Beach Blanket Bloodbath (Amanda Feral Book 4) (6 page)

Now, before you get the wrong idea, we
don’t take any pleasure from taking life, not any more than you do when you
gnaw into a juicy steak. It’s simply Darwinian. Predator versus prey. If you
have a problem with that, I suggest a trip to another planet.

That’s how it works here. Get used to it.

(Footnote: No hugs will be forthcoming to
ease your troubled sensibility)

A scuffing in the gravel drew our
attention to the top mouth of the path. Gil leaned casually against a railing
there chatting with a young woman who was certainly under his thrall, or at
least pretending to be so she could swipe his wallet. I had to look away as he
clamped down on her throat, not because the violence disturbed
me—obviously I’m okay with that—but because of the incoming
erection that would be tenting his trousers. The sounds of struggle
transitioned to branches cracking as he tossed her desiccated carcass high into
an evergreen.

When I looked again, Gil was already
waiting for us, wiping a streak of crimson across his cheek and grinning. Every
bit of him flush with blood, including the downstairs bit.

“Point it the other way. You’re like a
fucking adolescent with that thing.”

“Ew.” Wendy’s nose curled.

“Whatever.” Gil casually leapt over the
railing with the grace of a paraplegic gazelle—with a
hard-on—tripped and belly flopped flat onto the gravel.

He screamed, curled into a ball and
cradling his rapidly detumescing member, stubbed out on the ground like a just
lit cigarette.

“Why is that railing even there?” he
shouted, glowering back over his shoulder and pouting.

“Because without it a human might go
running windmill-armed right off the steep slope.”

“Or a vampire, even,” Wendy added.

“Humans need to stop with all the safety
bullshit,” Gil proclaimed.

Nods, all around. Wendy dug a cache of
wet naps from her purse and dabbed Gil’s cheek and for that brief moment amidst
a volley of awkward smiles, they were close again. Or as close as friends can
be after a complete reversal of fortune.

“Idiocy is not a trait that is necessary
for humans to survive as a species. If they plummet down the hill, they
plummet...preferably right into my gut.” I leaned against the rail as Wendy
continued to clean Gil’s face. “Seriously. The supernatural races that feed on
humans have experienced a population growth just to keep up with the enormous
amount of people that should have died in their youth from eating magnets, not
getting ribbons on field day, or talking on cell phones while traversing steep
switchbacks. Child safety fixation is clearly bad for society, but fantastic
for zombies.”

 
“You should write a fucking pamphlet,” Gil said, still
rubbing his bent junk.

 
“See?” Wendy called. “Writing is your calling. Even if it’s
just pamphlets.”

Bitch.

I stomped away toward the car shaking my
head. That any of us ever agreed on anything was a miracle. Wendy and I had
been playing at being friends, acting, and sometimes that was enough, but not
today.

“Don't
be mad, Amanda. Look, I got you something shiny.”

Wendy whipped a gold scarf out of her
purse and wrapped it around my neck before I could object on the grounds of
scabies.

“There,” she said. “Reflects highlights
on that gorgeous bone structure. “

I couldn't disagree and she did seem to
be making an effort. “Fine.”

“Plus it's like a souvenir for our trip.”

“How so?”

“I snatched it off the hooker before you
tore into him like you were cheating on Weight Watchers.”

“God.”

I ripped at the scarf and set it adrift
on a warm breeze whistling through the alley. Coiling and unfurling, it caught
on the head of a nearly nude man who emerged from the shadows, one of a quartet
of bronze hard bodies in gold lamé hot pants, matching gold shoes and nothing
else. The four men posed, ala Destiny's Child, the scarf flickering flame-like
around the tallest one's head as though he were a candle.

“The Golden Boys,” Gil whispered in a
tone somewhere between desire and fear.

“You mean the strippers?”

“Not just strippers.” Gil rubbed the side
of his face, ashamedly. “Evil strippers.”

