Author: Bob

I watched Hannah drive off to work. Sleeping all night in a sitting position should have filled me with cramps, but since it was curled up with Hannah things seemed fine. A quick gurgle from my guts said breakfast.

After eating I cleaned the new dishes as well as the ones from supper. It gave me some time to think about my plans for the day. The only concrete plan was that Hannah would be returning after work at six. That was a very long time away.

I promised the deputy that I would research what people would do with corpses. That would fill my morning. I focused on news reports of what low-end cultists and the mentally ill had done with corpses. It seemed like a good way to filter out cultural practices. The local guys probably didn’t have much culture. I dug the old laptop out of the closet since my newer one was still stolen.

Many crimes of corpse abuse centered around disposing of a fresh body after a murder. In a few instances, they kept a corpse around or hidden for some sort of financial gain. None of that fit the theft of long dead persons.

Other common grave robberies tended to be either druggies looking to steal something they could sell to fuel their habit or amateur historians who thought they were saving valuable artifacts, which they then sold. Stealing artifacts was different from stealing whole bodies. There was a story or two about some cultists who stole bodies to get the bones for rituals, but that didn’t seem like our local guys. So, either our local guys were doing something different with the bodies or there was another group doing the grave robbing. We didn’t need another group.

Our first guess stood out as likely. Our local group of bad guys dug up the first corpse just to have something to do, possibly while tweaking. I think that’s the word, tweaking. Anyway, digging up the first one was a thrill, so they did it again. Still don’t know why they didn’t finish with the last grave; but getting scared off seemed reasonable. Maybe they had a fight, or just got bored. Who knows?

I finished writing up my findings around noon. It seemed like it would be more official if I gave Deputy Hargrave a formal, printed report. Helping out gave me a sense of satisfaction. Like Hannah said, I probably wanted to connect with the community and just hadn’t gone through the trouble.

It took a little time to get the printer connected to the old laptop, mostly from driver updates. Once the report was formally printed, I set it aside and prepped for lunch. If nothing else came up, I could drop it off at the sheriff’s office later.

A Phone Call

I had just finished cleaning up from lunch when the phone rang.

“Hi, Timmy, It’s Rich. I have some good news for you on your Zombie Walk.”

The Zombie Walk had fallen to the back of my mind with everything else going on. It took a moment to gather it back up. “Great! What did you find?”

“The good news is that the forms are pretty much a piece of cake. I’ve got a little more to send to you, but there’s no hurry on that. Also, if we do things right, a lot of this might be a charitable contribution, so you’ll get some tax savings.”

These were all good things, but it seemed like he hadn’t gotten to the exciting part yet.

“Then, there’s the office. I talked to a real estate guy down there. His name is Ed Muntz. He says you guys went to high school together. Anyway, he has a building he will rent to us cheap to use for the office.”

That was good news. As for Ed Muntz, I did remember him. Not just high school, but we went through elementary and junior high as well. You do that sort of thing in a smaller town; there’s only one school. Getting the place cheap was extra good.

Rick went on. “Muntz did say the place would need some cleaning. It’s an old place, used to be a store or something, but it’s sat vacant for quite a while. He said it just needs sweeping and dusting and nothing too complex. Maybe you can get those Ranger kids to volunteer some elbow grease.”

He managed to get all that out without me saying anything since the start. There was a lot coming in quick and my brain was still trying to remember everything about Muntz. With Rick’s pause, though, I thought I should be more engaged.

“That sounds great, Rick. When can I see it? I want to start making plans.”

“There’s some paperwork to sign,” he said. “But then, there’s always paperwork to sign. Then you can get the keys. Muntz said he would be in his office all afternoon if you wanted to drop by.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” I said. “I was going to run a quick errand anyway, so I’ll just swing by then.”

Rick gave me the address for Muntz’s office. We wrapped up the call and I was on my way.

Errands

Before leaving, I stopped by one of the sheriff’s vehicles parked on my street. The deputy was the taller one who came around after the breakin. He seemed bored. I told him I was going to run a couple of errands and I gave him a list with the places I would be. He looked it over and seemed to approve.

I said thanks and went to my van.

My first stop took me to the sheriff’s office. Hargrave was out, so I left the printout of the report with the front desk. The deputy was friendly but not interested in socializing, so I left.

Next, I went to the Muntz Real Estate office. It was on the east edge of what we called downtown. The outside of the building was old brick, probably built at the end of the 1800s or early 1900s. The inside had been modernized with nice carpet over the uneven wooden floors. Recessed lights came down on dark painted walls and copper pipe sculptures. Someone went through a lot of effort to make this look like an office from Des Moines.

A woman sat behind the reception desk. She appeared to be about my age, in fairly good shape, and somewhat familiar. She looked up from her computer as I approached.

“Hi, I’m Timmy Hunt here to see Ed.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Timmy Hunt! Oh wow, I haven’t seen you in forever!” She was very enthused. “Remember me? I’m Melody Muntz, but you would have known me as Melody Fisher back in school. Wow, how’ve you been?”

That’s why she looked familiar; she was in school with Ed and I. I kind of remembered the two of them dating back then, but then everybody went to college. “I’ve been good, staying busy. It looks like you and Ed are still together.”

