Better Off Dead (22 page)

“What about the fire?” I asked, as I watched Bill’s attempts to avoid the flames as he tried to save the skewer I accidentally dropped.

“’Twill burn itself oot. We leave noo,” Tallis finished. He started forward without waiting for either of us to ask any more questions.

Bill inspected the completely charred shish kabob, now with small sticks and other debris stuck to it. After studying it for another moment, he took a hesitant bite, before finally shrugging and starting in on the rest of it. Figuring he might be hungry later (I’d since lost my appetite after being attacked by the enormous spider), I wrapped the other skewer in the muslin and decided to bring it with us.

We walked at a breakneck pace for maybe thirty minutes before Tallis finally slowed down and I could actually take a deep breath. My legs were aching, as were the soles of my feet. I was sweaty, headachy and under the circumstances, pretty grumpy. “So what was that thing?” I asked, waiting to discuss the spider until we were far enough away from it to be able to. Obviously, I knew it was a spider but I wasn’t sure if maybe it was more than that. 

Tallis looked over at me and arched a brow, a slight smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “It was yer supper.”

I felt my stomach drop at the thought of the disgusting creature which now lay in my stomach. Then I caught Tallis’s grin and a wave of relief washed over me. As soon as the wave crested, though, I wondered what we’d
really
eaten for dinner. “It’s comforting to know you’re joking about the spider being our mystery meat, but that begs the question of what our dinner really was?”

Tallis cocked his head to the side and offered me another quick grin. “’Tis betta nae tae ask, lass.”

***

We traveled through the charcoal forest for another night and two days, although the days and nights mingled together into one dark blur. The landscape was unchanging, and the burnt out hulls looked just the same as they did the day or night before. How Tallis could navigate was beyond me. I guessed he used the stars though, because he constantly checked the sky every hour or so. Or maybe he was just looking out for flying monsters.

I wasn’t sure how, but Bill never lost his cool. He didn’t seem the least bit put out that we were living an absolute nightmare. I felt like I could lose my mind at any given moment, but Bill continued to rattle off politically incorrect, and often graphic and disgusting, jokes, although he was the only one who laughed at them. At least he kept himself amused. Tallis, too, seemed unruffled by his surroundings, and remained recalcitrant and mostly withdrawn. Apparently, I was the only one who didn’t take everything in stride …

When I finally hit my breaking point, and felt like the never ending dark sky combined with the skeletal forest would certainly be the undoing of my sanity, the landscape changed. Bill and I stopped dead in our tracks at the new scenery before us. We faced an uneven, muddy dirt road with weeds and overgrown grass on either side of it. There were no trees at all, skeletal or otherwise. The road started where the tree line ended. Ominous black clouds eclipsed what
appeared to be the moon. The pale, yellow-grey glow of the moon’s reflection against the clouds lit up the center of the road, and became so bright, I had to shield my eyes against it.

“We hae reached our destination,” Tallis announced.

I was surprised and returned my attention to the dirt road, which disappeared into the cloud cover. “This is it?” I asked, expecting to see a city, not a dirt road to nowhere.

“Aye,” he answered robotically before continuing forward, as though to discourage any more questions. Bill and I watched him walk onto the dirt road and proceed toward the shadows of the clouds. Then he simply disappeared on the horizon, at the same spot where the road vanished into the clouds.

“Well, it was nice knowin’ him,” Bill said with a shrug as he spun around on his heel and started back for the forest.

“Come on, Bill, you know we have to follow him,” I called out. I had to run the few steps that separated us, so I could grab the back of his collar and yank him to a stop. I wasn’t sure what was worse, following the unknown dirt road or traveling back through the skeleton forest with the monster spiders.

Bill sighed, shaking his head. “All right, nips, ladies first,” he said, holding his arm out in front of him theatrically.

