Badass Zombie Road Trip

by Tonia Brown

  “Hello?” she asked, her lyrical voice muffled by the glass between them.

  Jonah didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. Not over the ear-splitting thud of his racing heart.

  “You’re such a fucking pansy,” Dale announced before he threw his door wide open.

  Jonah, who was in no position to argue the point, hunched over the steering wheel and listened to the ensuing conversation that took place across the car, over him.

  “Hello,” Dale said, as he stood.

  “Hey there,” the woman said, her voice drifting into the car on a light air of musical tones. She spoke with a slight accent, a distant trill of some far-off Southern state. It was the most beautiful voice Jonah had ever heard, which made it even more difficult to lift his head and look at her.

  Here there was a pause, during which Jonah was fairly sure Dale was giving the woman a leering once-over. Then Dale said, “Looks like you’ve got some trouble back there.”

  “Yeah. The engine started smoking, and next thing I knew, it died on me.”

  “Where you headed?”

  “Anywhere but here, sugar.”

  Another pause. Jonah could all but feel Dale’s wide, lustful grin.

  “Want a lift?” Dale asked.

  “Dale!” Jonah snapped.

  Dale ducked his head into the car and asked, “What?”

  “Don’t. Please. I… I can’t do this.”

  “We can’t just leave her.”

  “I don’t want to cause any trouble,” the woman said through the glass, and at her muffled interruption, Jonah instinctively turned to the sound of her voice.

  There he sat, in the driver’s seat of his Ford Focus, in the late afternoon on a bright spring day, in the middle of the nation’s loneliest highway, staring through the grimy glass at the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

  The rearview mirror did her little justice, revealing only her basic body shape. As pleasing as this shape was, it was no match for the reality of her. The up close and personal of her. Through the dirt-streaked window, Jonah was captivated by her bright green eyes, alight with curiosity, yet deep with wisdom well beyond the girl’s years. High cheekbones, delicate eyebrows and a determined chin made Jonah’s heart thump even faster than before. But best of all was her mouth: a pair of thick, pouting, pretty, pink petals. Plump and perfect and oh-so-kissable. Jonah drifted between the seriousness of the task at hand and the possibility of spending a few hours in the gorgeous creature’s company.

  Then she smiled, and Jonah’s world lit up with joy, making up his mind for him.

  They couldn’t abandon her. Giving the young lady a lift would be the proper thing to do. The gentlemanly thing to do. After all, such an exquisite beauty shouldn’t just be abandoned on the side of the road like so much garbage. No. One didn’t just drive by a woman like this. Only ruffians and rogues would abandon such a creature to such a fate. Jonah would not… nay… he could not abandon a smile as beautiful as that. (Not to mention the fact that he had a pretty damned good view of her boobs, which may or may not have factored into his decision.)

  Drawing upon every ounce of strength he possessed, Jonah continued to look her right in the eyes and managed to stammer, “You’re n-n-not causing any t-t-trouble.” It was the most he had said to a woman—who wasn’t Dale’s girlfriend or a waitress or a clerk or his own mother—in his entire life.

  “Thatta boy,” Dale whispered before he stood erect once more and asked the woman again, “Would you like a lift?”

  “Sure would,” she answered without looking away from Jonah. “But I don’t want to be a burden. Just into the next town and I’ll get out of your hair.”

  “Sounds good. Right, Jonah?”

  Jonah could only nod.

  And so it was settled. Just a quick jaunt to the next town and she would be out of their hair. Trouble was, Jonah didn’t want her out of his hair. He very much wanted her in his hair. All of his hair. From the short and straight hair on his head to the short and curly thatch in his shorts. But it was much more than just desire. More than just his overactive hormones. So much more. From the moment she climbed into the back of his car, he wanted her not just in his hair, but in his heart, his soul, his life.

  Forever and ever. Amen.

  Jonah shook the thoughts of such bliss from his cobwebby mind. What was he thinking? He had to get a grip on himself. This was a fellow traveler and nothing more. Next town over, she would be gone, and he could get on with the more important task at hand. One town over and she would leave. One town over. One town.

  “That all you got?” Dale asked, turning in place to speak to the new passenger.

  “Yeah,” she said, patting the single bag beside her. “Just the one bag. Momma always said to travel light.”

  “I’m Dale,” Dale said, and stuck his hand out to the girl.

  “Candy.” She shook his hand once, then turned her open palm to Jonah. “And you are?”

  Jonah was unable to clasp her hand, afraid he wouldn’t have the strength to let her go again. Instead, he nodded at her and turned his attention to getting the Ford back on the road.

  “That’s Jonah,” Dale announced. “And don’t let him spook you. He’s always like that.”

  Somehow Jonah managed to murmur, “Nice to meet you.”

  “Jonah, huh?” Candy asked as she leaned back into her seat, eyeing Jonah from the rearview mirror. “That’s a whale of a name you got there, sugar.”

  A smirk rose to his lips, and she smiled with him. Instead of the shyness this would usually bring on, Jonah found a small beacon of courage in that smile. In the yearning for her to keep on smiling.

  “What’s with all the grinning?” Dale asked. “I don’t get it.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Jonah said.

