Badass Zombie Road Trip (22 page)

It was true. Several times that day, Jonah had thought Candy’s appearance was a little too coincidental to be real. But why would the Devil both deny it and lay claim to the woman’s presence in the same breath? The answer was simple, of course.

Why not?

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Jonah said. “And it won’t work.”

“What won’t work?” Lucifer asked, drawing closer and closer to Jonah. “I’m just trying to tell it like it is.”

“You’re trying to confuse me.”

“Sometimes the truth is confusing. Or is it the truth? Do you really know the truth?” Satan was very close to Jonah now. Close enough to whisper in his ear, “Does she know the truth?”

Every nerve, every hair, every cell in his body stood at attention. Jonah wanted very much to punch and hit and beat the Devil to a pulp, but all he could do was stand there and tremble. “She doesn’t need to know anything about me … or Dale. And we don’t need to know anything about her.” Jonah found sudden strength in Dale’s careless words as he quoted, “I’m just giving her a ride, not marrying her.”

Satan’s breath was hot and heavy on Jonah’s lobe as he whispered, “Or fucking her.”

“Go away!” Jonah screamed as he squeezed his eyes and fists tightly.

“Did you need something else, sir?” a new voice asked.

Jonah opened his eyes to see a different clerk, a proper clerk, sitting behind the desk. Satan was gone. “Sorry. I thought … What were you saying?”

“Room one fifteen is on the left,” the clerk said. “Beside your lady friend. Was there something else?”

“No,” Jonah said. “Thanks.” As he turned to leave, shoving the key card
 
in his pocket, a sudden thought crossed his mind. He spun about, surprising the clerk as he asked, “Do I settle the bill in the morning?”

“I explained before, the young lady paid for both rooms. She said you wouldn’t mind.”

Jonah smiled. “Yeah. I suppose I don’t mind.”

After he spent the next half hour carting everything to the room, Jonah finally collapsed onto the bed. He wanted a shower and something to eat, but above all else, he wanted to enjoy the few moments alone he had been granted. He wasn’t going to go looking for Dale, and he certainly wasn’t going to knock on Candy’s door.

No matter how much he really, really, really wanted to.

****

Green River, Utah

138 hours: 55 minutes: 23 seconds remaining

Instead of doing what he really, really, really wanted to do, Jonah popped his acoustic from its case and started to strum, running through chords in slow succession. Yes, this was what he needed. Just some time alone with his guitar and his worries. The act of making music wasn’t necessarily soothing for him; it was the discipline of practice that set his mind at ease. Dale liked the mindless picking at random notes, while Jonah enjoyed the structure of applied practice. It was just one of many ways the men differed.

There was Dale again, in the forefront of his mind. Worrying him. Distressing him. What was that zombie doing? Jonah got the sinking feeling that Satan was right. He shouldn’t have left the undead man alone. Could he even be trusted to return? Jonah strummed harder and tried to push this thought out of his mind.

The void was filled immediately with thoughts of Candy. Jonah worried he might have angered her by blowing her off like that. What else was he supposed to do? Invite her to go and eat live rats with Dale? And speaking of the zombie and Candy, that little scenario was doomed from the start. They were lucky today, but tomorrow she might start to get curious as to why Dale didn’t eat or drink or use the bathroom. Jonah made a mental note to make sure Dale acted more alive in her presence. This was going to be a lot of work. For both of them.

Frustrated and worried, Jonah slipped out of his room and made his way down to the already closed pool, convinced that fresh air would get his mind off both Dale and Candy. He settled down on a bench near the locked pool gate and began to strum again. His mind wandered as he played, and the stress of his run-in with Satan began to fade away.

“Hey there,” Candy said.

Jonah plucked an off note as he jumped up and faced her. While he had been talking to the Devil and unpacking and worrying about not talking to her, she had taken a shower and changed clothes. Her damp hair hung free in her face, and she wore a simple pair of jeans and a loose blouse that left everything to the imagination. Yet she was somehow even more beautiful than when everything was primped and on display.

