Really? The eighties were a bad, bad decade.
“Guuurrrrrgghhhh . . . ugghhhhhh,” Mr. Slick groaned as dark slime dribbled out of his mouth. His breath stunk like my laundry basket after a week of blowing off the wash.
“Yo, brush much?” I said, and danced out of his way. I caught Dorcas’s eye as I ran around the front of the minivan. She was frozen. Her cigarette wasn’t even in her mouth. It was stuck between her fingers, and her fingers were curled around the steering wheel in a vice grip.
The poxer gigolo kept on coming, so I led him around the minivan and about twenty feet down the dark road. “Sorry, guy,” I said, “But someone should have burned those clothes a long time ago. And just for the record—disco’s dead.”
Then he went up in a blaze of glory that burned that much brighter because of the amount of gel slathered in his blow-dried ‘do.
17
I OPENED THE BACK of the ambulance and showed Dorcas our two new friends.
“That’s disgusting,” she said before looking away. “Poor little thing.”
“That poor little thing is a monster, Dorcas. One bite—maybe even one little dribble of saliva—and you’re a monster, too. Do you understand? Just because you’re immune doesn’t mean that Necropoxy can’t get you in the end.”
“Except for you,” she said thinly.
I rolled my eyes. So sue me. It’s not my fault me and Trina were supposed to be super immune. My parents met, dated, probably fooled around a little, and got married—all without realizing that somewhere down the line they were going to pop out a couple of rugrats who were immune to some futuristic disease developed by a nerdy guy who played way too many video games and still had zits he could pop in the mirror.
“That’s not fair, Dorcas,” I said.
She puffed on her cigarette some more. “You’re right. I’m out of line. I’m sorry.”
Wow—I didn’t even think the ‘S’ word was part of Dorcas Duke’s vocabulary. It’s funny what you learn about people when you throw zombies in the mix.
“It’s cool,” I said. “We just have to get rid of these two then drive the ambulance and the sports car out of the way. After that we’re golden. Guilford’s not too far, right?”
“That’s what Ella said.”
“Awesome. So let’s do this, okay?”
“Do what?”
“Get rid of Witch Hazel and her devil spawn.”
Dorcas stared at me with wet eyes. “I can’t,” she said. “It’s a little baby. The mother I don’t give a fig about, but I can’t do that to a little baby.”
“Dorcas, it’s not a baby. It’s a death bag.”
Her lower lip pushed out and she frowned. She looked like one of those dried apple-headed dolls they sell at the orchards in the fall. There’s nothing worse than watching someone who is so tough you can’t ever imagine them crying actually squeezing out a tear. It’s embarrassing and weird. Besides, the last thing I wanted to do was make an eighty-two year old woman bawl.
Yet here I was, doing just that.
I wish Prianka or Trina were here. They would know what to say. Me? Not a chance. I think a guy’s compassion gene doesn’t kick in until about thirty, if ever.
I just stood there and waited for her to finish her little pity party while a picture of my mom floated in the squishy gray matter between my ears. I couldn’t imagine a world without her in it, and here was Dorcas, worrying about the life of a baby who was already dead—and we were running out of time.
“Okay, okay,” I finally said. “I’m sorry, Dorcas, but my mother is dying. So are Trudy, Eddie, Felice, and Randy. These two poxers are going. You can help me or not.”
In the end, she couldn’t. Trust me, someday I’ll rationalize why she couldn’t, but right then, I was righteously pissed off. She just stood there smoking her cigarette, and watched as I unhooked the gurney from the wall in the ambulance and pushed the poxers out the back door. I had to do a little fancy maneuvering, what with unfolding the legs while staying clear of Mama Poxer’s molars—but finally, the fold-out wheels touched the ground.
Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do—and I got it done.
When the bed was completely on the rough boards of the covered bridge, with Witch Hazel snarling and her little dead kid making sounds like a drowned cat, I pushed them on the squeaky gurney wheels back the way we had come.
