Juan of the Dead

by Jacalyn Boggs

  I kicked the door again, though not as hard, in frustration. “Look, I get it. Whatever. I just want to get out of here.”

  I looked around. Where was I gonna go? Hell if I knew, but I chose a direction and stomped off. Yeah, I was displeased. Jon followed.

  “Bea, we'll get you out. I brought backup. They're taking care of the goons. Don't you hear? It's gotten quiet.”

  So it had. I hadn't even noticed. No gunfire or anything.

  “Um, yeah, you are right.” I stopped and looked at Jon. I didn't want to let the meaning sink in. If I did, well I don't know what would happen. I'd grown up in Virginia. I lived a peaceful life. I hadn't even run over a squirrel. Okay, well there was that one time the possum ran out into the middle of the road, but it crawled away. Suddenly, I wasn't so sure I wanted to go outside. What would I see? I shuddered.

  “We'll take you back. We'll find a way to get you home. I promise. I'm so sorry.”

  He sounded so earnest - and that's when I felt the tear. One led to another and then another. Jon shifted his weight on his feet and just looked at me. I tried, but I just couldn't hold it in anymore. The tears came and the next thing I knew I was sobbing.

  “I don't know how...” They were the last words I could even say before I was crying so hard I could no longer speak.

  Jon moved forward, "Let me cut you free from this chair." Ever the boy scout, he pulled a pocketknife from his pocket and freed me from the chair while I continued to sob. After the chair clattered to the floor, he drew me into him, and I cried relentlessly on his shoulder.

  When the tears stopped, I looked up at him. Our eyes met and first one hand and then the other cupped my face. His thumbs wiped the moisture from my cheeks. I don't remember what happened next, except that we were kissing with increasing passion.

  At last we broke apart and he took one of my hands in his. “This way. I'll get you out of here.”

  I was more than happy to let him come to my rescue again.

  c

  chapter twenty-three

  I followed Jon from the warehouse of doom, thankful I could do so fully upright. Hey, you try running for any length of time while strapped to a chair and you'll debate burning all chairs, too. I was going to thank my new status as not-so-alive for the fact I could even accomplish escape at all while tied to that thing.

  Lucky for us, no brute squad lay in wait on this side of the warehouse. They must have all been focused on wherever the ruckus came from. Glancing behind me, I saw the warehouse sat on a hill just steep enough that we came out of a partially subterranean floor - that explained the stairs and hallways.

  Jon ran for the end of the building and around the corner. I followed suit. Sometime during our escape from Leahonia, the gunfire had ceased, and I hoped that meant good things for the Pro Bea team. He slowed to a stop as we reached the next corner. I tried not to plow into him in my haste.

  "What are we--" I tried to ask but he put up a silencing hand. A hand? Really?

  "Just checking to make sure everything was taken care of. I wouldn't want to startle anyone," he explained.

  Good point.

  I could forgive the hand. Swiss cheese Bea didn't sound any more preferable than sliced and diced Bea. I could wait for him to finish peering around the corner if it meant no one shot at me.

  "Who are you here with and -" Again the hand.

  "There will be time for that. Later. Let's just get out of here."

  I was more than down with the 'get out of here' plan. Taking out a few of the anti-Bea crowd along the way wasn't going to make me lose any sleep. Then again, I supposed it helped that I wasn't sleeping any more, but still. I was always so popular; how could someone want me dead now? Worse, dead and in pieces?

  He motioned me forward as he took a few tentative steps around the side of the building. I still didn't hear anything, which gave me hope for a clean escape. After the first few steps, when nothing happened, he picked up the pace. Trotting to keep up, I saw a beat-up truck in front of us.

  We reached the dusty vehicle and he boosted me into the back before scrambling in beside me.

  "Lay down and let's hope if Leahonia has any people left, they didn’t see us."

  "And what is this going to get us?" I asked, annoyed and tired of this circus. If her people didn't see us, how would the people that came with Jon know we were there? I was all for keeping a low profile, but I was more for getting the hell out of dodge.

  "We wait. This was the plan," Jon said. I stared at him.

