Scatman Dues (Freaky Florida Mystery Adventures Book 6) Read online

  I reached for my cellphone and clicked the button for the flashlight. An anemic yellow light flickered once, then died.

  Darkness swallowed me up—just as it had my partner.

  “Grayson!” I screamed.

  Suddenly, a horrible claw-like hand grabbed my arm. As I struggled for my Glock, I caught a glimpse of its eyes in the moonlight.

  They were green.

  “Geezus, Grayson!” I hissed. “You scared the crap out of me!”

  “Keep it down!” he said, grabbing my cellphone.

  “If you’re looking for the flashlight, don’t bother. It’s dead,” I said.

  “So’s my flashlight,” he said. “I don’t understand. I just changed the batteries.”

  “Seriously?” I hissed. “We’re about to become hors d’oeuvres for some intergalactic microwave, and you’re worried Walmart cheated you with expired batteries?”

  In a sliver of moonlight, I could just make out Grayson cocking his head. “No, Drex. You don’t understand. Power drains like this are commonly reported by those encountering interdimensional phenomena.”

  I gulped. “So it’s an interdimensional microwave?”

  “Not exactly. Here. Hold this.”

  Grayson pressed his dead flashlight into my hand. Then he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out his cellphone.

  Suddenly, the glowing orange ring began to pulse.

  My mouth fell open. “Uh-oh. What does that mean?”

  Grayson studied the pulsing orb. “Uncertain,” he said. “It could be powering up.”

  “Powering up?” I gasped. Deep inside me, I thought I felt an ovary shrivel. “Look, Grayson. I don’t know what’s going on here, and I’m not hanging around to find out.”

  I turned to run, but my boots tripped up in the muck. I lost my balance and was heading for a date with a mud bath when Grayson’s arm caught me around the middle, just in the nick of time.

  “Thanks,” I gasped.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, pulling me face-to-face with him.

  “Now please, can we get the hell out of here?” I begged.

  “Shhh!” he said, laying a finger to my lips. “You might disturb it!”

  “I might disturb it?” I yelled, pulling free of him. “Are you nuts? We gotta get out of here, Grayson. We need backup!”

  “Fine,” he said. “Just let me get a couple of quick shots of it first.”

  “Are you cra—”

  I froze mid-sentence as a hot, white light seared my retinas. But it hadn’t come from that freaking space microwave. It was the flash from Grayson’s stupid cellphone camera.

  “Are you kidding me?” I hissed, blinking back the white dots swimming before my eyes in a sea of red.

  Another flash went off.

  I stumbled forward, trying to punch Grayson in the face. My ovaries were at stake!

  Then, suddenly, just as mine had, Grayson’s cellphone display faded and blinked out. Darkness again zoomed in on us like a black fog.

  “Great,” I muttered. “Now what?”

  All of a sudden, a low grumbling began emanating from the direction of the glowing ring. Then an inhuman, high-pitched whine filled the air, making every hair on my body stand on end.

  “It sounds like it’s gonna blow!” I squealed.

  “Intriguing,” Grayson said. “Listen. The frogs and insects have gone dead silent.”

  He was right. All I could hear was my pulse thrumming in my ears.

  Man, oh, man, this is sooo not good...

  Then I heard it.

  Something was crashing through the underbrush.

  Something big.

  And it was heading right for us.

  “Huh,” I heard Grayson say some paces behind me. “Whatever it is, it must be sensitive to light.”

  “You think?” I hissed between gritted teeth as I crashed through the forest like a wigged-out wildebeest.

  Chapter Ten

  I was exhausted and panting like a panther in heat when I scrabbled my way out of the woods and into the cleared shoulder of the road. I gasped for air, noticing the stars above provided just enough light to turn the landscape into a charcoal rendering of itself.

  A branch snapped in the forest behind me.

  I spun around, still wheezing.

  I strained to see into the dark woods. There was no sign of the glowing form I’d just run from. But there was no doubt about it. Something was crashing through the cypress swamp in my direction. I recognized his heavy breathing.

  “Grayson!” I yelled as he stumbled toward me and the clearing. “You made it out!”

  “Yes,” he gasped. “No thanks to you, by the way.”

  “Me?” I wheezed. “I’m not the one who flashed the damned monster!”

