by Mark Henry
But the Stepford wife—and the one Paula Prentiss played, in particular, lanky and full of snark—merely walked breezily down the middle of them, gray and ice-eyed, a web of broken blood vessels streaking her flesh. Occasionally, she'd glance down at her feet and step over a train of rubber entrails before sniffing at the air again.
This was no faker.
She wasn't quite our kind. Her clothing choices nixed her from any shot at the inner circle, but she was definitely dead and carnivorous and on the tail of something or someone.
More power to her, I thought. If you could bag some decent meat amongst this bunch of zombie sycophants, then have at it. I would personally never be caught dead putting anything covered in that much cheap cosmetics in my mouth, but if you already have questionable taste—seriously, a floppy hat—then have at it.
"There's another made in that crowd," I yelled down at Wendy.
She let go of the door handle keeping Abuelita trapped amidst the business casual crowd. It swung open and the woman fell out, barely righting herself before taking the cement on her starched chinos. "Shit!" she cried out and then, jutting her chin, made a slow reach for the pistol shoved into the waist of her pants. "You want me to take care of this, Missus?"
Wendy laid one of her delicate hands on the woman's wrist and instantly calmed her. "It's just a ruse. Pretend." She shouted the last word as if Abuelita were going deaf and not just predominantly Spanish-speaking.
Crowding against the rail, arms began to reach toward us, stretching as though they'd actually claw us if they could. I glowered back at them, making it clear with my expression that a single touch would result in bodily dismemberment. But it was hard to hold them off with my eyes alone, especially as more and more were packing into the road.
“So many of them,” I muttered. “Don't they have jobs?"
Wendy wasn't wasting time with questions; she was busy slipping business cards into their greedy fingers. I watched as one fluttered to the table, reaching out to snatch it. On one side was a phone number I'd never seen before and on the other an advertisement for "Healthy Incomes for the Morally Flexible. Good Skin Care a Must."
I gazed up at the ruddy face of the nearest zombie and handed the boy the card. "Good luck." He broke character to give me an odd smile and a wink of interest, the expression cracking the thick smear of gray make-up on his cheek; it peeled away in a solid strip and fell on the table. Following it down, I noted another arm darting from beside his hip.
Quick.
Naturally gray and veiny.
Feminine.
Before I could do or say anything the hand closed in around the package of cloud and snatched it away. The woman disappeared into the throng as quickly as she’d come. Wendy's hands turned to claws and she threw herself across the table, jaw cracking like knuckles as her a scream bellowed from her quickly ratcheting mouth.
"Cuddler!" she screamed. "Get an eye on that bitch!"
Leaning from the window, cloud pilling in his chest hair like cheap deodorant, the man grinned and pointed. “Turning the corner just now, west on St. Helens.”
And then we were moving.
Wendy snarled and snapped her way through the grungy crowd, the moans louder from the center than the periphery. I felt my phone vibrating up the handle of my Birkin. Gil never could stand to be outside of the action, he had a sixth sense for drama. He was probably pacing the basement, cursing and mumbling to himself that nothing good ever happened at night.
When we broke from the crowd, Wendy in the lead—windmill-arming as she ran, purse hurdling before her like a medieval weapon—I caught sight of the thief blazing up the hill, the package tucked under one arm like a football, her other hand holding that damn floppy sun hat in place.
“That’s her!” I shouted and from beside my head saw the barrel of Abuelita’s gun level and ducked. Not a second later the concussion flipped my hair and my eardrum thudded as though it’d been hit by a hammer. I shot the woman a look that was also a promise to cut her when I got the chance.
Her lip curled away from her teeth in a grin that said she was looking for a reason to take me out.
“Car!” Wendy cried and threw herself in front of a gray sub-compact puttering along in their wake, sliding across the hood as though there were a crate of Twix on the other side—don’t let me get started on Wendy’s Twix addiction (unless you enjoy scat chat, in which case, I charge hourly for that).
