Battle of the Network Zombies

by Mark Henry

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Wendy flinched.

  “Oh come on, cherie. I mean, why don’t we take zis quiet time, go upstairs to my room, and I’ll fuck you like you’ve never had it before. Fuck you square.”

  Wendy’s mouth dropped open and I must have giggled because Belgium’s own lezzie ghoul’s head snapped in my direction.

  “Well, hello, Amanda. I’ve just been chatting up your girl here.”

  I put the cell phone to my ear and pretended to end a very important call. Wendy pleaded with her eyes. If I’d had time, I might have played with this situation, but we needed to get the opening shot before the wind died down.

  I swept in between them and wrapped up Wendy in a tight hug. “This one is all mine, Butch.”

  Wendy’s lip curled back in horror.

  “Aren’t you, baby?” I asked.

  “Um.”

  “No need to put on a show pour moi. I could tell you two were…family.” Absinthe wrapped the words in an exaggerated set of air quotes. “Just wish I’d known yesterday. I might have talked you two into heading down to ze Boar’s Snout for a couple of beers and darts with a few of my girls.”

  “That,” I said, “would have been fuckin’ awesome. Huh, doll baby?”

  Wendy glowered.

  “Well, Absinthe, we’ll be chatting with you later. Got a TV show to salvage. We didn’t put our balls in this basket just to get ’em smashed, now did we?”

  “Hell no.”

  I led Wendy out by the hand.

  “She was going to eat me alive. Dead or not, I could tell.”

  “Oh yeah. She was lookin’ to eat something.” I stuck my tongue out and flicked it.

  “Gross. You’re getting dirtier, the more you rot.”

  Chuckling, I pointed out the room and how creepy it looked. Wendy got it. Another reason we’re friends: we have that whole sync thing going on. I told her about Scott and my successful first steps to winning him back as we blocked out the scene.

  Don’t ask me how she managed it—half the time I don’t understand the mechanics of the world I inhabit, like it’s piecemealed together from the whims of some unseen madman60—but the manangal, Angie, had turned her meager quarters into a full-blown nail salon, complete with paying customers and a mix of Top-40 chart-toppers bleating. I had to give it to the girl—she definitely capitalized on her assets.

  Janice and Eunice sat at repurposed writing desks, their hands being worked over by the deftly nimble filing of a pair of Angie’s tentacle-like innards stretched across the room from a gaping gash in the back of her neck. More stringy gore slithered down the back of her smock and washed brushes in a little basin, soapy bubbles stained pink in the effort.

  Do I need to mention that my stomach turned at the sight?61

  Tanesha lounged in the comfort of a massaging pedi-bath, a copy of Hello Underworld spread across one palm. The claws on the werewolf’s other hand appeared massive and threatening threaded through Angie’s delicately massaging hands.

  Angie looked up from her work. “You two want mani-pedi?”

  I scanned my nails. They were a little ragged from the torture I’d wreaked on them at the Stoppe and Shoppe, but not totally fucked. Wendy was doing the same, the camera drifting to her side with the effort. I gave her a quick elbowing. “No, thank you,” I said. “We have some questions.” I spun toward the camera. “For Tanesha Jones.”

  “Drag wulf,” Wendy added.

  “Yes,” I agreed.

  The glamorous shapeshifter glanced up from her magazine, eyelashes batting violently. “Do you realize that every year in this God-forsaken country, werewolves go hungry because of supernatural job discrimination? Makes me want to vomit.”

  “I was not aware of that, no. Now—”

  “Well, it’s true.” Her eyes returned to the article, her index claw tracing a punctuating line as she read, “Janice Dickinson, for one, is appalled. It says here, the ‘world’s first supermodel’ and recent werewolf transformee is leading the charge against werewolf inequality next month in a campaign she’s calling…‘Claws across America.’”

  “Wow, she’s like a saint. Saint Janice.” Angie moved on to cutting away at the cuticles that curled around Tanesha’s nail beds like seawalls.

  “That’s quite magnanimous of her,” I said. Note to self: contact Ms. Dickinson for possible ad placement. “Now, Tanesha. I have some questions as to your connection to the death of one Johnny Birch.”

