Moth Busters, Dr. Prepper, Oral Robbers: Freaky Florida Mystery Adventures 1, 2 & 3

by Margaret Lashley

  “Exactly my point. It was psychosis. Aliens had nothing to do with it. I’d be off my rocker, too, if I’d been buried in a tin can with nothing but deer jerky and a stack of old Chuck Norris DVDs.”

  My nose crinkled. “That’s all that was down there?”

  “That and a few freeze-dried pot pies.”

  “Gross.” I reached into my purse and pulled out two Tootsie Pops. “You want one?”

  “Sure.”

  I handed him a disgusting green one.

  He smiled. “My favorite.”

  That totally figures.

  Grayson stuck the sucker in his mouth. The bulge it made in his right cheek balanced out his swollen chin. Topped off with the fedora, he looked like the Monopoly banker on the get-out-of-jail-free card—if he’d just gotten out of jail, but not scot-free.

  I smirked at him.

  “What?” Grayson said.

  I turned my gaze to the road. “Nothing.”

  “Right. Keep your eye out for a taco stand, cadet. Let’s get some gas and blow this town.”

  I wasn’t sure if that counted as another messed up metaphor or not. I was cooking up a snarky comeback when Grayson’s cellphone chirped.

  His green eyes glanced my way. “Get it, would you?”

  “Sure.” I grabbed the phone from his jacket pocket and hit speaker. Wells’ voice came on the line.

  “Grayson?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Wells here. Can you meet me at McGreggor Funeral Parlor?”

  Grayson shot me a curious glance. “What’s up?”

  “It’s about Lester Jenkins.”

  “Oh,” Grayson said, and smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll destroy the autopsy report. I promise.”

  “No. That’s not it.”

  “What then?”

  “It’s ... about ....” Wells let out a shaky-sounding exhale. “Jenkins’ body is missing.”

  Grayson let his foot off the gas. “Missing? How?”

  “That’s what I’m hoping you can tell me. Because from where I’m standing right now, it looks like he just got up off the slab and climbed out the funeral home window.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  WHEN WE REACHED MCGREGGOR Funeral Parlor, Officer Wells was leaning against his patrol car, his head hanging down as if he’d just lost his best hunting dog.

  I rolled down the window. “You okay?”

  The young cop looked up, his eyes bright and angry. “I’m a laughingstock at the station now. If my father wasn’t chief of police, I’d probably already be fired.”

  I blanched. “Why? It’s not your fault Jenkins’ body disappeared.”

  “That’s not it. It’s why ....” Wells slammed his palm on the hood of the patrol car. “My brother Gary told his friends I was working with you guys—‘Mr. Gray and Pandora, the alien hunters.’ Word got back to the station ....” He closed his eyes, grimaced, and blew out a breath. “I am so screwed.”

  I winced in empathy. I knew exactly what Wells was going through. I’d felt the same way not much more than a week ago, when I’d first met Grayson. Joining him in his lunatic pursuits had been a leap of faith.

  Off a cliff.

  Without a parachute.

  In other words, the choice hadn’t been an easy one to make. To most people, the gap between normal and abnormal was galactic. But like most things, the more familiar you got with something, the less gonzo it seemed. As it currently stood, I wasn’t totally convinced whether I was a legitimate P.I intern helping establish new scientific frontiers—or I was a fool helping out on an even bigger fool’s errand.

  Like Officer Wells, slowly but surely, what constituted “normal” was becoming increasingly unclear in my mind. Was that enough to make someone bitch-slap a patrol car?

  Absolutely.

  “What can we do to help?” I asked Wells softly.

  He studied the pavement for a moment, then struggled to explain. “It’s hard to .... Ugh! I dunno. Maybe .... Aww, crap.” He looked up at both of us. “Could you just follow me inside? I need to show you something.”

  I glanced over at Grayson. “Sure,” he said.

  Wells stared blankly at the ground while Grayson and I got out of the RV.

  “Ready?” Wells asked.

  “Absolutely,” Grayson said. “Lead the way, officer.”

  Wells turned and slowly dragged his feet toward the entrance, as if he were about to attend his own funeral. Grayson and I exchanged glances, then followed him like a pair of indentured pallbearers.

