba gathered up basket and blanket and hoped he hadn’t broken any laws. He was tired of going to jail. At the very worst there were dead people around who weren’t really dead, unless one counted the ones already in the ground.

He trudged toward his truck, trying not to shuffle, although it was hard not to.

“Hey, fella,” someone called and Risley Risto caught up to him. “Kristoph loves your look.”

Bubba looked at Risley. It did sound like a made up name. Risley was about five feet ten inches and in his mid-fifties. His hairline was receding and what was left was pure salt and pepper. He had earnest brown eyes that observed Bubba intently. Bubba didn’t know what an Oscar nominee looked like so he observed back.

“Okay,” Bubba said because there didn’t seem to be an appropriate man response to the statement.

“If we advertised for actors, we’d get a flipping slew, and that would be such a headache,” Risley went on. “Literally thousands of people would flock here just to have a walk-on part and the town would probably throw us out so fast our mothers’ butts would spin. It’s the whole zombie thing.” He did the finger quotation marks when he said the word, zombie. “So snapping up local talent is much better. Easier, too. It wouldn’t be a great role, but you can talk like a redneck, right?”

“I kin do that,” Bubba said dryly.

Risley clapped his hands together and laughed. “Yes. Just like that. Great. Be on set tomorrow early. Five a.m. Makeup starts then. It’ll be a long day but you’ll get paid scale plus scale and a half for having a few lines.”

Bubba said, “How much is scale?”

“Oh, details,” Risley said. “I don’t remember exactly. It’ll be about 700 dollars plus another 700, plus the half, so maybe 1800 bucks for a full day of work. Look, yea or nay. I’ve got to get a few more people, too.”

“Yea,” Bubba said promptly.

Risley smiled and handed Bubba a card. “Everything’s done on scene tomorrow. This is the address. Don’t be late.”

Bubba glanced at the address, looked up at the assistant director, and then down at the card again. “Oh, carp.”

“What? You should see this place,” Risley said. “What am I thinking of? You live here. You know the place, am I right?”

“Yep. I reckon I do,” Bubba said.

Risley clapped. “That’s priceless. Ah reckon you do, too. Ohh-kay?” His fake accent made Bubba’s ears hurt. “Kristoph loves to look over the really weird places and loves to use them in the film even more. He has a problem keeping out of them as a matter of fact. It’s gotten him in trouble with locals before.” He sighed. “Anyway, tomorrow’s Saturday and we may film on Sunday if we can wrangle things out. If you do a good job we’ll find some more lines for you but I do not promise anything.”

Bubba nodded.

“Toodles.” Risley turned toward the zombies. “Kristoph, you’re not supposed to smoke on account of your heart condition. You know your wife has threatened me if you keep smoking and she knows everything. Billy, stop giving him your cigs or I’ll fire you or shove the cigs so far up your butt that you’ll have to swallow a lighter to smoke them.”

* * *

Bubba went back to work, repaired a Chevy transmission, replaced a battery in a Chrysler, and attempted to figure out the wiring schematic of a 1978 Dodge Magnum. His boss, Gideon Culpepper, didn’t say anything about him being late, so Bubba didn’t complain when Gideon asked him to work late on the Dodge.

An hour past his usual end of day, Bubba found the wire under the dash that had been worn completely through. Thus repaired, the car started again. It didn’t sound wonderful but it ran.

Bubba drove to his home with a heavy heart. Sure he’d repaired the nearly antiquated car, but he hadn’t done what he’d really wanted to do. He pulled around the mansion and eyed the caretaker’s house. It wasn’t really the caretaker’s house anymore. The woman who had murdered Bubba’s ex-fiancée had tried to burn it down. It hadn’t been burned badly but certain load-bearing walls were affected enough for the local inspector to declare it history. It also hadn’t been insured, but Bubba had managed, through horse-trading, finagling, and other means nefarious and not-so-nefarious, to get it rebuilt. The original had once been a stable. Bubba’s grandfather had it converted to a house after WWII to house soldiers from nearby Fort Dimson. It had been transformed into an oddball residence, into which Bubba had moved when he’d returned from the Army. Now it was a trim two story house that superficially resembled its predecessor. It was on the small side but once the trim was painted and the stickers taken off the windows, it was all but finished, paid for, and even had a few meager possessions within it.

Bubba parked the truck and rested his head against the steering wheel. All of his debts had been paid off. Some of them he had paid off. Some of them had been paid off by fundraising done by Willodean. (She might not be able to cook, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t worth her weight in gold.) As of the last month, Bubba was officially in the black again. It was a mark of something good to come. He’d taken it as a sign and had started to move along, but zombies had come up and bitten him on the metaphorical buttocks.

An intense howl made Bubba’s head spring up. His dog, a Basset hound named Precious, barreled out of the mansion and charged toward the truck, baying all the way. She was so happy that he was home. She knew the sound of his truck and she was ready to get her lovings.

She abruptly stopped, raised her nose to the air and turned around, plunking her long posterior on the ground. Clearly, being excited to see her master was being too easy. She knew she couldn’t go to work with Bubba, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t play hard to get when he came home.

Bubba smiled and climbed out of the truck. He’d saved some of the chicken for Precious and put it in the refrigerator at work. He’d even remembered to bring it home for the pernicious pooch. He pulled the Tupperware container out of the picnic basket inside the cab. Precious’s head twitched, but she didn’t turn toward him.

“Yum,” Bubba said vociferously as he popped the lid open.

Precious’s ears fluttered but she didn’t budge.

“A fella’s got to work, you know,” he said. He blew over the top of the container in the direction of Precious. He did it three times before Precious’s nose trembled and convulsed.

“All this chicken done gone to waste,” Bubba said prosaically. “Mebe them big koi in the pond would like some of it. They et chicken, you know. That’s what Miz Adelia said happened to those hens and roosters she tried to keep last year.” Privately Bubba thought it was coyotes but the koi in the pond were awfully large.

He took a single step before Precious turned rapidly and came for him. Her tail wagged frenetically and she jumped up on him, reaching her paws up his body, while her body shuddered in glee. Whether the canine was happiest to see Bubba or the chicken became a moot point.

 

 

Chapter 3

 

Bubba and the Mendacious Mama

Friday, March 8^th – Saturday, March 9^th

 

“Ma,” Bubba said. It was a single word and a single syllable that denoted all kinds of meaning within its simple two letter structure. Warning, dismay, irritation, and a plea for normalcy were all contained within it.

“Ididn’tdoit,” Miz Demetrice said straightaway. She paused to consider what she had said and added, “Oh, dear Lord, Brownie rubbed off on me.”

They were sitting at the dining room table. Miz Adelia had just served creamed chipped beef over Texas toast. Bubba passed the platter of cornbread around to his mother and he paused to appreciate the mouthwatering scent of southern cooking. Specifically, he appreciated the scent of Miz Adelia’s southern cooking. “Smells rightly good, Miz Adelia,” he said.

“What didn’t I do?” his mother asked as she served herself a square of cornbread. After she put the cornbread on her plate, she smoothed some her white hair back away from her face. Cornflower blue eyes, the same shade as his own, steadily regarded him. If there was one thing in the world that his mother was good at it was bluffing, however the problem was that she was good at a great many things. Furthermore, she knew that she was good at them. Miz Demetrice was not the Titanic backing up to hit the iceberg again.

Miz Adelia sat down next to Bubba and he handed her the dish of creamed chipped beef without hesitation. She took a deep breath and stared at the food she had just prepared. It wasn’t a typical look. Both women seemed a little on edge.

“Is there something you need to tell me?” Bubba asked his mother. Something was going on. He didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure it out. Everyone was acting flaky and it was a matter of putting the pieces together.

Miz Demetrice had transferred her gaze to the food, but upon Bubba’s words, her head shot right up. Bubba saw Miz Adelia replicate the movement out of the corner of his eye.

Up To Something could be the name of a Broadway musical. Something, as the pundits would say, was fishy as a barrelful of largemouth bass.

“Ma, that butterfly flew all ‘round the perty flowers and then done landed on a cow pie,” he remarked. Bubba didn’t know exactly what it meant but it was something along the line of someone making a poor decision. His mother had been known to make a poor decision or two, but then she usually covered it up with cow patties or something else. Sometimes she had even shoved an unknowing soul in front of it as a ritual sacrifice to the gods of him-first-lord. Bubba might have been the unwilling and unknowledgeable recipient of that shove once or twice.

Miz Adelia served herself a spoonful of creamed chipped beef. She skipped the toast. Then she carefully picked up a fork and put it on the plate. She spread out her napkin and put it on her lap. It was a calculated process determined to stall the conversation. She picked up the fork and served a forkful into her mouth.

Bubba tapped his fingers on the table. “I was in the cemetery today.”

“That’s nice, dearest,” his mother said.

“There were zombies there.”

Miz Adelia choked on the creamed chipped beef. The subsequent swallow sounded like a sink hole swallowing an RV in Florida.

“The movie,” Miz Demetrice said understandingly. Bubba’s eyes returned to her and it seemed to him as though his mother was relieved. She took a deep breath and her shoulders relaxed. Really, really relieved.

“Yes, the movie. I dint catch the name,” Bubba said. “Pass the green beans, please.” Should I tell Ma I’m in the movie or should I figure out what she’s about? Oh, these wretched decisions.

“The Deadly Dead,” Miz Demetrice said helpfully.

“The deadly what?”

“The Deadly Dead,” she repeated. “I know it’s not the best of movie titles, but I didn’t make it up, dearest.”

Bubba stared at his mother. Then he looked at Miz Adelia. Miz Adelia had composed herself. She hadn’t needed a sheriff’s deputy to whale the blockage out of her esophagus. Her dark hair spilled over her shoulders and her dark eyes were focused on the meal.

Bubba stabbed a green bean viciously. He couldn’t very well stab his mother or Miz Adelia. Precious bumped his leg from under the table. Clearly, the canine was sensitive to undercurrents. She nosed his ankle and rested her head across his foot.

“The film company is coming tomorrow to film here.” Bubba waved the green bean around in order to emphasize his words.

Miz Demetrice nodded. “They’re paying fairly well. It seemed lucrative and timely.”

“I’ll say,” Miz Adelia muttered.

The green bean froze in space. “Why? Do you need money, Ma?”

“I wouldn’t say that. The economy’s a little slow. Do I need to repeat what I usually say about the idjits in Washington D.C.?” Miz Demetrice pushed her plate away. “It smells delightful, Adelia dearest, but I’m feeling down in the tummy.”

Miz Adelia pushed a chunk of creamed chipped beef to the part on her plate farthest away from her. “I understand.”

“The economy’s bin slow for the last few years,” Bubba said. “Damned shame.”

“People don’t always want to spend money on seeing an old wreck of a house, no matter who tromped through it in the past century and a half. The stories about the Civil War gold are dying down, too.”

“Thank the Lord,” Bubba said fervently. “Precious fell in the same hole as that federal agent did who broke her leg. I need to get a backhoe to fill that in. I think there might have bin bats down there.” He ate the green bean. “We should be grateful she dint sue us.”

Miz Adelia and Miz Demetrice looked at the ceiling, at the floor, and at the sideboard. They looked anywhere but at Bubba.

He swallowed the vegetable and then asked conversationally, “Is there anything else you need to tell me?”

“I’ve often wondered why McDonalds doesn’t sell hotdogs,” Miz Demetrice said. “They could call them McWeenies.”

“If it’s square why do they still call them crop circles?” Miz Adelia asked.

“I’ve always wanted to know what would happen if you blow a bubble in space?” Miz Demetrice said. “Perhaps we could call John Glenn.”

“I’ll never understand why Ginger had so many different outfits on Gilligan’s Island when it was only a three-hour tour,” Miz Adelia commented. “Mebe she had OCD.”

“Or why was it Gilligan’s island? Why wasn’t it the Skipper’s island? Or Mary Ann’s island?” Miz Demetrice smiled at Bubba. “These things do boggle the mind, dearest.”

Bubba’s mind boggled all right. “Is someone going to get murdered? Are you trying to tell me that you done kilt someone and dumped the body in the swamp?”

“I would never dump a body in the swamp again,” Miz Demetrice avowed fervently. “When I killed your father I tried to put chains on his corpse and put it in the swamp but it kept floating to the surface.” She waved a genial hand across her face and added sotto voce, “All that gas, you know. Your daddy loved beans. Pintos. Limas. Great northerns. Kidneys, too.”

“Pa’s in the family cemetery, Ma,” Bubba said.

“Well, he is now.”

“And he died of a heart attack.”

“That’s what it says on the death certificate.”

“What have you done, Ma?”

“Nothing too terrible,” Miz Demetrice said. “Finish your dinner. We’re expecting company.”