“Oh Jesus. Is that a bruise?”

He nodded, wincing in my direction,
begging me not to press the issue.

“From the fall?” Wendy asked, confused.

Sighing, he pointed toward the gaggle of
gays. “That one on the right was doing some hip-thrusting a little too close to
my face and, well, there might have been some ball swinging involved and—”

“Stop,” I said, turning away. “I don't
want to hear any more.”

I also didn't want to hear the big
stripper's delayed scream, but as is so often the case, you can't get between a
gay and his drama.

The tall stripper bellowed, hunched over,
his fists shaking. He stood whip-straight and tore the scarf from his head,
revealing a startlingly handsome face, bronze and bony, and a shock of platinum
hair that screamed for attention.

“What the fuck?” he yelled.

The four of them glared from the flapping
drape of fabric in his palm, then across to where we stood. At me, in
particular. As if I'd swiped the ugly thing. I nudged Wendy in front of me,
making it clear who was to blame.

I shot a thumb at Wendy. “There might be
a little of your friend on her teeth.”

Wendy shook her head. “Nope.”

The one to
Boy
oncé’s left, an Asian guy with a torso so fat free it could have
been die-cut, leaned over and without taking his eyes off me said, in his most
insouciant bitch-voice, “Oh hell no. That’s André's scarf. I bet that bitch
jacked him for his tips.”

Tips?

Oh hell no. He had tips?

“Like hell!” I shouted. “And I'd have to
be paid to wear that tacky shit.”

Boyoncé, their leader, presumably, took a
dramatic breath—if go-go boys required leadership, someone needed to cue
the grinding and tea bagging, I guess. “Are you calling our outfits...tacky?”

Gil could mewl and complain about his
injury-by-ball-sac until his mama came to tuck him in, but I had no intention
of letting a gang of exotic dancers intimidate me. “Not so much tacky as
fucking hideous. That fabric could blind someone.”

“What did you say?”

“I said, yeah. Y'all look tacky as fuck.”

“Brad,” the Asian stripper said, his face
scrunched up tighter than cat butt. He shook the cloth in front of Boyoncé. “There's
blood on this scarf. André's blood!”

In unison, they drew an odd—and
slightly to moderately gay—assortment of weapons. A cat-o-nine tails. A metal-heeled
stiletto. A white tube sock from the seventies filled with pennies.

And that's all it took, I glanced around
me for a little back up, only to find Gil and Wendy had long since bolted for
the car, their footfalls echoing around me proving without a doubt that my
friends sucked gigantic dog balls.

My stomach lurched. What do you say at
that point? When it’s become clear to humans you’ve been involved in something
nefarious? I’m sorry? No. I thought he was merely a down on his luck homeless
teen, how was I to know he was a moderately employed dancer who earned tips
dunking balls into elderly gays’ mouths?

No offense, Gil.

Zombie or no, four pissed off queens with
weapons was not a great bet against a single set of unhinged jaws. I did what
any sensible supernatural creature would, turned and ran. They howled behind me
like the giddy beasts they were—or wanted to be when they weren't
grinding for cash—and scrambled down the alley after me, gold shoes
slapping the pavement.

I slammed the door and stood on the gas
pedal to know avail.

“You didn’t even crank it up?” I screamed
as the first stripper dove on the tailgate of the SUV, pounded a shiny dildo on
the back window, in between wild bucking gyrations—a hazard of the
profession, apparently, they just can’t turn that shit off…or maybe they’ve
loosened up the muscles to the degree that they wiggle like bobbleheads as a
matter of course.

Cranking the key and slamming the car
into drive, I barely noticed the fragrance of Drakkar Noir waft in from my
left. The window was open and Boyoncé or Brad or whatever the fuck their
leader's name was reached in to claw at my face.

I couldn't resist, maybe I was still that
rash little girl.

What would Mrs. Montclair say about this?