Before I could detect her exact intent, Wendy had wrangled the driver out of the front seat, tossed him onto the concrete and slipped behind the wheel into the still rolling car. With her frenzied expression, I didn’t have to think twice before diving for the passenger door, Abuelita wasn't far behind but neither of us was quick enough to get our doors closed before Wendy tore off in the direction of Paula Prentiss.
“Jesus,” she snapped in my direction. “Could you be any slower?”
Up ahead, the zombie dressed as a zombie leapt onto a motorcycle and ripped off down the street, leaving a puff of smoke and two incredibly pissed off cloud dealers in her wake.
Never the best driver in the calmest of circumstances, Wendy bounced the little car over curbs, side-swiped mirrors clean off of parked cars and blistered the concrete running lights, barely escaping not one, but seven t-bones.
Meanwhile, I quickly checked my texts to find:
Gil
Managed a trio of invites for the Napa Valley Vein Train. I know blood's not your thing, but there'll be celebrities there and I know they very much are.
Me
You make me sound like some kind of starfucker.
I held the phone up to Wendy. “Gil wants us to—”
“I'm going to stop you right there,” she said, white-knuckling the wheel. “If I'm not going to go with you to your little book thing then I'm certainly not gearing my calendar around Gil's shit.”
Me
Wendy's being a cooch. Let's beat her over the head, shove her in burlap (she's allergic) and drop her in the Sound.
Gil
Perfect. I'll bring a few bottles. My fave Jami Gertz varietal and some Grey Goose for you. We'll watch her sink in style.
I glanced up, just as Wendy drove the car over the divider into the eastbound lane, my arm slamming into the door roughly as she swerved to avoid a head-on collision with a truck. I scrambled for the seatbelt, but it was too late, a sharp right planted me firmly against Wendy's hip, the stick shift digging into my thigh brutally.
"Dammit!"
"Not a word, Amanda!" Wendy was hunched over the steering wheel, teeth grinding and eyes homicidal.
To her credit, they were making endways in the pursuit. The motorcycle weaved back and forth between cars only a block away and slipped out of view as it took a hard right at the Space Needle and headed toward the port.
"Hurry, Missus! Rapido!” Abuelita belched from the back seat, still holding that damn gun.
Which reminded me. The bitch had nearly blown my hearing out and was thus a danger to my well-being. I spun around and before she could protect it, snatched the Glock 9mm from her hand. "I'll be damned if you pull that shit again!" And crammed it in my purse to avoid her clawing hands.
“Missus!” the woman whined.
“Abuelita!” Wendy shouted. “Leave it. We've got more pressing matters.”
The thief made a turn toward the cruise port and though they were right on her tail, when Wendy slammed on the brakes to give chase on foot the woman had already jumped from the stolen bike and entered the building beside one of the mammoth ships. Wendy swerved to a stop and we darted, throwing open the double doors just in time to see her disappear through the TSA security line.
Wendy approached the grim-faced agent behind the podium and began to plead. “That woman you just let through, she's a thief! She stole my...” she stumbled for words.
“Face cream?” I suggested.
“Drugs!” Abuelita howled.
Her words seemed to have the opposite effect as s
he'd intended, as we were forcibly removed from the building by a trio of security guards, only one of which, a delicious islander of some sort, muscled and lean, was even remotely edible and/or fuckable.
“You want to take a ride with us—um,” I leaned in to look at his badge. “Pinchy? Your name is Pinchy?”
He mugged, ran his long fingers through his thick black hair. I groaned. “I've got something you can pinch,” I said. “Two actually.”
“Or more,” Wendy said, snidely, her eyes trained on the ship and the woman who'd stolen her stash. She stood at the railing sipping from a coconut and holding the package up high like a trophy with her other hand.
“Where's this ship going, hon?” Wendy asked, turning a bitter smile toward Pinchy and running her fingers across his tan cheek.
“It's a turnaround. They're going to L.A. I think they might be stopping in San Francisco.”
I could see the wheels turning in Wendy's head. She glanced at me and shook her head, no.
