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

a small town would be safer. He hadn’t counted on his wife’s gem bringing trouble to their door. On her death bed, Lila made him promise to never give it to her step-brother. Ean wasn’t a nice man, she’d said. A big understatement. He was a kidnapper. And a murderer. But at least he’d never gotten the gem.
     
    There were so many things he hadn’t known about Lila or her family. It hadn’t been her fault that her mother’s second marriage had been to a man without moral character. It was Lila’s mother who stole the gem and gave her to her daughter for safekeeping. Larry hadn’t known his wife’s secret, not until she gave him the stone and told him to protect it, and their girls.
     
    He hadn’t known the gem’s powers. He hadn’t known Ean was an honest-to-God mage. He hadn’t known there was no way to ever keep his daughters safe.
     
    “Larry?”
     
    Jenny’s voice filtered down from the tree house. He shook off the memories, and began the climb. His thick fingers and sneakered feet didn’t do well on the thin strips of wood. He slipped a few times, but finally, he managed to get to the square hole cut in the bottom of the tree house. It was at least a decade old, and the floor creaked ominously as he crawled onto it.
     
    Jenny was prepared. She had two battery-powered lanterns, a stockpile of energy bars, chocolate, and bottled water. She even had pillows and a sleeping bag. “I figure you can hang out here until… well, we figure out what to do next.”
     
    “Thank you, Jenny. You’re a good friend.”
     
    She beamed at him.
     
    He remembered that his daughters used to smile at him like that, especially if he’d said yes to candy or to an extra bedtime story. Fifty years. He could never, ever get those years back. His life had been stolen.
     
    “Why are you… you know, alive?” Jenny was studying him, her smile giving way to a frown.
     
    “This.” He pulled the gem out of his pocket. “It’s a wishing stone.”
     
    “Wishing stone?” She looked skeptical, which made him laugh. The child lived in a town with vampires, dragons, werewolves, and zombies, but the idea of a gem that granted wishes seemed unbelievable to her. He tucked it back into his pocket.
     
    “A long time ago a mage named Merlin made it. It’s dangerous, Jenny. A lot of people would like to get their hands on it. People who aren’t very nice.”
     
    “Why don’t you wish it away?”
     
    “I can’t. There are rules. Especially for the guardian.” One wish per person. He’d never made a wish on it. He hadn’t known what it was until after Lila died. She’d transferred guardianship to him the day before she passed away, and told him what it did mere minutes before she breathed her last. He would never know why she didn’t wish away her disease. Had she already made a wish? Or did she want so badly to be free of the gem, she preferred to die? He wanted to believe enough in her love, in her loyalty, to think she would’ve never left him and their daughters alone unless she felt as though she had no choice.
     
    The day his girls disappeared, he’d intended on going to the stone’s hiding place and wishing for their return, but Ean had found him first. And killed him.
     
    After he died, he had no idea where he’d gone. He didn’t remember. Not heaven, not hell. Not even limbo.
     
    One night, he’d woken up in his desiccated body fighting in a battle right out of an Orson Welles screenplay. It turned out that Queen Patsy had called forth the dead in the Broken Heart cemetery to fight demons and vampires trying to destroy the town.
     
    After the fighting was over, and they had won, he could only think about staying out of the grave. He knew there was something he was supposed to do, but not what. And he hadn’t known his name, or even what he was. There was only that insistent, driving urge to remain upright and moving.
     
    Then he’d found the gem in Stan and Linda’s backyard.
     
    The