Badass Zombie Road Trip (34 page)

“I haven’t lied. I just didn’t tell you everything.” Jonah reached for her. “Just give me a chance—”

“Don’t touch me!” She pushed Jonah away, heedless of his injuries or lack of balance.

Jonah tumbled backward, landing on the bed with a huff, his knee shooting signals of fire and brimstone straight to his brain. What the fuck? She was the one who got him shot. She was the one who lost him almost three days. She was the one who fucked up his life. Why in the hell was she pissed at him?

“Did you know I had the money the whole time?” she asked. “Or were you just trying to get into my pants?”

“Candy—” Jonah started.

“Well screw you, Jonah. If that even is your real name!”

“Keep it down in there!” Murray yelled from the hallway.

“Fuck you, Murray!” Jonah and Candy yelled together.

A muffled snicker drifted through the door, followed by retreating footsteps as Murray left them alone again. Candy stared hard at Jonah, but thankfully she had stopped hollering.

“Please,” Jonah said with as much gentleness as he could muster. “Let me explain.”

“Sure,” she snapped. “Go ahead. Explain yourself. Tell me how you and this two-bit used car salesman just happen to know each other.”

“What is it with the two bits?” Satan asked.

Candy turned on Satan, rabid and wild, poking her finger in his chest with every word. “You stay out of this! If you so much as open your mouth again, I swear to God I will kick you so hard in the balls, come will shoot out your nose.”

Satan lifted his hands and backed away from her. Jonah had to admire a woman who could put the Devil in his place.

“Now,” she said, returning the focus of her ire to Jonah. “Tell me. And this better be fucking good.”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, and ignoring his griping knee, Jonah gave her an abbreviated version of his tale, from Point A to Point Fuck Up, with the occasional noncommittal nod from Satan to back him up. He left out some of the less desirable details, including the details of Dale’s bodily functions, the zombie’s need to feed on living things, the incident with the clerk, and of course the fact that he was still totally in love with her even though she had almost gotten him killed.

“That’s when we stopped for you,” Jonah said, wrapping up his tale of woe, “and you know the rest. Mostly.” There was little need to tell her more. Aside from the thumb escapade, she really did know the rest. After all, she had been there. This condensed tale took less than two minutes to explain, and when he was done, Candy had lost her look of abject anger. Instead she watched him with mild amusement.

“Let me see if I understand this,” she said. “You expect me to believe that that man is Satan.” She pointed at Lucifer, who gave another half bow.

“Yeah,” Jonah said.

“And you’re going to lose your soul to him if he wins this bet of yours?”

“Yeah.”

“And …” she paused as she gripped her forehead, “I can’t believe I’m even asking this … you think Dale was a zombie?”

Jonah hesitated on his agreement for that one, because when another person said it aloud, it sounded even more ridiculous than it did in his head. “Well, from what I understand, he’s undead.”

“I see.” She smirked.

And with her smirk, he knew he had lost her. There was no way she was going to accept it. Jonah had a hard time believing it was true; how could he make her believe? “Trust me, I know how it sounds, but I swear it’s the truth. You have to believe me.”

“Believe you? Why not? It’s easy to believe you were stupid enough to make a deal with the Devil. What I’m having a hard time with is that Dale was already dead before he spilled his guts all over the highway.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s really hard to swallow, but—”

“I find it even harder to believe that you have seven days to win your soul back from this moron.” She thumbed in Satan’s direction.

“
Had
seven days,” Lucifer said.

Candy rolled her eyes at his interruption. “Oh, what now?”

“Go on.” Satan nodded to Jonah. “It’s your story.”

“Thanks for that,” Jonah grumbled. He wrung his hands, doing his best to ignore the fireworks going off in his ruined knee. “We had seven days, but …”

“But?” Candy asked, an eyebrow arched in question.

“But … when you used a GPS, you broke a rule and cost us a few days.”