  As we entered McGreggor Funeral Parlor, an older gentleman in a charcoal suit spotted us. He ducked into an office and discretely closed the door. A placard on the wall read, Jeremiah Simpson, Funeral Director.

  “This way,” Wells said, his face red and sheepish. He led us past the director’s office and down a long, narrow hallway filled with photographs of funerals. Happy customers, I supposed. But not too many repeaters, I’d bet.

  At the end of the hallway, Wells opened a door. We followed him into a room that smelled worse than the time Grandma Selma tried to make dill pickles in an old laundry tub. My face puckered.

  “Jenkins was being prepped for embalming in here,” Wells said.

  Grayson’s nose crinkled. He waved his hand in front of his face. “Looks like Glade beat me to my idea for a fresh new scent.”

  Wells nodded toward a long metal table with a sink on one end. “Mr. Simpson told me that he and his assistant put Jenkins’ corpse on that table by the window. According to him, they went out to lunch. When they returned, his body was gone.”

  “Did they leave the window open like it is now?” Grayson asked.

  “Yes. Mr. Simpson told me that in cooler weather, it helps with the uh ... smell.” He pointed out two slashes in the window screen. “He said those weren’t there when they left for lunch.”

  Grayson sniffed the screen, making me wince. “Is he sure?” he asked.

  “Uh ... yeah,” Wells said. “I asked him the same question. Mr. Simpson’s pretty particular about his screens. You know, for keeping out ... you know ... the ... uh ... flies.”

  “Hmm.”

  While Grayson rubbed his chin and pondered, Wells appeared to edge closer and closer to the verge of panic. After chewing off another fingernail, he blurted, “What do you think happened, Mr. Grayson? Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

  Grayson frowned. “Not exactly.”

  Wells’ brow furrowed with hope. “But something similar, right?”

  Grayson nodded and exhaled. “Yes.”

  Wide-eyed, Wells asked, “What was it?”

  “I’d say this is the work of your basic, run-of-the-mill body snatcher.”

  Wells’ mouth fell agape. “Body snatcher?”

  Grayson shrugged. “Either that or Jenkins got up and climbed out the window himself. Your pick.”

  “That’s it?” The young cop’s face twisted in anguish. “So you really don’t think aliens had anything to do with this?”

  Grayson shook his head. “Absolutely not. Aliens don’t cut window screens. They just go right through them.”

  I stared at Grayson. Now my mouth was agape.

  Really? Your answer to this whole crazy mess is that aliens don’t carry pocketknives?

  I shot Wells a sympathetic expression. Poor kid had dared to go out on a ledge and believe, just to be shot down by a stupid hole in a window screen.

  “How can you be so certain,” I asked Grayson. “What about the way Jenkins was crushed? What would a body snatcher want with a body pulverized like that?”

  Grayson shrugged. “Meat popsicles?” He turned to Wells. “Sorry, Wells, but I think we’re going to wrap this up and go—”

  “Wait! You can’t do that!” Wells grabbed Grayson by the shoulders. “Please! At least, not yet.”

  Grayson studied the cop’s earnest, boyish face. “You got another reason for us to stick around, son?”

  Wells let go of Grayson and t
ook a step back. “I ... I just think you shouldn’t be so quick to rule out the possibility Jenkins’ death was due to some kind of ... you know ... extraterrestrial involvement.”

  Grayson sighed. “Sorry, Wells, but you’re going to have to do better than that to pique my interest. That story of seeing lights in the sky and getting a creepy feeling won’t cut it. If you’re going to convince me, I need solid evidence. You got any of that handy?”

  Wells slumped, bit his lip, and studied the floor.

  “Thought so. Sorry, kid.” Grayson patted Wells’ shoulder and headed toward the embalming room door.

  I grimaced with empathy. “Sorry.” I turned to follow Grayson out the door, but a firm hand gripped my shoulder, stopping me.

  “Hold on a second,” Wells said.

  I turned to find the young cop was no longer slumping or wheedling. Wells’ jaw was set. His eyes flashed with determination. “Miss Drex, tell me the truth. Do you believe in all this alien stuff?”

