Juan of the Dead

by Jacalyn Boggs

  Whatever his plan was, I didn't care. I knew we would never make it back to his truck. And then as I took another hard right, something whizzed through the air where I stood moments before. I picked up the pace and so did Jon.

  Had no one taken notice of things flying through the air willy nilly? What about the crazy Americans running for their lives? What the hell kind of country was this? And people said New Yorkers were blind to that which went on around them? Welcome to Mexico.

  Then again, I didn't see anyone. When we went inside Camila's home, the streets were alive with people. Now I couldn't see anyone. Had they really all retired to eat? Collectively into their homes at the same time? That seemed odd. Then again, with the spread at Camila's, maybe they all went to her house. We could barrel right into a giant town meet and greet. I didn't think that sounded like a good idea at all.

  I could see it now. The town, all chilling and doing their Day of the Dead thing. Telling stories, watching football, or something; I don't know. Whatever it was people did on big holidays in Mexico. And I run in with crazy people chucking who knows what left and right. Half the town gets bashed in the head and I'm proclaimed the town doomsday girl. Talk about a way to get invited back to parties.

  Yeah, they'd like me then. I'd be banished like the boy with halitosis. No one wanted someone with bad breath around. It was why God invented Altoids. I knew I always kept a tin in my purse. You never knew when a quick suck on an Altoid would freshen your breath after pizza. A girl had to be prepared for any hottie that wanted to lay their lips on hers. Damn. My Altoids were in my Coach handbag. Under who knew how much rubble. Stupid Mexico. All I could score here was crappy Chicklets.

  We kept running for Camila's with little missiles of whatever flying past us. Somehow, we managed to escape injury from the flying debris or from falling. Thank goodness for these sandals being flat. If I'd had to run in my Choos, these crazies chasing us would have caught me ages ago. I'd have thrown my ankle after three steps and ended up face planted and butt in the air. On a bright note, maybe Jon would have ended up on top of me.

  I could see Camila's home ahead. I kept my eyes on the goal and hoped I could hold out. I never was the most athletic sort. While I had some good super strength going on with my un-dead powers, I didn't get any sort of cool super speed. Forget that faster than a locomotive thing – that would stay in the realm of Superman for now. Shucks. That could turn out way useful in a chase.

  The altar stood between us and the front door. How would we get around it? I didn't want to just go lunging over it and destroy Camila's hard work. Seemed a bit sacrilegious.

  We never got a chance to find out. About forty feet from the door, something plowed into my side. I flew into Jon and the two of us tumbled into a scraggly bush. Entangled in a mess of Jon's limbs, I tried to get up, to no avail. Rough hands grabbed me by my shoulders and hauled me to my feet. I flailed as I was thrown over this person's shoulder.

  What the hell kind of caveman treatment was that? I knew that there was like this whole economic divide between those in Mexico and say, where I came from. But near as I could tell that didn't hinder attractive women from being here. Of course, with treatment like this, who would give this brute the time of day? It's called R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Hello? Women were now equals and all we asked for was a polite invitation.

  If I needed to breathe, he'd have knocked the air out of me. Lucky me. I started to kick. He could think I was easy to nab, but I wasn't going down without a fight. I was talking basic self-defense here. Obviously, there was a pack of psychos in this town. Goodness knows what kind of gang initiation they had in store for me. What if he was taking me to be gang raped? I didn't think so.

  I thrashed and his grip tightened on me. He grunted something but I couldn't make it out. Wish I'd studied more in Spanish classes. Right now, I was wishing I knew how to say “Let me down you crazy person.” I guess we can't have everything.

  I tried to look up, but my hair fell in my eyes. I wondered if Jon was coming along for this joy ride. Was he getting his own trip via shoulder throw?

  The footfalls of my captor were heavy, but fast. Within a very short period of time he stopped and threw me off of him with as little care as his previous handling.

  I better not bruise. If he bruised me, what would happen with my slower metabolism? I didn't want to find out how injuries would affect me. I considered myself lucky that my death inflicted injuries were healed. I wasn't going to count on that nice perk to continue.

