Voodoo Children - A Bubba the Monster Hunter Short Story by John Hartness Page B

he was. All I ended up
with was a hell of a sunburn, but he wanted to keep track of me
ever since.
    “ Alright, alright, I was in
a titty bar. But that don’t explain the thing with
Erlene!”
    “ Should I even bother to
remind you that she’s your cousin?”
    “ Second cousin once removed.
We’re barely blood related at all. But anyway, where am I going and
what am I killing?” Skeeter never told me anything about a case
until it was time for the killing. He said he didn’t want to
clutter my thoughts. I figured he just didn’t like repeating
himself, since I usually only about half listened to him
anyway.
    “ You’re headed out of town
to an old cemetery. There’s been a rash of zombie
attacks.”
    “ Zombies? Slow zombies or
fast zombies? I don’t like fast zombies. Fast zombies ain’t right,
just not natural.”
    “ All evidence points to
these as voodoo zombies, so they would be slow. And you don’t have
to worry about their saliva, either.”
    “ I don’t spend much time
thinking about zombie slobber, Skeeter.”
    “ And this time that’s okay.
Now get on the road and I’ll explain more as you drive.”
     
    Skeeter gave me the skinny as I cruised
through the sorry excuse for a town. You like that? It’s funny,
‘cause he’s skinny, and I said…never mind. I guess you had to be
there. Well anyways, apparently there had been a bunch of robberies
on the eastern side of Columbia, where what passed for hillbilly
high society lived. One of the robbers had been caught in the act,
which was usually a good thing, because robbers tended to talk when
arrested. Problem was, this robber had a long criminal record. A
criminal record that ended in 1987, when he died in a drunk driving
accident. So the local constabulary (I don’t know why the hell
Skeeter can’t just call them the po-po like everybody else) had
consulted with the nearest Catholic Church, which happened to be in
Nashville. Nashville didn’t have very many exorcists on staff right
now, thanks to a bad case of non-belief in these here United
States, so they kicked it up the food chain until they finally got
to Skeeter’s uncle Joe.
    Now most of Skeeter’s family didn’t talk to
Uncle Joe, because of the whole turning Catholic thing, but most of
them didn’t talk to Skeeter neither, because of the whole liking
boys thing. So Skeeter and Uncle Joe got to be buds, because they
was the only people who talk to either of them at the family
reunions, except for Aunt Linda, who had cerebral palsy and didn’t
know enough to do anything but love everybody. So whenever
something came across Uncle Joe’s desk that seemed to need my
particular talents, he sent his favorite nephew a little email, and
we went out and killed a bunch of something. We weren’t officially
on the church’s payroll, but since we weren’t all that holy, we got
to keep any loot the bad guys we smoked were hiding. And
supernatural bad guys usually kept some pretty good loot around, so
we made ends meet. And when we didn’t, Skeeter whored me out as
security for rock concerts.
    I pulled into the cemetery at around ten
o’clock, which I figured would be good zombie-raising time. It was
dark, and the zombies would have plenty of time to shamble off to
wherever they were being sent, steal stuff and bring it back before
the sun came up. I didn’t know if voodoo zombie could run around in
daylight or not, but I preferred to do my killing in the dark. Just
always seemed fitting that way.
    I knew I’d come to the right place because
the gate was wide open. Most cemeteries are pretty good about
locking the gate at dark. Not usually for keeping things in, but
mostly for keeping kids out. I never saw the appeal to making out
in a graveyard myself, but I’ve been killing things that go bump in
the night for a long time, so I reckon the place has kinda lost its
luster for me.
    The three dead guys walking down the path to
the gate were the other indication I’d found the right