I started toward the dirt road, looking back to make sure he was right behind me. He was. I took a deep breath, gave Bill an encouraging smile, and stepped onto the path. My heart was in my throat as Bill and I walked side by side, neither of us knowing what to expect. Strangely enough, both of us were completely silent, as if our own thoughts were distraction enough. My own mind was completely racing, plaguing me with questions I didn’t
have the answers to …

What happened when Tallis disappeared? Did he just materialize somewhere else? And if so, where?
My thoughts collided in my brain until I wanted to scream with frustration. Instead, I strained to see the end of the road, where it simply disappeared into the nether. My heart climbed into my throat.

“This is it,” Bill said in a low tone, frowning as he faced me. “Ready, Betty?”

“I guess so,” I answered, looking toward the end of the road, which simply T-boned into a black wall of nothing.

“Aye, we’ll be back!” Bill said in a crummy imitation of Tallis combined with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“You do realize that line isn’t from
Conan
, right?”

“What you talkin’ ’bout, yo?” Bill asked, shaking his head, like I was the one with my movies crossed.

“That line was from
The Terminator
.”

Bill waved me away with an unconcerned hand. “Whatevs,
Terminator
,
Conan
, they both fit Tallis to a T. Maybe I’ll just start calling him the bitchmaster instead. Get it? Beastmaster … bitchmaster?” Then he erupted into a roar of chuckles.

“I’m sure he’ll love that,” I grumbled as I reached for his hand, and together we stepped forward. Seconds later, I blinked and found a completely different landscape around me. Luckily, Tallis was present, off to our right side. His hands were propped on his hips as he glared at us, no doubt unimpressed by our cowardice. But I couldn’t say my attention was wholly centered on Tallis, beyond the relief at knowing he was still with us. Nope, I was much more interested in the Underground City.

It was comprised of large high-rise buildings, maybe twenty-five or so, all of which stood huddled together amid a backdrop of parched desert. In fact, the earth was so dehydrated, deep valleys pitted the ground, imbuing the landscape with the look of very old skin. The sky was an ugly, muted burnt shade of dark orange, with a lighter area of yellow centered over the city. It looked like the sky was on fire.

“Coome,” Tallis said as he started forward.

I dropped Bill’s hand and inhaling the dry air deeply, followed Tallis. I had to be careful as I walked so as to avoid catching my toes in the deep fissures of the earth. Sprain my ankle or break my leg and I’d be SOL for sure. I sincerely doubted there were any doctors in hell.

The closer we walked to the Underground City, the colder the air became. It seemed the temperature dropped by five degrees with every step we took. “It’s freezing!” I announced as I tightened my grip on the fur around my shoulders. I could see my breath on the air.

“Aye,” Tallis answered. “Warmth doesnae exist in th’ Oonderground. Oonly th’ cauld ah despair.”

“And on that happy note, let’s get this party started!” Bill said in a chipper voice as I tried to calm my frantic heart. 

Tallis faced Bill and me with a dour expression. “An’ hoo dae ye propose tae find thess sool we moost retrieve?”

“Ah, shit!” Bill called out with a laugh as he slapped his thigh like the joke was on him. “I almost forgot, yo!” He reached inside his pants pocket and pulled out the pack of pills we first took when we entered Tallis’s forest, and I thought Bill was taking illegal narcotics. He flipped open the tin and handed a green pill to me and one to Tallis, before taking one himself.

“Whit is this?” Tallis demanded, eyeing the pill with suspicion.

Bill shrugged. “Skeletor said to take it before each of our missions.”

With that, Tallis threw his on the ground. It rolled off the edge of the parched earth, only to vanish into a deep ravine. I had yet to swallow mine and faced Tallis with the question of whether or not I should written on my face.

“I doona troost Streethorn,” he said simply, before facing Bill. “Furthermair, ye, as an angel, hae nae need tae take the pills what’re intended fur human coonsumption.”

“How do you know?” Bill eyed him warily.

“Aye ken,” Tallis answered, his jaw tight and his expression warning he wasn’t in the mood to argue.