  I wish I knew what perks would continue. Like walking. Time to exercise that one. I struggled to get up and instead found myself rolling to the side as Jon's body flew towards me. Oh good, he came along for the joyride. Bet he’s thrilled.

  I pushed myself up and noticed that I was in a bed of hay. Or maybe straw. Was there a difference? Not much, as far as I was concerned. Just as I got to my knees we started moving. Nice, a truck filled with hay was just waiting around for us to be thrown into? I thought not. This smacked of abduction.

  I debated throwing myself from the side of the truck but thought twice as I gazed at the hard ground. Once more back to the whole what would happen to any injuries I endured? I didn't want to go tempting fate. Jon groaned beside me. I turned to him, looking for anything wrong. His lip was bleeding. It looked like he may have bitten it while being tossed about, but nothing more sinister than that. He clutched at his side with one hand and moaned again.

  “Jon?”

  He opened his eyes and looked at me. “What?”

  “You okay?” You're laying here moaning like you're gonna die. What do you think I want when I say your name?

  “I think those guys cracked my ribs in all of that. What the hell was all of that anyway?”

  “You're asking me? You live here. Or near here. I'm just the chick from America lost without her passport.”

  Like what? I planned for all this to happen? Oh yes, that was right at the top of my 'to do while on vacation' list. First, get killed. Second, get raised from the dead by Jon. Third, lose all my ID and whatnot. Fourth, get kidnapped from a Day of the Dead celebration. Yup, that sounded about right. Everyone planned a vacation like that, right? It's all the rage. Who said Disney World was the dream vacation?

  He winced and tried to sit up. “So, they didn't say anything to you, either?”

  “Just some grunting like a caveman. So nope, I'm clueless. Still. Did you see anything? I couldn't.” Dumb long hair was a pain sometimes. Though I should be thankful caveman dude didn't grab me and drag me by my tresses.

  “That's a shame. I didn't see much either. It happened too fast.”

  I looked at his hair. It was long, for a man. Long enough for my fingers to run through nicely. It did kind of fall in front of his eyes a bit. Not much, and in a kind of sexy way. What the hell was wrong with me? We'd been abducted and I was thinking that his hair was sexy? My hormones were definitely out of control. I knew I liked to party like the next girl, but good grief. Nothing like this. Seemed that whenever I was alone with Jon my mind hit the gutters and took off running a marathon.

  Did I really want to stop it? Maybe Jon could rock my undead world. Why not? Brainy guys could be quite the tigers sometimes, right? Still, this was probably not the place to go throwing myself in his arms.

  I tore my eyes away from him and looked out of the truck as the Mexican countryside rolled by. We weren't going exceptionally fast, probably due to the bumpy road. Hadn’t this country ever heard of asphalt? Good grief. How hard was it to make a decent road that didn't have eight gazillion pits in it? I bet half this country suffered from motion sickness due to the hot mess they called roadways.

  I couldn't handle it on my knees. The ride was just far too rough. I turned myself over and laid back into the hay. It seemed to help the jostling not be so bad and spread it out over my whole body. Lying beside Jon was a really nice perk.

  This couldn't be so bad, right? I was a nobody dead girl from America. Jon was a science nerd. How hi
gh up on someone's wish list could we really be? Once these people realized that I was not so good for the whole ransom thing, they'd let us go. Right? Or maybe they'd realize they had a bad case of mistaken identity.

  As we lay there in silence, I also wondered where they were taking us. Was this going to be one of those stories you heard about on the news? American tourist kidnapped by the drug cartel and forced to become a heroin mule? My thoughts went in all kinds of directions, and none ended anywhere pleasant.

  “Jon?”

  “Yes, Bea?” I could tell from his voice that he was hurting. “Got a plan to get us out of this mess?”

  “No. You?”

  “Something tells me running's not gonna cut it this time.” It didn't work so well last time, after all. This time we wouldn't know where we were, and the only method of escape was our feet. It didn't seem likely that we'd get real far. Goons with trucks would win.

