an extraordinarily long time. He cradled the receiver.
“Well, you are certainly not a vampire. And you are too substantial for a ghost. There are no wrappings. You have neither been frozen nor submerged in a bog. You do have ghoulish traits, but from your behavior I will wager that you are a zombie.” Dagdon grinned, triumphant, solving the riddle. Probably, from the looks of things, his last.
The complication’s demeanor was steadily crumbling, along with his mood. “I’m sick,” he grunted. “I’m having despicable urges. I can’t resist them anymore.”
“Okay then. You’re all set.” Dagdon shut his briefcase and retreated to the entrance. “Your situation has been reviewed. Help is on the way. Not that the whitecoats aren’t somewhat wacko themselves. But who isn’t these days? Besides me.” A nervous chuckle. “On the bright side, there won’t be any charge for my services.”
Drooling, the big problem blocked the door. “Stay.” He clamped a paw onto his scrawnier guest’s shoulder. “It’s time for lunch,” he invited. His nose dropped to the floor. “I’m starved. I haven’t had a bite all day.”
“No offense. Maybe you ought to lose some weight. And not just by parts of you falling off. Go on a strict diet. Fruit and vegetables.” Dagdon bobbed his cranium, then wagged it wheedling, “You don’t want me. I’m skinny, bone and gristle. B-b-b-b-bad for your digestion.”
The zombie glowered. “ARE YOU CALLING ME FAT???” he roared.
Dagdon Klinker’s legs quaked. He visibly shrank before the hulking ogre.
Rugbert devolved to a snarling, grimacing, one-track-minded menace. Hoisting the thin guy off his feet, the zombie jacked salivating jaws as if to swallow him whole. Gulping, Dagdon clobbered his adversary with the briefcase. The undead heathen did not even flinch. He tore the valise from the smaller man’s grip and bit a chunk out of it, then cast it aside.
“Oh, wow, that’s . . . not nice! I’m going to have to bill you for that,” threatened Dagdon. He indignantly kicked his dangling feet. “Put me down this instant!” It was like something out of a cartoon. He abhorred cartoons.
The noseless one-eared zombie spat a gob of chewed briefcase at Dagdon’s visage.
“That’s it!” The nerdy Fixer unbuttoned his tweed suit jacket. Wielding a brace of disposable inkpens from the pocket-protector in the breast pouch of his shirt, he plunged them into the zombie’s wildly glaring orbs with a furious battle-cry: “YAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”
Inexplicably, no blood spurted. A hissing sound emitted. Goliath sank to his knees and timbered woodenly forward. The cadaver deflated, its skeleton magically disappearing, the way a balloon shrivels to a wrinkled elasticky hide.
It took Dagdon, meanwhile, some time to land in a heap of gangly limbs. He had hung for a moment, paralyzed, riding a wave of sentiment. Cognizance jolted him like electric juice — no, like the tail of an eel — no, no, more like the whiplash of a dragon’s wallop — that this conduct might be construed as cartoonish in manner. He thudded the floor, stunned and revolted, yet relieved to be alive.
The man nonetheless was changed by the incident. He thereafter would not answer the phone. He grew allergic to bubblegum. He suffered nightmares in the daylight about Jack-O-Lantern clowns. And he refused to make housecalls. The quirkies or crazies or zombies of his world would have to schedule an appointment.