“I’m sorry, Dex. I can’t.”
The wall was back up. She took her heart back. Maybe I never even had it to begin with.
In a daze, I removed my foot from the door and she closed it in my face. I stood there outside of it, listening, hoping I could hear more, that she’d come out and see me again and let me explain. But I too was afraid to talk, too afraid to hear the answer.
“Dex,” I heard Maximus whisper from down the hall. I turned and looked. He was waiting at the stairs, looking pretty pleasant considering the circumstances. I had to wonder if he was enjoying this, that Perry and I were as miserable now as he and Rose were. If this all came down to one-upmanship in the end, if we were doing it even now. I had to wonder what Maximus and Perry talked about in the lobby while Rose and I were gone. I bet it wasn’t anything close to the truth.
I wiggled my jaw, trying to disperse some of the anger that wanted to come out. Now wasn’t the time. If he said something to her to make her hate me even more, I’d find out about it. I couldn’t even like that damned ginger for more than a day.
I walked toward him, balling my hands into fists.
“What is it, fire pubes?”
He grimaced. “Dex, grow up.”
“Oh I can see it’s worked out real well for you.”
He muttered something to himself that sounded like “back to crazy” and then headed up the stairs. “I just want to make sure you’re taking the right equipment with you. I’ll be staying behind so I can’t help you once you’re out there.”
And now I was wondering if Maximus was staying behind because he really was worried about Perry, or because he just wanted to plant more lies in her ears about why she and I weren’t meant to be.
I missed the days when I wasn’t so paranoid. I missed a lot of things.
“Dex?”
“Hmmm,” I grunted.
He stopped outside his room and put his hand on my shoulder. “Thank you for going with Rose. I know this is important to her.”
I grunted again. “I hope I can trust her.”
He took his hand away and frowned at me. “Rose?”
“Yeah. Considering I’m heading into one of the worst neighborhoods in the city, let alone the country, with a nutso Southern girl carrying a bunch of guns, who wants to hunt down some zombies, yeah I really hope I can trust her. Well, can I?”
He nodded grimly. “I’d trust her with my life. I’m sure she’d be no different with yours.”
Great.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“You know, I appreciate how fast we’re racing around here, but I think if you want to see some zombies, you’re going to have to drive just a tiny bit slower,” I said to Rose. “It’s not like zombies are known for being Olympic sprinters.”
We’d been driving around Treme and some other inner city ghetto that Rose had dubbed “No Man’s Land” for about an hour. Despite her guns in the crew cab, she was playing it extremely safe, which meant driving fast and running every single stop sign or red light. She said the minute we slowed down or stopped was the minute we were carjacked, which I thought might be a slight exaggeration. That was until I think we witnessed a robbery at a 7-Eleven and a drug deal dispute that spilled out onto the road, guns blazing, and I realized that it was good that Rose was erring on the side of caution.
Still, if she really thought we were going to find any zombies, we’d need to go a bit slower.
“Fine,” she said, but didn’t let up on the gas. “I’m not getting a bad vibe here anyway.”
“You’re not? Because the minute I see people waving guns in public, I know the vibe ain’t good.”
She glared at me, her eyes flashing orange and grey in the passing streetlights, her hair taking on the color of a creamsicle. “Supernatural vibe. Don’t you ever pick up on that?”
“I did earlier in the week,” I admitted. “Guess I just haven’t been paying attention lately.”
“Well, I reckon whatever we’re looking for we would have picked up on already. Let’s just head back to the Quarter.”
I exhaled in relief. That sounded like a plan. Each minute we were away, I felt like Perry was being taken further and further from me. It had taken so much to get her to open up as much as she did, to let herself be vulnerable with me, and now I was afraid that door was closing and I’d never get that chance again. Yes, it was all of my doing but I couldn’t help but go over what Rose had said earlier, that it wasn’t over unless I let it be.
“Thinking about Perry?” Rose asked after a few minutes.
I stared at the window, at the darkness that did all but swallow the abandoned vehicles, the splintering houses, the people who watched the street with angry eyes waiting for an excuse to let the world know how pissed off they were at the shit hands they were dealt.
“I’m always thinking about her,” I said.
“Dex,” she began, maybe another reminder that love was worth fighting for, maybe another condolence. But it sounded like her words were getting strangled in her throat. I turned to look at her, concerned. She was staring straight ahead of her, eyes wide, mouth open in surprise.
In our hurry to get back to the Quarter, she had pulled the truck down a long, dark street where low cars weren’t loitering and people weren’t yelling. I guess hoping to bypass the worst area and cut through to one of the main drags.
