Broken Heart 7.5 - The Adventures of Zombie Larry Read Online Free

Larry.
     
    “I lost it fifty years ago.”
     
    “You’ve been dead for fifty years?” Linda sounded horrified. “How did you get back into your body? How did you get… alive again?”
     
    Larry had blue eyes, and blond hair. He was tall, and as he got more and more… well, alive, he was also getting muscled. Larry the former zombie really was a looker.
     
    “He appears to be returning to the same form he had before he died,” murmured Stan. He was staring at the man with clinical precision, no doubt noting details no one else would think important.
     
    “Before I was murdered,” said Larry. His eyes fluttered closed.
     
    “Shit,” said Linda. “Murdered?”
     
    Larry had obviously passed back out. She glanced at her husband, who shrugged.
     
    “We’ll let the queen know, but I hardly think solving a fifty-year-old murder is relevant now.” Stan returned the orange gem to the nightstand. “We should let him rest. I’ve taken all the samples I need.” He picked up the case where he’d stored the blood and skin he’d taken from Larry.
     
    “Poor soul,” said Linda as she took her husband’s free hand. “I hope he’s okay.”
     
    “We’ll know more after I finish the tests,” said Stan. “C’mon, sweetheart.”
     
    He led her out of the bedroom, and she turned and shut the door behind them.
     
    A couple minutes later, the closet door popped open and thirteen-year-old Jenny Matthews O’Halloran stepped out. Larry had been the town zombie because of her.
     
    She’d found him when she was nine years old—on Halloween night. He was her zombie, and she had to take responsibility for him. She rolled her eyes. She couldn’t believe she’d even thought that. Mom was all about responsibility this and responsibility that. What- ev-er . At least rescuing a zombie was more fun that scrubbing toilets. Bathroom duty totally sucked. And they were rich, so they could pay someone to clean the whole house, too, except her parents were too down-to-earth to employ a maid service.
     
    Quietly, Jenny crept to the bed and shook her zombie awake. “Larry?”
     
    He blinked awake. “Princess?”
     
    “Yeah,” she tugged on him. “C’mon. I’m getting you outta here.”
     
    He smiled. “You’re rescuing me?”
     
    “Like you rescued me, Larry.” Jenny didn’t like thinking about that night in the cemetery. If Larry hadn’t seen her fall into the pit… she shuddered just remembering how it felt to have the earth give way under her feet.
     
    “Where are we going?”
     
    “Somewhere safe,” she promised.
     
    “I need clothes.”
     
    “Thought of that!” Jenny ran to the closet and grabbed an armful of clothing from the floor. “I brought some of my dad’s sweats.”
     
    She piled the pants and shirt onto the bed. “There’s another way out of this room,” she said. “In the closet. There’s a little hallway that goes down to a door into the garden. Soon as you’re dressed, I’ll meet you there.”
     
    “Okay, princess.”
     
    Jenny scurried into the secret passage, her heart pounding. Her plan had only been to get Larry away from the adults who would only poke and prod him like he was a lab rat. She didn’t know what she would do after she got him to her secret place in the woods, but as her mother said, one damned problem at time.
     
    *           *           *
     
    Larry Stotten stood underneath the oak tree and watched Jenny scrabble up the wood slats that had been nailed into it, forming a ladder up to the tree house above.
     
    “Daddy built it for us,” said Jenny. She paused. “Not Patrick. My real dad. He died.”
     
    “I’m sorry,” he said.
     
    “I’m lucky I got two good daddies. Some kids don’t even get one.”
     
    Larry’s newly beating heart stuttered. He’d once believed himself to be a good daddy, too. After his wife died, he’d moved the girls to Broken Heart. He’d thought , much to his everlasting regret, living in