Back soonest…Jen

Let’s all pretend for a minute that we believe in astrology. And even if you don’t, you can still play. Just look up your horoscope here and let us know if (and how) any part of it came true for you today. If you’re not sure what sign your birthday falls under, here’s the breakdown.

I’m a Taurus with Leo rising (the latter of which is supposed to explain my mane of wild red hair). According to my astral chart (which was detailed for me when I was a lot younger) I’m incredibly stubborn, likely to marry an older man (hubby is seven months younger than me), and big into beauty–aesthetically speaking.

Those were the generalities, a few of which were bound to hit the mark. But let’s see how the predictor did for today specifically, shall we? Alas, the timing is off on this one. I am currently conflict-free. As a result I’m writing well (I always work better in peaceful surroundings, both physically and mentally) and looking forward to spring.

Now tell me all about you!

P.S. Oh, yeah, about that little vote you took part in last Monday. Thanks for speaking up! A pretty large margin of you preferred the last option (which surprised me, frankly…I was all set to write a big ol’ fight scene!) so next Monday you can look forward to: 3. Brady, enraged that his carefully chosen ensemble has been splatted with cemetery dirt, throws a rare but scary hissy-fit which makes Paul wonder if this was how Voodoo Vicky got his start.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five

Neither Paul nor Brady had ever set foot in the Muenster Cemetery. But they’d heard of it from the pale, stoic kid who lived across the hall. Though Dillon looked even spookier than the stories he told, everybody listened because they were so good. Including the one that described the worst criminals in Wisconsin’s history being killed during police pursuit and then buried in their city’s very own boneyard. The serial killer Clint Spakes had a gravesite that people regularly defaced there. Although if he stayed dead long enough, maybe they’d start to bring bottles of whiskey and flowers, which was what collected in front of the tombstone of the 1920s bank and train robber, Waltzing Hank Woodridge.

When Brady had asked Dillon why they called him Waltzing Hank, he’d said it was because the dude always showed up to his heists in a black tuxedo, and he’d never left without dancing the prettiest lady around the room—or dining car—depending. He’d also made sure his hostages always got a cut of the take. Brady sighed with understanding when Dillon explained that Waltzing Hank was so charming nobody ever gave a good description of him, so the cops didn’t catch up to him until he was unlucky enough to rob a bank who’d hired a security guard with ambition. The guy plugged him in the shoulder, forcing him to run wounded, which was how they tracked him to the farm where the last shootout took place.

Brady was still looking for the famous graves among the rows and rows of tombstones as they braked their bikes at the site where Voodoo Vicky had told them to meet him for their first lesson in zombie raising. The half-moon didn’t shed much light on the spot, which was a dip between two hills covered with expensive markers and cedar trees. Luckily this new addition to Muenster had just enough pole lights to keep a grave robber from tripping over them and breaking his neck.

“Do you think we’re in the right place?” asked Brady, craning his head over his shoulder for a peek at the spotlit grave of Waltzing Hank Woodridge. It must be on the other side, in the older section.

Shoot. Wait, that’s what Waltzing Hank would’ve done! Hee, hee!

Paul said, “Yeah. Vicky said the grave we’re supposed to meet him at is in the new section east of the Wilson mausoleum. And there’s the mausoleum.” He pointed to the miniature cathedral that housed at least seven generations of the Wilson family.

Brady cast his eyes over the rectangular stones in front of them, each flanked by smooth green grass. “These bodies have been here for a while. I don’t see—oh, there!” He pointed at the middle of a row about ten steps to their right. Then he dropped his arm. “Darn it all, Sweet Mama Jo says it’s not polite to point. Why do I keep forgetting that one?”

“I think there’s an exception for when you’re about to go to zombie school,” Paul said. He hooked his thumbs into the reinforced backpack he wore so his hands wouldn’t shake as they walked toward the fresh mound of dirt covered with wreaths and bouquets of flowers. It sat just at the edge of the nearest light’s reach, so the stone describing the identity of its owner stood in shadow. So did Voodoo Vicky’s giant form. Paul would’ve suspected it was a sturdy tree if he hadn’t stood next to Vicky himself a few hours before as he’d slid the purple silk cape he now wore over his shoulders, giving himself the outline of a healthy young spruce.

