Going Bovine (29 page)

“For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth.” The old lady scrutinizes me. “You’ve got a spot of jelly on your cheek, dear.”

I wipe at my face. “Okay, seriously? I’m starting to freak out.”

“No need for that,” she says, and hums to herself. “The Copenhagen Interpretation. I just love them! I hear they’re Inuits?”

“I … I left my friends in the diner with the fire giants and the freaking wizard.”

“Agents of chaos,” she snaps. “Oh, these are frightening times. Are you sure you’re all right, dear?”

“I’m so tired. Just want to sleep.”

The old lady purses her lips as she flattens out the long stem of one weed, trying to figure out where to make the cut. “You could do that. There is a bed right upstairs with a window that looks out on the sea. Very good for sleeping. But I thought you were searching for that doctor, the one with the cure for what ails you.”

“Dr. X?” I murmur. Sleep sounds so nice right now. “Yeah. I’m supposed to find him. That’s what Dulcie told me.”

The old lady cuts the stem and the weed shrivels up and dies. Something else comes up right away, a blue flower. “Well, you could stay here, if you like. Get off the road. Go to the beach. Or we could make waffles. I adore waffles, do you?”

“Waffles are good,” I say.

“They didn’t have waffles in that wretched hospital. Just that damn gluey oatmeal,” she snipes.

“The thing is, I’m supposed to save the universe, ’cause it … it needs saving,” I say, but I’m so exhausted. “Maybe just a quick … nap.”

I lay my head down in the soft grass and go to sleep. At one point, I open my eyes, and I’m back in my bed at St. Jude’s, the TV showing the coyote chasing the roadrunner, the numbing hum of the respirator and feet padding down corridors filling my ears. I drift back into sleep. But in my dream, I see Gonzo and Balder back in the diner, trying to fight off the fire giants and the Wizard of Reckoning by themselves, and I think, I’m the one who got them into this mess. I can’t sleep; I have to go back.

I wake with a start. The old lady’s still tending her garden. “Feeling better, dear?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Did you make up your mind about those waffles?” she asks, examining another long vine, her scissors paused above it.

“I can’t,” I say. “I have to get back to my friends.”

The old lady lets the vine spring back and moves on to another. “Very well. Another time. Oh, my dear, I left my watering can over there. Could you bring it to me?”

“Where?”

She waves in the direction of the green fields. “Out there. You’ll find it.”

Tromping through the tall grass, I’m stopped in my tracks by the sight of a roadrunner. It’s standing there calmly, just watching me.

“Hey,” I say, inching closer. “Hey there, little fella.”

The minute I get close enough to touch it, the roadrunner takes off. It stops about a hundred yards away and looks back at me, like it’s waiting for me to come after it.

“I’ll be right back with that can!” I yell.

The old lady keeps singing her song, something about sand castles and ninjas. I chase after the roadrunner, going faster and faster, reaching my hand out to touch its feathers. My fingers close around air, and I hit the ground hard, coughing and hacking as the dirt fills my mouth like smoke.

“Cameron! Cameron!” Gonzo’s holding a wet napkin to his mouth with one hand and trying to pull me out from under the table with the other. “Come on, cabrón—move your bony ass!”

I give one good cough. My legs finally get the command and I push out of there with enough force to take Gonzo with me.

“Where’s Balder?” I scream.

“I don’t know!”

“I am here!” The world’s most badass Viking yard gnome is on the counter by the cash register using a dinner plate as a shield and a steak knife as a sword. “No doubt Loki has sent this treacherous wizard and his dragons to test me,” he shouts. “Fear not! I will slay them all and use their bones to adorn my table at Breidablik before I would allow them to harm you, noble Cameron!”

“I’m here, too, you know!” Gonzo shouts.

“Live to fight another day, my friend,” I say, grabbing him and pushing through the door into the smoky parking lot. People race away from the burning restaurant, searching for a safe spot in the madness. The sky’s unnaturally dark. Lightning boxes the clouds with quick uppercuts of electricity. Howling, the fire giants stretch over the top of the restaurant and beat their chests in triumph.

Just then, an enormous boom rattles the entire parking lot, and everything—the Konstant Kettle, the Mister Motel, the cars and trucks—is sucked into the swirling black hole above. The sky closes. There’s nothing left but flames and smoke and bystanders, and curiously, the restaurant’s collection of snow globes.

