by Tonia Brown
“I see. Well, thanks for that.”
“You’re welcome. The Big Man isn’t the only one who works in mysterious ways.” Lucifer’s smile twinkled in the glow of televised sin. “Yup. Our friend Dale shouldn’t start posing any real problems for a few days yet.”
Jonah sensed mischief in the warning. “What kind of problems?”
“Rotting. Decaying. Just what he should be doing now, but isn’t. Time will catch up with him eventually. And when it does, believe you me, the stench will be unbearable.”
“Eventually?” Jonah squeaked. “How soon is eventually?”
Satan shrugged, but never looked away from the pornographic images flitting across the screen beside him. “The full week. A few days. Hard to say, really. There ain’t much I have in common with the Man upstairs, but there is this one thing: We can’t delay the inevitable. Nature takes precedence over our wishes. Like good old Doris said, que sera, sera.”
Jonah struck the bed with a fist and swore under his breath.
“Don’t look so down about it,” Satan said, finally glancing at Jonah. “You should have plenty of time before that happens. I’d just make sure to be at the finish line before then. Way before then.”
“We will. You just wait and see.”
“Oh, I am, Jonah Orville Benton. I’m waiting for that very thing.” For a brief moment, in the soft phosphorescence of the television, Lucifer’s blue eyes flashed with crimson flames. Then the Devil stood, buttoning his jacket as he readied himself to leave. “Well, then, you seem to have everything in hand. I’ll let you alone.”
“Are you going to do these surprise inspections very often?”
“No. Maybe. Who knows?” Lucifer laid his finger beside his nose, tapping his perfect proboscis as he added, “Mysterious ways, remember?”
“Can I ask just one more question?”
“For my favorite human? Sure. Ask away.”
“Why Linville Caverns?”
Satan tipped his head to one side and raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Linville Caverns. Why there?”
“Sorry, son. Doesn’t ring a bell. Is it near here?”
“Stop playing hard to get. We know his soul is in North Carolina. But why the Caverns? I know he has family there, but he’s never actually been. I just found it an odd choice, since he has never visited the place himself. But I suppose it had less to do with links to Dale and more to do with the fact that it’s clear across the country. Is that it?”
Smiling wide once more, Satan said, “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jonah groaned. Of course Satan would deny knowledge of the hiding spot. “Okay. Whatever. I’m not in the mood. Can you just tell me if it’s hidden in a reasonable place? Or have you dropped it down some dark hole we can’t physically get to?”
Lucifer’s smile was of the impossible variety again. Far too many teeth for a normal human. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
Then he was gone. No dramatic fade. No puff of smoke. The Devil was there one moment and gone the next. The lights returned to their usual glare, and the sudden absence of the Devil left Jonah nauseated. He looked away from the spot that once held the Devil, letting his gaze rest on the glaring TV.
Just in time to see some buxom blonde spit-roasted between a pair of cocks the approximate length and thickness of Jonah’s forearm.
Jonah’s eyes grew to saucer proportions. He had, on occasion, watched sex scenes before, but nothing as raw as the movie playing out before him. Once, on an unforgettable birthday night, Dale had all but forced Jonah to view an actual, dyed-in-the-wool adult film. But even then, friend as Dale was, the whole movie was nothing more than a few mutual masturbation and oral scenes, ending with a climax of a sweet and simple coupling that made the romantic in Jonah sigh to watch. (Dale later confessed the movie was from a company that specialized in ‘porn for chicks.’ Whatever that meant.) It was nothing as wild as what he was viewing now. Not even his imagination was as dirty as this. Jonah grabbed the remote, sliding the volume up, ever so slightly, just enough to hear the action without announcing to the world that he was watching pure and utter filth.
