An excerpt from THE STITCHER FILE. The scene is Gideon Marshall and his wife
Mykala at home after an interesting day:
“Nobody ever accomplished
anything with all those secrets Clyde Renner was hiding,” she reminds me, “or
thought he was hiding. Nothing ever came out of your Columbo buddy’s wacko
obsession with Renner’s death.”
“What if Renner has returned as a
zombie, huh?”
It’s my turn to express those
smart-ass genes.
“Why don’t you just go in there
to your computer and do a Google search on ‘zombie’ and see what happens?”
She’s closed her book with a
finger marking the place; her expression is now curiosity, although if I read
it correctly, she’s wondering whether I’ve slipped toward what some people
might call “the deep end.” It’s still snowing a little bit, and according to
our town ordinances I have until nine tomorrow morning to clear the sidewalks,
thus plenty of time to entertain myself by surfing the Internet for Zombie
Clyde and writing the paranormal horror tale for which he was the ideal
antagonist.
In this dream Renner claws his
way out of a coffin, slinging dirt, dragging himself up out of his grave with
rotting flesh falling off his arms, torn shirt catching on the graveyard
thorns, dried blood making a big swath down the side of his face, and holding a
big Glock G21 .45 cal in his right hand. His left hand is mostly bones, but
he’s grabbed Rebecca by the hair and is pounding her in the face with the
pistol. He throws her to the ground. She looks up, raises her middle finger and
fires him the International Friendship Sign before he aims directly at her left
eye and pulls the trigger. The blast tears away half her face and the back of
her skull. The sound disappears into the wind and sleet. She falls onto the
tracks. Clyde returns to his grave, tossing the pistol into a nearby stream,
but not before taking a note out of his pocket, a note that says “go to hell
Gideon Marshall,” and wrapping Rebecca’s dead fingers around it.
All of the Gideon Marshall Mysteries are available as
e-books and as nice paperbacks from amazon. They make great gifts for anyone
from Iowa.
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