She flashed her left hand at me to show the ring. “Yeah, we stuck together through college and everything. Now we work out of the same office. Here, let me get Eddy for you.” She pushed a button on the phone, waited a moment, and said, “Ed, Timmy Hunt is here.”

“I’ll be right out,” came the voice.

And he was right out. He looked like an older version of the guy I remembered, and maybe a touch heavier around the middle. Still a sturdy, midwestern stereotype.

Ed Muntz had been a generally good guy. He was an above average athlete, especially at baseball, but not a great athlete. Same with academics; above average but not exceptional. From what I remember, he came from a normal, healthy Iowa middle class family. I think he had a sister two grades below us. I never heard anything negative about her.

“Timmy, my man! Come on back here and let’s get some paperwork handled.” He waved me back.

I followed him around the reception desk into a short hallway into his office.

The office was set up like the reception area, very modern and more suited to a large city. He sat in a large, plush leather chair behind a glass-topped desk while directing me toward one of the two overstuffed guest chairs in front of the desk.

“It’s good to see you,” he said. “Rick says you need a place to act as an office for a Zombie Walk. I didn’t know what that was, so I looked it up. That sounds like an awesome idea. If you can get a bunch of people into town to boost local business, I’m all for it. Make sure to keep me apprised of what I can do to help.”

My brain still lagged behind in processing but tried hard anyway. “Uh, thanks. We will have to see how it goes. I’m really helping some high school students who want to raise money for the old playground; they needed an adult to make it official. But help is welcome.”

“Great,” he continued. “The place is an old store over on Wurtemburg Avenue. It’s two stories plus a basement; the upstairs used to be offices. It’s brick and was built in the 1890s. In the thirties, it got an update with indoor plumbing and electricity, so it’s reasonably modern and usable. It’s only been used off and on since the eighties.”

I didn’t really know what I wanted in a temporary office for a Zombie Walk, so I wasn’t sure how much of what he said was useful. I guess indoor plumbing and electricity were good. “Rick said it needed some cleaning or something?”

“Oh yeah,” he went on. “The store part on the ground floor is just dusty from sitting unused all these years. The upstairs is a different animal. Sometime, I think back in the nineties, someone started to remodel. They took the walls down to the studs, leaving exposed wire and everything. They replaced the windows with plywood. It’s probably ok to use it for storage, but I wouldn’t plan on doing anything else up there.”

He stopped a moment and then grinned. “It sounds a little run down, but that’s probably the perfect place for a Zombie Walk office.”

Rick said we were getting the place cheap. If Ed thought the place was that bad, he was probably happy to be renting it at all. Besides, he was right; it was probably the perfect fit for a zombie-themed event.

“Where do I sign?” I asked.

Within fifteen minutes, all the paperwork was done, the keys to the place were in my pocket, and we were shaking hands.

Next I went back to the big store on the edge of town. They were really the only place to buy a new computer and it was unlikely that I would get my stolen one back. It took a while to look through and compare all the models. My phone provided enough Internet to let me do a little research on reviews and things. Eventually I settled on a new laptop. I didn’t pick top of the line because I didn’t need that much computing power, but I got one that was new enough and powerful enough that it would take a few years to go obsolete.

By the time I completed my computer shopping, as well as picking up some groceries, it was five o’clock. This time in November, that meant the sun was already down, but just by a little bit. That would give me time to get supper made before Hannah came over.

I started putting my shopping into the back of the van when, what a coincidence, Hannah called.

“Hi Timmy. I have some news.”

Panic hit me hard. “Are you ok? Is everything alright?” My pulse instantly skyrocketed. The muscles on the back of my neck pulled tight.

“I’m fine,” she continued. “It’s not that kind of bad news. Janey called in sick, so I have to work until eight. Is that ok?”

I was still recovering. “What? Oh. Yeah. That’s good. You had me worried. Sure.” I think I blinked a couple of times while staring at nothing. “Uh, do you still want to come over after work? I haven’t made supper yet, but I can wait.”

“You don’t have to wait, but I’d love to come over. You’re the best.”

“Oh,” said, surprising myself. “I have some good news. I rented a store to use as the office for the Zombie Walk.”

“That’s great,” she said. “Where is it?”

“It’s this run down old brick store on Wurtemburg.”

“I think I know that place. Is it the one next to the old barber shop?”

I hadn’t given any thought to what would be around it. “I don’t know, I haven’t been there. My financial guy, Rick, set it up.”

“I’m sure it will be great once you’ve gotten involved.”

An idea popped into my head. “If you’re going to be a couple of hours late, I may just drive by the place and see what it looks like. It might be more work than I’ve planned for.”

“You can tell me all about it over supper. I got to go. Talk to you later. Bye”

With that she was gone.

Something about the call put me in a good mood. The whirlwind of renting a building I’d never seen or the threat of violent druggies just seemed to go away. My pulse dropped back to normal and my neck resumed its usual level of tension.

I finished loading my shopping into the van and was on my way to the run down store where I would house the office of the Zombie Walk.

What could go wrong?

We reach the end of another year and I realized that this site has not had new content since September. There are good reasons for it, but it’s still bad practice. Hopefully, next year won’t be as disruptive. For the spring, that may not be possible.