Vicky said, “It’s about time. I have a social life, you know,” he tapped the dial of his diamond-studded watch to emphasize his point. “Where were you?”

“Gathering the ingredients you told us to get,” Paul said, throwing the backpack on the ground beside the grave. He watched its edges squirm as the creatures he’d carried inside scrambled to find their way free. His stomach squeezed, but he ignored it, remind himself that he couldn’t possibly vomit anything else up tonight. Grateful that at least Vicky had left his zombie dog at home for this part of his project, he said, “We appreciate you letting us, uh, dip into your, ah, larder for the tortoise shell powder and the ant urine. But it’s not as easy as you think to capture live rats and cockroaches. Even at college.”

“I trust you have them all stored separately,” Vicky said.

“Oh yes,” Brady said eagerly. Everything is in those cute little white bottles you gave us in the front pocket of the backpack. Except for the rats. They wouldn’t fit.”

“Well, their noses would,” Paul corrected.

“True,” Brady admitted. “We did get their noses in the bottles. And I think one of them might have sneezed. So it’s possible that we have some rat snot somewhere in there for you. Does that help with—”

“Enough!” Vickie hissed. “I’m expecting a call, in case you hadn’t gotten the idea earlier. So the quicker you two get the lead out, the sooner I can plan the rest of my evening.”

“What do you want us to do?” Paul asked reluctantly.

Vicky nodded happily, a teacher who’s finally gotten the right answer from a class full of dumbbells. He said, “Take all the flowers off the grave. They interfere with my mojo.”

Brady dug right in, though he did pause a couple of times to admire the florist’s style. “I’ll have to find out who did these,” he said once. “Whoever tied these bows is a creative genius!”

“It was probably Chenise over at Flower You With Flowers,” said Vicky. “I use her for all my formal occasions.”

Paul was trying to imagine what kinds of events a Voodoo Queen would arrange that would require a professional flower arranger when Vicky’s phone rang. When he squealed happily both boys jumped.

“I knew he’d call!” Vicky gushed as he pulled an iPhone from his front pocket. He waved it at the guys as they stared in amazement. “I’m a little psychic, so I know you two are wondering why I don’t just use a disembodied ear for all my important communications.” He rolled his eyes at them. “Silly boys. That’s my home phone.” He thumbed himself into talk mode. “Hello? Larayjay? How are you?”

He stepped away to talk, giving Paul the chance to murmur, “Brady! I’m so freaked out I think my back teeth are grinding right into my gums!”

“Relax!” Brady whispered. “I’ve got your back!”

“I don’t even know what that means! It sounds like you’re just hanging around waiting to take a picture when you happen to see my back in an interesting pose! And what if he stabs me in the back?”

“Then I’ll make a lot of money from the tabloids.”

“Brady!”

“Paul, get a hold of yourself!” Brady said as he grasped his friend by the shoulders. “Nobody who dresses like a Disney character is going to put one over on Sweet Mama Jo’s boy. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to raise this corpse just like Vickie tells us to. Then, as soon as we can, we’re going to bike out of here so fast our wheels will be smoking. We’re going to ride straight to Reverend Stiflal’s house and let him fix this whole mess.”

Paul thought a minute. Reverend Stiflal prayed so hard at the Sunday services he and Brady attended that the sweat dripped down onto the microphone and made ploppy noises that sounded like God applauding the high points. In fact, ideally he’d bring along his wireless mike for the showdown, which would sound something like, “God-a is a good God-a. Until you tick him off. Voodoo Vicky, you have annoyed-a your maker by threatening and manipulating two of his precious sons-a.” Plop. “Now back off-a before I have to sic-a the heavenly host on you.” Yeah, Brady was right. If anybody could protect them from the wrath of Vicky, it was Reverend Stiflal.