“Jack the Ripper? Adolph Hitler? Richard Nixon?”

“Don’t be silly, dear,” his mother said. “Jack the Ripper has probably been dead eight or nine decades.”

“That’s if he was about thirty years old when he done killed all those women,” Miz Adelia added obligingly. “Or if she was about thirty years old.”

“Jill the Ripper,” Miz Demetrice chortled. “I like that.”

Bubba proceeded to ignore the two and got to eating. He wasn’t a growing boy anymore, but he was a big man and he needed his calories. When they were done, Bubba even helped carry the dirty plates into the kitchen.

He was drying the last plate when they heard the sound of a vehicle coming down the lane. Bubba tilted his head. “Don’t sound like the po-lice. Could be some kind of mass murderer, I reckon.”

Precious barked once and Miz Demetrice hushed her. Precious knew better than to disobey Miz Demetrice. After all, Miz Demetrice had been known to put perfume on the dog. Once she had even put a rhinestone collar on the hound and pink ribbons around her ears. It had been positively dreadful. It had taken the dog ten minutes to get the ribbons off and another five to bury them under the oleander bushes around back. It was a deplorable record for Basset hounds.

Miz Demetrice grimaced at Bubba and went to open the kitchen’s door. “Wonderful,” she pronounced. “They’re here.”

Miz Adelia whipped her apron off. “I cain’t wait to see the little chillen.”

“It’s not Fudge and Virtna with Brownie and Cookie, is it?” Bubba asked suspiciously. A sneaky Miz Demetrice, a close-mouthed Miz Adelia, a dodgy Willodean, zombies, and Brownie. It would be purely chaos. It might cause WWIII.

“No, that little baby’s only sleeping half the night and they’re plumb tuckered out,” Miz Adelia said. “They ain’t going away from Monroe in a month of Sundays, or until that chile gives them a break.”

Miz Demetrice went outside followed closely by their housekeeper.

Bubba put the last plate away and debated whether he should escape out a window or not. Before he could make a move, his mother and Miz Adelia ushered a couple into the kitchen. Each of the couple was carrying a small child in their arms.

Bubba smiled tentatively when the man winced upon seeing the big man. The man was in his early forties and Hispanic by descent. He wore a workman’s shirt and worn khakis with work boots. He adjusted the child in his arms and glanced at Miz Demetrice. Clearly he was silently asking about Bubba’s presence.

The woman was a similar age with gray-shot brown hair and deep brown eyes. She tugged at the scarf around her head and shuffled to the side of the kitchen with her own precious burden.

Both children were obviously asleep; their little heads pillowed against the parents’ chests.

“Alfonzo,” Miz Demetrice said, “this is my son, Bubba. Bubba’s a good sort, although not the most knowledgeable.” There was enough of an emphasis on the word knowledgeable that Bubba knew his mother was sending some sort of message to the other man. “Bubba, this is Alfonzo Garcia.”

“Meetcha,” Bubba said.

“Buenas noches nos dé Dios,” Alfonzo said. He tilted his head toward the lady who had entered with him. “This is my wife, Pilar.”

Pilar nodded. Bubba smiled gently at her. The woman was petite and thin, as if a strong wind would blow her away. Her clothing was comparable to her husband’s. It was well-used but clean and serviceable.

“Our children, Blanca,” Alfonzo said, nodding at the child he held, and then at the one his wife held, “and Carlotta. It’s been a long trip.” Although he had a slight accent, Bubba had an idea that Alfonzo had been raised first generation American citizen.

“We have cribs upstairs or toddler beds if you think they’d be more comfortable with those,” Miz Demetrice said.

“Las niñas need to sleep in the same room with us,” Pilar said immediately. “They’re a little upset with the trip.” Even Bubba could hear the urgency contained in her voice. He frowned as he realized that Pilar was frightened of something. He wasn’t sure of what it was. She wasn’t comfortable with him in the room or with being in a strange house or perhaps it was that she was in a huge strange house.

“I’ve got some supper ready,” Miz Adelia said eagerly. “Ya’ll can take turns with the showers and I’ll bring a tray up. A good night’s sleep will do the trick.”

“Si,” Alfonzo agreed. “I think they’re so tired they won’t wake up if we put them down. Then Pilar can shower while I eat, or would you like to eat first, mi dulce?”

“Shower,” Pilar said gratefully. “The girls can take baths in the morning, si?”

“Of course they can,” Miz Demetrice said. “Our house is your house. If you get hungry in the night, you should come down and help yourselves. Miz Adelia has left cookies in the jar and there are cold cuts in the cooler. Those little ones will probably wake up starving.”

“Ma,” Bubba said, “don’t forget about the zombies in the morning.”

Alfonzo’s face crinkled with confusion. Pilar said something in Spanish. Then Miz Demetrice said something else in Spanish. Bubba’s Spanish was very rusty. He thought he might be able to ask for a shot of tequila and possibly where the bathroom was located.

“A movie set?” Alfonzo said in English in response to what Miz Demetrice said.

Miz Adelia took down a tray and got some plates out. She made herself busy as Bubba watched the expressions on his mother’s face and on the faces of their guests.

“Wouldn’t want the kids to be scared,” Bubba explained.

“No,” Miz Demetrice said. “I’ll show you upstairs. And we’ve got a box of toys for the girls. Diapers, too. I’ll show you where the television is. I have some movies for children with dubbed Spanish. Toy Story, Wall-E, and Cinderella. We might have to keep them inside tomorrow.”

“Is that a minivan I heard?” Bubba asked Alfonzo.

Alfonzo nodded slowly.

“It sounded like it could use a little work,” Bubba said. “I’ll look it over when I’ve got a chance. Ifin you leave the keys I kin take care of it.”

“Bubba’s a very good mechanic,” Miz Demetrice said as she directed the couple with their children out into the long hallway. Alfonzo paused to toss the keys to Bubba.

“I’ll leave the keys on the kitchen table,” Bubba called. He waited until he was sure that his mother had the four people halfway up the stairs. He heard Pilar say something about the chandelier. After all, it was the size of a VW Beetle hanging in a two-story open foyer and one could hardly not notice it. Miz Adelia cleaned it once a year and everyone had to help. All the crystals on it took forever to wipe off.

“Adelia Cedarbloom,” he said softly.

Miz Adelia’s shoulders stiffened, but she didn’t turn around.

“What in tarnation is going on around here?”

* * *

Bubba found it difficult to sleep. He stayed awake thinking about Willodean Gray, his mother, Miz Adelia, and the worried expression on Pilar’s face. He wasn’t stupid and if his mother was doing something illegal with the Garcias, then she almost certainly had a good and moral reason for doing so. If Bubba could count on any one thing in life, it was that Miz Demetrice would run the road of good and moral, until she could no longer do so. His mother would have been the first fake Indian on the boat at the Boston Tea Party.

He finally dozed off about two a.m. and woke up at four. He got up, fed Precious and let her out, and dressed. After washing his face and brushing his teeth, he went out to see if he could do anything with Alfonzo’s minivan. It was a first generation Dodge Caravan with a bunch of miles on it, but it was a solid vehicle. He used a shop light to see while he cleaned the battery leads and gapped the spark plugs. He changed the oil and the oil filter. (Bubba had a collection of automobile filters he used for all kinds of friends and relatives and one was just the right size for the Caravan.) He was just finishing with the air filter when other vehicles started pulling into the area in front of the mansion.

The sun wasn’t going to come out for another hour and a half and everyone was ready to work.

Alfonzo came out with two cups of coffee and handed one to Bubba.

Bubba took it gratefully and watched the film crew get to work. They began setting up tents to one side and unloading equipment.

“Tires are getting a mite lean,” Bubba said.

“I’ll replace them as soon as I can,” Alfonzo said. “Gracias.”

“I kin get you a deal at the local tire place. I get a discount because I work for the garage.” Bubba named a price. “Ain’t sure about it but I can prolly get Virgil to give you another ten percent off. He worships the ground Ma walks on ever since she raised money for his sister’s surgery.”

“Si. I think we have enough cash for that.” Alfonzo took a drink of coffee and motioned at the film crew. “Is this place always like this?”

“Sometimes it’s much worse,” Bubba smiled around the mug he held to his face.

Both men watched the scurrying of people as they did incomprehensible acts. They heard such phrases as “follow-shot,” “pull-back,” and “vorkapich.”

“Are they speaking English?” Alfonzo asked.

“Ain’t sure,” Bubba responded. “I don’t think so.”

Precious attempted to eat one of the film crew’s legs until Bubba called for her to heel. It was a little too busy for the Basset hound on her home turf and she was unmistakably discombobulated enough to want to bite someone.

“Good looking hound,” Alfonzo said. “I’ve always liked hounds.”

Precious nosed his leg, obviously recognizing a kindred spirit. Alfonzo bent to scratch her in the correct spot behind her jowls.

Bubba wanted to say something complicated and complicated would indicate that he understood that Alfonzo and Pilar were involved in some sort of intricate fix that could only be assisted by someone such as Miz Demetrice Snoddy. He wanted to wax prolifically about how he would back his mother up, and by proxy he would have Alfonzo and Pilar’s backs, so that the couple could lose their pinched facades that plainly expected some authoritative figure to descend upon them with hobnailed boots. Oh, he wanted to, but it wasn’t the way that his speech processes worked, as evidenced by his colossal failure in speaking to Willodean Gray the day before. Instead he said, “Yep.”

And it became further clear that Alfonzo tended toward the same manly limit to human speech. Their conversation was something along the lines of:

“Nice outside.”

“Yep. Kids up?”

“Si. Woke with the birds.”

“What do you do?”

“Construction. Handy work.”

“For Ma?”

“Si.”

“Breakfast?”

“Certainly.”

“Pancakes.”

“Bueno.”

“Go on in. I’ve got to do some more stuff out here,” Bubba said. He watched Alfonzo wander in and thought that the other man was observably more relaxed. It was amazing what a simple conversation could yield.

 

 

Chapter 4

 

Bubba and the Maladroit Movie-Makers

Saturday, March 9^th

 

It wasn’t long before one of the film’s crew nearly attacked Bubba. She shoved herself into his face with chaotic energy and an urgency that he simply couldn’t replicate even if he’d had a thousand cups of Miz Adelia’s coffee. “You’re the guy that Risley hired!” she shrieked into Bubba’s face. “Right? Right! We need you! Now! Now! Now!”

Bubba jerked backward involuntarily and Precious growled lowly.

The film crew girl was a redhead in her twenties with a black t-shirt that proclaimed, “The Deadly Dead RISES!” The word “RISES!” was dripping with blood. She looked him over. “I knew it had to be you! Good jaw line!” she said loudly. “Nice contour on the shoulders!” She touched his collarbone. “We’ve got just the thing for you!” She tugged on his arm. “Come on! Did you go potty?”

“Yep,” Bubba said because he didn’t know how else to answer that. His mother had taught him that bathroom humor was never de rigueur. His grandmother had taught him what the meaning of de rigueur was. Bubba was almost never de rigueur but it had never bothered him. It wasn’t bothering him now.

“Good, because you’ll be sitting in a chair for three hours!” the redhead said. “THREE HOURS!”

Bubba called to Precious, “Heel, girl.”

Precious trotted behind them as they threaded through the tents.

They eventually ended up in a tent that had chairs in front of tables covered with bottles, jars, brushes, picks, and things Bubba didn’t even want to try to identify. One chair already had a young man in it with a purple-haired man lurking over him, saying, “—white base with a green tint. One missing eyeball. Black hole it. I mean so black that Stephen Hawking would go, ‘Whoa.’”

The redhead left as Bubba was directed to the chair next to the young man with the impending black holedityness. The purple-haired man turned to him, looking him up and down in a way that made Bubba feel like a cut of beef. “Jesus, they grow them big out here.” He turned to one side and yelled, “Simone! Get your cute little butt over here. He needs the full facial implement. You know, shotgun in the face. Let’s make the NRA have second thoughts!” He adjusted the black scarf around his neck and threw the thin ends over his shoulder.

Precious ducked under Bubba’s chair. Presumably she thought it was safe there.

The purple-haired man caught sight of Precious. “Oh, my God, a zombie dog. And even better, a zombie Basset hound. How adorable. Kristoph will die. Will she sit still for makeup?”

“If food is involved,” Bubba said, thinking it was a joke.

“I must have my special case!” the purple-haired man bellowed in Bubba’s ear. “The very special case! I must work!”

