DEAD: Confrontation (41 page)

Then Morgan did something that caught me totally off guard…she winked! Actually, her voice filled my head; telepat
hic…why not?
If she tried to tell anybody, she’d be considered crazy and probably get pumped full of meds. But it’s fun to put a little scare into them every once in a while
.

I heard feet hit the floor. Lisa came scrambling into the room. She saw me and stumbled, I forgot that I was no longer wearing the glasses.

“W-wait a minute!” She shot what I imagined to be a pleading look my way. “I’m not gonna say anything, promise.” 

“Yes,” Morgan nodded with even less emotion in her voice than she expressed on her face, “well, that’s up to Miss Birch here. After all, it will fall on her if you become a problem. I’ll be leaving now, my dears. If she decides to kill you and eat you…well…ghouls are notoriously sloppy eaters.”

And with that, she turned and left.  That didn’t stop her from telepathically laughing in my head. I was pretty sure I didn’t like Morgan.

I turned to Lisa who took an unsteady step backwards. The look on her face was one of fear.
Seriously
? I thought
. I saved her ass last night and this is how she was gonna react?

“Boo!” She actually jumped. “Oh knock it off,” I snapped.

“I’ll do it!” Lisa interrupted me.

“You’ll do what?” I went over to my sofa and flopped down, turning on the television.

“I’ll be your front.” Lisa took a few tentative steps into my tiny living room.

“My front?”

“Like Morgan said.” Lisa came and sat beside me. She did her best to maintain eye contact with me. Points for her. “But the first thing we need to do is get you some glasses…and a cane,” she added as an afterthought.

“Excuse me?”

“Sure,” her face brightened, “for when we go out.”

“Not following you.”

“People will think you’re blind,” she explained. “Then, if we go out someplace in public, nobody will think you’re weird for wearing dark glasses inside.”

Well, that’s clever
, I thought. “And what about my skin?” I held up one gray hand and wriggled my fingers in front of her face.

She sat quietly for a few seconds, and I could tell she was actually trying to figure out an answer. It was like watching a sunrise. I watched the idea dawn and solidify on her face! It’s actually much cooler than it sounds.

“Airbrush,” Lisa said, her face beaming.

I was about to comment when the news spouted off about Miracle Baby and the Gas Station Hero. It was like witnessing a landslide. The expression on Lisa’s face crumbled and went from happy to miserable. They say it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile. I wonder how many it takes to look like your heart has been torn from your chest.

“Hey!” I snapped my fingers in front of her face. “That was yesterday. Just like that baby, you have a fresh slate in your life…starting today.”

I admit that was a pretty lame pep speech. I mean, it was no
Braveheart
soliloquy, but I was going off the cuff here.

“I don’t know what kind of life you were living before,” I put my arms around Lisa and she didn’t even flinch, “but it can change starting today. Look at me. I was a divorced, childless waitress who wasn’t even missed when I didn’t show up for work for like three…now four…days! We have no place to go but up!”

“So what’s your plan?” Lisa sniffled, her voice muffled from her face being smushed into my shoulder.

That was a good question. What was my plan? The whole memoire thing would be fun, but my life—if you take out the whole part about my having died and come back as a ghoul—had been fairly uninteresting up to this point. I had to do som
ething worth writing about.

“We could be detectives,” I offered.

“Really?” Lisa sounded skeptical and pushed away from me, wiping her eyes.  “And just what do you know about being a detective? Don’t you need some sort of license?”

I had no idea. And she was right. I was pretty sure I’d be a terrible detective. When I watched any of the numerous crime-drama shows on television, I never figured out whodunit until the climactic reveal at the end.  In fact, I usually bought into whatever misdirection they used to implicate somebody co
mpletely innocent. Nope, being a private detective was probably not a good idea.

“Well…we don’t have to figure it all out today do we?” I asked, trying not to sound hopeless.

“True,” Lisa agreed. “Besides, you should probably try to figure out what being a ghoul is all about. That Morgan lady wasn’t very helpful.”

“That’s for sure.”

“Like…how often do you need to eat? And didn’t you ask about animals?”

“Yeah!” I exclaimed. “Although I
can
smell varying degrees—at least in people.”

“Huh?”

So I explained how things smelled to me and how, when somebody was maybe dying that I could smell that, too. That led to me explaining how I’d found her. To her credit, Lisa listened and didn’t cry or anything as I explained about finding Miracle Baby. She did get a funny look on her face when I told her how I trailed her by scent. Of course, now she didn’t have anything beyond what I would come to recognize as the normal death-by-aging smell.

“Then let’s go outside,” Lisa got up and went into my room to get her coat. “How hard can it be to find a little road kill?”

We went outside and wandered the streets for a couple of hours. I probably should’ve figured it out for myself based on that. Nope…animals—at least as far as dogs, cats, squirrels, possums, skunks, and the biggest raccoon I’ve ever seen—don’t do a thing for me.

However, I did run across this old woman, at least I think it was an old woman, pushing a rickety shopping cart who was probably a chilly night away from being dinner. She smelled so delicious that I went all shark mouth, and she was across the street and two blocks ahead going in the opposite direction.

It was during this little outing that Lisa and I first met somebody who would become my nemesis for life…err…afterlife. You know what I mean. Her name is Belinda Yates, and she is a vampire.

We’d just finished wandering aimlessly in search of road kill. Lisa wasn’t feeling all that great; probably a mix of just having a baby without proper medical care and not eating. She got all stumbly and staggery and then started slurring her words a bit. I couldn’t help but feel just a little responsible. She should’ve been back at my place resting.

