Bubba and the
Zigzaggery Zombies
By C.L. Bevill
SMASHWORDS EDITION
PUBLISHED BY:
C.L. Bevill on Smashwords
Bubba and the
Zigzaggery Zombies
Copyright ©2013 by C.L. Bevill, LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission, except for brief quotations to books and critical reviews. This story is a work of fiction. Characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Bubba and the Zigzaggery Zombies
is intended as book 5 in the Bubba series.
The series follows this order:
Bubba and the Dead Woman
Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas
Bubba and the Missing Woman
Brownie and the Dame (3.5)
Bubba and the Mysterious Murder Note
The Ransom of Brownie (4.5)
Bubba and the Zigzaggery Zombies
It is best read in order.
Chapter 1
Bubba and the Zigzaggery Zombies
Friday, March 8th
It’s a lovely day without corpses, Bubba Snoddy thought.
It was a lovely day. And there weren’t any corpses within sight. Everything was win-win.
It was win-win although Bubba was sitting in a cemetery and was, in fact, leaning against a tombstone that said “Here lies Timothy Wake. He stepped on the gas instead of the brake.” This was Bubba’s very favorite tombstone. In Longtall Cemetery, which was a graveyard located on the, not ironically, tallest hill in Pegramville, the marker was the most humorous one. Bubba hadn’t known Timothy Wake, nor did he know of any Wakes in Pegram County, but he liked the idea that one didn’t have to go into the darkness without a smile. (Okay, there were corpses on this lovely day, but they were all buried and most of them had died of natural causes or at least causes that didn’t call for the police to locate a rabid perpetrator holding a knife, gun, or possibly a handmade Taser.)
Bubba’s mother, Miz Demetrice Snoddy, probably would have told Bubba that sitting on a grave was unlucky and rude and conceivably illegal. (The illegal part wouldn’t have made a little mosquito-sized bump in his mother’s conscience, but the other stuff would.) Bubba didn’t think Timothy Wake would have minded. Besides the fact that he was dead, he’d had a decent wit, or he’d had a family who had felt the need to earmark his passing with good-natured absurdity. (Bubba couldn’t argue about the unlucky part given the situations he’d found himself embroiled within the last two years.)
Tim’s stone didn’t have dates on it, but it was in the oldest part of the cemetery. Bubba looked around and saw that some of the birthdates were from the 19th century and one particular gentleman had been a Civil War veteran. Sergeant David Stafford had served in the 1st Louisiana Cavalry Regiment and he had died after the war. His marker didn’t indicate his date of death but the stone to his right had his daughter’s name on it and she had been born in 1872. (He assumed that she had been the sergeant’s daughter because there was an engraved notation saying “Daughter of David”, but Bubba might have been incorrect.)
Bubba sighed. He’d been in the Army until he had caught his fiancée in his very own bed with their very own commanding officer. Bubba had been discharged after breaking their very own commanding officer’s arm. There wasn’t going to be a marker commemorating Bubba’s military service, although he’d been a first rate mechanic at two separate Army posts in the United States and one in Germany. (Bubba had six framed letters awarding him various medals that said just that, but those had been awarded before the arm-breaking incident. The medals themselves were stuck in a barely singed, handmade oak box that had survived a fire set in the house in which he’d lived.)
Breaking the captain’s arm hadn’t been the smartest thing to do, but Bubba liked to think it had turned out well for his ex- fiancée. She had married the captain and lived in marital bliss. That was until she had been murdered by someone determined to frame Bubba.
Bubba frowned. It hadn’t turned out well for his ex-fiancée and hadn’t been so hot for Bubba, although it was difficult for him to feel sorry for himself when he was still breathing. The murder of Melissa Dearman had been more difficult for her husband and for her toddler son. The blonde-haired boy would probably never remember his mother. Melissa hadn’t been a bad person, but she had always wanted more in her life. She had wanted Bubba to apply for Officer Candidate School and Bubba liked being enlisted just fine. Thus, she had moved onto someone she had deemed more fruitful. It hadn’t meant that she deserved to be killed for it. It hadn’t meant that a little boy should have to grow up without his mother.
