Badass Zombie Road Trip (7 page)

Jonah shook his head.

“Sorry,” Satan said. “I forget it’s not kosher these days. But I guess it depends on how you kill the tobacco.” The Devil paused as if expecting Jonah to laugh.

Jonah did not laugh.

The Father of Lies rolled his eyes and lit his cigar with a flame conjured from his own fingertip. After a few long puffs on the cigar, he waved his hand to extinguish the flame as he said, “Truth is, I’m not just a little bored; I’m a lot bored. Hell is so fucking dull these days. Ugh. The folks I get are either over-the-top freaks with the wrong ideas about what I think is fun, or kids who think they deserve an eternity of punishment because they masturbated to their mother’s picture. I was actually looking forward to getting my hoofs on Dale.”

“You knew you would get him?”

“Let’s say I hoped. And it’s easy to hope when you have a whole network of spies keeping an eye on someone, just waiting for the day he’ll make that simple mistake. What I want to know is who lives so close to the state they can’t enter for peril of their immortal soul? If I were him, I woulda moved clean across the country. Or better yet, out of the country. As far away from California as possible. Wouldn’t you?”

Jonah hadn’t thought about that. Why did Dale live so close to California? It was a good question. One day, once this whole thing was over, he would have to ask Dale. “I hate to seem impertinent, but what exactly do you want from me?”

“Impertinent?” Basking in the wreath of smoke that poured from his cigar, Satan mouthed the word a few times, as if pondering the meaning. “Impertinent. That’s a good word. Back in the day, we used to call that a five-dollar word. Of course, back in my day, five dollars was a lot of money. Im-per-ti-nent.” Satan repeated the word slowly, letting it roll off his tongue in long consonants and lazy vowels. “You know, you’re pretty smart, kid. I admire that.”

While Jonah found it very hard to take a compliment from the Devil, he also found he couldn’t help but grin. “What do you want from me?”

“A bet.”

Jonah lost the grin and tensed at the word. “What kind of bet?”

“An easy one. A fun one! Don’t you trust me?”

No. Jonah didn’t trust him. “What kind of bet?”

“Wow, you aren’t in the mood for chatting, are you?”

“Look,” huffed Jonah. “I wish I were in more of a chatting mood, as you put it, but considering that my best friend’s corpse is lying on the side of a busy highway, rotting in the midday sun while the Devil goes on about the price of words, I think I have a right to feel out of sorts!”

Satan raised a dark brow at Jonah, but said nothing.

“Sorry,” Jonah said. “Just … please, just tell me what you want.”

This solicited another wide smile from the Devil. “That’s more like it. Listen, son, I have a simple proposition for you. Nothing outlandish or crazy. Just a simple bet. Are you a betting man? No, I wouldn’t think so. Then here is your chance to make your very first wager and make it worth something. Make it meaningful.”

“What do you want?” Jonah asked again, in a very tired, very worn voice. It was the same voice he used when he was sick of arguing with Dale about something. The fact that Dale and the Devil were so very much alike struck Jonah as a disturbing coincidence.

“I propose a race.” Satan’s blue eyes twinkled with mischief.

“A race? Against who?”

“Father Time.”

Jonah groaned. This whole conversation was like running up a down escalator—getting nowhere, fast. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“What I propose is a simple race against the clock. A little on-the-road hide and seek, as it were.” Satan reached into his jacket and pulled out the beer bottle. Even under the shower of sunshine, Jonah could see the soft glow of the trapped soul behind the brown glass. Satan continued, “I’ll take Dale’s soul to an undisclosed location and hide it. Then you do the seeking. Find where I’ve hidden it in a week, and I’ll give it to you.”

Snapping his eyes from the bottle to the Devil, Jonah asked, “What do you mean give it to me?”

“I’ll relinquish Dale’s soul, free and clear. No harm, no foul. Yes?”

Jonah ran the fabric of this proposal under his intellectual microscope and found a million snags. The whole thing sounded like a setup. It sounded like the plot to a bad novel. It sounded ridiculous. No, this whole idea blew right through ridiculous and came out the other side. There was no dick about it. It was ricockulous. And Jonah knew, without a doubt, that he was going to fall for it. Cock and all.

