I'm alive, but Dead Jimmy isn't

Okay, I don't know if you all are freaked out by the swine flu (or freaked out by the people who are freaked out) but this stuff is scary. Yes, it's probably overblown (I'm talking to you Sanjay Gupta), but maybe, just maybe it's not. I'm hoping it's not. I'm hoping everyone who says we're overreacting is completely right and can rub it in all of our faces later when the world is still here and it's not a post-pandemic wasteland where the survivors have become cannibals who wear gas masks (Note to self: stop reading "The Road").

Ahem. Well, on a lighter note, I'm alive and not currently running a fever or anything remotely like swine flu and you can rest assured that you will not catch anything from this blog. Okay, so you won't catch anything unless you roommate or husband or coworker has coughed all over the keyboard you're using. I can't guarantee your computer. I can only guarantee these contents are 100 percent swine flu free.

Speaking of untimely demises, it's time for another glimpse into Every Demon Has His Day. I've saved one of my best characters for last. Dead Jimmy is the ghost of Constance's soon-to-be-ex-husband (he'd died before he could sign the divorce papers).

And if you thought an ex was annoying alive, trust me, he was a thousand times more annoying dead.

"You're dead," Constance said, managing to keep her voice steady despite hte fact that everything she thought she knew about the world was being turned upside down.

"Well, no duh, Connie," he said, calling her by the nickname she had hated since grade school. "Getting a screwdriver in the back by a demon will do that to a guy."

Constance blinked hard twice. The man who killed Jimmy really was a demon?

"What did you say?"

"I was killed by a demon - remember? He gave you a business card," Dead Jimmy reiterated. "You know - guys with red horns. Except they don't always have horns." Jimmy looked around the kitchen like he'd never seen it before. "Say, we got any beer?"

Constance signed, went to the fridge and pulled out a can of beer, and set it on the kitchen counter. Jimmy attacked it like he hadn't seen a beer in weeks. Of course, being a ghost made things complicated, as his hand kept going straight through the can like smoke through air.

"Dammit," he cursed.

Read more about Dead Jimmy and the other characters of Dogwood County in Every Demon Has His Day.

Stay safe everybody - wash your hands!!