Going Bovine (20 page)

Gonzo and I pile out with the rest of the road-weary passengers and head for the big green MegaMart across the parking lot.

“Awww, dude! They’ve got the Mega XL Death Captain Carnage!” He runs for the bank of video games beside the tiny ATM machine. “This is just the most awesome game ever! If you get to level three, you get a special battleax that lets you slice-and-dice your way through nursery rhyme characters. Sweet! Hey, you got a buck?”

I give Gonz the dollar and in another minute I hear him killing beloved storybook characters with glee. There’s an explosion, and the dish yells, “Run away, Spoon! Save yourself!” I use the ATM. Buy a few more snacks. Get some change.

“Gonzo—” I start to ask if I can use his phone, but I know he’s terrified of using up his minutes. “Listen, I gotta make a call. Keep an eye on the bus, okay?”

“Sure,” he says, eyes glazed.

Around the back is a pay phone. I drop in my coins and punch in the digits I know best. On the fourth ring, Jenna’s sleepy voice answers.

“Hello?”

“Jenna?”

“Cameron? Oh my God, is that you? Where are you?”

“Shhh, don’t wake up Mom and Dad.”

“Okay,” she says. And I know how hard it is for her to break the good-girl code for me. The line buzzes with static and the occasional click. “How are you?”

“I’m okay. How is everybody there?”

“Mom and Dad are completely freaked. They put posters up all over town. And people have these brown and white ribbons on their trees that they say they’re not taking down till you come home again.”

“Brown and white?”

“Like a cow.” She sucks in her breath. “The cops are looking for you, Cameron. They traced your credit card to New Orleans. Cameron, why don’t you just come home? Please?”

“I can’t do that, Jenna. Not until I find the guy who can cure me.”

“What are you talking about? What guy?” She sounds like she’s about to cry.

“It’s … complicated. But I promise I’m okay. Listen, Jenna, I need you to do me a favor.”

There’s a pause. The line is really bad. “Okay.”

“Just let Mom and Dad know I’m okay. I’ll call back as soon as I can. I promise. I …”

Another phone picks up.

“Cameron? Cameron! Is that you? Where are you?” It’s Dad’s voice. In the background, I hear Mom telling him to let her talk. “Cameron, just tell us where you are and we’ll come pick you up. We love you. We—”

More clicks. A finger comes down on the clicker. “They’re tracing the call.” Dulcie’s standing there. Something serious in her eyes makes me obey. Slowly, I put the receiver back into its cradle.

“You have to let them go, Cam. You have to move forward. You’ve got a mission.”

“I know that, okay?” I explode. “Just leave me alone, would you?”

“Leave you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Totally alone?”

“Yes! God.”

She bites her bottom lip. “Okay. See you around, cowboy.”

“Yeah. See you.”

I run across the parking lot to the bathroom island and push my way into the filthy hole of a men’s room. The E-ticket scratches against my arm. Frontierland’s gone even lighter, the lettering getting hard to read. How much time do I have left? In the cracked mirror, I look like Grade-D crap—pale and stubbly.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I ask my fractured reflection. Tears sting at my eyes. A big guy in cowboy boots comes in and I splash water on my face.

Out in the parking lot, two trucks gas up at the pumps. A family eats their fast-food meals in their station wagon with the windows rolled down. Two guys stand by a stack of tires, away from the pumps, smoking like a couple of idiots. And over where the bus was parked earlier, I see nothing but a big empty space.

No. No, no, no, no, no.

I push through the MegaMart doors so hard, the bell jangles like it’s caffeinated. Gonzo’s still at the Captain Carnage game.

“Gonzo!” I snarl.

“Dude, not now! The Teddy Vamps are on me.”

“I thought you were watching the bus!”

“The bus?” He doesn’t take his eyes off the game.

“Yeah. You know, that long, rectangular vehicle that gets our asses out of here and is nowhere to be seen?”

Gonzo finally looks up, wide-eyed.

“Yeah, exactly,” I say.

We race outside to the parking lot and stand in the empty space where there used to be a bus to Florida.

Gonzo swallows hard. “It’s …”

“… gone,” I finish. “Congratulations. We are officially fucked.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Wherein We Take a Van Ride with Possible Serial Killers

“I don’t understand. I looked outside, like, maybe two seconds before and it was there, dude. I swear.”

“Two seconds,” I repeat.

“I swear!”

“Let’s go to the replay. Hmmm, oh, looks like maybe Gonzo was so busy smoking Little Miss Muffet he forgot. To watch. For the damn. Bus!”

