Mark Henry_Amanda Feral 02 (8 page)

Wendy stepped in front of me. “Absolutely, hon. I’m gonna need some jeans, boots and one of those darling hats.”

“And for you?” the girl addressed me directly.

“Thanks, but no. I’ll just watch my friend make a fool of herself.”

Wendy sneered and waved me off.

“Suit yourself, but I have to tell ya, bolo ties are half off and we got some real cute ones in the last shipment.”

“I’ll bet you did.”

Mandy Jo loaded Wendy’s arms with indigo jeans, a couple of muted plaid shirts, the requisite shit-kickers, and led her to a curtained closet. I grabbed a seat by the mirror. Within a couple of seconds, the sound of Wendy’s jaw ratcheting open echoed from the changing room, followed by the clear shredding of fabric and a shower of threads and plaid scraps launched over the curtain rod.

“Are you alright in there?” The shop girl kneaded her hands, her jaw clenched under a forced smile.

“Purrrrrvection!” Wendy tossed back the curtain to reveal her creation.

Mandy Jo gasped, her hand quivering over her mouth as though some welfare brat had just vomited on the floor.

While Wendy strutted back and forth along her makeshift catwalk of carpeting between the cash register and the front door, I applauded, and shouted, “Gorgeous!” I had to give it to her, she was workin’ it like a ho in her re-purposed Daisy Dukes and plaid strapless halter made from shredded menswear shirts.
Even the cowboy boots weren’t entirely wrong, though the hat was a bit much. What brought the whole thing together were the layers of gold chains, big ′70s hoop earrings and pink tinted porn star sunglasses, which had to have been hiding in Wendy’s huge hobo bag. “Chic and tawdry at the same time. Genius!” I yelled.

“I hope you’re going to pay for
that
.” Mandy Jo’s face curled up into a shrew’s snout.

“You act like it’s
not
an improvement.” Wendy busted into laughter, cut it short and belted with a snap, “Add it up, bitch. We’re ready to go.”
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The thrift store was where I was forced to work my magic.

Second Hand Rose was the name of the dive and was also suitable designation for the sales staff, a dusty girl in a beige sweater with a face to match. I waved her off before she could eke out a syllable. Menswear is the first stop in any used clothing store.
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I snagged a white cotton Van Heusen dress shirt from a nearby rack, tore out the offensive label and let it parachute to the dusty floor, from the boys’ section I snagged a pair of flat-front khaki pants and on my way to the dressing room I snatched a fading black tablecloth from housewares and held my head high as I breezed through shoes,
⁴¹
thought twice and snatched a pair of penny loafers from the rack.

When I emerged from my cocoon (read: dressing room), I was channeling early Ralph Lauren casual. The winter white shirt draped open almost too far across my cleavage, and khakis rolled up to show off my calves—lucky for me I’d done the full makeup treatment and my dead skin was covered and pristine. Lucky for everyone else I knew how to put together an ensemble.

I marched up to the only mirror I could find and took in the majesty.

“Oops.” I pulled a long strand of pearls from my bag, threaded them around my neck twice and let the rest fall where they may.

“The hotness.” Wendy returned the favor of a fashion show “lady clap.”

I have a decent eye for men’s clothing and how they should fit, so I picked up a few marginally embarrassing outfits for Gil and Fishhook and we were outtie.

It was dusk when we got back to the motel, so I knocked on the Winnebago’s side hard enough to wake the dead. And by dead I do mean Gil. A low muffled moan come from a tiny frosted window near the back I didn’t realize was there. I gave it a tap.

“Jesus! What!” Gil yelled.

“Good morning, Sunshine,” Wendy said.

His response was more mumbles and moans.

“How’d he sleep with that window, anyway?” she asked.

“I dunno. I here him whining in there so he must be okay.” I skipped over the curb and yelled a warning through the room door, “Hey, Fishhook? You’re not jerking off in there, are you? ’Cause we’re comin’ in.”

“Nope, but I
am
indecent!”

“Just like I left you, then.” I turned the key in the lock and opened the door onto a bulimic’s dream.

The man lay propped up in a drift of pillows, naked to the waist where he was covered by a bedspread. Around him in a pile were five Domino’s boxes, two open and stained with grease, but empty otherwise, one open on his lap and coagulating. The other stacked and ready for the mood to strike him. He grabbed one and pushed it in our direction. “Hungry?”

Wendy grinned and nodded.

Fishhook’s face registered the threat and his smug expression melted into a simpering grin. He attempted a diversion and pointed at the television. “Look! Maury’s revealing the results of the paternity test. Bitch is such a ho, it could be one of these three guys, a felon, a 14-year-old, or her cousin.”

The diversion worked.

Who could resist trash TV? Certainly not zombies— daytime talk shows are like an inside look at our food industry. Maury, Springer, that new show with Jerry’s bodyguard, if some supernatural wanted to make a fortune, they could deal with those producers for left-overs—except for Oprah’s crowd, which probably has people who would miss them.

Hold on.

“How’d you pay for these pizzas, Fishhook?” I asked.

“Put ’em on the room bill. The front desk guy seems a little scared of you.” He winked. “Might be he suspects somethin’.”

“Bullshit, motels don’t have room service contracts. Nice try.”

He shut the box on his lap and rubbed his scarred stomach. Wendy made like she was throwing up. “Alright, but I promised not to say. A guy came looking for the owner of that Volvo out there.”

I rushed to the curtain and peeked outside. “Holy shit! What’d you tell ’em?”

Wendy turned the deadbolt.

“I told him I’d tell him what I knew for some food. That’s when he called the pizza place.”

“So?”

“So what?”

“What do you think, what did you tell him?”

