Gnome Coming: A humorous paranormal novel (Freaky Florida Book 4) Read online

  In fact, at Seaweed Manor, the women were the dominant ones. Partly because they were in greater numbers, due to their longer life expectancy. And partly because of feeling liberated after a lifetime of being slaves to child raising, old-fashioned husbands, and discrimination at the workplace. There were plenty of men who still tried to behave like alphas, but they were weak and defanged at their ages. It was their wives and the single women who now called the shots.

  If Detective Affird was floating the theory that Mary Beth was murdered in a contest for domination, he was barking up the wrong tree.

  Two detectives from the sheriff’s department took statements from all the club members, while Affird listened in. The detectives repeatedly asked the women if they were involved with any of the groups protesting the plans to develop the land.

  “We didn’t even know about the development until I read an article about it in the news,” Thelma Lou told them.

  Of course, only twenty yards away at the edge of the road were the dozens of hand-painted signs decrying the planned development. The problem was, the club had never bothered to come up with a common excuse to explain why they were out here at night, at least not since Josie first joined.

  After each woman was interviewed, they allowed her to get back on the shuttle bus. Each admitted to her friends she had used a different lie when questioned.

  Josie had said they were coming home from a late church event and some of the ladies desperately needed a bathroom break. She couldn’t explain why Mary Beth had gone so far into the woods to pee and why she was naked. Thelma Lou told the detectives the women wanted to view the night sky far from the light pollution of the city. Tanya had said they came to worship the moon.

  At least they were united when it came to answering one question. It turned out one deputy had searched the bus for the murder weapon while the women were being interrogated. Of course, he didn’t find it, but he did find piles and piles of graying animal fur on the floor. What, the deputies asked, was that all about?

  The women’s identical answer: The bus had been used as a mobile dog-grooming service for fundraising earlier in the day and hadn’t been cleaned yet.

  The explanation was just odd enough to be believable. Much more believable than the truth.

  When the Werewolf Women’s Club finally left the Unger tract and headed home, Kevin was at the wheel but still wiping away tears. Josie’s anger at the senseless killing made her heart race. She wanted someone to pay. And she knew, as alpha of the pack, she had to take action or lose the confidence of the others.

  She stood up from her front seat and faced the club members.

  “Ladies, our club is about friendship, philanthropy and fun. We’re good werewolves doing good in the world. But we will not face this tragedy lying on our backs, exposing our throats submissively. No, we’re getting revenge.”

  The women growled in unison.

  “We will find out who killed Mary Beth and make them pay. We won’t let them get arrested and then get off claiming self-defense. No, we’re going full vigilante. Whether the murderer works for the developer or is a crooked cop, we will find them. And tear their throat open.”

  The women howled in agreement.

  Matt Rosen was a staff writer at The Jellyfish Beach Journal, an attendee of boring city commission meetings, an unofficial chronicler of Florida Man stories, and a career-stalled forty-eight-year-old. He immediately took an interest in the murder report. He had been covering the community reaction to the Unger tract development, which was largely negative except among real estate professionals. A murder on the property really spiced up the story.

  According to the police blotter, the murder happened around 9:30 p.m., so the victim probably wasn’t protesting at that time. He theorized she was an activist intending to vandalize the property to make a statement. But when he cross-checked the residential address of the victim, he realized she lived at Seaweed Manor.

  Where the werewolves lived. Where his friend, Missy Mindle, had patients as a home-health nurse.

  Perhaps Mary Beth Godfrey’s death had nothing to do with the controversial development. Maybe she was killed because she was a werewolf.

  Okay, even if she was a werewolf, that might have had nothing to do with why she was murdered. But what if it did? Since just about everyone who wasn’t crazy or a genre-fiction author didn’t believe in werewolves, there weren’t many people who would intentionally murder one.

  He knew such a person. Not long ago, he was in the condo owned by a werewolf drug dealer when the shifter was summarily executed by a cop. A cop who wanted to rid Jellyfish Beach of the supernatural creatures no one believed in.

  Detective Fred Affird.

  4

  Not Neighborly

  Alison was a hedge fund manager, and she was filthy rich—a redundant statement for sure. She just moved into a custom-built, multimillion-dollar home on Lake Algae, in the northern part of Jellyfish Beach. The neighborhood had been full of tidy middle-class homes built in the 1950s and ‘60s. But lately, every time one of those homes went on the market, an investor bought it and promptly flattened it to the ground, replacing it with a giant, modern structure filled with electronics and luxury appointments. A home like Alison’s.

  Alison was single, in her thirties, and worked long hours so she was rarely home. But her three wiener dogs were. After long days left alone, they were spoiled by their owner who didn’t bother to discipline them. She let them roam unsupervised in the backyard facing the lake, and they regularly went to the next-door neighbor’s property to urinate and defecate. Alison didn’t care.

  The neighbor was an elderly woman named Freddie or Frieda or something like that. Her home, a ranch from the ‘60s, was neat and the landscaping well maintained, but the woman had a horrible love for kitsch. For tacky decorations and dopey, cutesy lawn ornaments.