“I’m sorry,” he says, hanging his head like a little kid who just peed on your carpet by mistake.

“Just keep looking for signs of civilization.”

We’re on a dirt road in the middle of freakin’ nowhere. So far, we’ve passed a farm that stank to high heaven, some cotton fields, and four ancient husks of tractors getting their rust tans in the sun. It’s bright and the heat’s beating hard on the back of my neck.

“Try calling her again,” Gonzo says.

“I’ve tried. She’s not coming.” I started yelling for Dulcie the minute we realized the bus was truly gone and we were on our own. But I guess she’s taking that “leave me alone” edict seriously.

“Where are we, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” I say, wiping the sweat from my forehead with my arm. “Somewhere in Mississippi. Fuck!” I kick at a stone in the road, sending it skittering away through a cloud of dust.

Gonzo starts coughing. “Dude, I can’t breathe right.”

“Don’t you dare panic on me,” I warn.

“I’m not,” Gonzo squeaks, holding back a cough that barrels out anyway. “Look, I’ll just call my mom,” he says, whipping out his cell.

“Yeah. Absolutely. Wouldn’t want to go another step without input from Mom.”

Gonzo ignores my snarkiness. “You said if there was an emergency, amigo. This counts as an emergency, right?” Before I can stop him, he pushes number one on his speed dial and in a second I hear him saying, “Mom? ¿Mamí? Sí. Es Gonzo. Jeez, don’t cry, Mom. I’m fine. I promise.”

“Yeah, Mom,” I say to the air. “We’re just stuck on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere with no idea where we are or how to get out of here. Everything’s great! Wish you were here!”

Gonzo peels away from me. “Listen, Mom, we need a little money. … I what? I sound sick? No. I feel fine. Sí.” He coughs. “It’s just dry. No, it’s not pneumonia, Mom. No, I … yeah, I’ve got my inhaler. The prescription’s not more than three months old. Do you think I should get it refilled?”

“We’re all gonna die! Die! Die!” For Gonzo’s benefit, I put my hands to my throat, stick out my tongue, and fall to the ground, spazzing.

He covers the mouthpiece of the phone with his hand. “Dude, that shit is so not funny. Mom? What do you mean the tests were inconclusive?”

I can’t deal. I wander off the road into the cool grass and let the long, tall blades skim my fingertips. There are a few cows out grazing. They look up, chewing, but I’m not grass, so they ignore me. I inch closer to one. It’s got big wet nostrils that sniff the air around me. Its tail flicks at the flies. We’re nose to nose. She seems soft, and I reach out a hand to stroke her fur, which is warm from the sun. She lets me do it, just goes on munching grass while I smooth my hand across her wide back.

“How now, mad cow?” I say.

“Cameron!” Gonzo calls out.

“Catch you later, Bessie,” I say to the cow, who eats another mouthful of grass in response.

When I reach Gonzo, he’s pacing, and his face is sweaty. “I knew I shouldn’t have come on this trip,” he says, and he looks like he could cry. “My mom said they found this spot on my lung on the chest X-ray. It could just be a blip on the film or a cyst—or it could be something really bad, like cancer or a mutant virus or bacteria.”

“Or it could be your mom freaking out over nothing.”

I offer him my hand, but he crawls over to his backpack in the grass and fishes out his inhaler. He pulls deep on it, but he’s having a hard time calming down. He stands, trying to shake it off. “A spot! That doesn’t sound good. What do you think that could mean?”

I grab Gonzo’s shoulders a little too hard because he is annoying the crap out of me. “I have bad news, man. You’re going to live. Deal with it.”

He twists out of my grip. “I think we should go back, Cameron.”

“No way. I’m not going back.”

“I can’t go back by myself, dude. I could be dying.” He pulls deep on his inhaler again.

“You’re not the one who’s dying, Gonzo!” I’d like to kick his ass all the way to Florida. He gives me that wounded-puppy look, effectively killing my karate fantasy. “Doesn’t she do this to you all the time?”

“What do you mean?”

“Scare the bejesus out of you?”

“She’s looking out for me, okay? You don’t know her, Cameron. I shouldn’ta left like that. Like my dad.”

“You ever think there was a reason your dad left?”

He kicks at a pebble in the road. It skitters sideways into the long grass and disappears. “Me.”

“Maybe it wasn’t you.”

“She’s the best thing in my life. I know that.”