Another girl with long blonde hair started on Bubba who he assumed was Simone. She had him change into a ragged set of jeans and a plain but shredded t-shirt. When he returned to the chair, she positioned his head with her two tiny hands and said, “Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t move or breathe. If you have to move or breathe, raise your hand. You’re Zombie #14/Farmboy. If you hear someone yelling for Zombie#14/Farmboy then that is you. You will answer to the name of Zombie #14/Farmboy. You will have dreams tonight of being Zombie #14/Farmboy. You get a line tomorrow when you do your scenes then, so be happy.”

“How kin I get a line tomorrow ifin I’m a zombie?” Bubba couldn’t help but asking. “I always thought that zombies ain’t the chatty type. Right?”

The blonde girl, who Bubba still assumed was Simone, rolled her eyes. Bubba thought it might hurt. “We’re not shooting in sequence, duh. Must be a local.” She tilted her head at Snoddy Mansion and said, “You probably live in the big antebellum dump with your sister. And a pig named McGoo.”

“My mother,” Bubba said, “and a Basset hound named Precious. “Ain’t no need to be rude.”

Simone’s eyes widened. “I was joking. Really, you live here?”

“In the other house,” Bubba said. “It just got rebuilt from when a murderer tried to burn it down.”

Simone sighed. “I’m just not going to ask. Okay, don’t move. Don’t breathe. Did you go pee already?”

Bubba had to move and breathe to answer, so he said, “I did.”

Simone rubbed her hands together. “Let’s make magic,” she said energetically.

* * *

It turned out that the movie making business, especially the zombie movie making business, was more complicated than Bubba could have imagined. Just in the little section he sat in was a squadron of people doing makeup. Simone informed him that this was logical since it was a makeup heavy movie. There were full facial jobs and full body jobs that took up to eight hours to apply. Only some of the actors had a little amount done, like the leads in the movie. They got to be a little dirty but still extraordinarily beautiful.

“Tandy North,” Simone said, “is the lead actress.” Using sure and coordinated movements, Simone smoothed over some kind of glue on the lower part of Bubba’s face. He wasn’t sure if he could move or breathe voluntarily anymore, even if he had wanted to. “She’s a classic beauty. She really doesn’t need makeup but if you don’t have a base on, the camera reflects the skin. It looks like she’s a shiny pink ball if she doesn’t have something on. Did you see her in Bubble People? It was an amazing film. I loved the wardrobe.”

It also turned out that Simone loved to talk to people who couldn’t talk back. It was like listening to a perky blonde radio with a permanent ongoing talk show.

“And Alex Luis, well he’s just a six foot edible morsel that begs to be covered up with chocolate,” Simone continued. “Sex on two legs. He’s got the creamiest skin. It seems like a shame to cover it up. And nice, too. I think he might be gay, although he does have a girlfriend. She’s his cover. Too bad for me, but too lucky for some boy.”

Bubba wanted to fill in the pauses with “Uh-huh”s and “Um-huh”s but his jaw had been glued in place. Simone placed a glop of bloody plastic over part of his mouth and jaw and surveyed it critically.

“Of course, you’re not bad, with that whole redneck, county boy, farminess going on.” Simone patted his hand. “A girl could be happy for a few days out here in the sticks. But how do you not have a Starbucks around here?”

Bubba didn’t know. He’d never been to a Starbucks. At least, he hadn’t been that he could recall.

“You’ve met the director, right? Kristoph is so wonderful and cool, too. He doesn’t hit on all the girls, either. He loves his wife. They’ve been married for three years. That’s practically their diamond anniversary in Hollywood time.” Simone smoothed something wet over Bubba’s brow. “And Risley is pretty neat, too. You know he was irritable last week and suddenly he got all loosy-goosy. We think he got laid, but we all don’t know with whom. There’s a bet whether he’s AC or DC or AC/DC, but no one’s got an inside tract. Did you know the producer is Kristoph’s wife, Marquita? She’s not really Spanish but she took a stage name. I mean I like Simone but my last name is Sheats. Do you know how many jokes I hear about that?”

Bubba could imagine. He’d heard a few jokes about both Bubba and Snoddy. How much money am I making for this? Is this really worth it?

“Schuler is our head makeup artist,” she said, moving the gossip train to a new stop. “He’s the one with purple hair doing the work on the dog. He loves to wear a scarf, so we call him Scarfie, but not when he’s listening. I didn’t know we were going to have a zombie dog.”

After a while he tuned Simone completely out. Then he was turned so she could work on another side of him and he could watch as Schuler plied Precious with bits of bacon. Bubba was still sitting in the chair with Simone fluttering over him when Schuler led Precious away. Lights came on in the form of portable flood lamps and someone yelled, “Action!”

“That’s Risley shooting your dog,” Simone said and Bubba jerked. Abruptly he realized Simone meant that they were filming Precious. Good luck with that. She might et the camera.

Risley must have gotten what he wanted because Precious came back with Schuler ten minutes later. Schuler carefully removed the blood and brains from the canine even while he fed her a bite of bacon. (This was a purple-haired man who had owned dogs before and probably still did.) Precious knew a good thing when she had it because she didn’t even struggle. The bacon might get away.

The last thing that Simone did was to carefully put some contact lens in Bubba’s eyes. She followed up with some eye drops. “You’re a kickass Z,” she pronounced staring at his features with critical regard. “I would totally squeal if I saw you in a graveyard.”

I had a girl in a graveyard yesterday and she dint squeal. She was supposed to squeal but then the zombies showed up. I hate zombies. I really do.

When Bubba was finally completed, he was led away by the first redhead. She spoke rapidly to him. “You’re a zombie. That’s your motivation. You like brains, brains, and more brains. Anything that’s not brains is poo-poo. Basically you’re wandering through some woods looking for brains. You can do that, right? Those clothes look good on you. This is exactly what modern day zombies wear while chasing down brains.”

Bubba would have glanced down at his shredded t-shirt and ragged jeans but he couldn’t really reposition his head, in addition to not being able to move or breathe. It seemed pointless to protest.

He glanced over to the side of the circus and saw Alfonzo observing the hullaballoo with Miz Demetrice also looking. Each of them held a child and all four were avidly watching the action. Bubba didn’t know what the toddlers got out of it. Maybe all the bright lights were exciting.

Bubba saw his mother watching him. He had a feeling that she didn’t actually recognize him. After about thirty seconds Miz Demetrice blinked and her mouth opened in seeming amazement. He was too far away to hear the words, but he could read her lips as she said, “That cain’t be Bubba.”

“When Risley yells action, you start here,” the redhead pointed at an x scraped into the ground, “and stumble over to there.” She pointed out another x. “Drag a leg or something. Remember you took a shotgun hit to the face and some of your vertebra may be broken. You have to get to those brains. Right?”

Right. Shotgun to the face. Broken vertebra. Brains. I think I need to pee.

* * *

The film making business abruptly seemed less complicated. Bubba staggered from one x to another x. He grunted because he couldn’t open his mouth. He dragged one leg and almost did the pee pee dance because he hadn’t realized he’d been sitting in the makeup chair for nearly three hours.

Kristoph had shown up, wearing another variation of what Bubba called the Silent-Movie-Director ensemble. The beret, boots, and megaphone might have been the same as the previous days. The riding pants and wool coat were different colors of brown and gray.

Kristoph briefly called aside Bubba and the three other zombies in the scene and repeated the redhead’s motivational speech. It was unpretentious and Bubba simplified it further in his head. “Groan, moan, and shuffle. Try not to breathe. Act. Personify. Brains.”

Bubba wasn’t impressed.

They did three takes, which Bubba thought was excessive and then he managed to indicate by hand gestures that he needed to use the facilities. He went inside the mansion and managed to frighten Pilar and saying sorry with his face all gummed up was difficult, but she finally realized it was Bubba.

Once Bubba had taken care of nature, he’d come out to the kitchen and found a mug of coffee and appropriated a straw. There was a little hole in the corner of the jaw apparatus so that he could get a little fluid. It was used appropriately while Miz Adelia stared at him from the opposite of the kitchen. It dawned on him that she hadn’t immediately recognized him either.

The housekeeper was probably grateful that Bubba couldn’t speak. It was, after all, a long time before she could speak because she was laughing so much. When she had recovered she took several pictures of him with her cell phone. “I’m sharing this on Facebook,” she said. “This is funny as all get out.”

Bubba moaned at her.

“I think they’re calling for you.” Miz Adelia waved toward the outside.

Bubba saw the redhead running across the lawn and a second later he heard, “Zombie #14! We’ve got a composition shot! ZOMBIE FRICKING #14! WHERE ARE YOU? GET YOUR SHUFFLING, BRAIN-CONSUMING ASS OUT HERE, RIGHT NOW!”

Bubba shrugged.

Miz Adelia said, “I’ll find your dog and keep her inside so she doesn’t get into too much trouble.”

Bubba shambled outside where the redhead was nearly shaking with extreme anxiety. She was like one of those little dogs that shake when it’s cold, or when someone looks at it, or when it’s hungry, tired, anxious, or generally when it’s awake. She led him back to where Kristoph was having a furious discussion with Risley.

Oh, these madcap Hollywood people, Bubba thought. Then he wondered when he could get the thing off his face because Miz Adelia still had a few pancakes leftover. Precious nosed his leg and he bent to scratch behind one of her long ears. He could have Miz Adelia puree the pancakes and sip them through a straw. This had worked when his jaw had been wired shut after Willodean had hit him with a set of manacles. (The manacles hadn’t broken his mandible, but when he had fallen and hit the stone stair step with his jaw, that had done the trick.) And regardless of popular thought, not everything tasted good pureed.

The redhead corralled the zombies like a seasoned cowboy while Kristoph said, “I’m going to do it my way, Risley!”

“You always do it your way!” Risley yelled back.

“And they say actors are prissy little uptight poopbags!” Kristoph bellowed. “That’s nothing on the executive staff!”

“At least I don’t have a corncob that needs to be surgically removed!” Risley yelled.

“These riding pants don’t have room for a corncob!”

“That’s because the corncob is already shoved far enough up—”

“What, not again!” a tall woman with waist length brown hair yelled as she waded into the morass. She was taller than Risley and Kristoph and her brown eyes flashed with disdain. “Does this have to happen every time you get together?”

“Marquita, honey pookums,” Kristoph said.

Bubba blinked. The tall woman didn’t really seem liked a honey pookums. But wait, dint Simone say that Kristoph is married to a Marquita? So the tall woman is his wife. They didn’t seem to go together. Marquita might have been in her fifties and was taller than her husband. (Bubba took note of the four inch heels.) But she possessed an eternal beauty that would carry with her until she died. (Just like Willodean Gray.)

“Mar,” Risley said immediately after Kristoph spoke.

Marquita stamped her four- inch heel.

“Love Moschino boots,” said the redhead. “God, I love those.”

“He wants to do an artsy-fartsy shot,” Kristoph said. “We’re on a budget.” He tapped his watch. “And we’re three days behind. The studio is going to come down on my head like a pile of bricks.”

“Do you want to do a half-rate, bloody gore fest or do you want to do something that can grab attention?” Risley asked.

“I want to get through this so I can do the indie film I really want to do,” Kristoph snapped back.

“Always in a hurry, always rushing around.” Risley rolled his eyes. “Not looking at the bigger picture.”

“Haha. That gets funnier every time you repeat it.”

Do they always fight like this? Bubba wanted to ask but he remembered that he had a thing on his jaw and he couldn’t actually speak.

“They always fight like this,” the redhead said. “Just keep your zombified head down and it’ll all be over in a few minutes.”

“Better to beg forgiveness than ask for permission!” Risley shouted.

“And where is the money coming from?” Kristoph bellowed.

Marquita stamped her foot again. “Stop this before I snatch you both a new hole!”

Kristoph scuffed his feet on the ground. “He started it.”

Risley threw his hands in the air. “I’d already be done if the little man-boy would just let the megaphone go for a minute.”

Marquita slapped her husband in the back of the head and knocked the beret off. Then she didn’t hesitate as she did the same thing to Risley. He didn’t have a beret, but it did muss his receding salt and pepper hairline. “Ris, shoot your shot before I change my mind,” Marquita said. “Kris,” she added, “have you had too much caffeine this morning?”

“The lady inside the mansion makes the best cup of coffee,” Kristoph protested. “It would have been a crime not to drink it.”

The redhead sighed. “Kristoph becomes a monster when he’s had too much caffeine.”

Marquita gently shooed her husband off the set and waved frantically at Risley as she prodded Kristoph along. “You just need some organic juice,” she said. “I picked up a bag of oranges at the local farmer’s market.”

What local farmer’s market? Bubba would have frowned but he was actually prevented from doing so. He hoped that Marquita wasn’t talking about the limited amount of produce provided at Bufford’s Gas and Grocery. There was every chance that any fresh food there had been stolen from orphans or picked out of the CDC’s testing waste.