Jonah swallowed hard and managed a weak, “Hello.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you.” Candy pushed a damp, dangling lock behind her ear.

“You don’t scare me.”

“Good.” She chewed on her bottom lip in thought, and the view of it nearly killed Jonah on the spot with desire for her. “Done talking so soon?”

“Yeah. Turns out he wasn’t in the mood for chatting.”

“You mind if I sit and listen to you for a bit?”

“Sure.” Jonah returned to his seat and his strumming, while Candy sat on the opposite bench, staring at his hands as they played across the strings. He never considered himself very good, and with her watching, he was even worse. He missed note after note, chord after chord. Finally he stopped and hung his head. “Sorry, I’m not very good.”

“You play beautifully.”

“Thanks, but Dale’s got more talent on the musical end. The whole band thing is his digs. I’m just here for moral support, really.”

Candy waved away his modesty. “He’s okay. But I like the folksy stuff better than the harder stuff.”

“Me, too.”

Candy moved across her bench, scooting along until she joined Jonah on his. Her proximity was almost as nerve-wracking as Satan’s had been earlier. “Jonah, I just wanted to say thank you. For what you said earlier.”

Jonah was confused. Surely she wasn’t thanking him for running her off? Was she? “About?”

“About being safe with you. I … I know this sounds silly, but I … I do feel safe … with you.” She laid her hand on his, giving it a gentle squeeze.

Jonah got the impression that she wasn’t talking about the collective ‘you.’ She was talking to him. Just him. “Well, you are. Absolutely safe.”

“Most guys are, well,” she paused to laugh. “Let’s just say when guys find out you’re a stripper, they expect—”

Jonah was taken aback at this revelation. “You’re a stripper?”

“Yes.” Candy’s eyes grew wide as she stared up at him. “Didn’t I already talk about this?”

“Well, no. No, you didn’t.” It was then that Jonah realized he had tensed under her hands. He sent her a signal of disapproval, when in fact he had tensed merely because she had touched him.

With a frown, she let go of him and stood. “I should get to bed. It’s late.”

“No, wait. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Candy rushed away from him. “I’ll be down at seven.”

“Candy, please.” Jonah got to his feet but didn’t have the nerve to follow her. “I was just surprised that such a beautiful woman would …” he let the words trail off, unable to frame them in a way that didn’t sound coarse.

 
Candy paused in mid-step, turning about slowly, her plump lower lip pushed out in an angry pout. “Would what? Take off her clothes for strangers for money? Jonah, I don’t want to strip, but sometimes we have to do what we don’t want to do. Did you just call me beautiful?” The question sort of tumbled out atop the rest of her scolding.

With a shy grin, Jonah nodded.

“Wow,” she said. “It’s been a long time since someone’s called me that.”

As she made her way back to the benches, a power welled up inside of Jonah, and all of his shyness fled in its wake. He had no idea where this courage was coming from, but he intended to tap it to the end. “I’m surprised you don’t get called beautiful every day. I’m surprised men aren’t lining up at your door just to get the chance to say they called you beautiful. The whole world should know how beautiful you are. If I could, I would shout it from the rooftops. I would write ballads about it. I would—”

Candy laid a finger on his lips, silencing him with a smile. “You know, boy, those are awfully unsafe words.”

Jonah dialed back on the libido, reminding himself he didn’t have time for such an interlude. No matter how beautiful his fellow interluder was, he was on a schedule that didn’t include falling in love. “You’re right. Safe. You are safe with us. Perfectly safe. Like I said, Dale might be a bit of a flirt, but he’s harmless. Mostly.”

“Dale,” Candy said, then giggled. “What’s up with you and him anyway?”

Jonah felt out the boundaries of her question, wondering if she was onto the fact that Dale was dead. “What do you mean what’s up?”

“I mean you’re so … and he’s so … well … I know I’ve only been around you guys for a few hours, but I think I can safely say that Dale is an asshole.”

