Spore Read online

  She leaned back, frowning. “So now it’s okay for local news curiosities to curse at their mothers?”

  Jesus goddamn Christ, let it fucking go! Sean took a breath and let it out before yanking out the lower hinge pin. “I love Mare. She loves me. You’ve had more than a decade to accept that but you just can’t, can you?”

  “You can do so much better!” Helene moaned. “You’re my son! Surely you can find someone who’s worthy of your talent and brilliance, not a…woman with no ambition or respect.”

  Sean wrestled the door loose and turned it onto its edge. “I’m a college dropout who can’t keep a regular job,” he muttered, slapping the loose hinge in place. “You keep forgetting that.” Shit, I can’t even keep a comic in print.

  Helene nudged his arm. “It’s not you, sweetheart. Rosemary’s dragging you down. We were doing just fine until she came along.”

  Sean started to line up a screw, but the hinge slipped so he shoved it into place again. Yeah, just fine. Dad left you because you scrub everything in sight as if you can scour away what happened to me, and I spent most of my childhood in therapy for the nightmares I still have. “Mare’s about the only ‘fine’ thing in my life, and I’m damn lucky she hasn’t left me.”

  “Oh, sweetie, that’s so untrue. You’re special. Someday you’ll see I’m right,” Helene said, soothing.

  He grunted and glowered. Not likely.

  Helene shifted, opening her mouth to speak, but Sean interrupted her. “Have you heard from Uncle Paul?”

  His mother blanched and blinked, eyes wide and startled. “Of course not,” she said as if indulging an imbecile. “He’s dead, and good riddance for that! Really, Sean, you need to start listening to your mother instead of Rosemary.”

  Goddammit.

  Glowering, Sean worked in silence a few moments while his mother watched and fussed over him. He brushed off her attention and asked, “You’ve lived here your whole life, right?” in a vain attempt to change the subject away from Mare. Somehow.

  “You know I have.” She massaged his shoulders. “You’re too tense. She’s working you too hard.”

  “Ma, quit fussing,” he said, shrugging off her touch. “Ever hear of a place called Lotus Lab? Somewhere near Pinell, maybe?”

  “No. Can’t say that I have.” She paused, head tilting. “Can you manage without me for a moment? I think I hear Mindy. Why can’t you make your mama happy and snatch her up before someone else does?”

  Before he could reply, she scurried away, calling out, “I’m coming!” and taking his sandwich and cola with her.

  She always gets me pissed off then leaves me festering. Muttering to himself, Sean shook his head and finished setting the hinge screws.

  The house was still standing when Sean and Mindy returned, but Sean hesitated before pulling into the driveway. Eight zombie hunters shook their signs at his car and, cowering behind them, three women in skirts and blouses sang a hymn and held a banner rejoicing in Jesus’s arrival. The protesters remained on the sidewalk, likely because a sheriff cruiser with two deputies was parked at the curb, but a group of regular-looking folks milled about in Sean’s driveway.

  A deputy opened the cruiser’s passenger side door and stood, barking for the people in the driveway to make room. They moved.

  “Stay here,” Sean told Mindy as he parked the car and slipped out, doing his best to ignore the various masses of people lunging at him. He shrugged off the grip of an eager woman with a funeral urn and approached the cruiser.

  “Hey,” he said as the deputy rolled down his window. “Thanks for being here. This is all a bit nuts.”

  “Thank your neighbors for so many complaints,” the deputy muttered, peering up at Sean. “You the homeowner? The guy who talked to the press yesterday?”

  At Sean’s nod, he muttered, “At least almost no one believed you, otherwise we’d have a madhouse out here.”

  The cop shifted to look in his rearview mirror, and reached for his radio as a little blue car crept by, the passenger taking pictures. The deputy picked up the mic and told the dispatcher that the homeowner had returned but a blue Civic had driven by three times. He gave the dispatcher the license plate number and a description of the driver, then put the mic back in its stand.

  Sean watched the car turn the corner. Drive-bys too?