The blonde gagged and choked on her mouthful as she bucked and writhed against the man under her. From her squeals of delight, Jonah could only assume she enjoyed it, though her face betrayed this notion with an occasional wince or grimace. Was this some poor sap’s idea of making love? No, this was just fucking, as Dale put it so succinctly. Jonah had a very different idea of what should happen between folks in the bedroom. Ideas that didn’t involve three people, thank you very much. Though, truth be told, he did find the whole display a bit, well, stimulating. He watched the session for a few moments, half disgusted, half aroused, with his finger lingering over the power switch but lacking the wherewithal to actually turn it off and resisting the overpowering urge to tend to his growing erection.
With a grunt, the blonde popped the glistening cock from her mouth and gave it a long, luxurious lick before she looked into the camera and begged, “Oh yeah, baby. Fuck my ass.”
Jonah grunted in disbelief. The request was preposterous. There was no way on earth that poor anorexic but busty woman was going to fit a penis in both orifices at the same time. No way. Forgetting himself in the moment, Jonah laid the remote down, reached beneath the towel to cup his rising desire and prepared to watch what he considered to be an impossible act.
Just as the freakishly endowed man moved around the bed and mounted the writhing couple from behind, Jonah heard Dale’s voice from somewhere far off.
“What do we have here?”
Jonah looked up to find Dale standing in the bathroom doorway with a towel wrapped about his waist, framed by a rolling outline of steam. It was the first chance Jonah had to take a good look at the dead man, and what he saw was disturbing. The skin across Dale’s torso was mottled—pale and pallid, splattered with blotches of purple and blue, all shot through with a spider web of darkening veins. Shadowy half moons rested under his puffy eyes. His lips were a faded shade of dirty blue, as were the nail beds of his fingers and toes. The Devil may have slowed down the process of decomposition, but the man still looked like a corpse. A walking, talking corpse, but still a corpse.
“I thought you didn’t like the hard-core stuff?” Dale asked.
“I don’t,” Jonah said. He snatched up the remote and turned off the TV as quick as he could manage. “I was surfing around, and it caught my attention.”
Letting his gaze wander to Jonah’s tented lap, Dale snorted a quick laugh. “That’s not the only thing it caught.”
“Very funny.” Jonah leapt to his feet and wriggled into a pair of briefs, but his erection showed no signs of fading. In fact, the texture of the underwear rubbed him in just the right places, making it very hard not to be very hard.
“It’s okay, dude,” Dale said. “It’s natural. Everyone masturbates, and those who say they don’t are liars.”
“I wasn’t masturbating. I was talking to Satan.”
Dale furrowed his brow. “Talking to the Devil gave you a hard-on?”
“No!” Jonah went crimson before he could explain. “We were talking, and then he turned on the TV, and then… you came in.”
“Whoa,” Dale said, holding up his hands. “I didn’t come anywhere. I wasn’t the one in here whacking off to Debbie Does Reno.”
“Dale,” Jonah groaned as he collapsed onto the bed again. “You know what I meant.”
“Whatever.” The zombie pulled on a pair of boxers under the towel—thankfully sparing Jonah a view of his dead nether regions—then relaxed in the chair as he rubbed at his wet hair with the towel. “Maybe you should go take care of that before beddy bye. The last thing you need is a case of blue balls. Trust me, one of us with balls of blue is plenty.”
“I’ll be fine.” Jonah curled up on his side under the sheets and did his best to ignore his throbbing cock and his aching curiosity. He lost to one
of them, and sat up to ask, “Are they really, you know, blue?”
Dale pulled at the edge of his shorts. “You wanna take a look? I know you dig that sort of thing.”
Suspecting that he had been set up for just such an embarrassment, Jonah settled back into his bed with another wince and grumbled, “A simple yes or no would have sufficed.”
“Honestly, man,” Dale said at his back. “You should just rub one out.”
“I said I’ll be fine.”
“You’ll sleep better.”
Jonah closed his eyes and shouted, “Just leave me alone!”
“Suit yourself.”