Bubba would have sighed but he couldn’t do that either. He just needed to get through the day and figure out what his mother and Miz Adelia were up to and how it was going to impact him and then he would need to figure out how to get Willodean alone again sans zombies or anything else that would keep him from saying four little words to her.

There. That wouldn’t be so hard.

Right.

 

 

Chapter 5

 

Bubba and Pernicious Problems

Saturday, March 9^th

 

The shot really didn’t take long. Risley’s direction involved Bubba and the other zombies looking pensive. Then they were directed to look contemplative. Risley then asked Bubba to brood. He didn’t know exactly how to make his face broody when he couldn’t move it, but he did his best. The assistant director looked happy enough with the end result.

After the shoot ended, the redhead said to Bubba, “All right, Zombie #14, you can go home now. Go by makeup and have Simone take the prosthesis off. Don’t forget about the contacts.” She handed him a sheet of paper. “This is where you need to be tomorrow. Make sure you have the same clothing. Simone will mark the clothing and bag it, but be our good bud and make certain it’s the same when you put it on tomorrow in the wardrobe/makeup tent.”

Bubba moaned. It was a real moan. This whole thing had taken hours and he was starving. Also he had a headache. He stumbled over to the makeup tent and Simone got right to work on him. Fortunately it didn’t take that long to get the gory fake jaw off his face. It took a lot longer to get the glue and plastic off the other parts of his skin.

Bubba rubbed his jaw in appreciation of its newfound freedom. Then Simone rapidly and efficiently popped the lens out of his eyes, putting them in a special case.

“There you go,” Simone said. “Try Noxzema to get the rest off tonight, although I’m going to cover it all up again tomorrow so don’t peel your skin off.” She directed him back to a changing room with a plastic bag. “Put your wardrobe in the bag. See, it’s marked Zombie #14/Farmboy.”

Bubba grunted. It was a little difficult to move his jaw. He didn’t know if it was because it had been closed for hours or because it had been broken. It didn’t matter much.

Bubba almost tripped over McGeorge, the assistant who had been irritated with them the day before in the cemetery. She pushed him to one side, muttering, “I hate directors. Give them one stupid award and they think they’re Spike Jones and Orson Welles’ love child.” She stopped to glare at Bubba. “You. From the cemetery. What are you doing here?”

Simone laughed. “He just finished his scenes, McGeorge. What crawled up your ass?”

“I’m looking for her grace, the star of the film,” McGeorge snarled. “The royal RV is empty.”

“Toking up behind the barn with the best boys,” Simone said.

Bubba moaned again. It was really hard to get his mouth open.

“Bubba?”

Bubba’s head shot up. The glorious sparkle of the light moment of sun’s light just before it set scattered into a thousand iridescent beams of brilliance, touching everything in its path with a glimmer of warmth.

Willodean smiled crookedly at him.

“Bubba?” McGeorge repeated. “His name can’t really be…Bubba. That’s like naming a Dalmatian dog…Spot.” She shook her head, eying the sheriff’s department patch on Willodean’s shoulder and absently rubbing the index finger that Willodean had bent backward. “Simone was joking about the toking. Hey, I made a rhyme. I’ll go find Tandy. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Better bring the eye drops,” Simone called after her as McGeorge strode off, nearly skipping as she hurried along.

Bubba waved at Simone and offered an arm to Willodean. She took it with another one of her lustrous smiles.

Willodean looked at him. “A zombie? Really?”

Bubba shrugged. He rubbed his jaw and said, “Majawstug.”

“I didn’t get that.”

“Ma jaw eh stug.”

“Is that makeup on your face?”

“Um.”

“You know,” Willodean said as they threaded their way through tents and stepped across electrical cables, “I might have been a little, oh, pushy yesterday. When I said something about kids.”

Bubba tripped on an errant bloody arm. A film crew member snatched it up and glared at him as if Bubba had done it on purpose.

“I kind of sprung it on you,” Willodean added quickly, completely ignoring the errant bloody arm and the crew member cradling it in his own arms. “I wasn’t trying to push you into anything. I suppose children have been on my mind lately. But it’s not like my biological clock is ticking and ticking and about to explode, or something like that.”

“Mmm?”

“I’m not sure how to explain it,” Willodean went on.

“Urmg?”

“We’ve been dating and I was just curious what you thought about children.” Willodean looked away and appeared to study a skeletal zombie sipping Coca Cola from a straw struck in the can. Her free hand sketched a nervous pattern in the air. “With Brownie being around and sometimes Janie, although they’re not exactly children, are they? More like some sort of warped offspring of karma or the like. I’m just blathering on and on. I mean, you choked on your chicken when I said it and I feel just awful about it. I should just shut up now.” She closed her perfectly formed mouth and Bubba was dumbstruck for a moment.

Speak. Say something, dumbie. Quick. She’s goin’ to get away.

“Eh nah tha,” Bubba said, unpleasantly surprised that he couldn’t speak when he desperately wanted to. He looked around as if that would somehow miraculously aid him. Two zombies were playing volleyball in the front yard. Miz Demetrice was on the veranda chatting with Marquita Thaddeus. She held one of Alfonzo and Pilar’s children and Marquita was tickling the toddler’s stomach. Another pair of zombies was smoking by the line of vans. Not toking. Smoking cigarettes.

Here was a prime opportunity. Bubba knew he should take advantage of it but it was impossible because the words wouldn’t come out of his mouth and he couldn’t make them come out of his mouth no matter how hard he tried. “Wahdee, woo oo mah meh?”

There. He had said it! HE HAD SAID IT! But hellfire and damnation, it didn’t sound like he’d said it. He could be asking about the weather, or whether she’d like to go to Taco Bell for lunch, or whether she thought he wore boxers or briefs.

Willodean glanced at him anxiously. “Your jaw is a little swollen, Bubba. Did that stuff they put on you do something? Or…oh, God, was it from when I broke your jaw?” She jerked her hand out of his arm and touched her face. It appeared as though she was afraid to touch his, in case it exploded or something equally awful. “Maybe we should take you to Doc Goodjoint?”

Bubba shook his head. “Ehh wa tha mahut,” he tried to tell her.

Willodean appeared horrified. She took a step away from him. “Is this some sort of weird rejection? You’re afraid to tell me that I pushed a little too hard?”

Bubba shook his head frantically. How could this have gone so wrong, so quickly? Oh, that is a stupid question. This is my life. Just when things were going well, something came around and slapped him right upside the face. “Na tha,” he said urgently. “Na tha!”

Willodean didn’t look too convinced. “I’m going to talk to your mother now. We can talk later when you can talk.”

Bubba watched her walk away with a miserable feeling deep in his soul. She hadn’t even paused to kiss him on a cheek or given him a chance to buss her on hers. He silently said a few swear words. Then he laid his head against the side of one of the vans and thought seriously about banging it a few times just to see if that would make a difference. Unconsciousness might help him considerably.

When Bubba raised his head, he saw his mother talking to Willodean on the veranda. Willodean had clearly put Bubba in the back of her mind and she stood facing away from him. Miz Demetrice still held one of the toddlers. He couldn’t tell if it was Blanca or Carlotta, but the baby was waving arms and legs keenly. His mother put the child down and she stood on her two feet with her tiny little arms wrapped around Miz Demetrice’s legs.

Willodean knelt next to the child and clucked the little girl on the chin. The child moved around to the back of Miz Demetrice’s legs, clearly apprehensive of Willodean. Maybe it was the uniform.

Bubba frowned and then didn’t frown because he couldn’t frown. Alfonzo and Pilar spoke like they had lived in the United States for a long time. It might mean they were here legally, (Both Alfonzo and Pilar sounded like folks who had grown up in Southern Texas along the border of Mexico.) but their association with Miz Demetrice and Miz Adelia meant something was afoot. They might not like being around figures of authority because they had been ill-treated by them. Even the baby cottoned to that.

Kids. Bubba mentally frowned harder. Are kids on Willodean’s mind because she’s in the whatever game that’s happening with Ma and Miz Adelia? That would be something that Miz Demetrice was more than capable of doing. After all, Willodean was involved in the Pegramville Women’s Club’s activities, and Willodean had helped his mother out before. They had illegally searched the sheriff’s office once because Miz Demetrice suspected that there was an important clue there. Willodean had been the one to let them into the sheriff’s department. It was part of the reason he liked Willodean so much. When the going got tough, she didn’t pull out a rule book and quote verbatim. Instead, she was more likely to shriek, “To hell with the rule book!”

Bubba eyed the side of the van. It wasn’t too late to pound his head against it. If there was a dent in the van that resulted then he knew just the right people to fix it. He’d actually said the words (garbled the words was more like it) and Willodean hadn’t understood him.

Damn.

Ignoring the two zombies who watched him, Bubba stumbled back to the makeup tent. Simone was cleaning up and repackaging multicolored tubes of everything a happy little cosmetologist could want.

“Bubba,” she said and giggled. “I can’t get over that. Did you mother really name you Bubba? I mean, does it say that on your birth certificate?”

Bubba pointed at his jaw and asked, “Wha uh ooh ta ma yah?”

Simone stopped smiling. “Oh, it’s a little numb?”

He nodded.

“That’ll wear off in a few hours. We use a glue that has an analgesic in it so people won’t mess with the prostheses too much.” She touched his jaw. “I see a little swelling. Remind me not to use that glue on you tomorrow.” She turned away and dug in a portable refrigerator. “Water. Water. Hey, who hid my Red Bull in here?” Simone made a triumphant noise. “There we go. A gel pack.” She stood up and handed it to him. “You can still breathe, right?”

Bubba took the compact gel pack and put it against his jaw. Since it had been in her little fridge, it was icy and felt good. He nodded shortly. I kin still breathe. That’s got to be a good thing.

Simone grimaced. “Some people have a little reaction to the glue. I’ve seen it before. It’ll wear off in a few hours. I’ve got some antihistamines around here.”

Bubba shook his head and waved at her. What he really wanted was a beer. A nice cool bottle of beer. Some kind of lager that he hid in the back of his fridge for a special occasion. He wouldn’t be able to drink that if he took an antihistamine. Also he needed to let Precious outside and play with her awhile. It would make both of them feel better.

Simone waved back.

When Bubba walked around the last van that was parked nearest to the mansion, he saw that the sheriff’s department Bronco was gone. It made him want to hit the van with his head again.

* * *

Miraculously Bubba had lost his appetite. He drank from an ice cold bottle of Rogue Juniper Pale Ale. It was made in Oregon and a gift from Willodean. It had taken him three months to drink all six and the last one was held in his hand, with condensation dripping over his fist.

While the reds, blues, and oranges faded from the western skies, he’d drug out a ball and tossed it for Precious until she collapsed on her side, heaving with well-earned exertion. After retrieving the isolated beer from his fridge, he’d sat on a lawn chair and batted at mosquitos while watching the film crew pack up and leave. Then he’d witnessed Miz Demetrice and Miz Adelia sneaking Alfonso and Pilar out the side door and tucking them in Alfonso’s minivan. The babies went with them, belted safely in little carriers and covered with blankets to keep the night air away. Bubba could see this because his mother and the housekeeper both carried Maglites and pretty much showed everything.

Bubba placed the bottle of ale next to his jaw. As it was still cold, it helped a little. He wondered if workman’s comp would cover that little issue and decided it didn’t impact his mechanicking skills so it probably wouldn’t.

Figures. He looked up at the skies. An array of brilliant stars glittered across a sea of darkest velvet. If all were going to the way it typically went, then a comet should streak in and demolish my truck. Or…there should be a dead body on it.

Bubba nodded to himself. A dead alien body from a comet. Mysteriously kilt by someone else and put on a comet headed for Pegram County, Texas. Then I git blamed for it. Some alien from a distant galaxy takes me away because they think I done did it and then he locks me up in an alien jail. Then I have to eat glow-in-the-dark grubs because they don’t make human food there. Yep.

The minivan backed out of the parking place and slowly turned around, all the while not turning on its lights. The two older women armed with Maglites waved as the dark shape of the van moved away.

Bubba would have checked his watch for the time but he wasn’t wearing a watch. He had an idea that it was after midnight. The day had slid away. Four a.m. had him up and fixing a Dodge Caravan. Five a.m. had him sitting down and being zombified. The remainder of the day had skated away from him, right up until the moment he’d seen Willodean at sunset.

And then I surely crapped on that like a hundred pigeons on a big statue in a park.

Screwing up his features, Bubba realized he could move his jaw a little more. It hadn’t been a good time to say anything to Willodean. She was nervous because of what she had said and there were zombies and his mother everywhere. To be perfectly precise, it had been a horrible time to say it. No woman in her right mind would have responded favorably asked at a time like that.