I didn’t burn them. I should have, but I didn’t. Dorcas was having some sort of mental crisis about the baby, and the last thing she needed to see was me torching it along with its mother. So I pushed the gurney with the two poxers on it off the side of the road and up against the tangle of fall foliage that overlooked a creek of rushing water.
Then I just left them there.
“So, if we can move the ambulance and the sports car, we can get out of here, okay?”
Dorcas dropped her cigarette to the ground and mashed the butt with her foot. “Is this what it’s been like for you kids since everything started?” she asked me in all seriousness.
What was I supposed to say—that this was nothing? That we were surrounded by a gang of poxers in Greenfield or that a bunch of pixie poxer girl scouts tried to rip down the fence at my aunt’s farm? Maybe I could have told tell her how much fun I had torching my Uncle Don when I saw he’d been infected. Or maybe she could talk to Bullseye, because he watched his whole family turn into zombies and tear each other apart.
This? This was nothing. As a matter of fact, this was less than nothing.
“It’s been worse,” I said
Dorcas shoved her hands into her pants. It was literally the first time I saw her without a lit cigarette between her gnarly fingers.
“I don’t think I can do this,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Oh, God, no, please don’t bail on me now.
“These dead things—everywhere—I can’t even look at them without crying.”
“Well you’re going to have to, Dorcas.” Did I really have to be the adult here? “You’re going to have to, because if you don’t help me, I’m screwed. Everyone we’re with is screwed. They’re dying, Dorcas. We have to help them.”
“We all die sooner or later,” she whispered.
“Well I prefer later—much, much later.” I took her by the hand and pulled her to the front of the ambulance and opened the door. “Just drive us out of the bridge, Dorcas. Do this one thing. I’ll be right behind you in that sweet sports car.”
She smiled a little. “It is pretty sweet, isn’t it?”
“It’s yours,” I said. “Do this for me and it’s yours.”
“I don’t think it’s yours to give.”
“Sure it is,” I said. “Mr. Slick is dead. He left it to me in his will, but his will burnt to a crisp with him. You were a witness and that’s all I need. He gave that car to me. You saw him do it. Now I’m giving it to you—all you have to do is drive this ambulance out of the bridge. Deal?”
After my pleading, Dorcas finally agreed. Needless to say, I was relieved—but while I was following her out of the covered bridge in the sports car—which thankfully was an automatic because I never learned the whole stick and clutch thing—I couldn’t stop thinking about Witch Hazel and the baby.
What was more humane—burning them up or leaving them undead? Somehow I had lost the ability to tell the difference, and that was bad.
That was really bad.
18
I KEPT LOOKING AT my Uncle Don’s watch. We had only been gone from Swifty’s for about forty-five minutes, but it seemed like forever. After we pulled the ambulance and the sports car through the bridge so we had room for the van to pass, it occurred to me that we were being really stupid.
Something was nagging at me—something that Prianka or Trina or Jimmy would have figured out in a millisecond. Even Bullseye. I knew it was there—right on the tip of my tongue—but I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
Then an invisible hand smacked me in the back of the he
ad and woke me out of my idiocy. Ditch the wheels and take the ambulance. How simple can you get? Come on, I was a smart kid. The minute I saw the ambulance stuck in the middle of the bridge, I should have thought ‘gold mine’, but instead I was too busy being scared out of my mind.
Dorcas was rifling through the back of the ambulance with my dad’s list in her hand, muttering to herself. After checking the gas gauge on the ambulance and seeing that it was close to F, not for freaky but for full, I knew taking the medical wheels was a stellar plan.
“Dorcas, forget about counting Band-Aids.” I said. “Let’s leave the van and take this boat. I’m sure it’s more solid, anyway, and filled with half the stuff we need. On our way back through, we’ll stop and pick the van back up. Then we’ll have both vehicles.”
“What about the sports car?” she said. I think she was genuinely serious. I gave her a look like my father used to give me when I said something moronic. She pursed her lips and averted her gaze. “Never mind,” she croaked. “But I’m driving.”
