Undead Cheesehead (Monsters in the Midwest Book 3)
Page 13
Lois looked worried. “What’s going on, Herb? Are you okay?”
For a long moment, there was silence as the witch, werewolf, and alien clone held their breath. They all exhaled when Herb’s distant voice finally replied that yes, he was okay, but there were zombies.
“I thought they were gone. You know, the big group heading out of town. But I guess there are still some stragglers. Anyway, they’ve circled the truck and they’re trying to get in. I think we need to go.”
Dallas squinted at his slightly translucent friends. “What does he mean, ‘they’ve circled the truck?’ Whose truck? My truck?” The werewolf jumped to his feet, pink yarn forgotten. “Are they messing with my baby? You’d better tell me they aren’t messing with my girl!”
Another long pause followed, during which Lois and Stanley hovered a few inches from the ground that Dallas paced. When Herb’s voice flittered down through the ether, it didn’t carry good news. The number of zombies was increasing, and they were starting to shove and rock the big V8 pickup.
“Vikings in the playoffs!” Dallas swore loudly. “Don’t you let them scratch her, Herb!”
Lois’s mouth was pressed into a tight line. Her lips barely parted as she growled, “Gee, Dallas. I thought this was all part of the Great Wolf’s plan.”
“Well, there’s that, sure,” Dallas agreed, “and then there’s Big-D’s plan, and I’ve decided I like mine better. You two get back there and make sure they don’t mess up my baby. I’ll be there soon.”
“There where, D-Dallas?” Stanley asked.
Dallas squinted. “Hey, where’d you go?”
Things were taking on that ‘everywhere at once’ quality again. Stanley repeated his question, but the other man clearly couldn’t hear or see them anymore.
“Shit,” he heard Lois say. Opening his eyes, Stanley saw that he was once again in the back of Dallas’s truck. The fact that they’d lost their astral connection to Dallas before they could decide on a place to meet was only part of why Lois had cursed. She was more concerned about the thirty or so zombies that were smooshed up against the side windows, red eyes staring and bloody teeth gnashing.
Herb gave her a fierce hug, and then reached into the back seat to slap Stanley on the shoulder. “How’d it go?” he asked.
“I’ll fill you in on the road,” the witch replied. “Let’s get out of here.”
Herb’s eyes widened in disbelief. “In… you mean, in Deloris?”
Stanley gulped and added, “No sir. No way, Lois. Not nobody d-drives Dallas’s truck except Dallas. That’s a rule. Unless he’s real drunk, and you’re driving him home. But even then, it’s only okay b-because he’s in the truck.”
Lois smiled a mirthless smile and asked if it was a rule worth dying for. Without another word, Herb put the giant truck in drive and started to idle forward. The zombies in front of the truck parted like a gory curtain, stumbling and shuffling to either side. Their nails screeched along the side panels, causing Herb to grimace, but eventually they were free of the mob. Even though the coast was clear, it was still slow-going for the first few miles. Herb was convinced that Dallas was going to kill him again if anything happened to Deloris. He came to complete stops at every stop sign, and only proceeded after checking and rechecking for cars. When he did press on the accelerator, it was with such hesitation that the truck crawled forward slower than an overweight turtle.
“Where should we go?” he asked, still white-knuckling the steering wheel.
Stanley still thought losing themselves in the Nicolet Forest was the best option. Herb started to turn the truck north, but Lois stopped him.
“We need to check on the zombies,” she said. When Herb and Stanley asked if she’d lost her marbles, the witch explained. “As far as we can tell, most of the town’s already been turned, and now they’re on the move. If we’re going to try to help them, we need to know where they are.”
Stanley rubbed his chin and squinted an eye. Where would he go if he were a zombie?
“Society said z-zombies are always hungry,” he recalled. “If there’s no one left in t-town, they’re probably looking for more people to eat. Only small towns up in this p-part of the state. If I was a hungry zombie, I’d head down to Shawano, hang a left, and t-take Highway 29 right into Green Bay. Yes sir. Lots of folks to eat in Green Bay.”