Across the freeway, the freaked-out patrons of the Konstant Kettle wave down cars, yelling for help. We run as fast and as far as we can, until we’re about a mile down the road. In the distance, a fleet of fire trucks screams toward the big orange fireball that used to be a restaurant. The Kettle is Konstant no more.

Gonzo comes toward me, wild-eyed. He makes a time-out T with his hands. “Okay. Pause game: what the hell just happened?” He’s panting.

“From the depths of Hel,” Balder whispers.

“That guy was the same one we saw in New Orleans,” Gonzo continues. “What’s he doing here with those creepy fire acrobats? And don’t tell me this is about some old dead jazzman’s gambling debts, ’cause I ain’t buying that mierda anymore.”

“I—I think they’re following us.” I’d cry, but I’m too scared.

Gonzo puts his inhaler so far into his mouth I think he’s going to eat it. “Holy Shithenge,” he says when he can talk again. “Why? What did you do to piss them off? Whatever it was, tell them you’re sorry!”

Balder strokes his beard. “This is some treachery brought about by Loki, I’ve no doubt. The trickster god is ever in play and will do his part to bring about the twilight of the gods.”

“You are freaking me out, gnome man!” Gonzo screeches.

“Chill, both of you.” Another siren wails past us on its way to the fire. I take a deep breath, try to calm myself. “He’s called the Wizard of Reckoning, and those guys with him are the fire giants. They’re not from this world. They got here through the wormhole Dr. X opened up. They are the dark energy that’s going to destroy the world. I think they’re following us to Dr. X’s secret location, because he’s the only one who can close the portal. They take him out first, it’s game over for everybody.”

Gonzo takes another puff on his inhaler.

“That’s why we have to find Dr. X as soon as possible,” I explain.

“This Dr. X will heal the rift and make it all better, as you say?” Balder asks.

“Absolutely,” I promise.

Gonzo reaches into his pack and comes up with a bottle of SPF-to-the-tenth-power lotion. He rubs a big dollop on his face; it leaves big white streaks under his eyes. “Hold up—how do you know all of this is true?”

“Dulcie told me.”

Gonzo laughs. “Oh sure, right. It must be true because you heard it from the hot angel who lives in your head! For all we know, she’s the one bringing the end of the world,” Gonzo says.

“She’s not.”

“Ha!” Gonzo starts throwing stuff into his pack. “You know what? Forget this, yo. I’m-a call my mom as soon as I can get to a working phone.”

“She doesn’t live in my head. She’s real,” I say, but I don’t know if I’m trying to convince Gonzo or myself.

“Yeah? So how come she doesn’t come around?” Gonzo puts his hands on either side of his mouth and calls out, “Paging all supernatural chicks with wings! Conference on the side of the road near the burning pancake palace!”

“Fuck you.”

“Whatever,” Gonzo snaps right back. “I’m just saying, it’s hard to believe in all this crazy without a little proof.”

Proof. The MP7 player in my pocket.

“You want proof? You got it.” I pull it out, find the link, and press Play. But where Dr. X used to be is just white noise, followed by the vacation footage of Disney World. Gonzo makes a disgusted laugh deep in his throat. Even Balder’s looking at me with a mix of wariness and pity.

“It was here. I swear it.” I press Play again and again, but it’s gone.

Gonzo’s gaze is steely. “I didn’t have to come, but I did. But you told me there was something in it for me, too, and so far, amigo, I got a lot of trouble and no payoff. Tell me why I should stick this out.”

“Because Cameron is our brother, our friend, and we do not abandon our friends,” Balder chides.

“Thanks, man,” I say.

“No matter if he has lost his wits completely and speaks like one whom the dogs should tear asunder in a mercy killing,” Balder continues. “This is a quest. I pledged my loyalty to Cameron back on the cul-de-sac. I shall see it through till the end.”

The way he says “end” makes me feel all wonky inside.

Gonzo just stands there, staring at the burning diner in the distance. He has every right to call his mom and head back to Texas, but I hope he won’t. The truth is, I’ve kind of gotten used to his neurotic weirdness, and I’d miss it if he left. Maybe that’s what real friendship is—getting so used to people that you need to be annoyed by them.

“I’ll tell you what, pendejo,” Gonzo says. “We better invest in some adult diapers, ’cause if those freaks show up again, I’m gonna need ’em.”

I could almost hug him.

“Yeah, so, you know, let’s kick some parallel-universe dark-energy ass and shit,” he adds, trying not to look scared.

