by Tonia Brown
“I look at it like this: I’m dead, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And if we get my soul back, he’s going to bring me back to life, right?”
As Jonah thought about this for a moment, a sudden nausea swept over him. “God, I hope so. I mean, I didn’t really specify. He just said he’d give it back. I didn’t even think about what to do after that.”
“Stop panicking. I’m sure he meant he’d return me to life. After all, what good would a soul do you?”
What good indeed? Jonah furrowed his brow in frustration. “I don’t see what this has to do with—”
“With this?” Dale raised his maimed hand. “I’m thinking if he is going to bring me back to life, then he will have to fix the other damage being dead has caused me. So we can just stick this on the bill.”
“Other damage?”
Dale nodded.
A little hesitant, unsure if he wanted to know or not, Jonah asked, “What other damage?”
Dale grinned wickedly at the question. “Trust me. You don’t want to know.”
“Come on. If you’re harmed in any way, I might be able to help you.”
“I’m telling you, man. You don’t want to know.”
The more the zombie refused to share, the more a morbid and sinister curiosity consumed Jonah. “I should know. You’re my responsibility since you, umm, shuffled off your mortal coil. I need to know.”
Dale shrugged as he sat on the edge of the bed. “Suit yourself. Where to begin?” He tapped his fingertips together, staring at the missing thumb as he contemplated his choice of words. “Well, for starters, what kind of shape do you think the asshole that shit a toilet bowl full of undigested food is going to be in right about now?”
Jonah gagged at the insinuation. “I can’t imagine.” Though he supposed he could. He just didn’t want to.
“Yup. Those Happy Burger wrappers alone chewed my ass up. It’s like the Grand Canyon back there! And you think that’s bad? Let me explain how delicate one’s foreskin becomes when you’re dead.”
“No need. I think I’ve heard enough.”
Dale, however, hadn’t told enough. He ignored Jonah and plowed right along with his disgusting descriptions of dong-centric desiccation. “Just the slightest rubbing from underwear alone leaves it raw and cracking, no matter how much lotion you put on your pecker. And since there’s no blood flow, you don’t really bleed from those sores. No. You sort of ooze black stuff that, oddly enough, tastes like chicken.”
Jonah’s eyes widened as his stomach flipped. “You tasted it? That’s disgusting!”
“Disgusting? That’s not the half of it. Can you imagine how swollen your balls get when you can’t follow through with your daily masturbatory routine? Of course that might just be a case of bloating rather than backup. And, by the way, they are totally blue and quickly approaching black, if you get my drift.”
“Okay! You win! Enough!”
“Some win. If this shit’s the prize, it sucks.” Dale’s derisive chuckle was almost as nauseating as his laundry list of complaints. “Do you think Satan is just gonna shuffle my coil back into my mortal being and let all of this just ride? Or is he going to fix me up properly? ‘Cause, to tell the truth, I don’t think my precious soul will like the new me very much. Do you?”
Jonah stared at the zombie, stunned, shocked, and speechless. Dale proceeded to stretch out full length across the bed, his muscles creaking and bones cracking, as he waited for Jonah to make up his mind. But as far as minds went, Jonah felt quite out of his. He was pretty sure he had left his mind along I-80 just inside the California state border.
Or in an apartment in Sacramento.
Or in a convenience store dumpster in Reno.
Or on the lips of a beautiful redhead right here in Green River, Utah.
At length, Jonah asked, “What’s your plan?”
“We go look for it,” Dale said. He held the wounded hand up to the light, displaying it for Jonah again. “We find my thumb and take it to North Carolina with us. And then we hope Satan can put it back.”
“Do you honestly think that having the thumb will make a difference?”
“Don’t know for sure, but I’d hate to be wrong.”
“What if he can fix you without it? What if he doesn’t need it?”
“What if he does? You claim the living Dale won’t be happy if I’m a killer? How will he feel about losing his thumb because you couldn’t keep a simple promise?”
Touché. Dead Dale hit a homerun with that little jab, rounding all the bases of Jonah’s guilty field without breaking a sweat. Jonah grunted in abhorrence to being laid so low with but a mere phrase. “Thanks a lot for putting it that way, friend.”
Dale dipped his head in appreciation. “You’re welcome, but you’re the one who keeps going on and fucking on about all of this being your fault.”
Which was true as well. Yet there were so many factors to consider. “I bet we won’t be able to find it.”
“This town is the size of a fucking trailer park. Where the hell is it gonna go?”
Jonah covered his face with his hands, wishing that all of this would just go away. Well, the parts with dead Dale. The parts with Candy he would keep. And treasure. Forever. Through his fingers, he asked, “You really think we need it?”
“I want it. That’s enough for me.”
Peeking between his fingers at the grinning dead man lying on his bed, Jonah knew he didn’t have a choice. If he said no, Dale would just badger him about it all night and he wouldn’t get to sleep, anyway.
“Fine,” Jonah conceded while rubbing his tired eyes. “You get one hour. Hear me? One hour. Then I’m coming back here and going to sleep. I still have a thousand miles to drive.”
