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simple,” Mel said. “You tell Joe I want to talk to him. I don’t care if it’s on the Deep Web or in person, but tell him, I am going to talk to him or I am going to rip the cameras out of the bakery. Am I clear?”
    â€œAw, man,” Paulie whined. “Joe’s going to kill us.”
    â€œThat shouldn’t be a problem,” Mel said as she gestured to their outfits. “Since you’re already dead.”

Five

    Looking decidedly morose, Al and Paulie took their cupcakes and disappeared into the crowd. Mel didn’t feel sorry for them. For the first time in weeks, her heart didn’t feel as if it were made out of lead, and she knew it was because one way or another she was going to get to talk to Joe.
    â€œYou look entirely too happy to be dead or undead or whatever we are,” Tate said as he joined Mel and Angie.
    â€œI know, right?” Mel asked. She grinned at them, but they were not sharing her joy. Instead, they glared at each other, still caught up in their argument from earlier. Mel shook her head. “Oh, no. You are not going to keep squabbling about the maid of honor–best man wedding sitch. We’ll figure it out.”
    Angie and Tate did not look as if they were ready to unbend, but Mel was having none of it.
    â€œCome on,” she ordered. She looped an arm through each of theirs and tugged them together. “I can hear the band is starting up. Let’s get into the spirit of things, yes?”
    â€œFine,” Angie grumbled.
    â€œSure,” Tate said.
    â€œMarty, will you help Oz out in the van?” Mel asked as she moved around the van and peered into the coffin. “We’ll be right back. We’re just going to check out the band.”
    Marty was reclined against the blue satin, looking horrifyingly at home. Mel was afraid he was getting a wee bit too attached to the wooden box as he looked to be nodding off again.
    She coughed and his eyes popped open at the sound. He stifled a yawn. He stretched as he climbed out of the wooden box, and Mel noted that he gave it a loving pat. He closed the lid and when Mel frowned, he gave her his most innocent look.
    â€œWhat?” he asked. “We can’t have people climbing in there unsupervised. They could get trapped and suffocate.”
    â€œUh-huh,” Mel said. He didn’t fool her, not one little bit.
    Marty made a shooing motion with his hands, and Mel turned and left the van, dragging Angie and Tate with her. She marched on, dragging the bride and groom with the relentlessness of a mama determined to see her baby girl married off. Mel was certain that some good music was just what Angie and Tate needed to take their mind off their wedding dilemma.
    Mel squinted at the stage across the park. She had only met Chad Bowman once, when Fairy Tale Cupcakes had signed on to be a vendor at the zombie festival. Her impression of Chad was that of a twenty-something hipster as evidenced by his skinny jeans, white Converse high-tops, paisley shirts, and well-worn tweed trilby. Marty had observed that Chad looked as if a thrift store had vomited on him. Hard to argue.
    As he stood on the stage getting ready to announce the band, Mel noted that even Chad’s zombie persona was a hipster, with a trendy blue scarf wrapped around his neck and smart-looking black-framed glasses accentuating the gash in the side of his head.
    Mel parked the three of them under a tree as close to the stage as they could get without being on it. She was hoping the entertainment was something upbeat and fun, maybe an eighties cover band that would get Angie and Tate feeling nostalgic about all of their eighties movie nights.
    As they watched, Chad strode out to center stage and took the mic out of its holder. His grunt of welcome was magnified across the park and the horde of zombies grunted back.
    â€œWelcome to the first annual Old Town Zombie Walk,” he said. “We have a last-minute