  “I was with you.”

  “Well, yeah, but before that?”

  She sighed heavily and folded the magazine, slipping it between her hip and the arm of the lounge chair. “I was in my room. Getting ready for bed, untaping my candy, which can always be a bit of a chore. Need to soften up the adhesive—”

  “It won’t be necessary to go into—”

  “Or else,” Tanesha spoke louder, daring me to interrupt her again. “When I pull it off, a little bit of me comes with it. Or a whole lot of me, if you know what I’m sayin’.” She tossed her weave over her shoulder and winked saucily at Angie, who cackled.

  “Ooh girl, you so bad.”

  “Bad ain’t the half of it, catch one of the boys wrong and the maid’ll be cleaning balls off the lampshade and Tanesha dies childless.”

  Janice and Eunice chortled.

  These questions were going nowhere. It was time to pull out the big guns and I think you know I mean lying. Nothing will get someone to tell you the truth quicker than a big fat lie.62

  “Isn’t it true you hated Johnny Birch?” I peeked at Wendy. Confusion marred her pretty face.

  “Hate’s an ugly word, Ms. Amanda.” Tanesha’s tone turned haughtier than a Kiera Knightley character. “I don’t hate anyone.”

  “But you didn’t like him.”

  “That ain’t true at all.” She moaned. “Oh Johnny!”

  I shot a wide-eyed glance at the camera. Wendy licked her lips in anticipation. We love the gossip, you could probably tell—I suspect you do as well, or you wouldn’t have stuck with us for the long haul. Again, if I’d known this was part of the detective thing, I’d have started long ago. Long ago.

  “There was a time we were very much in love, Johnny and me. He swept me off my feet, so to speak. Or rather I wrapped him in a gossamer cocoon of my charms. I’m talking about a croquembouche.”

  “The French wedding cake?” Wendy suggested.

  I shot her a suspicious look. Leave it to the Twix fiend to have an encyclopedic knowledge of international desserts.

  “They’re my specialty. I surround the cream puffs in a golden nest of spun sugar. Johnny Birch was entranced.” She stood up and stepped out of the footbath, pacing the room and speaking with broad extravagant gestures. “It was years ago, but I remember it like yesterday.

  “Johnny was a guest at the wedding of Gloria Gaslight, the famous performance artist and her life partner Cuddles, which happened to be a blow-up doll with black electrical tape over its gaping mouth and eyes—also its butthole, but I didn’t ask why. The two of us were standing in the back of the hall, me behind the cake in my black beaded flapper dress with the feather trim and my hair up in a blisteringly stylish Mohawk. That’s right, it was delicious.”

  “Sounds like it,” I said.

  “And Johnny leaning against the wall in his tight little tuxedo pants, making roses grow from the cheap 70s paneling. He plucked one out of the wall and tossed it to me.” Tanesha leaned in to whisper, “That’s not all he tossed that night.”

  “See, now I thought Johnny was straight.”

  “Oh, he was. Most definitely.”

  “How do you figure, doll? I mean no disrespect, Tanesha. You are a gorgeous and powerful woman, but let’s not kid ourselves about—”

  “About my candy? Oh honey, I’m not sure if he ever got a good look at it. I’m very good at finding flattering lighting.”

  “Still,” I pressured. “The sex.”

  “Now Amanda, I don’t have to t
ell you about the three options, now do I?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Besides, Johnny was not what you’d call a gentle lover, he was unskilled labor, despite a healthy roster of conquests, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

  “So how did this affair end? Badly, I’m assuming?”

  Tanesha crossed her arms, her jaw tightened.

  “There was another woman. Greedy and cruel. With an unusual accent. Fat old island woman.”

  I gasped. “Mama Montserrat?”

  Wendy nodded, as if she’d known all along.

  “Twisted old bitch wouldn’t leave us alone. She’d call at all hours of the night and day. She’s a nasty thing with pejohos in her fapuna.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. But I’ll tell you this, even after we separated, she stalked Johnny.”

