a fake mustache and a bright yellow shirt with the words Stage Crew silkscreened on the back, but he wasn’t fooling us. She flitted forward much faster than I could have run even if I weren’t so stiff.
As the opening act finished, the zombie jugglers tossed the shrunken heads out to lucky audience members, then ran off the stage.
Robin said, “We’ve got to get these ghosts out of here, now.” I drew my .38, pointed the gun into the air, and fired off three shots. “Evacuate immediately! This is an emergency!” I could have shot the speakers, but too many unnaturals were crowded up close to the stage. Some of the crowd listened; the others thought it was just theatrical effects and part of the show.
Robin kept shouting. “You’ll all be disintegrated! What are you waiting for?”
We could never get the entire ghostly audience to safety fast enough if Travis was ready to activate the defibs. I fired twice more into the air. Some ghosts began wafting away, alarmed; others stopped at the ticket booth to ask for a refund. I had no idea what sort of range an industrial-strength ectoplasmic defibrillator had. I heard the yowling sirens of squad cars as McGoo brought backup to the cemetery, and the noise added to the panic.
Shakespeare came out onto the stage to calm the crowd, but I ran forward, waving my hands. “Get out, everyone out—especially the ghosts!”
He saw me, decided to take me at my word; if you can’t trust your private detective, who can you trust? He spoke into the amplification system. “Everyone, please remain calm—and run like hell!”
The crowd ran like hell.
Sheyenne pulled herself up in front of her brother, outraged. “You’ve done stupid things in your life, Travis, but what do you think you’re doing?”
“A good deed—and you weren’t supposed to be here!” He backed toward the sound-system bank, holding a remote control pad that I guessed would activate the pulsing generators built into the speakers.
“You want to disintegrate the ghosts in the audience?” Sheyenne placed herself directly in front of him, drifting just out of his reach. “Well, I’m here—go on, do it if you hate unnaturals so much. I’m one of them.”
“Just leave, sis!” His voice trembled. “This is something I’ve gotta do. The senator saved me when I needed it most.”
“You wouldn’t need to be saved if you didn’t keep screwing up! Go ahead, throw the switch, if that’s what you really want. You’ve always resented me for being practical and successful. You can’t stand it, can you? Do you think your life will be better by disintegrating all these innocent ghosts? Will your conscience be clear?”
Travis wrestled with himself; his lower lip trembled. It wasn’t exactly the approach I would have used, but Sheyenne knew her brother better than I did. She stayed right there, glaring at him.
“I can’t disintegrate my own sister,” he finally said, dropping the trigger remote.
I took matters into my own hands, just in case Sheyenne’s little pep talk backfired. While they faced off, I got to the speaker and, using my zombie strength (which is actually overrated), tore out the electrical cables connected to the sound system. A yelp of feedback spilled out of the speakers before they went silent.
Squad cars pulled up by the Greenlawn gates. McGoo led a charge of blue-uniformed policemen into the cemetery where they careened into the mob of fleeing vampires and zombies. In the swirl of evacuating unnaturals, I caught a glimpse of Edgar Allan trying to hand out business cards; he nearly got trampled underfoot.
When he saw the approaching cops, Travis’s eyes widened, then he broke down. “I don’t want to go to jail. Senator Balfour told me he’d set me up with a new life and a new job far from here, if only I’d do this one thing! But I . . . I couldn’t throw the switch, even before I saw you, sis. I swear, I wouldn’t have done it!”
I didn’t believe that part, but Sheyenne looked torn. “You’re part of a plot that would have destroyed hundreds of ghosts. We can’t just ignore that.”
“Yes, you can,” he insisted. “It’s the last thing I’ll ever ask of you, I promise. Just give me five minutes. Let me slip out of here, and you’ll never see me again.” He looked pleadingly at me, but found no help there, so he turned back to his sister.
The sirens were still wailing from the police units. McGoo and the others pushed toward