Dancing With Werewolves Read Online Free PDF

pretend to be up, because his next words would have crashed me even if I’d won the lottery the night before.
    “We’ve got a vital demographic that isn’t being served and you’re just the one to put them in the spotlight. I’m calling the feature ‘Good Living After Death.’ A lot of influential Baby Boomers underwrite those Sunset City retirement communities all over the country and they have a heck of a lot of interesting stories.”
    When you have to use “heck of a lot” as a news peg, you’re in trouble.
    “This old doll, for instance.” He handed a black-and-white glamour photo from the Ice Age of film history across the desk. “Right here in Wichita at Sunset City. Quite a looker once. I bet she has tales to tell.”
    The name under the classic thirties’ face with its arched penciled eyebrows made my pulse blip once: Caressa Teagarden, a major star who’d vanished from screen and media as thoroughly as Garbo, at about the same time. My love of vintage made me familiar with films and their stars from the silents to the sixties when the star system crumbled. This would be a fun one-time change of pace, maybe, but a whole beat based on dredging up the almost dead? I knew what the problem was. The “whole group of senior citizens out there now” just won’t die. Rumor had it that the North Koreans, banned from nuclear experiments, had gone to the cellular level, even getting into cloning. Through their various experiments, they’d invented a method of replacing death with a “twilight awake” state. A thing like that would rake in billions. Think Donald Trump paying to be preserved in amber and comb-over. Forever.
    “It’s set up for tomorrow,” Fred said, totally co-opting me. “Slo-mo Eddie is the videographer. Cheer up, Del. A spin out to Sunset City should be real scenic. Some fresh air would put roses in your cheeks. You’ve been too deep into all that sicko murder stuff. You look like a zombie yourself. Do something to make the old dear happy. A little attention should do wonders for her latest face lift.”
    I sleepwalked out of there, living up to my new rep, Zombie Reporter. So that was my new beat, Death Warmed Over? Kinda like my career at the moment.

                                                                                              * * * *

    Slo-mo Eddie was one of those lanky, laid-back guys, instead of hyper nutso like most videographers. Deadlines, dead bodies in rapid rotation, it can make you crazy. He chewed Butternut gum while I explained about tomorrow’s assignment at Sunset City.
    “What’s the deal with this Sunset City dame?” Eddie asked. Videographers never paid any attention to the news, the culture, and the wider world. It was all inside the box with them. The camera box.
    I explained. “If you have the money, you can retire in clover. Every resident gets the quarters from his or her favorite time of life. There are rumors that they live on only there, like a Virtual Reality personality.”
    Eddie shrugged. “Weird world.”
    “Yeah, the Retread Retreat. She probably won’t look a day over this,” I said, waving the photo.
    “Sexy.”
    “That was then. We can’t expect a woman living, er, residing, in a lakeside cottage at Sunset City to resemble any available photos of her salad days. She was a real star once, though, back in the days of the Silver Screen.”
    “So were we all, kiddo.” Eddie snapped his gum and rolled his eyes back toward the TV studio. “Didya hear the latest on Undead Ted? He’s had his incisors artificially lengthened. You know what they say about vamps: not enough fang, no wang.”
    Suddenly, I felt better.
    Eddie loved gossip. Or maybe he just hated Ted. “I see Ready Teddy is getting into Witch Twitch. What a bimbo! So what’s got you down?”
    “It’s personal.”
    “What? You got a life away from