Page 70 of Cadaver Lab: Mind Over Murder

“We have to weaken it.”

She nodded. “Good idea. I love it. And how do we do that?”

“We starve it of its energy source.”

Liam continued to be the master of understatement. Like this was going to be easy. Simple. No problem. She knew firsthand from her own life-changing encounter with this thing that it wouldn’t be any of those things. But if Liam could act flippant about this situation, so could she.

“All right. Sounds good. How?” she asked.

“We just make sure it has no more batteries to feed on.”

She didn’t want to repeat herself, but she did anyway. “Okay. How?”

There were batteries everywhere. With so many things being portable nowadays, from computers to phones to Alice’s trike, the modern world ran on rechargeable batteries.

“We go analog.”

“Meaning?” How could every one of his answers just create new questions?

“We leave our cell phone batteries dead and use landlines. Same for laptops and tablets. No more charging anything that we’ve seen it can drain.”

“But we think it draws power from the electrical lines too. What do we do about that?” she asked remembering the flickering of the lights, not-so-coincidentally right before her attack.

He cringed a bit. “Yeah. About that. Do you think the people of Mudville would go for letting us cut the main power for a day? Just twenty-four hours or so.”

She lifted her brows in surprise at the extreme idea coming out of her usually conservative boyfriend. “I don’t know. But you can be the one to ask them.”

She wasn’t going to be the one to suggest it. This was clearly a job for Liam. His idea. He could take the heat for it. And she imagined there was going to be heat.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Sometimes people surprised Natalie.

Okay, often people surprised her but this time it was actually in a good way.

“I will gladly live without my cell phone and electricity for a day if it means getting rid of this menace,” Margaret Trout said standing from her chair in front of the large group assembled later that day.

Liam had just proposed his plan to weaken the brain ghost and Margaret, who used to be as contrary as possible until she experienced what it was like to be attacked, was on board.

“I agree. I hate that stupid phone. Only carry it because my daughter makes me,” a man in the back commented. “But I gotta warn you, the wife is going to be mad to miss her stories if there’s no TV.”

“No problem about the phone. I never remember to charge mine anyway,” a lady up front said. “But won’t our food spoil in the fridge with no power?”

“Studies show if you don’t open the door, it will maintain a low enough temperature to keep the food in both the freezer and the refrigerator at an acceptable temperature to prevent spoilage and defrosting for twenty-four hours,” Liam, always full of facts, said.

“Also, thanks to Dee for calling a contact at a local fast-food restaurant over in Sidney. If you’re worried about your food, they agreed to provide ice from their machine, free of charge, for anyone who brings in a cooler,” Agnes added, earning her a nod from Dee seated next to her.

“If we’re going to have no power all night, I have a couple cases of emergency candles at the hardware store. I’ll sell them for cost. Limit of one per customer though, so no one’s left in the dark.”

“Thank you, Chris.” Liam nodded.

“We’ve got a bunch of old kerosene lanterns at the farm. We could probably loan those out for anyone who needs one,” Red’s boyfriend, Cash Morgan, offered. “And Red said she’s fine with closing the thrift shop for a day. She could use the time off.”

Natalie stepped forward, bolstered by the good will. “We have a hardwired landline here at the shop, so anyone who only owns a cell phone and needs to make a call is welcome to come here to make it.”

“I have a landline too for my fax machine. You can come to my office to make calls too,” the village lawyer Dee Flanders said.

“I know it’s going to be a huge inconvenience for everyone. And I’m afraid it’s going to be up to you all to spread the word to friends and neighbors who aren’t here and convince them this is absolutely necessary or we wouldn’t have suggested it,” Natalie said, suspecting there were at least a few among the population who wouldn’t embrace this plan.