Mebe, just mebe, it had been blessed serendipity. Bubba should be relieved. He’d have another shot. Probably.

Suppressing a yawn, Bubba meandered over to where his mother and Miz Adelia were talking quietly to each other.

“—think they’re suspicious,” Miz Adelia said.

“Of what?” Miz Demetrice whispered back. “It’s not like it’s obvious.”

“We should be more careful. We need to get all the shipments through,” Miz Adelia said.

“What shipments?” Bubba asked and was pleased to see the two women jump. It was the little things in life that brought pure enjoyment.

“Bubba!” Miz Demetrice yelled. She fluttered a hand in front of her chest, nearly hitting herself in the face with the larger Maglite. “You nearly gave me a bad case of the all-overs!”

“Ma, the day that you’re nervous is the day I should go to Tahiti and live on the beach,” Bubba said.

“Did you see Bubba as a zombie?” Miz Adelia asked swiftly. She was nearly as adept at changing the subject as Miz Demetrice. In fact, she had probably learned the skill from the older woman.

“I almost didn’t recognize the boy,” Miz Demetrice said. “Shall we go to bed? I’d like to get a good night’s sleep.”

“Hard to sleep when you’re driving around,” Bubba remarked, “like a couple with two little kids.”

“That’s the best way to get a baby to go to sleep,” Miz Adelia said promptly. “A car ride is just the thing.”

“Uh-huh,” Bubba said. It was challenging to quash the suspicion from his tone.

“Shouldn’t you be getting some shut eye?” his mother asked pointedly.

Precious trotted up and nosed his leg. She was just as tired as she could be. She had been up with Bubba from the beginning and had only had five naps since that time. A dog could only go so far.

“I reckon,” Bubba said, thinking he should give Precious a break. “I’m working tomorrow, too. They’re filming something downtown. I’ll be gone most of the morning. Them movie people coming back here?”

“Not tomorrow,” Miz Demetrice said evasively. “However did they get you to agree to be in the movie?”

“I’m not exactly sure of that,” Bubba admitted. “Ya’ll in trouble, Ma? Is there something I should know about?” His mother was the queen of trouble-making. She didn’t wait for trouble to come to her; she went looking for it. In fact, she was the expert’s expert of locating inconvenience, danger, and affairs of woe. Bubba had gotten to be quite the professional of avoiding his mother’s more disorderly undertakings. However, sometimes they had a habit of sneaking up and biting him on the butt.

“Oh, it’s nothing to worry about,” his mother soothed him.

“That’s the part where it usually becomes the most worrisome,” Bubba said. He leaned over and kissed Miz Adelia on the cheek and repeated it with his mother. “Get some rest, because I reckon ya’ll are going to need it, being up to whatever it is that you’re up to.”

Miz Adelia shrugged and went to her car. Bubba watched as his mother went inside and watched as Miz Adelia started her vehicle up and drove down the lane. She turned on her headlights to do so. Alfonzo hadn’t turned on his and probably hadn’t until he had reached the main road.

Bubba shook his head and winced when he yawned. His jaw still wouldn’t quite work correctly.

 

 

Chapter 6

 

Bubba and the Distressed Director

Sunday, March 10^th

 

Bubba did manage to go to sleep and when he woke up he could use his jaw again. He wasn’t looking forward to more of the same pain on this day so he took an antihistamine. He scrounged around his clothing from the previous day and found the piece of paper he’d been given and saw that he was supposed to be on Main Street at eight a.m. He would be just yards away from the Pegram County Sheriff’s Department and one never knew when a suitable opening might present itself. Things might be changing for the better.

A positive attitude, he told himself. He glanced at Precious, who was doing the Dog-Has-To-Go-Outside-Now dance. “A positive attitude, girl.”

Precious whined apprehensively and did a little twirl. Her tail waggled questioningly.

Bubba lurched downstairs and let his dog outside. He took care of his personal business and even shaved without cutting himself once. He let his dog back inside and fed her. She ate while he poured himself a large mug of coffee. The mug was one of a set of six matched, oversized cups and had been a housewarming gift from Willodean’s parents, Celestine and Evan Gray. Apparently, locating one of their daughters who had been kidnapped by the brother of a murderer went a long way in their estimation. However, since Precious had been more instrumental in finding Willodean, the canine had gotten a Bone Bone Gift Basket from Doggies R Us. (An actual basket with a large red ribbon that Precious tried to chew to little bits before Bubba had taken it away.) Included had been carob treats, as well as organic, soy free snacks, and an assortment of chew toys. Precious’s present had been bigger than Bubba’s and Bubba had a sneaking suspicion that Celestine liked his dog better than she liked him.

It don’t matter. It’s what Willodean thinks about me that really counts. Bubba needed to hang onto that positive attitude. It was a bright, fresh new day with golden opportunity around every corner. There was lots to be done. And hey, he got to be in a movie. Willodean didn’t seem impressed by the movie itself, but maybe she would appreciate his can-do attitude. Is it possible that Willodean likes my dog better than me? Naw.

When Bubba walked outside he tried to shoo Precious away from his truck, but she was having none of it. She had been left behind one too many times and she was ready to ride. He had an idea that she knew exactly what day of the week it was and why she should be permitted to join him.

“I have to work, girl,” he told his dog.

Precious tilted her head.

“Ifin you come, you’ve got to stay out of trouble.”

She tilted her head the other way. Big brown eyes stared at him. Liquid brown eyes full of pleading and wistful longing looked at him. Looked…at…him. Until…he…folded.

“Mebe you kin stay with Willodean,” he said hopefully. It certainly gave him an excuse. He knew she had a short shift on Sunday and she would be around the department later in the day. Bubba brightened. Sometimes a fella has to make an opportunity for himself. “I’m goin’ to be on it like ants on a honey bun,” he swore.

Precious woofed expectantly. She knew a chance when she saw one and clambered up into the truck when Bubba opened the door for her. He had to give her derriere a helping hand, but she kept on eagerly pushing with her less than long legs. She scrambled to the passenger side of the bench seat and stuck her head out of the already opened window. She barked once at Alfonzo, who was already about and scraping some of the chipped paint from the columns in the front of Snoddy Mansion. Alfonzo waved leisurely with the scraper.

Bubba actually got to the downtown area of Pegramville without further ado. He parked well down the street from where the film crew was setting up. The streets were cordoned off with plastic sawhorses and yellow tape. Local police officers roamed around to ensure complicity. He paused to wave at Officers Smithson and Haynes, one of whom might have once kicked him in the head with a steel tipped boot. They didn’t look happy when the redheaded girl appeared and ushered Bubba inside the lines.

“He’s in the movie,” she called to Smithson.

“As what? The village idiot?” Smithson asked.

The redhead flipped him off.

Bubba was mildly surprised. He didn’t usually get immediate support from strangers.

She said, “He tried to grope Tandy North this morning. If it were up to me he’d be guarding a missile silo in the Arctic, but I suppose we can’t make the local police do that.” The redhead-Bubba wished he knew her name-guided him to a tent set up on City Hall’s lawn. Precious followed with her nose held close to the ground lest she miss any particularly inviting aromas. “Wait here. I’ll have Simone call you in when she’s ready.”

Bubba was also surprised to see several people he knew. Lloyd Goshorn was being turned into an emaciated zombie with one of his lungs dangling from his chest. He gestured halfheartedly at Bubba, a lackluster acknowledgement. Lloyd had been less than friendly since Bubba had almost run him down with a car. (Bubba had been trying to save someone’s life in the process and he had missed Lloyd by a country mile, but Lloyd tended to forget both of those parts.)

Kiki Rutkowski and Dougie, both back in zombie uniform, grunted at each other in zombiese. Dougie pointed at Bubba and said, “Braaaaaiiiiinnnnns.”

Kiki grinned at Bubba showing black and gray teeth.

Bubba waved.

Foot Johnson was also an extra and apparently not a zombie as evidenced by the lack of gore or wounds on his person. When he wasn’t hanging out around Main Street, he was usually a janitor for the city buildings. He also cleaned up in the sheriff’s department. He talked to Stanley Boomer while his children scuffed their feet in impatience. The Boomer farm was where the Christ Tree was located and where fainting goats were kept. Lissa Boomer, the youngest Boomer child, had a stuffed animal swiped by Precious when the hound had been stealing various items in preparation for parenthood.

Mary Jo Treadwell and Arlette Formica were decked out in authentic zombie gear, leaving one to wonder who was manning the desk at the sheriff’s department. Filbert Turberville, the principal of the local elementary school, chatted with Wilma Rabsitt, who allegedly cheated at the weekly poker games that Miz Demetrice held. The principal inexpertly twirled a shotgun while Wilma held a machete that was likely longer than she was tall.

It was a good crowd. Bubba hadn’t seen so many people together and covered with blood since the 1^st Annual Pegramville Murder Mystery Festival. That had gone over so well it was expected there might not be a 2^nd Annual Pegramville Murder Mystery Festival.

Willodean, Bubba was sorry to note, was not present. She was probably manning the receptionist’s desk and answering the 9-1-1 line. I should send her flowers.

For what?

Because I didn’t mind that she asked me about wanting kids. Because I couldn’t talk to her when I wanted to talk to her. Because I messed up the first time I said you-know-what.

Bubba answered himself. But Willodean don’t know that you asked you-know-what. In fact, she’s kind of freaked out that she said something about kids. It was like she had gone out of order in the rule book of dating. First, casual dating. Second, more serious dating. Third, total monogamy and a commitment to dating exclusivity. Fourth, discussion about family and/or moving in. Fifth, moving in together. Sixth, engagement. Seventh, marriage.

Scowling, Bubba realized he was screwing up the order, too. But he knew he was old enough to know his own mind. He’d given the matter a lot of thought; however he had second thoughts after the debacle at the cemetery.

Bubba looked around for the van to bump his head against. Instead he found a man standing five feet away staring at him. He was about five feet ten inches and wore thick black framed glasses. He was in his forties and wore a sappy smile as he studied Bubba. “Hey,” he said because one should say something to a person who was staring at you thusly, even if it was “Do I have boogers hanging?”

“Bubba,” the man said.

It certainly seemed as though Bubba should know the man. He looked familiar. Bubba couldn’t quite place it. Perhaps if he spoke some more.

“It’s quite a thing,” the man said waving at the varied crowd of zombies and non-zombies.

Bubba scratched the side of his head. It was too late to pretend that he knew the man. Bubba tilted his head to one side like Precious. It worked for the canine so perhaps it would work for him. It didn’t work with him. Finally it popped into Bubba’s head. All the man needed was a pipe or a purple mask or a pirate’s scarf over fake dreadlocks.

“David,” Bubba said, grateful that he hadn’t had to ask. David Beathard was one of the mental patients from The Dogley Institute for Mental Well-Being who had been one of the Christmas Killer’s patients. (It was a whole convoluted thing. You had to be there. There was a reason for revenge. There was a killer. There was a kid with a homemade Taser. Blah. Blah. Blah.) In any case, David had an interesting habit of developing new personas. Psychiatrists, super heroes, pirates, who knew what he was going to be next? (Hadn’t there been a President’s wife in there somewhere? He thought it was Michelle Obama but possibly it had been Barbara Bush.) However, he had been very helpful to Bubba in a thinking-outside-of-the-check-here-for-mental-disability-box way. It was even possible that he was Bubba’s friend.

David smiled widely. “I know. I don’t look like I usually do. I’m taking a break from the whole schizophrenic personality disorder thing.”

“Okay,” Bubba said equably. David didn’t look like he usually did. He looked normal. It was rather disconcerting. “You in the movie?”

“I’m in the movie theater scene,” David said. “I have explosive blood packs strapped to my chest. It’ll be very exciting when they blow up. I’m supposed to be drenched with fake blood, but it’s washable, so it’s all gravy.” He touched his mouth. “Red colored gravy, but still gravy.”

Bubba’s eyes slipped to David’s chest. He was wearing the same kind of button-down cardigan he used to wear when he was David the Psychotrist. (Or had it been psychiatrist? Psychologist? Something like that.) The cardigan didn’t seem poufy or anything, but some of the special effects the film company were producing seemed very realistic. (There had been that split second in the cemetery when Bubba believed that the zombies were real, no matter what he knew deep inside, not that he would ever admit it aloud.)

“There’s a movie theater scene?”

“The scene is that people are inside watching the classic, The Shrieking Horror From Above, which is an inside joke, and zombies come in and eat the popcorn clerks. Cue the blood splattered popcorn. Of course, then the clerks go zombie-city on the patrons and chaos ensues. They’re using the old theater on Walter Street.”

“I thought that place went out of business years ago.”

