Bubba and the Zigzaggery Zombies

by Bevill, C. L.

  “Oh, joy and wondrous felicitations,” Dee Dee said sardonically when she saw Bubba. Her face was set in a perpetual glower. “It’s Bubba Snoddy, the man who wants to ruin it for the rest of us.”

  Belatedly Bubba remembered that Doc had said that Dee Dee caught the acting bug. He could see how she might blame him for the potential loss of her fifteen minutes of fame. Did Dee Dee have access to the weapon props? Hmm?

  “Just keep around his head,” Dee Dee instructed Simone snidely, “so I can get this needle in him.” She roughly rubbed some kind of orangish disinfectant on the back of his hand. Bubba thought she might be rubbing her way to China when she finally finished and deftly stabbed him with a needle appropriate for an African elephant. Without hesitation she finished connecting the IV and hung the bag on the pole attached to the bed. “Have a tetanus shot lately, Bubba?” she asked with just the right note of condescension.

  Bubba shrugged. He couldn’t remember anything about a tetanus shot.

  “Great,” Dee Dee said cheerfully, or as cheerfully as a woman of her sort could be, “that shot will sting like a son of a beach ball. Just wait until we’re picking shot out of your shoulder. That’ll really hurt.”

  Simone finished with the prosthesis and packed it away in a plastic bag. “There,” she said. “Now you should be able to talk.”

  “Weebadoo,” Bubba said.

  “And there’s a little more of that swelling,” Simone said.

  Dee Dee stared at Bubba’s jaw. “I’ve got just the thing for that,” she said wickedly. “Biggest gauge needle we have. It’s like an ice pick. Be right back.”

  “I think I’ll get out of here before that nurse decides to use a needle on me,” Simone said, closing the lid of her kit. “Sorry about the shotgun holes in you, Bubba. Risley’s all happy though, because it means more publicity for the film. He said to tell you that they’d shoot around you until you could film again, but I don’t think that will be a big problem.”

  “Fahkah hee,” Bubba said crankily. He was a little tired. He supposed the adrenalin rush was rapidly receding and he was starting to crash. He needed a glass of milk and a nap. What he really needed was to ask Doc Goodjoint if he’d determined a time of death for Kristoph, so he could eliminate suspects. Then he needed to ask Sheriff John or Willodean if the necktie they had talked about was really Schuler’s scarf that he was missing and how that related to Kristoph’s death. If Bubba could work in something about what was bothering Willodean, that would just be swell.

  Bubba fell asleep before he could make any specific plans and he didn’t even wake up when Dee Dee Lacour injected the tetanus shot directly into his gluteus Maximus.

  * * *

  “Are you a parking ticket, hotness? Because you have fine written all over you,” someone said in a way that implied lechery, luridness, and hopefulness all wrapped up in a question and a brief statement. It almost made Bubba jealous because clever pick-up lines had never been his forte. His idea of being saucy involved a wink and a “Hey, you like catfish?” Truthfully though, he was only saucy with Willodean of late.

  When Bubba opened his eyes a halo of light that brightened the entire room was centered over the dark haired, green eyed being that was…

  “Wee-oh-dee,” he said and then, “Cwah. I mean, cahh.” His mouth was as dry as the Gobi Desert on a sunny day in a drought.

  Bam Bam turned from where he was attempting to hit on Willodean Gray. Willodean transferred her solemn glance to Bubba and her expression didn’t change.

  Bubba sighed. She was beautiful and she could shoot a gun. What woman could be more perfect? She made him feel like he was a puppy dog who could pull a freight train. Except for now, he felt like a puppy dog unable even to pull his own leash.

  “You be the deputy?” Bam Bam asked politely, the lechery, luridness, and hopefulness toned down. Possibly it was the holstered gun that made him slightly reticent.

  “I be,” Willodean agreed. “And you be?”

  “I be Bam Bam Jones,” he said, snapping out a card from seemingly nothingness. Willodean took it and looked at it once.

  “You helped Bubba while he was in Dallas,” Willodean said.