  I winced. “I want to believe. Does that count?”

  “It’s going to have to. Help me. Please.”

  “How? What can I do?”

  “Convince your partner to hear me out.”

  I shook my head. “Sorry. I want to help. I really do. But you’ve got to have something better than anecdotes and hearsay to make Grayson change his mind. We’ve already got that out the yin-yang.”

  Wells nodded. “I understand. And I think I do.”

  I trailed the young cop down the hallway and out into the parking lot. Grayson revved the RV engine and waved for me to get inside. As I walked up to the driver’s side window, Grayson rolled it down.

  “What’s the holdup?”

  “Just give the poor kid a second, would you?”

  Grayson took off his fedora and let out a sigh that could’ve filled a hot air balloon. “Okay.”

  “Thanks.”

  We watched as Wells pulled a plastic bag out from under the front seat of his patrol car. He walked up to us.

  “I found this in Jenkins’ cabin.” He held up a cheap spiral notebook. “I submitted it as evidence, but it was dismissed—along with the pile of UFO magazines it was in amongst. To be honest, I dismissed it, too, at first. I mean, who’d take something like this seriously?”

  Wells thumbed through the notebook until he found what he was looking for. He flipped it around and showed us a centerfold spread. The pages were covered in grade-school doodles of aliens, most of them in compromising sexual positions.

  Grayson shook his head. “Thanks for the intergalactic anatomy lesson, kid. But unless there’s more in there than some lecher’s sick Martian fantasies, you don’t have a case.”

  Wells closed the notebook. “There’s more. Trust me.” He pulled a small cassette recorder from his jacket pocket. “If what’s on here doesn’t convince you, nothing will.”

  Grayson eyed the recorder and licked his lips.

  “Okay, Wells. You’ve got yourself one hour. Let’s go get some tacos and talk.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  WE WERE SITTING IN a booth at a tiny, strip-mall restaurant called Tacos Locos. Officer Wells was making his last-chance pitch to Grayson. The young cop had to convince him that something way past normal was going on around Plant City, or we were hitting the road, pronto.

  “Lester Jenkins could be a jerk, for sure,” Wells said as he eyed Grayson’s frosty mug of beer with envy. “But he just didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would lock his wife up to die alone in that bunker.”

  “You sure about that?” Grayson said. “From what I hear, the guy was no Gandhi.”

  “Believe me,” Wells said. “I’ve been called out to the Jenkins’ to settle more than a few domestic disputes. But their fights were always about Lester drinking too much or Arlene spending too much. Never anything that would drive him crazy enough to bury her alive.”

  Grayson leaned back in the booth and eyed Wells. “But he did bury her alive. Didn’t even leave her a cellphone. He wanted her dead.”

  Wells drummed a finger on the table absently. “No. I just don’t believe that. I think he was trying to punish her somehow. I’m sure he planned on letting her out. He just never got the chance.”

  Grayson’s lips twisted to one side. “Okay. Let’s say you’re right. That still doesn’t answer the question of why he locked her up in the first place. There are easier ways to stop a shopaholic. Just take away her credit cards.”

  Wells acquiesced with a nod. “I know. That’s what has me stuck. Jenkins must’ve had a really good reason.”

  “Maybe it was Arlene who wanted Lester dead,” I offered. “So, he stuck her in there to protect himself.”

  Wells pursed his lips. “If she was trying to murder him, Jenkins didn’t mention anything about it in his notebook.”

  “What did you find in that thing?” Grayson asked.

  “Mostly ramblings about the end of the world. This may sound weird, but I think in his own way, Jenkins may have been trying to protect Arlene.”

  “From what?” I asked.

  “Listen and decide for yourself.” Wells set a small tape recorder on the table, then pulled a tiny cassette from his shirt pocket. “I only caught the beginning of this before I got the call about Jenkins’ body disappearing.”

  “Then you don’t know what’s on the tape?” Grayson asked.

  Wells hesitated. “Well, not exactly. No.”

  Grayson’s eyes narrowed. “So you were bluffing.”

