Chapter 2 - Revenge of the Autumn People - The Pajama Shuffle

                               Chapter 2 – The Pajama Shuffle

Despite being restricted to the house, save for walking Annie, I had had plenty of company. Alice and Joe had settled into one of the four bedrooms upstairs. There was discussion about Joe claiming the adjacent bedroom for a home office.

Joe had been promoted to head manager at the local Colorado Charlie’s Chicken Coop about a week after he started working there. Colorado Charlie’s was thriving under Joe’s management style, which seemed to be successful thus far.

It is hard to describe Joe as a human being. At home he is warm and affectionate to Alice. Despite his nearly psychopathic and aggressive business model at the chicken shack, Joe was very easy to get along with at home. In fact, I have seen Alice steam-roll Joe dozens of times. Alice mostly gets what she wants from him.

In the world of business however, Joe is a Great White Shark. A combination of Don King when it comes to promotion and unless I miss my guess, the shrewd legal mind of a criminal lawyer. Perhaps a young F. Lee Baily. Joe had already signified to the community (most specifically the local cops) that he was “my attorney” and that he would retire from the fried chicken business as soon as he passed his bar exam. His knowledge of the law and ability to intimidate those bothering his family and friends had already proven useful.

Alice technically rents from me, but she advertised herself to the local cops as my daughter when I moved here. Alice’s real father passed away years ago. We kept up the charade until we finally realized that we fit nicely into the “empty spaces” in each other’s lives. Thus, we adopted each other, and I am proud to call her my kin.

Although Alice is happy to spend time with Joe and occupy the upstairs region of our large Victorian home, she lets it be known that she is “the woman of the house”. From her choice of furniture to the ever-growing collection of plants downstairs and on the porch, she has effectively marked the house with her personal touches.

Rounding out the other members of my household are Petey Gambino, AKA “Star Trek”, and Naydene Tylor. When Alice and I first met Naydene, she was working under Joe as assistant manager at Colorado Charlie’s Chicken Coop. Her father Cletis (same guy that chowed down on my shoulder) had been stalking her after he had turned into an Abomination. A showdown on the Tylor farm resulted in Alice shooting the man that made Naydene’s father into a Super-zombie in the head and another friend of mine, the sorceress Isadora Browning, burning Cletis to a crisp on his own farm. Now he is dust in the wind. Never a dull moment in Dusk Thorne.

However, this left Naydene with no home. The local authorities decided to set fire to the farm property to cleanse the area of the many undead that had settled there. Hence there are now fewer zombies roaming the streets of our fair city. Naydene, grateful that she was no longer being stalked by her father, accepted my offer to stay in one of the bedrooms downstairs. She and Alice have begun to relate to each other as dorm roommates although neither one of them has ever set foot on a college campus.

Petey just came clomping up the stairs from the basement and groped his way into our spacious living room. He was wearing a pair of red striped pajamas and proceeded to drag his feet across one of our large throw rugs. Using his hyper senses, Petey both smelled and felt his way to my couch. Without opening his eyes, he reached out and picked up the cup of coffee sitting on the table that I had poured for him ten minutes ago.

“Petey” I said in a low tone. “Open your eyes.”

“Not yet.” He replied. There was no reason that he should. Petey didn’t need eyes to drink coffee. Petey slept on a cot in our basement. Often Chester slept with him. Chester found Petey a suitable bed partner. After years of sleeping with me Chester had become used to the smell of a werewolf. Chester preferred Petey as a bunk buddy because he didn’t toss and turn. I move around a lot in my sleep.

Yes, Petey was Lycan like me. Also, as do all werewolves, he had enhanced hearing and had heard me pour his coffee from some fair distance away (werewolf ears are remarkable). Petey would open his eyes after he had finished his coffee. He wasn’t a morning person.

Annie rose, stretched and ambled over to smell Petey and generally say her “doggy good morning” to him. He stroked her ears and sipped his coffee.

“Now this is the way everybody should wake up.” He said without opening his eyes. Annie seemingly agreed as she nosed his pajamas from top to bottom.

The pajamas were new. Petey, when questioned by Alice about where he was going to sleep, indicated that the basement was cool and he would be comfortable there. When she found out that Petey usually slept naked (a habit not uncommon with werewolves and younger males in general) she marched straight downtown and bought “Star Trek” some pajamas. Alice can sometimes be a bit of a prude.

Petey wore the sleepwear without complaint. Unlike his older brother Crazy Mike (who earned the nickname righteously), “Star Trek” was a “go along to get along” type of house guest.

Petey was in the middle of repairing a wall in the basement. Initially several bike club members and I had demolished the wall in search of a possible stash of old “depression era” money. In the beginning of the money hunt, we found some fifty and one hundred dollar bills that Alice persisted in calling “Ghost Pirate money”. Enough loose cash to warrant our club president Crazy Mike to launder the currency (that dated back to 1931 through 1935). 