Work is the main reason for the prolonged absence these past three months. As you may know, I teach at the local community college. I started the semester with one hundred and fifty students, each with a lab, quiz, and homework assignment to grade each week. At the end of the term, the enrollments had dropped to just under one hundred and thirty, but that was still a lot of grading. All that took up my spare time.

As of yesterday, my spring enrollment is just at one hundred fifteen, scattered between six course sections and one independent study. That is still a lot of grading, but down significantly from the fall term. Three of the sections are my Database class; those assignments usually take longer to grade.

In addition to disrupting my writing, including the wrapup of Timmy’s Zombie Abatement Service, it also disrupted my exercise. This time last year, I was in the tail end of chemotherapy. The result of that experience left me with anemia, very high blood glucose, and weakening of my heart. My recovery has been slow, but exercise would be a big help.

More importantly, the job chaos and the reduced health has thrown me off my rhythm. Miyamoto Musashi, in his Book of Five Rings, said that everything has a rhythm. There is a rhythm to success and a rhythm to failure. He encourages the reader to find the correct rhythm for their life and goals and to adhere to that. My rhythm seems to have been focused on running hectic and catching up. Note: I strongly recommend his book and have given away many copies of it; so go read his book.

During this break between terms, I have particular goals. One set of goals centered on tasks around the house, and those are mostly done. The other set has to do with preparing for the spring semester. Those goals still have some work to do. If I do them correctly, they should reduce the amount of work I do during the spring semester.

That’s where things stand. With any luck, and better organization, there shouldn’t be another three month gap between this post and the next.

I paced randomly around my house. Nerves, I guess, and I certainly had stuff to be nervous about. The criminals who burned down Stan’s house and probably broke into mine now thought I was the one giving them up to the police. I was, sort of, and should have thought about that at the time. I had my reasons.

The main reason was that nothing ever happened in my life, so I never expected anything to happen. At least, nothing had happened since…

I wasn’t sure when Hannah would show up, so I decided to cook. She worked all day and then spent time at the sheriff’s office, so she would probably be hungry. Since she came into my life, I started to keep more food in the house. I prepared a frozen pasta meal for two. That didn’t seem right on its own, so I heated some frozen vegetables to go with it.

Then the real pacing started. By then, my thinking shut off and the pacing ran on autopilot, just enough awareness to avoid the furniture. No telling how much time went by; my brain just wasn’t there.

The pacing and blank staring went on. That was probably the closest I had ever been to zombie life. Was that what they went through? I was never sure what zombies experienced. Were they soulless, mindless bio-machines, or were their souls trapped inside a body outside of their control? Didn’t really matter in the end.

The doorbell rang.

My autopilot shut off abruptly, causing me to almost crash into my desk. It took a moment to realize what happened. Fortunately, the bell rang again and that made things clear.

I rushed to the door and peeked through the security hole. It was Hannah and a deputy.

I opened the door.

The deputy spoke, “She says she is expected?”

“Yes,” I said, “definitely yes. Thank you. Have a good night.”

I grabbed Hannah by the upper arm in as gentle and urgent a manner that I could and attempted to pull her in.

She came in while turning to wave to the deputy. “Thank you,” she said to him as he walked away.

As soon as the door closed, she threw her arms around me, hugged me tight, then kissed me. Just her doing that drove a lot of the tension out of me. “I’m so glad they’re watching you,” she said into my shoulder as the hug resumed.

“Yeah, well, I’m glad you’re safe and that you’re here,” said the smooth talker inside my brain that seemed to say the right thing when she was around.

We stood like that for a moment, just enjoying each other’s presence. It was good.

Finally, I interrupted to say, “I made some supper. Why don’t we eat and you tell me about your visit to the sheriff’s office”

She agreed and we sat around my little dining table.

Her visit was pretty straight forward. Hargrave asked all the expected questions and she gave all the answers she could. He appreciated that she came forward and encouraged her to do so again if she found anything else. She asked if she was in any danger and he told her she probably wasn’t but should be extra vigilant just in case.

I don’t know why I expected something different. Maybe I hoped that her information would be enough to arrest all the bad guys and we could all just go about our business. What she told Hargrave was probably helpful, but these things took time. I had to be patient. Meanwhile, dangerous house-burners knew where my house was.

I told her I would do dishes later. We went to sit on the couch, me sitting first so she could more easily snuggle up against me. My arm found its way around her without me telling it to.

“Are you scared?” she asked.

“Yep,” I said.

“Me too.” She dug in a little deeper in her snuggle. It was pleasant.

“Do you think they’ll try to hurt us?” she asked.

I thought for a moment; I wanted to seem brave and secure but not dishonest. “If they can, it wouldn’t surprise me. They burned down Stan’s house with him in it. I don’t think they are good at planning but they are probably good at lashing out. I just hope they focus on me and leave you alone.”

She gestured in a wide circle, as best she could without pulling away. “You have all these deputies around you. They would have to be pretty stupid to try something with that kind of police presence.”

“I’ve been led to believe they are pretty stupid,” I replied.

“Well, soon the cops will have this wrapped up and you can go back to not being afraid,” she said.

That hit a nerve. It wasn’t just the bad guys that made me afraid.