“Of course,” Candy said, her body language returning to shutdown mode as she crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “That makes all sorts of sense.”

“It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know.
I’m sorry—”

“No, no, no.
Don’t apologize.” Then she surprised him by smiling again. “I appreciate you including me in this little fantasy of yours. It’s kind of sweet.”

“Is it?”

Candy lost the smile as she yelled, “No, you dumb ass!” She moved toward him, her voice expanding in volume and anger. “I know I fucked up by dragging you into this bullshit situation, and if you say you aren’t working for Jack, then okay, you aren’t working for Jack. But why this stupid song and dance? Huh?”

“It’s not—”

“Are you having fun with this cockamamie story? Huh? You havin’ a good time trying to make me look like a fool?”

“What?” Jonah was mystified at her talent for table turning. Once again, despite her being the complete villain—the liar, the thief, the consumer of his precious time—she had somehow placed him on the receiving end of the guilt. “Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know, Jonah. You tell me.” Candy stopped a few steps from Jonah and huffed. “You know, you West Coast assholes are all the fucking same. You think just ‘cause a girl was raised in the Deep South, she’s spooked by every little mention of the Devil. Well you know what? I ain’t afraid of Satan. I’ve had run-ins with men much worse than the supposed Devil ever claimed to be. Men who’ll rip out your heart for a buck, then spit on the fucker for free. Men who say they love you …” Stopping her own tirade short, she wrapped her arms around herself and looked away as if ashamed.

Jonah found himself suddenly embarrassed of his soft existence and easy life.

“The things they make you say,” she whispered. “Make you do. God, it makes me sick thinking about it.” Candy drew a deep breath, seeming to regain control of herself, before she finished with, “So don’t go waving around your little biblical story time at me and just expect me to roll over and show my belly. I stopped worrying about the Devil years ago, when God stopped worrying about me.”

Jonah didn’t know what else to say. What else to do. He looked up to Satan, seeking a word of advice from the Lord of Darkness. Satan shrugged, flustering Jonah with the simple gesture. “Say something!”

“What do you expect me to say?” Satan asked. “I know you’ve had very little experience with women, son, so let me enlighten you. When a woman makes up her mind, there is nothing you can say to change it.”

“Then do something. Like you did with me. Like the trick with the keys.”

“Jonah, I’m a demon, not a dog.”

“Please.”

“Something to help her believe you?”

Jonah nodded.

Satan grinned, wide and weird. “Now where’s the fun in that?”

“Ugh!” Jonah moaned under the Devil’s wild laugh. “You’re useless!”

“Both of you can just save your breath,” Candy said. “Because there is nothing you can say that will ever make me believe either of you. I don’t know how you two know each other,” she pointed her finger at Lucifer, “or how you got past Jack’s men if you aren’t working for them. But there is one thing I know for a fucking fact, boys. Mark my words when I say this. There is nothing, and I mean not a single thing, in the known or unknown universe that either of you can do or say or even dream up that will make me believe this bullshit story of yours.”

At the inflection of her last remark, a mere millisecond after the word ‘story’ left her lips, a series of muffled cries and shouts seeped into the hotel room. Desperate roars echoed through the cheap motel walls as the men beyond called back and forth to one another.

“Jesus, Murray!” a man cried. “What the hell is that thing?”

“Get down!” another yelled. “Let me get a clear shot!”

The cries and shouts soon degenerated into pure screaming, accompanied by soft cracks that could have been smashing furniture, or even muffled gunplay.

“What’s going on?” Candy asked.

“I can’t imagine,” Jonah said. He looked to Satan and, not surprisingly, the Devil was staring back, wearing his customary shit-eating grin.

Then the screaming stopped. One moment there were hollers for help, then there was nothing at all. In the vacuum of the absent chaos, everything else seemed abnormally loud. Jonah glanced at Candy, who had moved ever so slightly closer to him and was now clutching his arm, her breath heavy as an angry bulldog’s snorts in the sudden silence.

