Kolasch.com

By JKolasch

“No one asked you.” Brandon Jacobus sat up and stared at the smoldering tobacco pipe in his hand.

“I don’t think you understood…”

Brandon cutoff the pipe. “No, I understood you just fine. I said no one asked you.” Brandon tapped the pipe into an ashtray and started packing it with fresh tobacco. “I don’t care what you think you saw in Nigeria. Zombies don’t exist. Never have.”

“Whether you call it a zombie or not, it was eating that man’s brain.” The pipe let out a puff indignant smoke as Brandon touched a match to the tobacco. 

Brandon sighed, sliding his legs off the edge of the bed. “Just because it was eating someone’s brain doesn’t make it a zombie.”

“Sure.” The pipe seemed to sigh, embers glowing as Brandon inhaled. “Fine, not a zombie. Still, eating brains…”

“All manner of creatures eat brains.” The spellbook had remained silent until now. “Real creatures,” it said, before the pipe could say anything else. 

“Right.” Brandon puffed on the pipe, smoke swirling through his long beard. “This is something very real. The police just don’t know what they stumbled on. We’ll need to get moving before this creature claims one of them as its next meal.” Brandon tapped the pipe in the ashtray, perhaps a little harder than necessary. “Don’t even say it. Again, not a zombie!”