“If I find where you’ve hidden Dale’s soul in seven days,” Jonah started, pointing to the bottle, “you swear you will give it back?”

Satan nodded. “You have all the time it took to make the world.”

“And I’m expected to just believe that?”

“Yes.”

“Just take you at your word?”

“Yup. I guess you’ll have to trust me.”

“Why should I trust you? You’re the Devil.”

“Because I’m also the one offering you the only chance you’ll ever have to get your friend back.”

Jonah paused at this. In his worldview, the word ‘Devil’ was synonymous with the word ‘liar’, which meant this whole thing was a complete load of crap. But on the other hand (or was that ‘on the other hoof’?), it was Jonah’s only chance. And as such, it was deathly serious. He needed to face it head on. He decided the best way to avoid panicking was to approach it like he would any other offer. When buying a car, or choosing a long-distance carrier, or presented with a possible life-or-death deal with a being of infinite evil power, Jonah always did the same thing.

He haggled over it.

“I’ll only accept if you agree to a few ground rules,” Jonah said.

“I would expect nothing less,” Satan said. “Rule away.”

“His soul has to remain on Earth. No running off to hide it in Hell.”

Behind a veil of rising smoke, Satan snorted. “I’d planned on it. Why jaunt off to Hell if you can’t follow? Where’s the fun in that?”

“And the hiding place has to be in the States.”

Satan lowered the cigar and tapped away the ashes. “Why?”

“Like you said, why jaunt off somewhere I can’t follow? I’m a man of limited funds. If you go sauntering off to Italy, I’ll never find you guys. It’s not a very fair wager if we don’t share equal resources.”

“Fair? Now there’s a word I don’t hear every day.” Sarcasm dripped from his voice, poisonous honey from a dangerous hive. “Well, in the interest of playing fair, I’ll concede to your request. But if I have to hide it in the U.S., then you have to give me something.”

“Such as?” Jonah asked, his mind conjuring terrible requirements, such as walking across hot coals or swallowing buckets of broken glass.

Satan chewed his cigar and eyed Jonah. “You have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Come on now, lad, you know exactly what I mean. A good, old-fashioned road trip. Gas up the car. Load up on snacks. Crack out the maps.” Satan stressed the last word long and slow, as if there were some hidden meaning behind it. He pulled hard on the cigar—its glowing tip an angry red with the intake of breath—then blew a puff of smoke that faintly resembled the outline of the United States. The States smoke shape lingered in front of Jonah for a moment before it floated away. “What do you say, son? You look like the kind of guy who can read a map.”

“Yeah, I suppose I can.” The coincidence was too much. Jonah wondered just how much the Devil knew, how much was guesswork, and how much was designed to irk him. “So essentially no GPS—”

“Instant point A to point B? No. You don’t need advice from the heavens. Keep your feet on the ground. Plan your route by hand, just like your forefathers did. Then it’s just you and your little red car and the wide open road.” Lucifer paused to rap his knuckles on the Focus’s hood. “I’m sure that hunk of junk can take it. And if all else fails, why, just put your thumb to the wind and wear your best smile.”

“Then I have to stick to driving, with no … um … modern help.”

“Hell, I don’t care if you ride a bicycle. But if I catch ya using any highfalutin’ gadgets, you forfeit and I win. Got it?”

 
“I think I got it.” Jonah was glad he’d left the tempting GPS at home.

“Then stop sounding so glum about it. I want this to be an experience. It’s meant to be an adventure. I want you to have stories to share when you’re done.”

Confused by the sentimental tone, Jonah echoed, “You want stories?”

“Hell yes, I want stories! Why do you think I’m agreeing to this circus?”

“Then why not just go find stories and leave us alone?”

A smile gleamed around the cigar. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Of course,” Jonah grumbled, suspecting he was about to get very tired of hearing that phrase.