Since the brick wall in question wasn’t a load bearing one, it looked suspicious to my eye when I first bought the house. When the wall came down, to my astonishment, we found two doors slightly ajar. Alice wanted to go exploring immediately. Joe vetoed the idea until I could get blueprints of the house for some clues as to where the passages might lead to, if anywhere. When I saw the doors, I told Petey to hold off on restoring the wall for a few days.

Alice, with visions of discovering more Ghost Pirate money, was disappointed that she couldn’t immediately spend the Ghost Pirate cash at first. Then, two weeks later, she received a check in the mail from the Gambino Brothers Garage. It was a hefty amount. More importantly it was “clean money.” Alice said immediately that she was going to use it to purchase a preowned car. Since coming to Dusk Thorne Joe and Alice had been a one car family. I had allowed Alice to use my Jeep when she needed to run errands or visit Joe at work. But she did need a car of her own and hadn’t been motivated in the short time we had been in town to find a job.

Crazy Mike Gambino wrote me to tell me he could handle any other loose cash we might discover under our house. Mike was a very cautious individual when it came to agencies like the I.R.S. He reasoned anyone caught flashing old “depression era” paper money might draw the attention of authorities like the I.R.S. or the F.B.I. or even snoopy local law enforcement professionals. There was no shortage of the last type in our little town.

Mike insisted that any money we found should be likewise “laundered” The Gambino Brothers Garage was occasionally a front for more clandestine activities. Mike’s paranoia may have been inspired by something hinky that was currently going on back home in gold ole Xerxes, Louisiana.  At any rate, Mike was getting a cut of the newfound cash for his efforts.

I heard Alice come clomping down the stairs. She was wearing her new motorcycle boots Joe had purchased for her last month. I had advised her that she needn’t wear them when she wasn’t riding behind me on Patsy. The fact was that neither one of us had been on my Harley since I was injured. Notwithstanding the fact that Alice doesn’t own a bike of her own, she insisted on dressing in biker drag.

“Noise bad…” said Petey, in response to the energetic red-headed Alice as she headed for the coffee-pot.  

Chester emerged from the basement covered with dust bunnies. Curious about the stomping noises upstairs, he double-timed through the kitchen past Alice. She screamed “Stop him! He has something in his mouth.”

Chester ran straight for Petey. He jumped over the coffee table and stuck a perfect four-point landing right on Petey groin. Petey opened both eyes and spit coffee on a nearby rug. Chester stubbornly kept his balance on “Star Trek’s” lap.

Naydene entered the living room with a whoop. “Doc, there he is! Right on schedule like I said.” She pointed out the window.

I looked out of one of my front windows to see my neighbor, Ralph Greene, in his pajamas and housecoat shuffling down the street. He was holding a letter or some type of envelope. He stopped in front of Jerry Baxter's house. Jerry was a rather stern and quiet person who hasn't yet warmed up to my southern charm.

“What is he doing?” I remarked out loud.

“He does that every day. Every morning. Watch, he will knock on Jerry’s screen door and then just leave the letter on the threshold jammed in the screen door.” Naydene pronounced. “He doesn’t wait for Jerry to answer. Then he just walks away.

Petey had overcome his groin pain. He lifted Chester into his arms.  The large cat still retained a piece of paper in his mouth. Petey walked to the window rubbing his crotch.

“Naydene looked at him and grinned. “Need some help with that?” She teased him. He shook his head but smiled.

When Alice had first met Petey, she had remarked that he was the most gorgeous man she had ever seen. Naydene had been flirting with him mercilessly since she moved in.

Alice crowded in beside me as we watched our neighbor. “Yep, I’ve seen him do it too. I don’t think he is conscious…Doc, is he turning? Like becoming undead or something?”

“I don’t think Mr. Green is a zombie. He looks healthy enough to me. Maybe he is sleepwalking.” I reasoned.

Alice looked over at Petey holding Chester. “Oh my God!” She snatched the item from Chester’s mouth. It was a dingy-looking one-hundred-dollar bill covered with lint and dust.

I stared at it. “Petey, was this downstairs when you went to bed?” I looked at the bill as if it might be a figment of my imagination.

“Nope. He must have gone exploring into the passages last night.” The young werewolf mused. “But which one, I wonder.”

“Doc!” Alice shrieked at the top of her voice. “I don’t care what Joe says. We’ve got to get into those tunnels today! There is Ghost Pirate money just begging to be found.

"Are there Ghost Pirates as well as zombies running around in this neighborhood?" asked Petey. You should get some kind of property tax break for that."

"No Petey, the only Ghost Pirates are inside of her greedy red-haired head." I mumbled.

Outside, mild-mannered Ralph Green heard Alice shriek. He quit doing the pajama shuffle and straightened up. “Where am I?” he moaned. “Oh God, not this again!” He turned and stumbled back to his house.