Her office was one of the two the building had, the other being for interrogations and private waiting and whatever else they could think to use it for. His research led him to the conclusion that it was barely used for much at all. On this morning it held two boxes of donuts.
He sat down and closed the door, which got a raised eyebrow from Sheriff Pete.
“You’re the journo interviewing folks around town, am I right? Everything okay?”
“Yes, sorry, I just wanted to talk in private. I’m sorry, I should have asked about the door.”
“No, it’s fine, I close it half the day. It’s just a little early. I’m not ready for real problems for another couple of hours.”
“I should have scheduled an afternoon meeting, then.”
She laughed a deep laugh that didn’t sound fully genuine.
Patricia Gallardo was a lot more petite than the person she replaced, and that was mostly a good thing. The old sheriff was a large guy in most every direction. Pete was in excellent shape, and someone Ed would call pretty if he didn’t think it might get him shot. She gave off that kind of vibe.
“But yes, that’s me,” Ed said. “I’ve been in town a couple of weeks now.”
“Annie Collins is working with you, I know. Heard about her mom. Is she doing okay?”
“Yes, she’s fine. She’s staying with friends for now. Do you know Violet Jones? Susan and Todd are her parents.”
“I can’t say I do. But when you see Annie tell her Chuck and I are praying for Carol.”
“I’ll do that.”
“So you aren’t here to ask if I know the Joneses.”
“No, I’m not. I want to say a word, and I’d like to know what you think of that word.”
Her brow wrinkled.
“Sure, try me.”
“Zombie.”
Pete didn’t blink.
“Go on,” she said.
“That’s the kind of word that makes people laugh and look confused to be hearing it in a real-world setting.”
“Maybe I’ve been hearing it a lot in a real-world setting. Are you actually a journalist, Mr. Somerville?”
“Let’s say I’m not.”
“All right, let’s say that.”
She opened a desk drawer and pulled out a small stack of folders inside a larger folder.
“Maybe you know this, but local property issues tend to get reported to this office instead of the one you spend so much time at up the hill. Did you know there are four cemeteries in Sorrow Falls?”
“I did know that, actually.”
“Good for you. People have been living here since Oliver Hollis struck that deal with the five tribes, and they’ve been dying here that long too. There’s a lot of property out there devoted to burying our dead.”
She singled out one set of folders.
These are reports of gravesite vandalism. Six different graves at three of the cemeteries. If you’re not a journalist, maybe you’re someone who can help me figure out what this is about.”
Ed took the files from her and started flipping through.
“Nothing at the fourth cemetery?” he asked.
“Nope. Fourth one’s an old burial ground. Flip through those folders, you can probably figure out why we haven’t had an incident there.”
“Hm. This isn’t really desecration or vandalism,” he said, halfway through the cases. “It’s theft.”
“The bodies are all missing, that’s true.”
“Oh, I see it.” He closed the folders and handed them back. “Nobody’s been dead for longer than a year.”
“Ten months. Whereas Holly Hill Burial Ground last hosted a funeral eighty-two years ago. As you can imagine, the logical approach to this—assuming these six are related, which we are assuming—was to find out who the six deceased men and women had in common. Who, and not what, because that who was probably the sick bastard digging these people up, punching through their coffins, and taking their bodies somewhere. And after a little analysis, we added making it look like the dead climbed out on their own to the list of sick things this hypothetical who did. But we never found that person.”
She slid the second set of folders along the desk.
“These are nine different reports filed with my office of people seeing the dead walk in Sorrow Falls. Four are assault cases.”
“What kind of assault?”
“Bruising, scratching. Nobody trying to eat brains, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
“Did they say anything? The… the undead. Did they speak?”
“All four of the attack victims said it seemed like the, um, zombie attacking them wanted something but they didn’t say exactly what. One young woman insisted the man who assaulted her asked if she was a whore. But supposedly the one asking used to be one of her teachers, so I took that with some salt.”
Ed flipped through until he found that report. Are you a whore? was the question. He wondered if that was the rest of the sentence Hank Vogel was trying to get out, and if so what sense that made in the context in which he was asking.
“So now, Mr. Somerville, I appear to be the second sheriff in this town to have to deal with something no other sheriff in any other town has had to deal with. Either someone has concocted an extremely impressive hoax, or we’re looking at a zombie problem. To be honest, I’m considering all possible explanations, so if you’ve got one I would love to hear it.”
“Not yet,” he admitted. “But I know two things. One, the ship is probably causing this, although I don’t know why or how yet. Two, we have to hope this is confined to the dead.”
“Why wouldn’t it be? Being zombies and all.”
“Let me share what I can. It begins with a soldier named Hank Vogel.”
13
MEET THE JONESES
Everything slowed down for Annie.
Even in her own house, she was unaccustomed to sitting still and staying put for even a day. Sure, she spent most of her evenings in the living room, rewatching one of the films her mother clung to (somewhat inexplicably, as the movies were not from her childhood at all) until bedtime. But her days were usually new adventures with each sunrise.
Or so she liked to tell herself. The truth was, in the summer she migrated between the same three or four places, and in the other nine months most of her day was spent at school. Still, that was high excitement compared to anything happening in Violet’s day-to-day.
First, there was the Sunday morning awkwardness.
Annie waited until she was reasonably certain her friend was awake before knocking on Vi’s bedroom door to ask about Todd
“Oh, no, he’s not… he’s on vacation,” Violet said, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “I’m sorry, it didn’t even occur to me to… I mean, you’re used to not having your dad around, so you probably assumed Todd wasn’t.”
I assumed he wasn’t because he never has been before, Annie thought. This was maybe the second or third time she’d seen him, in six years.
“Maybe, yeah. I don’t mean to pry, Violet, I really don’t, but what was he doing wandering around in the woods at midnight?”
Violet adopted an expression familiar to anyone who’d been embarrassed by their parents at one time or another.
“Oh, that. He does that, I don’t even understand. He has this whole ‘back to nature’ thing he does when he’s on break. He says it’s to compensate for being behind a desk all day. I should have warned you but I don’t even think about it any more. Not that I imagined you being up so late. Didn’t you sleep?”
“A little, yeah. I’m a mess, Vi, don’t mind me.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Violet gave her a quick hug. “Now let’s go get some food.”