  Wells cringed. “Sort of. But I figured if it was anything like the notebook—”

  Grayson grinned and nodded his head. “Well played, kid. You got me. Now don’t waste any more of my time. Let’s hear it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Wells mashed a button on the recorder. As it began to play, a waitress delivered a pile of tacos to the table. I started to reach for one, but the words on the cassette made me lose my train of thought.

  “static ... don't know what to think. The metal casing is definitely extraterrestrial ... static ... the earth's atmosphere usually tears holes in a meteorite. This thing is smooth ... static ... cylindrical shape.”

  I locked eyes with Grayson. “Is this for real?”

  Grayson’s green eyes flashed. “Shhh!”

  The recording played on. “Something's happening ... static ... end of the thing is beginning to ... static.”

  Grayson barked at Wells. “Turn it up a notch.”

  Another voice came over the recording. “She's moving ... static ... keep back, there! Keep back, I tell ... static ... it's red hot, they'll burn to a cinder! Keep back there. Keep those idiots back!”

  A gong-like sound reverberated, as if a huge chunk of metal had collided with the ground. Grayson and I exchanged glances as the voice on the tape resumed.

  “Someone's crawling out of the hollow top. Someone or . . . something.”

  Screams in the background overwhelmed the man’s voice, making the next words barely audible. “Something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray ... static.”

  The tape went silent. I stared at Grayson. “Was that last word ‘gray’?”

  “I think so.”

  I nearly choked. “Gray, as in aliens? Is it possible that Jenkins really could’ve been ... you know?” I looked up at the ceiling.

  “Possibly,” Grayson said. “It would fit the autopsy findings. Aliens beamed Jenkins up, then did experiments on him that left those weird cuts on his face.”

  My brow furrowed. “What about the fact that most of his bones were broken?”

  Grayson sat back in the booth and sucked his teeth. “Let’s think about this. According to most reports, Grays are small creatures. If they used a transport tube designed for their anatomy, Jenkins would be too big for it. He would’ve been crushed when they tried to suck him up.”

  Grayson stopped for a moment. His eyes flashed, then he resumed his analysis. “Or, if the Grays used a transport beam, maybe it malfunctioned and Jenkins’
DNA got scrambled into goo. In either scenario, Jenkins would be in no condition for anal probing, so they must’ve decided to jettison his carcass. It fell back to Earth and splat—Jenkins-flavored man-pudding.”

  I shot a glance across the table at Wells. The poor guy was slumped in his seat, his mouth hanging open wide enough to shove a doorknob into.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  My question broke Wells’ stupor. His eyes flickered wildly, then he bolted out of his seat and yelled, “Are you kidding me? Hell, no, I’m not okay! Didn’t you hear that tape? Earth is under attack by aliens!”

  “But—”

  Wells pulled his gun out of its holster and scrambled out of the restaurant like a madman on fire.

  I stared at Grayson. “Is he right? Are we under attack?”

  Grayson stopped chewing the side of his mouth. “It’s a distinct possibility.”

  My gut flopped. “What are we going to do?”

  “What we always do. Investigate.”

  A shiver of dread ran down my spine. Grayson, on the other hand, seemed alarmingly unfazed. He sighed, grabbed a taco, and scooted out of the booth. I started to get up and follow him, but he stopped me.

  “Sit tight, cadet. I’ve got this. But do me one favor.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t let the Grays eat all the tacos before I get back.”

  He shot me a wink, and a sudden wave of peace came over me. My body relaxed as if I’d been hit with a tranquilizing dart. As I watched Grayson sprint out the door, I realized that if Earth really was under attack by creatures from outer space, he was exactly the kind of calm-under-pressure leader I wanted by my side.

  I only hoped for humanity’s sake that the aliens didn’t turn out to look like bats.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  WHILE I WAITED IN THE restaurant booth for Grayson to talk Wells down off his alien-invasion ledge, I flipped through Lester Jenkins’ bizarre notebook entries and wondered why any form of intelligent life would bother with our crazy asses in the first place.

  On page 43, Sasquatch was doing it doggie style with a Gray. On the opposite page, a reptilian was putting his forked tongue to lascivious use on an insectoid’s spread antennae .... Ugh. From every angle, humans—especially guys—were disgusting creatures, indeed.