Undead to the World by DD Barant Read Free Book Online

then take him out for his morning walk.
    Which is when normal crashes and burns.
    I can see the flashing red and blue lights before I reach the end of the street. I
     wonder if something went wrong and Charlie’s been arrested, but he lives in the opposite
     direction. The lights don’t seem to be coming from anywhere near the Longinus house,
     either.
    I walk toward them. I probably shouldn’t, but I’m not the only one; a police car with
     its flashers going is a relatively rare sight in town, and I’m not the only citizen
     strolling down the sidewalk and trying to look casual.
    The police car is blocking the entrance to the church’s parking lot. A deputy is trying
     to keep people back, but it’s impossible to hide what’s dangling from the third-story
     eaves of the church.
    It’s Father Stone. And even from here, I can see the distinctive knot of a hangman’s
     noose in the rope around his neck.

 
    FOUR
    There’s a small knot—sorry, unfortunate choice of words—of people gathering on the
     sidewalk outside the church. I join them. Nobody’s saying a word, we’re just all standing
     there in shock.
    “Folks, you should really go home,” says the deputy. It’s Quinn Silver, the guy I
     was serving coffee to this time yesterday. He was just another customer, then. Now,
     he’s …
    Someone who could send me to prison.
    But none of us leave. We’re hypnotized by the sight of the black-clad body, swaying
     and spinning in the wind. I wonder how he got up there—I don’t see a ladder. Maybe
     there’s a hatch in the roof.
    “Awful,” someone finally mutters.
    Me, I can’t stop looking at his shoes. I keep expecting them to fall off, but they
     don’t. “Are those lace-ups or loafers?” I say. “I can’t tell.”
    I get a glare from a woman in a jogging suit. Uh-oh, what’s the crazy lady going to say next? “Well, I can’t,” I mutter. There, that’ll show her.
    Thropirelem has two police cars. The other one pulls up, with the town fire truck
     right behind it. The sheriff gets out and confers with the two volunteer firemen about
     exactly where he wants the ladder.
    A few words here about the sheriff. He’s the town’s most eligible bachelor, and probably
     the only guy who could take Charlie in a fight. He grew up here but went to school
     back east, all on scholarships; his brain is apparently as muscular as the rest of
     him. He’s a lot better than we deserve—though there are rumors that the reason he
     took a job in his hometown was because of some sort of trouble he got into while he
     was away. That’s probably just the usual small-town whispering, but I do know you
     don’t want to make him mad. I’ve seen him lay out a belligerent drunk with a single
     backhand slap, and the drunk wound up losing a tooth, too.
    He doesn’t much care for me, though. Too bad, in too many ways.
    And then the sheriff spots me in the slowly increasing crowd. The look on his face
     is hard to read, but it’s not the usual mild irritation or restrained tolerance. If
     I didn’t know better, I’d say he looked confused.
    Oh, wait. I don’t know better. In fact, I don’t know much of anything at this point,
     other than I’m looking at my second dead body in twenty-four hours. That, and—according
     to that always-reliable source of hard data, Voices from the TeeVee—all this is really
     happening. Whatever it is.
    I tug on Galahad’s leash and step forward. The sheriff sees me coming and tries to
     retreat behind the yellow tape that Deputy Silver’s putting up, but he doesn’t have
     it taut yet and Galahad and I just hop over.
    “You can’t come any closer, Ms. Valchek,” he says. “This is a crime scene.”
    “Is it?” I say. “Looks like a suicide to me.” I keep my voice low—I don’t want this
     conversation broadcast all over the town grapevine.
    “It’s the subject of an ongoing investigation, which as far as you’re concerned is
     the same thing.” He’s