  “Bubba talked about lil’ ol’ me?” Bam Bam grinned and even Bubba had to admit it was an infectious grin. “I knew he liked me a little.” Willodean didn’t say anything and Bam Bam shifted uncomfortably. “I guess I should go get some Mountain Dew,” he said and sidled out the door.

  Willodean looked back at Bubba.

  Bubba gestured with his hand, beckoning her closer. She hesitated and then stepped up to the side of the bed. He took her hand with his right hand, the one with the IV, on account that his left arm was all strapped to his side now and he couldn’t really move it. “Saw-ree,” he said. He swallowed and tried to speak more coherently. “Tha makeup makes my skin swell up something fierce.”

  “That’s what the doctor said,” Willodean said. With her free hand she picked up a glass sitting on the little table and shook the straw around so that he could sip from it. “Also that they gave you some antihistamines and antibiotics and they got all the buckshot out. You slept through the procedure and the x-ray and them moving you up here.” When Bubba was done with the water, he let his head fall back and watched as she put the glass back on the table.

  “Ain’t bin sleeping good lately,” Bubba said. He looked around. He had been moved to a regular hospital room. He was all bandaged up and had a new IV. The ceiling mounted television was on CNN. But all of that faded to the background as he watched the woman whose hand he held.

  “Listen I’m sorry about what I said,” Willodean said slowly. She pursed her lovely ruby lips and Bubba was entranced. “It didn’t come out the way it should have and I had to leave for a day to get my head clear.”

  “About the…children,” Bubba said tentatively. “I wasn’t mad. I don’t always make myself plain but mebe it’s time for us to be talking about things like that.” That’s good. Real good. Sounded adult. Sounded like I was opening a door and ready to let her in. Yep.

  There was obvious tension in Willodean’s shoulders. That’s not good. What’s bothering her?

  “You know I don’t like seeing you in here,” Willodean said. The unspoken part was “At least it wasn’t my fault this time.”

  “Totally not my fault this time,” Bubba said before he considered that it might be his fault. Certainly Simone had implied that he had been the target of someone who was mad that he might have killed Kristoph and thusly might have hurt the picture’s staying power. But Bubba wondered if the killer might be thinking about stopping Bubba from getting too close to the solution. After all, Bam Bam was blaring it all over the countryside. I would think a fella in his…special line of bizness would be more circumspect.

  “Sheriff John is talking to the special effects guy,” Willodean said. “They’re trying to figure out if it was an unfortunate accident or deliberate. The special effects supervisor says they don’t keep real ammo around…ever.”

  Which makes it lean to the side of deliberation, Bubba thought because he didn’t want to emphasize it more to Willodean. She already knew.

  “Everyone on the set has access to that area,” Willodean added. “Well, practically everyone. All they would need would be a fresh set of shotgun shells.”

  “What gauge?”

  “20,” she said.

  “Ma’s got one of them,” Bubba said woodenly. “So does half the county and their brothers, too. What about the necktie?”

  “I don’t wear a necktie,” Willodean said immediately. The corners of her perfect mouth lifted just a touch.

  Bubba took the moment to drag her hand close to his mouth where he pressed a kiss to it. He could see Willodean melting on the spot. He wished he wasn’t lying on his back in a hospital bed and that he had a certain something he was going to give to her. But reality was the shift of heavy cotton sheets and the pull of a needle and tape in the back of his hand. This wasn’t the place
. This wasn’t the time. Little cupids blowing trumpets from the corners wouldn’t have made a hospital room the place or the time.

  “Hey, baby, are you from McDonalds, because you are McGorgeous,” Bam Bam said/asked an unseen someone outside the room.

  Willodean blinked. “Does he memorize those?”

  “Would it help ifin I memorized some?” Bubba asked optimistically.

  They both heard the response to Bam Bam’s hopeful query. “Good Lord, I’m old enough to be your mother,” Miz Demetrice said.

  “This should be interestin’,” Bubba said. “Tell me about the necktie because I think it’s really Schuler’s scarf.”

  Willodean opened her mouth and then shut it. “Can’t you keep out of it?”

  “I got arrested for it,” Bubba said, “how kin that not be my bizness?”

  “The charges were dismissed,” Willodean said.