  Suddenly, a flash of bluish light blinded me.

  “Not again!” I yelled.

  “That wasn’t me,” Grayson said.

  I looked around and realized we were both caught in a laser beam of light. I froze in place like a fish in liquid nitrogen.

  “Ha!” a voice rang out. “Flashed the monster, did ya? So you two finally went and done the deed!”

  Annoyance thawed my brain in half a millisecond.

  Earl!

  If I hadn’t been so happy to see my dumb cousin, I’d have slapped him bald-headed.

  “Howdy, Mr. G!” Earl hollered, then lowered the beam blasting from his industrial-sized flashlight.

  Grayson sprinted toward Earl. I followed, hot on his heels.

  “It may be fortuitous ...,” Grayson gasped, still trying to catch his breath, “to expeditiously dispatch ourselves ... from the immediate premises.”

  Earl cocked his shaggy head. “You mean on account of the premises that you two was gettin’ it on?”

  “No!” I yelled. “He means we need to get the hell out of here. Now!”

  Earl chuckled. “Don’t get your panties in a wad, Cuz. While you two was off gallivantin’ on yore romantical stroll, I done got the RV hooked up and ready to tow.”

  “Thank God!” I yelled, and ran for my cousin’s monster truck. As I hauled myself up inside, I started to yell through the window for them to hurry up, but nearly choked on my own spit instead.

  From my vantage point six feet above the ground, I could see the edges of that weird, glowing orb.

  Good lord! It’s still there!

  I waved frantically at Grayson and Earl. “Good, grief! Come on, you two! Get a move on!”

  Earl shrugged. “What’s the rush?”

  “Can’t you see?” I screeched. “The sky over there. It’s lit up like a freaking aurora borealis!”

  Earl scratched his head. “You mean that ugly gal at church what had the mole on her eyelid?”

  “No! That was Aurora Borillis. Now get your ass behind the wheel and get us the hell out of here! Now!”

  “WHAT’D Y’ALL DO? NOT pay your parking tickets, or what?” Earl asked as he piled in behind the wheel of the huge, black monster truck he’d nicknamed Bessie.

  “Not even close,” I grumbled, straddling the gear shift while Grayson got the passenger window. “Just go!”

  Earl chuckled. “You got it, Cuz.”

  I braced for liftoff, but Earl shifted Bessie into first and eased his foot gingerly on the gas pedal.

  “What the?” I said.

  “Hold onto your hat,” Earl said, then stomped the gas pedal like it was a fleeing cockroach.

  Bessie’s engine roared to life. Above the din, I heard Grayson’s old RV groan like a geriatric dinosaur.

  For a moment we all sat motionless in suspense, as if time had stood still. Then, suddenly, we jolted forward as if we’d been rammed from behind by a Mack truck.

  Bessie had just yanked the old RV loose from the muck.

  “Here we go,” Earl said, easing up on the gas. Slowly and carefully, he maneuvered the dilapidated Winnebago off the muddy shoulder and onto the asphalt of the narrow backroad.

  “We’re free,�
�� I said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Now punch it, Earl!”

  Earl eyed me curiously, the way a tortoise might inspect a suspicious lettuce leaf. “I still don’t see what all the rush is about.”

  “There’s some kind of weird ring of light in the woods,” I hissed, my hysteria rising again. “It could be dangerous. Right, Grayson?”

  Grayson shrugged. “Possibly.”

  “Well, what exactly is it?” Earl asked.

  I scowled and lifted my left foot. If my idiot cousin wasn’t going to hit the gas, I was!

  “I’m not sure,” Grayson said. “I need to do some testing to be certain. But I believe we may have just discovered an intergalactic portal.”

  My left leg went limp.

  What the hell?

  Earl shook his bear-like head. “They got port-a-lets in space?”

  I stared at Grayson. “A portal? Are you serious?”

  Grayson shrugged. “Only time will tell.”

  My lip snarled. “Is that some kind of sick geek joke?”

  “So, which way we headed, y’all?” Earl asked.

  “To Operative Garth’s compound,” Grayson said.

  “Woohoo!” Earl hollered. “Wait’ll that ol’ boy finds out we done found us an outhouse in space!”

