“I’m not chancing it. Nor am I facing your mama without a thorough screening from a licensed doc. I happen to value and appreciate all my body parts being in their current locations.”
Nick groaned in agony as he regretted ever allowing Bubba to take his mom out on a date. They’d only gone out once, but since then, Bubba had assumed the role of Nick guardianship with a terrifying iron grip. “Then please don’t call her. Go get her and take her to the hospital to meet me. She’ll be too tore up to drive and I don’t want her out in this mess alone. She drives bad enough as it is.”
“Mark’s with her. I’ll have him drive her over while I follow the ambulance.”
Nick gaped at the mere suggestion. “Are you nuts? Have you seen the way that man drives? He’s worse than she is. I don’t know what loon approved his license, but dang! I swear he found it in the bottom of a cereal box. And he took lessons from Mario and Luigi.”
Snorting, Bubba pulled out his cell phone to call Mark and tell him what had happened.
Before Nick could continue his protests, the EMTs arrived. Kody stepped back so that they could check his vitals. With the exception of a fever, they confirmed that there was nothing wrong with him. But because of his heart condition, they insisted that he go in for more testing.
It was so frustrating.
And scary since there was always a chance that they might actually uncover something “abnormal” about him. Something that could land him locked in a lab somewhere for testing since he was about as abnormal as any X-Men could be.
Of course, it didn’t help any that he had a new hell-monkey best friend in that one of the zeitj?gers decided to hitch a ride with them as they took Nick to the ambulance and closed the doors.
Why did that have to be his new psycho stalker? Couldn’t there by a supermodel somewhere, obsessed with gawky teenage boys with bad wardrobes and velcro-mother issues?
What did it want with him, anyway? And why couldn’t anyone else see it?
He stared at the hell-monkey.
The hell-monkey zeitj?ger twisted the sickle in his hand and stared back.
Very disturbing.
While the EMT kept an eye on his vitals, Nick continued to watch his silent harbinger. Kody slid carefully past it and sat in the corner, out of the way.
Nick glanced pointedly at the zeitj?ger, then her. Why is he still with us?
Kody shrugged. I can’t exactly ask while we have company. If I do that, they might take us both to the psych ward.
At this point, he was almost willing to chance it. Anything to get to the bottom of what was going on.
“Some weather, huh?” the EMT asked them as they were shut in and the driver took off.
“Yeah.” Nick watched as the woman rechecked his blood pressure. “Still a normal teen, right? I haven’t mutated into an Avenger or anything?”
She laughed. “Not yet, Tony Stark. Are you trying?”
“Some days. I’d like to try being a billionaire playboy for a change.”
She shook her head. “Well, you might get your chance. Given the size of the mosquitos we had to battle to get inside your school, it wouldn’t surprise me if they weren’t refugees from a nearby radiated science facility of some kind.”
“Probably got into some of my mama’s uncle’s bayou moonshine. She always said that stuff could bring the dead back to life. And strip the finish off anything, including cars and kidneys. Wouldn’t surprise me if it couldn’t mutate a few skeeters, too.”
The EMT laughed so hard, she choked. “Is he always like this?” she asked Kody.
“Yes, he is.”
“Girl, you’ve got your hands full, don’t you?”
“You have no idea.”
And still the zeitj?ger stared at them as if waiting for something more unholy to happen.
It was so creepy and disturbing. But not nearly as much as the storm that continued to slam against the ambulance until it was forced to slow down to a crawl to get through the streets that were beginning to flood. Even the EMT started sweating.
Their nervousness wasn’t helped as the mosquitos began to gather on the outside of the truck to the point that the evil beasts completely covered the windows.
The EMT gulped audibly. “It’s like one of them horror movies, ain’t it?”
“Yeah,” Nick breathed. “And I didn’t even play with a Ouija board… this time.”
Kody snorted. “Maybe this is one of those hundred-year storms or something that drove the bugs out of their nests. You know, the kind of thing that we’ll tell our grandkids about?”
The EMT’s face paled as more mosquitos hit the truck. “Maybe, but I’ve never heard of anything like this.” No sooner had she finished those words than something struck the ambulance and sent it careening.