The various sounds of the zombie preparing for bed rose and fell for a time, then all went quiet. In the cool arms of this blessed silence, Jonah waited for sleep to claim him. But the excitement of squaring off with the Devil once again—mixed with the few minutes of hard-core arousal—had left him anything but tired. Minding his still half-hard pecker, he rolled onto his back. To his surprise, in the weak glow of the bathroom light, he caught the shadowy outline of Dale perched on the edge of the other bed, rather than lying down on the thing. The soft sounds of a few acoustic chords drifted across the room.
Jonah lifted himself onto his elbows and asked, “You okay?”
The music stopped, and Dale said, “I’m fine.”
“Not sleepy?”
“Not really.” The chords started again. Soft and slow. Much gentler than the usual wild fare Dale preferred to play.
“Are you mad at me?”
“Mad? No. I don’t think so.”
“I’m sorry for being so snippy.”
Dale stopped playing for a moment. “Don’t sweat it. I shouldn’t have been such a jackass. I know you’re sensitive about stuff like that.”
In the darkness, Jonah could almost hear the zombie curl his fingers around the last few words. But Jonah held his tongue rather than starting another argument. It was too late for such dramatics, and Jonah had neither the will nor the way to hold his own in verbal fisticuffs with a restless zombie. “What are you doing just sitting in the dark?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“You.” Dale started up with the guitar again, strumming a peaceful lullaby. The music was gentle, soothing, coaxing Jonah back into a sleepy mood. “I don’t think I even need sleep, but you do. And I can’t go anywhere without you. Can I?”
Jonah was just thinking the same thing. “Yeah, you probably shouldn’t. I know you might get antsy, but, well, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to wander around. A zombie roaming the streets of Reno might not bode well for the general public. You know what I mean?”
“Yup. I figured as much.” The music dipped into a quick succession of low and repetitive notes. “I’ll stay put.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. This is as much my fault as it is yours.”
Jonah thought that perhaps it was a little more Dale’s fault, but he didn’t say so. Instead he said, “Well, feel free to watch TV or something, man. Don’t just sit around picking in the dark on my account.”
“I’m fine. I like the dark.” Dale plunked the strings in a rising arpeggio, then down the scale again before he said, “Besides, I’m hoping it will help me concentrate.”
“Concentrate? On what?”
The music stopped cold as the zombie said, “Not killing and eating you.”
A hard knot of terror leapt into Jonah’s throat with all the haste of a small animal fleeing a flooded burrow. He swallowed down this kicking jackrabbit of fear, and whispered, “Oh. That must be very hard for you.”
“Yeah.”
The music started again, still soft, still gentle, but somehow colder now that Jonah knew the passion behind it was accompanied by the overwhelming desire to consume his flesh. He pulled the sheet tighter to him, tucking it on both sides, as if a simple motel sheet could keep the beast of Dale’s hungry mouth at bay.
“What time should I wake ya?” Dale asked.
“Sunrise, I guess,” Jonah said.
“Okay. Good night, buddy.”
“Good night, Dale.” Jonah settled between the sheets again, then added, “And, if it’s worth anything, thanks for not killing and eating me.”
“Thank me in the morning. If you’re still alive.”
With these ominous words echoing in his tired mind, and his hard-on wilted in the face of his fear, Jonah drifted off into a pained and troubled sleep, all to the tune of a very hungry zombie playing gently on the guitar.
Chapter Twelve
Reno, Nevada
152 hours: 30 minutes: 30 seconds remaining
The first thing Jonah noticed when he awoke the next morning was his own breath. It billowed before him, whisper-thin tendrils of foggy warmth in the contrast of the chilled hotel room. The room wasn’t quite as cold the night before, so he should have been shivering and shaking under the single thin sheet beneath which he’d gone to sleep. Instead, he lay cocooned under several layers of blankets and sheets, some from his bed, the rest stripped from the bare mattress beside him. Dale must have turned up the AC in the night, then covered Jonah as he slept. This was just fine, because Jonah always slept better in the freezing cold. But why would the zombie care? Jonah turned his mind to the ponderous situation, when it dawned on him that there was something missing from the odd scene. Dale was not on the bed, or in the chair, or in the bathroom, or anywhere to be found.