“I told him you two traded your car for some guy’s Camaro and then took off toward Spokane leaving me stranded and hungry.”

“Serious?” Wendy asked.

“Yeah. And that you guys were a couple of lesbians.” He glared past her toward the TV and hollered, “Argh … I knew it was her cousin.”

I shut the curtain and collapsed on the corner of the bed. “Did he believe you, do you think?”

“He totally bought it, had you both figured for muff divers, now get out of the way, I can’t see the fight.”

“I meant about us leaving.”

“Totally.”

I wanted to believe the guy, but he didn’t seem all that reliable, considering his mental health when we first found him. But now, he was alert and articulate. Or as articulate as a guy can be who watches Maury.

Still.

We had five pizza boxes of proof in front of us.

There’s nothing that says celebration more than an impromptu hunting party. This one was to commemorate the official start of our road trip, rather than the clarification that we were definitely being hunted and probably would end up shredded balls of dead meat at the hands of a snarling talon-clawed wolf thing. That said, a party is never an inappropriate reaction.

First we had to lure Gil out of the RV.

“Yeah we’re sure. He’s gone,” I said.

“You’re basing this on something a schizophrenic tap told you?” Gil crossed his arms over his chest and slunk back against the musty camper cupboards.

“Listen.” Wendy put her hand on his arm, gave it a reassuring squeeze. “He knew enough to send the guy
off in another direction, we totally have time to pull together some food.”

“If you’re sure.” His eyes were full of concern.

“We’re sure. Now come on.”

Wendy and I rustled up a pair of migrant cow-town drunks outside a cinderblock gym that advertised “Mexercising” and “Personal Traners” without the “i”— which, despite the not-so-subtle racism and misspelling, was far more appealing than the “Shame-based Spinning” class that Wendy forced me to every other Thursday. She worried that we’d “atrophy” just sitting around in bars all the time. I contended—and continue to believe—that a well-made cocktail keeps the joints oiled slicker than a steroid shot or a tab of glu-cosamine, and certainly more than an emaciated exercise bulimic named Gretchen.

I’m reminded of this fact by the particularly pickled nature of our evening snack. The two brown-skinned gents were totally soused and remarkably flexible in their staggering. Twisting and leaning and righting themselves with hands that darted out to walls, lampposts and garbage cans.

“Look at that.” I pointed out one of the cowpokes bending down in an odd angle to retrieve a lit cigarette from the gravel. “Don’t tell me liquor doesn’t grease the hinges.”

Wendy nodded and waved them over. “Hey, boys! Want a ride?”

They did.

Before they could wrap their pickled brains around what we were, the telltale clicking of spreading jawbones had begun. Wendy dove in first, her mouth stretched over her drunk’s head and shoulders like an anaconda, lifting him from the ground and shaking as
she bit down. Not at all dainty. But at least she dabs the corners of her mouth when she’s finished.

Hold on …

I know what you’re thinking. Do zombies normally have such elasticity, strength and impeccable table manners? Absolutely not. We are the exceptions. Most of those shambling idiots we call mistakes are the sort with which you might be familiar. Sadly, with my luck our story will probably involve more than a few of those atrocities.

Let’s get back to it.

Mine had the dazed look of a chronic late stage alcoholic and the busted-out nasal capillaries to back up the assessment.
⁴²
I took him in three bites and balanced against the building kneading my swollen gut until it returned to normal size.

How is that possible you ask?
⁴³

We cleaned up behind the place, where bushes blocked the line of sight from the road. But since we weren’t in Seattle where our little indiscretion would likely go unnoticed, I had to say, “This isn’t Seattle, you know?” while I picked at my teeth with my pinkie nail.

“Oh yeah-yeah-yeah … hold on.” Wendy opened her hobo bag and dug around in the bottom, her face twisting and tongue thrusting from the corner with effort. Out came a coupon caddy, garish with neon daisies and a ragged scrunchie barely keeping the bulging thing from an impromptu game of 52-card pick-up. She shuffled through cards, matchbooks and empty condom wrappers with the efficiency of a Vegas dealer until she found the perfect thing for the occasion.

“Lookie here.” She slipped her arm around me and held the business card up to the streetlight. It had lots of things written on it, but the only thing anyone would see was:

“Nice maguffin.”

“Huh?”

“I’m just sayin’, people will assume they’re illegal.”

“But what’s a—”

“Just toss the goddamn thing and let’s get going.”

Wendy flicked the card at the wall, where it banked into a puddle of piss still reeking of hops and barley.

Gil was just around the corner, in an alcove by the garbage and recycling bins, pressed up against a burly homophobe named Gard. Occasionally, but not often, Gil liked to plug his victims before he drained them, if you catch my meaning. Being cursed with the worst man magnet I’d ever seen, Gil seemed to draw out every closeted homosexual within miles of his pres-ence—none of whom were particularly pleasant, yet had no problem grabbing their ankles when their buddies weren’t around.
⁴⁴
Gil gives them the physical release of their dreams, for a price. You can’t blame him—he gets thirsty—as with all tragic relationships, someone’s bound to die. Right?

Gil tossed
it
in the dumpster when he finished. Wendy handed him a wet-nap.

“Did you two forget to say the blessing? Because I’m pretty sure I stepped in poo back there.” He scraped the square-toed black shoe against the curb. The dog feces rolled up like a holiday sponge cake and dropped from the toe.

Wendy held her palms together in prayer. “We’d like to thank the Lord, Jesus Christ, for minimal tread on Italian loafers.”

“You’re both going to Hell … and yet I’m amused.” I giggled.

We all laughed and tramped back to the Win-nebago.
⁴⁵