Understanding exactly why Bubba’s mind was on his ex-fiancée, he allowed his thoughts to drift to other less rancorous subjects.
Bubba moved his legs and brushed off some voracious ants intent on the bounty of his picnic basket. Mentally he catalogued his preparations. He had the checked blanket, the wicker basket, and a plump pillow in case a post-carbohydrate induced nap was needed after the meal. The Snoddy’s housekeeper and dear friend, Miz Adelia Cedarbloom, had fried the chicken contained in the basket using a recipe that a certain Colonel had once tried to entice out of Miz Adelia’s mother using means that are best left unmentioned. Miz Adelia had also made the potato salad inside a neat little Tupperware bowl sitting on one side of the basket. Bubba himself had put in the iced RC Colas and the moon pies, but the smell from the chicken was what was inducing the local fauna into surveying the area for possible snackage. A squirrel had made several forays into his vicinity, gazing hopefully at Bubba.
Clearly other people had fed the squirrels while paying homage to their deceased relatives and/or friends. Bubba threw the squirrel a handful of Cheez-its. (A big fella like Bubba included all the basics in a picnic because he had to consume a lot of calories to keep up his transcendent physique.) The squirrel, ignorant of such human ideals, pounced on one small yellow-orange square and skittered away with it, chirruping happily as it went.
Bubba brought his knees up and rested his chin on one, considering the blissfully blue sky and its lack of clouds, trying to ignore the insidious twist of his guts. He shouldn’t be nervous, but he was. He had everything taken care of. There was the picnic basket with actual food inside. The blanket was clean and spread out to show its checked glory. Bubba was wearing a clean white button down shirt and his best pair of jeans. He had shaved twice and only nicked himself three times. He had managed to get little squares of toilet paper on the cuts before the blood got on his white shirt. He had cleverly eluded his mother’s unerring eye as he had collected the picnic basket from Miz Adelia earlier in the day. Miz Adelia wasn’t surprised about the picnic. Having lunch in the cemetery was one of Bubba’s favorite ways of spending time with the woman most on his mind at the moment.
Bubba supposed Miz Adelia might have been suspicious. Bubba knew that he might have been acting antsy. He had butterflies the size of armadillos in his stomach, but the housekeeper had handed him the basket with a curt, “Don’t let that salad sit in the sun too long,” which indicated she couldn’t be bothered with his social goings-on.
G
lowering, Bubba thought about it. His mother and Miz Adelia had been distracted lately. Certainly it was something to be considered. Miz Demetrice, the not-so-sainted matriarch of the Snoddy clan, was generally up to something most of the time. Many times Miz Adelia was gleefully helping in the process of whatever demented madness his mother was incurring. Thursday nights was Pokerama, or the illegal poker game that his mother ran. The regulars called it the Pegramville Women’s Club activities, but it was still unlawful and, of course, highly sought after. The governor’s wife played at least once a month and allegedly once Katie Couric had attended.
Both Miz Demetrice and Miz Adelia had been looking over their shoulders of late, and in a way that they didn’t normally look over their shoulders. (Goodness knew they were both experts at over-the-shoulder-looking. His mother probably had the word paranoid tattooed on her tuckus.) It should have made Bubba highly suspicious but he had his mind on other things. Now that he was down to the wire, sitting in the cemetery, waiting for his date to arrive, listening to the thud of an active heart, his mind wandered freely, having an ersatz moment to consider all things Pegram County. In other words, he wanted to think about things not related to what was really on his mind, and his mother’s dubious leanings were the first thing that popped in.