But first they had to survive the zombie raising, which Vickie seemed eager to begin. He’d shoved his phone back into his pocket and rushed back to the graveside. “I have a date! Larayjay’s finally broken up with his boyfriend and he wants to see me!” He paused for their responses. Which were so quiet that he said, “Well quit looking so surprised. Love’s no fun if you’re always shoving potions down people’s throats. The thing is, he wants to meet me in an hour, which means I have to run back home, take a shower, press my suit . . .” he waited. When they still didn’t answer he said, “Just follow these directions.” He handed them a dirt-smudged index card. “After the zombie’s climbed out of his grave, give him directions to my house. Gigi will guard him until I get home to train him.”

Vicky turned away. Paul said, “Wait!” He winced when Vicky swung back, his eyes snapping like bear traps. But Paul’s steadily dimming future forced him to go on, “When we first talked you said you’d help me with my problem. We’ve done everything you asked so far. But when we finish, you’ll be the only one who’s gotten what he wants out of this deal. That doesn’t seem fair to me.”

Voodoo Vicky seemed just about ready to shove his fist through Paul’s face. Then his hand went to the pocket that held the iPhone and he smiled. “What was it that you wanted again?” he asked.

“I need you to break up with my girlfriend, Mary, for me.” Paul had never felt so brave. Or stupid. And definitely not at the same time.

Vicky stared. “Mary who?”

“Mary Rockenfeffer. She’s an Amish girl I went to school with.” Paul took a deep breath. “I just can’t marry her! Not now that I’ve seen girls like the ones who go to WUSS! Some of them even work at Hooters!”

Vicky said, “How am I supposed to contact her? It’s not like she’s in the phone book.”

“She works at a grocery store. They have a phone. I can give you the number,” Paul said hopefully.

“Fine. Consider yourself single. Just raise that zombie for me. Pronto!”

“Yessir!”

Vicky rushed off, leaving Brady to read from the card like it was a recipe from hell while Paul followed the directions–almost happily now that he knew he wouldn’t die a pre-engaged man.

“Sprinkle the tortoise shell powder and ant urine on the four corners of the grave,” said Brady.

Paul dug the ingredients out of the backpack’s front pocket and spread them, as ordered.

Brady read, “Drill a hole to the casket.” He paused. “Oooo.”

“What?”

He cleared his throat. “Do that—what I just said—and then drop the rats and cockroaches into the hole.”

“That’s awful.”

“It’s not as bad as having to slit their little throats.” Which was what they’d been dreading. And neither one of them could figure out how to slit a cockroach’s throat. If they even had one.

“Okay,” said Paul.

He looked around for the tool he needed and found that Vicky had left an electric auger lying behind the tombstone. He’d been avoiding reading it all this time, but now he couldn’t help but see that a 55-year-old man named Ralph Creever had been buried in front of it only the day before. He tried not to think about why Ralph had died or the sad people who’d buried him as he dug the hole and shook the squeaking, scrabbling contents of the bag down into it. Hopefully Reverend Stiflal would be able to send him straight back to heaven as soon as he found out what insanity Voodoo Vicky had put them up to.

Brady started reading. “Wake, rise, you unclaimed soul. Spark into service. Leave the silence of your hole. Run.” Brady looked at Paul. “Oh. I think that last part was for us.”

“You mean, we’re supposed to run?”

“Yes.”

The earth under their feet began to rumble. They stared at each other for a second, and then they both yelled, “Run!”

They raced for the shelter of the mausoleum as clods of dirt began to explode in the air behind them.

“They’re plopping!” yelled Paul.

“I know!” Brady yelled back. “They sound like Reverend Stiflal!”

Another rumble. Paul wanted to look over his shoulder, but he was afraid of what he’d see. Maybe a half-rotted hand shooting out of the earth. Maybe Ralph’s dirt covered suit rising from the muck while his head stayed stuck underneath and his hands scrabbled to unbury himself. Paul laughed hysterically at the image as he and Brady swung around to the back of the mini-cathedral. Where they skidded to a halt, their hands already rising in the face of the double-barreled shotgun. The openings where the bullets came out loomed so huge that Paul was almost surprised he noticed the brown-eyed girl guarding the trigger end. And then he wasn’t sure how anything could’ve distracted him from her. Until she said, “What the hell did you just do?”

