Death and Biker Gangs (13 page)

“Eight hundred milligrams sounds like a lot. Mariah took two hundred for her cramps…”

“Pistol-whipping is not the same as cramps. That’s like comparing…a stubbed toe to getting kicked in the balls.” It took me a few seconds to filter through the rest of his statement. “Who’s Mariah?”

He hesitated. “She was—”

“Look what I found!” Tony trundled back over to us, his arms full of red, purple, and blue candles. “They’re scented, too. Just like you like ’em, Vibby.”

He stuck one right under my nose to prove his point, and I recoiled too sharply, bashing my head into the cushioned headrest. “Don’t call me 
Vibby
.”

Tony lit a row of candles and set them on the front desk, then created a wide semicircle where I supposed we’d eat and sleep. None of the massage tables looked particularly comfortable, and they were all too narrow, anyway; with my luck, I’d roll off and 
really
 give myself a headache.

It hurt to look too long at the flickering lights, so I closed my eyes. “Dax?”

For a moment, all I heard was the lighter snapping as Tony lit more candles. Then, “Mariah was my girlfriend. She lived in Los Angeles. So did pretty much everyone else I knew.”

The soft snaps of the lighter paused. Evie nosed around under one of the beds.

Los Angeles. I had thought about Los Angeles recently…why? 

We think the city fell…

Oh, hell.

His girlfriend had lived there, and I’d gone and cracked a joke about it. 
A few zombies might be an improvement. 
Shit. I sat up straight, opening my eyes. “Dax, I’m sorry. Why didn’t you say anything?”

Dax’s lip curled into as close as he got to a smirk. “When has there been time to say anything? When we were freaking out over the dead getting up in Astra, or running for our lives?”

“You could have—”

“Could have what? Cried over it? It’s the end of the fucking world, Vibeke, and everyone’s got someone—everyone’s lost someone, or a lot of—” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, turning away from me. “We all have our sob stories now. Why the hell should we dredge it all up when it’s the same story repeating everywhere? 
What good does it do?
”

Shit, shit, shit. What the hell could I say to him?

Dax wiped his nose against his sleeve, ignoring Evie as she walked up to him. “I’m just gonna go to the bathroom.”

 “Tissues are on the left,” Tony said.

Dax flashed him a thumbs-up—or was that his middle finger?—and trudged into the hallway. A door clicked shut a moment later. The dog followed, pawed at it, then looked at us, whimpering.

“C’mere, Evie,” Tony said. “Leave him be.”

Christ, I hoped he’d brought a flashlight. Sitting there in the dark with all those thoughts would be horrible.

The seconds stretched into minutes, and I finally scrunched my eyes shut, resting my head in my hands. “I’m an asshole.”

“Yeah, that was kind of a dick move on your part.”

Am I always this much of a bitch? 
I pulled my legs up close to my body. “Did you know?”

“About his girlfriend? No. But since he never mentioned anyone he was trying to get to or anyone he thought about, I figured they were gone.”

My roommate used to talk about the human brain’s habit of compartmentalizing under periods of stress. I’d compartmentalized as an EMT, and I’d seen myself doing it in the weeks since the meteors came, pushing away thoughts of those I couldn’t reach and might never find.

I guess Dax had been compartmentalizing, too, by locking his family and friends in a little segment of his brain, where he’d never have to think about them or talk about them. You’d be surprised at how easy that is to do when you’re just trying to survive. My parents and roommate and all the people I had loved and wondered about made their way into my dreams, but that was as close as I got to grief.

And I’d brought it all back to the forefront for Dax.

I stood up too fast, and my head spun. “I gotta go apologize.”

“Vibeke, sit your ass down.”

“He needs a hug or something.” I took a step forward, wobbled, and almost went down. Tony was at my side in an instant, his arms sliding around me. He helped me wobble closer to the center of the room, where he’d thrown our gear. “Tony…I don’t feel so good…”

“We’re gonna sit down, okay? Don’t worry about your legs, I got you. One, two, three…”

I wound up leaning against him. He stank of sweat and ash and the undead and the road itself, but he still felt strong and sturdy, and his arm around my shoulder was somewhat reassuring. Goddamn, though, my head hurt. “That fucker hit me with a 
gun
.”

“Yeah, he didn’t hold back, either. Kinda surprised you got up as fast as you did.”

I closed my eyes again, trying to pretend he didn’t smell like the apocalypse. “How do I apologize to Dax?”

“You don’t. He’s not one of your girlfriends. He doesn’t want to talk it out or snuggle or do any of that warm fuzzy crap girls do. Just leave him alone and don’t mention it when he comes back out.”

I couldn’t decide what was worse: the nausea or the actual headache. “You don’t talk about going back to anyone, either,” I said.

He was quiet for so long I figured I’d managed to insult him. “Sorry. None of my business. I get it.”

He gave my shoulders a squeeze. “There’s no one waiting for me to rescue them,” he finally murmured. “My folks were in Florida, and finding out about them is…well, it’s not in the cards right now. After them, there wasn’t anyone else. Just you. The Boy Scout, too.”

Great, now I’d gone and made Tony feel bad, too. “I’m an asshole.”

“Kinda. But everyone needs an asshole.”

I figured that was his way of telling me it was all right.

“I know what’ll make us feel better,” he went on. I felt him lean slightly away from me, and he started rummaging around in his backpack. “I’ll read from the book of Ezekiel.”

I stifled a groan. “If you do that, I’m going to strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger.”

“Not 
that
 book of Ezekiel, but good job on the movie reference.” He pulled out 
Dead Mennonite Walking. 
Evie trotted over and sniffed the cover, then settled down in front of him when she decided the book wasn’t food. “How about some fine literature before bedtime?”