“What? I wasn't thinking anything.”
“You weren’t thinking that we should jump in the car and kill three birds with one stone on a bloodthirsty west coast road trip?”
“Oh yeah, I was totally thinking that. Please can we?”
Wendy looked off at the cruise ship easing away from the dock and nodded slowly. “Maybe. I’ve got to make a few calls. Rule out some territories. There’s no way she’s affiliated with the Xhangzou Poltergeists in B.C., they don’t employ zombies. So it’s Cali. For sure.” Her eyes narrowed viciously.
I scrambled for my phone and texted Gil:
It's on. Book thing, wine country Vein Train, then S.F. and maybe L.A. for a supernatural gangland murder. Wendy's on board. Good times.
Book One
Beach Blanket Bloodbath
Behavior: N (needs improvement)
Comment: Amanda, while obviously smart, is prone to bouts of rash behavior. During the fall trimester alone she’s been unable to refrain from biting…at the expense of three of her classmates. No skin was broken, but I fear it’s only a matter of time. –Mrs. Helen Montclair
—First Grade Report Card
Lapham Elementary School
Chapter 1
Gil’s house on Queen Anne was a dilapidated monster—three floors of dandruffy clapboard, loose brick and windows shuttered up tighter than old lady cooch. The porch dimpled in the middle like the sagging back of a nag on its way to the dog food factory and veils of tarp draped over the mossy roof giving the whole place the look of a grieving mafia widow.
“How is it possible that it looks worse than the last time we were here?” Wendy shuddered, adding, “Yesterday.”
The mansion had probably been a showpiece in its time, but now it was the kind of place that made home renovation show hosts either cream their collective panties or run, windmill-armed in the opposite direction. The disheveled look was overkill considering it was entirely manufactured. The house had been gorgeous when Gil bought it. Gil claimed the work he’d put into the place was “distressing”—I’ll say—like holey-kneed worn-in jeans that you pay extra for so people think you have someone to get on your knees for. Of all the houses on the street, Gil’s was most likely to be compared to a used up hooker.
And he liked it like that.
People, for the most part stayed away, except for the obsessed. Gil had started his own rumors about the place at every supernatural website and local Facebook page comment thread about hauntings. The news drew thrill seekers to the house from far and wide but they always left dazed and a little thinner. Drained of some of the red stuff.
It was quite the racket.
And I had to say I was more than a little jealous that his food was delivered free of charge and sans gratuity. But I wouldn't trade places with him. Not since his boyfriend Vance left and the depression rolled in like a fog bank.
He was probably moping around his lavishly appointed basement right then, dwelling about the last time he got “catfished” or commiserating with some online friend about why guys only wanted to send fang pics. He'd tell them no and then the very next text was some lewd shot of their big fat fangs, usually slathered in saliva droplets or some other bodily fluid that isn’t captured often on Instagram.
Those weren’t nearly as bad as the bait and switch vamps that lured him in with shots of six pack abs and showed up with pony keg guts. Of course, Gil would immediately forward those pics to Wendy and I, no matter how vomit-inducing.
I texted Gil and looked up from my phone just in time to witness Wendy angrily pound the horn. I swatted her hand aside and pivoted in my seat for the inevitable confrontation.
“Oh no, bitch. You need to get a grip. We're going to be together for a few days and not just because we're trying to beat a cruise ship down the coast.”
“I know. I know. We're mending fences. It's our mending fences road trip. I might add that the last time you talked me into one of these, you ended up with a boyfriend…”
For what that’s worth, I thought.
“…And I ended up with a hole in my mid-section I had to pack with newspaper. It wasn't cute.”
I cringed, remembering the clean lines of the blast, you could see right through her—just like when she tried to lie—but those were the risks during a zombie outbreak, people get shot. But she couldn’t hold it against me forever, could she?
“Listen. It's not going to be like that,” I said. “We're going to have a great time. Hang out with Gil—”
“And Abuelita,” a small voice bit the words out from the shadows of the back seat.
