Suckers - J.A. Konrath

I go to the cops, and you get put in a nice room with soft rubber walls so you don’t hurt
yourself?”
“I’m not crazy! Roberta is one of the walking dead!”
“More like the swaying dead.”
He got in my face. “Admit she’s undead!”
“No.”
“But she moves! See!”
He made her do a little dance.
“You’re making her move using pulleys and ropes, like some strange sad puppet.”
He raised the hammer, aiming for the same spot where he hit me before. “Say she’s a
zombie!”
“She a zombie,” I said quickly. “You’re a genius who has conquered death. I’m in awe of
your brilliance.”
He stared at me hard, and then spun and yanked the dead chick closer. I realized she was
naked, and her boobs were missing. I always notice little things like that. Her skin had become
dark brown and wrinkly, like a giant raisin. Whack job had also cut some blue eyes from a
magazine or poster, and stapled them over her eye sockets. Her teeth were bared, the corners of
her mouth turned up. Twist ties, to make it look like she was smiling.
It was kind of endearing, in a raving psychotic way.
“Roberta does seem sort of tired today.” He caressed what was left of her cheek. “Perhaps
she needs another treatment. I shall fetch the Rejuvenation Ray!”
He scuttled insanely off, and I wondered what time it was, and if his butt ugly whore of a
second wife had remembered to call Lieutenant Jackie when I failed to check in. Then I
remembered I’d given her a bottle full of piss and told her it was apple juice, so I probably
couldn’t count on that particular horse to come in.
Like it had happened so many times before, the burden of saving my own skin rested on my
own skin. I needed to figure out some sort of ingenious plan to escape. If I could only do that,
then I’d be free.
Freak boy returned, pushing a wheeled wine cart stacked with electronic equipment. He
shoved it in front of his living undead zombie wife who was really just a putrefying corpse.
“Behold the Rejuvenation Ray, Mr. McGlade!”
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