He whispered, “Should we go check it out?”

“Hell, no,” she whispered. “Jack’s got all kinds of enemies. There could be anyone out there. Could be the real mafia. I don’t want to get wrapped up with them. Do you?”

“But if they are Jack’s rivals, then they should be our friends. Right?”

Candy cut her eyes at Jonah. “You don’t get out in the real world very much, do you?” She tossed a nod to the Devil. “You go. If you really are Satan, you’ve got nothing to lose. How ‘bout it, Big Red? You up for a little exploring?”

Satan laughed at her request, soft and low, the sound of an empty breeze rolling through a cold, forgotten mausoleum. Just over the Devil’s laughter came another sound. A thump. Two thumps. Three, then four. Footsteps. Whoever had visited the men in the other room was now coming up the hallway to call on Jonah and Candy.

Candy tightened her grip on Jonah’s arm and drew closer to him. Jonah swallowed hard and prayed that whatever divine forces watched over the world would see it in their hearts to take care of her. He knew it was useless to pray for himself; his soul was lost. But the least he could do was offer a word of recommendation for her, if his word meant anything. With this last prayer, Jonah grabbed Candy by the hand, and was pleased to find that she didn’t resist his touch. Another time, another world—maybe, just maybe, they could have made a go of it. They could have found each other. They could have found love.

With this fiery beauty in hand, Jonah closed his eyes and prepared to meet his fate. The door hinges creaked in a protracted, guttural groan. Jonah felt the presence of someone joining them in the small room. Time stretched into impossible lengths, the space between heartbeats seeping through eons of utter torment.

Until Candy finally asked, “You?”

Jonah opened his eyes to the most glorious sight he thought he would ever see.

“Jonah!” Dale Jenkins shouted from the doorway.

“Oh, thank God!” Jonah cried. He felt the Devil cringe, but didn’t care one whit.

The zombie raced across the room and flung himself at Jonah, hugging and hugging and hugging, almost as if he never intended to let the living man go. “Jesus, Jonah. I thought you were dead.” At last, with a final pat and squeeze, he released Jonah.

“Man, it is so good to see you.” Trying to get to his unsteady feet, Jonah barely noticed that Candy had let go of his hand. “I thought you were really gone this time.”

“You, too,” Dale said, as he lent Jonah a strong shoulder to lean on. “I thought they killed you.”

“It takes a little more than some goons with guns to put me down.”

“Yeah, I’m the expert at putting you down.” Dale held Jonah by the shoulders and declared, “You’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny.”

The men laughed together, and for a single sweet second, all seemed right.

“No,” Candy whispered.

Jonah, who had almost forgotten about her in the face of this new development, turned to find Candy cowering against the dresser again.

“Y-y-you,” she stammered. “D-d-d-dead.”

The zombie stepped between Jonah and Candy, pushing Jonah behind him, as if acting as a shield for the injured man. On some level, Jonah was touched by the thoughtful act. “Watch her, Jonah. I think the bitch is with those assholes.”

“She’s not,” Jonah said. “I mean, she was, but now she’s not, and, well … it’s kind of complicated.”

“Oh. If you say so.” Dale backed off and raised his crimson-coated hand in greeting. “Sorry about the whole ‘bitch’ thing.”

Candy didn’t seem to notice the insult. “You were dead!”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.”

“Forgot? They shot you. I was there!”

“I know. You cried.” Dale nudged Jonah. “She cried.”

“You were dead!” she shouted again.

“He still is,” Jonah said.

“Actually,” Satan said, “he’s undead. If you want to get technical.”

Candy stared at the three of them, zombie and demon and Jonah, as if they were the strangest things on the face of the earth. Which, to be fair to the poor girl, they were. And to her credit, she didn’t scream. Didn’t run. Didn’t faint or freak out. She just stood and stared, openmouthed and royally flabbergasted. Jonah gave her a moment to absorb it all.