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    The Last Living Detective
    The Last Living Detective
    The Last Living Detective
    Ebook131 pages1 hour

    The Last Living Detective

    By Bruce Levine

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    About this ebook

    In a world where people die and come back as immortal mythical creatures (vampires, werewolves, zombies, gods etc.) the mortal Elmer Jones scratches out a living as a private investigator. An elf hires him for a case that starts out with a dumped husband stealing a wedding ring and eventually escalates into a plot to exterminate the entire human race. With the help of his vampire assistant Val, Elmer must recover the ring, decipher its meaning, and save the world. All in a day's work for the Last Living Detective..

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBruce Levine
    Release dateJun 15, 2018
    ISBN9781386058496
    The Last Living Detective
    Author

    Bruce Levine

    Dr. Bruce S Levine is a retired veterinarian in Southern Clifornia. He lives with his wife ,Joan, and is a co-mion to their pets.

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      Book preview

      The Last Living Detective - Bruce Levine

      The Last Living Detective

      Bruce S Levine

      Table of Contents

      Title Page

      The Last Living Detective

      Book 1 – And the Band Slayed On | Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 7

      Book Two – Sometimes a Bad Inkling | Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      To my wife Joan, who I can’t thank enough for putting up with me.

      Book 1 – And the Band Slayed On

      Chapter 1

      ––––––––

      It was a beautiful sunny day in LA so as usual the streets were deserted. Occasionally I’d pass a down on his luck vampire or demon peering hungrily from the shadows of a dark alleyway, but none dared venture into the sunlight. Being undead can seriously limit your dining options.

      Now me, I’m alive. It’s not that I haven’t had offers mind you, but I prefer breathing to placing a bet on the postmortem roulette wheel. Immortality’s not so enticing when you may end up with the lifestyle of a ghoul or zombie. I tell you the day the earth opened up and spewed out the Gas, uncertainty hit an all-time high

      Walking down the street, the only thing distinguishing the pink stucco building I entered from the other pink stucco buildings on the block was the number above the front entrance. As I climbed the four flights of creaking steps, I prayed my landlord would finally find a still living elevator mechanic. Let’s face it, the place was a giant rat trap, but low rent can be very seductive. I took a short breather before opening a peeling door marked:

      Elmer Jones

      The Last Living Detective

      Yeah, I know about that sleazebag Rex Milner in Tarzana, but I set up shop years before him so I kept the tagline. I was last first.

      It’s only a gimmick but a gimmick that works. Why hire a mortal? you ask. For one thing, we can work the daylight hours the undead can’t. And money means more to us, so you get better service. Besides all those rich vampires love telling their liberal friends how they employed an underprivileged pink.

      Being basically lazy, the décor of the office was same beige on beige motif it sported when I first rented the place. Only now it was clean and spotless. I hired a squad of mite men to come in from Torrance once a week. Say what you will about those repulsive buggers, they did an amazing job of keeping down the dust. Valerie looked up from her computer at the reception desk and zeroed in on the paper bags in my hand. One of those better be for me.

      Would I forget my favorite employee? I threw her one of the bags and it clucked angrily as it hit the desktop. Lunch ala McKluski’s. 

      She smiled so sweetly one could almost overlook the set of gleaming fangs. I’m your only employee. And you should have gone to O’Toole’s. Their chickens have bigger veins.

      Val’s a good kid. At least I think she’s a kid. It’s hard to tell with vampires. I remember when she first showed up at my office wearing worn out clothes and a complexion several shades paler than the one she sports today. I’m not normally a big fan of bloodsuckers but I just didn’t have the heart to send her away. So, I took her out for a pint of goat’s blood, bought her a new outfit, and gave her a job on thirty days’ probation. Turned out to be the best investment I’ve ever made. I didn’t believe her at the time, but she really was a primo hacker in her previous life.  Ask her anything, she’d go to her computer and by hook or crook find the answer in a matter of minutes. And she works cheap too. I think she’s just grateful for a place to stay out of the sun during daylight hours.

      What’s in the other bag? she asked.

      Just a Reuben for me.

      Val sighed as she adjusted her blouse. You know I miss sandwiches the most.

      Should have thought of that before you offed yourself.

      And not be young and pretty forever? Maybe you should have thought about it yourself. You must have been young once. Val glanced up from the desk. Though I doubt you were ever pretty.