  There were dumb nautical-themed statues everywhere, from pelicans to leaping fish. What Alison found most offensive were the large taxidermy trophy fish mounted on the side of the house facing hers and around the pool area: sailfish, marlin, and lots of fat bass. Alison couldn’t imagine Freddie or Frieda fished anymore at her age, but the monstrous fish were everywhere.

  And the worst of the tackiness were the garden gnomes. There were too many for Alison to count. They were in the front yard, the side yards, the backyard. They were in garden beds, next to shrubs, and perched on concrete benches. Some of them had miniature lawn tools and posed as if they were digging or raking or chopping. Quite a few had sagging gnome-pants that revealed their butt cracks. During the holidays, a dozen additional gnomes—Santa gnomes—appeared. Freddie or Frieda’s lawn service faced a nightmare to mow and trim in this gnome obstacle course.

  Alison deeply regretted moving into a neighborhood without a homeowners association with rules against tackiness like this. She wished the old lady would die or move away. She couldn’t wait for the house to be knocked down and the gnomes to be ground to dust by a bulldozer. She chuckled every time Wayne, her male wiener dog, lifted his leg and peed on a gnome.

  Freddie or Frieda had been friendly when Alison moved in, but Alison had no time or interest in getting to know this neighbor. Nowadays, the only interactions they had were when the old lady called out from her backyard, asking Alison to keep her dogs from pooping in her petunias.

  “Sorry, but your little landscaping guys can clean it up,” Alison would say as she let her dogs in the house.

  But tonight, things took a terrible turn.

  Alison had returned late after dinner and drinks with colleagues. She let the dogs out, and was pouring herself a glass of rare Bordeaux, when a yelp of pain came from the backyard.

  She rushed outside.

  Her three dogs came running out of the neighbor’s yard as fast as their stubby little legs would allow. But Wayne was lagging behind.

  Her poor little baby was limping!

  She let the dogs in and examined Wayne. He was favoring his left rear
leg. There was no visible injury, and the leg didn’t appear to be broken. But it clearly hurt poor Wayne.

  She stormed next door and rang Freddie or Frieda’s doorbell repeatedly and then banged on the door. Finally, it opened. The old woman wore a bathrobe and a sleeping mask hung from her neck.

  “What did you do to my dog?” Alison shouted.

  “I didn’t do anything. I was sleeping.”

  “My dogs were in your yard and Wayne got hurt. I know you hate my dogs.”

  “Maybe he stepped on something sharp,” the old lady said. “I would never hurt an animal.”

  “You hate my poor babies.”

  “I just want them to stop pooping in my yard. If you want them to be safe, build a fence and keep them in your yard. Now let me go back to sleep.”

  Freddie or Frieda closed the door. Alison considered banging on it again, but decided not to. She might have to take Wayne to the all-night animal clinic.

  Fortunately, when she returned home, Wayne was walking more normally. Alison finished her wine and went to bed.

  Alison awoke with a start. There must have been a noise. Before she drifted off again, she wondered why her wiener dogs weren’t on the bed with her as usual. Maybe they were downstairs drinking water. She began to drift off again.

  Wait—why was her bedroom door closed? She always left it open to allow the dogs to come and go. She got out of bed and navigated in the dark to open the door.

  Ow! She stubbed her toe on something that wasn’t supposed to be there. A dog toy?

  She limped to the door, opened it, then turned on the light.

  A garden gnome was in the middle of her bedroom floor. She recognized it as one of her neighbor’s most tasteless: a gnome sitting on a toilet reading a book.

  How the heck did this get here? One of the dogs must have dragged it in. The alternative explanation—that her crazy neighbor had invaded her home—was too disturbing to consider.

  She picked up the hollow figurine made of some hard, plastic-like material. It was less than a foot tall and didn’t weigh much. A dog could easily carry it if it found the right grip for his or her mouth.

  Alison carried the gnome down her grandiose staircase. When she arrived in the family room, her dogs were staring at her from outside the sliding-glass door to the lakefront patio. She must have been drunker than she realized to have left them out there when she went to bed. She slid open the door and the three dogs rushed in as if their lives depended on it.

  “Mommy is so sorry, my babies,” Alison said in a baby-talk voice.

  She went outside to the patio and, with all her strength, lobbed the gnome into her neighbor’s yard. It collided with something when it landed, hopefully another gnome.

  “Come on babies,” she said to the dogs. “Let’s go to bed.”

  She crawled into bed and the three wiener dogs jumped on top and curled up. Alison was asleep almost immediately.

  She woke up again with a start. Her watch said it was two hours later. How did the door end up closed again? And the dogs were missing.

  Moving across the room, her foot collided with something like before and this time she landed on the floor, cursing prolifically. She made it to a light switch and turned it on. Then gasped.

  The potty gnome was back in her room. Along with two others: one that was toiling with a pickax and one that just stood there, glaring, with a curved, pointy red hat. She recognized the pickax gnome as one of Wayne’s favorite targets for peeing.

  How did they get here? She wasn’t just confused; she was frightened. Someone was playing a horrible trick on her. It had to be that dreadful woman next door. Should she call the police, or have it out face-to-face with Freddie or Frieda?