What happens next? Only you can decide. Voting will close when my blog appears on my website Thursday, February 4. Have fun!

1. Ralph-zombie, enraged at having been raised so soon after being laid to rest, scents them out immediately and attacks Paul, Brady and the brown-eyed girl before they can be properly introduced.
2. The brown-eyed girl, enraged at their zombie-raising gall, forces them to lay Ralph back to rest, even when they insist that they’ll be Vicky’s next victims.
3. Brady, enraged that his carefully chosen ensemble has been splatted with cemetery dirt, throws a rare but scary hissy-fit which makes Paul wonder if this was how Voodoo Vicky got his start.

I know exactly how to get vital information from our captured enemies. In fact, I may write a scene in my next Jaz/Vayl adventure going into minute detail so that everyone in the FBI, CIA and every other office that reports to Homeland Security (plus my friends at Interpol) can study up on the subject.

Just make the suckers do Pilates.

I’m not just saying this because I’d been thumbing the remote and took thirty seconds to pause and stare at the amazing tortures these women (no, I have not seen any men do these sorts of exercises yet, perhaps because they have too much sense) put themselves through. I have done it myself. Because my kid thinks it’s amazing. She doesn’t have to run, and yet by the end of the session she’s out of breath and highly likely to be too sore to walk the next day. It’s like a miracle, Mom!

No, it’s like a near-death experience.

And yet, because I’m often stuck inside in the winter, unable to run my couple of miles due to icy roads and paths, I must resort to alternative means of exercise. And, realizing that DDR doesn’t exactly tone my triceps (which have begun to take off in different directions when I attempt to lift anything heavier than a can of soup) I chose to follow my daughter into the Land of Pain and Leg Lifts. Which was what led to this realization. Along with, I avidly hope, a quarter-cup less cottage cheese on my thighs.

I just want you to know, that though I call the lady on the screen many bad names, she can’t hear me. So it doesn’t count.

So what strange exercises or weird diets have you attempted to up your fitness/health/beauty quotient? And do any of them have the potential to break Al-Queda?

P.S. The voting had me on pins and needles this week! But the lack of numbers in responding is making me think I’d better wind this story up before nobody hits the site on Mondays anymore! So I’ll try not to stretch Minions out to infinity (which was never my plan anyway) and here’s what you can expect Monday….c. In the next scene we watch Voodoo Vicky train Paul and Brady in corpse-stealing 101.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Part Four

Vicky leaned forward, speaking so earnestly that Paul felt compelled to listen despite the fact that the toes of his left foot had begun inching toward the exit, ignoring the protests of his whining ankle while the rest of his body decided if they made it past the pit bull it was coming along for the ride.

Vicky said, “Zombies are to Voodoo Queens as dowries are to Indian maidens. The more you have, the more attractive you can make yourself to prospective beaus. In my case, that would be fat cats from the West Coast who want to lose twenty pounds in three days. Or erase their wives’ memories of walking in on them with their mistresses. You get me, man? I need obedient servants who will carry out my orders without questioning why I tell them to beat a rattlesnake against a rock until it’s dead, cut it into sixteen pieces, and then immerse the pieces for forty seconds into a certain someone’s iced tea pitcher.”

Brady cleared his throat. “That seems like a lot of directions to follow. You know, for somebody whose brain is rotting. At least, I would assume—”

“Assume nothing!” Vicky bellowed. Somewhere upstairs a bird shrieked. “Although you’re correct in thinking it’s better for me to start with fresh corpses.”

Vicky sat back in his chair, making the leather snap and crackle like bubble wrap. His hand fluttered up to smooth the lines that had appeared between his eyes, the diamond in his pinky ring nearly blinding Paul as it flashed in quick circles, reflecting the basement’s double line of bright-white bulbs. “Look, boys, I treat my people well. I won’t let your parts fall off. No maggots or even the slightest stench allowed.”

