by Tonia Brown
“I don’t think we have to.” Candy grinned, and Jonah recognized the sparkle of an idea in her eyes.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I’m thinking about Adrianna,” Candy said.
“Who?”
“My roommate in Reno.”
“Did she stink?”
“Oh yeah. In ways you can’t imagine. She could empty a locker room at the gym before she worked out.”
“What does that have to do with this? Surely a little B.O. is nothing compared to the smell of death.”
“Trust me, hun, it was more than just body odor. When it comes to some women, there’s one thing that smells worse than death.”
A detour to a drug store later and Dale was sitting pretty. Almost. He was at least more bearable than before, and that was all that mattered. Layered in powders, misted with sprays, coated with creams and covered in pads, Dale became a walking advertisement for feminine odor control products. Jonah felt sorry for him, and the obvious hit his masculinity was taking, but what else could they do?
“I feel like a choad,” Dale said around a mouthful of breath mints.
“You look fine,” Candy said. “But more importantly, you smell much better. Not great, but not like a dumpster on a hot summer day either.” She dug around in her shopping bag until she came across a small pink box. “Here we go.”
She wiggled the box at Dale, who wiped a clump of perfumed vaginal powder off his nose with a grunt. “What’s that?”
“Scented tampons, for your chest wound.”
“Tampons? What’s wrong with the gauze?”
“Gauze is better for wounds that are trying to heal, which you don’t have. Trust me, this is the best thing for your situation. They’re designed for dead discharges. They’ll soak up that stinking ooze and keep you fresh as a daisy. And hopefully it will also cut back on the rank coming out of your mouth.”
Dale shook his head and put down his foot. “I am not using those.”
“Yes you are.”
“No I’m not. I’ve already lined my damned boxers with your fucking panty pads. And I’d like to take a moment to point out that contrary to the packaging, wings or no wings, I don’t find myself more confident than ever.”
“Shut up and strip.”
“No. There’s no way I’m stooping to tampons.”
Candy gritted her teeth and snarled, “Listen here, mister, if you don’t shove these things inside you, then I’ll make a choker out of them for you to wear. Permanently. Now unbutton your fucking shirt.”
“Jonah!” Dale whined.
“Dale,” Jonah pleaded. “We talked about this already. It’s either do this or ride in the trunk.”
“Considering the company up here, the trunk is starting to look real good,” Dale grumbled as he unbuttoned his shirt, giving Candy the access she required.
“Good boy,” Candy said. While Jonah drove, Candy plunged a handful of super-sized tampons into Dale’s sucking chest wound, one by one. When finished, she turned one of the pink plastic applicators toward his hand.
“What now?” Dale asked.
“This is for your missing thumb.” She snatched his wounded palm and injected the tampon straight into the gaping, oozing wound.
Dale held his hand up to his face and tugged on the little cotton string. “Oh, joy. I’ve always wanted a twat plug poking out of my hand.”
Candy smiled, sweet and innocent. “Considering how many twats I’m sure you’ve hand your hand up, this seems like fair play to me.”
Thus went the journey. Every six hours was the same routine. Drive. Refuel. Address Dale’s odor with fresh products to the tune of his grumbled protests. Repeat. By the time they reached Linville Caverns, Dale looked like he had been dead for more than a week, but he smelled like a medicated cat.
And by cat, Jonah meant …
Chapter Twenty-Five
Linville Caverns, NC
0 hours: 34 minutes: 45 seconds remaining
“Crap,” Jonah said, as they eased the Focus up to the locked gate. “It’s closed.”
“Of course it’s closed,” Candy said. “It’s one in the morning. Tourist traps only operate when there are tourists awake.”
“Great,” Dale said. “What now?”
“We get inside.” Candy fished around in her mystery bag for a moment, then pulled free a frightening-looking tool: foot-long handles ending in a pair of thick, menacing shears.
Jonah swallowed hard. “Okay, I’m almost afraid to ask.”
“They’re bolt cutters,” Dale said.
Of course Dale would know what they were. They looked like some kind of sadomasochistic tool for the bedroom.
“Why do you have bolt cutters?” Jonah asked.
Candy eyed him as if the answer were obvious. “I went on the run after stealing twenty grand from a gangster. I prepared for every eventuality.”
Jonah didn’t want to know what kind of eventuality required the use of bolt cutters. Instead, he reached for the edge of her bag, asking, “What else do you have hidden in there?”
“You should know these are also real good at cutting off fingers.” Candy opened and closed the cutters, and Jonah decided it was best not to take a peek in her bag.
After snipping the lock, the three made their way through the empty parking lot and toward the tourist trap beyond. The bulk of the area was made up of a single, large gift shop. Candy had the only flashlight, thanks to her preparedness, which made Jonah’s inner Boy Scout cringe. Dale, stink and all, provided a supporting shoulder for the limping Jonah.
“Here we are,” Dale said, when they crossed the empty lot and approached the gift shop. “But where’s the Devil?”
