I dialed the office, not waiting for Bruce to answer my question about pizza and praying someone other than my boss was there to answer the phone. My prayers were answered, but, as often happens when praying to gods, their sense of humor is not my own.

“Hello, you have reached the Fellowship, can I help you?” The voice was chipper and gravely all at the same time, with a genteel Southern drawl that brought up pictures of plantations and the movie Gone With the Wind . I knew that voice.

“Barnaby, what the fuck are you doing answering the phone?”

“Oh, hello, my dear! You are going to be late if you are calling from anywhere but down-town.”

“I’m calling from Joe’s. A zombie infested Joe’s. Don’t change the subject. Are you at my desk?”

“You, my dear, are crabby.” I could hear a drawer being opened. Damn parasite. “Yes, as a matter of fact I am at your desk. It is a mess. I was thinking about cleaning it out for you…”

“Touch anything and you will not live to see your next lunar anomaly you fucking spider.” Like my boss being a life-sucking vampire, that statement was more or less accurate.

“My, my, very crabby!” I heard the drawer being closed. Barnaby sighed, and I heard a bit of a shuffle which probably meant his eight hairy arms were putting things back where I left them rather than where he put them. “All right, sweet thing, I won’t touch. Now, zombies you say? How exciting! Not ours I take it?”

“Would I be calling you if they were ours?” My head was killing me, and my foot was definitely bleeding again. “Get your hairy ass away from my desk and put someone on the God Damn phone who can do more than just clean it!”

I heard Bruce clicking his tongue from the other room, and there was silence from the other end of the phone. I sighed and tried to get myself under some semblance of control. It wasn’t the fault of a gender confused mutation that I was having a bad day. “Look, Barnaby, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m just…..” I turned away from where Bruce was in the kitchen and spoke more quietly. “Look, Bruce is here, okay, and I don’t…I’m not dealing well with things…and I have a hang-over…I’m sorry…”