  “But she’s his agent. The producer of his shows. How could the gossip columns have missed such an odd pairing. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It makes sense all right. She had him under her spell and I’m not talking about beguiling him with her sex. She doesn’t have that in her. I’m saying she cast out some dark magic and lured him in. Johnny didn’t have a chance and in the end, neither did our love.” Tanesha crossed the room in three long strides and dropped onto the window seat tragically.

  CHANNEL 13

  Tuesday

  9:00–10:00 P.M.

  Fae or Fairy?

  (Season Premiere) In the second season, the gang amps up the contest with the new and improved Fae-dar! Also look for the Seven Minutes in Heather challenge—hope it’s not allergy season!

  Montserrat’s room was identical to ours. A small seating area was set apart from the bed by a bureau holding up a pair of crystal lamps, a stuffed mink or ferret leaning up against one. In our room, the space between the lamps contained a large bowl of fruit—I suspected this was some sort of joke. Like we could just reach out and eat a mango. Someone was an asshole. Mama had something else in that spot.

  “Look at this shit right here.” I waved Wendy over. “Get a good shot of this.”

  The voodoo woman turned the bureau into a makeshift altar to her love. Johnny Birch’s photo sat dead center, surrounded by candles of various lengths, a wooden bowl with what looked like a raw egg in tomato sauce—though it totally could have been blood—a garland of chicken bones and various little statues, and linen bags tied off with thin cords.

  “Crazy.” Wendy sang the word, eyes wide with mock peril.

  “Absolutely. But it must have some purpose.”

  “Well, those are called gris-gris bags. I saw them in a movie.”

  “Oh yeah? Which one?” I pressed.

  “I don’t know, something with Kate Hudson and lots of humidity.”

  I skimmed the surface of the altar with my fingertips. They came back red. The belly of her welcome harp seal was likewise rouged. I went to the door and knelt down next to a line of the same chalky substance drawn in front of Mama Montserrat’s door.

  I rushed to Birch’s suite, Wendy hot on my heels.

  “What are we looking for?”

  “Anything that could help us figure this out. Scott told me I need to really tear the place apart because there’s bound to be something there. Has to be. If you totally throw away the idea that the door was locked.”

  “It’s true. That’s a big problem. I haven’t stopped thinking that he killed himself. But then you throw in the envelope and the way he died. It’s just too weird.”

  “Too weird,” I repeated. Kneeling on the floor in front of the open door. “Look.”

  Wendy knelt next to me the camera focusing in on another line of the red powder. This one was broken in two spots, like someone had cut across it with their fingers.

  “What do you think it means?”

  “Well, it’s on both of their thresholds, so either something that bonds them, or protects them, or binds them, maybe.”

  “That narrows it down.”

  I ignored her sarcasm and stepped inside the room, intent on discovering something this time, some for real clue that might lead us to an answer. Mama Montserrat for sure played a part, but why? Why would she kill the star of her show? Didn’t make sense.

  I rummaged through drawers of underwear and socks. Johnny seemed to be stocking up for the apocalypse. Either that, or he shit himself with regularity. The closet held his clothes, nothing in the pockets. The nightstand didn’t even have an alarm clock on it. I scanned through the porn titles.

  Jacked Up 2, Double Fisted, Frosty Fuckers 5: Ice Orgy, Pooper Scooper. Each movie seemed more perverse than the last. The only thing the films—and I use that term very loosely—had in common were an absence of anything that seemed like normal sex. Not that it was surprising in the slightest that Johnny was into kink. The opposite, in fact. I’d almost half-expected even more disgusting stuff, though the pictures on the scat DVD did make my evening quarry back up into my mouth a bit.

  “What are we missing?”

  Wendy shook her head. She panned the camera over all the surfaces, before returning to center me in the frame.

  I knelt beside the heaps of ash, hesitating a moment before slipping my fingers into the remains. Sure, I’m not the most sensitive sort, but I did know the guy and it seemed weird to disturb his ashes. That said, it kind of reminded me of spa scrub, granular and gritty. Occasionally, I’d come across larger pieces, like finding sea glass in sand. As I ran my fingers through what would have been Johnny’s waist, I found a little lump.

  Once extracted and brushed off, it was clear that Mama had been involved in the murder. How else could the little thing have survived the fire and completely unmarred? I held it out to Wendy.