“I don’t know if that’s going to help me sleep, but…”

“Sure it will. Dax! We’re having storytime!”

Dax shuffled out a moment later. I smiled queasily at him.

Tony cleared his throat and angled his flashlight over the book. “Ezekiel smited the undead goodwife and dropped her from the rooftop, and looked over what his angry God had wrought. The sun had grown red, and brown, rotten hands waved from the fields, all of them needing his help to return them to the sanctity of the grave. He lifted his scythe and swung it over his shoulder, aye, verily, and thought it would be a fine day to do the Lord’s work…but only after he made a cup of coffee.”

Some people hug you when you admit you’ve screwed up. Tony reads to you about a zombie-hunting, caffeine-guzzling Mennonite while you’re in the middle of the 
actual zombie apocalypse.

I guess it’s the thought that counts.

NINE

“Motherfucking son of a goddamn shit on a fucking stick!”

Well, that’s one way to wake a person up.

I pulled my jacket-turned-blanket over my head, mournfully aware that I probably hadn’t died from a brain bleed and was, in fact, listening to Tony bellowing at what was doubtlessly an ungodly hour in the morning. “What?” I mumbled. “Did you finish the book? Does Ezekiel die at the end?” We’d left him in a tight spot last night, facing down an undead werewolf who had once been his brother-in-law. Or had the undead werewolf been his mother?

“
Shit!
” Tony slammed the front door hard enough to rattle the glass, and something thumped against the floor. The dog yipped in concern. I sat up and wiped some of the morning glop out of my eyes, and Tony, the dog, and a large blue box hazed into view. Evie sniffed at the box, then whined uneasily.

I did a double-take. “Is that a cooler?”

“Great detective work there, Vibby.”

Dax sat up in his bedroll, stifling a yawn. “Why do you have a cooler?”

Tony all but breathed fire. “Someone left it at the front door.”

I stretched my hands over my head, cringing as my back creaked. “So we have secret admirers?”

“Vibeke! Who the fuck leaves coolers at the door during the goddamn apocalypse?”

It didn’t sound like something a zombie would do. I tried to push my hair out of my eyes. “Do I get points for answering correctly?”

“What’s in it?” Dax asked.

“Who cares? I’m not opening it. What if it’s a bomb?”

“Why the hell would you bring it inside if you thought it was a bomb?” Dax demanded.

Evie bared her teeth at the box while the boys scowled at each other. I wrapped my arms around my knees, not bothering to suppress a grin. “Maybe it’s a severed head.”

After a moment, Tony pried off the lid and peered inside. “Huh.”

Dax leaned forward. “What is it?”

Tony reached inside and pulled out…a severed head.

Evie barked and skittered backward.

We sat there staring at it for several seconds. I can say with confidence that none of us had ever received a severed head before, even during the golden age, when the USPS or FedEx were around to deliver such things.

“Vibby?” Tony glanced at me. “Want to explain this?”

I could swear the head was glaring at me. Aside from the possibility of my concussion leading to clairvoyant powers, I wasn’t quite sure how to account for my lucky guess. “Wow, what are the odds?”

“Think fast, Vibby!” Tony chucked the head at me.

I didn’t think, I just reacted—I caught the damned thing.

It snarled at me, and I promptly dropped it into my lap. “Holy shit, it’s alive!”

“I don’t think 
alive 
is the term we should really be using,” Dax said. He snagged the dog’s collar to keep her from charging the head.

The reanimated head gnashed its teeth together, scowling up at me. This one looked angry, and hell, who could blame him? I’d be pissed off, too, if I were just a head. I lifted him up by his hair, trying to hold him a decent distance away. He couldn’t have been dead all that long; his features were still pretty much intact, right down to the spiderweb tattoo along his neck.

Oh, fuck. 
I’d seen that tattoo before. “This is one of the guys from the drugstore yesterday.”

Tony sighed. “Well, I guess we know who left us the cooler. Maybe the old guy was right to be scared of that other gang.”

Dax pointed inside. “There’s a note.”

Evie strained toward the head, all traces of our gentle pet gone. “No, Evie,” I said sternly. “No. Not while I’m holding it.”

Dax held onto the dog with one hand and picked up the note with the other, clearing his throat before reading aloud. “We gave Eccleston to Fredrick, and now you can have what’s left. Smiley face. This is what happens to those who trespass. Smiley face. You’re next. Smiley face. Love, Blair. Smiley face.”

It definitely topped the angry notes I used to get when I wrote about bands people didn’t like. I held the head out of Evie’s reach. “Why the hell do you keep saying smiley face?” I asked.

“Because he added smiley faces after each sentence.”

Tony snatched the note and stared at it for several seconds, then grunted. “Now that’s just a criminal overuse of emoticons. Tacky bastard.”

“Well, they did send us a freaking 
head 
in a cooler
,
” Dax pointed out.
 
“I don’t think we’re dealing with classy people.”

They were arguing about etiquette and I was still holding a severed head. What the hell had my life become? “Are the people that left us this still out there?”

There was a long pause. “I didn’t really check,” Tony said.

“Maybe they left,” Dax said hopefully. He whistled to the dog, and she reluctantly sat down, still staring at the head.

Sure, and maybe the sun was going to come out and the zombies were going to put on a musical number about how sorry they were for causing so much trouble. Then again, the dead got up and walked, which was on the same level as pigs flying and hell freezing over. Maybe singing and dancing zombies weren’t out of the question just yet.

I shook the head a little bit, and it gnashed its teeth at me. “Will someone take this damn thing?”

Dax carefully took the head and dropped it back into the cooler, where it landed with a dull thump. “How did they even find us?”