Zombies in Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

decision yet, which meant that they hadn’t said no yet, but there were a lot of things it wasn’t worthwhile to tell Lacey.  Like the new private investigator he'd spotted going into Uncle Cheves's office.  Yet another one.  And while in a disinterested light his uncle's optimism was admirable, it just made Sam tired.
    How long had everything in the family revolved around Jack?  Jack had a new plan.  Jack was going to carry it through this time, he just needed a little help and a little money.  Oh no, Jack is drinking again.  And now we have to ship him off to rehab, his half-built construct never to be finished, looming over the family like some skeletal reminder never to get sucked in again.  He was never going to get it right, he was never going to grow up, and he was never ever going to amount to anything.
    It was hard being the good cousin, because you always ended up shunted to the rear teat.  But Sam had thought at least he could have the Palmetto. You’d have to be delusional to hand off the family enterprise to Jack.  Or so partial and blinded that you’d automatically favor your lazy screw-up of a son over his diligent, hardworking, and competent cousin . . . and apparently Cheves and Julia were.
    “And I got you a new sport coat!” said Lacey, holding up a jacket that Sam wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing, but would have, actually, been just right for flashy old Jack.  “Put it on, put it on!”
    Sam put on a smile and slipped the slick-looking thing on.  He wanted to make his wife happy, and what made her happiest?  Spending money they didn’t have for clothes he wouldn’t wear on a bet.  He couldn't talk about money with Lacey.  It just made her cry, and then spend more, but only for things on sale, so she felt like she was getting bargains.
    He thought he could fix her when he married her, she was so sad and fragile and aching for rescue, but now that he'd rescued her, she was just going to spend the rest of her life bringing him down and down and down...
    “Oh, honey,” she said, clapping her hands and grinning.  “Don’t you look handsome!  I don’t know why you always have to dress the way you do.  You dress like an old man, and it makes you look old.”
    If she didn’t get it, it wasn’t worth trying to explain.   He looked at himself in the mirror.  Yes, the resemblance was more pronounced this way, especially if he took off his wilting bow tie and left the shirt open.  They could have been brothers, and maybe with Jack gone, he stood for the both of them.  Maybe he would drift to center with the counterweight missing. 
    Or maybe he would just turn into Jack.  Wouldn’t that serve him right?
    He was putting off the inevitable.  "Honey," he said.  "I'm going to have to take a business trip."
    "Ohh," she whined.  "Why?"  And whined was the word.  She sounded like an unhappy lapdog.
    He smiled reassuringly.  "Just family business."

ch. 7
     
    “Penny for your thoughts,” said Sarah, as she shifted her ancient Datsun into second gear with a whirring thud.
    “I’m trying not to think,” said Ian.
    “We don’t have to go to the cemetery.  We don’t really need any more.  We still have Uncle Fester.”
    There were a whole lot of things Ian didn’t want to think about.  But the worst at the moment was what was happening to Uncle Fester, who was rotting and stinking but still moving.  He spent all day rocking back and forth in his cage, and whenever he heard Ian and Sarah come in the room, he screamed and threw lumps of his decaying flesh at them.
    “Are you going to go in his cage?” asked Ian.
    “No.”  She pulled into the parking space.  The car wheezed to a stop.  “I feel like such an idiot.  Are you ready?”
     
    #
     
                  Mount Auburn Cemetery dates from the late nineteenth century, when Americans decided that instead of being gloomy, cemeteries should be park-like, friendly-- the sort of place you could