Let this be a cautionary tale for any of
you that think it's okay to wave your extremities under the nose of a fleeing
zombie or a first grader. Ratcheting open my jaw with a few quick clack-clack-clacks,
I brought jaws of steel down on his hand, taking it clean off at the wrist,
then hit the gas, rocketing the car out of the alley as the strippers gathered
around their fallen comrade and wailed, seven fists and one bloody stub raised
in defiance.

“Blaggee,” I garbled, the man's fingers
caught up around my tongue, still twitching.

Wendy scrambled on the floor for my purse,
dragging it up my leg roughly and plumbing its depths for a plastic freezer
bag. She snapped it open it and held it out for me.

I spat Boyoncé’s hand into it, grinning. “Snack
for later.”

“Sick,” Abuelita said, her attention
quickly returning to her phone and her videos.

“Who knew go-go boys could be so vicious?”
I pointed the car toward the freeway onramp.

Both Wendy and Gil raised their hands,
sheepishly.

“Well, I didn't get the memo.”

Gil climbed onto his knees, watching over
the backbench at the cars coming up behind us and filling my rearview mirror
with vampire ass. “I'm just surprised they let that whole dismemberment slow
them down. The Golden Boys don’t let anything stop them from achieving their
goals.”

“Jesus Christ, are you the president of
their fan club? Do you get email alerts and discounts?”

“No,” Gil said, defensively. “But, I’ve
heard stories.”

“What kind of stories?” Wendy asked.

His eyes grew dark, his expression grim. “Oh,
I don’t know, only…murder! Teabagging suffocations. Go-go gorings. Glory hole
mutilations. They call us monsters. But the Golden Boys are the real evil.”

Wendy and I stared at each other in
disbelief. Gil sounded like one of those crazy yokels in a horror movie, eyes
wide with some presupposed horror. “You’re all gonna die! You’re all doomed!”
We did what any true friends would do in the presence of an overly dramatic
diatribe, busted up laughing. There might have been pointing, too. If our tear
ducts had worked anymore I’m sure we’d have been wiping our cheeks and damning
him for ruining our mascara.
   

“Seriously, Gil? Four ordinary humans in
gold tap pants scare you? You? Did you forget you’re a vampire and can tear out
their throats?”

“While nailing them,” Wendy added.

“Exactly, you can multitask your
supernatural abilities. Get your rocks off while filling your veins with the
red stuff. There’s nothing to be afraid of from a few exotic dancers.”

Gil sighed heavily. “Then why did you
run, too?”

“Um, because y’all bitches left me alone
and this is Versace. I’m not going to risk ruining an outfit to prove a point.”

“Right,” he nodded. Gil wasn’t buying it.

I grabbed the Ziploc and shook it. “What’s
this then?”

Gil shrugged and looked away, grinding
his teeth. He hadn’t looked so uncomfortable since he got that undead venereal
disease and started pissing blood.

“They’re not supernatural, Gil. They’re
human,” I said in my most empathetic tone—its effectiveness was anyone’s
guess, really. “Or, at least that one tasted like long pig.”

(Footnote:
long pig
is a term coined by cannibals to indicate that human flesh
bears a startlingly similar flavor profile to succulent pork. And it’s true.
Don’t believe me? Try it. Preferably with a honey crisp apple gastrique.)

Wendy unzipped the baggie, plucking a
thread of sinew off the stripper’s wrist. She dangled it over her gaping maw as
though feeding a mouse to a python. Wendy gave it a few assessing chews, before
nodding. “Yep. Human.”

“Whatever,” Gil said without turning back
to them. “They must have a sixth sense or something.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

The next few seconds should have passed
by in a hazy slow-motion blur like they do in the movies, but no. The car
shifted so violently toward the median, I thought our heads would topple from
our necks and roll around the floorboard like spare change and bottle tops. A
crunching sound echoed from the direction of the impact, just beyond Abuelita,
as though she were eating the crispiest potato chip ever, mouth open. On
purpose.