“They sell water beds now. Also they rent to the movie makers as a set.”

“So what happens to you in the scene?”

“I think a zombie reaches through my back and explodes through my breast bone,” David said confidentially. “I don’t think a rotting corpse could really do that, but I’m not writing the movie script.” He appeared contemplative. “Maybe I need to write a movie. I could do that. I have lots of good ideas.” He dismissed it with a wave. “The Graphology and Reading shop isn’t doing so well. I should have rethought the need for such a service in a small town. My only customer last week was the mayor, who wanted to know if the lines on his hand indicated something very personal about his more intimate characteristics. I won’t repeat what it specified.” David shuddered.

“That would be good,” Bubba said.

David leaned closer. “So no mysteries to solve lately? No notes in car parts or the like? Irish Travellers or seven-foot-tall Buddhists? Disappearing or reappearing bodies?”

“No!” Bubba glanced around apprehensively and said it again, “No, and I’ll thank you not to bring it up. You’ll jinx me or something.”

“Bubba, I hate to break it to you, but—” David paused and added the rest slowly and in half a whisper as if saying it faster and louder would cause the fates to toss anvils down on their heads “—there…are…corpses…everywhere…today.”

“They’re not real.”

“It’s probably a sign,” David insisted.

“They’re all actors, and in some cases, they’re people you know.” Bubba crossed his arms over his chest. “Yesterday I was a zombie.”

“No.”

“On account of this thing this gal attached to my face, I couldn’t talk for nigh on eight hours.”

“How could anyone tell the difference?”

Had David just made a joke? Bubba wasn’t used to that. Maybe David the Psychotrist was now David the Comedian. Bubba’s eyes narrowed.

The redhead called Bubba over and he said to David, “See you later.”

“Be sure not to take any wooden corpses,” David opined gravely.

Bubba grimaced.

Simone waited beside the redhead. Simone got Bubba to change his clothing while the redhead disappeared to do filmy types of things he wouldn’t begin to comprehend. When he returned wearing clothes from yesterday, she started on his face and hair. She even took time to take Polaroids of him so she could replicate the effort. She handed him a clipboard and said, “There are your lines. You need to memorize them.”

“‘It shore ain’t a pink elephant,’” he read inexpressively.

The cosmetic brush Simone was using to apply some kind of powder to Bubba’s face stopped momentarily. “Say it like this,” she advised, “‘It shore ain’t a pink elephant!’” Her rendition was acute and full of expression.

“Why?”

“Because you’re acting,” Simone said. “Kristoph’s going to have a fit when he hears you say it like that. Of course, he can always dub it with someone else’s voice.”

“‘It shore ain’t a pink elephant!’” Bubba said obediently.

“Better,” Simone said and it was clear from her tone that it wasn’t much better. “Imagine that you see something really weird and cool at the same time.”

“Like a tricked out AC Cobra?”

“What is that, a car?”

“Yeah,” Bubba sighed wistfully. It was the kind of car that reminded him of Willodean. It had lovely wondrous curves and was all business under the hood. There weren’t many of them and the ones that were left were to be worshipped.

“Are you…a mechanic…named Bubba?”

“Yep.”

“Of course you are.”

* * *

“‘It shore ain’t a pink elephant!’” Bubba emoted. Emote was his word for the day. Kristoph had the three involved actors practice. This technically included Bubba, although he was fairly certain he couldn’t, in fact, act and wasn’t entitled to be called an actor. Kristoph used the word emote thirteen times in his impassioned Braveheart-inspired speech. It might have been more like fifteen or sixteen times because Bubba hadn’t started counted after he’d heard it three or four times.

Bubba emoted. (Emoting unfortunately could be compared to being constipated.) The lead actress, Tandy North, emoted. The lead actor, Alex Luis, emoted. The zombies emoted. It was emotiful.

“Cut,” Kristoph said in a tone that could have shattered glass. “Bubba, a word with you.”

Bubba trudged over to the director. He had decided that he didn’t really like the director. Kristoph wore his Silent-Movie-Director ensemble again. Again the boots, hat, and megaphone were the same with the pants and the wool coat changed for effect. He also wore his What-the-hell-do-I-do-with-them? smile. He wasn’t a very sincere person and Bubba suspected that Kristoph would have tried to cheat orphans out of their only piece of candy if they wouldn’t emote.

“Just imagine,” Kristoph said to Bubba, “that you’re seeing something extraordinary and creepy and fantastical at the same time.” He extended his arm and all the fingers of the hand were spaced apart as he slowly moved it across the length of his personal horizon, showing Bubba its limitless possibilities. “It’s surprising you. It’s scaring you. It’s going to eat you and you know it. But you…can’t…look…away.”

Bubba glanced at Tandy. She stood at the side of the set and puffed a cigarette. It was a regular one. Alex reached over and nabbed the butt from her to draw on it.

The redhead snapped, “Don’t encourage him, Tandy. He’s supposed to have quit last week. It said so in Tiger Beat.”

“What am I seeing anyway?” Bubba asked Kristoph, because he couldn’t not ask.

“It’s the super zombie, the target beast that has caused the apocalypse, and it’s scary, mega-scary. It will make you pee in your manties.”

“Then I wouldn’t be saying, ‘It shore ain’t a pink elephant!’” Bubba pursed his lips and added, “I’d be shrieking like a little kid.”

“Bubba, just say the line like you mean it,” Kristoph said and his eyes were cold.

Bubba didn’t really want to tick off the director. He hadn’t been paid yet. He was directed back to his spot and Tandy and Alex joined him.

A kid with a bald head and piercings through both eyebrows held the clapboard with the scene’s number and takes on it. They were up to ten and Bubba had a good idea that he was precariously balanced on the edge of two bad things: elimination or replacement.

Tandy took a last hit on her cigarette and flicked the butt to the side. It hit the head of the redhead and she glared at Tandy. “Sorry,” Tandy said insincerely.

Bubba said to himself, “Time to cowboy up, ya’ll.”

“That’s the spirit,” Alex said and winked at Bubba.

Kristoph said, “Roll film.” The cameramen got busy. The bald kid clicked the clapboard and vanished. “Action,” Kristoph added softly.

Tandy immediately became all seriousness. Her eyes stared over the shoulder of the director. Her hair drifted a little in a light breeze and her lips parted in shock. If Bubba hadn’t known, he would have thought she was genuinely frightened of something.

“Oh, my god,” she said. “What is that? What in hell is that?”

Bubba looked toward the director. His mouth opened and he saw Willodean standing in the crowd behind Kristoph. She smiled tentatively at Bubba. Sheriff John stood beside her with his great arms crossed over his chest and a doubtful expression on his face. Bubba registered it peripherally because Willodean had almost 99 percent of his undivided attention. The one percent was focused on…

“‘It shore ain’t a pink elephant!’” Bubba said sincerely.

“Run!” Alex yelled.

The three turned to run and Kristoph yelled, “Cut!” He clasped his hands together and looked heavenward. “Perfect! Thank god, perfect! Finally, Bubba! You finally got it! Thank god for Bubbas!”

That was the moment that Precious heard the word “Bubba!” one time too many. She abruptly decided to see what was happening, to see if canine assistance was warranted, and in her uncontrolled struggle to reach her master, tripped the cameraman. The cameraman tottered as the dog attempted to decide which was up. Her ears flapped in the air as she slid to one side. Her back legs scrambled for purchase. The camera flipped out of the man’s hands and he threw himself toward it trying to catch it before it hit the ground. Instead, he hit the side of Kristoph’s director’s chair and crashed against Kristoph’s elbow. Kristoph was holding a cup of coffee with the hand that connected to that elbow and it was knocked over. It spilled all over Kristoph’s riding pants and made the man screech like a little girl as the hot liquid made contact with his flesh. Everyone within a radius of a hundred yards froze at the sound.

It was similar to what would have happened to a group of people if they had suddenly heard the frenzied roar of a real live Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Precious promptly hid behind Bubba’s legs with her tail down.

Bubba put a soothing hand on the canine’s back.

The redhead appeared from nowhere and attempted to staunch the flow of coffee with a wad of paper towels she had instantaneously managed to find. Kristoph knocked her hand aside and his eyes settled on Precious and then Bubba.

Kristoph glanced at the pieces of the camera strewn on the asphalt. The cameraman was endeavoring to hide in plain sight. Bubba didn’t have that luxury. The crowd of people had split apart like warm string cheese, to reveal Bubba at the other end, with Precious slinking behind his legs.

For a long moment silence ensued. The fart of a flea could have been discerned, if a flea had happened to be flatulent at that particular moment. Then Kristoph leapt to his feet and sound exploded viscerally out of him, filling the void with a noise that overpowered everything else.

“GET THE BLEEP OFF MY SET WITH THAT BLEEPING DOG!” Kristoph screamed at Bubba, except he didn’t use the words “BLEEP” or “BLEEPING.” “NOW! NOW! NOW!”

Now that’s emoting, Bubba thought. Totally has me convinced. Am I getting paid?

 

 

Chapter 7

 

Bubba and the Cryptic Corpse

Sunday, March 10^th

 

Bubba did get paid. The redhead made sure of that. In fact, he got paid for Precious being in the movie, too. Two security guards in The Deadly Dead RISES! T-shirts helpfully facilitated his exit from the set, too. They even stopped at the wardrobe and make up tent to make sure he changed into his own clothing and said something about him not taking souvenirs.

Sticking the folded check into his pocket, Bubba said, “What am I going to take? Fake blood or a fake shotgun hole?”

The two taciturn men escorted Bubba right to the yellow tape strung between two plastic sawhorses and lifted it while he ducked under. Precious followed with her head down and her tail drooping. She knew she had done something wrong.

A few people stopped to ask Bubba what was going on or to shoot the breeze with him, so he didn’t make it very far past the tape.

One was Doris Cambliss, the owner of the Red Door Inn. The Inn used to be a not-so-cleverly concealed brothel, but Doris had gone legit. She said, “Don’t you pay that director no never mind, Bubba.” She reached down to scratch Precious’s head but it appeared the canine could hardly bring herself to enjoy the uncharacteristic stroke.

“I got paid,” Bubba said woodenly, although the director had said something about insurance and suing him for the cost of the camera that had been broken. With his luck the cost to replace the equipment would be proportional to three times the amount he had been paid. Things that were broken always cost more than what one had in one’s pocket.

“And you got to be in a movie,” Doris said cheerfully. She had dyed black hair and always dressed in the finest clothing. Looking to be fifteen to twenty years younger than her actual age, she could have been a movie star herself. “That’s something to cross off your bucket list.”

“I don’t have a bucket list,” Bubba said. “Pardon me, Miz Cambliss, but I aim to go home before someone thinks to arrest me for doing something or other.”

Doris nodded. “Been there. Done that. I’ve got the t-shirt.” She considered. “Not that I’d ever wear a t-shirt.” She waved and meandered off, stopping to chat with Rosa Granado, who was George Bufford’s secretary when she wasn’t being his mistress. George Bufford was the proud and cheap proprietor of Bufford’s Gas and Grocery. Bubba had once worked for him and been fired for having been suspected of murdering his ex-fiancée.

Bubba glanced around for Willodean, but she wasn’t anywhere to be found. That made him feel a little more dejected. In his moment of greatest infamy, he needed…but then he tended to have several of those moments and she had been there before. She probably had been called to a scene of something or other. (The subject of greatest infamy made him want to write an actual list of his top ten offenses. 1) Breaking the arm of his commanding officer while catching him in bed with his fiancée. 2) Discovering the body of his ex-fiancée on the family property with little to no alibi and practically having a smoking gun in his hand. Oh, Bubba could go on and on. There was likely a lot more than ten. Mebe twenty. Oh, hell make it the top hundred.)

“‘It shore ain’t a pink elephant,’” someone half cackled at him with a gravelly voice.

“After you say it about a dozen times, it don’t sound proper anymore,” Bubba said to Sheriff John. “And it starts sounding like it don’t mean nothing at all. Kind of like a congressman.”

Sheriff John was one of the few men in the county who was taller than Bubba. He was also older, heavier, and was gray-haired and gray-eyed. His full name was Johnathon Headrick but Sheriff John had stuck in the days of his first election to public office. His trademark battleship gray colors were part of the man. He wouldn’t have looked the same if he had brown hair. (No Just For Men for that fine figure of Orwellian authority.)

Bubba rapidly scanned the area again, hoping that Willodean was hiding behind the sheriff. She wasn’t. “You send Willodean out on a call?”

“She needed to talk to someone,” Sheriff John rasped. His voice had never recovered from being nearly strangled by a rope around his neck. He still had the scars there as well the remnants of a tracheotomy. Bubba ought to know; he’d been right on the spot to save Sheriff John’s bacon. The older man had treated him somewhat more deferentially after that incident, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t tease him. “Must have been a hot date.”