  The police would think she was nuts. And the old lady would just slam the door in her face and call the police herself. She put on her robe and headed downstairs to look for the dogs.

  At the top of the staircase she stopped short. A low moan escaped from her throat.

  Her long, magnificent staircase had a gnome standing on every step. Her neighbor’s entire menagerie of kitschy figurines snaked up from the foyer. The butt-crack gnomes, the toiling-in-the-garden gnomes. Even the sweet, smiling gnomes. All staring up at her.

  This was insane. This was sick. What kind of old nutter would break into someone’s home to do this?

  Alison ruled out confronting her neighbor. She pulled her phone from her robe to call 911.

  A strange, high-pitched chattering came from behind her. It was vaguely human-sounding, almost like a Scandinavian language.

  Something hit the back of her calves hard and her knees buckled, the world swayed, and she dropped her phone.

  Then she went plunging down the staircase, tumbling head over heels.

  The barking of the wiener dogs outside of Alison’s home all morning long concerned Freddie, especially since the rude hedge fund manager’s Maserati was still in her driveway. Freddie rang the doorbell, knocked on all the doors, and finally called the police. When the medical examiner’s van arrived, not long after the patrol cars, Freddie knew her instincts had been correct that something was wrong with Alison.

  The good news was that the dogs were fine. Alison’s family refused to take them off Freddie’s hands, but a friend in Freddie’s bridge group was happy to adopt them.

  The weird thing was, Freddie’s gnomes had all been moved around in her yard. None was in the place it was supposed to be.

  5

  Where Did My Gnome Roam?

  Missy cast the spell within a chalk-drawn magick circle on her kitchen floor. She didn’t have much faith the spell would work, but she brushed that aside for the moment because she had to have absolute confidence in the spell while casting it for it to have any prayer of working.

  She chanted:

  The gnome from my garden, so cute and wee

  I now beseech thee to return to me

  With power of the earth

  With power of the sea

  Each ounce my soul is worth

  I now commandeth thee

  When she was finished, she broke the circle and went into the living room where she peered past the curtains into the night.

  A new gnome sat beneath a palm tree near her driveway. The gnome was actually a used gnome she had stumbled upon at a thrift store. It gave her the idea of using it as bait to lure her enchanted gnome back home. This one was even cheesier than her original. It was beach-themed. Yes, a beach-themed gnome in a pink and green Hawaiian shirt, sunglasses, a straw hat, and a straw coming from its beard into a tropical drink in one hand.

  It was guaranteed to dismay her neighbors.

  But would it attract an evil gnome?

  She had spent the last couple of days using magick to search for her wayward gnome. Her common method was to send waves of tracer spells across the city to look for something that matched the visual image in her mind of the gnome. She sent hundreds of tracers, which were low-powered blips of magick that flew untended like drones. If one pinged her, she would use its general location to focus a more powerful locator spell to nail down the exact location.

  The problem was, her memory of her gnome’s appearance was fuzzy. And, as she discovered, there were a whole heck of a lot of gnomes in Jellyfish Beach. Who would think gnomes were still so popular? Her tracer spells pinged her with gnomes everywhere from trailer parks to high-end neighborhoods, from apartment complexes to outdoor cafes.

  She couldn’t be sure if any of these was her gnome. And she needed to find her exact gnome so she could find a way to deactivate the sentinel spell that had gone wrong.

  Even more disturbing, Missy was pretty sure her gnome’s deadly influence was spreading.

  The one time she thought she had located her gnome, she drove to a home in a wealthier part of town, using an aerial image of the home combined with a satellite-view map on the internet. Her gnome wasn’t exactly the most unique-looking figure, but her location spell found it in the yard of a home on Lake Alga
e.

  When she drove to the house, an ambulance, firetruck, and police car were in the driveway. Not a good sign. She took a gamble and parked along the curb. She tiptoed to the side of the giant new home and saw a group of four gnomes next to the swimming pool that overlooked a lake. They stood facing each other, as if in conversation, placed where they didn’t belong, in a high-traffic area poolside.

  A gnome with a curved, red, pointy hat did look a lot like hers. But she was too far away to tell for sure.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?”

  A young woman cop in uniform was behind her.

  “Um, no thanks.”

  “This is private property. Are you a neighbor?”

  “I’m just an acquaintance. Is everything okay with the homeowner?”

  “I’m not at liberty to give out information,” the cop said. “I have to ask you to move along.”

  “Sure, sorry.”

  Before she drove away, she grasped the power charm she always carried in her pocket, closed her eyes, and concentrated. Her astral consciousness probed the scene, feeling for magic.

  It hit her almost immediately: black magic. That was interesting, because when she had retrieved her gnome from Old Man Vansetti’s lawn, she hadn’t sensed magic of any sort in it.

  Later in the day, she returned to the house by the lake. The emergency vehicles were gone. She parked in the driveway next to a luxury car and went around the side of the house again.

  The four gnomes were no longer by the pool or anywhere in view.

  “Excuse me?” a voice called.

  It was a woman on the other side of a hedge in the yard next door. She was a senior, dressed in a matching pink sweat suit, holding hedge clippers. Her home was an older ranch style, much different from the two-story modern home where Missy was trespassing.