She could see that there was something going on inside my head. “What is it? Is there something else wrong?”

I wanted to tell her, but I hadn’t even told myself, burying things for so many years. I wasn’t really sure where to start, but then the thought popped into my head and out of my mouth. “I don’t know if you remember, about nine years ago. The cops chased a guy who killed his wife. He flipped his car and died. Those were my parents.”

The expression of shock didn’t pop up on her face. Instead, she seemed to show sadness and sympathy. The little point where her eyebrows didn’t quite meet went up and her eyes looked like they wanted to cry a little. She pulled her lips in. She looked into my eyes and she squeezed me more.

Now that the parent part was out, the rest rushed forward as though a blockage had been removed. “When that happened, I stopped everything. I dropped out of college. I let my guy Rick take care of all my finances. Then, I closed myself off in this house and I haven’t really done anything, that is, until lately.”

I took a couple of deep breaths. It felt like I might cry at any moment with all these emotions forcing their way out of me.

She laid her head against my chest. “What happened lately?”

“That’s, that’s the thing,” I said, “a lot has happened. First there was Stan, then Deputy Hargrave, then Missus Sweigert, then you, just, like, suddenly, there are all these people in my life. The kids, those Rangers, they have me involved in a community project. I never would have done any of that before.”

She pulled away just enough to look me in the eyes. “Do you regret it?”

Then it was my turn to squeeze her tighter. “No, I don’t regret a single part of it. Especially not the part with you.” I kissed her on the top of the head for emphasis.

“If you like it,” she asked, “what about it makes you afraid?”

This was the hard part to explain, even to myself. “I’m not sure, but I think it’s because the change wasn’t me. I only went to Stan’s farm because he called me about these thugs. Then, I went to the sheriff’s office because of the thugs. I met Mary because one of the thugs was breaking into her apartment building. The Ranger kids ran into me at Mary’s. Our first night together was because I had to buy a new lock after one of the thugs broke into my house. All the positive changes in my life are because these stupid, meth-making, house-burning criminals.”

I had to inhale after that; it was a lot to express.

Saying it out loud to someone else really helped it to gel up, become real and cohesive. The pieces hadn’t gotten together before, but there they were now in one big completed jigsaw puzzle. I wasn’t the one who made my life better. During this whole adventure, I passively participated, just floating along, going with the flow, and not doing anything to make active changes.

We sat quietly for a bit. Everything I wanted to say I said. She was processing all of it, probably.

“Why did you make the zombie website?” she asked.

That was a good question. “I don’t know. I guess it just seemed like something to do.”

She followed up with, “Does it have, like, forums and stuff where people can interact with you?”

“Yes, they stay busy, though some have asked that I move it over to more modern social media. Sometimes they just comment on my content. Some will ask questions. Rarely, like with Stan, someone wants help with an alleged zombie problem.”

She shifted to get a little more comfortable again. “I see,” she said, “and has this been your only form of social contact all these years?”

Bullseye! It was hard to admit, especially to myself, but the online people gave me a little comfort without much commitment. I don’t know why that was something I wanted or why it was an issue. I had always been a little weird and a bit of a loner.

“And all this started when your parents died?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. I was kind of a loner before all that.”

She seemed to think for a moment. “If your dad killed your mom, I’m guessing that you didn’t come from a happy home. That could explain a lot. You probably didn’t have good relationships and you don’t know a lot about relationships now. You know, just thinking.”

She wasn’t the first one to suggest this. My high school guidance counselor said pretty much the same thing. And Hannah was right, it did explain a lot.

“Anyway,” she continued. “You’ve made friends recently and have been much more social offline. You got me, and hopefully that counts for something. I’m not sure why you’re scared of this unless it’s just too much change all at once and it’s overwhelming.”

“No, that’s not it,” I said. “It’s just, well, all of this has been motivated or put in motion by the action of those meth guys. What if, you know, when they get locked away, everything just goes back to the way it was?”

This time, she sat up. “Timmy, I want you to listen closely.” She took my hands in hers and looked directly into my eyes. “Those idiots didn’t set up the website Stan visited; that was you. After you went to Stan, you chose to go to the sheriff, not those thugs. You did both of those things because you’re a good man who wants to help others.

“You went to Mary Sweigert’s apartment building for the same reason. You said you called the cops on Johnny what’s-his-name because you were worried about him freezing. You were nice to the Ranger kids because you are a nice guy. You didn’t have to do any of that, but you chose to.” She squeezed my hands harder.

“You were always polite to me at the store, but you said you didn’t like to try to flirt with people who were working because it put them at a disadvantage. That’s somebody being nice and thinking about others. The night when your house got robbed, you didn’t have to have supper with me, but you chose to. You are way more in control of these things than you give yourself credit for.”

My mouth opened to say something, but nothing came out. Her view of events fought with my view of events somewhere in the back of my head. Processing all of that took precedence over saying something stupid.

While my inner fight went on, so did she. “You always had the ability to be part of society and to do good things, but you let it sit for too long. Your website shows that you really wanted to be connected. Now, you have the chance to break the cycle and do more.”

My brain mustered up enough power to ask, “How am I supposed to do that?”

The missing look of surprise finally found her face. It took her a moment to get over my question and to formulate an answer.