  “Probably not. Maybe we should just find out what they want. You know, show them we mean no harm. Do whatever they want.” He winced but managed to sit up.

  If he was injured, we would definitely be screwed. No way could I hope to escape with him being at subpar levels. As it was, neither of us were contenders for the Olympics. Our “good” was most people's bad day. Maybe if you put the two of us together, you'd have someone actually equipped to deal with this sort of thing. Physically at least.

  The truck made a hard turn and Jon fell towards me. He managed to catch himself before landing on me, but still his face was awfully close to mine. Neither of us could move, so drawn were we to each other. Neither seemed to care about the inappropriateness of the timing. It was like the truck vanished from our perception. All we saw was the other. All we knew was that the other was so close. I felt the connection between us, like electricity crackling in the mere inches between our faces.

  And the truck turned again. Just like that Jon was thrown in the other direction and the world rushed back in on us again. The truck screeched to a halt.

  I didn't have time to wonder where we were. I only had enough time to acknowledge the truck's lack of momentum when I heard voices. I didn't know the language and a quick look at Jon was all I needed. This was nothing he could translate quickly. I only hoped they could speak English or Jon could muddle his way through it.

  c

  chapter sixteen

  The back of the truck opened, and three men stood there. Ahh, our abductors showed their faces at last. They dressed in little more than rags and looked like they hadn't taken a bath in months.

  One attempted to speak to us, but it was more of that language I didn't recognize. He was an obvious leader, though his good buddies, Thing One and Thing Two, threw in a few thoughts here and there. Not that I knew what their thoughts were. We didn't respond to anything the men said.

  These guys just kept spewing verbal nonsense at us. The words came so fast that I could hardly even make out syllables. Jon's eyes were closed. I figured he must be trying to concentrate hard to pick up anything he could work with. The men stopped talking and looked at us.

  Uh oh. Was he waiting for us to say something? I don't even think what he'd said resembled any sort of Spanish. I thought Mexico was all Spanish speaking. Except the few that learned English of course. English was just a given anywhere. Mostly because Americans like me were too snotty to learn any other language. But hey, when you lived in the best country on the planet, why bother learning another language?

  Another barrage of words, though this one was shorter. The sounds came from deep in the throat, more guttural than most languages I was familiar with.

  It was worth a shot. “I don't understand you. No hablo your language.” Maybe living here, this guy would at least recognize the bad Spanglish.

  The man looked at me, and away he went again with whatever dialect of gibberish he spoke before. This time, however, he directed his verbiage to one of the men beside him. I really wished I knew what he was saying. For all I knew he was telling this guy, “That's it, grab the machete, they are dead!”

  I noticed Jon muttering under his breath beside me. I couldn't make out most of it, not because I couldn't hear him, but because it didn't make much sense. Maybe he was working on a way to talk to these rejects.

  The little group of kidnappers grew. Lovely, reinforcements back at HQ. Just what we needed. We were up to six and I idly wondered if the new super strength granted in resurrection would allow me to take on all six. Theoretically, I bet I could take out these six loons, steal the truck, and Jon and I could be on our merry little way.

  Theoretical only, because I had no clue how to fight. I was no Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I suppose these guys weren't vampires so it would be more along the lines of Bea the Kidnapper Beater. That just didn't have the same ring to it. I kind of liked vampire slayer. I needed to come up with some sort of nifty cool name for myself.

  Bea the Undead. Okay, so my brain fizzled at that point. Too bad. Maybe I should have enrolled in one of those self-defense classes for women. You know, where you learn how to beat the snot out of a would-be-attacker, so you don't get dragged into the bushes by a rapist murderer scary dude? Yeah. Half my friends had done those sorts of things, but not me. Best I had was some yoga. While Downward Facing Dog might give these creeps a cheap thrill, I didn't think that it would do a whole lot to intimidate them. I had a fierce Warrior pose, but that wouldn't do a whole lot for knocking kidnappers upside the head.

