Everyone leaned forward, staring expectantly at the massive creature, especially Nuts. Demmies love this kind of stuff.

The sphinx rumbled in a vatic tone, fit for any cathedral.

“So you are asking me – what doesn’t have any feet or legs, just one arm and hand, very little torso, and not much of a head?”

“Yes we’re asking!” Nuts and Fu Tichi hollered at the same time, while Cuspitui yowled.

The creature shrugged expressively.

“Beats the heck outta me. But one of them is stuck to the bottom of your boat.”

Fu Tichi led as we debarked the lovercraft, kneeling to look underneath – and damn if the monster wasn’t right in its description of what we found there, wedged into a niche in the undercarriage. Nuts went “Ew!” and Cuspitui’s next yowl conveyed the same sentiment.

“Well. Well,” I commented as the only member of our party who could make introductions. “Everybody, please meet my corpambulist friend, Moulder, or what’s left of him.

“Moulder, meet everyone.”

The voice that emerged from the messed-up zombie head was weak and moanlike; well, after all, he was getting fairly ripe.

“Hello… all. Howdy… Montessori. Howzit… hanginn’?”

“Oh, I’ve had some complaints, but I guess they don’t amount to much by comparison. You’ve looked better.”

“You can say that again.”

“Okay. You’ve looked better.” And I really meant it.

“Had other things in mind… than keepin’ it together…”

Coalshack elbowed closer, demanding: “What happened to the rest of you?”

Moulder glanced backward, toward the way the lovercraft had come.

“Oh, I get around.”

Nuts cried out in realization. “He’s been leaving a trail. Of body parts!”

We all turned and looked back in that direction, all of us grasping at the same moment why the zoom had “no feet or legs and not much else.” Cuspitui pointed with a shout and soon we all spotted a cloud of dust, back near the boundary of the dessert.

Fu Tichi shouted, as he hopped back aboard his vessel. “Saddle up! We don’t have much time before legions of the undead arrive!”

The others scrambled after him, though I dawdled to pry Moulder out of his crevice, grabbing his head and what little else was still attached. Coalshack glared at me and my cargo, while Nuts and Katske edged away from the flaps of ill-favored skin and grue, but Karakal gave me an approving nod.

“Wait!” cried Sphinx helplessly, trapped by the fact that I had answered his damned riddle when I shouted Moulder’s name, and when my dead friend answered.

Tucked under my arm, Moulder wheezed: “Sully sends… regardssss. So does… Lorg.”

“You stowed away underneath as we left the casino,” I surmised. “Pretty gutsy move, for a guy without guts.”

If he could have shrugged modestly, I’m sure Moulder would have.

“Can’t claim to have had ballssss.”

“Plucky enough though, for a fellow with no hair.”