“How can you not see it? You are already interacting with people and none of them are going away, except maybe the meth guys. You are an unofficial consultant for the sheriff’s department. Maybe they will need you for more stuff, or maybe even word will get out and other departments will want your help. You are an expert in your field.”

She shook her head in preparation for the next part. “Then there’s Timmy the civic leader. You are trying to set up a zombie walk to raise funds for the playground. You will need to engage with the whole town to pull that off. If it works, you’ll have to lead on every year. You know what that will do for local business if people come from all over and spend money. We might become the Zombie Capital of Iowa, or the midwest even, and it will all be thanks to the works of our resident zombie expert. That’s all you, and no meth thugs can change that.”

She collapsed back onto me, putting me into a tight hug.

My brain was still processing what she said, but the hug made it feel better.

Recent events had painted me into a social corner. No, that wasn’t it. It had pushed me over the edge, like a snowball rolling down a hill. I was accumulating more people as I went, and the sphere of that was going to get bigger and bigger until we hit something.

This kind of frightened me too. My place was in the middle of the snowball, all packed in with no way to get out. Thinking about it gave me a feeling of suffocation, but only a little bit. The arms around me reminded me that it was ok to be surrounded and even a little squeezed, as long as it was by people you wanted there.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I said. “Not just here tonight, which has been really good. I mean, I’m glad you’re here in my life. I hope you stay in my life.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Warm comfort filled me and eventually pushed me into sleep.

An alarm of some sort brought me out of it. Hannah was fiddling with her cell phone.

“Sorry,” she said. “My alarm went off to tell me it’s time to get up. I have to be at work at nine this morning.”

That’s when I noticed that natural light filtered in through the curtains. “What time is it?” I asked.

“Seven,” she replied.

It took a moment to process all the new information. First point, I had slept far more deeply than I had for a long time, probably due to the emotional conversation. The second point was that Hannah had stayed all night, the first time that happened. Finally, I thought I was being rude by not being part of her gathering up to leave.

“Can I get you some breakfast or something?” I asked while standing from the couch.

She walked over to put her arms around me. “No, thanks, I’m going to head off.” She smiled a very bright smile that involved her eyes and the rest of her face in complete smile-ness. “Don’t worry, though, I’ll be back. You are now stuck with me no matter what.”

I couldn’t help but smile back.

She kissed me quickly and then turned for the door.

I followed to walk her out. I checked around the doors for any trouble, and then we went down the sidewalk toward her car.

“Do you want me to drop by after work?” she asked. “I get off at six.”

“Sure,” I said. Then something occurred to me. “Give me a call on my cell phone before you head over in case something has come up.”

Based on her expression, she seemed to understand what I was getting at. We were still in danger from thugs and anything could change.

She climbed into her car, got situated, and drove off.

I watched her leave. Then I waved to the deputy parked just up the street and went back inside to figure out what my day had in store.

I couldn’t help Sergeant Hargrave at the cemetery. Someone stole bodies from two graves and had started digging another. The deputy didn’t know why the bad guys stopped digging in the third grave, but assumed they may have run out of time, been bored, or may have been startled by a passing car. Since these graves were less than a century old, the two robbed ones being from the seventies, there was no need to call the state archeologist. Instead, Hargrave planned to contact the Department of Criminal Investigations in Des Moines. Apparently, the DCI, as he called it, helps local police with weird stuff.

He asked a few questions about why people rob graves. Unless there was some connection between the bodies from this robbery and the pioneer graveyard, it would be hard to say. My guess was that the first was probably something done by bored druggies. If it was the same people, that theft probably gave them a thrill that they wanted to relive with these new robberies. If it was just boredom, they may keep the bodies around for a while or may just dump them. The Sergeant wasn’t happy about that.

Anyway, there wasn’t much I could do, so he thanked me for coming out and sent me on my way. He did suggest it would be helpful if I could do research into grave robbery, if I had some free time. It seemed like a legitimate request for help and not an order, but I planned to follow his suggestion either way.

With that behind me, I pulled into the convenience store on my way home. Hannah worked today. I shouldn’t really bother her at work, but since I planned to buy something it was probably okay.

She was just finishing with a customer at the checkout when I walked in. She motioned to one of the other clerks to take over for her before running over to me.

I was happy that she was glad to see me. Surprise and worry replaced happiness as she grabbed my arm and pulled me into one of the aisles and toward the back of the store.

“Are you okay?” she asked. She seemed worried, almost frantic.

“Yeah, sure,” I responded. “Is there some reason I shouldn’t be?”

She hugged me tight for a moment before pulling back. She was definitely worried. “Okay, there’s this girl I went to school with, Maddy, Madison Green. Anyway, she invited me over for lunch, so I went. We do that sometimes.”

She stopped to catch her breath. “So, I was over there for lunch and I heard her cousin in the yard talking with some of his friends. They were really upset because their friend Johnny got arrested. One of the guys thought that it was Johnny’s fault for not leaving well enough alone. The other said it was the fault of someone they called ‘zombie guy’. I think that’s you.”

It didn’t take long for my brain to connect their Johnny to Johnny Franks, who had just been arrested. I could see where this would agitate Hannah. It sure had me revving up. “Did they say anything else?”