“A wise choice. But we must gain some protection against these travelers from Muspelheim and Niflheim. I shall cast the runes and seek their prophecy.” Balder reaches beneath his tunic and pulls out the leather pouch.

Gonzo makes a face. “Dude, you weren’t, like, keeping those in your pants this whole time, were you? I mean, use a wipe or something first. Damn.”

Balder shakes the pouch till it clacks. Eyes closed, he grabs a rune, places it on the patchy ground. It’s just a piece of rock etched with a symbol that reminds me of an “M” wearing a bra.

“Hmmmm.” Balder strokes his beard. “Mannaz.”

“What’s that?” Gonzo says, his inhaler hovering near his mouth again. “Is that some bad juju? Are we marked for death? Give it to me straight, Gnome-Man!”

“Man is the augmentation of the dust,” Balder intones. “So says the rune.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Gonzo asks.

“I cannot know, but I will invoke a prayer of protection for our journey. It is all I can do.”

Balder chants something in a language I don’t understand. The wind changes direction, bringing the smell of scorched earth mixed with spring flowers. Ragged streaks of smoke cut across the blue sky like the claw marks of some great beast. I don’t see how we can possibly protect ourselves from something so totally random. There’s no plan for something like that. “Shit happens” is more than just a T-shirt slogan.

“So … you think that’ll help us out?” I ask hopefully.

Balder gathers his runes, hides the pouch again. “I believe as surely as I believe that Ringhorn is waiting for me and that I shall return to my home and the hall of the gods.”

I sigh. “Your runes have any prophecy about how we get out of here?”

“I can’t do another bus, dude. I’m nauseated just thinking about it,” Gonzo says.

“Yeah, well, since we are currently wanted men, I think buses are a bad idea.” I take a look around, trying to get our bearings, but there’s not much help—highways, faceless industrial complexes, gas stations. A green and white road marker points the way to Bifrost Road under the overpass. “Gonzo, how much money do you have?”

He pulls out wads of crumpled bills he collected from the patrons of the Konstant Kettle and adds them to what he’s got in his pocket. “Forty-eight dollars and … twenty-five”—he drops a penny—“twenty-four cents.”

Adding that to my leftover two thousand nine hundred and ninety dollars of stolen drug money, we’ve got enough for plane tickets for sure. But Gonzo doesn’t have a driver’s license. No ID, no flying. And since Balder’s too bulky to fit in the overhead bin, we’d have to check him as luggage. Crap.

High above the crisscross of highway, a murky rainbow shines under the wisps of smoke, staining the sky like an oil slick. It dead-ends in the distance near the rippling pennants of a car dealership. And then I remember the orange balloon in our room.

“Come on,” I say, shouldering my backpack. “Screw mass transit. It’s time we got ourselves some wheels.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

In Which We Buy a Car and the Gnome Gets a New Outfit

We have to use fifteen dollars of our precious cash to cab it across those highways to Arthur Limbaud’s lot. The place is huge—acres of cars with prices shoe-polished across the windshields. Nothing as low as what we need, though. It’s looking grim. We make our way to the low concrete building in the center. It’s decorated with colorful plastic flags that flap in the breeze, going round and round like the blades of windmills. Inside the showroom, beautiful shining cars sit on raised, revolving platforms. These are the Don’t Even Look Because You Can’t Afford Us cars. A tall man in a Western-cut suit, cowboy boots, and a cowboy hat strides over. His face is weathered as an old map, lines everywhere. He’s got a solid black mustache and a toothpick poking out of the side of his mouth, which he works with his tongue, rolling it back and forth. “Hi-dee,” he says, shaking my hand hard. “Arthur Limbaud—that’s an ‘O,’ not an ‘aw’ by the way. Welcome to Limbaud’s Resale Beauties: Every Car a Beauty. That’s our motto. What kin I do fer you, gen’lemen?”

“Well,” I start.

“You two boys going somewheres special? Let me guess, you just gradjeeated high school and now you wanna see this fine country of our’n? Am I right?”

“Yes, sir,” I say, copping my best Eagle Scout imitation. “You are right.”

“Well, ain’t that grand. Where you headed first?”

I say “Montana” at the same time that Gonzo says “Florida.”

“It’s a long trip,” I say.

“Well, that’s mighty fine, mighty fine.” Arthur smiles with the toothpick between his teeth, which are the color of nicotine stains. “What kind of beauty did you have in mind?”