  “No!” I said, elbowing Earl in the gut. “We can’t tell Garth a word about this.”

  Earl looked down at me. “Why not, party pooper?”

  “Because he’ll broadcast it all over that ham radio of his,” I snarled back.

  Earl shrugged. “So what?”

  I turned to Grayson. “If Garth gets wind of this, every nutcase in the world will be tromping all over the woods trying to find your so-called ‘portal.’”

  Grayson locked eyes with me. “And your point is?”

  “Seriously?” I said, anger rising in my throat. “I’ve got three. For one, any evidence at the scene will be trampled. Two, if we’re wrong, we’ll all become laughingstocks—including Jimmy. And thirdly, if this thing really is a portal like you say it might be, we don’t want it falling into the wrong hands, right?”

  “Excellent,” Grayson nodded.

  “Geez. It’s just basic reasoning,” I said.

  Grayson’s cheek dimpled. “I know. And you rose to the challenge. Good job, cadet.”

  I frowned. “Happy I could jump through your hoops.”

  “Still, we have to report something back to Garth,” Grayson said. “What should we tell him?”

  “The truth,” I said. “That we got stuck in the mud and had to be towed by Earl.”

  Grayson eyed me like a proud professor. “Hmm. A lie of omission.”

  “A mission?” Earl said. “Hot dog! We’re on a mission!”

  Please. Someone shoot me now...

  Chapter Eleven

  I flushed the toilet, then stared at my face in the miniscule mirror in the RV’s tiny bathroom. I felt slightly nauseated. My face seemed pinker than normal.

  Holy crap! Did I get radiation poisoning last night?

  “I don’t get paid enough for this shit,” I muttered.

  I took a deep breath, braced myself, then yanked open the door. I padded down the hall and into the main cabin, where I could hear Earl and Grayson in the middle of some sort of discussion. Since Earl was involved, I knew it wouldn’t be an intellectual one.

  “And that’s how Sally, my two-headed turtle, got her name,” Earl said.

  Nailed it.

  “Look who finally dragged herself up outta the sack,” Earl said with that cheerful, happy-go-lucky tone of his that, without sufficient caffeine, made me want to punch his teeth in.

  “Drex suffers from dysania,” Grayson said.

  Earl snorted. “Then I sure hope she flushed twice.”

  A divot formed in Grayson’s cheek. “Dysania is the chronic inability to get out of bed in the morning.”

  “Oh,” Earl said, and shot me a wink. “My momma called that being a lazy ass.”

  “Ha ha, wise guys.” I shot them a sneer and grabbed for a coffee cup. “Anyway, I’m not feeling right this morning. Does my face look red to you?”

  Earl chuckled. “No more’n normal. But then again, if’n I looked like you, I’d be permanently embarrassed, too.”

  I picked up the carafe of coffee and snarled, “Might I remind you, I haven’t had my first cup yet?”

  Earl winced. “Oops. My bad.” His eyes darted to Grayson, who was sitting in the banquette booth across from him. “So, Mr. G., what’s on the agenda for today?”

  “The agenda?” he asked, putting a pinch of salt in his coffee.

  “Yeah,” Earl said. “You know, our mission. To find out what happened to ol’ Jimmy boy.”

  “Right,” Grayson said, tapping a finger on his mug. “Well, before we began discussing bi-cranial amphibians, I was researching interdimensional portals.”

  “Why?” Earl asked. “You think ol’ Jimmy got sucked up into that thang?”

  I laughed. “With any luck, you will, too.”

  Earl grinned. “Cool!”

  “I need to run some tests of the area’s electromagnetic field,” Grayson said, ignoring us. “But given the visual anomaly we observed last night, plus the fact that Jimmy has apparently vanished, an interdimensional portal seems to best fit the evidence at hand.”

  My nose crinkled. “Wait a minute. You agree with Earl? You think Jimmy got sucked up into that glowing microwave hole?”

  A knock sounded at the side door. I slammed my coffee cup down on the counter and shot Earl and Grayson my best wait till your father gets home evil eye. “Not a word about this to Garth. You hear me?”

  Before I could take a step, the side door opened. A frizzy blond mullet attached to a buck-toothed head poked itself inside.