She nodded her head quickly. “The one blaming the zombie guy said it was too much of a coincidence that he, you, would be at the old farm and at the apartment building. He thinks you’re some kind of federal cop, like drug enforcement or something.”

I let that sink in. It was a coincidence that I showed up at both places. Actually, the people at those places, Stan and Mrs. Sweigart, only called me because the bad guys happened to be at those places too. But why would they think I was a federal agent?

A quick memory flashed into my head. It brought back the first night Hannah and I talked. She said some people already assumed that I was some sort of secret agent or similar. It wouldn’t be hard for meth junkies to imagine me as a secret drug enforcement guy.

“Have you called the police yet?” I asked.

Her eyes widened. “No, do you think I should?”

My turn to nod. “Definitely. The police have enough trouble trying to find the criminals as it is. If we can give them extra information, that’s just gotta make things better, I think.”

She looked back in the direction of the checkout and then back at me. “I don’t get off work till six. You can stay here until then and we’ll go together.”

It sounded like a plan, but I wasn’t sure. The sooner we got info into the hands of the cops, the sooner they could round up the bad guys. Besides, I didn’t want to endanger Hannah through association. I explained that to her.

She hugged me again. “You’re probably right. I’ve just been so scared. You hear about crooks on the news, but you don’t really think about running into them in your friend’s backyard.”

“Okay,” I said, “I’m going to the sheriff’s office to make my report. As soon as you are off work, you go over and make your report. Unless the deputies advise against it, you can come over to my place afterward and we can talk. Is that okay?”

She nodded again and then looked into my eyes.

There’s no explanation for how I’ve been able to go through life not noticing little details in my surroundings. Up to this moment, I hadn’t noticed the red around her eyelids and the veins through the whites of her eyes. She had been crying recently. It was possible that she was about to cry again soon. Tears welled up in the little area of the eye near the nose. There was probably a word for that, but I didn’t know what it was. Worse, I didn’t really know how to make her feel better.

Fortunately, the smooth voice from the night in the big store came back. “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be alright. The deputies already know a bunch of stuff, probably more than they have even let me know. We’ll tell what we know and they’ll be all over it. Soon, all the thugs will be in prison and we’ll be walking down the street hand in hand.”

I don’t know where the smooth guy came from, but I was sure glad that he was part of whatever was wrong with me.

She smiled slightly, and it didn’t seem forced. Then she hugged me again, a lot longer this time. Finally, she kissed me on the cheek, tip-toeing a bit to reach.

We pulled apart, something I wasn’t all that happy about.

I grabbed a bottle of pop from the cooler and then she walked me back to the checkout.

“Will that be all for you, sir?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah, uh, yes, thank you.” I was still in hug mode, so the being-professional-at-work thing didn’t catch on immediately.

About ten minutes later, I pulled into the lot of the sheriff’s office.

Hargrave was still out, but Beringer, the one who showed up at my breakin, was there. I related my visit with Hannah and her story, being sure to let him know that she would come by immediately after work.

“You think Franks, the one from the apartment building, is also tied up with the guys from the fire over at the Loffland farm?”

I wasn’t sure if it was a question or if he was just musing over what I said. To be on the safe side, I responded, “Yes, sir, I suppose so, but I don’t know that for sure.”

He was every bit as cold and unreadable as I remembered from the breakin. He just sort of looked at me as though it would let him see into me. It kind of creeped me out. He was probably really good at interrogations.

It was a relief when he finally shifted position in his chair. “I understand you are helping Sergeant Hargrave with some grave robberies. Is this correct?”

The phrasing of the question caught me off guard. Once I understood that he meant helping with the investigation and not with robbing graves, it made more sense. “Yes, sir, though I don’t know that I’m much help.”

“Do you think these same men are responsible for the grave desecrations?”

“It would make sense,” I said. I had been kind of thinking that anyway. “The first one was near where we found the meth lab out on Stan’s farm. I’ve read a little bit about how meth addicts will do things just for the thrill. If that’s all the grave robbers are doing, then it kind of fits. I’m not an expert or anything, so it’s just a guess.”

He went back into stare mode for a minute or so.

You know, the chair in his office was really hard and uncomfortable, with the edge of the seat pushing into the back of my leg. The office clock was really loud with each tick of the second hand bouncing off the walls. Then there was the hum of the fluorescent lights. All that suddenly became very apparent to me as I sat under his gaze. If I was a suspect being interrogated by him, I bet my lawyer would have something to say about the cruel torture of it.

“What are your plans for the rest of the evening?” His voice startled me.

“Oh, uh.” Where was mister smooth when I needed him? “I’m planning to go home for the night. Unless you guys think it’s a bad idea, Hannah was going to come over when she was finished making her statement here.”

He made the most subtle nod of acknowledgment. “Will she be staying there all night?”

Where did that question come from? I hadn’t even given it any thought. Honestly, I didn’t usually give anything much thought. “I don’t know. We didn’t have any specific plans. She was just really upset about what she overheard.”

“Okay,” he said as he stood up. “I’ll talk with Sergeant Hargrave when he gets back. You go home and call us if anything seems out of order. I’ll be on the lookout for Miss Thompson when she gets off work. Do you have any questions?”