  “Mr. Casey?” the deputy said, drawing Sean’s attention. “We’re out here if you need us.”

  Sean nodded his thanks even as he glanced at the zombie gang and their ready weaponry. He swallowed. Up close, the blades and guns were obviously replicas, other than a single pistol on the hip of a fat woman with a long braid. Her hip holster, and the gun inside it, looked no nonsense. The three Jesus ladies seemed intimidated by the zombie gang, and the group in the driveway just watched him with wide, desperate eyes.

  “While I really appreciate you being here, what about that missing kid?” Sean asked, turning back to the deputy. “Isn’t finding him more of a priority than me and a few protesters?”

  “He was,” the deputy said while the other picked up the mic to answer a question the dispatcher had asked. “Now we’re stuck with you.”

  Sean took a deep breath and walked toward Mindy, still waiting in the car, but stopped when a tall guy with a resin rifle blocked his path.

  “Dude,” he said, holding out his hand. “You’re fucking awesome, man, and this is a goddamn fucking pleasure!”

  Sean blinked and accepted the handshake. “Excuse me?”

  “You faced walking death and lived!” His companions gathered close. “Not only that, you’re telling the world!”

  Confused, Sean struggled to find his voice. The woman with the real gun slapped him on the back. “We’ve been waiting for this. It’s incredible. Right here in Iowa.”

  Sean withdrew his hand. “I don’t think you guys understand. They’re not zombies, okay? They’re just people who’ve been—“

  The woman with the braid nodded. “Reborn and given a second chance to lose the shackles of consumerism. We know!”

  “It’s spreading like a fire all over YouTube,” the tall guy said. “You’re telling folks it’s time to climb from the crypt of moral decay and believe in the miracle of independence. Riveting stuff, man!”

  The group raised their weapons and cheered, “Fuck corporations! They ain’t eatin’ our brains!”

  Sean looked at the various members of the group and swallowed. “Is this what all of the zombiephiles want? A break from consumerism?”

  The woman shook her head. “Most are just stupid kids, but some want to dance while the world burns.” She patted the holster at her hip. “We don’t get along with anarchists.”

  Blushing, she paused and leaned close to whisper, “Are you really GhoulBane’s illustrator?”

  Sean hesitated then nodded with a sigh. Zombie hunter fan. In my yard. With a gun. Fuck.

  She wrung her hands and blinked at him, blushing, then mumbled, “Can I get you to sign an issue, just one? Maybe tomorrow? I don’t want to be a bother.”

  Like picketing in front of my house and scaring me and my neighbors isn’t? “Sure. One issue. Sure. Okay. Just please stop scaring us and the neighbors, okay?”

  She nodded so he backed away and turned to walk right into the church ladies’ sign. As he excused himself, one touched his arm and said with grave sadness, “We’re praying for you.”

  “Um. Thanks,” he said before hurrying toward the car. The mass of people watched him, each carrying a grim offering.

  One woman thrust a brass urn toward Sean. “Save my dad!”

  “No, my Sprinkles!” another woman said, nudging the first aside. She held a photograph of a very fat, very fluffy cat. “I need my Sprinkles Baby back! Please!”

  “My dad outranks your flea bitten cat!”

  A shoving match started and Sean skir
ted around them to let Mindy out of the car. “Go. Save yourself,” he said, pressing the house keys into her hand even as the throng of desperate mourners surrounded him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Happily pooped after playing with the neighbor kids, Mindy wandered into Sean’s studio and watched him draw what looked like a rotting corpse leaping through a breaking window.

  She waited until he lifted his pencil and asked, “Can I use the computer again?”

  “Sure,” he said, shrugging as he put that pencil in a cup and grabbed a different one.

  She sat and took a breath before opening Chrome.

  A quick search in Google confirmed what Dani had said. Jeff had sued Toyota for the faulty Prius and collected not only millions in damages from the car company, but from insurance as well.