It was late, so we ducked inside a twenty-four hour Safeway. Since I was wearing sunglasses and a coat, I hoped I wouldn’t stand out too much. We grabbed a loaf of bread, some generic peanut butter, (Hey, I’m not made of money…this was before I came into all that cash, but that’s a story for another time) and a box of super-duper maxi pads.

I ran my debit card through the thingy and held my breath.  Yay! I still had money in my account! Lisa grabbed a pad and convinced the kid working the register that it was in his best i
nterest to let her use the bathroom despite their “off-limits” policy between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m. Something to do with how she would be dripping blood on his freshly waxed floor. Of course, she was also waving the pad in the boy’s face.  Young guys are so squeamish when it comes to women’s bodily functions.

That reminds me of this time I was on a date with this hunky mechanic. He took me to see a professional baseball game up in Seattle. We were having fun, enjoying the Sunday afte
rnoon sun and a frosty cold beer. I’d taken a fairly large swallow and…well...beer has bubbles. I still recall the look on his face after I let loose with this boilermaker-sized belch. I spent the rest of the game wondering if it would’ve been better had I puked on his shoes…but I’m rambling.

So I was sitting on a stack of dog food waiting for Lisa when I smelled it. The best comparison I can think of is that it was like smelling this yummy chocolate cake frosted with the goo that builds up in the bottom of your kitchen garbage can.

I noticed that the cashier had gone strangely slack-jawed.  He was staring straight ahead at nothing. When I looked up from reading the curious ingredients of the particular bag of dog food I was using as a chair, she was standing right in front of me.  It was weird because I hadn’t seen a thing or even heard her with my super-duper hearing.

“
What
are you?” the silky voice of a phone-sex operator whispered.

I looked up at the most disgustingly beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I mean this girl would make those Victoria’s Secret runway models seem plain and frumpy. All this and she was dressed in jeans and a
GLEE
tee shirt. Her impossibly blonde hair was in braids that hung past her shoulders in a sexy-schoolgirl look, and she was staring at me with wide, blue eyes.  She had that look about her that screamed “unattainable” and “Hey, mister, I’ll let you touch my naughty places if you buy me something sparkly!” at the same time. If you aren’t sure just exactly what I mean, then catch one of those tabloid television shows the next time they run footage of the most recent “girlfriend” of Hugh Heffner. Seriously, what eighteen to twenty-two-year-old girl doesn’t dream of jumping in the sack with her great-grandpa? There I go…rambling again.

So, this absolutely gorgeous girl who doesn’t look like she can be old enough to vote is looking down at me like I’m som
ething she almost stepped in. I get over my surprise of being snuck up on, glance at the clerk who now has a long stand of drool hanging from his chin, then back up at the expressionless face that was starting to show hints of confusion around the edges.

“I,” I pulled my glasses off and fixed her with my shiny black orbs, “am a ghoul. And you…” I made an over exaggera
ted sniff her direction, “…stink.” That was probably the moment any chance we had of being friends went bye-bye.

“Well…” she let her little fangs pop out, “I’ve never actua
lly met one of
those
,” she said, making it sound like I was, in fact, something she’d barely avoided stepping in.

“That makes us even,” I stayed calm, but I felt my fingers and toes tingle. I saw her eyebrows twitch just a bit which I’ve discovered is the equivalent of total astonishment on a vamp.  Funny thing about vampires, they look like heavily-Botoxed has-been Hollywood stars. I met this one guy…so fat that his chins had double chins, but he was a vamp, and his face looked so freaky. But that’s a story for another time, back to the Bitch-in-blue jeans.

“Is it true you eat the dead?” There she went again, sounding so freakin’ superior.

“Is it true that you suck?” Not overly witty or clever, but I was not quite on my game yet.

“I assume you’ve met Morgan.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yep.”

“Well…my name is Belinda Yates and I am the Queen of the Kiss here in Portland.  You might just come in handy.

“Handy?”

“Yes, sometimes one of my children gets a bit carried away.  Disposal of the body can be such an inconvenience.” She glanced over her shoulder, and that was when Lisa stepped out of the back where the bathroom was located.

“Ava, do we have enough for a so—” and her voice just stopped.

I peeked around Belinda, trying not to notice or feel just a hint of jealousy at how perfect her butt looked in her jeans. So not fair! Lisa was about four steps up the aisle and was frozen with her mouth open and the same stupid look on her face that the drooling clerk had.

“Excuse me?” I glanced up at Belinda, prepared to ask her if she knew what in the hell just happened. That’s when she va
nished…sort of. The next thing I know, she’s standing way over by Lisa—behind her actually—sniffing her like she was a rose.

“Hey!” I called, getting up off my throne of bagged doggie chow. Belinda looked up, her mouth open to fully reveal her fangs.

“Yes?” she didn’t really seem to speak, but I heard her just as clear as when she was standing right in front of me.

“Were you thinking of taking a bite out of my friend?

“This…
thing
is a friend of yours?” If she’d been looking at and treating
me
like I was a big pile of poo, she seemed to think even less of Lisa.

“That
girl
,” I said, flexing my claws a bit, “is Lisa Jenkins…and yes, she is a friend of mine.”

“I thought you said you met Morgan.” Belinda stood up and quit sniffing Lisa’s neck.

“I did.”

“Then you
know
the undead don’t have friends.”

“She wasn’t all that helpful,” I said with a shrug, but I thought I remembered some snarky little remark about me not having any friends.

“Listen,
ghoul
,” there she went again with the snotty attitude, “I smelled something and found…
this
.” She plucked at Lisa’s sleeve.  “What say I drain what’s left?” Belinda sniffed Lisa again. “She’s running a bit low anyway. Then you can gobble down the left overs.”

Then it hit me. The smell. It was pouring off of Lisa.  Hmmm. So proximity to a deadly situation causes the smell.  That might even have some practical uses.