I, of course, automatically stood when he did. Both he and Hargrave had a knack for standing in a way that told you they were done with you and that you should leave.

“No, no questions.”

A brief flash popped up from my subconscious to warn me about my kitchen. “Oh, I won’t go directly home. I need to stop to get some groceries. Is that okay?”

“That should be alright,” he said as he ushered me out of his office and down the hall to the main door. Again, he used that commanding presence to herd me along. He probably could have handed me a rattlesnake using his presence and I would take it without giving it any thought.

Out the door, in the van, and on my way.

The trip to the grocery store didn’t take long. If Hannah was going to be there, I should have food available. Going straight to the sheriff’s office from work wouldn’t allow time for supper. A warm meal could be just the thing to make a person feel better on a late autumn night.

With that done, I headed for home. The sound of being in my own house with my new locks locked just sounded cozy. Not as cozy as it would be when Hannah got there.

I pulled up to the corner where I lived and noticed the sheriff truck sitting there. It didn’t have lights on or anything, but it was strange to see it on the street like that.

My usual parking space was such that I could see the cross street as well.

There was another sheriff vehicle there.

A deputy got out of each vehicle, carrying a shotgun. I think they were shotguns. I didn’t really know anything about guns. I should really learn something about guns.

They walked toward me where I sat in my van.

The knock at the door really shook me out of my research. My mind first went to the bad guys who broke in not long ago, but they probably wouldn’t knock. The best bet was to see who was at the door.

A blast of cold November air hit me as I opened the door. It was going to be one of those gloomy, low-hanging cloud days that we always got just before winter.

Standing in front of my house were the Revenant Rangers. They held card stock posters and looked at me very expectedly.

“Hi mister Hunt,” said the oldest, I thought his name was Jake. “We have a favor to ask,” he said. “We have to do a civics project for our social studies class at school and we want to raise money to fix the playground at the park; it’s a real mess. We thought a zombie walk would be awesome. Unfortunately the city says we can’t do that ourselves; we need to have an adult make all the arrangements and be in charge. Naturally, we immediately thought of you. We’ve made a presentation to help with this. Can we show it to you?” I think he got that out all in one breath.

It was obvious that they really wanted to show me what they made. It was also really cold and windy out, so I decided they had better come in. I directed them to the living room area and closed the door behind them.

“I’m happy to listen to your proposal, but I’m not promising anything.” I knew they were really eager, but I didn’t want to get their hopes up.

The younger, red-haired Ranger, I think his name was Logan, said, “I hope you like our presentation, we worked on it all night.” They really had worked hard; their posters of information looked like they did their research.

Jake the older Ranger started off the presentation. “Here’s why we think that a zombie walk would be the perfect thing to raise money for the playground at the park.”

Zack, the middle oldest if I remembered correctly, flipped to the next poster. He pointed to some text and a printout of a bunch of people in zombie makeup walking down a city street. “A zombie walk is when a bunch of people in zombie costumes gather together in a single location to raise attention for some purpose. In some cases, it is to raise awareness of a social issue and in others to raise money for a cause.” He flipped to the next poster, one covered with newspaper clippings and printouts from news websites.

Logan took up from there. “There have been zombie walks in other Iowa cities such as Des Moines, Iowa City, and Keokuk. They have been very successful and have drawn in a lot of tourists and tourist dollars.”

Zack flipped to the next poster with a map of Abish county.

Jake took over. “There are no tourist attractions in our county and no way to pull in extra revenue. That’s one of the reasons why our park and its playground are falling down. If we hold an activity that is newsworthy, it may attract people to come to our county.”

The next poster showed a colored pencil drawing of a zombie walk as well as a couple of printouts with numbers.

Jake continued, “We figure that two thousand dollars and some volunteer labor would help fix the worst problems at the park. If we charge twenty dollars a person to participate in the zombie walk, we would only need a hundred people to show up. Any of those people from out of town would need to spend money to stay at our hotels. Everybody would need to eat at our restaurants or otherwise buy stuff from the stores, making this a good deal for the whole community.”

Zach flipped to a poster with the logo from my Zombie Abatement Service website. He smiled a bit more and continued their pitch. “If you are the primary organizer, with our help wherever we’re allowed, then your business and website will get lots of publicity for almost no cost.”

So far, they had been making reasonable sense, even if I wasn’t sure that a hundred people would be willing to drive to our little county just to walk around dressed as the undead. The idea of promoting my website was something else.

Ever since that school trip, I took zombies pretty serious. It wasn’t that I wanted to make a lot of money from zombies, but I wanted everybody else to be on the lookout. It was the responsibility of every person to be aware and to be ready to deal with the undead. Extra publicity for the website would help with that goal.

The last poster just had the words “Thank you” surrounded by more drawings of zombies.

“Thank you for listening to our proposal,” Jake finished. The others echoed with their thanks.

“Well, guys,” I started. “It is obvious you put a lot of thought into this and take it very seriously. It sounds like it might be a good idea, but I’m going to have to get into it more. How many people showed up to those other zombie walks?”

Jake answered, “Each event pulled a hundred-fifty or more, sometimes a little over two-hundred. There’s like social media pages for it and everything.”

