Badass Zombie Road Trip (35 page)

Without looking away from them, she crossed the room and sat on the bed, trembling, and as pale as the sheets beneath her. “I think I’m losing my mind.”

Jonah sat beside her. “I know how you feel.”

“He was dead.” Candy locked gazes with Jonah, a flood of emotions racing behind her eyes. Confusion, worry, dread, fear. “I saw him go down. I saw him bleed to death.”

“I know, but …” Jonah motioned to Dale. “There he is.”

“But just look at him.”

Whereas Dale could at least pass for a living member of the human race before, he had little chance of pulling that trick off now. The dead man’s chest was a blackened waste of flesh, ripped and torn asunder by the same violence that gored Jonah’s knee. There was a good-sized hole straight through Dale’s right pectoral; Jonah caught glimpses of the other side of the room through the gap. The zombie’s stomach, however, was swollen, bloated almost to the point of popping the button on his slacks. His color was beyond sallow, edging into a sickly blue-green. His lips were dark, as was his tongue, while his eyes bore a filmy cloud. Atop all of this was a bright sheen of red, flowing in fresh rivulets from his mouth to his waist, and soaking him from fingertips to elbows.

Jonah ran his hand down his own shirt and pulled away a crimson palm. He pushed this discovery out of his mind, already knowing but not ready to deal with the probabilities of why Dale was covered in warm, sticky blood. And why his stomach was swollen.

“He can’t be alive,” Candy said. “It’s not natural.”

“He isn’t alive,” Jonah said. “He’s dead.”

“He’s undead,” Satan added.

“He’s walking around,” Candy argued. “He can’t be dead.”

“He’s dead,” Jonah said again.

“He’s undead,” Satan repeated.

“He’s right here!” Dale shouted. “Stop talking about me like I’m in the other fucking room. Makes me feel like I’m the little retarded son or something.”

Candy fought a giggle and lost. “Well, you’re definitely Dale. That’s for sure.”

“Yes,” Jonah said. “And he’s dead. I know it’s hard to believe, but—”

“No it’s not. Hell, there’s the proof right there. You can’t argue with that.”

Jonah couldn’t deny that he was pleased by her acquiescence, but it seemed, well, a little too easy. “You’re taking this awfully well. I mean, when I first saw him come back from the dead, I screamed.”

“Like a little girl,” Dale added.

Jonah flinched. “Thanks for that.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Well, now,” Satan said, rubbing his hands together. “This is all well and good, but we have a bet to settle.”

Dale dug around in his pocket for a moment, then pulled out a set of familiar-looking keys and jingled them at Jonah. “Let’s get back on the road, buddy.”

Jonah took his keys from the zombie. “My car is here?”

“Yeah. How did you think I made it back here? Hitched a ride?”

“I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t think about it.”

“Seriously, dude. Would you pick me up?”

“Wow.” Jonah stared down at his keys. “This is incredibly fortuitous. Considering just how shitty everything else has gone.”

“If ‘fortuitous’ is French for ‘sweet’, then yeah, it is.”

“How did you follow us all the way here without them noticing you?”

Dale shrugged. “I didn’t have to. Those morons who rolled me into the ditch were awful chatty. One of the guys said, ‘Jack’s gonna be pissed we waxed this one.’ Then another guy said, ‘If Mr. Diamond wanted it done his way, he shoulda done it himself.’ Then the first guy said that he dreaded riding all the way back to Reno with that pussy whining about his fucking knee.” Dale leaned over and whispered, “I think he meant you, Jonah.”

“Yeah, I got that impression.”

“So it was sort of easy to find you after that. I mean, there’s only one Jack Diamond in Reno that I know of.”

“How do you know Jack?” Candy asked, returning to her defensive tone.

“He’s the douchebag that hired us.”

“Oh my God,” Jonah said. “Jack of Diamonds was the gig.”

“Yup,” Dale said.