That was easy. In two minutes we had parked Stella’s van on the side of the road, locked the doors, and were on our way to Guilford in the ambulance. I somehow felt a little safer in it, although I knew we were once again in the situation of being the only bright light in a sea of darkness.
To hell with it, I thought. My mental wattage alone could outsmart Cheryl The It any day. Bring it, midget. I’m Tripp Light, zombie fighter and babysitter to the elderly. Show me what you got.
So much for bravado—it lasted all of about ten seconds before dread started creeping around the dark edges of my mind. The roads were pitch black. They curved through the woods like a snake and I kept imagining poxers where there weren’t any. About five miles down the road, I saw a fruit stand next to a ramshackle shack that sold homemade scarecrows and pumpkins for Halloween. A little further down the road was a place called ‘The Flamingo’ with a bunch of motorcycles out front. I didn’t see any poxers in the parking lot but I bet if we opened the front door, at least one Hell’s Angel with a dead-on would be cozied up to the bar.
Finally, we saw a sign that said ‘Entering Guilford, Incorporated 1666.’ The irony was definitely not lost on me.
Dorcas slowed the ambulance. “Keep your peepers opened for a pharmacy.”
“Which shack?” I said, and I wasn’t even kidding. Guilford wasn’t the armpit of Massachusetts—it was worse than the armpit of Massachusetts. It was like one of the little hairs matted underneath the armpit of Massachusetts. This was definitely a town where everyone was related to everyone closer than is considered ‘natural’. Sure, there were poxers around, but just a few. The rest were locked inside buildings, or if they managed to get out, probably wandering in the woods.
This was the land of metal roofs and rusted-out cars on front lawns. I wondered how a place like Guilford could be within an hour of Littleham and still be on another planet. I felt bad for the kids who grew up here. I felt even sorrier for the two teeth that they probably had in their heads, along with their unibrows, six fingers, and little tails.
Yeesh.
“There’s the post office,” I said. It looked like a trailer with a postage stamp for a yard. An American flag drooped from a tall pole by the door. “Too bad we don’t need stamps.”
Across the street was a storefront called the Spider Web that offered tattoos and body-piercings. Somehow I figured that both were a rite of passage in Guilford.
Next to the Spider Web was a convenience store called Mimi-O’s, and next to that was another bar that just said ‘Pub’ on the front door.
Even without poxers, Guilford was just plain scary.
Where was the pharmacy? We went through the center of town, which wasn’t much of a center at all, and came out the other side. The houses were getting thin again, and the woods started bunching up against the side of the road.
Dorcas peered into the dark. “There has to be something here,” she said.
“I’m not so sure. The way town looks, it doesn’t seem like these people are big on dumping loads of cash into the local hygiene store.”
She didn’t say anything, but her eyes were intent on the road. Finally she croaked, “Five more minutes. It’s gotta be around here somewhere. I know it.”
The darkness didn’t help. How can you find a store at night when there aren’t any streetlights? I felt blind.
Suddenly, I saw two familiar golden arches rise in the glow of the ambulance’s headlights. I didn’t care that there wasn’t anything inside that could be of use—it was still a little sign of familiarity from the life I lived a week ago.
Next to the golden arches was a big, pink doughnut sign. Next to that was a neatly paved road.
“Is that actually a strip mall?” I said.
“It could be.” Dorcas craned her neck to see into the darkness, but it was useless. Besides us, there wasn’t a hint of light anywhere. It would have been different if the moon was out, but it wasn’t, and it was overcast because I didn’t see any twinkling stars in the sky. Trust me, if I had, I would have wished really hard on one to let this nightmare end.
When the road widened, we realized we were in a big parking lot. The headlights caught the dead eyes of a few poxers. Dorcas just ignored them and kept driving until we saw the array of stores. There was a videogame rental place, which made total sense for Guilford since videogames was probably all there was to do. Then there was a dollar store and a Goodwill. Next to that was a place called Jolly Drug.