  “Look what I found.”

  “A gris-gris,” she whispered.

  “It’s the clencher.”

  “Now we just have to find her. She was talking about Ether the other night.”

  A stretch, since everyone was talking about Ether, Ricardo’s newest engineering marvel slash night spot, but what were our options, really?

  I pulled the cab out the front gate and turned left toward the main artery back into downtown. Thankfully the rain stopped its torrent and the radio was blissfully silent. Baljeet’s final curse, may have been just that. One could hope.

  “Um, Amanda?” Wendy asked, not looking away from the screen on her iPhone.

  “Yes?”

  “Who are those guys in the backseat?”

  I glimpsed their reflections in the rearview mirror, one straightening his tie hopefully, the other digging in his nose for some spectral booger. “I’m calling them Lumpy and Pie-hole.”

  “Those aren’t our names,” Lumpy grunted.

  Wendy just nodded, her interest transferred to the image on her little screen. “Abuelita’s opening the box!”

  “Ooh.” I’m not saying I’m a bad driver, but I did watch the entire scene unfold. I’m a talented multi-tasker, in case you weren’t aware.

  The two ghosts pushed through the back of the seat to get a better look, faces nestling in next to Wendy’s cheeks. Her blond pigtails hung into the center of their transparent skulls like handles on a bizarre pair of Harijuku girl handbags. Lumpy and Pie-hole’s eyes narrowed with interest, then confusion.

  “What the hell is she doing?” Wendy enlarged the image as much as she could.

  The bead stringer sat on the couch, pensively pulling what looked like a metal paint can from the UPS box. She sat it on the coffee table and disposed of the box, returning with a soupspoon and prying open the tin lid. Abuelita chewed her nails and stared into the opening, sinking back onto the couch. It seemed to be emitting a pulsing glow.

  “Wha’s in there, an asteroid?” Pie-hole mimicked the immigrant’s nervous habit and stuck his phantom nails between his equally ineffective teeth.

  She leaned over the can, held the spoon like a prison shank and stabbed it inside, withdrawing a massive glob of glowing white paste and plopping it int
o her mouth. There were a couple of close calls where Abuelita seemed to be heaving, but ultimately she choked down the mouthful.

  “It’s like toothpaste, or something.”

  “I think it’s gravy.”

  “Nah,” I said. “Too thick.”

  She dropped the spoon on the table and leaned back on the couch, rubbing her stomach, kneading at it like dough. Her movements slowed until, finally, her head rocked to the side, her mouth open and drooling.

  “Okay, that was weird,” I said, returning my attention to the road.

  Where Ranier Avenue escapes the sea of crack houses, whores working out of shadowy bus shelters and gang-infested Vietnamese billiard halls and turns into Boren Avenue, an equally shady area of public housing and under maintained rentals, I started noticing the headlights of a car, weaving into oncoming traffic and then darting back into the lane behind me.

  As we crossed the intersection, the car revved up beside me, the passenger window descended and the driver—a middle-aged Indian woman, bendi maniacally applied above her right eyebrow and mouth slashed into a growl—shook her fist in my direction.

  “I lojacked you, bitch!” she shouted as I rolled down the cab’s window.

  “Oh shit!” Lumpy and Pie-hole screamed in unison.

  “Baljeet?” The name shook loose from my lips like a sob.

  “Damn right, you white devil. I told you Baljeet’s coming to kill you. You misunderestimate Baljeet.” She lifted a long curved machete, fatter at the tip than the rest of the blade. To accentuate her threat, the psychotic dispatcher twisted her wheel and slammed her car into the side of ours.

  The impact sent my hip colliding with the doorframe—yep, that hip. I heard it pop before I lost balance in my hips. Clinging to the steering wheel, I hit the gas and pressed past Baljeet’s swerving deathmobile, Wendy and the boys screaming in terror like virgins at a sacrifice—not that any of them would have to worry about that.63

  Baljeet escalated and as we rounded Madison, she slammed into the back bumper. The cab spun in the intersection, my leg ground in the socket. Pain sluiced straight up my spine and I screamed, more than a little bit.