I rolled my eyes. “And Abuelita. I’ll sign a few books; we’ll feast on some seaside delicacies, meet up with celebrities at Gil's Vein Train thingy in Sonoma and just generally have a great time. Maybe even give you a reason to unlock the chastity belt and air out the lady bits.”
Wendy chuckled at that, but didn't let the change in her mood stop her from reaching over and slapping my horn again.
“Gah!” I yelled.
I followed her gaze to Gil's loping silhouetted form, a huge suitcase teetering atop his head like the shadow of a hammerhead shark. When he broke into the cone of the streetlights Wendy and I both shielded our eyes.
Now, vampires aren't known for their Caribbean bronze tans, but Gil's sequestration to his basement for lo these five months had stripped his skin of nearly all its pigment. He was marble white and that's never a good look. It's terrible advertising, for one, because it reminds a buyer of those ancient statuary of nude men with micro-penises. And in this world full of size queens, that's the last thing a gay vamp wants to nestle into a potential lover's mind.
I hit the Volvo’s trunk button—thanking God we’d decided to grab my car; all our luggage would have never fit into the stolen one. After some rumbling and rearranging of luggage, Gil barreled into the back seat, staring undecidedly at Abuelita and then cramming himself between the front buckets to kiss Wendy and then me on the cheeks.
“And one for you, too, Chiquitita!” His lips smacked wetly against Abuelita's neck. “I'm diggin' the eyebrows by the way, very Mosquita Gang-Banger. Muy caliente.”
I glanced in the rearview to see a row of gold teeth glinting as the born-again chola smiled—at least someone knew how to menace. Now, if we could only get those toddler pageants to trade in their porcelain flippers for some gold-ass grillz, we’d really terrorize America.
Gil, of course, was nonplussed.
“You, sir,” I said. “Need to get some bronzing powder on that alabaster of yours. You nearly burned our eyes out when you walked into the light.”
“Jesus. Really? Already with the critique.”
“It comes standard with this car.”
“Uh...yeah.” Wendy spun around, propping her elbow on the seat top. “You look like one of our cloud cuddlers, and even with our prettiest specimens, that’s not a good look.”
I pointed the car in the direction of the freeway as the chatting continued. Cloud this, ship
ments that.
It wasn’t a long drive to Las Felicitas, an inordinately mouthy name for the new town that had sprung up on the Washington coast between Aberdeen and Astoria, and like most author events I couldn’t be sure that there’d be anyone there who was actually interested in the book.
Anyone human, that is.
Before I took the initiative and strong-armed a publishing deal—you know, the usual way, death threats, kidnapping, blood, so much blood—I mistakenly assumed that authors were somehow valuable to the world, that their creative force drove the book industry, that they were whisked away on book tours, lavished with champagne-flooded launch parties, their books promoted in a more effective way than say a cardboard sign at the top of a freeway off ramp waved by a dirt-smudged vagrant with tobacco-stained fingertips.
Wrong on all counts.
Turns out, once the book is on the shelves, the majority of us are pretty much on our own—look at me, lumping myself with a group, any group, so not like me—free to sink like the cinder block chained to another author’s drowning body. A situation I was definitely not accustomed to, nor did I find at all acceptable.
The reception of my first memoir, Happy Hour of the Damned was decidedly mixed and fell into two camps, one—the largest majority—those who felt our humor (and by “ours” I’m not only including Wendy and Gil, but you, if you’ve even laughed once) was horrible and offensive and two, those who were “in” on the “joke,” whatever that meant but preferred to check their books out from the library. Supernaturals knew about the book, certainly. Critics came out of the woodwork to lambast my “gall” at exposing our “secret ways.” But even a year after its release, as usual, not a single human took the book as reality. Who’d believe so many undead roamed the night (or day) and were the ones who always got to the clearance rack to snag the exact size you were looking for—yes, I’m talking about myself.
Again, no sales. Turns out zombies, vamps, ghosts and shifters are even bigger eBook pirates than humans.