Page 46 of Slayer Mom
He grunted and hefted the chainsaw to chop a zombie diagonally while swinging his club. I hadn’t gotten to see much of his fight, but the zombies were thinning around me, around him too, enough that there was breathing room.
The silly man on the counter clapped his hands and a bright green portal opened behind him, looking out on glossy green hills with cartoon looking castles on top. He studied Hazen with a strange expression. “You’re the boring husband and father of her two children who had to go to the special boarding school? Now I understand.” He looked at me and opened his mouth to say something.
“Aren’t you late?” Hazen snarled and then hurled the chainsaw at him. The weirdo stepped back intothe portal and it snapped closed, cutting off the blade and leaving the engine to fall to the counter with a thud.
There were still zombies. I almost absently killed two of them while trying to understand what had just happened, but maybe there was nothing to understand. Madness was notoriously inexplicable, and the one thing everyone knew about Wonderland, is that they were all mad there. Not like I could talk, because I was killing zombies with a frying pan, and my sensible mom bob was purple, and my husband was wearing a goop-spattered hockey face mask like a psycho killer.
With two hands, he really practiced his golf swing.
The phone rang.
“Who would call at three a.m?” I asked, slashing through a neck and then kicking the body back while I whirled on another monster that was angling at me with its maw.
“Mom?”
Apparently, our advanced phone system decided my question was as good as an answer.
“Lock? What’s up, honey?” I stared at the zombie in front of me and then bashed him with the frying pan, smashing his brains against the kitchen counter.
“Is dad there?”
I glanced over at Hazen as he swung hard enough to send a head going one way and the body another. “Sure thing. Honey, Lock’s on the phone.”
“What’s going on? It’s a little late to call,” Hazen said.
“Wat’s run away. They sent the hall supervisor after him, and I’m sure everything will be fine, but I know that you’d want to know.”
“And I wouldn’t?” I demanded then stabbed a zombie through the forehead and exploded his brains away from me.
“Oh. You’re on speaker. Sorry, mom. I didn’t want to worry you.”
“She’s entitled to be worried,” Hazen said, giving me a meaningful look, at least I’d pretend it was meaningful. Hard to tell under a hockey mask. He swung his club hard enough to sink into the temple of a monster.
“Thanks, babe. How long has he been gone, Lock?” He’d probably just snuck into the cafeteria for a snack.
“Hours. He claimed to be sick, so he missed classes. Afterwards, I went to check up on him, but his bed was piled with pillows, you know, tucked in, so he looked like he was sleeping. He’s probably fine, just ran down to town to check out the candy store or something. Mom, how are you doing? I haven’t talked to you for a while. Dad said that you got a job?”
I smashed another zombie. “Now is not the time to talk about that, not while Wat is missing. Thank you for telling us. We’ll call the superintendent and find out what’s being done.”
“Right. Maybe after this, we can have a long talk. Maybe come home for a visit? Or maybe you can come here. I miss you.” He sounded almost desperate.
“Of course.” Except that I was going to run far away from everything so nothing bad could hurt my family.
“Thank you, Lock,” Hazen said. “Disconnect.” The phone went quiet, and we were left with the zombies, of which only three were left. Two after Hazen struck one particularly viciously.
I stabbed one and bashed another, and that left us standing in a body-strewn kitchen with a nice cold breeze blowing in from the former glass doors.
He pointed his golf club at me. “You should take a salt soak, then we can get a hotel for the night.”
He had a point, but I wasn’t about to leave zombies all over the kitchen. “I think we can use the big composter to burn the zombies.”
He sighed heavily. “Sure. I’ll do that, but you need to take a salt soak. You smell very strongly of nutmeg. You could probably smell it from the gate, further if you were an undead monster.”
“What should we do about Wat?”
“I’ll call the supe while you soak.” He pushed back his face mask and put his gloved hands on my shoulders. “You’re amazing. I’ve never seen you wielding a frying pan with so much grace and power.” He was so handsome, strong, sweet, and with a cleft chin that I wanted to kiss when I didn’t want to punch it.
“I’m like the frying pan ballerina.” I definitely wanted to kiss it. To kiss him.