  " Hide in a truck? Some plan. I'd rather take off and get out of here. Like now."

  Who wouldn't?

  "We'll leave shortly. Just...be quiet!" I gave him points for exclaiming while keeping his voice low. That's a talent.

  As it happened, that was also when I heard the sound of footsteps. Not a lot of footsteps, one set, and it came our way. I bit my lip but followed Jon's advice to remain quiet. I felt my body tense and went with it. I knew it was my own fight or flight instincts kicking in and I'm not too proud to admit that flight sounded pretty darn good when faced with fighting someone wanting a duel to the death.

  "I saw you come this way, Bea. Just give in. It's time to call it a day."

  Oh, hell. It was Leahonia and she sounded pissed. Maybe from the headache I'm sure that Jon left her with? Served her right.

  My head instinctively turned towards her voice and I spied a metal rod laying in the bed of the truck beside me. I slowly reached over and grasped it in my hand as I listened to Leahonia.

  "It's better this way, Bea. Think of your family. Think of your friends. They don't need to see you when things get bad."

  Sadly, new life-status changes did not come with cool x-ray vision, so I couldn't tell where she was. Did she know we werein the bed of this beater truck? No way we could get the drop on her, and as far as I knew, whomever Jon came with remained occupied elsewhere.

  This time, I wasn't going to let Leahonia get the drop on me. No way did I want a replay of chair-restraint or any chance for her to prattle on any more about her duty to rid the world of me. A girl could only take so much, and I was through. Dying could make a girl cranky.

  "I know you think you can get away. You are only delaying the inevitable. Even if you think things are okay now, how are you going to deal with it when everyone you care about turns against you? Do you really want to see your family coming after you to do this?"

  As if.

  My family would take me as I am. Always had. Always will. That's why families rocked. Didn't Leahonia get that memo? What were they teaching her in the hellhole she called home? I clamped my mouth shut, not wanting a reply to give away our location.

  The tone of her voice went up, maybe she was reaching that frantic point that all evil bad guys in movies reached. You know, the one right before the hero swooped in for the take down, like with a handy dandy metal bar?

  "You might as well come out. We can do this with honor. Isn't that the legacy you want to leave on this earth? You aren't going to escape. My people are currently finishing off the last of the rag tag band of misfits that came to try to save you. Poor misguided miscreants."

  Did she say misguided miscreants? Who talks like that? The crazier she got, the more her English seemed to improve. It was time to deal with this, but was she close enough?

  "Oh, Bea. You know, I didn't peg you for such a coward. Vain and lazy? Well, that was evident fairly quickly. But this cowardice? Aren't Americans supposed to be better than all this?"

  Her voice definitely sounded closer. I just hoped she was close enough that I wouldn't lose my element of surprise.

  That might have been my last coherent thought as I leapt from the bed of the truck waving the metal pipe and shrieking. I really don't remember much else other than leaping from the back of that truck like a crazed action movie star and bearing down on Leahonia.

  I must have blacked out. Could stress make you pull a blacked out beat down on someone? Maybe. If by blacked out, you
mean all I saw was the red of my anger and a giant bulls-eye target on Leahonia, then yes.

  Coming out of my haze of anger, I heard Jon's voice. Like it was really far away or in a tunnel. Why was his voice all weird sounding?

  Things came into focus around me, sound returned, and I peered up at Jon with blinking eyes. When had the sound gone away from the world? And what was he saying? I blinked a few more times, and he repeated what he said. I shook my head, it felt full of cobwebs. I still didn't understand what he was saying.

  "Bea. Bea. Put down the crowbar."

  Crowbar? What's a crowbar? Oh. He must mean this metal rod thing. Really? That's what a crowbar looks like? I looked at the metal in my hand, slick with blood. "Ewwwwwww!"

  The shriek as I dropped the offensive bit of metal probably wasn't the bravest or coolest thing to do in such a situation. I'm also pretty sure the scrabbling across the grass to distance myself from it wasn't really attractive.

  When I saw that the crowbar fell onto the prone and bloodied body of Leahonia, I shrieked again.