Coincidence upon coincidence. Fluke upon fluke. Too much happenstance and chance matched up for Jonah’s taste. He started to get the sneaking suspicion that the plot of this whole affair had been written long before any of the characters became aware of their roles.

“Gentlemen?” Satan asked, tapping his Rolex.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dale said. “We’re going.”

Jonah knew that wasn’t what Satan meant. “No, Dale. We can’t. It’s … it’s over.”

“What do you mean ‘it’s over’? It’s just started. You got to act like the hero. I got a meal I could finally enjoy for once. We got our wheels. Let’s hit the fucking road!”

“It’s not that easy.” Jonah decided to gloss over the whole meal thing.

“Sure it is. I know we don’t have a whole lot of time left, but we can make it. I know we can. Speaking of time, one of those fuckers had this on him.” Dale pulled the Devil’s timer from his back pocket and held it out to Jonah. “Here you go.”

Staring down at the blood-covered watch, Jonah frowned. He was close in his estimates. They had less than twenty-seven hours before they lost everything. He pushed the watch away and sighed. “Dale, we can’t make it. There’s not enough time.”

“I thought we had two days.”

“We did. But we lost a lot of it when they brought us back here.”

“I forgot about that.” Dale turned the watch to his own eyes. “We still got lots of time left.”

“No. We don’t. It takes almost forty hours to make it to the opposite coast.”

“We can make it.”

“No, we can’t.”

“Sure we can; it’s just a matter of picking the right routes.”

Jonah huffed in exasperation. “It has nothing to do with routes. We can’t make it from here to there in twenty-seven hours. We’d need at least twelve more hours.”

“We can’t the way
you
drive.”

“It’s not me! It’s impossible!”

“Are you guys serious?” Candy asked.

Jonah and Dale stopped their bickering and looked to her.

“About this whole racing for your soul thing,” she explained. “You’re being serious?”

“As serious as death,” Dale said.

And Jonah, despite his higher IQ, couldn’t have put it any better himself. “So you believe us now?”

After thinking about it for a moment, she confessed, “I believe I’ve gone crazy.”

Jonah grinned. “I believe that makes two of us.”

“Yeah, well, I believe we can still make it,” Dale said.

“And I believe you gentlemen have a choice to make,” Satan said. “Either spend your last few hours running around like headless poultry, or just give up and save yourselves the humiliation of defeat.”

“No way are we giving up,” Dale said.

“Satan’s right,” Jonah said. “Why drag it out? It’s over.”

“Don’t be such a pussy!”

“Stop calling me a pussy just because I recognize the truth when I see it!”

“We could at least try.”

“There’s no trying. It’s too far, and we don’t have enough time!”

“There’s plenty of time if you’d get your head out of your vagina!”

“We can’t make it. Jesus, Dale! How many ways do I gotta say it?”

Amidst this squabbling, Candy asked, “How much am I worth?”

Again, the guys stopped arguing and looked to her.

“Well?” she asked as she stood. Turning in place, slowly, she ran her hands along the length of her body. “How much?”

Jonah considered the question, and the trap he was sure lay hidden within.

Dale, however, didn’t hesitate to spring the damned thing. He advanced on Candy, running his withered tongue over his dry lips as he evaluated her worth. “I’d give you a hundred an hour, easy. Two if you swallow. Three if you felch.”

“I’m not talking to you,” Candy snapped. She pushed Dale away, giving her a clear view of Satan. Or rather, giving the Devil a clear view of her. She returned to spinning in place, caressing her body and asking, “How much? What am I worth to you?”

“I’m with the dead guy,” Satan said. “Three if you’ll felch. I haven’t had that done in a long, long time.”

“I meant in hours, you dickhead.”

“That
was
per hour.” From the mysterious confines of his coat, Lucifer produced a cigar and lit it with his fingertip. After a few puffs, he added, “I’m feeling generous, so we can negotiate for more if we must. And it’s Mr. Dickhead. You should learn to respect your elders, young lady.”

