Free Skeleton Crew by Cameron Haley

dropped to her side. “I was feeling poorly myself, so I turned off the machines and went to lie down a bit. I must have dozed off, so then I got up and came back and unhooked him. And I was going to clean him up again, for the last time, praise Jesus, and he…he…he fucking bit me!” Pearl dropped the f-bomb like she hadn’t dropped one in a few decades. Maybe never.
    I looked at Henry. It hadn’t taken him long to go cannibal. I had the idea he may have been homicidal even before he turned, at least where Pearl was concerned.
    Henry returned my stare and bobbed his head, like he knew what I was thinking. “I ate the old bag’s terrible cooking for fifty-seven years,” he said. “Figured it was time I got a decent meal out of her!” He convulsed with laughter, blood and bile burbling over his lips.
    â€œCharming,” Adan said.
    â€œLet me dust this asshole,” said Honey.
    â€œWait!” Henry said. “That’s not even the funny part.”
    A crowd had gathered. Cars and pedestrians had stopped and people stood at a safe distance, not understanding what they were seeing, unwilling or unable to either approach or run screaming.
    â€œWe’re on crowd-control,” Honey said. She and Jack buzzed over the onlookers’ heads, crop-dusting them with some discombobulating piskie glamour. The civilians began to mill about in confusion, some standing slack-jawed and others wandering in circles or just walking away. It wasn’t really control, if you asked me, but at least it would keep the rubberneckers from getting up in our business.
    â€œThe funny part is,” Henry continued, his torn mouth slurring the words, “when I bit her, she was already cold! Can you believe that? I finally get a chance at a nice dinner and the bitch serves it up cold!”
    I peered at Pearl with my witch sight. What little juice she’d had when she was alive was settling in her tissues like lividity and just beginning to ooze from her skin. She stared back at me, her eyes wide and glassy. Pearl was dead as disco but she obviously hadn’t noticed it yet.
    â€œLet’s just do what we have to do and get out of here, Domino,” Adan said. “No point in having a conversation about it.”
    â€œHenry and Pearl are zombies, Adan,” I said.
    â€œWell, I never!” Pearl protested. “I’m Presbyterian, young lady.”
    â€œYeah, so we have to put them down,” Adan said.
    â€œWe’re talking to a couple of zombies.”
    â€œWhat’s your point?”
    â€œBraaaiiins,” Henry said, giggling. He slid his broken body off the trunk and staggered to his feet.
    â€œLet’s say your home computer wasn’t working, and you needed to figure out what was wrong with it. What would you do?”
    â€œI don’t have a computer,” Adan said.
    â€œDamn, you’re country.”
    â€œI grew up in Faerie.”
    â€œIf you had a computer and it wasn’t working, you could run a diagnostic program…okay, skip the analogy. The point is, we need to figure out what’s causing the zombie outbreak. Here we happen to have a couple zombies. We could ask them.”
    â€œThat’s the worst analogy I’ve ever heard.”
    â€œIt’s not my strong point,” I allowed.
    â€œYou already talked to Terrence’s nephews. One of them, anyway. You said he really didn’t know anything. Pearl here doesn’t even know she’s dead.”
    â€œI am not dead!” Pearl said.
    â€œSee?” Adan said.
    â€œI never finished talking to Tony, because Pac-Man ate him. Plus, no disrespect to the mostly dead, but Tony wasn’t that bright. Pearl might have better answers.”
    â€œWhat about Henry?”
    â€œWhat about him?”
    â€œHe’s stepping up on you.” Adan nodded his head, looking over my shoulder.
    I jumped, turning, and sure enough Henry was creepingup