Another perfectly sane and pleasant day in Pegram County, Bubba thought inanely. “You arresting me for something?”

“For what? Bad acting?”

“The director said I had a square jaw,” Bubba said.

“Did you get to talk to Tandy North?” Sheriff John asked. “Don’t tell Darla, but she’s a hot little piece of Hollywood starlet.” He considered. “Not that the wife isn’t. But the wife isn’t twentysomething anymore with a tushie as tight as a snare drum.” He shrugged.

“Tandy might have said a few words to me,” Bubba said. The words had been something like “Your mark is over there, dumbass,” but they had been a few words. Bubba was rapidly coming to the conclusion that the Hollywood business was distasteful and most of the people were unfriendly.

Bubba noticed something in the distance as the crowd was dispersing. “Is that my mother with her new handy people?”

“Miz Demetrice has got new handy people?” Sheriff John asked curiously. He craned his neck. “What is she going to do with handy people?”

“I saw the fella scraping paint this morning.”

“The mansion is a mite deficient in paint.”

“I bin meaning to get around to that.”

Sheriff John laughed. “With all the extra things you’ve bin doing for money, I don’t see how you could have time. Everyone’s engines are purring thanks to you. The City of Dallas prolly bought three boots for what you had to pay them. And the plasma place has a glut of product thanks to your donations.”

“I only got dizzy once last week,” Bubba said defensively, “and I finally paid the last bit to the hospital.”

“From which visit?”

“I don’t recollect. They lumped them all together. No pun intended.” Bubba watched Alfonzo speaking with Miz Demetrice and Pilar. Looking like a jackass on a movie set was pushed to the background as he thought about what the trio was up to. (It was easier not to think of the movie or of Willodean.) Alfonzo held one of his daughters while Pilar held the other one. Miz Demetrice was nodding and Alfonzo was nodding back. A few hours before he had been scraping the paint off one of the columns. Now they were mingling in a light crowd.

Then Willodean appeared next to them and she spoke to Alfonzo, who nodded. She clucked the chin of the child in the man’s grasp. The baby eagerly held her arms out toward Willodean and Willodean instantly complied, cradling the child close to her body. That was funny. One baby didn’t like Willodean and the other one did. And the sight made Bubba go weak in the knees, forcing him to go back to what he was thinking about instead of what darted into his beleaguered brain.

Willodean held the child like an expert. Kids had been on her mind lately. Why is that? Because she’s been around Alfonzo and Pilar and their two daughters. It wasn’t surprising to Bubba because he’d already surmised that Willodean was involved in whatever his mother and Miz Adelia were up to.

But what is it that they’re up to and how much trouble is it going to cause?

“You ain’t met Alfonzo and Pilar?” Bubba asked, trying to be innocent about it. Do you know them, John? Are you in on it, too? Hmm?

“I have not,” Sheriff John said. “You’ll have to tell me if they’re any good because the missus wants some things done around the house. Lloyd Goshorn does some of it, but he’s bin on a bender of late. Last night he was as fried as a corn pone. Tried to et all the pickled eggs out of the jar at the Dew Drop Inn. He went one cotton-picking egg too far and they had to call an ambulance to take him in. Boy swore he won’t touch another egg in his life.”

“You can et those eggs in the big jar?” Bubba grimaced but he kept his eye on Willodean. Guess John ain’t in on it. “I thought they was just for show. Beg pardon, John but I got to see a lady about a horse. Precious, heel.”

Sheriff John glanced over his shoulder and at Willodean, then simply shrugged.

Bubba waded through a last rush of folks. He had to sidestep Mary Jean Holmgreen, who seemed to think he liked her flirting with him for some reason, but she was eighty if she was a day, and he didn’t know how to tell her politely he wasn’t really her type. She did manage to pinch his gluteus maximus in a way that made him jump a foot into the air. “Miz Holmgreen!” he protested as he sidled away.

Mary Jean winked salaciously.

By the time Bubba reached where Willodean and his mother had been, they were gone and Alfonzo was tucking one of his daughters into a car seat. Pilar took care of the other one.

“Say, Alfonzo,” Bubba said, “did you happen to see which way the sheriff’s deputy went?”

“Qué?”

“Little lady about yea high, has a gun, big green eyes,” Bubba explained.

“La policía,” Pilar said to Alfonzo.

Alfonzo nodded at his wife. “She said something about a call on her radio.”

Bubba’s shoulders slumped and he put his head down, but not before he saw Alfonzo grin at his wife. Bubba made himself look away and studied the daughter that Alfonzo was buckling into place. Wow. It’s true what they say about children. They grow quick. Kid must have gained three inches since Friday.

“Ya’ll going to church or such?” Bubba asked politely. Whatever they were doing, it suddenly didn’t interest him. The weekend couldn’t get much worse.

Oh, that’s not true, said a little voice inside him. It could get much worse. There could be real zombies.

* * *

Bubba decided to take his check, his truck, his dog, and his self to his home where he could lick his wounds in private and pretend that it was a normal Sunday. If Willodean wanted to avoid him, then he would let her go for the moment. Furthermore, he couldn’t do anything about his mother’s machinations but ruminate, and the movie business had been a complete but short bust.

Instead Bubba watched the Stars play the Blackhawks on his tiny, yardsale television. Occasionally he got up to eat something or to change the laundry. He folded his clothes as the game progressed. Later, out of the window, he saw the Dodge Caravan pull up to the Mansion, but didn’t bother to look to see what they were doing. He also heard his mother’s Cadillac pull into its regular parking place and focused on the game instead of wasting time and energy with what his mother was doing.

And that fella just lost some teeth, he thought as he folded a pair of boxers. Hockey wasn’t as good as football, but it was better than the cooking show on the other channel. Since he wasn’t hooked up to cable for the moment, hockey was the best choice he had and it wasn’t bad.

Precious asked to be let out by putting her paw on the front door and whining inquisitively. As Bubba let her outside, he saw Alfonzo was scraping around the back of the Mansion. Bubba went into one of the outbuildings to find another scraper. He didn’t really want to work but he couldn’t sit inside knowing someone else was working without assistance.

Alfonzo, regardless of his involvement with Miz Demetrice’s most recent master plan, was Bubba’s kind of guy. Communication was generally limited to grunts and sentences of less than three words.

“Missed a spot.”

“Yep.”

“Those Stars.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Drink?”

“Shore. RCs?”

“Bueno.”

They heard the babies before they came around the corner of the Mansion with their mother. Pilar carried one and the other one toddled behind. Bubba couldn’t tell them apart, but he thought that Carlotta was the one toddling.

Pilar smiled at her husband and said something rapidly in Spanish that Bubba couldn’t even begin to hope to follow, even if he remembered part of his high school Spanish.

Since it was a nice day, Bubba pulled the wading pool out of the barn and cleaned it with a scrub brush and a hose. Then he filled it a few inches so the two little ones could wade or splash. Pilar went to get towels while Carlotta stuck a tentative hand in the water. She jerked it back and said, “Frío!”

“It’ll warm up soon,” Bubba told the little girl. Liquid brown eyes stared up at him uncertainly.

Precious came to nose the wading pool and stuck a paw in the water. It was, after all, her wading pool, but most likely she didn’t mind sharing with smallish humans. Both children were enthralled with the Basset hound.

Bubba went back to scraping the section he’d been working on, while Alfonzo sat with his daughters waiting on Pilar’s return.

Pilar reappeared with towels. Later Miz Demetrice came around with lemonade and a few camp chairs. The conversation was limited to Pilar speaking quietly to the girls as they splashed in the water. Little diapers became engorged with water and Bubba wondered why they didn’t just take them off.

It wasn’t long before the two girls tired of the water and Precious decided it was her turn. She jumped in and splashed everyone within a certain radius. The two toddlers thought it was endlessly hilarious and Precious knew when she had a captive audience.

Bubba and Alfonzo kept scraping until they had worked their way around the other side of the house. Pilar took the girls inside to change their diapers and their clothing, probably in that exact order.

Then someone drove up. Several someones. Tires clunked to a halt. Brakes squealed protestingly. Doors slammed. People spoke to each other but not loudly enough for Bubba to hear what they were saying.

Bubba glanced at the heavens above. Now what, God? Several someones suspiciously sounded like the arrival of official law enforcement vehicles. He climbed down from the ladder and went around the side. It wasn’t the police come to arrest his mother for her latest transgression. It was worse.

The film company had returned.

Risley Risto waved at Bubba and gestured for his team to get busy. The crew fanned out. Van doors were pulled out. Boxes were extracted. They got to work.

They wouldn’t have brought the whole team to get the check back, Bubba reasoned. Therefore they got more filming to do here. Some kind of evening or night shot. Ah. This is the big rotten cherry on top of a big poopy sundae.

Bubba recommenced with the scraping. He didn’t want to talk to them. It was a long time later when he climbed down the ladder and Alfonzo was rubbing his wrists.

Risley ambled up to Bubba. “You know, Kristoph will calm down later and he’ll feel just awful about you and your dog. After all, it was just an accident.” Precious came up behind Bubba and abruptly shook herself. Cold, doggy smelling water flew everywhere. Bubba didn’t mind but Risley winced.

I care, Bubba thought. Not.

“You’ve still got one more line in the movie,” Risley enticed. “How many people get to be in the movies?”

One too many.

“I remember when I was in my prime,” Risley said, “twenty—” he looked Bubba over quickly “—oh, eight?” He waited for a response but Bubba didn’t bite. So Risley went on, “Ready to take on the world. Kissing the pretty girls. Climbing mountains and kicking butt. Life was a lot more fun then.” His voice became wistful. He glanced at Precious. “A man and his dog.” He knelt, holding his hand out to Precious. Precious sniffed the fingers offered to her and then tilted her head for a pet. Risley obliged.

“‘If it weren’t for that dagnammed sprocket,’” Bubba quoted. “Ain’t much of a line. Seems to me that you wouldn’t miss me ifin I dint say it. You could have some cute little zombie say it.”

“It’s an integral line,” Risley protested. “The second part of the middle of the film hinges on it.”

“Have someone else say it,” Bubba said, thinking of Willodean staring at him while the director yelled at him and his dog. Normally Bubba wouldn’t be bothered with such things. It didn’t matter in the least what Kristoph thought of him, or what he thought of Precious, but he’d dinged Bubba’s pride at just the right time. Or just at the wrong time, depending on how one looked at it.

“Come on, think about it,” Risley said and with a last scratch behind Precious’s ear, he stood up and walked back to the vans. He began directing people to where they needed to be.

“You should think about it,” said someone and Bubba jumped. It was the redhead. He still didn’t know her name. She was the executive assistant of executive assistants. “The plot has a big hole in it without that line.”

“Seriously,” Bubba said doubtfully, looking at her face to see if she was joking.

The redhead shrugged. “Is there a swamp around here?”

Bubba pointed toward the back acreage. “Watch out for the koi pond. The koi are really big.”

It was the redhead’s turn to look at him doubtfully.

“Better bring a flashlight,” Bubba advised as she walked away, “it’ll be dark in an hour or two.”

The next person was Schuler, the head of the makeup department. He flipped the ends of his scarf over his shoulder and said, “Really, you should come back. It’s just that Kristoph hates dogs. Really hates dogs. That’s why I put your dog in the film. Just to mess with him. It’ll kill him.” Then he wandered off.

Bubba helped with the scraping for another hour, while keeping an eye on the film crew. He saw the redhead return and was only mildly grateful that the koi hadn’t eaten her alive, regardless of the fact that she hadn’t done anything to him.

“Dude,” someone said from the foot of the ladder.

Alfonzo was frozen still with the scraper pressed against the side of the Mansion. Then he muttered in a tone of awe, “It’s Tandy North, Bubba.”

Bubba shrugged and kept scraping. He glanced down at Tandy and saw Alfonzo staring at her with a gaping mouth.

“Just come say the damned line,” Tandy said. She puffed on a cigarette and blew a large circle. Then she blew a smaller circle that went through the larger one. “Kristoph is going to blow a cork and if he dies, we might lose funding.”

“Can I have your autograph, Miss North?” Alfonzo asked politely.

“Sure,” she said.

Alfonzo found a receipt in his pocket from Piggly Wiggly and a chewed up Bic pen. “One of my daughters is teething,” he said apologetically.

“It’s okay,” Tandy said, signing the receipt. She handed both items back to Alfonzo and he looked as if he had won the lottery.

“I’ve got to show my wife,” Alfonzo muttered. “She loved Bubble People.” He zipped around the corner of the house.

