The Zombies Of Lake Woebegotten Read Online Free PDF Page B

plastic grocery basket and a 16-pound frozen turkey. He plopped the basket upside-down over Alta and then put the turkey on top. The basket thumped and rattled a bit, but didn’t shift too much under the dog’s attempts to escape. “There. All secure. Go on in and call Mr. Levitt, Clem.”  
    Clem nodded and limped toward the door. Probably oughta get that ankle of his checked out, at least splash some alcohol on it. Dolph would have to remind him. It was entirely possible that Clem might be careless and get an infection and lose his foot from something as simple as a dog bite. His daddy had lost three toes and an ear the time he fell asleep on the porch when he was supposed to be repairing a loose board and got frostbite instead, and Clem wasn’t anywhere near as bright as his father.
    “I’ll see you next time.” Eileen took a step toward him, and for a moment Dolph had a little thrill that she might touch him in public , something he was pretty sure she’d never even done with her husband, but she just said, “Thanks for the groceries,” in his ear and then sauntered off to her brown station wagon with the fake wood paneling on the sides.
    “Life could be worse,” Dolph said, and the dog under the basket under the turkey thumped loudly, as if it wanted to agree, or maybe disagree. It was hard to tell with dogs, especially rabid half-run-over zombie dogs.

5. Undeathbed

    P astor Inkfist and Father Edsel trudged from the ice-crusted dirt driveway to the sagging front porch of the Mormont farm. The steps were slippery and the boards creaked ominously as Edsel rapped smartly on the front door. After a moment the inner door opened and the doctor appeared, mustache droopy, face long and tired.  
    “Doctor Holliday,” Edsel said, and Daniel nodded. You never, ever called Doctor Henry Holliday “Doc Holliday,” no matter how tempted you might be—the doctor hated the coincidence of sharing a name with a famous gunfighting gambling tubercular dentist, and had said on more than one occasion that he’d almost gone into the civil service instead of medical school just to avoid the jokes. Now he combated any such attempt at levity by being utterly humorless and dour at all times, which meant maybe civil service would have been a good fit for him, after all.
    “Come on in,” the doctor said. “She doesn’t have much longer.” They trooped into the dim foyer and started stripping off their layers of coats and stomping the snow off their boots.
    “She still unconscious?” Father Edsel asked. “Deathbed confessions are always the juiciest.”
    Daniel grimaced, but Doctor Holliday just shrugged. “We’ve been keeping her pretty full of painkillers. I sent the nurse home. Won’t be much longer now. Cancer’s just about eaten her up.”
    “Any of the family here?”
    “Daughter was supposed to fly in from Orlando, but she called and said her flight was canceled, some kind of trouble at the airport, all the planes were grounded, I didn’t catch all the details. Bad connection. She didn’t sound too broken up about it though.”
    “Let’s give the old girl her send-off, then.” Edsel carried a little black bag into the bedroom/sickroom, and Daniel followed, curious despite himself. He’d never seen Catholic last rites performed—Lutherans sometimes anointed the sick, but they didn’t go around calling it a sacrament or anything.  
    The widow Mormont was thin as a bundle of sticks, barely taking up any space at all in the narrow hospital bed. Medical devices beeped and booped and flickered mysteriously, and a big crucifix with an intricately carved bleeding Jesus hung on the wall. Daniel, who found even the simple cross of his faith a little creepy when he really thought about it, could never get over the grotesquerie of some Catholic crucifixes. Jesus had suffered, and that was certainly to be remembered, but did you really need a fella with blood all over his feet and side and forehead and wrists