Scatman Dues (Freaky Florida Mystery Adventures Book 6) Margaret Lashley (ink ebook reader txt) 📖

first contact with aliens last night,” I said. “Could that’ve done it?”

“Doubtful,” Grayson said. “Given Earl’s outstanding ability to maintain high levels of alpha waves, I don’t believe fear was a factor for him.” He tapped a spidery finger on his chin. “There must be an underlying environmental cause.”

“Wait!” I said. “Earl ran through those hot coals last night. Maybe he burned his feet and has an infection!”

“Good thinking,” Grayson said. “Pull his feet out and let’s check.” He glanced at me.

I turned and glared at Garth until he shriveled.

“I’ll do it,” Garth muttered.

He padded over to the broken sofa-bed, where Earl lay wedged inside it like a giant white grub in a plaid-upholstered cocoon. Garth winced, closed his eyes, and tugged out one of Earl’s size 13 clodhoppers.

“Appears normal,” Grayson said. “Let’s see the other one.”

Garth bent over the end of the sofa and yanked on Earl’s other leg. Ultimately, the bottoms of both feet turned out to be as pink and smooth as bubblegum.

“Hmm,” Grayson said, examining Earl’s legs. “None of the scratches look infected either. Perhaps we’d better just let him sleep it off.”

AFTER LISTENING TO Earl snore until late afternoon, worry got the better of me. “Grayson, what if he doesn’t sleep it off?”

“I’m sure he will,” Grayson said. “Since he appears otherwise healthy, Earl’s delirium must’ve been brought on by something he ingested. All that candy, most likely.”

“Oh my word,” I said, slapping my forehead. “I almost forgot. Those Cruller people! The skinny one in the golden robe ... he put something on Earl’s tongue!”

“What did it look like?” Garth asked.

“I didn’t get a good look at it,” I said. “I think it was round.”

“A donut hole?” Garth asked.

“Highly doubtful,” Grayson said.

I frowned at Grayson. “Why not? Another case of your stupid ‘weapon focus’?”

“No,” Grayson said. “Crullers don’t have holes.”

A pain shot through my temple, amplified by the ring of Grayson’s cellphone.

He glanced at his phone’s display. “I better take this.”

Grayson stepped out of the RV and returned less than a minute later, smiling. “Good news, troops. Help is on the way.”

“You called a doctor?” I asked.

“No. That was the Uber Eats driver. He’s at the gate with my tacos.”

LIKE A JELLYFISH, EARL had no discernable brain, but was somehow able to time his hatching to coincide with a good feeding opportunity.

As soon as Garth, Grayson and I sat down to eat, Earl began to stir inside his sofa-bed sarcophagus.

“I told you it would work,” Grayson said, then shoved half a taco into his mouth.

“Right,” I said sourly. “Ordering tacos was all about Earl.”

“Margldisalable,” Earl grunted from inside the couch cushions.

I glanced over just in time to see a Frankenstein arm emerge from the sunken sofa frame.

Then another.

Suddenly, Earl’s head popped up from between the cushions and turned slowly to face us.

The three of us stared, tacos frozen in midair, as Earl slowly hauled himself out of the broken-down couch.

“Earl?” I asked, dropping my taco. “Are you all right?”

Earl’s glazed eyes were pointed in my direction, but they didn’t focus on me. Instead, Earl let out an ungodly wail, then stomped clumsily toward the RV door like a zombie in Fruit-of-the-Loom tighty-whities.

“Earl!” I hollered. “Stop!”

He didn’t respond, but kept clomping toward the door.

“We need to stop him,” I said, trying to scramble out of the booth. But Grayson wrapped his arms around me and held me back.

“Let him go,” he whispered in my ear. “We’re going to follow him.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Grayson shifted the RV into second gear and we stared through the windshield into the dark, butt-end of Earl’s monster truck as it crept down the road, lights off, at the dust-bunny-stirring rate of eight miles an hour.

Garth was on his knees on the floorboard between Grayson and me, hands clasped as if praying for a healing. I hoped he was. Earl was caught up in a strange, zombie-like stupor—and yet somehow managed to get behind the wheel of Bessie and was now weaving the huge truck back and forth across lanes like he’d polished off a fifth of Johnnie Walker.

“Do you really think we should we let him drive in this state?” I asked.

“The roads are empty this time of night,” Garth said. “Besides, haven’t you seen the folks driving around here? This is Central Florida, you know.”

“Even if Earl crashed, he’s not going fast enough to cause much damage,” Grayson said, glancing down at the speedometer. “At his current speed, the only thing in danger of being run over would be a blind, geriatric gopher.”

Grayson was probably right. Still, I chewed my lip and held onto the door handle as we tailgated six feet behind Earl’s truck. He drove slowly and determinedly along the narrow asphalt lane, the tractor tires pinging like pinballs between the centerline reflectors and the rumble strips lining the road’s edge.

Suddenly, Earl’s brake lights flashed.

“Aha!” Grayson exclaimed. “Just as I suspected. He’s returning to the scene of the crime.”

“What crime?” I asked.

“Look over there.” Grayson pointed out the windshield toward an all-too-familiar glow emanating from the woods.

I bit my bottom lip. “Crap. Not the KFC again. What do we do now?”

But I already knew the answer.

Follow Earl.

Like a mummy who forgot his wrapping, my cousin had climbed out of Bessie and was slowly tramping across the muddy clearing on the side of the road, straight toward the woods where we’d been last night. His tighty-whities glowed like a bobbing beacon in the moonlight.

“Let me grab my galoshes from the back of the truck,” I said, flinging open the RV door.

“Good thinking,” Grayson said. “We’ve got time, given his sluggish rate of ambulation.”

We donned our rubber boots while Garth kept an eye on Earl.

“He just went into the woods right over there,” Garth said. “By that big cypress tree.”

“Good,” Grayson said. “Stay here and keep watch over the vehicles.”

“Roger that,” Garth said, looking pensive, but relieved.

“He’s moving faster than we thought,” I said, and took off toward the cypress tree.

I could hear Grayson sloshing in