Zombie Tales: Primrose Court Apt. 205 Read Free

one-thousand-piece puzzle in the mail. Every day I put
thirty-three pieces into place. Thirty three may not sound like
much, but when you’re working with a puzzle placed face down, it
can take hours. I find the repetition of trying one puzzle piece
after another and the grey-brown, cardboard backing to be soothing
in its simplicity.
    My tea kettle began to whistle, I removed the
pot from the stovetop, and pulled one of my mother’s flower
patterned, antique cups from its Zip-Loc wrapping. I take my tea
much as they do in England; two sugar packets and a splash of
milk.
    Settling in at the dining table, I began to
work on this month’s puzzle. The picture on the box depicted two
very adorable kittens in an overturned basket displayed on a hand
woven quilt. When you do your puzzles face down, the picture
doesn’t matter. I go online and order any one-thousand-piece puzzle
that is on sale.
    My mind began to wander and my hands went to
work. For me this was similar to meditation, without any of the
chanting or candles or uncomfortable poses.
    The summer after high school, I was excited
to get out of Oklahoma for good. I had applied to, and been
accepted at, Centenary College in New Jersey. Mom cried when she
heard the news just after graduation, but by the end of summer, she
had come to terms with the idea. She offered to buy me a plane
ticket, but I flatly refused. With my luck there was no way I was
going to board an airplane.
    Mom vetoed the Grey Hound bus because of the
tragic accident that had left me an only child. We compromised and
bought a train ticket. It would mean leaving four days early, but I
didn’t mind at all. Four fewer days as a crappy smelly trailer dork
was alright with me.
    The first day of traveling, I felt queasy and
attribute it to the slow rocking motion of the train as it ambled
east. By the third day, I was spending more time in the lavatory
than in my seat.
    After arriving in Hackettstown I began to
worry, not for me of course, I just had a bad case of the flu. The
first thing I did was research all the flights that had left
Oklahoma City bound for New Jersey. All had arrived safely at their
destinations; in fact, I couldn’t find a single recent plane crash.
I moved on to the Grey Hounds. There had been a fender bender in
Missouri involving a Grey Hound bus, but the incident was minor and
there weren’t any injuries.
    It wasn’t until three days later that Pastor
Landis was finally able to get in touch with me.
    “Theodore,” he said, his deep voice sounding
tinny on the phone, “I think you should sit down. There has been an
accident.”
    I knew right away that my mother was dead.
Pastor Landis said there had been an electrical fire the night I
left. The coroner listed the cause of death as smoke inhalation,
but there had been very little remains left to be positive.
    I didn’t bother to return for the funeral
services. Pastor Landis and the church paid for a cheap coffin and
she was buried in the little cemetery next to the old church. The
only thing that had survived the fire was my mother’s little
Toyota. I donated that to the church, hoping Pastor Landis could
get at least a few hundred out of it.
    He told me if I ever made it back that way my
mother was buried in lot nine row eighteen, if I had any trouble
finding it, just inquire at the church. I never did go back; I
didn’t see the point. I had dead family in three different
states.
    I was making good time with my puzzle,
twenty-seven pieces in less than two hours. I heard the front
entrance door slam hard enough to rattle my windows and decided to
investigate. I needn’t have hurried; I was at the peephole for a
full two minutes before Mr. Grimly came trudging into view. In one
hand, he carried a few grocery bags and in the other was a large,
black case. I wondered at that, to me it looked like the kind of
case that an instrument would be carried in; too small to be a tuba
or sax, maybe a clarinet would fit, a flute was