  “Miss Pandora,” Garth said, sounding like Kermit with emphysema. “Good morning, m’ lady.”

  “Hi,” I replied, noticing, with gratitude, that he’d washed his Kentucky waterfall. “Looks like you’re feeling a little better today.”

  Garth smiled weakly, then coughed until he nearly strangled. “Some, thanks.”

  “Come in,” Grayson said.

  Garth wiped his nose on his sleeve and shuffled inside. I handed him a cup of coffee, then remembered my red face and the slight case of nausea I had that morning. I scowled.

  Could I have caught this twerp’s creeping crud?

  “So, what happened last night?” Garth asked, holding his cup with both shaky hands. “Did you find Jimmy?”

  “Not exactly,” Grayson said. “He may have slipped into another dim—”

  I sealed Grayson’s lips with a death ray, then turned and gave Garth an apologetic smile. “What Grayson meant to say is that Jimmy gave us the slip.”

  Garth’s shoulders slumped. “Oh.”

  “Howdy, Garth,” Earl said. “You look like you’re wrastlin’ with the flu bug.”

  “Oh. Hi, Earl. Sorry,” Garth said, pushing his glasses up on his red nose. “I didn’t know you were helping out with the investigation.”

  Earl grinned proudly. “Well, you know—”

  “He’s not,” I said. “We got stuck in the mud last night and had to be towed. That’s the only reason Earl’s here.”

  “Stuck in the mud?” Garth asked, flopping onto the broken couch like a damp sack of dirty laundry. “Where’d you lose his trail?”

  “His signal blinked out about five or six miles south of here, off Turkey Creek Road.”

  Garth winced. “Crap.”

  “Agreed,” Grayson said. “Battery drainage is a sign—”

  “That you can’t trust cellphone reception around here,” I finished.

  “You’re right,” Garth said, crestfallen. “But it was the only thing I could think of to do. Jimmy only came home for a few minutes at a time—mostly to check the mail and get a shower. I didn’t have time to rig anything more elaborate. Plus, I’m not exactly at my mental or physical best at the moment.”

  I would
certainly hope not.

  “Any word from him last night?” I asked.

  Garth sighed. “No. I was hoping he’d come home again before my phone batteries died. Or at least long enough for me to recharge them.” Garth blew his nose into a hanky. “So, where were you on Turkey Creek Road when he gave you the slip?”

  “I’m not exactly sure,” I said.

  “I seen a sign,” Earl said. “Somethin’ about a mallard park, I think.”

  “Oh,” Garth said, perking up a bit. “I bet you were out by the old Hi-Ho area.”

  “Could’a been,” Earl said. “But I didn’t see no ladies of the evenin’ out there.”

  Garth’s head cocked to one side. “That’s a local nickname for Edward Medard Park. It’s an old phosphate mining area. Full of hills and holes—hi ho. Get it?”

  “Oh,” I said. “Cute. But right now, we need to focus on our next steps.”

  Garth bobbed his head like a low-rent gangster. “Ward, man.”

  I cringed. “I believe the ghetto slang term is ‘word,’ Garth, not ‘ward.’”

  Garth cocked his head at me. “No. I meant WWARD. As in, ‘What Would Amazing Randi Do?’”

  “Ah!” Grayson said. “Of course!”

  “Seriously?” I muttered, shaking my head. “If I was Randi I’d run away and join the circus.”

  Garth snorted, blowing a snot bubble. “Good one, Pandora.”

  Grayson laughed, too.

  “Uh ... sorry guys,” I said. “I don’t get it.”

  Garth’s mouth fell open. “I thought you knew, Pandora. Uncle Randi never finished high school. He dropped out and joined a traveling carnival.”

  My gut fell four inches. “You’re kidding.”

  Garth wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Nope.”

  I shook my head. “But I thought Randi was this big cheese in the scientific world.”

  “He was,” Garth said. “But he never went to college, either. When he was in his late fifties, he was awarded a MacArthur fellowship. You might know it as a ‘genius grant.’”

  Earl gasped. “Your uncle was a bona fide genius?”

  Garth beamed with pride. “He was when it came to debunking paranormal and pseudoscientific claims.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” Earl said, nodding in admiration. “What got him all stoked up over provin’ ghoulies and haints was fakes?”