Candy wasn’t amused by Satan’s levity. “You know what I mean, Mr. Dickhead. If these two idiots are worth a week between them, surely I’m worth a few days?”

That was when Jonah got it. And he didn’t like it. Not one bit. “No.” He wanted to stand, but couldn’t gain purchase under his agonizing knee. Flailing on the bed like a turtle trying to right itself, he shouted, “No! No! No! You’re not going to do this!”

She ignored him. “Come on. How much?”

“How do you know you aren’t already mine?” Satan’s eyes gleamed with mischief.

“I just know.”

“Confident, aren’t we?”

“Hun, growing up as the daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher has taught me one thing above all else.”

“Which is …?”

Candy brought her hands together in front of her, palm against palm as she batted her eyelashes and explained, “Redemption’s just a prayer away.”

“Nice.” Satan stepped closer to Candy, running his eyes along the length of her body. “I like a girl who isn’t afraid to beg.”

“I never beg. I bargain.” She stroked her hips and belly and breasts, very sensually, as she lowered her voice to a purr, and asked, “So, how much time am I worth?”

“How much time do you want?”

“No!” Jonah yelled again, finally getting to his feet and limping his way in between the bargaining pair. “Damn it! I won’t allow this.”

“Nobody asked you,” Satan said. “This is between me and the little lady. Now kindly step aside.”

“Jonah,” Candy said behind him. “It’s my fault you’re so far behind. I owe you. I need to do this. I have to make this right.”

Jonah turned to face her, which was difficult, considering how little space there was between the three of them. “No. I can’t let you. I’ve already lost my best friend’s soul. I won’t lose yours too.”

Candy smiled weakly as she reminded him, “It’s not yours to lose.”

“Let her, man,” Dale said. “She can make up her own mind.”

“My generosity is slipping away,” Lucifer warned.

Jonah wanted to rant and rave, wanted to bitch slap the woman and fistfight the Devil and take out what was left of his aggression on the zombie. But the best he could do was whimper and stare at her, hoping the puppy dog glare would guilt her into seeing things his way.

It didn’t.

“How about forty hours?” she asked, still staring up at Jonah.

Jonah shook his head.

“Sold!” Satan shouted.

“Please,” Jonah whispered. “Don’t do this.”

“Too late,” she whispered back, and lowered her eyes.

Jonah followed her glance, down to his right side, to see her small hand already embraced by Satan’s large one. Each pass of their agreement, each pump up and down of their handshake barely grazed his hip, but struck his pride like an open-handed slap. The timer intoned the change with a cheery chirp, and Jonah hung his head at the awful sound. Sure, she had bought them extra time, but at a terrible price. A price he would never have asked her to pay, though he was uncomfortably glad that she had.

“I guess you folks should get back to it,” Satan said. He stepped back and pulled on the cigar with deep, inhuman breaths, the smoke billowing around him as if it came from the Devil’s own lungs. “Time’s a-wastin’. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go see a man about a dog.” Then the smoke did pour out from him—his mouth, his eyes, his nose, his ears—until all that was left was a pillar of thick gray.

When it cleared, Satan was gone.

“Wow,” Candy said.

“Yeah,” Jonah agreed. “He likes to do that sort of thing.”

“Guys?” Dale asked, staring at the watch. “You’re not gonna like this.” He held the timer out to face them. It proclaimed they had exactly forty hours to go.

“Son of a bitch!” Candy shouted.

“You have no idea,” Jonah said, trying his best not to laugh at her. That would teach her for thinking she could out-deal him. Sexy act and sultry voice aside, Satan got the best of her, as he did everyone.

“I said forty hours.”

“And that’s what we have now. I tried to warn you, he’s tricky.”

Candy groaned. “I can’t believe I sold my soul for twelve lousy hours.”

“Can we please go now?” Dale asked.

“I still don’t know if we can make it,” Jonah said, as he took the watch from Dale.

“You said thirty-nine hours was plenty of time.”