Jonah heard the loud barking laugh before he even realized it was his own. Rubbing his neck in embarrassment, he said, “Ah, yeah. Well, that’s Dale. I’m afraid he can be a bit of a douche.”

“He’s more than just a bit of a douche. I’m surprised he doesn’t smell like vinegar.”

Again, laughter was upon him before he could stop himself. This time Candy was swept up in his mirth and laughed with him. When their amusement wound down to titters, Jonah set his guitar to one side and explained, “To be fair, you aren’t getting to see the real Dale.”

“There’s a ‘real Dale’? Where is he, and why did you bring this version along?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain. This Dale is, well, he’s different right now. I can’t explain why, but the Dale I know, the usual Dale, he isn’t so bad. He’s still a douche, but he’s also a good guy.”

“No, Jonah, you’re a good guy. Dale is a jerk.”

Jonah resisted the urge to laugh again. Candy managed to frame the dead Dale’s personality in a few choice words. But still, dead Dale was very different from the living one. “No he isn’t. I mean, yeah he has his faults, but he’s—”

“Different when you’re alone?” Candy raised an eyebrow.

It sounded lame, but it would have to do. “Yeah, something like that.”

“You know, that’s what battered wives say about their abusive husbands.”

Even though she smiled as she said it, Jonah was acutely aware of a somber undercurrent. She was being serious. “It’s really not like that.” But how could he tell her what it
was
like? There was no easy way to explain his odd relationship with Dale without going back to the start of things. After thinking about it for a moment, he heaved a tired sigh and decided to just go for broke.

“We weren’t always a pair, you know. Dale came into my life when I was in the fifth grade. I’d never met anyone like him. Before Dale, I was so bored. And boring. Everything was. I didn’t really have any friends. Not much in the way of family. No siblings. No one. You know what I did for fun? I used to read. A lot. I mean a whole lot. I’d go through three books a week in the summer.”

“So,” she said with a shrug. “You were a smart kid. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Yeah, but everything was gray before Dale. Everything was routine and blah and boring. I was nine years old and I could set my watch by my own habits. Wake up, go to school, study, go to bed and do it all again the next day. The summer was even worse. I was beyond just being a good kid. My parents never had to tell me to brush my teeth. They never had to tell me to do my homework. I just did what I was supposed to because it was expected of me.”

“You were smart and a good kid. You make it sound like a crime, Jonah.”

“But it wasn’t just that I was smart or well behaved. I had my whole life mapped out. I actually had a to-do list from the fifth grade all the way to my thirties. No one asked me to make it. I wanted one. I was only comfortable with a pre-planned life. Middle school, then high school, then college, then a boring nine to five and a boring wife and three boring kids. Then Dale came along and everything went to hell.”

“Hell?”

Jonah winced at his own analogy. “Maybe I should say he stirred things up. I was just a small-town Idaho kid, and he was this larger-than-life character from California. All the kids thought he knew so much more than we did. He was the epitome of coolness. You can imagine what kind of impression he made on folks. Everyone thought he was the greatest thing to hit our small town in years.”

Jonah didn’t know why he was telling this stranger his life history. But more importantly, he didn’t understand why she was still listening. With another sigh, he started to dig deep, because the hardest parts to share were still ahead.

“The kids all vied for his attention. During breaks or homeroom, he was always surrounded by a gaggle of groupies, like some grand king holding court. Even the teachers doted on him, despite his constant misbehavior. Everyone wanted to be his friend. Everyone wanted to
be
him.” Jonah bowed his head as he confessed, “Including me.”

“And how did the court nerd end up being advisor to the king?”

“I think it’s because I didn’t chase him. I didn’t follow him around or laugh out loud at his jokes or ask him how he was doing every time I saw him, even though I really wanted to. The other guys—and every single girl, of course—all followed him like lambs. Bleating about his every move. But I didn’t. I all but ignored him.”