  So, what did I do? I just sat there like a lump. What was the use of uber undead powers if I didn't have the skills to use them? What a loser I was turning out to be. I couldn't even give these guys a proper tongue lashing since we didn't speak the same language. It's just not the same to snark at someone if they don't understand what you are saying.

  Jon's head popped up and he stumbled through something that might be in the same language these dudes spoke. The leader of the pack turned his attention back to us, dismissing the guy he'd been talking to.

  Lackey Numero Uno walked off, obviously on some mission from Bossman. Oh, goodie. Here was hoping Uno didn't show back up with a machete or something. Bossman looked at Jon for a moment before speaking more guttural garbage.

  Jon closed his eyes and repeated the sounds that Bossman had uttered. I listened as he mumbled some more, before he replied. I sure hoped that whatever he was saying resembled a resounding “Who the crud do you think you are, buttmunch; let us go!”

  Maybe not the brightest thing to say to someone holding you hostage in the back of a truck filled with hay in who-knows-where Mexico. Did I care? Not really. Maybe I was just cranky since a couple days ago I like totally died. Tends to make you even less excited about more crap being thrown into your life.

  These fools messed with the wrong undead chick. I felt like knocking some heads together and if I could figure out a way to do it successfully, these guys were going down. Given my strength, I may forget not to go easy on them. Kidnapper creeps could end up with bashed in skulls.

  They better not think Jon's going to go all raise the dead on them like he did me, either. They were filthy savages whose hot factor was nowhere near my own and they kidnapped us. Jon wouldn't be so nice to freaks like them, I wouldn't let him.

  Bossman looked at Jon and said something else. At least Bossman seemed to slow down his speech. Hope that helped Jon. I hated being left in the dark about what the two were saying, but I was too afraid to disturb Jon's concentration. Instead, I got to just sit and twiddle my thumbs during the snail's pace of hostage conversation.

  Wasn't I lucky?

  I stifled a yawn. Which was nice in distracting me from the whole people talking a language I was unfamiliar with thing. I wondered what it meant that I yawned. Wasn't yawning some sort of breathing thing. Like trying to get in more oxygen? Why on earth was I yawning if I didn't need to breathe like normal folk? It was probably boredom. Which explained thinking about yawning so much.

  I moved on to inspecting my manicure. Like the earthquake had
n't done enough damage? What on earth would getting knocked over by a human cannonball and lugged around on someone's shoulder do to me? Lucky for these guys, my manicure didn't look any worse off than yesterday. If it was even possible to get worse.

  Where was a good drug store when you needed one? An emergency bottle of nail polish and a file would do wonders for my hands. I never left home without a file, but I never planned to lose my purse under a building, either.

  The more I stared at my fingers, the more incensed I became. Where was Fate? I wanted to give her an earful. I didn't do anything to make my karma tank like this. First I die, then I get kidnapped? Best of all, I couldn’t communicate with the freaks kidnapping me. If I were in an action movie, right about now is where I'd spring into action. My arms and legs a flurry as my kidnappers fell to the ground one by one, unable to keep up with my awesome action hero antics. I’d kick that one in the gut, I’d knock the heads of those two together. I’d punch Bossman in the nose and laugh as blood gushed everywhere.

  Bossman and Jon were still picking their way through lame language negotiations, when the lackey came back with a young girl, no more than sixteen. At least she was acquainted with what we civilized people referred to as cleanliness. Her clothes were simple, but well cared for.

  Best of all, she spoke Spanish. Score. Having lived in Mexico for a while now, Jon was fairly fluent in Spanish. The two took off like horses at the races. It all still sounded like gibberish to me, but I felt hopeful that things would move along now.

  Thank goodness, no telling how crazy I would have become if things had lasted much longer.

  Jon broke off speaking to the girl and turned to me. “You aren't going to like this.”

  “No kidding? These freaks abduct us, and you think I'm not going to like what they have to say? What clued you into that?” Like it was his fault we were in this mess? I didn't care. I could be pissy with him and know that my anger was understood.