The Zombies Of Lake Woebegotten by Harrison Geillor

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    Dolph shuddered and stepped on the gas a bit, though he was following Harry and Stevie Ray’s squad car, so he couldn’t go any faster than they were. They finally reached the police station, which was really just a wing of the town hall, though it did have a jail cell, and Dolph watched as Stevie Ray frog-marched Mr. Levitt in through the side door. Harry came over, as did Otto and Rufus, to peer into the bed of the truck where the zombie struggled. “What do we do with him?” Dolph said.
    “You got that big walk-in freezer, right?” Harry said. “You mind tucking him in there until tonight’s meeting?”
    Dolph stared at him. “You want me to put an undead monster in my store ?”
    “Just for a few hours.” Harry’s face was totally bland and vaguely pleasant, and Dolph’s outrage melted under his calm gaze. “It’s just I’m going to be a little busy trying to contact the county sheriff and the state police and booking a multiple murderer and trying to organize a town meeting, so I’m stretched a little thin. You don’t mind helping out?”
    “Of course not,” Dolph said, and muttered something about civic duty that made Harry slap him on the shoulder and say “Good man!” Some people at the last town meeting had been agitating to fire Harry and disband the local police department, like a lot of little towns all over the country were doing—you could subcontract out to the county sheriff for less than the cost of Harry’s salary and whatever they paid Stevie Ray, but enough people liked having the personal touch and the familiar face in the town cruiser, and nobody much liked the idea of outsiders coming in and sniffing around the town’s crimes. Much better to have Harry there, who’d known everybody for years and could be counted on for a certain level of discretion, even if he could get a little too liberal with the traffic tickets as the end of the fiscal year loomed.  
    “We can help you with him,” Rufus offered, and Otto looked at his nephew sharply. Otto was a lazy son of a gun, Dolph mused, and how he managed to make a living selling things to farmers was a mystery—he must have quite a store of dirty jokes in Norwegian, or else people just bought things from him to make him go away. Dolph had never had another customer besides Otto who haggled over the price of a tin of chewing tobacco, and Dolph had quit carrying Otto’s brand in self-defense. His nephew was a little odd—with that wispy sad mustache-fuzz, and was that a tattoo of a spiderweb peeking out of the collar of his coat?—but at least he hadn’t puked when faced with zombies like his uncle had. Given his choice, Dolph would have preferred to have Rufus by his side in a fight over Otto, but thought he might ultimately be better off facing whatever came at him alone.  
    “No, I need the pair of you to come in and give Stevie Ray your statement about what you saw at Mr. Levitt’s house,” Harry said. “We’ll have you come in later, Dolph. I have to get the state police on the horn, see if they can send a crime scene tech…”
    Rufus shook his head. “Good luck. I bet the state police are pretty busy trying to stop St. Paul from being eaten by the living dead. You didn’t see it. It’s bad over there.”
    Harry shrugged. “We’ll see. Come on inside. You take care, Dolph.” He grinned. “And don’t leave town.”
    Where would I go? Dolph thought. He got back in the truck and drove up around the town square to his store, parking in the loading zone around back. After checking to make sure the zombie was secure, he went in through the back door and called, “Clem! Clem, I need your help unloading something.”
    Clem the boy wonder didn’t answer, so Dolph went into the front of the store and found him slumped on the stool behind the register with his face on the counter, drool puddling by his cheek. Dolph smacked him on the back of the head, and Clem groaned and lifted his head like it was full of