Jonah was alone.
He sat on the edge of the warm bed, trying to wake himself enough to understand what this meant. It didn’t take long. A missing zombie could only mean one thing. Trouble. Jonah pulled on a shirt, wiggled into his jeans and slid on his shoes before he turned to snatch his wallet from the nightstand. A wallet that was no longer there. The car keys were gone, too.
“Damn it, Dale!” Jonah shouted.
A cursory glance around the room told a strange tale. All of Dale’s possessions were still there. His clothes, his guitar, his various toiletries. Most of Jonah’s things were there, as well. Jonah’s wallet and keys were gone. What in the world did the dead man have in mind? Before Jonah could put forth a guess, Dale burst through the hotel door.
“Jonah!” Dale shouted. “You’re already up? Good!” He stormed into the room, slamming the door behind him with one foot as he shoved a paper bag and a warm styrofoam cup at Jonah. “I have something you’re gonna want to see.”
“And just where have you—” Jonah stared, but Dale had no intention of letting him finish.
“I went to get you breakfast,” Dale said over him. The zombie turned on the television and flipped through a few channels, settling on a local news station. “You have to see this.”
“I don’t feel like watching—” Jonah tried to say.
“Trust me, buddy. You’re gonna want to see this.” Dale gave Jonah a gentle shove onto the bed, then settled in beside him, nodding at the greasy paper bag and coffee cup. “Sausage and egg biscuits. Eat up fast. We gotta get out of here.”
“What’s all the rush?”
“You’ll see.”
Jonah huffed as he turned his attention to the television, and saw a most unexpected sight. The footage was in color, but with that washed-out reception one gets with cheap security cameras. The camera was set up to record what looked to be the beer section of a small convenience store. But the man on the screen wasn’t shopping for beer. Instead, he fumbled with a few magazines on the rack across from the beer display. He looked back and forth, all across the store, over and over, in a very suspicious manner. All at once, a panicked look came over the man, but within moments he seemed to calm down. After this, he replaced the magazine, grabbed a few items, then left the camera range. It took Jonah a moment to recognize the man, because he didn’t see himself on camera very often.
“Oh, no,” Jonah whispered.
“Oh, yes,” Dale said.
Jonah set the bag and cup on the nightstand and motioned to the TV. “T
urn it up.”
The zombie complied, turning up the volume on the perky blonde anchorwoman already in mid-story.
“The footage is brief,” the woman explained, “but police say they should be able to use it, along with the make and model of the car, to find the two men involved. We here at Channel Six have an exclusive interview with Robert Beam, the second-shift clerk who stumbled onto the horrible crime scene.”
The broadcast cut to an interview featuring none other than Bob, the store clerk who didn’t chew gum.
“Well, Mary was a little late for work,” Bob informed the world. “And first thing we gotta do on shift is check the dumpster latches. They get hung open, and the trash blows all over the road. You see? I was gonna go for her, but she insisted on going.”
“Like hell he was,” Jonah grumbled.
“That other guy must have planned on sneaking in the back,” Bob said, “which is kind of funny, because the back door doesn’t open. Mary must have surprised him when she caught him trying to break in. I heard her give a shout, like she was surprised, and I first thought she might’ve seen a rat. She hates rats.”
“She ain’t the only one,” Dale said.
Bob continued with, “But I’m guessing he must have hit her on the head with something hard, ‘cause when I came around the corner, he was dragging her limp body to the dumpster, and she was bleeding a lot from her head. He had a lot of blood on him from where he was trying to stuff her in the dumpster. I was gonna try and stop him, but his friend jumped me and almost knocked me out too, and they got away before I could do anything.”