“Besides, there’s nothing better than a road trip for cooking up the best yarns. I’ve been on some amazing road trips myself. Of course, back in my day, road trips were more intense.” As he chewed on the burning cigar, Satan absentmindedly scratched at the label of the beer bottle and stared into the distance at nothing in particular. His sapphire eyes gleamed with memories. “Yeah, back in my day, every trip was a road trip. Me and the guys would pack up and head out for some godforsaken spot. And I when I say godforsaken, I really mean godforsaken.”

He paused, mid-speech, to let out a little giggle.

“I remember this one mule in Macedonia,” Satan continued, “who would suck on anything, and I mean anything, for an hour straight without stopping. Granted, first you had to jam a finger up his-” the Devil stopped short in his reminiscing as he looked back to Jonah, who was doing his best not to appear as appalled as he felt.

Satan, on the other hand, seemed amused by the mortal’s discomfort. “Yeah, you don’t want to know about that. Man, oh man. What I wouldn’t give to go with you. Take a week off, see the sights. Sounds like a laugh.”

“Sounds like a nightmare,” Jonah whispered.

Satan shrugged away the dismay. “Six in one hand, half dozen in the other. But no need to fret, I ain’t got time for such excursions. Hell don’t run itself, you know. Now, what’s next on your little list of requirements? Or are we ready to call this a deal?”

“Um …” Jonah scrambled for possible concessions. It wasn’t often a man had the Devil at his mercy. “Dale’s soul has to stay in one place.”

“It will. Ain’t that a basic rule of hide and seek? In fact, I already have the perfect little hidey-hole picked out. Anything else?”

“You … you … you have to leave me alone. Don’t interfere.”

Clenching the cigar tightly in the corner of his mouth, Satan glared at Jonah, hand over heart, as if aghast at the very idea. “Me? Interfere?”

“You know what I mean. You and your supposed network of spies have to leave me alone. No tricks.”

“No tricks,” the Devil repeated, as he raised his forefingers in a very Boy Scout manner.

“No traps.”

“You have my word. I promise not to interfere.” Satan then lowered his hand, proffering it to Jonah as he asked, “Do we have a deal?”

Jonah stared at the hand of the Devil, knowing what he was about to do was wrong but unable to keep from falling for it. He clasped Satan’s hand—warm and strong and tingling with unspeakable power—into his own—pale and clammy and as limp as a dead fish. Jonah gave Satan’s hand a curt shake. “We have a deal.”

With his blue eyes twinkling in the California sun and a smile so bright that it hurt to look at, Satan said, “Excellent.”

The Devil clutched down hard on Jonah’s hand for a moment too long, and with the extra contact, Jonah picked up the ominous sensation that he had just made the worst mistake of his life. When the Devil finally released his hand, Jonah was already regretting the loss of his own soul, as if it had come to pass even before the seven days were done.

“Then I’ll be off,” Satan said, as he tossed the butt of his cigar to the gravel and pressed it under the heel of his expensive-looking shoes. Pointing the bottle of Dale’s soul at Jonah for emphasis, the Devil added, “You have a long trip ahead of you. I’d suggest getting started right away.”

“Wait a minute,” Jonah said. “What about that?” He nodded to Dale’s corpse.

“What about it? He’s your problem now. But then again, hasn’t he always been?”

Jonah’s eyes widened. “I can’t drag a corpse all over the country for a week while looking for you. What if he, you know, rots?”

“Oh, no, no, no. That’s the fun of the thing. You gotta find his soul before his body turns to soup. That was the deal. You bring me Dale’s body in a week and I return his soul to it.” Satan gasped as he tipped his head to one side and feigned a look of exaggerated surprise. “Did I fail to mention that part?”

The gravity, the truth, the whole of the situation fell on Jonah at that moment. As much as he’d tried to remain in control, as much as he’d tried to make up the rules, as much as he’d determined he would not be tricked, he had, in fact, just been tricked. “Yeah, you kind of failed to mention that part.”

“Sorry,” Satan said with a smile that looked anything but sorrowful. “Must have slipped my mind.”