  “He don’t read much?” Candy asked.

  Jonah got the distinct impression she was asking him and not Dale. He shifted his glance back to the mirror and said, “Doesn’t read at all.”

  “Read?” Dale asked. “If I wanted to read, I’d go to school. So, Candy, what kind of music do you like?”

  Jonah’s eyes went wide with the question. It wasn’t the first time he had heard Dale ask it. This was a lead-in to talk about their duo. Dale wanted to brag about his musical prowess. He wanted to throw buzzwords and lingo at the woman and see what stuck. But, more importantly, he was attempting to flirt. It took everything Jonah had not to pull the car to the side of the road, drag the dead man from the cab, and proceed to beat the ever-living tar out of him.

  “Anything I can hum along to,” Candy said. “I take it from all the cases and amps and stuff that you guys are in a band?”

  Dale’s grin was on overtime, bright and exuberant. “We sure are.”

  “What do you play?”

  “What do you like?”

  “Clever. That’s clever marketing. So what’s your band’s name?”

  Dale lost the grin. “We don’t have one.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because some asshole thinks we don’t need one.”

  Jonah cleared his throat before he explained, “When he says ‘band’, what he means is, well, there’s really just the two of us—”

  “Oh,” Candy said over him. “So you’re a duo, then?”

  “Yeah.” Jonah repressed his smirk and kept his eyes on the road. He didn’t need to look at Dale to know that the man was glaring at him. “We just use our names when we play. Jonah and Dale.”

  “Dale and Jonah,” Dale corrected him.

  “Either way. I’m not picky.”

  “Yeah.” Dale’s gaze continued to burn holes into the side of Jonah’s head. “And usually you’re not so chatty, either. What’s up with that?”

  Jonah ignored the question, opting instead to point out an oncoming road sign. “Looks like the town of Ely is just ten miles away. At least you weren’t too far from civilization.”

  “If you can count it as civilization,” Candy said. “Still, not wa
lking those ten miles in these boots is a very good thing. Thanks for stopping for me.”

  “My pleasure,” Jonah said, a small sigh punctuating the ‘pleasure’ bit.

  “Our,” Dale snapped. “It was our pleasure. Right, buddy?”

  Jonah had never heard the word ‘buddy’ stressed to the point of breaking before. He glanced at Dale for a moment, locking onto those terrible yellow eyes and the anger behind them. But wait a moment. Was there something else behind those dead eyes?

  Yes, yes there was something else.

  Something new. Something Jonah had never seen before in the man, at least in relation to himself. But certainly it couldn’t be. Could it? Had the impossible happened? Jonah couldn’t imagine such a scenario, yet there it was. Plain as unflavored yogurt, and written all over Dale’s face. For the first time ever, Dale Jenkins actually considered Jonah Benton real and viable competition for the attention of the opposite sex. Jonah reminded himself to ask Satan how the weather was down below, because Hell had surely frozen over.

  “Right, buddy,” Jonah said, stressing his ‘buddy’ just as hard as Dale. Two could play at this game.

  “You guys sure like being buddies,” Candy said. “Don’t you?”

  Neither Jonah nor Dale commented on that.

  They traveled in silence for the next few miles. Candy seemed to sense the tension between the pair and left them alone, while Dale spent the whole way staring at the side of Jonah’s head, as if daring him to say something else to the girl. Every mile was torment for Jonah, because it was a mile closer to her departure. Perhaps there was a way to make her stay. Perhaps she could grant him her gracious presence for just a bit longer.

  Ely—which rhymes with freely—turned out to be another example of typical, hometown Americana. Small, quaint, cute. Jonah pulled the Ford into the parking lot of a little place by the name of Silver State Restaurant—which boasted 25 different blue plate specials—and gathered the courage to ask Candy to stay for a while.

  But Dale beat him to it.

  “We’re going to stop for a rest and a bite to eat,” Dale announced. “Wanna hang out for a bit?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t want to get in your way.”

  “You’re not in my way. How about you, Jonah?”

  “Not mine,” Jonah said. “We would love to have you.” His eyes widened when he realized how sexual that sounded. “To eat. With us. For lunch. I mean, um …”

  Candy’s laugh was as musical as her voice, tinkling and sweet in the small cab of the Focus. “It’s okay. I got the idea. The only problem is, and I’m really embarrassed to say this, I’m afraid I don’t have a whole lot of cash on me. I need to save what I have for the repairs.”

  “That’s okay,” Dale announced. “We can pick up the tab.”

  It was the ultimate in power plays, and one Dale was probably daring Jonah to retract. The miser in Jonah—the money conscious, penny pinching little tightwad of a bastard—hunched over their remaining funds and screamed for the woman to pay for her own damned meal. They barely had enough to get halfway across the country as it was. But Jonah stood firm in his fight for her attention. He wasn’t going to let Dale win this one, no matter the cost.

  “Sure,” Jonah said. “I’d love to buy you lunch.”

  Candy tipped her head to one side as she said, “Thanks. I’d like that.”

  Outplayed, Dale grumbled and huffed as he clambered out of the car.