  Mindy sat staring at Jeff’s smug face on the screen, her hands pressed between her thighs. At first she wanted to run across the hall and vomit, but anger took root, making her huff out one furious breath after another.

  He didn’t love me, loathed touching me, and treated me like a dog, but I was worth insuring for one point eight million dollars.

  You think I’m gonna let that pass, Jeffy?

  Oh hell no.

  Phone still off, Sean cycled through the messages on the machine as he cooked supper. Any mention of a threat, plea, or request for an interview earned a press of the delete button. Only one message remained, from Deputy Todd.

  Hey, Sean. Just wanted to touch base and let you know that some fuzzy cell-phone pics of the slime hit Tumblr this afternoon. We’re hoping no one will believe it’s real, but you know how these internet things go. Anyway, you’re off the hook.

  Sean returned to sautéing chicken and peppers. Finally some good news, not that I had any intention of sharing the pics.

  Movement caught the corner of his eye and he muttered a curse. Someone was in the backyard. Again.

  “Mindy!” he called as he walked to the back door. “Can you keep an eye on supper?”

  He didn’t wait for her reply, but walked outside, blinking away sudden sweat. “Hey!” he barked at a crisp young couple who looked like they’d walked out of a JCrew ad, if those ads included skulking around with a shiny spade. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “I, um,” the girl said, clutching a gilded urn to her chest, while the boy merely narrowed his eyes and clenched the spade, its blue Lowe’s price tag fluttering in the slight breeze.

  “This is private property,” Sean said, walking straight toward them. “You do not have permission to dig here.”

  “It’s my mom,” the girl said, cringing. “We heard you bring people back, and we just thought—“

  “You just thought you’d trespass and vandalize my yard?” Sean snapped, looming over them. “I can’t bring your mom back, okay? And even if I could—which I can’t—whatever’s going on didn’t happen here, but at the cemetery,” he said, pointing. “It’s over there, on the other side of the tree farm.”

  The young man glared at him, defiant. “We’ve been there. Cops are guarding nothing but mud, tombstones, and flowers. Here, though,” he said, pointing with the spade, “are several fresh holes.”

  Sean took in his yard and cringed. Lots of holes. Some big, some small, most scattered near the edge of the puddle at the back edge of his property. Thanks, Mindy, for giving folks this idea.

  “I didn’t give permission for them, or for you,” he said, not without pity. “Besides, if she’s cremated I don’t think it’ll work anyway.”

  “What? Why?” the girl asked, cradling the urn as if to soothe it.

  “I think you need a body, not ashes.” Sean pointed toward his driveway. “Now go on. Go home.”

  “You think?” the boy snapped, looking Sean over top to bottom. “Who are you to make a decision based upon a mere thought? You’re just a long-haired, low-rent freak.”

  “Actually, I’m the long-haired, low-rent freak who owns this yard and I’m not going to allow snotty assholes to dig it up without at least a please and thank you. As far as I’m concerned, you’re trespassing. Want me to ask the cops out front if they agree?”

  “It’s a shitty ass yard,” the boy muttered as he stomped off, the girl trotting to keep up.

  Beyond the rhubarb, Earl Simmons stood in his own back yard with his vile mutt, Peaches, panting beside him. Earl clapped slowly until Sean turned to glare at the portly old puke. “He’s right. It is a shitty ass yard.”

  Sean flipped him the bird and trudged back to the house. And you’re a shitty ass human being.

  “We’ve started a petition!” Earl yelled. “Get you and your sign-carrying freaks kicked the hell out of this neighborhood.”

  “At this point, I don’t give a fuck,” Sean muttered to himself, “as long as I get the comic done.” Without looking at Simmons or his awful dog, Sean walked into the house to find Mindy humming at the stove and two more messages on the machine.

  While Mindy called her sister from the kitchen, Sean grasped the chance to get online. He dug several pages into Google but found no mention of an American company called Lotus Lab.

  He stared at the screen, thinking. Does that mean they pre-date the internet? If so, they closed before 1995. He held the sign fragment, turning it in his hands. It’s definitely old, he thought, thumb running along one cracked and chipped edge.