  “I dint turn over the body, so was there a scarf wrapped around Kristoph’s neck?” Bubba persisted. If his mother made it past Bam Bam, it would be the end of his impromptu interrogation. Besides Willodean clearly felt guilty enough to give him a little information on the sly. “Then did someone stab him in the back to make certain he was well and truly dead?”

  “All those arrests are making you crazy,” Willodean stated. “Or have you been watching Murder, She Wrote reruns again?”

  “Angela Lansbury’s character solves everything all in sixty minutes,” Bubba protested. “Forty-five ifin you don’t count the commercials.”

  “You know the sheriff doesn’t want you interfering,” Willodean chastised.

  Bubba stared at her. Really? Seriously? How kin I not?

  “Oh, Lord Above save us,” his mother said and saved Willodean from further questioning. It was obvious that Willodean was well aware of that fact. She strode over to the opposite side of the bed and stared down at Bubba. “You got shot.” She looked at the ceiling as if in deep thought. “Has Bubba been shot before? Shot at, but never shot that I recall.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to be loaded,” Bubba said, “otherwise I reckon I would have ducked.”

  Miz Demetrice looked at Bubba, sighed, and looked at Willodean, and sighed again. His mother correctly assessed the air of discontent in the room and made an abrupt decision. Bam Bam appeared behind her holding a bottle of Mountain Dew. Miz Demetrice turned back to Bam Bam. “You,” she said to him.

  “Me?”

  “You shall escort me to the cafeteria and tell me all the wondrous ways I remind you of something you’d like to…tap. Tell me, do I still qualify to be called a MILF?”

  Bam Bam choked on his Mountain Dew. Miz Demetrice grinned. “Then I’ll tell you all the ways I killed my late husband,” she added.

  “Did you have Lucky Charms for breakfast, ” Bam Bam said as he led Miz Demetrice toward the door, “because you be looking magically delicious? Yo daddy must be a drug dealer, because you’re dope. Know what’s on the menu? Me N you.”

  A moment later, when they were finally alone, Bubba looked at Willodean. “Sheriff John said necktie. You said necktie. Doc said no necktie. I suspect scarf. And the only man around here, or woman for that matter, wearing a scarf that could be mistaken for a necktie is Schuler, the head of makeup and a man with a purple high top. And suddenly he ain’t wearing that scarf no more.”

  “We’re not going to talk about children?” she asked.

  “Yes, we will talk about children,” Bubba said. “Not today.” It might have been a mistake but the larger problem was the fact that it was entirely likely that a murderer was actively trying to murder him. Get past that and then get back to the issue of children.

  “It was a scarf,” Willodean said, “and don’t you dare tell Sheriff John who told you. You’re going to get Doc and me into trouble.”

  “So was the scarf around Kristoph’s neck?”

  “Yes. Scarf around his neck, tight enough that someone might think he got strangled with it.”

  Bubba thought about those words. “Kristoph wasn’t strangled to death?”

  “No.”

  Bubba kissed Willodean’s hand again. She tried to pull away, but it seemed halfhearted at best. “Sometimes you’re as closemouthed as I am,” he observed. “So someone tried to strangle Kristoph?”

  “We don’t think so.”

  “You have a time of death?”

  “From four to seven p.m.,” she said.

  “Well, that doesn’t narrow it down,” Bubba said with sarcasm.

  “I’m not in charge of time of death estimates,” Willodean replied with equal sarcasm.

  “So he was in my house for some time while I was outside scraping paint with Alfonzo,” Bubba stated.

  “That’s what Alfonzo said.”

  Because Sheriff John and Willodean already checked my alibi. Bubba frowned. “Did you hear about the DEA?”

  Willodean nodded. Suddenly there was a great deal of tension back in her shoulders.

  “Did you know the DEA was coming?”

  “They didn’t deign to inform the locals,” Willodean said and the words struck Bubba as careful and considered.

  Bubba thought about it. “I don’t believe my mother is smuggling drugs or anything else the DEA would be interested in.”

  “That’s not something your mother would do,” Willodean agreed.

