Dead And Horny (Book 02)

Dana stood beneath the ancient telescope, squinting up at a series of gears. It was like staring into the fathomless depths of the ocean, each spindle holding a gear vanishing up into the darkness of the mechanism that positioned the telescope. If she hadn't spent the last few months rebuilding the system from scratch with her own tweaks, she would have no idea what she was looking at.

"Well?" she asked, then looked at the goblin standing next to her.

"Hmm." Tink wore a pair of magical goggles that enabled her to see how things worked and what was wrong with them. The magical lenses clicked back and forth over the primary apertures as she scrutinized the array. "Tink see. Gear right, debris wrong."

Tink handed Dana a screwdriver and then pointed. Dana got on her ladder and climbed to the top, then looked down at Tink.

"Dead girl go higher," Tink informed her. "Two feet from outside, lost screw."

"You heard the girl." Dana tapped her foot on the ladder, and Ticktock extended itself, raising her up so that she could stick her arm in the gears. She clutched the screwdriver in her hand and looked at Tink again.

"Left. More left. Stop." The lenses were clicking like a tiny typewriter now. "Use screwdriver, gear sixty-two."

Dana looked into the mess of gears and pulled a flashlight from her belt. Shining it upward, she picked out the correct gear based on her photographic memory of the schematic and saw that the head of her screwdriver was inches away from a dull, black object jammed into the teeth between sixty-two and its neighbor.

"Good job," she told Tink, then pressed the head of the screwdriver into the gap. Grease coated her arm as she wiggled back and forth, trying to dislodge the foreign object. It looked very similar to one of the black screws they had used to replace the inner panels of the observatory. Replacing the panels had been a weird experience, because she had been forced to go outside to properly install them. The telescope was mounted to a metal dome on top of a mountain which overlooked a barren wasteland with no water or vegetation. The view made no sense, because the observatory itself was built atop a Victorian era home on the east coast of the United States. Somehow, the windows of the observatory led to an alien landscape devoid of life, but only from the inside. They didn't even exist on the true exterior of the Radley house.

Ever since the first time Dana had seen this room, the foreign stars in an unfamiliar sky had called to her in a way that she couldn't explain. Fixing the telescope had become an odd compulsion, one that she had only experienced once before when she had encountered an old clock that turned out to be the mimic beneath her feet.

The ladder extended a bit more in an attempt to give Dana more leeway inside of the mechanism.

"Thanks, Tick Tock." She patted the top of the ladder appreciatively, wondering if the mimic even enjoyed physical affection. It wasn't something she had ever thought to ask, and the mimic had never gone through the trouble to tell her to stop.

She pulled a hammer from her belt and was able to line it up with the screwdriver. Giving it a good whack, the bolt flew out, allowing the mechanism to move freely.

With a loud grinding noise, the gears rotated as the body of the telescope dipped. The safety pin they had put in place failed, shearing from the weight of the scope. Dana grunted as her arm was s*ck*d into the gears and pulled off of her body.

"Sh*t!" She threw the hammer down at the floor and waited a moment for the mechanism to settle. Once it was stationary, she reached into the machine with her remaining arm and found her lost limb. The edges had been mangled, which meant she was going to need help reattaching it.

"Nasty," Tink muttered, sticking out her tongue. "Tink glad, still have both arms."

Dana threw her arm at the goblin, who let out a squawk before catching it. She waited for Tick Tock to lower her to the ground, then stepped off and held out her hand.

"Looks like we're done building for the day." She turned her attention to the failed locking mechanism. "I thought you said this would hold?"

"Should have worked." Tink handed over Dana's arm, then frowned at the dented body of the telescope. Dana was glad they hadn't installed any lenses yet, as they would have shattered. When Tink picked up the broken pin, she growled and held it up. "Wrong f*ck*ng pin."

"What do you mean, wrong pin?" Dana knelt down to take a look and then groaned. It was one of the thinner pins from a different part of the mechanism.

"Need thicker pin, why dead girl put wrong pin in?" Tink knocked on Dana's forehead.

"Because...I was distracted." She didn't bother going into details, and the goblin didn't ask.

"Next time, right f*ck*ng pin." Tink flicked the pin at Dana, and it bounced off her forehead to clatter on the floor. "Tink check gears tonight, but busy tomorrow."

"Nah, don't even bother." Dana looked at her drawing of the mechanism on the table. She had been working on this project for months, but was rapidly losing motivation for it. After so many thousands of dollars and multiple setbacks, there were better things she could be doing.

Once she figured out what those things were, she would go do them.

Tink helped Dana clean up the work space, then used her goggles to identify where all the blood had gone. It took them another hour of scrubbing zombie blood away before the observatory was declared free of potential zombie virus.

Picking up her arm, Dana walked out the door and paused in the hallway. A small group of foot-tall rats stared at her from the opposite wall, their spears held suddenly ready as they attempted to look like they were still officially on guard.

"No surprises today," she informed them as Tink squeezed past her.

The goblin disappeared down the hall, muttering a list to herself of things she was going to work on. The goblin, foul tempered as she seemed, was one of the kindest souls Dana had ever met. Sure, she swore, spit a lot, and threw the odd tantrum, but was a phenomenal partner when it came to building things. They never argued, and the small talk was almost always at a minimum. What would be an uncomfortable silence for others was peace for Dana.

Talking had become hard for her. Six months ago, almost nothing phased her, but ever since the fight with the Jersey Devil had turned her into a feral creature who killed and ate the living, her emotions had been out of whack. The death of a friend had been the final trigger, and even a casual statement had the potential to catapult her back in time. Ever since she had died, her memory had become perfect, and nothing poured salt into a wound like having to relive h