As he spoke, he pulled a folded stack of papers from his pocket and handed them to me. “We know you’re really busy, so we printed out all our research for you. We also printed the city rules and the forms so you wouldn’t have to look those up. And our phone numbers and email addresses too.”

All three stood, grinning and waiting for me to respond. This was all out of the blue, so I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t want to crush their hopes, but I didn’t want to agree to anything without any thought.

“Alright,” I said, “I’m going to look this over to make sure there aren’t any real issues. I’m going to talk to my advisor guy and get his say in things. Then, as long as everything checks out, I’ll do it. But, as I said, only if everything checks out.”

Logan and Zach high-fived each other. Jake was practically crawling out of his skin while trying to maintain a mature demeanor.

I held up my hands to try to settle them. “There’s the other matter to deal with. You said this was for a class? What do you need for that and what’s your timeframe?”

That was a question they hadn’t prepared for. They quickly chattered among themselves before Jake answered. “We have to turn in all our stuff in three weeks. It will be these posters and we have to write a report on what we did, why we did it, whether it worked or not, and what we would do differently next time. So even if you can’t help us, we still appreciate you listening to us and we’ll put it in our report either way.”

That was a relief. I was afraid they would end up failing some class just because I didn’t help out. Still, it would be nice if they could see their zombie walk put into action. If successful, the playground would get fixed and these guys would have a great experience, possibly one that would put them on the path to positive civic involvement.

“We don’t want to take up any more of your time, so we’ll go,” Jake said. “Thanks again for listening to us and for agreeing to look into it. That means a lot.” The others repeated the sentiment in their own words.

They all shuffled to the door, posters tightly held against their bodies in anticipation of the wind. With that, they were gone.

I walked back to my desk to look over the papers Jake gave me. Many of them were the same items from the posters. The city ordinance papers just explained the licensing for an event and the requests to block a street, as well as the rules for blocking streets. It looked in order to me, but that wasn’t my area of expertise. It was time for a call.

Rick Novak answered politely, as he always did.

“Hi Rick. It’s Timmy Hunt.”

“Hi Timmy! What can I do for you today?” He always asked that to everybody as his most polite way to drum up business.

“Well, I’ve been asked to head up a city-wide event and I think I need advice.” I described the visit from the Revenant Rangers and all my concerns.

“I can see where this would be a little outside of your normal activity. If it’s doable, are you comfortable doing it?” he asked.

That hadn’t occurred to me. My life had been very isolated for a long time. Recently, things seemed to be changing. I never would have been involved in someone’s emotional crisis like I had been with Stan’s situation. Before, I would never have suggested a meeting between Mary and Stan. The relationship with Hannah was all new. And now, I was considering getting involved with a city-wide, possibly county-wide activity at the request of high-school-aged zombie abatement groupies.

“You know what, I think I am comfortable with this. I’m not really sure what I’m getting into, but I think it will be okay.”

“Glad to hear it.” There was a brief pause and it sounded like he may have been shuffling some things on his desk. “Okay, here’s what I would like you to do. Can you scan or photograph those documents from the kids and then send them to me?”

“Sure,” I said. I kept a rarely used scanner in a desk drawer in case I ever needed to scan any ancient document, which never ever happened.

“Then,” he continued, “sit tight for a bit. I’m going to have an attorney friend look over everything and draw up any documents that we need and to figure out what kind of insurance is required. You said the kids only gave you the rules for the city level; an attorney can help us look for laws from the county, state, and so forth, you know, just to keep us out of trouble.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll just wait until I hear back from you. Do you think I’ll need to make more space for dealing with this, or will my desk be enough?”

“Ooh,” he said, “that’s not a good idea. This type of thing usually requires a few volunteers, some of whom you will not want in your house. You will need to get an office somewhere. I can have a realtor look around and find something adequate but cheap. It will have to be able to accommodate the volunteers, signs and posters, and still be accessible to everybody. Are you okay with that?”

“I think so, but this is starting to sound expensive. Can I afford to get wrapped up in this?”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m pretty sure you will be alright. We’ll try to keep the expenses down and see how much of it can be a tax write off. Besides, the kids were right; this can be good publicity for your website, so maybe you can sell more of your merchandise.”

“Well,” I said, “if you think it’s okay then, let’s run with it. It kind of sounds like fun.”

“Let me talk to the others and see what I can find out. Either way, I’ll give you a call in a couple of days just to let you know the status.”

We said our goodbyes, and that was that.

At no point had I been involved in any type of community project. Most of the time, I wasn’t even part of a community. I wasn’t even really part of online communities. I read some of the things, like lurking on Dr. Willy’s websites and social media. For a while, I interacted a bit on a forum related to Woodland Norman’s Bigfoot blog, but drifted away from that too. I just wasn’t a “belonger”.

That seemed to be changing.

I dug out the scanner and connected it to my new laptop. After the few-minute-wait for all the drivers and whatever other software to load, I could start scanning the documents. The one with the Rangers’ contact information was on top.

I decided to email them to let them know where we stood. That would probably make them happy.

As I finished that, I got a quick call from Deputy Hargrave. Johnny Franks was arrested on Wurtemburg Avenue on the south side of town. Also, there was another grave disturbed and the deputy wanted me to go along to take a look.