  "Bea. Bea. I need you to calm down." Jon took a few steps towards me. I screamed again.

  "Bea..."

  I managed to gasp for some air before yelling an answer back at him. "Calm? Calm! What? What? How? But..."

  I might not quite be put together yet. Can you blame me?

  I might make a killing at the salvage sales, but that's all figurative. I wouldn't literally harm anyone, not like what the prone body of Leahonia evidenced. Hell, I dodged out of the way of suicidal squirrels when driving. Pesky rodents should not try to throw themselves onto a moving car, but they couldn’t help it if their brain was the size of a lima bean. I pointed at Leahonia's body.

  "Is? What? She? Jon!"

  He took a few more steps toward me and knelt down. "It's okay. Bea, it's okay. You really just need to calm down and then..."

  "But...I... I... did I?" The rush in my head and the panic in my chest was very slowly abating as I looked into Jon's eyes. I tried to focus on him and not the prone body of Leahonia.

  "Bea, it's Okay. Shhh. I don't think she'll be a problem but let me look at you."

  Look at me? What?

  We needed to get out of here. It looked like I just killed Leahonia and there were wacky people wanting to kill me and I really just hated Mexico. What did Jon want to do? Apparently get frisky. I glared at the hand that he reached towards my chest.

  "But, Jon! We -"

  "Stop!" The forceful tone of his voice made me snap my mouth shut. "Let me see what she did to you!"

  What she did to me? I looked down and saw his hand wasn't actually reaching towards my chest. It was reaching towards...That's when I passed out.

  c

  chapter twenty-four

  I came to lying on the ground, a shirt pillowing my head. I cracked open my eyes and saw Jon sitting beside me.

  "What happened?" I groaned.

  "You fainted," Jon said.

  No, duh.

  "Yeah, but what happened?" I repeated.

  "I couldn't find any evidence that the bullet -"

  Bullet? The memory flooded my mind of a gaping hole in my chest near my right shoulder, making me woozy. Leahonia actually shot me. I felt faint again.

  "Where is that b-"

  Jon put his hand out to stop me as I tried to sit up. "Just stay down for a while. I think you've been through enough..."

  I batted his hand away and managed to scoot myself into a seated position. Putting any weight on my right arm sent a raging fire storming through to my chest.

  "Augh."

  "Yeah,” Jon started. “Like I said. We didn't find any sign of the bullet but..."

  "Getting shot sucks? Yeah I'm getting that." I winced and my left hand reached towards that right shoulder. "What the hell am I supposed to do about this?"

  I looked down and while I saw the tattered hole in my shirt, I didn't see any evidence of a wound. I looked back up and met Jon's eyes as he shrugged. "Yeah, it healed. I don't have an explanation."

  I sure didn't have an explanation, but speed healing could come in handy. Totally didn't want the need of it, but sometimes you ran into psychos in Mexico thinking they needed Swiss Cheese Bea. Too bad the nifty ability didn't super heal my clothes. My blouse was ruined by a bullet hole. Nice.

  Then I remembered what else happened and I chewed on a nail. My manicure was toast already so what did it matter? All I could think about was how I apparently killed Leahonia, brutally. Would I end up in Mexican prison for that? Would they sentence me to die? Again? Could they sentence me to die again?

  The thoughts raced through my head, but all I wanted to do was burst into tears. Truly, this was the worst vacation in the history of bad vacations. What more could go wrong?

  "Uh, Bea?" The voice sounded tentative and I looked up, blinking. John slowly reached his hand to remove my hand from my mouth. "You might want to stop..."

  Again, I batted his hand away and the words exploded from my mouth. "What? You think sometimes a girl can't freak out? We can't be perfect all the time! So what? I bite my nails? Okay, sometimes I do that. Sometimes I also burp or wear sweats or..."

  I noticed he was staring, not at my face but at my hands. I looked down and saw them speckled with blood and gore. Except where I'd been chewing on my nails.

  "Bea, you weren't chewing on your nails..."