“Oh,” Paul said faintly. “Great.”

“Take Gigi, here,” the voodoo queen suggested, running his other finger down the center of the pit bull’s broad gray head.

“We really shouldn’t,” Paul said, looking at Brady for support. “Dogs are such a big responsibility.”

“They poop on the rug,” Brady agreed. When he noticed the veins in Vicky’s eyes start to go red he said. “Well, sometimes they poop on the rug. My Sweet Mama says—”

“No!” Vicky shrieked. “I mean look at her! She’s in top physical shape! And see what she can do?” He spun his finger in front of the dog’s nose. She stood on her hind legs and hopped around in a circle. He pointed to the floor and Gigi laid down, waited for him to crook his finger forward, at which point she crept toward Paul and Brady like she was sneaking through the jungle, a predator so fierce she’d jumped right to the tip-top of the food pyramid. “Isn’t that something special?” Vicky asked. “And I just dug her up a week ago!”

“Dug? As in—unburied?” asked Paul.

As Vicky nodded, Brady applauded. “What a great show! Is there more?”

“The grand finale!” Vicky announced. He snapped his fingers and she ran straight for Paul, jumping onto his chest like a karate expert. He went down under her attack. Before he hit the floor he managed to grab hold of her collar so she couldn’t sink her teeth into his neck. But even in zombie state Gigi fought like a pit bull. She refused to give up or even back down.

Paul yelled, “Stop! Please! I don’t want to die! I don’t wanna die! I wanna liiiiiive!”

“Let him up! He hasn’t even been to third base yet!” pleaded Brady as he jumped on Gigi’s back. She didn’t even flinch. Just stood there while Brady’s momentum carried him right over her head. He landed flat on his back, wheezing like he’d suddenly developed asthma.

Vicky came off his throne so he could tower over Paul, Brady, and Gigi the zombie dog. He stared down at them for a full ten seconds. Then he held out his hands. “I like you boys. You have spunk and initiative. Plus it’s hard to explain missing WUSSes. So maybe I’ll leave you alive. If you agree to help me rebuild my staff. What do you say?”

Paul strained to pull himself away from Gigi’s hot breath and her long, sharp fangs. He couldn’t. He was trapped and he knew it. “O-kay,” he said, begging Brady with his eyes to make the same agreement even as his heart sank. Now he was going to have to marry Mary and become an Amish farmer. All because he’d squeezed her breast once behind the woodshed. What was his mom going to tell the priest?

“I’ll help you with your zombie problem,” Brady said. “But that’s where it stops. Your wardrobe issues are not my responsibility.”

“Then we have a deal!” Vicky whistled. Gigi stepped off Paul’s chest, sat down beside him, and panted gently like they’d just been for a run together.

Vicky asked, “Do you know where Muenster Cemetery is located?”

What happens next? Only you can decide. Voting will close when my blog appears on my website Thursday, January 28. Have fun!
a. In the next scene we find Paul and Brady up to their necks in a freshly dug grave. Okay, we get that they’re in the zombie biz now. But WTF with the tinfoil hats?
b. In the next scene we find Paul and Brady packing for Jamaica. But they’re interrupted by a knock at the door that will change their lives forever. Ah, well, girls tend to do that to home- (and Amish-) schooled virgins.
c. In the next scene we watch Voodoo Vicky train Paul and Brady in corpse-stealing 101.

Here’s a fun game that’ll tell me, and all the rest of the crew, a little bit about your cool personality. Look up. What’s on the wall above your monitor? If you have a laptop, what’s on the wall where you’re looking this very moment? I’ll start…

My hubby is huge into trains. (Which will tell you, I guess, where Raoul gets his model railroading habit!) So on the wall above the PC I’m currently using are two reproduction wooden signs that used to hang in train stations. Here’s what they say:

NO PREACHING
and NO PEDDLING
ALLOWED IN THE
WAITING ROOM

and

ALL HOBOS ARE
ASKED TO DO A
GOOD DUST-OFF
BEFORE ENTERING
THE WAITING ROOM.