“Great!” Dale shouted as he leapt up and grabbed a clean shirt. “But I want three hours.”
“One.”
“Three and I’ll back off the chick.”
“You’ll what?”
Dale pulled the shirt on, fumbling with the buttons now that his thumb was missing. “Help me look for three hours, and I’ll step aside and let you have a crack at that sweet thing. I’ll even join your cheerleading squad.” He punched the air and added, “Go, Team Jonah! Get that pussy!”
It was an interesting offer, which both insulted and intrigued Jonah. If Dale promised to stop his incessant flirting with Candy, then maybe, just maybe, Jonah would have a real chance to win her affections. Though the underlying insinuation that Dale could pluck her like a flower right from Jonah’s bouquet, well, that was enough to make a man mad. He ran hot and cold with the thought, wanting to both beat the zombie to a pulp and thank him for being so generous.
Jonah relented. “Three hours. But I don’t need you to help me with her. I’m doing just fine on my own.”
“I saw how just fine you were. She was real anxious to stick around and let you finish whatever I interrupted. Wasn’t she?”
“Dale!”
“What? The bitch bolted from the poolside like it was a fucking rape scene.”
“Now it’s two hours,” Jonah growled. “And if you say one more damned word about her, it’ll be five minutes. Understand?”
“I got it. Don’t get your panties in a fucking wad.”
Jonah followed Dale out to the parking lot, trying very hard not to concentrate on the word ‘panties’.
Or fucking.
Chapter Seventeen
Green River, Utah
134 hours: 45 minutes: 58 seconds remaining
Jonah had no idea what to expect. He had no idea what kind of plan Dale had for finding his missing digit. No idea how they would find this thumb-sized needle in a town-sized haystack. But the solution was as plain as the nose on a dead man’s face.
Dale claimed he could smell his missing thumb.
Like some odiferous homing device, the severed thumb apparently called to Dale in the language of a distinct aroma, begging him to find and rescue it. Green River may
have been a bit on the small side, but it was still big enough to wear Jonah out with the effort of the search. Besides the trudging around from hidey-hole to hidey-hole, they also had to avoid the patrolling policemen and nocturnal townies. Three hours later, an already tired Jonah became a very, very exhausted Jonah.
Fighting for breath and aching to the bone, he leaned against a signpost and announced, “I would like to remind you that your two hours were up an hour ago.”
Dale trudged past the post, silencing Jonah’s complaint with a hiss. “It’s near here. I can smell it.”
“You smelled it from the parking lot of the McDonald’s to the back alley of the Food King. You smelled it in two different trailer parks and a retirement home. If you smelled it any better, you’d have found it by now. Just stop for a minute, would you?”
Dale deigned to stop and let Jonah rest. “What are you complaining about? It’s not your thumb that has gone missing.”
“I’m complaining because I’m tired. I know a side effect of being dead means you don’t get tired, but I’m not dead. Remember? And I am tired. I’m tired and my feet hurt and my back aches and I think we’re lost.”
“We aren’t lost.” The zombie sniffed the air. “I know right where we are.”
“Then where are we?”
Dale pointed to the sign against which Jonah was leaning. “Juniper Street. Can’t you read? Now shut up and follow me.” He stopped to sniff the air again. “I know we’re close.”
Jonah looked up at the sign, confused by the familiarity of it. “Haven’t we been down Juniper Street once already?”
“No,” Dale snapped.
Jonah narrowed his eyes at the sign, then the surroundings. “We have. We were just here. I remember that chain link fence. The one with the missing post there in the middle.”
“Don’t be retarded.” Dale rushed along, not waiting for Jonah to follow.
“Wait a minute. You’re right. We weren’t just here—”
“Told you so.”
“Because this is where we started. Dale! You idiot! We’ve doubled back.”
“No, I followed my finger. It’s not my fault the little bastard brought it back here.”
Raising his hands in defeat, Jonah announced, “That’s it. I’m done.”
“But we’re so close! I can feel it!”
“Really? Are you pulling my leg? You could smell it, now you can feel it?” As he looked to the heavens for help, a familiar sensation overwhelmed Jonah. “My God, I’m such an idiot.”
“No argument there.”
“You’ve been leading me on this whole time, haven’t you?”
“What?”
“You’ve been leading me around on some wild goose chase just for a good laugh. Well thanks a lot, jackass. I could have been asleep this whole time.”
“I’m telling you, it’s real near. I can feel it. You have to believe me.”
“Oh, I believe you. Don’t you worry about that. I believe everything you say. I think I’m ready to believe just about anything. Satan, real? Sure. Hell exists? No problem. How about the walking dead? Why not? But what I can’t believe is that I’ve tagged along for the last three hours while you’ve chased your own freaking thumb across this stupid town.”
Jonah kicked the signpost a few times, seething with ire but unsure how to direct it. He knew where he wanted to channel it, but even hyped up on the adrenaline of his anger, Jonah knew he could never win in a fight against Dale. Dead Dale or living Dale or any Dale in any of the other sixteen states of being.
