“What is it?” Gertrude asked. “More zombies?”
“You’re ten minutes late,” Topher snapped after Zorn. He lowered his rifle. “Have you not the decency to call?”
Zorn pounded on the handicap button and backed away so the doors could swing slowly open. A nurse darted out.
“He’s been shot.”
“I guess Zorn’s off the hook, then,” Topher said. The others made as if to walk by, but he swung the rifle back up at them. Their hair was disheveled, their clothes rumpled and spattered, and Gertrude generally irritated him. “What’s your excuse?”
After Zorn’s fourth surgery of the week, during which the attending doctor pulled the eleventh bullet out of his body, said doctor ordered the bearded giant to a full week’s bed rest. No detecting, no adventure, no zombies, no exceptions.
“I’ll cuff him to the