  Bubba rubbed her fingers with his own much larger ones. Secrets everywhere and not a drop to drink. What does history tell us about secrets? It tells us that the man with the most secrets wins.

  “I don’t suppose Kristoph’s death has anything to do with whatever Ma and Alfonzo and you are up to.” It wasn’t exactly a question, but Bubba knew that Willodean would understand the gist.

  “I don’t think it does.”

  “Okay, that’s good. Is what Ma’s up to illegal?”

  Willodean didn’t answer that right away. Finally she nodded. “Very.”

  “Going to jail illegal?”

  There was another nod without words.

  “You could go to jail, too?”

  A third nod.

  “And ya’ll don’t want to tell me,” Bubba said.

  Willodean didn’t nod. She stared at their joined hands.

  “Okay, I kin probably help with it, ifin you change your mind.” Bubba took a deep breath. “I reckon they’ll let me out of here in a few hours.”

  “That’s what the doctor said,” Willodean said, and he could tell she was relieved that he wasn’t pushing the issue.

  That’s what she thinks.

  Chapter 17

  Bubba and the Problematical Pursuit

  Wednesday, March 13th

  The next day Bubba had been released from the hospital and was sorely contemplative. He sat on a chair on his tiny porch, drinking an RC Cola, thinking about going inside to get a Moon Pie, or maybe a Twinkie, to eat. (Not the reproduced kind of Twinkies but a genuine Twinkie hoarded from the days immediately preceding the discontinuance of the product. Miz Adelia couldn’t stand the remade version. Bubba couldn’t tell the difference, but she said it was glaring and that his taste buds must be as dead as the Dodo bird.) His left arm was in a sling and he watched as Alfonzo rolled paint on the side of the mansion.

  Perhaps Bubba should be actively investigating or searching for clues about exactly what his mother was doing, but he couldn’t bring himself to care much. He wasn’t supposed to be any particular place at the time, Willodean was working, and the sun was shining. Sitting on the porch was the thing to do for the moment.

  Alfonzo’s two children played on a blanket under one of the oak trees. Pilar giggled and played patty cake games with one. Bubba studied the three on the blanket. He’d heard them go out again the night before. Rather, he’d heard the van start up and leave. He’d also heard them come back in right away and park again. He wondered if that was because a plain van was still parked at the end of the lane which had a satellite dish on top of it. It didn’t say DEA on it, nor did it scream “WE ARE WATC
HING YOU!” but it might as well have. Every time Bubba drove past the two people sitting inside the van changed, but they all wore the same brand of sunglasses and dark jackets.

  Great. Suspected of murder and now the DEA is practically parked on the front stoop. Bubba eyed the skies. Next, a space station surely would crash on my new house.

  Bubba had heard the van start up in the early morning again. This time the engine hadn’t moved down the long lane, but instead went down the two ruts that led past the swamp and through part of the rear forty acres of prime worthless land. Clearly Alfonzo had been instructed to use the back way. He’d taken his time, likely slowly to avoid the holes dug by common treasure hunters. Most people didn’t know about the back way. Bubba had used it a time or two in high school. He seemed to remember his mother complaining about his father using it regularly, but then his father had been a hose monkey of the finest caliber.

  Pilar lay on the blanket and pillowed her head on a folded sweater. The morning had started off in the fifties and was probably going to climb into the seventies. It was a mite warm for March and undeniably beautiful once the wind had stopped blowing. The babies loved it. One of them drank from a sippy cup with Spongebob Squarepants on the front. The other one swung a small branch around.

  Precious had been chasing squirrels but stopped to collapse in the grass while she kept a wary eye on the floor apes that could come at her without warning.

  One of the babies started to crawl for something Bubba couldn’t identify. Her little hands and knees worked like a little powerhouse. Bubba waited but Pilar’s eyes were shut. I reckon it gets a little tiring to go out gallivanting all night. Shore tuckers a soul out.

  Bubba looked at Alfonzo. He was busy rolling paint. Bubba should be helping him but it was hard to hold onto a roller and a ladder at the same time with only one hand.

  Bubba looked for his mother. She had checked his wound that morning but remained remarkably absent otherwise. As if she’s afraid of the questions I’ll ask, hmm.