Mark Henry_Amanda Feral 02

by Road Trip of the Living Dead

  I shifted from one foot to the other.

  There was absolutely nothing sexy about this. These guys were all perverts.

  Hairy Sue rose then and bowed to the wild applause and showers of dollar bills. She posed there like she owned that porch, corncob dripping and a fat smile spread across her face.

  The lights dimmed.

  “I’d sure like to see your bush.” Birch again. His lips curled into a lewd smile.

  I nearly vomited up my dinner (let’s not go into what that might have been, just yet). “Is that some kind of wood nymph joke? ’Cause I’m done with your poor impulse control.”

  “Hey.” He stepped back, spread his arms, and wiggled his fingers. “I can control the trees and stuff.”

  I let my eyes wander down to the tent in his pants. “But not the wood?”

  He sagged.

  “Maybe we should just talk.” He covered his crotch with cupped hands, a flush rising in his cheeks.

  I followed him back to a booth underneath a monstrous moose head, where he laid out the scenario. It was the first time I’d seen his face in full light. He wasn’t hideous, though his features were sharp and his nose a bit too thin. The brown of his eyes shimmered with veins of gold, and his lips, though pale, were full and unexpectedly alluring. He looked much better on TV, but that was probably the makeup.

  Mmm. Makeup.

  “The calls started coming about three months ago,” he said. “At first the caller wouldn’t say anything. Just hang up after I’d answered. The phone company said they were always from phone booths. I didn’t even know those still existed, but they do.”

  I nodded, though I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen one, either. Still, why do people feel the need to tell me the most random crap? Like I care. I’m dead.

  “About a month ago, they started getting threatening. Not overtly so, just freaky. Like letting me know that I was being monitored. ‘You’re at the Texaco on First.’ Like that. And then they’d just hang up and I’d be standing there at the pump, not just worried that my cell was going to spark and blow me up, but now that someone was nearby watching. Then a couple of weeks ago I get the first one.”

  “First what?”

  Johnny reached into a briefcase he must’ve stored under the table before his lap dance and pulled out a plastic shipping envelope, the kind lined with Bubble Wrap. He placed it on the table between us and leaned forward, searching the room for observers. Half the crowd had been culled into the back rooms, and the other half were busy drinking themselves into stupors.

  I made eye contact with Gil across the room. He looked concerned. It must have been my expression of pure boredom. My eyes dropped back to the envelope.

  “I’m not a private detective, Birch. I’m in advertising. Can we get on with this?”

  “I know. I know. But, I don’t need you for that. I need you for your celebrity.”

  Celebrity?

  Oh, yes. He’d snared my attention with that. “Go on.”

  He opened the end of the envelope and pulled out a thin shingle of wood. Stretched across it and attached with thick pins was a creature like none I’d seen, almost insect-like, with wings that clung to its sides like a termite. Its flesh was as black as obsidian and shiny from toe to its segmented abdomen to its horribly humanoid head. The creature’s waxy face was frozen in a torturous silent scream.

  “Gross. What the hell is it?” I was unable to look away from the little body, pinned as it was like a lab experiment. Better there than flying around, though, or I’d be snatching a flyswatter.

  “I don’t really know. But it looks like a fucking threat to me.” He slid it back into the envelope and tossed it into his bag. “Anyways! I’m going on tour this spring and clearly, with this shit going on …” He kicked at the briefcase. “I’m going to need some protection.”

  “All right. How is my ‘celebrity’ going to do that?”

  “It’s not. I’m putting together a team of bodyguards, and what better way to do it nowadays than with my own fabulous reality contest show? Can you see it? Celebrity judges and weekly death matches. It’s exactly what Supernatural TV is aching for. Cameron Hansen would host, of course, and all we’d need is our Paula. You’d be our Simon.”

  “Simon? I’m too cute and, anyway, you’d be our fucking Paula. What we’d need is a Randy.” I reached for my purse and began to scoot out of the booth. The idea was ludicrous.

  “Maybe.” His voice thundered. “But I’m a nut with financial resources and I’d be willing to pay.”

  “So you’re looking for more than just a guest judge here, then? We’re talking about exclusive advertising contract with product placement?”

  “That could be arranged.”

  “Let me think about it.” I looked around the Hooch and Cooch and couldn’t quite believe that such a gross experience might lead to a potential financial windfall. “All right, let’s plan to meet somewhere less … disgusting, and then we’ll talk about it. Sound good?”

  “Up to you.”

  “Well, let’s figure it out in the parking lot. I don’t think I can stomach this place much longer.”

  As we stood to leave, a commotion began in the hallway to the private rooms. A steady stream of men were rushing from the exit, most of them screaming and none of them attempting to shield the bulge in their trousers. Following them was a roar that vibrated through the room and a crash as the chicken coops shattered sending several birds flapping and skittering off toward the door in the shack. Gil and Ethel ran into the room, my mother brandishing a machete, Gil some sort of short club.

  “We better get out of here.” I turned to Birch, but he’d already darted for the front door. Behind him a massive hairy beast emerged from the tangle of metal cages. Its bulbous head sheared the ceiling as it lurched, creating a groove across the ripples of metal. Its thick, muscled arms ended in rakish claws that shredded the floorboards into mulch with each powerful swipe. It stopped in the center of the room, head twisting wildly from one patron to the next until it found its quarry.

  The creature howled with such force, the floor shook under me, slobber clung to foot-long fangs like sloppy pennants flapping in the direction of Johnny Birch, who let out a quivering whimper.

  It rushed forward.

  Dammit, I thought. There goes the TV show.

  1 No. No paparazzi, either. Yeah. I was glad about that.

  2 Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. That piss is rank. Good for getting rid of some quick water weight, though. Just a tip.

  3 The authorities, that is; nothing disrupts business like a vice raid.

  4 I didn’t want to even think what these girls would use that for.

  5 It’s a curse that my sense of smell is so acute. A curse!

  6 Hey. I’ve always kept mine neat and trim. Don’t go making assumptions.