“I, Barbie,” Bill challenged, narrowing one eye on Tallis. Then he simply shrugged as he faced me. “I just thought they might taste good. So hurry the hell up an’ take yours, sugar loaves! You heard Frankenstein—they’re for human consumption.”

Before I could so much as open my mouth to speak, Tallis slapped the pill out of my hand. “Ye dooonae need it.”

And that took care of that. Bill and I just looked at Tallis in surprise. “Okay,” I said as I turned to face Bill, putting to rest the subject of taking pills. “So where are we going and how will we know when we get there?”

Bill chewed on his lip while he reached into his back pocket and retrieved his phone
. With all the grey duct tape holding the thing together, I was amazed it even worked. He powered it on and clicked a few buttons. I glanced over his shoulder and noticed he was reading through text messages. “What are you doing?” I demanded.

“Checking my messages. Amazing, but I got service here.” Then he focused on his phone again before shrugging at me. “All from my common-law girlfriend.”

“What does …?” I started.

He shrugged. “We been hookin’ up for a long time, but neither of us wants to call it a relationship, ya know? We just can’t seem to shake each other though,” he finished with a sigh.

“Bill!” I yelled at him, feeling frustration up to my ears. “I don’t care! Back to the subject! How are we going to find the soul to retrieve?”

“Cool your panties, sweetie,” he said, holding out the palm of his hand as if he were stopping an enraged bull. “Skeletor told me he programmed my phone with a sensor or something. I’m trying to make sure the damn thing downloaded. Now just busy yourself with Mr. Party over there”—he pointed to Tallis—“while I figure this shit out, namsay?”

“What?” I snapped.

“Ugh,” Bill scowled at me and drooped his shoulders. “Know. What. I. Am. Saying?” Then he arched his eyebrows to see if I followed him. “Namsay?”

“Yes, I get it!” I grumbled back at him. “Just download the freaking sensor already.”

“Workin’ on it, sweetcheeks.” Then he continued to click buttons and appeared, for all intents and purposes, like he had no idea what he was doing.

Annoyed, tired, scared to death, and in no mood to end my life in the Underground City, I huffed out a breath of impatience and eyed Tallis. He was standing a few feet away from me, his arms crossed against his chest, observing Bill and me with the whisper of a smile on his lips. “What are you so amused about?” I asked gruffly.

“Atween th
’ two ah ye, Ah doubt ye coods navigate tae yer oown feit!” He chuckled loudly as he shook his head, as though pitying Bill and me.

“Shut it, Conan,” Bill said and shot Tallis a discouraging glare. Moments later, he started to hop around while twirling his hips. “That’s right! Big daddy Billy just got the sensor to work!” After thrusting his pelvis forward repeatedly, and looking like he was having sex with the air, he broke into the running man.

“’E looks as if ’e’s havin’ ah seizure,” Tallis said as he observed Bill.

Bill mistakenly took the comment as an invitation to dance in Tallis’s personal space. He continued thrusting his abdomen forward, only in much closer proximity to Tallis, who recoiled with repulsion. “That’s right! Bill found the spirit to retrieve! That’s right!” he sang as he squatted down and got onto his hands and toes. He appeared to be mounting the dirt.

Tallis stepped backward while I wrenched the phone from Bill’s grip. Peering down at it, I noticed what looked like a map. Directly east, there was a glowing white dot that seemed to move back and forth, as if it were a person walking on screen. I looked at Tallis who was busy trying to swat Bill away. The much smaller man was bent over, gripping his thighs while pumping his bottom up and down, and singing the wrong words to “I’m Sexy and I Know It.”

“Bill, will you quit that?” I yelled at him as I handed the phone to Tallis. “I think the white dot is our spirit, but do you know where he or she is?”

Tallis inspected the screen for a few moments and then nodded. “Freak Shoow,” he answered as if either Bill or I had a clue what he was talking about.

“Um, come again?” Bill asked between pants, apparently winded from his terrible dance moves.

“The amoosement park,” Tallis continued.

“There’s an amusement park called Freak Show in the Underground City?” I asked, sounding completely baffled.