Lois agreed, but said they had to know for sure. Herb obliged and circled the truck back toward town, a town that used to be one they’d known and loved, but was now a strange and hostile land.
Chapter 17
World peace. The idea was stuck in his brain like the torn flesh between his teeth. Stanley sucked at both and savored the paired flavors. Having friends was great. Having more friends was better. But being friends with every single person in the world? The slow-moving cogs in his mind shuddered with excitement. That would be a lot of friends.
Where should I go for more friends after Green Bay? Michigan or Illinois?
It was an important question, since it would determine if he turned left or right when he finally ate his way to Lake Michigan. He was still pondering it when a pickup truck pulled out from an intersection a short ways up the road. The truck was instantly recognizable, bringing a smile to Stanley’s gore-streaked face.
“Daaaaaallllaaaassss,” he moaned.
He shuffled forward with renewed vigor. He hadn’t seen Dallas in months. Suddenly, the hundreds of friends trailing into the distance behind him ceased to matter. He wanted his friend. The truck slowed to a stop, driver’s side perpendicular to the advancing horde. Stanley scrubbed at his bloodied glasses with a bloody wrist. It didn’t clean the lens, but it moved enough sticky streaks around until he had a clearer view. The tinted driver’s window was rolling down, revealing an unexpected but still familiar round face capped in red, disheveled hair.
Herb? Stanley realized. Driving Deloris? Oooohhhh, Dallas is gonna be mad.
Stanley chewed on the incongruity for a minute, and decided Dallas must be drunk in the other seat. It was so Dallas that Stanley couldn’t help but smile even wider. The smile was also fueled by the realization that he was about to be reunited with his two best friends. Just when he thought he was having the best night ever, Lois leaned forward and peered past Herb.
Lois too! he thought. Geez, who should I bite first?
Before he had a chance to make that important decision, the rear window rolled down and revealed another face. Was that Dallas? Stanley rubbed a dirty finger across his glasses and tried to get a better look. While he squinted, the guy in Deloris’s back seat began to scream. The windows rolled up, and the truck accelerated away.
Stanley slowed, confused why his friends would drive away like that. What were they doing?
“Ooooohhhhh,” he moaned with dawning understanding. He wasn’t supposed to know Dallas was back. They were probably going to surprise him. That meant they were going to a surprise party. Parties meant people.
People means people to eat, he thought.
Stanley veered left to follow the truck’s receding taillights. He cut across the front of the horde that was inching its way toward Green Bay, Laura following in his wake. They bumped their way across the zombies, each bump causing another zombie to literally follow in their footsteps. Like a giant ship correcting course, the massive mob of undead turned their backs on Green Bay and started to head north.
Chapter 18
“No wonder he loves this truck,” Herb observed as Deloris hurtled down the road at just shy of a hundred miles per hour. “Oh my god, this is awesome! My Pinto can barely clear fifty.”
Stanley and Lois weren’t having as much fun. Lois clung to the passenger side’s ‘oh shit’ handle like it was a life preserver and she was lost at sea. Stanley was buckled in tight in the back seat, legs pressed up against the back of Lois’s seat and hands pressed against the roof. Only his trust in Herb’s preternatural reflexes kept him from bawling like a baby as the giant pickup roared down the road.
“That was a z-zombie me,” he cried. “Why was there a z-zombie me? Do you think that was the Prime? Do you think he g-got bit?”
Lois reached around her seat to squeeze Stanley’s hand. “I don’t think so,” she said. “He was wearing normal clothes, not that weird jumpsuit. Plus, Prime can teleport, right? So I doubt he’d be easy to catch, much less bite.”
Stanley nodded, impressed by the witch’s deductions. “So if he’s n-not the first me, he’s g-gotta be a clone too, right? And if he’s a clone too, how many of me are there?”
No one had a ready answer, so they sat in silence while Herb parked Deloris. As Stanley had predicted, the untouched wilderness around them was completely deserted. Even so, Herb decided to situate the big truck as far from the rutted path as possible.