Your turn!

P.S. I know you’re gasping in anticipation, so I won’t make you wait any longer–the vote was incredibly close this time. By a single vote, the plot of The Minion Chronicles will twist in this direction on Monday: b. Vicky misunderstands Paul, assumes he needs a demonstration, and puts Waldo the zombie pit bull through his paces. Thanks so much for voting. I’m having the best time! Hope you are too!

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Paul kept waving his free arm in case the Voodoo Queen was peeking at them from behind one of her deep green shades. Brady, still holding tight to the other, had just looked over his shoulder to say, “I think we’re safe!” when they both stepped on the brown woven Welcome mat lying at the bottom of the front steps. Paul had a second to think, It’s like base in a lethal game of tag! We’re going to be okay now! And then the mat buckled in the middle, sending them both tumbling into the darkness below.

Brady screamed into Paul’s ear, grabbing him around the neck like he’d worn a parachute under his dress shirt and planned a last-minute rescue. He yelled again when they hit bottom, probably because Paul landed mostly on top of him.

“Sorry about that,” Paul said as he rolled to the side. He winced as pain shot up his left calf.

Brady touched his ribs and coughed. “Has anybody ever told you what sharp elbows you have?” he groaned.

“They’re alive, Waldo.”

The boys sat up quicker than they should’ve, but the voice that had just spoken, deeper than the grave and disappointed at their vitality, squirted adrenalin all over their bruises just long enough to push them upright.

Paul and Brady stared at the enormous, bald black man seated on the white leather chair in front of them and, unconsciously, they scooted closer together. The man wore a purple vest that hardly covered his bare, muscular chest, and purple silk pants that stopped just below his knees. His feet, crossed comfortably in front of him, were so big they probably required made-to-order shoes. Which made Paul wonder how much he’d had to pay for the amethyst encrusted flip-flops that exactly matched the polish covering his toe- and fingernails.

Beside the man sat a massive pit bull the color of crematory ash. It wore a glittering silver collar but wasn’t leashed or chained. Paul immediately began to look for the nearest exit. Which was when he realized they’d fallen into Voodoo Vicky’s storm cellar. The floor, dirty concrete that someone had once painted green, had been cleared in the middle where they’d fallen and the big man sat with his scary dog. The wall to their left had been lined with closets. No, they had windows. And locks. Which meant, Oh God! Paul grabbed Brady’s elbow. Those are cells!

Paul looked away, his eyes searching desperately for a sign of hope. He didn’t find it in the line of human-shaped dolls that hung from small nooses all across the ceiling beams. Or the shelves of jars along the wall to his right that held everything from pickled frogs to human eyeballs. But behind the man, breaking up the shadows at the back of the room? Yes! Steps leading up to a green painted door! If they could just–

Brady said, “Who are you?”

What kind of question was that? Anybody who lured you into their homemade prison wasn’t the kind of person they needed to get to know!

The giant said, “I am Voodoo Vicky. And I suppose you’re the boys from WUSS?” He still sounded disappointed.

“Yes, we are,” Brady replied. “We had an appointment with the Voodoo Queen. But we thought–”

“What?” asked Vicky. “That I’d be a woman?” He snorted. “People are such slaves to stereotypes. For instance, the way you gents are dressed, I could easily assume your mother was overbearing and ignorant,” he jabbed a finger at Brady, “and you,” he pointed at Paul, “are still recovering from spending the last four years attending a parochial school.”

“My Sweet Mama is not ignorant!” Brady shouted. When Waldo, the pit bull, started to growl he whispered, “Sorry. But she’s not.”

“How many women do you know?” asked Voodoo Vicky.

“Counting my professors?”

The big man rolled his eyes. They came to rest on Paul. “How about you, tough guy? Do you have anything brilliant to say before I sic my dog on you?”

“Don’t! I mean, you did say we could come.”

“That was when you had money to pay for my services.”