“So,” Tandy said. She puffed expectantly.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Kristoph won’t apologize,” she warned.

Bubba shrugged.

“Whatever,” she said and wandered off.

It cain’t be that dang important, Bubba thought.

When Marquita Thaddeus came to talk to Bubba a half hour later, Bubba gave up. No one was going to leave him alone and there were more people wandering around the Snoddy Estate than a bank on payday. He got his scraper, his RC cola, and his dog, and he trudged the hundred yards to his house. Maybe if he left the light out, no one would think he was home.

It was a wishful thought. However, when he went inside, he found that someone was waiting for him.

And someone was dead. Very dead. Not even close to zombie dead, but real life dead.

 

 

Chapter 8

 

Bubba and the Licentious Law

Sunday, March 10^th

 

Bubba looked heavenward. Really, God? Really? Seriously? This was, of course, immediately followed by a gush of guilty remorse because he had been thinking only of himself.

With a blustery sigh, he put the RC cola down on a side table and looked at the body, because it was pretty much the entire focus of the room at the moment.

The corpse was face down in the middle of his meager living room. The person had obviously walked in, been accosted by person or persons unknown, and fell where they had stood.

Bubba didn’t even have to roll the person over to tell who it had been. The riding pants, short wool jacket, and riding boots gave it away. The beret had finally parted ways with the man’s silver-topped head and lay almost three feet away from him, an isolated testament to the aberration of the situation. Shockingly, there wasn’t a megaphone present.

Yes, it was Kristoph, the director of the movie. The same man who’d fired Bubba in such an open public event. Even Willodean had seen it happen. Everyone had seen it happen. And if any one person had missed it, then the word had likely already gotten around. Mike Holmgreen, who was the arson-committing grandson of Mary Jean Holmgreen, probably got it on his iPhone and immediately posted it online.

Bubba supposed he should check the man’s pulse to see if he was genuinely dead. After all, Bubba had been fooled before. But there was a problem with that. The knife in Kristoph’s back was the same bayonet that Bubba’s father, Elgin, had appropriated from the military during his time in Southeast Asia. Not inconveniently, Elgin had also appropriated a M1911 Colt .45 pistol from the same military and it had been used as the murder weapon in the attempt to frame Bubba for his ex-fiancée’s murder. In any case, the knife was forcefully inserted into the area of Kristoph’s back, dead center on the shoulder blades.

The last time Bubba had seen the bayonet it had been in his bedroom upstairs, in a box of items that his mother had brought over from the Mansion after the house had been finished. Although her memories of her late husband were less than stellar, she wished her only child to have some mementos of Elgin Snoddy. Remembering his father’s true persona, Bubba had been of a mind to toss them all into his garbage can but he’d restrained himself on his mother’s account. Elgin was long since dead and could no longer hurt anyone. Certainly his possessions should have been less than lethal. Ironically, the bayonet was not less than lethal.

The director, who had once won a Saturn award for a movie Bubba had never seen, was dead. He was very dead. He was so dead that Elvis Presley would have said, “Whoa.”

Furthermore, Kristoph was dead in Bubba’s living room with Bubba’s knife in his back. Bubba would have groaned, but he suspected he would have sounded like a zombie, which was one of the last things he wanted. (The very last thing he really wanted was to have a dead person in his living room, and it was about as welcome as hair in a biscuit, but it was done.)

And he didn’t know exactly what to do next. Coming up with a handy list seemed appropriate, so he cogitated.

A). Bubba could call the police. That was what he was supposed to do. The Pegram County Sheriff’s Department would come. Snoddy Mansion was located in Pegram County, outside of Pegramville proper, and the sheriff’s department had jurisdiction. Bubba thought he shouldn’t know that fact automatically, but he had learned some things over the past few years that regular folks don’t always know. (Willodean would probably show up and look beautifully pensive, but that wasn’t the best reason to call the police.)

B). Bubba could pretend the body wasn’t there. He could flip an area rug over it and say it was just a lot of dust bunnies under there. (Two hundred pounds of dust bunnies? Maybe.) Certainly there would be a big smelly lump in the middle of his living room, but who would really notice?

C). Bubba could call his mother. Miz Demetrice had considerable criminal experience, depending on her given circumstances. She would know what to do.

D). Bubba could dispose of the body himself. There was, after all, that swamp out back and they all talked about it. What else could one do with a swamp? Folks had been dumping bodies in swamps for millennia. (Bog bodies were an apt example.)

E). Bubba could call Lawyer Petrie. Lawyer Petrie was their family lawyer. Normally he only did family law but he’d gained significant knowledge with the onslaught of Bubba’s so-called felonious exploits. Lawyers would know what to do with a corpse. They probably took special classes on what to do with errant dead bodies. (Doing the Dead 101?)

F). Bubba could go to bed. It was a little early but his head was aching and a little shuteye would do him a world of good. The body would still be in his living room in the morning. (Probably would be, but one dead person Bubba had discovered had gone missing before)

Bubba thought about letter A). How many times had he actually called the police himself? The first time he’d encountered a body, Neal Ledbetter had called them. The second time the police had found him with the corpse. No calling had been necessary. The third time he had yelled across city hall’s lawn. After all, the sheriff’s department was right there. No phoning had been required. The fourth time was when his mother had found the body and she had called. The fifth time he had called. He had borrowed a cell phone to call. And voila, the body vanished. Of course, there had been boocoodle bodies around at that time, most of them significantly not dead. (Not zombies, but “victims” of the 1^st Annual Pegramville Murder Mystery Festival.) And did Bubba need to remind himself that the other bodies had been long, long dead at that time and he hadn’t even come close to finding them? No, he did not.

So Bubba had actually called the actual police one actual time. There was a precedent. Precedents meant he could do it. Hooray. A decision had been made.

He was reaching for the phone when someone screamed. It was a long and loud scream as screams usually are. It was also the kind that would have shattered a wine glass if one had been close enough to shatter. It certainly filled the room and made the hair on the back of Bubba’s neck stand up.

Precious began to bark at the intruder and the screamer stopped screaming for a moment.

I guess I left the door open, Bubba thought and stared at McGeorge who was the screamer in question. The executive assistant, AKA Clipboard Girl, stood in the entrance to the living room and stared down at Kristoph’s body. Plainly, she also had immediately known who it was. Furthermore, she obviously had a good idea that he was definitively dead. She paused to draw breath and screeched again, clearly going for a record of some sort. Someone call Guinness.

Bubba heard people moving around outside when McGeorge paused for breath. Phone in hand, he considered his options. Finally, he punched 9-1-1 because there still needed to be a police presence and it was better that he called them.

McGeorge had just paused for the second time when two of the film crew burst in behind her. Precious continued barking as the two men determined that McGeorge wasn’t in need of immediate saving and peered over her shoulders at the corpse.

One patted McGeorge’s shoulder and her scream cut off immediately.

“What the hell happened?” one demanded.

“Shut that dog up!” the other one said.

“Precious!” Bubba snapped. Precious whined then sat beside Bubba.

“HE DID IT!” McGeorge shrieked suddenly, shoving the index finger toward an unsuspecting target. Bubba looked to see where she was pointing. It was in his direction. He looked over his shoulder to see who she was indicating and then abruptly realized it was he that her finger was directed toward. He glanced down at himself. He was wearing the same worn clothing with nary a blood stain or splash to be found. There certainly wasn’t a neon sign blinking “Murderer HERE!” with accompanying arrows.

“9-1-1 operator,” a voice said on the other end of the line, “what’s your emergency?”

Bubba thought it was Arlette Formica speaking. “Arlette, is that you?”

“Bubba,” Arlette said amicably, “how’re you?”

“Will ya’ll send the po-lice over to the house?”

“Your house or the mansion?”

“Mine.”

“Okay. What for?”

“Dead body.”

“What? Again?”

“Again.”

“Hedidit! Hedidit! Hedidit!” McGeorge squealed.

“Shore someone is dead?” Arlette asked. “Sounds pretty perky to me.”

“She’s a little hysterical,” Bubba said, “but she ain’t dead. The other one is dead.”

“Hmm. I reckon you could slap her,” Arlette suggested.

“I don’t think so,” Bubba said and backed into the wall. Hit a woman? Oh, hell no. Besides even at McGeorge’s short stature and diminutive size, she looked as though she could take Bubba.

“Are you sure he’s dead?” one of the crew asked.

“Could be a fake knife,” the other one said. “Kristoph? Pretty funny, dude. Get on up before the real police arrive.”

They all stared at Kristoph’s body for a long moment. He didn’t move. He didn’t giggle. He didn’t breath.

Of course he dint move. He’s dead, Bubba thought. “Better hurry,” he said to Arlette.

“I’ve already dispatched the sheriff,” Arlette said. “So I heard that you and Willodean broke up.”

“I-uh? What?” Bubba said.

“I would have liked to be invited to the wedding,” Arlette said. “Did you hear that Billybob got his bachelor’s degree? Liberal arts. First in the family to do it. I don’t know what he’s goin’ to do with it, but he’s got it.”

“That’s…good,” Bubba said. “I’ll talk to you later, Arlette, okay?”

“Okay,” Arlette said companionably.

“Who told you about Willodean and me?” Bubba couldn’t help but asking.

“Ah-ha,” Arlette said triumphantly. “So it is true!”

“It ain’t true!” Bubba protested. “There’s a dead fella in my living room! That’s the part that’s true!” He hung up before anything else could be said.

Then he carefully went past McGeorge, collecting his RC cola along the way, and trudged around the two film crew members before anything else could be said.

“Where you going?” asked one of the men.

“To sit on my porch,” Bubba said. “Precious,” he added, “come on.”

* * *

The law arrived with a flurry of flashing dome lights and the crunch of tires on gravel. Bubba immediately noticed Sheriff John and Deputy Steve Simms but Willodean was conspicuously absent. His shoulders slumped. That wasn’t a good sign. If a lady knows that her boyfriend is in need, wouldn’t she show up? Yes, unless the lady is ticked off with her boyfriend.

Various film crew gathered outside Bubba’s house and he could hear their mutterings as word got out about Kristoph. Cumbersome whispers spread like wildfire as people asked the inevitable questions that follow such an event. Bubba sat in his chair, on his little porch, and listened to the chatter. It wasn’t so much that most of them were upset that Kristoph had died, but that Kristoph had died. It was a whole job security issue. There were a lot of “What will happen to the film?”s repeated.

McGeorge sat in the front of one of the vans crying her little guts out even while the redhead awkwardly patted her shoulder through the open door. Basically everyone milled. It was the idea that something so dreadful had occurred. He heard the words, “murdered,” “knife,” and “killed.” Several of the gathered crew cast baleful looks upon Bubba as if he had already been tried and found guilty.

It was an unpleasant spot of déjà vu.

Sheriff John climbed out of a Bronco. Simms came out of the passenger side.

“What, again?” Sheriff John asked as the crew parted before him. His unerring gaze settled upon Bubba.

Bubba winced. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

Sheriff John stopped and appeared to be pondering the situation. “Have we had a dead guy in Bubba’s house before, Simms?”

“In his house?” Simms repeated. His gut swelled over the Sam Browne belt. He was definitely eating too many donuts lately. Bubba had heard that Simms was seeing Penny Sillen, which said volumes about her taste. However, she was alleged to be a very good cook, as evidenced by Simms’ growing abdomen. “In the yard. Not in the house. At least not before this time.”

Sheriff John and Simms stepped inside to see for themselves. After a few minutes the pair came back outside. Sheriff John studied Bubba thoughtfully and then launched into a series of instructions for Simms. “Cordon off the drive way. Make a list of everyone here. Better grab that camera from the back of the vehicle and start taking pictures of the crowd before someone slips away.”

“All righty, then,” Simms boomed. “No one is leaving!” This had the opposite effect in that several people tried to leave, which had the effect of Simms going after them.

Sheriff John turned to Bubba. He then eyed Precious who sat under Bubba’s chair. “Is that your knife in the man’s back, Bubba?”

Bubba thought about the answer. Honesty might not be the best policy, but it was the policy he had always been taught to apply to a given situation. “Yes, it’s my knife,” Bubba said. “Pa brought it back from the war.”

“Bayonet, right?” Sheriff John didn’t wait for an answer. “Prolly for an M-16. What about the necktie?”

“What necktie?”

Sheriff John tilted his head as he regarded Bubba with avid curiosity.

“Hedidit! Hedidit! Hedidit!” McGeorge shrieked from the van. The redhead shushed her.

“I did not,” Bubba said solemnly. “I came in and found him just like that.”

“Fella was a peckerwood,” Sheriff John remarked. “Everyone and their cousin saw what he did to you today.”

“I reckon.”