Annie of the Undead Read Online Free

of the living room when I heard them pull into
the driveway.
    Their car was a shiny new yellow Mustang. They
got out of it and came up the walk, laughing and nudging each other
like one of them had just told a good joke. Or maybe they just
always laughed like that. Some people do. She had
two-hundred-dollar hair extensions and he a Movado watch. The
bitter cold didn’t seem to bother them at all. How could it, when
you’re so damn happy?
    The new guy was taller than Chris, but not as
muscular. He had a soft face, and he wore a button-front shirt and
a tie under his Red Wings jacket. Great, he’d like the T-shirt I
had left for him. He looked like a cubicle guy, or maybe a bank
teller –nothing I couldn’t handle.
    I let them open the door and find me at the
trunk, digging for some remnant of my brother. Seeing me did not
tickle the ex’s funny bone, not like finding your wiener dog
wrapped in toilet paper like a wiener mummy might. It took her
about two seconds to express the fact.
    “Annie? What the hell are you doing here?”
    “Good to see you too, Anjelah. Would you mind
telling me where Chris’s Ka-Bar is?”
    “Is this the Annie you told me about?” asked the
new boyfriend with sudden concern
    “Are you the guy that’s been wearing my
brother’s military uniforms?”
    “I…uh…”
    “Is that Bubbles crying?”
    Hearing the whining coming from the bathroom,
Anjelah went to it and opened the door. The wiener erupted forth,
rolled up in TP like a burrito and dragging a length of it behind
it as it charged three-legged into the living room. Anjelah stared
for a moment in confused displeasure. Nope, that didn’t tickle her
funny bone either.
    “What’d you do-?” said the boyfriend, looking
down at the partially mummified dachshund.
    “Oh my God!” said Anjelah, walking across the
room to the back door. “You broke in? Are you nuts?”
    “She broke in?”
    “Did you see my cat? Did she get out? She’s not
supposed to go outside. Annie, where the hell is my cat?”
    I stood up, having no luck with the trunk.
    “You tell me where to find Chris’s Ka-Bar, and
I’ll tell you where your cat is.”
    She glanced out into the backyard, then closed
the door.
    “What is that, some kind of threat?”
    I ignored her, heading to the kitchen, rummaging
through drawers, starting with the bottom drawer and going up so I
wouldn’t have to close one to search the next, like a good
ransacker.
    Anjelah’s voice was escalating.
    “Hey! Where the hell is my cat? Huh?”
    “Angie,” said the boyfriend in a small voice.
“Should I call the police?”
    “You’d better answer me! Where’s my cat? Don’t
turn your back on me, bitch–”
    I spun. My muscles tensed, my fist weapon-ready,
so eager to strike her, but I held it. I stared down the sudden
fear in her eyes.
    “Hey!” said the boyfriend, stepping up behind
Anjelah, putting his arm between us –that soft arm, as if that
would have been enough to stop me from doing anything, “Leave my
girlfriend alone! Who do you think you are?”
    “No, Rog! Stop,” said Anjelah.
    “What, babe? I can take care of this…”
    I exhaled a nice cloud of secondhand smoke into
Anjelah’s face. She pretended to swallow her fear in order to avoid
doing so to her pride.
    “Fine,” she said, her eyes growing wet from
adrenaline and emotion –or maybe from smoke.
    She pushed past her boyfriend into the living
room, then took a shoebox down from the shelf in the coat closet.
She thrust it toward me.
    “Here. Take all of it. I don’t want it anymore
anyway. Take it and go.”
    I opened the box. The knife was inside, along
with some photos and other things that had been Chris’s. I closed
it, looked at her.
    “That’s all he means to you, huh? Just a bribe
to get the Devil out the door?”
    “Just take it and go,” the new boyfriend echoed
Anjelah.
    He was trying to intimidate me with nearness and
height. I looked up at him blandly.
    “You got the stones to back