“Jackpot,” I said, but the word almost caught in my throat.
Inside the store was a small light, jostling up and down. Someone was in there, and he, she, or it was holding a flashlight.
19
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I hissed at Dorcas.
“Be quiet,” she said. “Trust me.”
Trust her? Really? Didn’t she know there was this awesome chasm between teens and adults that couldn’t be spanned by a thing called ‘trust? I would sooner trust a poxer if it was close to my age.
Well no, not really, but you catch my drift.
Dorcas had pulled the ambulance around so it was facing Jolly’s storefront head-on. Then she flashed our headlights—three short, three long, then three short. She waited about ten seconds and did it again. I knew what she was doing. I learned about it in cub scouts when I was in grade school. That was before I quit my troop. The whole idea of carving a little wooden car out of a chunk of wood to see if I could win a race against all the other little wooden cars wasn’t exactly my idea of fun. Still, I did learn a thing or two. Dorcas was using Morse Code. She was spelling out S.O.S. with our high beams.
The flashlight in the store abruptly shut off.
“Damn,” she whispered under her breath.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a swear word.”
“Duh, I know that. What do you mean, ‘damn’?”
“We probably scared whoever it was away.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “There’s no place to run.”
We sat for a moment, waiting for any sign. Abruptly, the light winked on again, but this time the beam was further back in the store, deep in the darkness.
“What do we do?” I said.
“We try it again.” Dorcas repeated the S.O.S. and waited for a response. The light in the store went off again. She swore under her breath. After a moment, it blinked back on and sent us a reply—three short, three long and three short.
I looked out my window. The poxers in the parking lot had noticed us and were making their way toward the ambulance. “Dorcas, how’s the zombie situation on your side?”
When she went to look out her window, she yelped. There was a poxer staring in at her, up close and personal. Once again, I was reminded how gross these things really were—not movie gross but real life gross. Their eyes were haunted and gray, and their teeth were stained the color of whatever they had last eaten. Of course there was the matted hair—caked with mud and bloo
d—and the clothes that were just plain dirty—like hillbilly dirty.
The poxer slapped its filthy palms against the ambulance widow and Dorcas freaked. She immediately threw the ambulance in reverse and backed away from Jolly’s Pharmacy and the poxers in the parking lot.
“What are you doing?” I screamed.
“I have an idea.”
“Care to share?”
Dorcas didn’t answer me. She drove alongside the strip mall, past the video store, the dollar store and Goodwill. At the end of the row of stores, she pulled sharply around the side of the building. Our high beams caught the cracked pavement. It was littered with trash, old wooden pallets, and dead weeds. This was the sort of place kids who ditched school hung out at, which probably meant almost every tween in Guilford.
Dorcas twisted the wheel again and drove around the back of the strip mall.
There was nothing in our headlights—just the dirty backside of a low-rent strip mall and a set of train tracks along the edge of the woods that probably hadn’t seen a train in years. The broken rails disappeared into the gloom.
“Look for a door,” she spat as she drove slowly down the derelict alley. There were a few of them and each was marked. The dollar store just had a dollar sign crudely painted on it. Goodwill had an official logo. The door that I assumed led to the video store was blank—then there was the door to Jolly’s Pharmacy. Someone who thought they had a sense of humor had spray-painted a little extra under the name. It said ‘Jolly’s . . . NOT!’
I guess that was supposed to be funny.
Dorcas parked the van and peered into the beam of light in front of us. There was nothing. We both checked our side view mirrors and they were empty too.
“Let’s go,” she said, and quietly opened the ambulance door. For some reason, I didn’t want to chance opening mine. I was too close to the train tracks and the woods. Who knew what was watching us? Instead, I climbed over her seat after her and lowered myself gingerly to the ground.
The Dead (a Lot) Trilogy (Book 2): Wicked Dead Page 8
