Wicked Appetite (Lizzy and Diesel 1)

Carl wandered onto the grave site and picked through the massacred junk, testing out peanut butter cups, jelly beans, and pretzel nuggets. He stuffed an unscathed box of Pop-Tarts under his arm, and he latched onto a can of Easy Cheese.

“I need to talk to Shirley,” Diesel said, heading for the lot.

“Good luck with that.” Unless he spoke gobble, he was going to have a problem.

Shirley was at her car when Diesel and I caught up.

“I need to talk to you,” he said. “It’s important. Is there anything else you can tell us about your uncle or the inheritance?”

Shirley looked at him like he was from Mars.

“Okay, so you can only gobble,” Diesel said. “We can communicate in writing.”

Shirley took a pad and pen from the glovebox, scribbled something, tore the paper off, and handed it to Diesel.

“What does it say?” I asked Diesel.

Diesel read from the paper. “Gobble. Gobble. Gobble.”

“Are you kidding?” I asked Shirley.

Shirley sucked in air, her mouth compressed, and her eyes shrunk to the size of little ball bearings. “Gobble,” she growled. And then she launched herself at me, wrapped her hands around my neck, and took me down to the ground, where we rolled around slapping and shrieking.

Diesel stepped in and separated us, dragging me to my feet, keeping Shirley at arm’s length. “If you’re not going to do this in Jell-O, it’s not worth watching,” he said to me.

“Crikey,” I said to Shirley. “You need to get a grip on yourself.”

Shirley wrenched away from Diesel and dusted herself off. “Grmmph,” she said. And then she deflated like a balloon with a leak. And a tear slid down her cheek.

“I guess this has been a hard week,” I said to her.

Shirley took a tissue out of her pocket and dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose.

“We’ll figure it out,” I said. “We just have to find the right spell.”

Shirley nodded, still looking deflated. She slumped into her car, cranked the engine over, and drove away.

“I was trying to be positive,” I said to Diesel, “but honestly, I’m not sure we can un-gobble Shirley.”

Diesel watched her leave the lot. “I’m not sure we want to. I don’t want to hear what she has to say if she ever goes normal again.”

A light rain was sifting down on us, and the cloud cover was the color and texture of wet cement. Not ideal weather for a cemetery visit. Not ideal weather for anything. Diesel and I climbed into the SUV, and Carl scampered in after us. Carl’s movie had run its course, but he had a cache of food to occupy him.

“Did you feel anything at all when you were on Phil’s grave?” Diesel asked.

“No.”

“Feeling something would tell us a lot. Feeling nothing tells us nothing.”

“Do you really think Phil might not be there?”

“The grave has been disturbed, and grave robbing isn’t beyond Wulf.”

“Why would Wulf want Phil?”

“Don’t know.”

“And where would he put him?”