  Silver State Restaurant was even smaller on the inside than the outside implied. It had exactly seven tables, five of which were occupied and one covered in the trash of a finished meal. Jonah waited at the ‘Please Wait to be Seated’ sign, with Dale glowering at one side and Candy sparkling at the other.

  “You guys grab us a seat,” Candy said. “I’m off to powder my nose.” Clutching her single bag under her arm, she turned and headed to the back of the restaurant.

  Jonah watched her sashay all the way to the ladies’ room before Dale punched him hard in the arm. “Ow! Jesus, man. What?”

  “Way to cock block me back there,” Dale snapped.

  “Cock block you? What about making me look like a jerk?”

  “Who cares what you look like? She’s obviously interested in me.” Dale scrunched up his nose as if he smelled something really awful. “Or did you think she was after you?”

  “I don’t think she’s after either of us,” Jonah said, though he certainly hoped this was a lie. “She just needed a ride, and now she needs lunch.”

  Dale wasn’t buying what Jonah was selling, lunch or otherwise. “You like her, don’t you?”

  “I think she’s nice.” Jonah felt the heat on his face, but couldn’t stop it.

  “Nice? Jonah, she’s fucking hot as hell.”

  Their brief argument was interrupted by a frail voice. “How many?”

  Without a sound, a stooped, gray-haired woman had appeared behind the counter. She stared up at Dale and Jonah with something that bordered on spite.

  “Three,” Jonah said. It felt good to say three. It felt right.

  “Follow me,” the waitress ordered.

  Jonah and Dale followed the oldest waitress in the world as she teetered and wobbled her way to the only available table. She pointed at the chairs, but didn’t offer them menus.

  “Buffet is all we got for lunch,” she snapped. “What can I get you to drink?”

  “Iced tea, please,” Jonah said.

  “Nothing for me,” Dale said.

  The old lady gave a little sigh that suggested she had been down this road before. Plenty of times. “There’s a five-dollar charge for sharing.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Dale explained. “Or thirsty. Nothing for me.”

  “Suit yourself. Plates are on the bar. Five dollars for sharing.” The woman leaned into Dale, staring at him over her glasses as she added, “And I’ll know if you’ve shared, son.”

  Dale swallowed hard as the woman wobbled her way back into the kitchen. “That is one scary bitch.”

  “Don’t call her that,” Jonah said. “She’s probably someone’s grandma.”

  “Then she’s one scary grandma bitch.”

  “Dale. Don’t be an ass.”

  “Why are you so sensitive today? Or are you just touchy about women?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Or is it just one woman?”

  The heat rose again, coloring Jonah’s cheeks and answering Dale’s question. “I said shut up.”

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” Dale grinned and guffawed as if it were the funniest thing he had ever heard. “Oh, man, this is gold. You actually like her.”

  “Maybe.” Jonah nodded his thanks to the waitress as she set his tea in front of him. When she wandered away again, he added, “I might not want to sleep with every woman I meet, but I do have eyes. You said she was hot as hell. And she is.”

  “But you have a thing for her. Don’t you?”

  Jonah was aflame with embarrassment. He fished a piece of ice from his glass and touched it to his burning cheeks. The ice ran to water in moments, dripping down his arms in warm rivulets of shame.

  “Oh. Em. Gee.” The zombie clapped with delight, looking and sounding more like an overexcited schoolgirl than a full-grown dead man. “It’s not just that. You think you have a chance with her. Is that it? You do. Look at your face. I’ve never seen you so red, man. Wow. This is just—”

  “What?” Jonah snapped. “This is just what? Fun for you? Are you enjoying this? Huh? Enjoying my embarrassment? Enjoying the fact that this is the first girl I’ve been able to say more than three words to without seizing up?”

  Dale, the real Dale, might have said no. The real Dale, the proper, living human being with a compassionate soul, might have stopped the mockery and the laughing and the joshing and stood behind Jonah and his sudden lust for this total stranger. The Dale with whom Jonah had grown up might have dropped the teasing and become what he was supposed to be: a real friend.

/>   But this Dale wasn’t anyone’s friend.

  And he proved it by grinning wide and saying, “Oh yeah. I’m enjoying the hell out of this… buddy.” The zombie paused to lean in close, blowing a strong and acrid breath in Jonah’s face with his last word.

  Jonah groaned as the zombie degenerated into another round of loud guffaws.

  “What’s so funny?” Candy asked as she returned to the table.

  “Jonah,” Dale said. “He’s always a riot.”

  “Is he?” Candy winked at Jonah. “I like a man with a sense of humor.”

  “Then you’re gonna love our friend here. He’s a real laugh a minute. Ain’t ya?”

  The waitress came and took Candy’s drink order, after which the young woman excused herself to check out the buffet. Jonah sat staring at his glass of tea, his appetite long lost in the face of Dale’s ridicule. After a few moments, Candy returned with an overflowing plate of deep-fried goodness.

  She cut her eyes at the pair as she sat. “I’m not the only one eating here, am I?”

  “Of course not,” Dale said. “Go on, Jonah. Go get something to eat. I’ll keep our new friend company while you’re gone.”