  More searching brought him few options for fungus labs in Iowa, other than the ag testing center in Ames. Close to Pinell, but likely too far away to pollute their creeks. Another dead end.

  He scowled and leaned back, fingertips tapping on the mouse. How about the property? he thought, then brought up the county assessor’s site.

  Barronsen’s Poultry was bought by cash transaction in June, 1998, and the barns were built, appraised, and properly tax-filed in 1998 and 1999. The property had been previously seized in a 1996 foreclosure, after being passed between family members several times from 1991 to 1994. The online records stopped there.

  He Googled every name on that short list of real estate transactions and found only a poultry farmer with several farms scattered across three counties, two old women who’d already died, and a man arrested three times since 1994 for tax evasion, swindling, or money laundering. He was serving out his current sentence in Newton.

  That’s a couple of hours drive, Sean thought, glancing at the clock. Maybe he’d know who owned Lotus Lab. Or maybe it’s just another dead end. Since whatever I’m looking for is obviously pre-internet, maybe I’d have better luck with newspaper archives?

  Mindy walked past, sniffling. Sean asked, “You all right?”

  “I guess so. My sister barely talked to me. She just said Jeff kept or destroyed all my other stuff. If I want my license or whatever so I could maybe get a job, if I want to know what happened in court, if I want to know anything, I should talk to Jeff, not bother her because between mom and her kid and her marriage, she could not deal with having an undead sister. Then she hung up. My own sister hung up on me.” She gave Sean a pitiful glance then continued to Jam’s room, closing the door behind her.

  He winced, uncertain what to do. Do I try to comfort her or would that be too intrusive? Too forward? Would someone like Mindy think I was trying to make a pass at her? But if I do nothing, is that too cold and uncaring? Is—

  Someone pounded on the front door.

  Saved by a stranger, Sean thought, standing. He rapped lightly on Mindy’s door. “I gotta answer that,” he said, “but are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  She didn’t sound fine, but Sean said, “Okay,” and went to see who waited on the stoop this time.

  Another reporter stood there, with a cameraman busily filming the various protestors, now spilling onto the street. Several mourners in the driveway clamored for his attention, and zombie hunters posed for t
he camera.

  The reporter waited expectantly.

  “I’m not answering any more questions,” Sean said. “It’s a miracle, and that’s all I’m going to say.” He held the reporter’s gaze as Mindy walked past, muttering on her way to the kitchen. “Please leave.”

  “But Mr. Casey, surely you have an opinion on the toxins the chicken farm spilled in the creek east of your home. Could they be the cause of your unorthodox opinions?”

  Sean rolled his eyes and slammed the door in the reporter’s face.

  Sean slouched at the computer as eleven PM rolled around, clicking on ‘get mail’ while scanning in the day’s drawings. Seven pages of detailed pencils, done and ready to send to Murph for any changes before inking. Sean put another stiff illustration bristol sheet into the scanner and stretched. Fifteen pages to go, but plenty of time to get them done before deadline. Another eight or so tomorrow and, with luck, the rest on Wednesday. Hopefully Murph will get his notes and corrections back before this weekend. So I can get ‘em inked, colored, and out the door.

  11:03, still no email from Mare.

  Behind him, Mindy flipped through a box of drawings and pulled one out every now and then to examine it closer. “Wow,” she said, squinting at the original black and white inked illustration for a center spread. “This is amazing. How’d you get so good?”

  Sean pulled out the bristol for page five and put in the next. “Been drawing almost my whole life as a way to deal with the nightmares after I was kidnapped,” he said, hitting the scan button before checking email again. 11:05. Nothing.

  “You were kidnapped?” Mindy asked.

  “Yeah, when I was a kid,” Sean said, shrugging. It was so long ago and he had long tired of rehashing the few memories he had. “I was gone a couple of weeks and came back not remembering much of anything about it, no matter how the cops and psychologists tried to pry details out of me.”