Paul slammed his hand against his back pocket. Which wasn’t there anymore. In fact, his clothes had completely torn away in that spot, leaving a big gap where his butt cheek shone through big enough that he ended up slapping it painfully. Voodoo Vicky laughed and pointed.

“Ah ha, ha, ha! The look on your face! Priceless!”

“My money’s still in your yard! Your plant stole it right before it nearly killed us!”

The huge man frowned. Just the way his eyebrows came down over his eyes, shadowing them into black, glittering orbs, made Paul’s heart try to find a bigger rib to hide behind. “You should’ve fought harder,” he growled.

“You did accept our appointment,” Brady reminded him.

“You’re late,” said Vicky.

He frowned down at his watch. Tapped the crystal. “But we got here early! How could . . .” He smiled admiringly at the queen. “You can manipulate time? That’s so boss! Then you can definitely help my friend, Paul, here!”

Voodoo Vicky shook his head, which was when Paul realized his skull had been tattooed with strange symbols that started over his ears and seemed to continue on around to the back of his neck. He said, “You have the persistence of a runty little pit bull. Which I like. But you talk like a Happy Days rerun. You were home schooled, weren’t you?”

“See!” Brady clapped his hands. “You’re exactly what we need! Maybe we can still make a deal!”

Vicky dropped his chin into his hand and sighed heavily. “This would’ve been so much more satisfying if you’d just broken your necks in the fall.”

“Why?” Brady asked.

Paul wanted to yell, “Quit being nice to the attempted murderer!” But he wasn’t really in a position to demand anything. His ankle had started to throb, which meant it was twisted, maybe even sprained. So he wasn’t getting to those stairs by speed alone. Maybe his roommate had an actual plan that would save them and he should, at least for now, just shut up and play along.

Vicky said, “I lost all my zombies in Hurricane Katrina. Which is why I’m stuck in Milwaukee instead of grooving to the drumbeat of New Orleans. Do you know how hard it is to compete with the female establishment when you’re a male voodoo queen whose zombies have floated away? Don’t answer that.” Brady made sympathetic noises as Vicky said sadly, “You two could’ve been my first replacements.”

Paul realized his breath had begun to come in little gasps. Was this what they called hyperventilation? The gap in his learning had never seemed so extreme until now, when he wished his mom and dad could’ve afforded something a little fancier than the Amish school down the road from their trailer. Then, maybe, he’d have a clue how to clear his vision while he struggled to say, “You want us to be your z-z-z-zombies?”

What happens next? Only you can decide. Voting will close when my blog appears on my website Thursday, January 21.

a. Paul panics and runs for the stairs, which turns out to be an unpopular move with Voodoo Vicky and Waldo the pit bull.
b. Vicky misunderstands Paul, assumes he needs a demonstration, and puts Waldo the zombie pit bull through his paces.
c. Brady launches into a zombie dance that Vicky finds thoroughly charming. Perhaps a deal is in their future after all?

See definition number two–it’s from a facebook status I posted some weeks ago. My friend, Lythande, submitted it to the urban dictionary and they published it. Three woots for zombie luuuuurve!

We got a Christmas letter the other day from some friends of ours, the husband of whom is retired. He’s having a blast with his “second career,” and can’t believe how busy he is. Which got me to thinking about the whole concept of retirement as it pertains to Jaz and me. We’re on our last story, at least for some time. After this, we’ll both be moving on. I have a good idea what she intends to do. As for myself, I can’t imagine waking up one day and saying, “Yup, that’s it. No more writing for me.” So I’ll probably keep after it until I just can’t mentally hack it anymore. (Geez, by the time I’m all gnarly and toothless, what do you suppose I’ll be using for a word processor–laser mind reading technogy?)

Anyway, how about you guys? How would you like to spend your golden years? Here’s a thought…

P.S. In case you were wondering? The voters have spoken, and the shout went to c. Just before Paul and Brady make it to the door they fall through Voodoo Vicky’s “welcome mat.” Look for part three of The Minion Chronicles on Monday!