I should just shut up. But I’m so pissed off—about the bus, about the cows, about Gonzo’s crazy mom, about everything—that I just want to slice and dice. “Well, that’s pretty damn sad, then. You ever think that maybe the best thing in your life would be to get the hell away from her before she turns you into a complete emotional cripple?”

Gonzo’s left eye twitches. His mouth goes slack. And then he comes running at me full speed, swinging hard. “Just shut up, man, shut the hell up! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

He lands a solid punch to my stomach, and that sucker hurts. I’m doubled over, hoping my breath will have a return engagement with my lungs.

“Say you’re sorry, pendejo!”

“Sorry,” I squeak out.

He backs off, but he’s still way pissed. “My mom has given up a lot to raise me. She was supposed to be a singer.”

“Okay. I believe you.” When I’m able to stand, I hand him his backpack. He stuffs his arms angrily through the straps. “Did you ask her to do that?”

“Ask her to do what?” he says, giving a little hop to secure his pack.

“Give up her life for you.”

He looks confused for a second. “That’s not the point. Look, just drop it, dude.”

“It’s dropped.”

We start walking. In the field, I see the old lady, Mrs. Morae, from the hospital. She’s sitting in a chair, holding on to her IV pole, like she’s at a bus stop, waiting. Her face is grave. “Watch out,” she warns.

“I will,” I say.

She smiles at me. “In a house by the sea with the air scented of lilies.”

“Dude, who are you talking to?” Gonzo’s face is right in mine. I slide my eyes to the right, but the old lady is gone.

The pins-and-needles sensation burns in my legs. “No one,” I say. “Just keep your eyes peeled for a car or a bus. Something other than gravel and dust.”

We amble down the dirt road till we hit an old paved road that at least has a route sign. There’s nothing coming in either direction yet.

Gonzo’s still riled up. “I had appendicitis when I was eight, and she had to leave an audition to rush me to the ER. Okay?”

“I’m sure she’s a good mom.”

“She’s great. A great mom. When we get to a town, I’m out of here. I’m going back, dude. If the world ends, it ends. You’re on your own.”

“Whatever. Just keeping looking, all right?” I walk left and Gonzo goes right.

I feel like I’ve been swallowing stones. My muscles ache and my legs are heavy. The air is thick with the smells of cow dung, tractor exhaust, road dust, flowers, and something else. My eyes sting and my throat’s irritated. Smoke. Could be crops burning. Small brush fire, maybe. So why is the hair on the back of my neck creeping to attention?

I whirl around, searching for the source. In the distance, Gonzo’s silhouette flickers around the edges, distorted by the squiggles of heat rising from the road. I start to call out, but my feet are summer-sidewalk hot. I hop back just as small puncture holes pop up along the ground. There’s a hiss from below, and before I can shout a warning, the asphalt splits open with the force of a geyser. Steam, smoke, and flames shoot into the sky. The force of it knocks me back a few feet. I land hard, feeling the sting as my shirt is torn and my back is bloodied by gravel. One by one, the fire giants crawl out of the broken road and push themselves up. In the time it takes me to gasp, they zoom up to about eight feet and fan out into positions like loyal soldiers. The way ahead is consumed by an orange wall of heat.

“Gonzo!” I yell, but I can’t see him. It’s too bright.

The fire giants stare down at me with their baleful eyes, and I feel myself sinking. I don’t even know how to fight these guys. There’s a stick on the road. I grab it and start swinging, Star Fighter style. The fire gods seem to find it amusing. They throw their heads back in a laughing howl that makes me shiver. One of them darts his head forward and flicks a serpentlike tongue around the stick. A red glow shoots up the wood. With a hiss, I drop it fast and it disintegrates.

Several slink forward on all fours and sniff me. One growls. They’re through fucking around. Their breath heats my skin. Suddenly, they pull up short. A van’s cruising down the road. The sun’s reflecting off the windshield. I have to put my hand to my eyes to block the glare.

“Hey!” I shout, waving my arms. “Over here! Help!”

I try to crawl toward it, but a fire giant blows me back. My body screams in pain as I tumble along the pavement. I try to get up but I can’t.

“Gonzo!” I croak.

The fire god pries open my mouth and covers it with his. He breathes out, filling my lungs with choking smoke. My body shakes. Somebody’s pushing against my chest in a hard rhythm.

“Page Dr. Xavier!” Glory shouts. I’m on a gurney, watching the fluorescent ceiling lights strobe over me fast. Mom’s running alongside, trying to keep one hand on the metal rail. She looks worried. I’m pushed through wide doors. More lights. Hard on my eyes. God, my body hurts so bad. Like I’m being burned with lit matches.