Page 28 of Plaidypus
If my brother hinted any harder about what he thought I should be doing, he might hurt himself—or kill off my few remaining IQ points. “Icy is worth committing a felony or two over. When you aren’t making fun of me and my moose, I’d commit a felony or two for you, too.”
“The whole idea is to avoid committing any felonies.”
Glaring at my brother earned me an unrepentant grin. “Zombies don’t heal, do they?”
“No, they don’t.” Leonard got to his feet and headed for the door of my brother’s lair, snagging his briefcase, which contained his scanner. “I’ll run another diagnostic while you keep her company. Maybe that way I’ll have some hair by the time she’s done with me.”
Icy did seem to have a taste for hair—or anything that got in range of her mouth. Fortunately for me, she tended to limit her chewing to lipping rather than biting. If the moose decided to start biting, she would win.
Moose always won. It was a rule of surviving the Canadian outdoors.
I followed Leonard, as did my brother.
Once outside, Icy came over to me, and to prove my point, I brushed away the snow and ice clumping on her coat in a few patches I remembered having been torn up during the collision. “This area used to be shredded. She went through the windshield and got caught up on some jagged metal bits here.” To further prove my point, I moved her fur, so Leonard could view the skin, which showed no sign of damage. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was a healthy, living moose. If it weren’t for the ice and snow, you wouldn’t be able to tell there was something wrong.”
“You’re right. It does look like she’s been healing during the blizzard. That would make her a new type of zombie, which is good news for her.”
“Beyond being tested?” I complained. “How is being tested a good thing?”
“Well, the CDC will have a vested interest in her survival, which means the tests can’t be too invasive, as they aren’t sure what will kill her. It’s only if they think they can get away with it that the testing can get a bit brutal. Lycanthropes often endure some brutal testing. The pay is good for those tests, but it doesn’t change much on the brutality front. Lycanthropes are just compensated well to endure it.”
“Can I decline any invasive or brutal testing?”
“Generally, yes. You’ll be told exactly what will be done during the tests and given the option to opt out of any tests you can’t tolerate. Your dual-species status will put you in the queue for advanced testing, which can be lucrative.”
“How lucrative?”
“One set of tests could buy your new truck with every bell and whistle—after taxes.”
Damn. “Until I see proof of this new truck, I’m going to believe it’s a hallucination my brother concocted to convince me to move. As I’m gullible, I’m buying into it because I’m really hoping the hallucination is real.”
Leonard raised a brow. “The truck is real. I helped your brother navigate through the paperwork. You’ll have to sign for the vehicle in Toronto, but that’s it. It’s paid off and ready to go as soon as you reach the dealership. It’ll take a few hours to deal with the paperwork, I’m sure. It always takes a few hours to deal with the paperwork.”
“Fucking bureaucracy,” my brother muttered.
“I still don’t understand how the video could have gotten that much money. Trucks aren’t cheap. I saved up the entirety of my adult life to buy my truck. And that alone is worth crying over post-accident, so no judgement out of you!”
Matthieu held his hands up. “I’m not judging. Hell, I would have cried, too. I know how hard you worked to get that truck. For the record, I will be recording when you see the truck, and I am hoping the reaction also goes viral. We get paid for views and the number of people who subscribe to our channel.”
“We have a channel?”
“We do now,” my brother announced.
“You want me to do more announcing, don’t you.”
“Yes, I do. Don’t even try to convince me you didn’t want to be an announcer growing up. On ridiculous, random shit—like various undead attacking each other. Or a regular trip to Timmy’s in the early morning when people aren’t awake and shit gets weird.”
I had wanted to be an announcer—until I’d learned sports were male dominated and few appreciated female commentators or announcers. Every rare now and then, a woman made waves calling the action on a big game, but not often. “Well, if people would stop delaying my acquisition of coffee, shit wouldn’t get weird,” I grumbled.
“Would you like some hot cocoa before I run the scanner on Icy?” Leonard asked.
I spent a few moments thinking about it, and then I nodded. “I think I’m going to need extra hot cocoa to cope with sending Icy off to a new home.”
“I’ll call the CDC and ask if there are any updates on undead types they can send to my scanner while I make your cocoa,” he replied, before heading off to take over my kitchen.
“Are you sure he’s actually a lycanthrope?” I whispered to Matthieu on our way back to his basement lair.
“He seems to be,” he replied when we reached the bottom of the stairs. “Why?”