Miz Demetrice behaving shadily and Miz Adelia conducting in a chary manner equaled trouble. Not just trouble, but TROUBLE. Also ***TROUBLE***!!! Bubba didn’t know what kind of trouble, but he thought that it was possible all kinds of law enforcement would show up at the Snoddy Estate at the soonest inconvenient moment. After all, everyone else had been inside the mansion of late. Brownie Snoddy, Bubba’s cousin’s son, had been kidnapped the previous November, and all kinds of badges had wandered helter-skelter through the antebellum mansion. Although the feds had eventually disregarded the event as a falsehood Bubba knew better, and the pair of seedy individuals that he personally believed responsible for the act had pragmatically and rapidly fled the town, the county, and the state for parts unknown.
Brownie had stayed at the mansion until his baby sister had been born and returned to Louisiana to take part in the shared activities of changing poopy diapers. There had been several calls from the boy wondering if he was needed in assisting with any potential mysteries in the greater Pegramville area. Apparently his baby sister, already nicknamed Cookie, pooped prodigiously in her diapers. Hugely and repeatedly and with great zest. Cookie also did not sleep very well. Furthermore, Cookie had a set of lungs that would have made an opera singer jealous.
Bubba chuckled. He didn’t exactly know all the details of babies, but there had been enough of them coming and going through Snoddy Mansion that he had learned the basics of infant care. Diapers, food, and loving were key. If any of the big three couldn’t fix the problem then the best thing to do was to hand the baby back to Mama.
Babies. He sighed gustily. One with green eyes just like…
But back to Miz Demetrice. The eldest Snoddy was acting awfully cunning. She didn’t have a lot of “tells,” but Bubba was attuned to her shiftiness. It didn’t bode well and made the hair at the back of his neck stand straight up. Bubba didn’t have much to hide, but he didn’t know if he wanted to be cannon fodder in whatever craziness his mother was planning.
His stomach growled. Bubba eyed the picnic basket. She was late and he only had an hour for lunch. However, he worked at Culpepper’s Garage and Gideon Culpepper probably wouldn’t care if Bubba was late. Bubba was rarely late and had only called in sick once in the last twelve months, so Gideon cut him some slack. Although Gideon did tend to get nervous about bombs being mentioned in his presence. (There had only been one at Culpepper’s and it had been a small one. It was the one at the courthouse that made Gideon really panicky. Bubba considered. It had been two bombs actually but only one had gone off.)
He looked at another tombstone in order to get his attention off the picnic basket and off of bombs. Hardin Long had been born in 1878 and died in 1948. Flowers and ivy ringed his plain little marker. It certainly wasn’t as fancy as the angel atop a towering memorial on his left side. That one said “Dear Departed Dave.” Then in smaller letters that Bubba had to squint to see it added, “He shouldn’t have chased the bear into the cave.”
Tim wasn’t the only one with a sense of humor, Bubba determined. He supposed he shouldn’t be thinking of death. It was like inviting fate to do her damnedest. He should have just spit into the wind and got it over with.
Bubba tossed a few more Cheez-its to the squirrel, who had returned with a companion. Then he ate the rest of the Cheez-its in the baggie he held.
“I’m hungry,” he explained to the squirrels. The two squirrels picked up their booty and skedaddled for one of the large oak trees. It was possible that the two did a fist bump just before they bolted. “Hey, ya’ll think I should be nervous?” he asked their retreating furrinesses.
Bubba’s head came up when he heard a distant noise. Someone was driving up the hill. It sounded like a Bronco, the same kind of outdated Ford Bronco that the Pegram County Sheriff’s Department used because they couldn’t get enough money to buy something newer. He smiled as it pulled up to the gate to Longtall Cemetery. The Bronco parked next to his 1954 Chevy truck and the engine promptly shut down. Either he was going to be arrested for something he didn’t know about or the woman he had been waiting for so anxiously had showed up.
She had.