“What are you so mad about?” Dale asked.
“A thumb!” Jonah said as loud as he could without actually shouting. “I’ve spent the last three hours wandering around looking for a thumb for a dead man who doesn’t even feel the pain of it being gone. And you know the worst of it? I bet you don’t even need it. In fact, I’ll bet my soul that it doesn’t even matter.”
“It matters to me,” Dale murmured.
“Why on earth would it?”
“Because it’s my thumb!”
Dale’s shout echoed across the quiet street, bringing Jonah back to his cautious senses, but not enough to temper his anger.
“Of course,” Jonah whispered. “It matters because it belongs to you. Makes perfect sense for someone so selfish.” Jonah turned on his heel and followed what he hoped was the path back to the hotel. “Christ, this has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”
Dale’s accusatory voice rose behind him. “What was? Driving me into California after you promised you’d forget about it?”
This stopped Jonah in his tracks, but only for a moment. He brushed off the dig and continued on his way. “Not gonna work. Not this time.”
Dale was hot on Jonah’s heels, yipping like an excited puppy, circling Jonah as he stomped away. “Where are you going?”
“To bed. To sleep.” Giddy from lack of rest, Jonah giggled and added, “Perchance to dream?”
“Come on, man. Just five more minutes.”
“Goodnight, Dale.”
“I swear it’s near here.”
“Good. Night. Dale.”
“Jonah, you gotta help me, man. Please?”
Jonah stopped again and turned to face the dead man, who now stood a few paces away. The ‘please’ was too much. Too personal. The zombie sounded so much like Dale when he said it. The real Dale. With a sigh, Jonah ran his hands through his hair. “Five more minutes, then we cut our losses. I need to sleep a few hours. Okay?”
“Okay!” Dale darted off, and with another tired sigh, Jonah followed.
Once again, they came upon the tool shed to which the precocious pup had, at one point, been tethered. Hours ago, this was their starting point, where Dale had replayed the scene so they could determine the direction in which the dog had fled. Now they stood beside the very same shed as Dale sniffed the quiet air.
“It’s here,” the zombie whispered.
In a low voice, Jonah asked, “If it was here the whole time, then why did we run all over town looking for it?”
“Because it wasn’t here before, smartass. I think he’s been running around with it. He’s been leading me on. But it’s here now. Oh yeah, it’s here now.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I just know.” All at once, Dale snapped his attention to the end of the fence. Raising his finger in accusation, he whispered, “There’s the little furball.”
At the end of the chain link fence, in the halo of a flickering streetlamp, sat the very creature for which they had spent three fruitless hours looking. Jonah understood Dale’s trouble describing the beast, for he, too, had a hard time discerning the dog’s breed. True to Dale’s description, the dog was indeed both brown and small, with knotted layers of fur and the saddest little eyes ever to appear on an animal. The best description Jonah could manage for the poor thing was ‘mutt.’
This mutt stared at them from the sidewalk, as if wondering what in the world they were doing hanging around his fence in the middle of the night.
“Give me back my fucking thumb!” Dale yelled.
“Keep your voice down,” Jonah warned in a fierce whisper. “The last thing we need is to be picked up for suspicious behavior. And I can’t think of anything more suspicious than two strangers in a small town, sneaking around in the middle of the night.”
“I can.” Thankfully, Dale didn’t elaborate on this as he took off down the length of fence.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m gonna wring the little shit’s neck ‘til he stops moving.”
Jonah lunged forward and grabbed the zombie before he could make good on his word. “Stop. Just stop and think a minute. Okay? If you spook him, we might lose him again.”
The zombie whimpered. “But he has my thumb. I just know it.”
“I don’t think he does.” After giving the mutt a quick visual once-over, Jonah suggested, “Unless, of course, he ate it.” He regretted the words the moment they
came out of his mouth.
In the moonlight, Dale’s yellow eyes lit like sparklers on the Fourth of July. “Of course! Jonah, you’re a genius. I bet he swallowed the damned thing. I bet it’s swimming around in his little belly right now. Come on, I’m gonna tear it apart with my bare hands.” The zombie set out again, surely intending to commence said barehanded tearing.
Jonah held Dale back once more. Even though he had spent half the night looking for the zombie’s thumb, Jonah now found himself on the side of the dog. After all, it wasn’t the poor pup’s fault that Dale was such a hungry, hungry jackass. “We need to be careful. We should try to coax it over, or it will just run again.”
“Okay. Coaxing first. But then wringing and tearing.” Dale accentuated his words with a quick pantomime.
A wave of nausea arose in Jonah at the sight of the zombie wringing an imaginary dog’s neck, then tearing the imaginary pup limb from imaginary, bloody limb. “I’m sure we can get it back another way.”
“How?”
“We could just wait for it to reappear.”
“Reappear,” Dale echoed, as if unsure what Jonah meant.
“Yes. Reappear. You know.” At the continued confusion in Dale’s eyes, Jonah motioned to his own backside and added. “Naturally?”
Dale wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Gross, man. I don’t want it back after some dog shits it out. Won’t it get digested anyway?”