Play with Fire

chapter Sixty-Five

FENTON TOOK ANOTHER sip of Libby’s excellent coffee and put the cup down, careful to use a coaster.

“So that’s why we didn’t respond to your message, Morris. No cellular service where we were. No bars at all.”

“Alaska, huh?” Morris said.

“About eighty miles north of Nome,” Fenton said.

“Sue sent us up there as soon as we got back from Texas,” Colleen O’Donnell said. “I barely had time to do my laundry. But she had a good reason to be in a hurry.”

“Some Eskimo shaman was fooling around with an old totemic ritual, and managed to raise up half a dozen dead folks,” Fenton said. “Then the stupid bastard realized he didn’t know how to control ’em.”

“Zombies in Alaska,” Libby said. “Who’d have thunk it?”

“Zombies in northern Alaska,” O’Donnell said. “If I had any itch for Arctic exploration, that pretty much scratched it – for life.”

“But you got it sorted out, I take it?” Morris said. “The zombies, I mean.”

“Yeah, but it took us a whole week,” Fenton said. “Didn’t even hear your voicemail until we got back to the lower forty-eight. Since the world hadn’t ended while we were gone, I figured you’d managed okay without us.”

“Just barely,” Morris said. “Just barely.”

“But you didn’t ask Quincey to fly up here from Texas just to tell us about the zombies, did you?” Libby asked.

“No,” Colleen said. “We’re authorized to offer you guys some more ‘consulting’ work, if you want it.”

Morris looked at Libby for a moment before asking, “What kind of consulting did you all have in mind?”

“Well, it’s kind of complicated,” Fenton said, toying with his coffee cup. “For starters - do either of you know what an afreet is?”


The End