Even in the depths of winter, the countryside was beautiful. It was part of why Stanley loved Wisconsin. There were so many places throughout the state where you could slip away and completely forget about civilization. The three friends sat quietly in the truck’s cab and soaked in the stillness of the winter night. When Herb killed the headlights, the resulting darkness was pure and complete. Craning his neck to look up from his window, Stanley saw that a light breeze had cleared all of the clouds and laid a sparkling blanket of stars across the sky.
“Sure is p-pretty,” he commented, earning nods of agreement from Herb and Lois. “So, now what?”
When no one offered a suggestion, Herb recommended that Lois and Stanley try to get a little sleep before sunrise. Lois was exhausted, physically and emotionally, so Stanley offered her the back seat so she could stretch out a bit. Within minutes of closing her eyes, soft snores floated up to the front of the truck.
“You should try to get some sleep too, Stanley. Lord knows you probably need it,” Herb advised. “After the day you’ve had, you’ve gotta be spent.”
Stanley contemplated the stars for a moment before answering. He had definitely had a confusing day. That morning, he’d learned that he was actually a clone of the real Stanley, and that the real Stanley had been living somewhere in the Wisconsin countryside with aliens. That evening, he’d discovered that there was another clone, an undead clone that was leading a horde of zombies on a path of destruction. Stanley had always felt that journeys of self-discovery were important, but had never thought they could be so literal.
“I g-guess I’m not too tired, Herby,” he finally answered. “I’d rather stay awake. Seems like every time I w-wake up, my life gets weirder.”
Both men sat quietly for a long stretch, lit only by the dashboard lights and wrapped in the quiet rumble of Deloris’s engine. When Stanley spoke again, he spoke very quietly so he didn’t disturb the sleeping witch behind him.
“Sure was nice seeing D-Dallas today,” he commented. “G-glad he’s been doing good.”
The vampire nodded. “Can you believe he was knitting?” he asked, earning a soft snort and quickly suppressed chuckle from Stanley. “I’ve never heard of a knitting werewolf.”
Another stretch of quiet ensued, but it was a little more comfortable than the one before.
“Sure was nice seeing you too, Herby,” Stanley said quietly. “I mean, really, you know, seeing you. And Lois,” he added. “B-been awhile, you know?”
The vampire frowned and searched his friends’ face. “Has it?” he asked. “I mean, we just, you know. We… we were bowling.”
“You whammied folks at Bay City’s so you, me, and Lois could get a game in,” Stanley remembered.
“Right! That was a good time, wasn’t it?”
Stanley nodded sadly. “That was weeks ago, Herby.”
Herb rubbed his chin. “Was it?”
“And that’s kinda b-been it. I mean, I see you g-guys here and there, but we haven’t, I mean, it hasn’t,” Stanley tried, and then exhaled slowly. “Herby, it just ain’t b-been like it was. Dallas left, and you and Lois do a lot of you-and-Lois stuff, you know? I guess I understand, though. I mean, why hang out with me when I’m not even really me.”
Herb scowled. “Stanley, what are you talking about? Of course you’re you. And we do like hanging out with you, but, gosh, I dunno. Me and Lois… There was so much happening, so much crazy stuff right up until that night with the Society, we just didn’t have time to even begin to, you know. Be a couple.”
“I know, Herby. I know. And I’m happy for you t-two, I really am. I just. I mean, you and me haven’t watched a single P-Packers game all year. And I know they’re usually on d-during the day, but I taped all of them.”
Herb wiped an unexpectedly wet eye. “You’ve been taping all the Packers games? Stanley, I don’t know what to say.”
“I thought, I j-just thought that maybe when Dallas was b-back that we could watch ‘em,” Stanley explained with a shrug. “Get some food and some b-beers and maybe some blood and just, you know, watch football. Like we used to.”
“I’d like that,” Herb said. “I’d like that quite a bit.”
“Me t-too, Herb,” Stanley said solemnly. “Me too.”
As he said the words, Stanley felt an uncoiling, followed by the release of a pent-up exhaustion. An unexpected yawn popped his jaw.
