The Spy's Little Zonbi by Cole Alpaugh

she said before marching back to work.
    Chase’s hands were shaking. He hadn’t realized how much of a rush this could be. If Chase hadn’t captured it, the little scene would never have been remembered, except perhaps by the woman and the children who had watched. Like grain prices and proposed parking meters, it would mean something to this community. He’d anticipated being nervous photographing strangers, but it wasn’t like that. Even if you got as close as you needed to be with such a wide-angle lens, you were still hidden—both voyeur and intruder. Chase tucked away his small pencil and the thin reporter’s notebook in his back pocket and settled on the log bench to savor the emotions before Limp woke.
    ***
    â€œ Will I get a scanner?” Chase asked when they were back on the road.
    â€œ Yeah, sure, you’ll get your very own,” Limp said, and Chase noticed his was switched off.
    â€œ Yours is off.”
    â€œ It makes too much noise.”
    â€œ But what if there’s a fire?”
    â€œ It’s a small town, Sugar Pie. Anything happens, I’ll find out.”
    The slim Radio Shack police and fire scanner was a burden to Limp, who preferred cruising for photos of playing children and artsy images reflected in puddles and ponds. Spot news was an interruption of his day, although he did seem to love unnerving cops protecting their yellow police lines.
    â€œ I bet you tie your wife up with this stuff,” Limp said to a bored cop during their first week of training, adding a lascivious wink. Their press passes allowed the photojournalists to duck under the bright yellow tape for shots at a garage fire. Limp took care to flash that day’s pink whale-tail underpants as he bent under the fluttering barrier. The cop continued to look bored, nodding them in the direction of the Fire Chief.

    The odometer flipped to 299,970 as Limp turned them south on Route 13, past the college on the right and away from Salisbury. A few miles later and they were rushing through Fruitland. On the outskirts of Eden they hit 299,980.
    â€œ Where are we headed?”
    â€œ Just cruisin’, Pie.” The noonday sun snuck behind tall thunderheads, which regularly built over the Chesapeake in the heat of the day and then raced across the peninsula toward the Atlantic. The storm’s wake would leave millions of fat night crawlers miserable and dying, flooded from their holes and trapped on the steaming pavement.
    Limp raked a comb one-handed through his greased-back hair, and when he wasn’t talking you saw the hint of Elvis. “Southern Queer,” was how Limp once described himself.
    â€œ I love you,” he said to break the silence, tucking the comb in his shirt pocket.
    â€œ What?”
    â€œ See how that is?”
    â€œ How what is?”
    â€œ Tell someone you don’t know very well that you love them,” Limp said. “And they look at you like you called them the N word.”
    â€œ I took a picture, Limp.” Chase fumbled the notebook out of his back pocket. “Back when you were sleeping.”
    â€œ Power napping, Pie.” Chase saw him glance down as the numbers rolled to 299,982. “So what’d you shoot? Something that might let us knock off for an early dinner?”
    â€œ Maybe, if it’s in focus.”
    â€œ Shootin’ that wide angle lens makes it hard to screw up focus. Did your manly fingers switch over to automatic exposure?”
    â€œ Yeah, but it all happened so fast.”
    â€œ Well, rewind the spool now and a little later in the dark we’ll see if you got lucky.”
    The clouds roiled overhead, dropping low and dark, and Limp flipped on the head lights. The first giant drops hit hard, almost hail-like, and he had to fight the steering wheel against the buffeting wind. Limp threw a quick glance over at Chase, making a funny face and shrugging his shoulders to acknowledge the awesome