“I bet we have to get inside,” Jonah said. “Into the caverns.”
“This way,” Candy said, aiming the beam at a wide tunnel to the left of the shop. “The caverns are down this walkway.”
Jonah cocked his head at the sure tone of her voice. “You’ve been here before.” It wasn’t a question. It was a fact.
“That’s putting it mildly. I used to come here a lot growing up. My cousin worked here for a few years, and I hung out with her whenever I could, just to get out of the house.”
“You never said anything about it.”
“You never asked.” She walked away, leaving the pair of them to stand and stare at her sashaying rump in the moonlight.
With a quick look at one another and an exchange of shrugs, Jonah and Dale rushed to catch up. Well, rushed as best a rotting zombie and a man with a shattered knee could. Which wasn’t very fast.
“Why didn’t you mention this before?” Jonah asked.
“I told you guys I was from this area,” Candy said, as she walked along ahead of them. “Or did you just think I lied about that, too?”
“You said you were from South Carolina,” Dale said.
Candy snorted at this distinction. “South. North. When you live on the border, it’s all the same. Here we go, just on the other side of this door.” She stopped and held the light steady in front of her.
Jonah followed the flashlight to an illuminated door. An enormous illuminated door. It was at least eight feet tall and just as wide. “That’s some door.”
“Don’t be intimidated. It’s only bolted from the outside, like the gate.” She lowered the beam to a chain hanging in a loose loop around the handles. Candy handed the cutters to Jonah. “Will you do the honors, please?”
With a limp, a snip, a cut, and a tremendous effort on the part of Jonah—who discovered that bolt cutters were not as easy to use as they looked—the door opened wide.
“There’s a switch just on the inside,” Candy said. “On the right.” She held the flashlight for Jonah as he felt for the switch in question.
“Got it,” he said, and flipped the lever.
Beyond him, a tunnel lit with an unearthly glow as lights mounted underneath a narrow boardwalk illuminated the earthen walls. The door was deceptive, because
the space beyond was a little cave no bigger than Jonah’s bedroom. He couldn’t hide his disappointment.
“People come out here to look at this?” he asked.
“Kind of puny for a cavern,” Dale said.
“This is just the entrance, you dork,” Candy said. “Come on.”
Candy led them down the boardwalk a few feet, past a low overhang and into the caverns proper. Which turned out to be just as impressive as the door. Even more so.
Rocky walls surrounded them, damp with moss and trickles of water, and shot through with veins of rich earthy colors. Natural formations dotted the main cave, columns of living rock that reached high overhead and others that hung from the ceiling to the ground. A body of water ran through the caverns, somewhere under the boardwalk, filling the cave with a distant rush of water. The boardwalk split into many different directions, each leading off into yet another cave. The whole place was lit indirectly, again from the underside of the walkway, giving it an even wider sense of space. As if it needed help in that area.
“Wow,” Jonah said.
“Yeah,” Dale said, joining in Jonah’s sense of wonder.
“Meh,” Candy said. “You see it once, you’ve seen it a hundred times. Now let’s see if we can’t find that Devil.”
The three of them wandered for a few minutes, from outcropping to pocket to tunnel, but there was no sign of Satan.
Jonah called for an all stop when his knee locked up. “I can’t keep this up. I need to sit.”
“Shit,” Candy said. “Where is he?”
“Maybe he’s waiting ‘til the last minute,” Dale suggested.
“Bull,” Jonah said. “He said if we made it to his hiding spot, he would be here. Where is he?” Jonah cupped his mouth and hollered, “Satan! Damn you, Lucifer! We know you’re here somewhere!”
His call echoed with where… where… where …
“Yeah!” Dale yelled. “Stop being such a dick!”
dick… dick… dick …
“Olly olly oxen free!” Candy yelled.
free… free… free …
“This is kind of fun,” Dale said. Cupping his hands again around his black lips, the zombie yelled, “Jonah is gay for mail!”
male… male… male …
“Listen,” Dale said, holding his hand to his withered ear. “Even the caverns think you’re queer.”
“Cut it out,” Jonah said. “This is serious. I can’t keep limping along, and we’re running out of time. Where is he?”
“What about that postcard?” Candy asked.
“Good idea.” Jonah pulled the well-worn piece of cardstock from his back pocket and held it up to the lights.
“I know that place,” Candy said. “It’s called the Cathedral. A lot of folks get married in that part of the caverns.”
“That would explain the bride and groom in the corner. I wondered about that.”
“Come on, it’s just over here.”
Their footsteps echoed through the long halls of the endless caverns. As he limped along, Jonah checked his watch and grimaced at the time. They had twenty minutes left. Candy led them right to the spot in the photograph, but still there was no Lucifer.
“I don’t understand,” Jonah said. “This has to be right. It has to be.”
“Whatcha doin’?” Lucifer asked, from somewhere above them.