“You really should get some sleep,” Herb advised, eyes glinting.
Stanley slept.
Sometime later, when the sky was stretched between the fading night and coming day, Stanley woke to find Lois switching places with Herb. The vampire hunkered down in the back seat, careful to ensure that no patches of skin would be accidentally touched by the rising sun. Once he was covered, Lois stepped outside the truck and snuck off into the woods to relieve herself. When she came back, it dawned on Stanley that he really needed to go, too. He found a secluded spot a few yards into the trees and melted a pocket of snow with a warm stream.
Does Herby pee? he wondered idly. In the past months, he tried to recall if he’d ever seen the vampire go to the bathroom. When nothing came to mind, he shrugged, zipped, and hopped back through the snow toward Deloris.
Lois was leaning against the side of the truck, a steaming mug in her hands. Stanley’s nostrils instantly recognized coffee.
“Where’d you g-get that from?” he asked, incredulous.
In response, the witch emptied the mug into the snow, causing Stanley to squeal in protest. Before he could ask why she’d waste perfectly good coffee, Lois leaned over the mug, whispered a few words, and held the mug out toward him. As he watched, dark brown liquid spiraled up from the bottom of the mug until it reached the top.
“One coffee, black. Sorry, the spell doesn’t include cream or sugar,” she said with a smile. “Careful though. It’s hot.”
Stanley eagerly accepted the mug and proceeded to burn his mouth on the first sip. After squeaking in pain, he mmmmmm’d contentedly. Coffee burns on the roof of your mouth meant you’d just had coffee, and he felt that was a fine thing indeed.
“C-can you do beer, too?” Stanley asked. “Or potato ch-chowder? Geez, if you can, we’d c-could live out here for months.”
Lois laughed, the musical sound doing more to sooth his worry than a night of Herb’s whammy-induced sleep. His world was upside down, but being with Herb and Lois, and knowing that Dallas was on his way home, was slowly putting things right. When he said as much to Lois, the witch agreed.
“Seems like the past year has been one crisis after the next,” she observed. “I just wish things could be normal again.”
“B-but what’s normal?” Stanley challenged. “Who
’s normal? Lois, what the heck am I? Who the heck am I?”
Lois took the bottomless mug of coffee from Stanley’s shaking hands and set it on the truck’s hood. Coaxing him into the trees, she started to gather small branches and sticks. Stanley followed along and helped, the simple task of gathering firewood a welcome respite from the whirling of his thoughts. When they each had a respectable armful, they returned to Deloris and started arranging them in a carved-out hollow in the snow.
“Change is a funny thing,” she started. “Sometimes, it takes a big change to find out who you really are.”
“Like g-getting snatched up by aliens?” Stanley asked.
“Well, I wasn’t thinking about that, exactly,” Lois hedged.
Stanley crossed his arms stubbornly while Lois cast a small spell. Flames flickered deep within the pile of sticks, and soon a warm fire sent a small tendril of smoke into the morning sky.
“But that’s what happened to me,” Stanley challenged. “The real me. And who am I? J-just a glitchy clone, an imposter. Just holding a spot until the real me wants his old life b-back.” He kicked angrily at the snow. “Like at Lambeau, when p-people will leave empty brat t-trays and beer cups on their seats when they go to the b-bathroom so no one takes their seats. They use g-garbage to hold their spots, Lois.”
The realization that he wasn’t anything more than an empty beer cup holding a seat crushed down on him, the pressure squeezing tears from his eyes.
“I’m a beer cup, Lois! He’s super smart and doing stuff with aliens, and I’m just a no-good piece of t-trash.”
Lois shook her head angrily, the woman’s temper burning up hotter than the fire by their side. She stomped over to Stanley, gripped his bony shoulders, and gave him a good shake.
“No. You. Are. Not. I don’t believe that. Herb doesn’t believe that. Dallas doesn’t believe that. And you’d better not believe that, either,” she said with a threatening glare, “or so help me, I’ll turn you into an empty beer cup so you can tell the difference.”