The Zombies Of Lake Woebegotten (37 page)

“I’ll see what I can do,” Edsel said.

“You going to stand for mayor, Julie?” Dolph asked.

“If the town will have me. But even if they don’t, I’ll help whoever they do elect. This is my home now. I went away, for a while, but this is the place I came back to, and I want to protect it. I don’t feel like we’ve done too good a job so far. I want to do better.”

“We’re all just learning as we go,” Stevie Ray said. “And today could have been a whole lot worse. We’ve got guards posted at the cemeteries, so there won’t be any more surprises from that direction at least. Maybe we’re past the worst of it. But even if we’re not, at least we’re preparing for the worst.”

“I propose a toast,” Father Edsel said. “Though toasting with coffee instead of wine is an abomination, it will have to do. To Lake Woebegotten.”

“To Lake Woebegotten, the Green Zone of central Minnesota,” Dolph said. “Where all the women are brave.”

“Where all the men are pure of heart,” Julie said.

“And where each child is more unique than the last,” Stevie Ray said, clinking his coffee mug against the others.

Outside the diner, the Narrator stood on the sidewalk gazing up at the big moon overhead. He’d lost his other shoe somewhere, and his glasses sat askew on the bridge of his nose, giving him even more of an absent-minded-professor air than usual. A nasty bite mark on his left calf—from a raccoon, maybe, or even a pocket gopher—oozed fluids of various hues and consistencies. He said:

“Night fell on the first day of spring in Lake Woebegotten—not the first day by calendar time, but the first day that
felt
like spring, like a day for new beginnings and bold new enterprises and rebirth and renewal and no more long underwear for a while—and the people were peaceful and full of hope, at least, the ones that were still alive. Over on the outskirts of town—”

The Narrator coughed, a messy, wet cough that spilled down the front of his shirt. “Ah, must be allergies, those come right along with the flowers, it’s the dark side of spring, everything’s got a dark side—”

Another cough, and now the Narrator stumbled and went down on one knee, and his skin was looking a bit grayish, his eyes behind his off-kilter glasses getting a little glassy themselves. “The good people of Lake Woebegotten, they—ah—that is, they all knew—”

The Narrator turned his head, and looked through the windows of the diner, and saw the lantern light there, dimly. And glowing far more brightly than the lanterns, he saw the life of the people inside there, talking and laughing and clinking their mugs together like they were at a fancy cocktail party or some such, and he said, like he’d just discovered the word:

“Brains?”

And got to his feet and headed on inside Cafe Lo to get a bite to eat.