The sun didn’t need to come out from behind a cloud because there were only a few clouds about. The rays, however, seemed to settle on her figure as she exited the vehicle. She adjusted her Sam Browne belt and returned her baton to its holder. She couldn’t sit in the Bronco with the baton in her belt because it was uncomfortable. The cans of mace on the other side of the belt didn’t seem to bother her at all. Neither did her holstered gun. Bubba thought it was a Glock but he hadn’t ever thought to ask.
His big heart hitched in his chest, missing a beat. Perhaps he should see a doctor about that pesky skipping heartbeat.
Willodean Gray wasn’t the loveliest woman he’d ever seen, but she was definitely in the top ten. She had shoulder length black hair that he could wax poetically about. It didn’t seem fair to compare it to a raven’s wing because it was unfair to the bird. She wasn’t that tall, but it didn’t matter when he picked her up in order to kiss him. She didn’t mind much either and her compact yet curvy form was a pure pleasure to hold. Finally it was a toss-up between whether he liked her eyes or her lips more. The eyes were bottle green, the color of an algae covered pond that he particularly liked fishing in. The lips were a shade of red that was similar to the shade of a Radio Flyer Wagon.
But it wasn’t just the exterior of Willodean that had captured Bubba. She was good, kind to children and dogs, and she could shoot the flea off the ear of a raccoon at a hundred yards. Left or right. And Lordy, just put a can of mace in that woman’s hand and throw her in with a group of disgruntled criminals. It’s a wondrous sight to behold.
Bubba put his hand over his heart. Thank you, God, for putting Willodean on Earth.
Willodean smiled as she climbed up the hill toward him. She followed a path that mourning feet had pressed into the earth. The grass and the weeds had given up their determined duty and let the path stay untouched from the local flora.
Bubba watched enthusiastically. The squirrels squealed and went back up the tree, evidently unimpressed about the presence of the interloper.
When Willodean reached Bubba’s side, she said, “Sorry I’m late.”
“It’s all right,” Bubba said because there wasn’t anything else to say. “Do you need to hurry?”
“Only if the dispatcher calls,” Willodean grinned. “Do I smell Miz Adelia’s chicken?”
Bubba nodded.
“I just drooled on my uniform. That’s just sad.”
Bubba threw open the lid to the basket and pulled out two Chinet plates. He smiled nervously as he served up the food, only asking, “White or dark meat?”
“Are there two drumsticks?”
“Yep.”
“One of those. Oh, potato salad. I’m going to have to loosen my belt.”
Bubba watched her out of the corner of his eye as he dished out salad. Willodean took off her Sam Browne belt and hung it over the side of Tim’s gravestone. He supposed his mother would have something to say about that, too, but Bubba wouldn’t tell her. Nor would he tell Tim. She settled down on the blanket beside him and lifted her face for a kiss. And Bubba couldn’t say no to a kiss. Still holding a plate and a serving spoon he kissed her and he was pretty certain that both of them could feel the tingling all the way down to their toes.
Bubba had thought about this event for weeks. Finally he reluctantly pulled away from Willodean and she sighed beautifully. Pretty much everything Willodean did was beautiful. She even used a set of heavy iron manacles beautifully. She had. He had seen it. Well, I felt it anyway.
Oh, Willodean wasn’t perfect. She was crabby first thing in the morning. She didn’t like being criticized by men in her department. God forbid that Bubba should act protective, although he was certain that he couldn’t not be protective around Willodean. And finally, she couldn’t cook. To be precise she could cook, but what she cooked wasn’t good.
That was okay. Bubba had a cast iron stomach, with the exception of this particular day. He handed her the plate in his hand and tried to will the muscles in that hand not to tremble.
Willodean balanced the plate on her lap and immediately started on the drumstick, not bothering with the plastic fork. (Who could cut chicken with a plastic utensil?) She sighed again and chewed with gusto. Once she swallowed she said, “I tried to get this recipe out of Miz Adelia but she said something about that being as likely as an Icee staying slushy in hell.”
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