Jonah looked up to find the Devil perched on the rim of a natural ledge at least a good fifteen feet above them. “Surely we don’t have to go up there.”
Like a kid on a swing, Lucifer dangled his feet back and forth as he looked down at the three humans. His smile burned extra bright, thanks to a single spotlight intended to illuminate the stalactites and stalagmites behind him. “What brings you three out here in the dead of night? Don’t you all have better things to get up to?”
“Stop playing games,” Candy said. “We made it. So pay up.”
With a great heave and leap, Satan jumped from his seat, fell the wide gap between heaven and earth, and landed with a grunt amidst the trio. As he stood and brushed himself down, he said, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“It’s over,” Jonah said. “We won.”
“Then where is Dale’s soul?” Satan asked.
“You mean we have to actually find it?” Dale asked.
Satan just kept on grinning.
“No!” Jonah shouted.
know… know… know …
“No?” Satan asked.
Jonah balled his fists. “That wasn’t the deal. Our deal was that I bring Dale to the hiding spot in seven days and you’d put his soul back.”
“Clever. Very clever. I was wondering if you would catch on to that.”
“Then pay up.”
“Why should I?”
“Because I brought the corpse here.”
“Yes, but though the flesh is willing, the soul isn’t up to the task.”
Jonah’s stomach fell to his balls, which in turn drew up against his groin. “What?”
“It’s not here, boy.”
“It has to be here.”
“Why?”
“Because you said it was here!”
hear… hear… hear …
Satan maintained a blank look of total innocence. “No, I didn’t.”
“But …” Jonah fumbled with the postcard again, shoving it into Satan’s hands.
“Then why did you send me this?”
Satan looked at the postcard with interest, then smiled wider. “Oh, yes. I remember now. That was awful nice of me. Wasn’t it?”
“It wasn’t a message?” Candy asked.
“Of course there’s a message. See.” Satan turned the card out to face them. “Wish you were here. Isn’t that pleasant?”
Jonah furrowed his brow, unsure what all of this meant. “But you said… I thought …”
“You thought wrong, son.” Satan clapped his hands together, and the postcard went up in a puff of smoke. “Now think again. Who told you Dale’s soul would be here?”
Jonah rubbed his temples, ignoring his throbbing knee and wracking his brain for answers that weren’t there. Finally, an idea came to him. “Dale’s dad.”
“And you believed him?”
“You’re the one who said to ask him. You said he would know.”
“And he does. He just didn’t tell you.”
“No …” Jonah whispered as he came to the only conclusion that made sense. Dale’s dad lied to them. He lied and set them on the wrong trail. But why?
“Jonah,” Dale asked. “What does this mean?”
“It means we’re fucked,” Jonah said. He limped to the rock that looked least uncomfortable and sat.
“Fucked? But we got here in time.”
“We lost. Your soul isn’t here. You had to go piss off Daddy, and he lied to get back at you, and now we’re fucked.”
The zombie squared his shoulders and stood over Jonah, seething down at him with supreme anger. “For the last time, I told you I didn’t sell my own soul. You little shit!”
it… it… it …
“Not this again,” Jonah groaned. “Not now.”
“What’s he talking about?” Candy asked.
Jonah rolled his eyes and heaved a sigh. “He seems to think he didn’t sell his soul to the Devil.”
“He’s right, you know,” Lucifer said. “He didn’t sell his soul to me.”
This came as a surprise to Jonah, who had spent the better part of five days believing the opposite was true. “Wait, now. If he didn’t sell his soul to you, then who did?”
“I did,” said a familiar voice.
The speaker stood across the cavern, on the far end of the walkway. The weak light barely reached him, but even without any illumination, Jonah would have recognized the familiar figure by his voice alone.
The man was familiar, because he was Dale’s father.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Linville Caverns, NC
0 hours: 16 minutes: 16 seconds remain
ing
Mike Jenkins loomed in the archway that connected one cave to another, staring at his son. His shirt and slacks were crumpled, and his face was haggard, worn, and tired, as if he hadn’t seen proper sleep in days. The man looked almost as exhausted as Jonah felt.
“Right on schedule,” Lucifer whispered. Rubbing his hands together, the Devil added, “Well, now. Looks like the gang’s all here. This should be good.” He nudged Jonah.
Mike smirked at Dale and said, “Hello, son.”
“You!” Dale shouted.
you… you… you …
“My word,” Mike said, wrinkling his nose. “You’ve really let yourself go, haven’t you?”
“No worse than you’re gonna look when I get done with you!” The zombie lurched forward, as best his stiff legs and rotting flesh would allow, in an attempt to attack his old man. But Mike was quicker, rushing across the walkway and up to Candy. She turned to run, but before she could move he snatched her by the roots of her red hair and pulled her to him. With a flick of his wrist he produced an impressively sized switchblade, which he proceeded to press against Candy’s exposed neck.
“Watch it,” Mike warned. “Come any closer and I’ll slit her throat.”