But this street wasn’t as harmless or as abandoned as it looked. At the very end of it, near the lights and bustling traffic of the main thoroughfares, there was a mob of people standing in the middle of the road. There looked to be about twenty or thirty of them, but they were too far away to make out any individual features. At the moment they just seemed to be standing there, swaying back and forth on their feet. A group of people waiting for something.
“Neighborhood watch meeting?” I asked, though I was getting this particularly unsettling feeling, like my scalp was prickling.
“I don’t think so, sugar,” Rose said uneasily and slowed the truck down. “I reckon we better turn around.”
“Good idea,” I said. She checked in the rear view mirror to make sure no one was behind us, and was about to turn the wheel when suddenly the truck sputtered and rolled to a stop, halfway across the shoddily-painted dividing lane.
“The hell?” she cried out, slamming down on the gas. The pedal flopped under her weight. The truck had completely died, lights dimming down to nothing. She frantically tried the ignition, but the key wouldn’t even turn. “Shit, sorry, but shit, shit, shit!”
My heart had finagled its way out of my chest and up to my throat. I kept my eyes on the mob in front of us, watching them as closely as I could. At the moment they were too far away to be a threat, whoever they were and whatever they were doing. But if the truck didn’t start soon, we were going to get noticed. And if we got noticed by this mob in one of the New Orleans’ ghettos, I had a feeling things were going to get real ugly.
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked her, afraid to look away, afraid that if I did, the people would somehow notice. At least the headlights were off now. “Does this always happen when you’re in immediate danger?”
“I don’t know!” She began pounding her hand on the wheel in anger. “I don’t know, it’s never done this. It’s just dead. Shit!”
“Okay,” I said slowly. So far the group of people were staying put, maybe not even facing our direction. Perhaps luck was on our side. “Do you know anything about cars?”
She gave me a disgusted look and quickly opened the door, hopping out of her seat and going for the hood. I jumped out too, the air cooler now and slightly damp. Though the houses on either side of the street were derelict and abandoned, I felt like a million eyes were watching me. That uneasy feeling on the back of my head slowly extended down my neck, down my spine, tickling my ass and balls.
“Do you have any experience at this?” Rose asked as she popped the rusty hood. I winced at the jagged noise she was creating and looked again to see if the crowd of people had noticed. They were still standing there, not moving, swaying like reeds in a light breeze.
“I have no idea how to fix it, if that’s what you’re asking,” I told her. “But a similar thing happened to me in New Mexico once.”
“Yeah, and?”
“I think it was the work of a few evil shamans.” I quickly glanced at her. The realization spread across her face. Of course this wasn’t her dependable truck just randomly malfunctioning. This was the work of a Bokor. Which meant…
Her eyes flew to the crowd at the end of the street. “I really hope those are your average shoot-em-up thugs.”
As if they’d heard her, the crowd began to move. It took us a few seconds, squinting at their dark forms against the blackened street, to figure out if they were coming toward us or not. They were coming toward us. And quite fast. They weren’t Olympic sprinters, but they might pace well in a marathon.
“Get in the car,” Rose said quietly. “Now.”
She slammed down the hood and we jumped in the front seats as she tried the ignition again and slammed her foot down on the gas, pumping it. Like before, there was nothing. And now the mob of people was only a few yards away.
“Are those zombies or real people?” I cried out. “Zombies or real people?”
“I don’t know,” she whimpered. But I knew she did. Now that they were closer, I could make out their shapes and faces. Their expressions. They were mainly bigger-framed black men, though there were a few white derelicts sprinkled in there, the types with crazy tattoos on their faces, stained wife beaters and meth-crazed eyes. People that no one would care about if they went missing or ended up dead. People who would have people spitting on their graves. Expendable members of society.
They all looked absolutely insane. They faces held no humanity. They were drooling, with snapping teeth and outstretched arms. Just like the zombies of your nightmares. Only these were much, much worse. Because this group moved in tandem, in unison, like a flock of evil birds, and they could be quick when they wanted to be. They had already started to run.
I could see Rose was about to abandon ship and make a run for it, but that would have been certain death as well. I grabbed her arm to hold her, and panicking, said, “Let me try the car.”
I put my hand on the key, and concentrating as much as I could, hoping that somewhere inside of me I could fight back against what was being done to me, to us, that if I had this power it could be used for something, I turned it.
The car started with a roar. The lights went on.
And Slayer’s “Dead Skin Mask” came blaring out of the speakers, as if we were listening to that song at high volume just before the truck died.
Rose let out a whoop of joy and immediately slammed the car into reverse, hitting the gas hard. We lurched forward in our seats, my hands crammed against the dashboard to prevent my head from going through the glass, and Rose whipped it around so we were going in the opposite direction.
Right into another car.