      Way to suck up to the boss.

      Suddenly there was a nibbling sensation on my leg. Looking down I saw an undead goldfish floating upside down and attacking my ankle. The rotting flesh exposed yellowed bones as he unsuccessfully tried to penetrate my sock. Oscar! I screamed as I kicked him away.

      Oscar’s Val’s pet or used to be. Once her pride and joy, he swam in his bowl at a place of honor on her desk. I still remember the day I came in and found Val crying behind her computer. I never realized vampire tears could be so bloody. Then I noticed Oscar floating belly up in his bowl. We all have to go sometime, I told her. Boy, was I ever wrong.

      Anyway, she was too broken up to perform the mandatory burial at sea, so I volunteered in her place. Now I know it’s rare for animals to undergo Change, but I guess Oscar never got the memo. Moments after flushing the toilet, the zombie goldfish came flying out of the bowl and swam through the room in his trademark upside down position. He quickly sailed past the restroom door and disappeared somewhere in the front office. He comes out of hiding every once in a while, and tries to eat me or some visitor. Possessing no teeth, the attacks are more annoying then dangerous. We tried several times to trap him, but the damn fish proved too elusive.

      One of these days I’m going to catch that rotting devil.

      And then what? Val asked.

      I shrugged. Return him to the wild, I guess.

      He’s undead. He has no wild.

      Well, there must be someplace he fits in, I stuttered. It certainly isn’t here. With the Oscar back in hiding, I came behind the desk and scanned the headlines on the screen. Anything new and exciting?

      Yes, the Bone Gnawers and the Lords of Shambling had it out in downtown last night.

      Ghouls and zombies eating each other! Hell, I’d pay to see that.

      The Police Commissioner sent a dragon squad to break it up. As for the survivors...  She squinted at the screen. Oops, there were no survivors.

      Werewolves have no sense of humor. I patted her on the shoulder. She was so cold to the touch I feared getting frostbite. Any appointments?

      In weather like this? Val pointed at the sunny view outside the smog tinted window. You’ve got to be kidding.

      Well I’ll be in my office if anything comes up.

      I’ll be sure to wake you if it does. Val took the chicken out of the bag, sat it in her lap, and gently petted it until it stopped clucking.

      You know you could wait till I’m out of the room before doing that?

      I know, she said then sank her teeth into its neck.

      My office is my home away from home. Actually, nowadays it’s my home. I used to rent an apartment, but I spent so little time there I finally gave it up. The upholstered couch and padded desk chair alternate as substitute beds and I moved in a small fridge and microwave. I now have everything I need. Well everything but company but that’s another story for another day. The walls are festooned with pictures of past friends and lovers I’d be better off forgetting and awards from obscure trade organizations I once made the mistake of joining. The final touch is the large oak desk separating the room into client and owner zones.

      No, I’m not a recluse or anything but agreeable people are getting harder and harder to find these days. The undead tend to look down their noses at mortals. What about family? you ask. Val’s the closest thing I’ve got to family and I like it that way. Jeez, I guess I am a recluse.

      I settled into my chair, propped both feet on the desk, and remembered back to the time before the Gas Changed everything. Odorless, colorless, nobody but a few geologists even noticed it at first, but its impact was soon hard to ignore. Oh, it’s not like the cemeteries emptied out or anything; those guys stayed dead. No, it first showed up at the hospitals. Fresh corpses were suddenly walking out of the morgue as an assortment of vampires, zombies, ghouls and other mythical creatures. There was even a news story about a doctor who performed an assisted suicide and got eaten by his patient for his troubles. Just goes to show no good deed goes unpunished.

      At first the public was terrified, demanding answers from their equally terrified leaders. Studies with monkeys quickly revealed the Gas to be the culprit but no antidote was ever found. And living forever does have its appeal. As the epidemic raged on and more and more undead appeared on TV proselytizing the benefits of Change, there was less and less interest in a solution. The researchers quickly switched tracks to finding a way to control the Change but to no avail. Dying would certainly give you immortality but you never knew as what. And of course, you never got to see the sun again.

      Despite the drawbacks, dead soon became the new black. Suicide clubs popped up everywhere and it became chic to off yourself on your twenty first birthday. They’d hold big parties for the soon to be departed and placed bets on what kind of creature they’d come back as. Gun, tranquilizer, and pesticide sales soared to all-time

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