  Except where I'd been licking my fingertips. They were clean. I hadn't even noticed, which should probably have freaked me out more, but instead I just stared at my hands. I turned my right hand over to look at the palm, filthy from ravaging Leahonia.

  I don't know what came over me next. Instead of trying to find some way to clean it off, begging for water or a bathroom or a real honest to goodness working shower with heat, I took that hand and licked it. The blood was dry, and whatever the rest of the matter stuck to my hands as well, but I didn't care.

  I also didn't care that Jon looked on, horrified as my taste buds reveled in the act of cleaning the gore from my hands. Under my ragged fingernails my tongue found the tiniest shreds of what I can only imagine consisted of Leahonia's flesh. Never had anything tasted so good that should taste so wrong.

  Standing, I lifted my eyes to greet Jon's as he stood frozen in place. Behind him, I saw those men that came to my rescue, the people that helped to save me from Leahonia and her henchmen. All stood still, looking at me. Were they afraid? Disgusted? Did they think maybe Leahonia, in the end, was correct about my nature?

  A man standing about ten feet behind Jon spoke first, his voice quite calm given the nature of his words. "We have saved for you the heart of your foe."

  I looked over Jon's shoulder at the man offering me the heart of Leahonia. My enemy's heart. I know what you are thinking - I'm a sane girl and would obviously avoid such brutality. Decent people just didn't go around eating people's hearts.

  Well some did, I guess. There was that Dahmer guy. And the Donner party probably ate the hearts of people when they went all cannibal-like on the trek west. So maybe it was an American thing and no one wanted to admit it.

  Of course, this man didn't actually say anything about eating the heart either. Maybe he meant for me to take it as a trophy. I suppose a normal person might consider stuffing the heart or bronzing it. Mounting it on the wall like the head of a deer in some creepy act of pride. None of this mattered, my brain just went straight to eating. Or maybe it was my stomach?

  That's when I first noticed the hunger. Maybe I hadn't wanted to eat before now, but hearing about the heart changed that. I suddenly felt very ravenous and nothing sounded tastier than a heart. Even a heart that was cold from death instead of warm and still pumping its final beats.

  I stood, quick as the blink of an eye, and pushed past Jon. Sure enough, there stood the man barely taller than myself proffering me the heart. It looked so weak in his hands, and I found it hard to believe that not long ago it beat inside the chest of a human just as healthy as anyone could want. I d
idn't even think about the fact that the very heart I stared at while licking my lips stopped beating because of something I did. Justified self-defense or not.

  Instead I licked my lips again and like a feral beast, I snatched that heart from his hands. I raised it to my mouth and bit into it. Blood trickled down the back of my throat as I chewed on the heart, devouring the organ like anyone else would down a Big Mac.

  When it was gone, I again licked my fingers without a care of just how messy or classless that would appear to those standing around me. I ran my tongue over my teeth and my lips, sucking at anything that might remain there from my sloppy eating.

  That's when I noticed the faces of everyone standing around me. I suppose that it wasn’t every day you saw a woman down an entire human heart raw. Or treat the odd meal as though it were truly finger lickin' good. I turned to look at Jon and felt my face flush for the first real time since he'd worked his voodoo trickery on me after the earthquake.

  "Jon?" I didn't know what to say, the look of horror on his face scared me.

  "Bea, I... you... I..." As he stammered, I wondered if I'd lost the only friend I had after everything went all toes up for me. I realized how much that hurt me, and I hoped that he would forget what he just witnessed.

  "I'm so... I don't know..." I felt so different all of a sudden, different than I'd ever felt in my life. "I didn't plan for that... I didn't know... Jon? Are you..."

  He looked at me, and hesitantly stepped backwards, away from me. Was he afraid of me? Afraid I might do the same thing to him I did to Leahonia?

  Oh God, would I if given the chance?

  "Bea, I... you... ate... that..."

  I hung my head, both confused and ashamed. As the minutes went by, whatever possessed me to eat the heart passed away and I felt more human and horrified at my own behavior. What kind of person just ate a raw heart like that? Maybe I really didn't qualify as a person anymore.